Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumThis system can purify 2000 liters of water per day with solar thermal energy
A startup out of Sacramento, California, recently hit its crowdfunding goal for a unique renewable energy system system that will initially be used for water purification in places such as Asia and Africa, but which can also be used to produce power for other applications as well. Tenkiv's larger goal is to democratize "sustainable water and energy access" with its modular system, which can not only produce enough power from the heat of the sun (solar thermal technology) to purify water at an affordable cost, but which can also be used to store, distribute, and convert solar thermal energy for use in a number of other ways, especially in areas where infrastructure is poor or nonexistent.
Instead of focusing on photovoltaic technology, which is what many solar energy systems use, and which can convert the sun's light into electricity (although at a higher cost and manufacturing complexity), Tenkiv has chosen to build its system around the use of the sun's heat as an energy source. And according to the company, its technology can "power anything for 1/13th the cost of existing solar panels and 1/5th the cost of fossil fuels without any subsidies," which could be a key factor for scaling up the systems to meet the needs of the estimated 1 billion people without regular access to clean water.
One of the arguments that Tenkiv makes in favor of using solar thermal instead of solar photovoltaic technology is the lack of a need to convert the heat energy collected by the system into other forms, such as electricity, which leads to conversion losses along the way.
"Tenkiv Solar Collectors can quickly and efficiently distribute thermal energy harnessed from the sun. It doesnt matter if youre heating water for a bath, a cup of tea, or a pack of ramen noodles all of these tasks require energy. The energy used in most modern systems is sourced from a complex and inefficient daisy chain where it takes power to make power. With the Tenkiv Nexus, we collect the heat directly from the sun without consuming any finite resources. There is no needless conversion between you and your energy." - Tenkiv
More: http://www.treehugger.com/solar-technology/system-can-purify-2000-liters-clean-water-day-solar-thermal-energy.html
The Tenkiv Nexus modular renewable energy system can also use the sun's heat to power anything "for 1/13th the cost of existing solar panels and 1/5th the cost of fossil fuels."
Doreen
(11,686 posts)clean water to drink.
Warpy
(110,913 posts)this technology is going to have to become standard for a hell of a lot of people out there. Using heat directly to purify water makes a lot of sense, while there's probably still a lot of room for PVC systems producing electric energy more directly.
Rhiannon12866
(203,010 posts)I thought this sounded promising, especially because of the volume.
msongs
(67,198 posts)NNadir
(33,368 posts)...failure.
Like all "solar energy will save us" schemes, this one is full of shit. There have been millions of "cheap solar" schemes announced and marketed in the last half a century.
The result?
We're burning more fossil fuels than ever before, dumping more carbon dioxide than ever before, and we're well over 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. No one now living will ever again see CO2 levels below 400 ppm.
The solar fantasy didn't work; it isn't working; and it won't work. The reason is physics. It has an extremely low energy to mass ratio. There isn't enough material on this planet, with the exception of plants - and even there the ratio of carbon dioxide emitted to carbon dioxide captured by photosynthesis is disturbingly low - to make this garbage a significant form of energy.
What is needed is high energy to mass ratios. Nuclear energy, and only nuclear energy, has a ratio higher than fossil fuels.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)This looks promising.