The Implementation of Innovations in Sustainable Energy Technology: Solar Energy

We've started analyzing the installation of solar photovoltaics around the world and determined what factors play a big role in solar. Click "Read more" to learn more about what we found out.

Issues and obstacles to the implementation of Waste-to-Energy in the United States

Waste-to-energy (WTE) is the incineration of waste with the recovery of energy in the form of electricity and/or heat. There has been enormous technological development of WTE since the eighties, especially with regard to the Air Pollution Control systems used in modern WTEs. In the environmental impact hierarchy of waste management, WTE has taken its place under recycling and above landfilling. Numerous studies have been done that show WTE’s superiority over disposal in landfills in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and environmental impact. Landfills emitted about 126 Teragrams (1 Teragram is 1012 grams or one million metric tons) of CO2 equivalents in 2008 and are the second biggest emitter of methane in the country (first place goes to cow dung).

Understanding Energy

The concept of sustainability and environmental protection is beginning to accrue significant attention in the media and public interest, especially in light of the recent disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. However, I am a tad skeptic about the transparency of the average person’s interest and dedication to ‘going green’. One of the major problems I am seeing is that many people don’t fully understand how reliant our country has become on fossil fuels, continuous access to electricity and clean water. It is sad to realize that most of us don’t even appreciate the technological advancement that has allowed us to simply flip a switch to illuminate our room, or plug in our cell phone without thinking of where this energy is coming from and how awesome it really is that we can get energy from our wall to power a device that can transmit messages around the world in near real time.

Start "The Curve"

In this blog, we (Garrett Fitzgerald & Rob van Haaren, two Columbia University Engineering PhD students) will post updates of progress on a project about the implementation of innovations in Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET). Endless discussions during parties and breaks from school have shown our shared interest in this subject. Often times, a technological innovation can be so good and cool that it is amazing how it is not adopted by people. This phenomena is described in the book "Diffusion of Innovations" by Everett M. Rogers [1], which forms the backbone of our project. It explains how innovations in general (products, but also ideas) are implemented into a society and what speeds up or slows down the progress. Graphing the implementation over time results in a typical logistic curve that shows exponential growth in the take-off phase that levels off at the maximum adoption. We'd like to depict "The Curve" for all the technologies we assess and we see our own project as the start of a new idea that will follow a similar trend.

The theory of diffusion is especially interesting in the energy world: the production of electricity and extraction of fossil fuels are multi-trillion dollar industries, but there is a big concensus amongst the people that the world should refrain from using these sources. How can those industries with all their investments relying on these sources (momentum), survive the whole climate change and environment problem? Will they turn into wind turbine companies, solar PV? Or will they just go bankrupt and disappear? Preferrably, they want to keep on going the way they were before: Drill oil, mine coal, then sell it or burn it to sell the electricity. Governments now stand between powerful profit-maximizing companies and nagging green minds like many of us. "We want a feed-in tariff!" and "We want to stop off-shore oil drilling because of the environmental hazards", but at the same time: "We want cheap electricity and cheap gas". It is clear that there is a problem here: stakeholders have contrasting opinions, and in the mean time Earth is suffering.

In the Eighties and Nineties, people became aware of the effect humans have on the planet and more measures were taken by governments to incentivize clean technologies and prohibit the emissions of the very worst compounds. Some measures appeared to be very effective, like the 1990 Clean Air Act to prevent acid rain from the SO2 emissions caused by (coal fired) power plants. Emissions with effects on human health got priority before the ones that had global effects (ozone depletion and global warming). Still, the transition from fossil fuels to other sources of energy has not progressed to an extent that 50% of our energy demand is met by renewable energy sources. Why? What is keeping us from making the change if there is such a critical need for it?

Our plan is to look closer into the implementation of some SET's: What are the historical milestones that have led to a higher rate of adoption? And what are the roadblocks that these technologies are facing? Our geographical focus is on the United States, although we do look at other countries to show successes and issues with the integration of technologies. The technologies we will work on are: Windpower, Solar PV, Solar Thermal, Waste-to-Energy, Geothermal, Nuclear, Hydropower, Tidal power and also Electric Cars.

If you're interested or like to share your opinion, please post a comment to our pages. Your participation is very much appreciated!

[1] Rogers, E.M., 2003. "Diffusion of Innovations", 5th Edition, Free Press, New York.