Staring at the sun

Clean, usable energy is the holy grail of our time (and probably any time for any civilisation). The partial success of German solar proves that a country like SA can look far ahead with using its desert resources, rather than simply fracking where there are severe water security issues.  So it is heartening that the horizons for solar farm developments can be relatively short. Can such a project outperform nuclear solutions for SA with respect to capacity and cost? :

Cheap African Solar Energy could power UK home in 2018

By Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent, BBC News

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29551063

An impression of what a large-scale concentrated solar power facility might look like in the Tunisian desert

Investors are seeking funding from the UK government for an ambitious plan to import solar energy generated in North Africa.

Under the scheme, up to 2.5 million UK homes could be powered by Tunisian sunshine by 2018. The company involved says they have already spent 10 million euros developing the site. A number of overseas energy producers are competing to bring green energy to the UK from 2017. The TuNur project aims to bring two gigawatts of solar power to the UK from Tunisia if the company wins a contract for difference (CFD) from the British government.

Under new rules published by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) in the Summer, the government will allow developers of renewable energy projects that are not based in the UK to bid for contracts that guarantee subsidies to supply power.

The plan involves focussing the rays of the Sun on a central tower












TuNur, which is a partnership between British renewables investor Low Carbon, developer Nur Energie, and Tunisian investors, says it has already spent 10 million euros developing the site in the southern area of the country. The company has gathered three years of solar data from the location, which it says has been independently verified. Legislation has also been passed in the Tunisian parliament to facilitate the export of the energy, and an agreement has been reached with the Italian network operator to connect a dedicated undersea cable to a substation near Rome. 

"This is not a back-of-the-envelope fantasy," Kevin Sara, chief executive of TuNur told BBC News.

"We are working with some of the largest engineering firms in the world. This is a serious project. Yes, it is risky like any big energy project is risky. "But there is nothing new about moving energy from North Africa to Europe."

The company argues that existing gas pipelines from Algeria that run through Tunisia have operated without a glitch through the turbulence that has followed on from the Arab Spring. 

Their plans involve using concentrated solar power (CSP) technology. This allows the developers to store some of the energy generated so that the supply is "dispatchable". It can be switched on or off on demand. The company involved says its electricity supplies will be secure, and 20% cheaper than home-grown sources, such as offshore wind.

"We are able to deliver dispatchable, low-carbon electricity to the UK more cheaply than offshore wind and more cheaply than nuclear - all we're asking for is the chance. Allocate us 2GW and let's see what we can do with it," Mr Sara said.

The government, while set to open the bidding process for energy projects outside the EU, is not rushing to embrace the Tunisian idea.

"In order to reduce costs for British consumers, any future non-UK project would need to compete on cost effectiveness with projects in the UK before being allocated a contract for difference," a Decc spokesperson told BBC News.

"This means that British consumers get the best deal, no matter where the electricity is generated." And the government is clear that if the Tunisian project did go ahead, the energy would have to be exclusively for use in the UK.

"We expect that all electricity generated by any non-UK projects will be used in the UK," the spokesperson said.

The plan involves building an undersea cable to Italy to connect to the European grid

The UK solar industry is also keen to pour some cold water on the African approach. It argues that many British-based developers have been hurt by government cutbacks of an existing subsidy called the Renewables Obligation.

The added confusion caused by foreign bidders for future contracts is unwelcome, according to Seb Berry from Solarcentury. "The very last thing we need is the additional medium-term uncertainty that would be created in the early years of the next Parliament from any decision to push on with opening up the CFD scheme and Levy Control Framework budget to foreign projects." 

In 2013, the Irish government signed a memorandum of understanding with the UK to facilitate the export of wind energy. But in the face of stiff opposition from locals, angry about the prospect of thousands of wind turbines on the flat lands of the Irish midlands, the government in Dublin dropped the plan. 

Another project that has been mooted is a connection from Iceland that would see hydro-electric power imported by an undersea cable over 1,000km in length. 

However, there is no agreement at present on who might pay for this connection according to Bjorgvin Sigurdsson, from Landsvirkjun, the National Power Company of Iceland. "We are looking into the feasibility of such a cable, but no decision has been made yet - but it looks as if it could be a viable option for Iceland and the UK," he told BBC News.

"We expect to spend another two to three years before we can make a final investment decision," he added.

"It could only be operational by 2024."

Deserting Desertec

Desertec was a German initiative to develop a large-scale solar project in North Africa, enough to provide 15% of Europe's energy by 2050. Backed by multiple partners, the idea required funding of up to 400bn euros, which proved to be a struggle. In recent days, most of the original shareholders decided to quit.

"We were an associate member for several years and we withdrew about the same times as Siemens and Bosch, as they weren't really going anywhere," said TuNur's Kevin Sara.

"Everyone was pushing them in different directions; there was management turmoil; they weren't helping us or our cause.

"We have a singular project, which we are trying to realise. They were an industrial consortium that was trying to develop an idea."

She Was a Computer When Computers Wore Skirts

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/researchernews/rn_kjohnson.html

She Was a Computer When Computers Wore Skirts

08.26.08

By: Jim Hodges

Katherine Johnson was 90 on Tuesday, an apt date because it also was National Equality Day.

Not that she ever thought she wasn't equal.

"I didn't have time for that," said Johnson in her Hampton home. "My dad taught us 'you are as good as anybody in this town, but you're no better.' I don't have a feeling of inferiority. Never had. I'm as good as anybody, but no better."

But probably a lot smarter. She was a "computer" at Langley Research Center "when the computer wore a skirt," said Johnson. More important, she was living out her life's goal, though, when it became her goal, she wasn't sure what it involved.

Johnson was born in White Sulfur Springs, W.Va., where school for African-Americans stopped at eighth grade. Her father, Joshua, was a farmer who drove his family 120 miles to Institute, W. Va., where education continued through high school and then at West Virginia State College. He would get wife Joylette a job as a domestic and leave the family there to be educated while he went back to White Sulfur Springs to make a living.

Katherine skipped though grades to graduate from high school at 14, from college at 18, and her skills at mathematics drew the attention of a young professor, W.W. Schiefflin Claytor.

Katherine Johnson's work at NASA's Langley Research Center spanned 1953 to 1986 and included calculating the trajectory of the early space launches.

Photo Credit: NASA/Sean Smith.

"He said, 'You'd make a good research mathematician and I'm going to see that you're prepared,' " she recalled.

"I said, 'Where will I get a job?'

"And he said, 'That will be your problem.'

"And I said, 'What do they do?'

"And he said, 'You'll find out.'

"In the back of my mind, I wanted to be a research mathematician."

It didn't involve teaching, though she did it for a while, starting at $65 a month. While on vacation from a $100-a-month teaching job in 1952, she was in Newport News. "I heard that Langley was looking for black women computers," she said.

She was put into a pool, from which she emerged within two weeks to join engineers who, five years later, would become involved in something new called the "Space Task Force."

That was 1958, when the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

She did the math.

"We wrote our own textbook, because there was no other text about space," she says. "We just started from what we knew. We had to go back to geometry and figure all of this stuff out. Inasmuch as I was in at the beginning, I was one of those lucky people."

That luck came in large part because she was no stranger to geometry. It was only natural that she calculate the trajectory of Alan Shepherd's 1961 trip into space, America's first.

"The early trajectory was a parabola, and it was easy to predict where it would be at any point," Johnson says. "Early on, when they said they wanted the capsule to come down at a certain place, they were trying to compute when it should start. I said, 'Let me do it. You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I'll do it backwards and tell you when to take off.' That was my forte."

More flights became more complicated, with more variables involving place and rotation of Earth and the moon for orbiting. By the time John Glenn was to go up to orbit the Earth, NASA had gone to computers.

"You could do much more, much faster on computer," Johnson says. "But when they went to computers, they called over and said, 'tell her to check and see if the computer trajectory they had calculated was correct.' So I checked it and it was correct."

So the "computer" began using a computer. And in 1969, while at a sorority meeting in the Pocono Mountains, she gathered with others around a small television set to see Neil Armstrong land on the moon and take the first step by a human there. There was some marveling, but not much.

"It all seemed routine to people by then," Johnson said.

But there was an extremely nervous "computer." 

"I had done the calculations and knew they were correct," said Johnson. "But just like driving (to Hampton in traffic) from Williamsburg this morning, anything could happen. I didn't want anything to happen and it didn't."

Her work at Langley spanned from 1953 to 1986. She is still involved in math, tutoring youngsters, and she remembers where NASA's space program was, even as she watches where it is now on television.

"I found what I was looking for at Langley," she says. "This was what a research mathematician did. I went to work every day for 33 years happy. Never did I get up and say I don't want to go to work."

Johnson also spends time talking with children, making sure that they know of the opportunities that can be had through mathematics and science. She laughs when she talks of being interviewed long distance by a fourth-grade class in Florida.

"Each of them had their questions, and one asked, 'are you still living?' " Johnson says. "They see your picture in a textbook and think you're supposed to be dead."

Far from it. Instead, she's celebrating yet another birthday on Women's Equality Day, without admitting that there was a time when she didn't feel equal.

Her father wouldn't allow it.

NASA Langley Research Center
Managing Editor: Jim Hodges
Executive Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
Editor and Curator: Denise Lineberry