Energy From Stars

This paper proposes possible new energy sources. One of these sources can be the “energy from stars”.

Florian Ion Tiberiu Petrescu & Relly Victoria Virgil Petrescu

10/08/15, 09:05 AM | Other Renewables | Technology Discussions

Energy development is the effort to provide sufficient primary energy sources and secondary energy forms for supply, cost, impact on air pollution and water pollution, mitigation of climate change with renewable energy. Technologically advanced societies have become increasingly dependent on external energy sources for transportation, the production of many manufactured goods, and the delivery of energy services. All terrestrial energy sources except nuclear, geothermal and tidal are from current solar source or from fossil remains of plant and animal life that relied directly and indirectly upon sunlight, respectively. After 1950, began to appear nuclear fission plants. The fission energy was a necessary evil. In this mode it stretched the oil life, avoiding an energy crisis. Even so, the energy obtained from oil represents about 66% of all energy used. At this rate of use of oil, it will be consumed in about 40 years. Today, the production of energy obtained by nuclear fusion is not yet perfect prepared. But time passes quickly. We must rush to implement of the additional sources of energy already known, but and find new energy sources. In these circumstances this paper comes to proposing possible new energy sources. One of these sources may be "the energy from stars”.

INTRODUCTION

Technologically advanced societies have become increasingly dependent on external energy sources for transportation, the production of many manufactured goods, and the delivery of energy services.

This energy allows people who can afford the cost to live under otherwise unfavorable climatic conditions through the use of heating, ventilation, and/or air conditioning. Level of use of external energy sources differs across societies, as do the climate, convenience, levels of traffic congestion, pollution and availability of domestic energy sources.

Ultimately, solar energy itself is the result of the Sun's nuclear fusion.

Geothermal power from hot, hardened rock above the magma of the Earth's core is the result of the decay of radioactive materials present beneath the Earth's crust, and nuclear fission relies on man-made fission of heavy radioactive elements in the Earth's crust; in both cases these elements were produced in supernova explosions before the formation of the solar system.

Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable (naturally replenished).

In 2008, about 19% of global final energy consumption came from renewable, with 13% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.2% from hydroelectricity.

New renewable (small hydro, modern biomass, wind, solar, geothermal, and biofuel) accounted for another 2.7% and are growing very rapidly.

The share of renewable in electricity generation is around 18%, with 15% of global electricity coming from hydroelectricity and 3% from new renewable. Wind power is growing at the rate of 30% annually, with a worldwide installed capacity of 158 (GW) in 2009, and is widely used in Europe, Asia, and the United States.

At the end of 2009, cumulative global photovoltaic (PV) installations surpassed 21 GW and PV power stations are popular in Germany and Spain.

Solar thermal power stations operate in the USA and Spain, and the largest of these is the 354 megawatt (MW) SEGS power plant in the Mojave Desert. The world's largest geothermal power installation is The Geysers in California, with a rated capacity of 750 MW. Brazil has one of the largest renewable energy programs in the world, involving production of ethanol fuel from sugar cane, and ethanol now provides 18% of the country's automotive fuel.

Ethanol fuel is also widely available in the USA, the world's largest producer in absolute terms, although not as a percentage of its total motor fuel use.

While many renewable energy projects are large-scale, renewable technologies are also suited to rural and remote areas, where energy is often crucial in human development. Globally, an estimated 3 million households get power from small solar PV systems. Micro-hydro systems configured into village-scale or county-scale mini-grids serve many areas.

More than 30 million rural households get lighting and cooking from biogas made in household-scale digesters. Biomass cook stoves are used by 160 million households.

Climate change concerns, coupled with high oil prices, peak oil, and increasing government support, are driving increasing renewable energy legislation, incentives and commercialization.

New government spending, regulation and policies helped the industry weather the 2009 economic crisis better than many other sectors.

FIRST ENERGY SOURCE

Life’s First Energy Source

An obscure compound known as pyrophosphite could have been a source of energy that allowed the first life on Earth to form (Fig. 1) (New Theory for Life’s First Energy Source, Corey Zah).

Fig. 1 Ball and stick model of the HPO32− ion in Bis(melaminium) hydrogen phosphite tetrahydrate

Source: Phosphite, New Theory for Life’s First Energy Source, posted by Corey Zah

Researchers at the University of Leeds have uncovered new clues to the origins of life on Earth.

The team found that a compound known as pyrophosphite may have been an important energy source for primitive life forms.

There are several conflicting theories of how life on Earth emerged from inanimate matter billions of years ago – a process known as abiogenesis.

"It's a chicken and egg question," said Dr Terry Kee of the University of Leeds, who led the research. "Scientists are in disagreement over what came first – replication, or metabolism. But there is a third part to the equation – and that is energy."

All living things require a continual supply of energy in order to function. This energy is carried around our bodies within certain molecules, one of the best known being ATP*, which converts heat from the sun into a useable form for animals and plants.

At any one time, the human body contains just 250g of ATP – this provides roughly the same amount of energy as a single AA battery. This ATP store is being constantly used and regenerated in cells via a process known as respiration, which is driven by natural catalysts called enzymes.

"You need enzymes to make ATP and you need ATP to make enzymes," explained Dr Kee. "The question is: where did energy come from before either of these two things existed? We think that the answer may lie in simple molecules such as pyrophosphite which is chemically very similar to ATP, but has the potential to transfer energy without enzymes."

The key to the battery-like properties of both ATP and pyrophosphite is an element called phosphorus, which is essential for all living things. Not only is phosphorus the active component of ATP, it also forms the backbone of DNA and is important in the structure of cell walls.

But despite its importance to life, it is not fully understood how phosphorus first appeared in our atmosphere. One theory is that it was contained within the many meteorites that collided with the Earth billions of years ago.

"Phosphorus is present within several meteoritic minerals and it is possible that this reacted to form pyrophosphite under the acidic, volcanic conditions of early Earth," added Dr Kee.

The findings, published in the journal Chemical Communications, are the first to suggest that pyrophosphite may have been relevant in the shift from basic chemistry to complex biology when life on earth began. Since completing this research, Dr Kee and his team have found even further evidence for the importance of this molecule and now hope to team up with collaborators from NASA to investigate its role in abiogenesis.

Animal and human cell contain and this small structure named mitochondria. In Fig. 2 one can see an animal cell who contains and mitochondrias (elements 9). ("Animal Cell" by Kelvinsong - Own work. Licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons).

Fig. 2 An animal cell

Source: Animal Cell" by Kelvinsong - Own work. Licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons

Human mitochondrial genetics is the study of the genetics of the DNA contained in human mitochondria. Mitochondria are small structures in cells that generate energy for the cell to use, and are hence referred to as the "powerhouses" of the cell (Fig. 3) (Mitochondrion mini.svg, By Kelvinsong - Own work [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons).

Fig. 3 Mitochondria are small structures in cells that generate energy for the cell to use

Source: Mitochondria By Kelvinsong (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is not transmitted through nuclear DNA (nDNA). In humans, as in most multi cellular organisms, mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother's ovum.

Mitochondrial inheritance is therefore non-Mendelian, as Mendelian inheritance presumes that half the genetic material of a fertilized egg (zygote) derives from each parent.

Eighty percent of mitochondrial DNA codes for functional mitochondrial proteins, and therefore most mitochondrial DNA mutations lead to functional problems, which may be manifested as muscle disorders (myopathies).

Understanding the genetic mutations that affect mitochondria can help us to understand the inner workings of cells and organisms, as well as helping to suggest methods for successful therapeutic tissue and organ cloning, and to treatments or possibly cures for many devastating muscular disorders.

Because they provide 36 molecules of ATP per glucose molecule in contrast to the 2 ATP molecules produced by glycolysis, mitochondria are essential to all higher organisms for sustaining life. The mitochondrial diseases are genetic disorders carried specifically in mitochondrial DNA; slight problems with any one of the numerous enzymes used by the mitochondria can be devastating to the cell, and in turn, to the organism.

The pyrophosphite and human mitochondria are the principal motors of the human energetic processes.

We should better understand these processes, to can prolong our life.

NEW AND OLDEST ENERGY SOURCES

Man started to use biomass for energy on the day that our ancestors discovered fire, and used it for cooking. Biomass is actually just another word for biological-mass. Biomass is anything that has been grown or has lived, except for fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas etc). Fossil fuels were of course created by the decay of living organisms many millennia ago in pre-history and are biomass in that sense, but these are not included within the term 'biomass' as used by renewable energy experts (Petrescu 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012).

Biomass takes many forms; some of the most well known are: wood, straw, bio waste, wood chip, waste paper, organic slurries from the processing of foodstuffs, livestock farming, sewage treatment, etc.

So biomass can also be grown as a crop for use as fuel. If the biomass is to be grown it will need to be selected to be of high calorific value (give of lots of heat when burnt), grow fast, need little fertilizing or watering, require low power requirements during growing and be cheaply harvested. However, the growing of biomass to use as biofuel on a large scale would have the effect of reducing available land for food crops.

Technologically advanced societies have become increasingly dependent on external energy sources for transportation, the production of many manufactured goods, and the delivery of energy services. This energy allows people who can afford the cost to live under otherwise unfavorable climatic conditions through the use of heating, ventilation, and/or air conditioning.

All terrestrial energy sources except nuclear, geothermal and tidal are from current solar insolation or from fossil remains of plant and animal life that relied directly and indirectly upon sunlight, respectively. Ultimately, solar energy itself is the result of the Sun's nuclear fusion. Geothermal power from hot, hardened rock above the magma of the Earth's core is the result of the decay of radioactive materials present beneath the Earth's crust, and nuclear fission relies on man-made fission of heavy radioactive elements in the Earth's crust; in both cases these elements were produced in supernova explosions before the formation of the solar system.

Wind power is growing at the rate of 30% annually, with a worldwide installed capacity of 158 (GW) in 2009, and is widely used in Europe, Asia, and the United States.

At the end of 2009, cumulative global photovoltaic (PV) installations surpassed 21 GW and PV power stations are popular in Germany and Spain. Solar thermal power stations operate in the USA and Spain, and the largest of these is the 354 megawatt (MW) SEGS power plant in the Mojave Desert.

The world's largest geothermal power installation is The Geysers in California, with a rated capacity of 750 MW.

Brazil has one of the largest renewable energy programs in the world, involving production of ethanol fuel from sugar cane, and ethanol now provides 18% of the country's automotive fuel.

Ethanol fuel is also widely available in the USA, the world's largest producer in absolute terms, although not as a percentage of its total motor fuel use.

More than 30 million rural households get lighting and cooking from biogas made in household-scale digesters. Biomass cook stoves are used by 160 million households.

MAINSTREAM FORMS OF RENEWABLE ENERGY

Wind power
Hydropower
Solar energy
Biomass
Biofuel
Geothermal energy
Tidal
Hydrogen obtained by artificial photosynthesis
Waves Power

Wind power

Airflows can be used to run wind turbines. Modern wind turbines range from around 600 kW to 5 MW of rated power, although turbines with rated output of 1.5–3 MW have become the most common for commercial use; the power output of a turbine is a function of the cube of the wind speed, so as wind speed increases, power output increases dramatically (Fig. 4). Typical capacity factors are 20-40%, with values at the upper end of the range in particularly favorable sites (European Wind Energy Association). Wind energy is the cleanest and sufficient, the safest, cheapest and most sustainable. Where land space is not enough, wind farms can be built and in the water. We must put the wind to work.

Fig. 4 Modern wind turbines

Source: EWEA

Hydropower

Among sources of renewable energy, hydroelectric plants have the advantages of being long-lived (many existing plants have operated for more than 100 years). Also, hydroelectric plants are clean and have few emissions (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5 Hydroelectric plants

Source: Grand Coulee Dam.jpg

Solar energy

Solar panels generate electricity by converting photons (packets of light energy) into an electric current. Solar energy is the energy derived from the sun through the form of solar radiation. Solar powered electrical generation relies on photo voltaic and heat engines. A partial list of other solar applications includes space heating and cooling through solar architecture, day lighting, solar hot water, solar cooking, and high temperature process heat for industrial purposes.

Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute solar energy. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic panels and solar thermal collectors to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6 Solar energy; a solar cell, solar panels, a solar plant

Biomass

Biomass (plant material) is a renewable energy source because the energy it contains comes from the sun. Through the process of photosynthesis, plants capture the sun's energy. When the plants are burned, they release the sun's energy they contain. In this way, biomass functions as a sort of natural battery for storing solar energy.

As long as biomass is produced sustainably, with only as much used as is grown, the battery will last indefinitely.

In general there are two main approaches to using plants for energy production: growing plants specifically for energy use, and using the residues from plants that are used for other things. The best approaches vary from region to region according to climate, soils and geography

Biofuel

Liquid biofuel is usually either bio alcohol such as bioethanol or oil such as biodiesel.

Bioethanol is an alcohol made by fermenting the sugar components of plant material and it is made mostly from sugar and starch crops. With advanced technology being developed, cellulosic biomass, such as trees and grasses, are also used as feed stocks for ethanol production.

Ethanol can be used as a fuel for vehicles in its pure form, but it is usually used as a gasoline additive to increase octane and improve vehicle emissions. Bioethanol is widely used in the USA and in Brazil (United Nations Environment Program. 2009).

Geothermal energy

The geothermal energy from the core of the Earth is closer to the surface in some areas than in others. Where hot underground steam or water can be tapped and brought to the surface it may be used to generate electricity.

Such geothermal power sources exist in certain geologically unstable parts of the world such as Chile, Iceland, New Zealand, United States, the Philippines and Italy.

The two most prominent areas for this in the United States are in the Yellowstone basin and in northern California (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7 Geothermal energy

Geothermal energy is energy obtained by tapping the heat of the earth itself, both from kilometers deep into the Earth's crust in some places of the globe or from some meters in geothermal heat pump in all the places of the planet. It is expensive to build a power station but operating costs are low resulting in low energy costs for suitable sites. Ultimately, this energy derives from heat in the Earth's core.

Three types of power plants are used to generate power from geothermal energy: dry steam, flash, and binary. Dry steam plants take steam out of fractures in the ground and use it to directly drive a turbine that spins a generator.

Flash plants take hot water, usually at temperatures over 200 °C, out of the ground, and allows it to boil as it rises to the surface then separates the steam phase in steam/water separators and then runs the steam through a turbine.

In binary plants, the hot water flows through heat exchangers, boiling an organic fluid that spins the turbine. The condensed steam and remaining geothermal fluid from all three types of plants are injected back into the hot rock to pick up more heat.

Iceland produced 170 MW geothermal power and heated 86% of all houses in the year 2000 through geothermal energy. Some 8000 MW of capacity is operational in total. There is also the potential to generate geothermal energy from hot dry rocks. Holes at least 3 km deep are drilled into the earth. Some of these holes pump water into the earth, while other holes pump hot water out. The heat resource consists of hot underground radiogenic granite rocks, which heat up when there is enough sediment between the rock and the Earth’s surface. Several companies in Australia are exploring this technology.

Tidal energy

Tidal power can be extracted from Moon-gravity-powered tides by locating a water turbine in a tidal current, or by building impoundment pond dams that admit-or-release water through a turbine (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8 Tidal energy

The turbine can turn an electrical generator, or a gas compressor, that can then store energy until needed. Coastal tides are a source of clean, free, renewable, and sustainable energy.

Hydrogen obtained by artificial photosynthesis

Artificial photosynthesis is a research field that attempts to replicate the natural process of photosynthesis, converting sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen.

Sometimes, splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen by using sunlight energy is also referred to as artificial photosynthesis. The actual process that allows half of the overall photosynthetic reaction to take place is photo-oxidation. This half-reaction is essential in separating water molecules because it releases hydrogen and oxygen ions. These ions are needed to reduce carbon dioxide into a fuel. However, the only known way this is possible is through an external catalyst, one that can react quickly as well as constantly absorb the sun’s photons. The general basis behind this theory is the creation of an “artificial plant” type fuel source.

Artificial photosynthesis is a renewable, carbon-neutral source of fuel, producing either hydrogen, or carbohydrates. This sets it apart from the other popular renewable energy sources — hydroelectric, solar photovoltaic, geothermal, and wind — which produce electricity directly, with no fuel intermediate.

As such, artificial photosynthesis may become a very important source of fuel for transportation. Unlike biomass energy, it does not require arable land, and so it need not compete with the food supply.

Since the light-independent phase of photosynthesis fixes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, artificial photosynthesis may provide an economical mechanism for carbon sequestration, reducing the pool of CO2 in the atmosphere, and thus mitigating its effect on global warming. Specifically, net reduction of CO2 will occur when artificial photosynthesis is used to produce carbon-based fuel which is stored indefinitely.

Waves Power

Waves Power is a new energy source (see Fig. 9).

Fig. 9 A waves farm

ENERGY FROM THE STARS

An original system to take energy can be tomorrow “Capturing energy concentrated near the source and forwarding directly to Earth in concentrated form”.

Should start some spatial projects, to capture a large amount of energy somewhere near the source (near the Sun), energy which can be sent then to the Earth in a concentrated form (LASER, MASER, IRASER, etc).

The enormous energy emanating from the sun is spreading in all directions of the universe, and dilute with the distance.

On Earth no longer reach than a small amount from the energy emanated by the sun.

We try here (on the Earth) to capture a drop from a very small amount of energy, who came from Sun. And we also complain that the yield is low, and technological costs are high.

In the figure 10 we can see how a large amount of energy is transmitted to long distances with low losses, naturally, because is emitted by a sun (a star) in concentrated form, with natural lasers.

Fig. 10 A strange star

This is exactly what should we do. This sun strange and extremely rare in Universe shows us what we need to do.

In the next figure (see fig. 11) one can see the exact position of our planet in our solar system.

Fig. 11 The position of the Earth in raport of the Sun

It can see as well how the sun's energy is diluted when the distance from sun grows.

The third halo surrounds the planets Mercury and Venus, and barely touching the Earth.

The fourth halo (the most pale from those which are visible with the naked eye) reach Jupiter.

Mercury is hot, and Saturn is cold.

Installations which must do capturing the solar energy could be installed over the Mercury. From the Mercury, the concentrated energy will be transmitted directly focused on the Moon.

On the Moon, the energy will be conserved and forwarded to Earth in doses non-hazardous (with lower concentrations), using multi-channels microwaves.

DISCUSSION