10 Steps to Save Energy

In the next link, you can read a Powerpoint presentation about 10 Steps to Save Energy (Individual measures for saving energy).

http://sites.google.com/site/comeniusminilla/Home/INDIVIDUAL_MEASURES_FOR_SAVING_ENERGY.pps

Energy Resources In The Canary Islands

The development of alternative energy systems is a crucial issue in many small-island situations, often almost totally dependent upon a steady supply of seaborne petroleum products. In the last couple of decades, virtually every way that might contribute to greater self-sufficiency for island communities has been explored, including feasibility studies, demonstration projects and commercial development of a range of energy sources such as hydropower, wind, ocean waves, solar and geothermal energy, municipal solid waste, biogas…

In many cases, progress in alternative development has fallen short of expectations. Shortfalls between hopes and accomplishments have been attributed to many factors: inadequate resource assessments, poorly conceived projects based on unworkable assumptions,…. and opposition by environmental and other groups.

The Canary Islands is an outlying and fragmented region with limited water and power resources and with an economy mostly dependent on tourism. Located in the Atlantic Ocean, off the northwestern coast of Africa, the Spanish Canary Islands are a destination for millions of travellers each year. As a collection of islands totaling only 2,875 square miles, disposal of wastewater and solid waste is an environmental and political issue throughout the Canaries.

The development of these areas has allowed the region to face the challenges of progress in the last decades. The tourist situation in the Canary Islands, with an annual income from about 9 million tourists, also makes it necessary to generate energy from clean energy sources in the archipelago, taking into account the excellent conditions for the development of Renewable Energy.

Among the most significant efforts, the production and more efficient use of t energy resources and increasal use of Renewable Energy for the production of electric energy are fundamental. These aims have a greater priority in the context of islands such as the Canary Islands, where the shortage of conventional energy resources increases dependence on outside energy in the maintenance of regional economic development. Here, we have a great deal of sun, wind, and seawater. It is an excellent place to develop systems. It is also an ideal place to simulate conditions in many developing countries.

Energy efficient systems application based on Renewable Energies are being developed in the tourist sector, by means of technical support and the backing specific projects, as well as the diffusion of its gaining and worked out. In the same way, there is support for the parliamentary initiative for the creation of a level ground rules of the Canary Islands, about “Solar Thermal Pre-Installations destined to the production of Sanitary Hot Water in new constructions o renewals of buildings in the Canary Islands Community.

One solution is the new “Salto del Negro” municipal waste treatment plant in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. This plant processes garbage and sewage collected from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, a city of 380,000, as well as from several surrounding towns and villages. The waste is processed in a digester which produces methane gas. The gas is used in turn to fuel generators that produce both electricity and heat. The combined heat and power (CHP) system was manufactured by Cummins Power Generation.

Waste management is a major problem for any populated area, however, it is especially critical in the Canaries because of the limited space and because tourism makes up over 30 percent of our GDP. "The Canary Islands are known for their unspoiled tropical beauty," says the business development manager for Cummins Power Generation. "Most visitors aren't even aware there is a waste treatment plant here, which is exactly what we wanted to accomplish."

For more than 80 years, Cummins Power Generation has been a major force in increasing the availability and reliability of electric power around the world. Its extensive global distributor network delivers innovative power solutions for any on-site power need from remote prime power systems, to clean, energy efficient cogeneration systems, to waste-to energy power systems that extend our natural resources. Researching methods to reduce energy use has long been a focus of the Canary Islands Institute of Technology (ITC), a research facility supported by the regional government of the Canary Islands. Scientists there are taking this one step further: they are investigating how to produce freshwater from saltwater without using fossil fuels at all.
The challenge, however, in coupling desalination directly with renewable energy such as solar or wind power lies in the variability of renewable energy. The membranes used in reverse osmosis need to be kept wet, and the systems that make up a desalination plant have been developed to handle a steady stream of water. Solar energy is plentiful when the sun shines and wind power only when the wind blows.

Other solutions tested at the Canary Islands site make use of wind power. In one, a small wind-energy converter powers a seawater RO plant designed to operate even with the stops and starts of wind power. In another, a small wind farm creates a small stand-alone electricity grid that feeds electricity to the desalination plant. Though all of these systems could be used in industrialized countries, the main goal of the ITC is to develop plants that could theoretically supply water to even a fraction of the billion people around the world in need of clean drinking water. Many of these people live in areas that have abundant renewable energy resources and yet no electricity grid, and they may never be connected to a grid. ITC research on coupling desalination with renewable energy is already being tested in the world outside the Canary Islands.

PROJECT'S SUMMARY

The Project aims are to provide students with a way to learn how to use resources in sustainable way by integrating applied science and technology into classroom learning experiences.

The Project aims are to provide teachers and students with increased accessibility to scientific resources and promote an understanding of the role of energy in environment and to integrate concepts of sustainability into curriculum to make project-based learning focused on energies issues interdisciplinary and incorporated into learning requirements for different age groups.

The Project provide methods for students and teachers to begin in classroom projects that reaches out to become local community propjects that are shared globally with students and teachers, to develop relationships with educators around he network.

Our Project is focused on sharing practical information about planning and carrying out a research project investigation of energy sources, transformation and technology structures and mechanisms: characteristics, forces, motion and design, including the ue of models mobile exhibition units, and energy-education materials.

In every country the Project starts with gathering general data with a questionary about concumption of energy in student families and set up communication with the partner schoolsto compre the results between the countries.

In a second stage students will create instruments to prove, in asicentific way, that saving energy is possible uing renewable fonts.