No more over head power lines

                  Abundant solar and wind power lies across America’s vast plains and deserts, but getting that distant renewable energy to cities without wrecking vistas and raising lawsuits over transmission lines is a sizable hurdle for green-leaning utility companies. Thousands of miles of towering electrical lines will be needed before big alternative-energy projects can take hold. Yet such power lines portend years of legal snarls over the not-in-my-backyard problem.
Into this fray comes Phil Harris and his pioneering plan to use underground superconducting cables that will be both hidden from view and more efficient than traditional lines. Mr. Harris wants to build a virtually invisible network that would create a national renewable-energy hub located in the Southwest.
Today, the nation’s power grid is in three disconnected pieces – Eastern, Western, and Texas. Harris’s project, called Tres Amigas, would use superconducting cable to provide the first large-scale commercial trading link between those big grids – opening up new markets for renewable wind and solar power in the American East and West.
These superconducting cables contain special materials chilled to superlow temperatures, allowing electricity to flow efficiently, with no resistance. The only lost energy goes toward refrigerating the cables. While Harris’s “hub” would run in a loop, it would demonstrate the potential for superconducting power lines that could travel long distances and eliminate the 7 percent of electricity wasted by ugly, above-ground transmission lines.
In papers filed in early December with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Tres Amigas outlined its plans for a $600 million, 15- to 20-mile triangular-shaped hub near Clovis, N.M., constructed using superconducting cable.
Such a trading hub could spur investment in wind and solar power development in many states around the region, say officials with Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM). The company is weighing construction of a new “wind collector” transmission line to connect new wind farms in the east-central part of the state with Tres Amigas, if the new transmission hub is built.
Today, PNM has “no significant ability” to move power to the eastern US or to Texas, says Greg Miller, lead engineering and operations director for PNM. While power lines that run west to California remain congested, Tres Amigas would open up the other two markets – allowing development of New Mexico wind power.
“We have very rich potential for renewable-energy development, particularly with wind in the east-central part of our state,” Mr. Miller says. With at least 10,000 megawatts of wind power development currently waiting for transmission lines to be built, “we think [the hub] could be the trigger that will allow us to move forward.”
The supercooled cables from American Superconductor, the nation’s largest maker of superconducting cable, are already being used in small projects by the Long Island Power Authority, American Electric Power, and National Grid. Perhaps two dozen locations worldwide rely on superconducting cable, but often it is to connect key stations less than a mile from each other.
Tres Amigas would be a “game changer,” company officials say.
“What we’re starting to see is a new phase in commercialization of superconducting cable – not just in this country but globally,” says Daniel McGahn, president and chief operating officer of American Superconductor in Devens, Mass.
A tour of American Superconductor’s factory found the company creating flat metal tape out of “high-temperature superconducting” (HTS) oxide materials and costly silver, then slicing it into thin flat strips. The strips wrap around a pipe carrying liquid nitrogen, which cools the cable to minus 346 degrees Fahrenheit.
At that temperature, electrons that ordinarily move randomly, losing energy in bumper-car-like collisions that generate heat, shift to highway mode. Electrons then move in pairs in one direction, generating no heat and losing no energy.



An extract from Christian Science Monitor,

When would India start encouraging its in-house Innovations?

Bangalore: For centuries the Indian mindset has been about following the West. The 'I' in India always meant Imitation. But now Innovation has become the new mantra for all young Indians. But has the efforts of new innovations really paid off? In fact you could say "No" as only 12 to 14 percent (35) of innovations out of 250 were approved and were given patent.

Out of 35, 5 patents were given by the U.S. Government. The U.S. patent office did not charge innovators any patent fee when they heard that the innovations were from people who had no formal training.

There are several innovations that happen in the country and go unnoticed, and then there comes an NGO which nominates the individual, the individual wins a prize for his prized innovation and he and his revolutionizing innovation is forgotten in the same village where it had originated. Since many of these worthy innovations lie cocooned in their respective villages, hardly any of these breakthrough technologies see the light.

Why is that, in India, there is a congenital failure to identify innovation and creativity? Despite the lack of education, power and money, young guns have fought their way with limited resources and found a better and cheaper solution to address our problems, but still government shuts its doors away and discourages budding talents.

One such instance that has been ignored by our so called government is that of Chandrasekhar Panda and Saswat Swain, the two young minds of the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) who have designed the first ever 3G technology-based data card that will provide high speed internet at a very low cost for rural people.

The 3G data card, named "iWEBLEAF", has been designed in such a manner that it can work on the spectrum of any telecom operator to provide high speed internet service all the time. They have developed the card in such a way that it is both Wi-Fi and 3G enabled. The data card currently has the capacity of providing 7.2Mbps speed on the 2G GSM SIM card besides providing internet access at 21.1Mbps.It also acts as a Wi-Fi hotspot hub, which will enable the end user to connect around 300 laptops and 30 mobile phones to the internet without using any cable connection.

This invention can be a breakthrough in providing mobile broadband connectivity to the people of the state.In India the biggest challenge for the telecom authority of India is to provide broadband in rural villages and remote areas of the country. The goal of the project is to drive a 'highway' of high-speed internet, which would unite 410 rural regions, where private telecom companies do not develop broadband internet infrastructure due to low demand.

"By using only 3 to 4 data cards, an entire village with around 150 families can be provided internet connectivity with a net spending of just Rs 900 per month. Similarly, an urban user will get high speed internet at just Rs 99 per month," said Panda.

"Using this data card, a person can get to view more than 150 television channels, free of cost without using any television tuner or additional gadgets. The user can also switch to different networks within 2 days." said Panda.

Currently the data card is priced at 1300. It can be used by both pre-paid and post-paid customers and the tariff plan that they offer is 274 per month for unlimited download and 99 for 2GB of download.

The data card price is expected to reduce to 900 if the State government extends its support. The one disadvantage of the innovation is that, the data card is completely depended on a telecom operator's spectrum and no telecom operator would like its customers switch to different operators so frequently.

The young lads are in talks with local operators in State and are hopefully expecting a positive response from them.

Though our Honorable President, Pratibha Patil has extended her support for the project, the State and the Orissa Government have not taken any action towards the R&D setup and budget plan of the innovation.

Around six lakh students graduate from technical institutes every year in our country and why that none of their 'innovative' project works is not considered worthy of a patent?

In a government polytechnic college in Latur (in Maharashtra), three young girls have built a black box for automobiles that is used by Insurance companies in U.S. to know if the car was met with a genuine accident or not. How many people in India know about this? Should not such products be developed and sold in a mass scale?

There is no acknowledgment from any quarter. These Indian Technical Institutes (ITIs) and polytechnics have mass talent at grassroots level. So, the government needs to look into the development of these institutes if they want to encourage rural ideas and also needs to harness low cost technologies which will help India achieve the stand of a Super power nation.

source: http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Is_India_ignoring_its_Inhouse_innovations_and_potential_innovators-nid-75326.html?utm_campaign=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Subscriber