This alternative for geologic sequestration takes advantage of large bodies of saline water that are present under many parts of the earth. Due to its salinity, this water resource is not of interest for other purposes such as irrigation or drinking water. Many existing power plants are located near saline aquifers; in the United States, […]

Nuclear plant operators and the government agencies that regulate them anticipate an additional cost to decommission the plant and its site and the end of its useful lifetime. The decommissioning process has several steps, including removal of spent fuel rods, the reactor core, and any cooling water to appropriate waste storage facilities, and the physical […]

Light traveling from the sun can reach the surface of the earth either through direct or diffuse transmission. In the direct case, it is transmitted through the atmosphere without interference. In the diffuse case, light is diffused by refraction and aerosols in the atmosphere, and some portion of the diffused light continues to travel forward […]

As a first approximation, it is possible to estimate the output from a proposed PV system by multiplying the rated capacity by a standard regional conversion factor. The conversion factor takes into account the latitude and climate of the region, but it does not consider the specific geometry of the system, so its accuracy is […]

Energy for cooking food on a daily basis is in limited supply in many parts of the world today. Wood, the traditional cooking energy source, is renewable but woodland regrowth may not keep pace with need when population density is high, leading to deforestation and a need to spend many hours a day (and long […]

Optimizing passive solar heating systems requires a balance between energy conservation and the added installation cost of solar heating. If insulation is expensive, emphasis is put on the passive system. If insulation is inexpensive, the decision must be to insulate heavily so a smaller passive system can be installed. A fundamental maxim for solar energy […]

Up to this point we have considered the rudimentary design of a wind extraction system and set some bounds on its optimal performance. In order to design the actual blades of a turbine, it is necessary to model them explicitly and consider how their shape will affect the ability to extract energy from the wind. […]

Although this debate continues today, the experience with EVs proved that technically, such a car could be built so as to operate well on urban road networks otherwise dominated by ICEVs, even if the economics were questionable. It also provided a stepping stone toward the HEV technology that has been expanding steadily in the North […]