AREDAY’s Chip Comins: Green Energy ‘More Than Ideas’ (VIDEO)
Watch genConnect interview Chip Comins, founder of the renewable energy summit AREDAY, on his unlikely foray into activism and how he works to implement change
Watch genConnect’s Randi Zucker connect with AREDAY Founder Chip Comins at the Aspen Ideas Festival. The environmentalist and documentary filmmaker discusses AREDAY’s rise from a one-day community event on renewable energy to a summit with international recognition. Comins wants AREDAY to make the science of climate change “cool and hip and attractive and even sexy:”
Chip Comins is the Founder, Producer and Director of AREDAY, the Managing Director of American Spirit Productions and the National Coordinating Producer of Clean Energy Week. A long-time advocate of developing and implementing renewable energy resources to abate GHG and climate change, Comins is trained by Al Gore to present The Climate Project. In 2009 he produced 13 side events at the UNFCCC COP 15 in Copenhagen and is now producing the 7th Annual AREDAY Summit – Creating a New Energy Economy at Speed and Scale.
genConnect is credentialed press at the 2011 Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo., where we are interviewing the premier speakers and attendees at the conference. For more of our video interviews and articles from the Ideas Festival, click here.
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Category: Charities & Causes, Giving Back, Videos, Views on the News, Volunteering
THE CHEAPEST WAY TO REPLACE DENGEROUS NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS WITH RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES.
Have you ever stood on the river coast, watching unbelievable quantities of water flowing near you every second, each minute, in hours, days, months and years? Can you imagine how much power we would need to stop this water movements or how much energy we would need to move such water quantity by machine power?
It seems to be that huge amounts of energy which causes slowly movements of water masses we could not use – at least not with high efficiency. But, it is a case only if we are using classic and known water turbines which were designed only for high water speeds. Similar effects are to be reached also when using windmill propellers with high efficiency in the air and very poor efficiency when operating deep in to the water stream. After visiting more pages referring TIDAL projects like VERDANT, all VOITH – Siemens and ALSTOM designs etc., you can easily find out that all of them are carrying the same disadvantages which are causing 12 to 20 times larger investment and operational costs, than it is acceptable and instead of 35 € to 40 € per MWh, are resulting with prices which varies between 500 € to 800 € per MWh of received power. Therefore, such projects are just waste of time and capital because it is completely clear that price for electric power with such systems will always remain at least 10 times more expensive than is a price from conventional Hydro energetic sources.
This is forcing us to build the dams and artificial lakes what is in the most of cases nearly impossible, very expensive and ecologically always very delicate. So, the only solution was to design completely new type of power turbines, able to extract energy from slow moving water streams. After many years of experiments and development the SP turbines (Stagnation pressure turbines) were designed. On this project I have been working nearly 20 years (http://www.izumi.si). Up to last year I used to develop only smaller units (SP 1) with Power up to 80 kW, but now days I am working with new designs (SP 2) for which I applied a new Patent and which are 10 times more powerful.
SP 2 units are incomparably cheaper, technically extremely simple and designed to operate in river or see streams and their life time can be longer than 50 years. The units are placed on the bottom of the river or Sea, they are only 3 m high (instead of 15 to 30 m by known TIDAL units), but their horizontal diameter is very large because SP2 are propelled on radial way and not like other TIDAL turbines which are axially propelled. Therefore, I made a calculations and planes for two types of SP 2 units – 22 and 32 meters of diameter – very convenient to be used in larger rivers or as TIDAL units:
SP 22 with 300 kW of Power, costs of 1,5 Million € and price for each MWh of 45 €
SP 32 with 500 kW of Power, costs of 1,9 Million € and price for each MWh of 40 €
In deeper water with height of nearly 6 m, capacity of each can be doubled, what means that the price for electricity can be lowered on 25 € to 35 € for each MWh. All of that without dams, not visible from the coast and ecologically practically ideal.
For example, let me present you interesting possibility: Germany made decision to stop operating with Nuclear Power plants. Regarding the fact that all Nuclear plants are located near by larger rivers (because of cooling needs), on river bottom we can install couple of hundreds of SP2 units and after changing of main turbines in Power plant, using a “ladle hand” system of SP2, we can propel the same generators and use all existing infrastructure to produce the same electric power – but without any dangerous nuclear fuel! With described solution, in the next decade, Germany can save more billions Euros of capital and remain with existing 13 GW of (today) Nuclear Power, but – only with clean and renewable energy.
Point is that in Slovenia, technically and technologically we are able to have a highest quality production of SP1 and SP2 units. But, since last four years we were not in position to get any kind of Bank or Venture capital sources for production for thousands of interested customers. Simply speaking, local bank and economy crises are too high. If I get opportunity for Joint Venture for production of those, maybe crucial and nearly revolutionary important products I would like to do that with company from abroad but together with my producing partner in Slovenia – company TALUM from Kidricevo – and to integrate all the best strengths in top successful program.
Vladimir Markovic
1231 Ljubljana, Dunajska 404, Slovenia, tel.: 0038641377270, Skype: vladimir.markovic69
inventions@izumi.si