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This paper explores the feasibility of large-scale orbital solar/thermal power generation. For the large-scale orbital thermal plant the most important system parameters are transportation cost, weight of the solar concentrator and system component efficiencies. The thermal conversion concept discussed in this paper is potentially feasible with today's solar concentrator technology and component efficiencies if the low Earth orbit transportation cost is approximately $60/lb. The system is also potentially feasible with space shuttle transportation cost of approximately $160/lb and 1980 component efficiencies if the solar concentrator can be constructed at approximately 0.03 lb/ft. Large-scale collection of solar power in space for use on Earth has been discussed by several authors in the past five years. Typical schemes involve direct photovoltaic conversion to electricity, microwave conversion and transmission, and reconversion to electricity on Earth. This paper describes the alternative of heat engines for initial conversion. Significant economic leverage results from collecting the solar energy with a thin reflective film at a few cents per square meter. A Brayton cycle heat engine is utilized to convert thermal energy to electricity. Economic feasibility is dependent on system technical performance, transportation cost, and cost of alternative power sources.

Residential solar energy applications can provide a significant fraction of the U.S. energy budget. However, to do so, they must be combined with other energy-conserving strategies and diffused rapidly throughout the housing industry. Discussed are the potential resistances to the diffusion of solar energy within the U.S. housing industry; implications for the application of residential solar energy are treated. Richard Schoen is an architect and faculty member of the University of California at Los Angeles' School of Architecture and Urban Planning. He is also a staff consultant to the Solar Energy Team at Caltech. An earlier version of this paper was prepared and delivered at the International Solar Energy Conference, “Le soleil au service de l'homme,” Paris, July 2–6, 1973.

The examined directions of scientific and technical progress in the area of underground hydraulic construction are promising and can be very effective technically and economically. Considerable experience has presently been gained in the operation of large-section underground hydraulic structures. Generalization of this experience will per-mit a significant improvement in methods of designing and constructing these structures.

The Environmental Protection Act has created many complications for any hydroelectric power project. For mixed agency (public and private) developments, there are broad effects resulting from recent court decisions under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The economic impact of fuel shortages and costs result in a necessity for reevaluation of existing hydroelectric projects. The writer's term Energy recovery projects refers to the conversion of hydraulic head breaking plants to power plants. On large-scale water distribution systems such a development can save the equivalent of many hundreds of barrels of oil per day. The basic problems unique to this type of development are examined. This paper examines the effects of these changes on proposed hydroelectric power redevelopments, and energy recovery projects. A practical example of optimal development of a power drop currently being considered for base load utilization is analyzed.

As the experience of constructing modem large dams in the USA, as well as in Italy, Yugoslavia, and Japan shows, cableways are more productive concrete placers in comparison with jib cranes, shorten the construction time of dams, and speed up the start-up time of hydroelectric stations and reservoirs.

1. Cathodic protection against corrosion is an effective and cheap method of protection. 2. The main technical difficulty in its introduction at operating hydroelectric stations is the complexity of the designs of equipment (presence of closed voids, grooves, various pockets, etc.), which reduces appreciably the effectiveness of protection by complicating the system of anodes. 3. It is most expedient to incorporate this method of protection when designing equipment, anticipating the place of positioning the anode, cable lines, and cathode station and simplifying the design of hydromechanical equipment.

Forecasts of energy shortages were already stimulating analyses of patterns or energy consumption before the quadrupling of oil prices and the interruption in supplies. These recent events have made such studies urgent. In this article — the first in a series on energy budgets — Dr Chapman examines the problems in constructing energy costs, the aims of such studies and the methods used. These are illustrated by examples of energy costs which indicate the care required in interpreting and using published results.

In the UK, the energy industries are the largest consumers of energy, using 30% of the present total. New sources of energy are likely to be even more demanding of fuels. In this article, the second in the series on Energy Budgets, the authors analyse the energy supply industries in the UK and examine implications for the future. They recommend that more attention be paid to materials recycling and to the development of renewable energy sources to avoid continuing inflation of energy use.

This study analysed the economic effect of energy transition on holistic environmental welfare in sub-Saharan Africa. It models the long run and short run determinants of environmental welfare using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) econometric methodology. The empirical analysis examined environmental welfare in Ghana, one of sub-Saharan Africa’s leading countries in electricity access and a strong advocate of the continent’s ideas on energy transition. The study found a positive and highly significant relationship between energy price and environmental welfare. Also, CO2 emissions had a negative and statistically significant effect on environmental welfare, confirming the adverse effect of fossil fuel use on environmental welfare in sub-Saharan Africa. The study also found that environmental welfare in Ghana is explained by state borrowing. The results indicate that the value of future economic benefits, if sub-Saharan African countries transition to renewable energy now, far outweigh the benefit expected from retaining fossil fuel as the main energy source till 2070. Thus, sub-Saharan Africa’s decision to hold unto fossil fuels as its main source of energy while a transition to cheaper and environmentally friendly renewable energy is ongoing, constitutes an economic setback for the continent. The analysis also indicate that Ghana’s energy transition plan, which largely reflects the sub-Saharan African plan, does not conform to the current financial reality of the countryand requires a second thought in favor of a speedy transition to renewable energy. Sub-Saharan Africa will be better off with a quick transition to renewable energy than otherwise.

The material-energy balance developed in this study has been used successfully to match performance and to forecast production for the Wairakei geothermal field of New Zealand. The equations should be applicable to other geothermal fluid reservoirs, provided the assumptions used are realistic. Introduction The basic study from which this paper was prepared was started as the result of the growing need throughout the world for increasing quantities of energy in all forms. Quite obviously, natural forms of energy that are readily available at low development cost are those in greatest demand. The underdeveloped countries - and particularly those having little or no petroleum resources - are the countries in which the most interest is being shown in the newer energy sources. One of the least expensive energy sources is natural geothermal steam. Although this form of energy has been recognized for centuries, it has been only during the past 20 years that serious efforts have been made to harness it. Natural geothermal steam energy in Italy, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan, and California is now being produced through wells to drive turbines and generate electricity. Further, active exploration for natural geothermal steam is being conducted in Hawaii, Fiji, Taiwan, Chile, Russia, Greece, and Katanga. It is surprising to find that most geothermal steam exploration is in the "steam seep" stage. That is, surface studies are made and exploratory wells are drilled in the general area of steam seeps. However, in the larger geothermal steam areas, there have been efforts to apply the most modern geological and reservoir engineering principles in order to define the reservoir parameters, particularly those relating to estimates of reserves and future productivity. This paper is concerned with the development of appropriate equations and techniques to facilitate these estimates. Production of natural steam or hot water presents problems different from those experienced in the production of oil and gas. For example, steam or hot water systems may be essentially single-component systems, while hydrocarbon systems are most frequently multicomponent fluid systems. Heat effects are much larger for water than for hydrocarbon systems; and the natural steam production may or may not be isothermal, while production of petroleum reservoirs is considered normally to be isothermal. Petroleum reservoir engineering principles may be applied to natural steam or hot water reservoirs if the inherent differences in the systems are considered. The basic considerations involved in geothermal steam reservoir engineering are: thermodynamics, physical and thermal properties of water, materials and energy balances, fluid influx, and performance matching and predicting. Thermodynamics Fig. 1 is a pressure-temperature diagram for the liquid-vapor region for pure water, showing the critical point and five other points representing possible initial conditions for a geothermal steam reservoir. JPT P. 893ˆ

Solar energy applications are examined from the point of view of their profit-making potential. The study is based on a consideration of the availability and characteristics of solar energy, the sources of profit in conventional energy sources, and the type of industry which could participate in the commercialization of solar energy. Solar equipment now being manufactured is of four types—water heaters, batteries, cookers, and toys and novelties. Three types of solar energy equipment now in the development stage are seen to have early commercialization prospects. The largest market during the present century will likely be residential heating and cooling systems. Technical or economic considerations will limit several applications such as commercial electricity from solar energy and capture and storage by photochemical means.

The scheme for organization of the work and the special construction and technical measures adopted tospeed up construction of the first stage of the Kapchagaisk hydroelectric plant permitted constructing the powerhouse in 10 months, beginning with the first placing of concrete in the bottom of the turbine section and the putting the two units into operation. The experience with the construction-erection work for the first stage of the Kapchagaisk hydroelectric plant indicates that in the case of an uninterrupted supply of material and technical elements, and of sufficient concrete plant capacity so that the peak concrete demands can be met, the main construction of the turbine sections for similar powerhouses can be completed in 7–8 months.

1. Justification of the design and construction of the Krasnoyarsk station required a broad range of scientific investigations. Organization of the investigations and adoption of the results for improving reliability of the installations and improving the engineering economic indices of the station were possible through the close cooperation of design and construction engineers, scientists, and operational personnel. 2. A considerable part of the results of the investigations is of importance not only for the Krasnoyarsk station, but also for several large hydropower installations under construction, in the design stage, and scheduled for future construction. 3. Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric station, the largest in the world, embracing the experience gained in hydropower construction in the USSR, was and continues to be one of the main experimental bases of Soviet hydraulic engineering science.

A unique 8000-kw gross power and sea water conversion plant is described which uses the temperature difference of the ocean to produce usable energy and fresh water. This plant has been designed by the research and development department, Clearing Division of U.S. Industries, Inc., for installation along coastlines in a semitropical area. Estimated cost for the sea thermal energy plant is 2.5 to 3 million dollars, including building and erection costs. This is equal to $310 to $375 per kw, amounts which are competitive with fossil-fuel burning plants in remote areas.

1. When the farms which must be abandoned when the reservoir is constructed are completely restored with the costs charged to the construction of the U st-Ilimsk hydroelectric power plant, the agricultural production will have a better organizational and economical basis. This will enable the farming enterprises to produce with less loss of time and provide the means to solve the new problems confronting agriculture as the region is more and more industrialized. 2. This situation is characteristic of reservoirs that are to be built in thinly populated regions where the agricultural holdings are situated in river valleys. Such regions are, for example, the catchment areas of the Boguchany and Nizhne-Ob' hydroelectric power plant reservoirs. 3. To be able to determine the efficiency of hydraulic construction with reliable security it is necessary to compare the plans of reorganization of farming under the existing conditions and under the conditions following reservoir construction. 4. To eliminate the drawbacks in planning to provide the measures for restoring the agricultural production under the new conditions and for using the reservoirs in the interest of agriculture it is necessary to work out a general method of determining the loss inflicted on farming when reservoirs are built and a method of making up for this so that the agricultural production is restored and that the compensation investments for farming are profitable.

1. The self-lifting cantilever formwork is a reliable and convenient type of formwork, whose basic advantages are the following: the formwork and the marquees can be lifted without using cranes, and labor time and formwork costs are reduced. 2. The use of self-lifting cantilever formwork can be recommended for high concrete dams. 3. It is important to continue with investigations to determine the less labor-consuming types of connections between the formwork and the concrete, and to develop lightened marquees to be moved with the formwork.

1. Vertical two-impeller impulse turbines can compete with radial-axial-type hydraulic turbines for heads H=400–500 m. 2. It is possible to improve impulse hydraulic turbines and increase their running speed, in order to reduce further the lower head-limit, within the range of economically feasible application.