EDNE January 2013 - (Page 7)

eDn.comment By graham prophet, eDitor ,, No magic bullets I ndustrial carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere rose, according to one estimate, by an additional 2.6% last year: far from beginning to get the problem under control, the world is seeing any progress slip further and further away from its grasp. The contribution we can make by taking all possible steps towards energy efficiency in circuit design can look woefully small in the face of such figures. That does not mean, of course, that we should not pursue those targets with all possible enthusiasm. Even the climate-change sceptic – a position that is looking evermore untenable – should be signed up to energy-efficient design as a matter of fundamental engineering principle, if nothing else. Using the least possible resources to carry out any given task, and doing so in the most elegant manner, should be part of the DNA of an engineer of any discipline. Meanwhile, another year has passed and there is little progress in improving the electricity-generation contribution to the CO2 total. Coal-fired power stations continue to be commissioned at an impressive rate in China and other developing economies; increasing amounts of gas are traded around the world as Japan and other nations turn away from nuclear generation. The graph for wind and solar photovoltaic installations is losing the upward momentum it experienced in a phase of heavy state subsidies. That last factor reminds us of our continuing failure to make any progress at all on what is perhaps the biggest impediment to a future in which “renewables” routinely carry the base load of our power needs. Stepping outside on any sunny day, even for those of us who live well above 50° North, reminds us that we don’t have an energy supply problem. And, arguably, at today’s photovoltaic panel conversion factor of around-25%, we don’t even have an energy capture problem. But we most definitely have an energy storage problem. We have no means of storing even a day’s worth of energy, far less the season-to-season stockpile that would see us through winter months if we were dependent on PV, or through prolonged anti-cyclonic conditions if wind turbines were to proliferate even more than they are doing right now. There is nothing on the technology horizon that looks like it will come close to solving that problem. And, as for a fix that would cut the tragic I2R losses to wind energy in routing power from offshore windfarms and remote mountaintops: there’s no sign of an ambienttemperature superconductor, either. A former CEO of one of our semiconductor companies was notably downbeat on this topic. If you interviewed him on a gloomy day, he’d say (not an exact quote), “There’s nothing to be done, the ecosystem is broken and there’s no way back.” If you got him on a good day, the message would improve – some. “The ecosystem is broken, there’s no way back – but we can delay the inevitable a few years with energy efficiency!” It is not a cheerful note on which to enter a new year, but it often seems that he might well have been right. Best, perhaps, to keep another informal engineering maxim in mind; “everything is fixable”; keep designing best practice into the systems under our individual control, and pressurising our elected representatives to take the right decisions for the bigger picture. www.edn-europe.com january 2013 | EDN EuropE 7 http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;266052505;91849910;l?http://www.digikey.com/product-highlights/us/en/vicor-vi-brick/3000 http://www.edn-europe.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of EDNE January 2013

Digi-Key
Cover
Contents
Agilent Technologies
Microchip
Embedded World 2013
Masthead
EDN.comment
Digi-Key
Pulse
Analog Devices
Use S-parameters to describe crosstalk
Rohde & Schwarz
IAN
Designing low-energy embedded systems from silicon to software
Baker’s Best
Analog Devices
Analog Devices
Conditioning techniques for real-world sensors
Design Ideas
Mechatronics in Design
Product roundup
Tales from the Cube

EDNE January 2013