The sun and coconut instead of oil

The people in the Tolelau Islands, New Zealand in the past year have actually switched to completely using alternative energy from the Sun and coconut oil.

The huge coconut area on Tokelau Island creates a huge source of raw material for the coconut oil industry.

Russian page Pravda said, according to experts' calculations, in the middle of next year, solar energy will be 93% of Tokelau's electricity output, the rest is in energy demand, coconut oil is responsible.

Tokelau consists of three small islands, with about 1,500 people living. The island is 5 meters high compared to the sea surface, the terrain is flat, so it is easy to arrange solar power plants in the most convenient locations. Coconuts are plentiful, supplying New Zealand to the rest of the country but still abundant to export to other countries.

Currently, each island consumes 200kg of fuel a day, including oil, gasoline, natural gas from New Zealand. That's not much because the islanders are still poor. Recently with the global warming, people are afraid that the island will be submerged under the sea (and the fact that the sea level is increasing), they agree to conduct experiments aimed at building a tissue. energy picture.

A chief of an island, Foya Toloa, has pledged from early 2012 on his island to use only gasoline to drive cars and ships, and other energy needs will be met by the sun and coconut oil. Then cars will also use fuel from coconut oil.

Solar cells are currently installed on the island (calculated by Christopher Dee, University of Sydney, the island only needs to spend 200 square meters to receive solar energy, an insignificant area) and batteries to charge electricity during the day. When it is cloudy or electricity demand is high, the additional energy source will be a generator powered by coconut oil itself.

For coconut oil, each island only needs 20-30 liters of oil per day, taken from 200 coconuts. Meanwhile, the island of Tokelau is also the paradise of coconut.

However, Tokelau was not the first archipelago to rely heavily on recycled materials. In 2007, people on the Danish island of Samse switched to using wind and biofuels entirely. There are only a few diesel generators. This project took 10 years, costing about $ 80 million. The transition to wind energy was initially difficult, because the Danes did not believe it could be done. Samse Island has 4,000 majority people who are very conservative farmers. But now everyone is very proud of their self-control of the energy source.

The island currently has 21 wind turbines, 11 offshore and 10 on the shoreline that provide 100 million kilowatt hours per year equivalent to the energy supplied by 690,000 gallons of oil. The biomass used on the island is straw and agricultural waste used in 3 plants to heat water for the whole island. Wind power not only ensured the island's population and tourists (always very crowded) but also saved 40% to bring it to the mainland, joining the national electricity network.

The amount of CO2 released is reduced by 140% compared to when no alternative energy has been used.

Wind turbines on the Danish island of Samse.

Renewable energy is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Regarding photovoltaic battery production, from 1990 to 2010 increased 500 times, from 45 MW to 23.5 GW. Wind energy increased even faster. Only in the first half of this year has increased by 18,405 MW, more than the full capacity of 2010. If China leads the world in wind power, solar energy is led by the US and Japan.

It is worth noting that, the successful experiments of the Samse people forced people to reconsider the development strategy and location of wind power plant locations. Many scientists believe that, after that, big wind power plants should not be located deep in the mainland but on the island because the ability to take advantage of wind and sunlight is much more convenient.

According to the forecast, countries in the world will be surrounded by high-power plants on the island (if there is no island nature will make artificial islands).

Samse islands and Tokelau will become compelling experimental models of the construction of future power plants.