Solar and Wind Energy to Ashton Island Essay Example for Free

Solar and Wind Energy to Ashton Island Essay This is so the southwest winds can blow the windmills. The windmills would spin and they would turn a generator, which would produce electricity. After the electricity would have been generated, it would be supplied with cables down to the laboratory and the cooling equipment. However you would not be able to place a lot of the windmills on the hill. Therefore the next ideal position would be on the coast which would contain the strong southwest breezes. This can also be done seeing as the coast is not far away from the laboratory. This would supply electricity through wires in rubber pipes to the laboratory and further on to the refrigerators where the cooling equipment would be placed. In order to make sure that the supply of energy was continuous we could ensure that whilst the energy was being generated some of it would pass into a battery which would supply the cooling equipment with electricity when the wind is not blowing. The electricity would have to be split roughly half ways so when the wind is blowing 50% would pass into the cooling equipment while 50% went onto the battery. The material on the island that would have to be carefully monitored is the wood in the forms of trees within the forest. This is because if all the other sources of energy run out, this is the only other form of material, which will provide a quick source of energy. None of the other forms of energy are constant; the sun does not always shine, the wind does not always blow, the sea is not always rough and rivers do not always flow. However wood will always be there to provide quick energy. If the team only had a limited amount of money then they would have to try and harness the resources using the cheapest ways. The types of energy to harness would be different to choose from; in the sense that we would have to choose the cheapest resources available and also the most efficient. The cheapest resource available would be the natural biomass in the form of wood in the forests. However this would eventually run out because there are only a limited number of trees within the forest. Therefore we would have to resort to the burning of rubbish and rotting matter. We could use rotting matter to produce energy by leaving the rotting matter in a closed tank then through anaerobic digestion the gas methane would be produced. This gas could be used for heating, cooking and lighting. This is a very cheap method and it would produce energy at a very good rate aswell. By far the most expensive source if energy extraction would be solar panels and the windmills. These would cost a lot to make and they may not be as efficient as the geothermal and natural biomass. However if there were costs to be considered throughout the whole thing then we would have to resort to the extraction of geothermal energy and burning biomass. Another aspect of the limited money would be the fact that they may not be able to purchase the vast amounts of machinery needed to generate electricity like the turbines and the generators and therefore we would not be able to have such a vast amount and variety of different methods of harnessing electricity. Another aspect which would have to be considered on a limited budget would be the purchase of the equipment in order to extract the energy and the network through which it would have to run in order to be successfully linked up to all the equipment and finally the workforce which would be needed to construct the equipment and set it all up could be very timely and costly. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Electricity and Magnetism section.