These energy crops which are also called closed loop biomass are fast-growing crops and are good biomass energy supply sources. This research based project is committed to growing crops and biomass energy supplies processing from fast-growing energy crops or closed loop biomass. The research is primarily on the planting of energy crops which are fast-growing crops called closed loop biomass and processing of resultant supplies of biomass energy. The project aims at developing power wood-pulp plants which provide wood-fiber; providing clean biogas to the industries; ethanol development from plants such as sugarcane; and biodiesel fuel production from crops like soybeans.

The petroleum over-dependence of our nation for power has given rise to an urgent need for an alternative energy source to be developed. Penn State University has undertaken special research to develop anl alternative energy source which is practical and which will not cause an increase in the pollution like petroleum products. Such focused research is taking us to a hydrogen-fuelled economy, when the hydrogen power would be a sustainable and clean and endlessly renewable energy resource. This Hydrogen energy can be obtained from crop plants and water and can be continuously renewed. The Penn University seeks to build this sustainable energy resource within the US’ own infrastructure. This assumes great importance in a situation where the world’s supply of oil peaks and ultimately begins to decline. Fuel cells powered by Hydrogen need to be developed commercially to be used as substitutes or together with conventional combustion engines for motor vehicles.

President Bush recently envisaged the concentrated research and development of fivecenters of Sun Grant for this alternative energy initiative. One such center is Oregon State University with government grants of $80 million to be spread over four years span for this special mission. Thus OSU will be the leader in the research for alternate energy sources since it represents Pacific Islands, the US’ Pacific Territories, and the nine Western states. Various teams of leading scientists are doing specific research on alternative energy. One of the projects which deserves a mention here is how to convert straw-like products into an efficient and renewable source of biomass fuel and yet another project is conversion of wood fibers into efficient liquid fuel. According to Edward Ray, OSU President, this pioneering work being done by the their Sun Grant Center is the direct answer to the challenge given by President Bush for achieving energy independence.

Related posts

• Alternative Energy Facts – Expert Views Revealed (0)
• Alternative Energy Development in Japan (0)
• The Planet is in Danger. Alternative Energy is our Only Choice (0)
• The Future of Alternative Energy for Cars (0)
• The Differences Between Clean Energy, Renewable Energy, and Alternative Energy (0)

Academician Michael Ming-Chiao Lai , President of NCKU, commented that NCKU is the only Taiwanese university listed on this global top 25 list, which means
that NCKU’s alternative energy research papers not only excel in both quality and quantity, but most importantly they are cross-disciplinary ones. The
Ministry of Education (MOE) allocated the special funding of five year 50 billion NTD (5Y50B) to boost domestic universities to advance at least one field
to top-tier status globally. Since NCKU’s rankings soar in global rankings done by Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT
Ranking) and Essential Science Index (ESI), both can serve as evidences that NCKU has met the expectations of MOE, and we should be proud of this
achievement.

President Lai also commented that there is a journey lying ahead for NCKU to tread on to become a world class university, and all NCKU faculty members,
students and staff should work together towards this goal. The current accomplishment shows that NCKU’s research expertise has achieved a certain
degree of quality, which will lay a solid foundation for NCKU to attract more masters to join this school.

In the HEEACT 2009 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities published on July 30th, 2009, compared to last year, NCKU has moved
21 places up and ranks 307 worldwide in comprehensive evaluation, which is only second to National Taiwan University (NTU) among all Taiwanese universities. However, in rankings of subject fields, NCKU’s College of Engineering exceeds that of NTU and ranks the 30th globally.

Moreover, according to statistics resulted from 2009 Essential Science Indicators database from Thomson Reuters(TRI), NCKU’s materials science and
engineering ranks 52nd worldwide, together with the 30th in engineering worldwide and the 19th worldwide in alternative energy distinctive competency
research papers, NCKU has three research fields ranking top 100 worldwide. This fact indeed showcases NCKU’s research expertise can match international
standards!

A recent study by the new methodology developed by Elsevier revealed that NCKU produced 61 alternative energy research papers of distinctive competencies (DC) during the five years period of 2003-2007. Taiwan ranks the 5th worldwide in the area of Solar/Photovoltaic Research. National Cheng Kung University ranks the 19th worldwide in alternative energy research based on a new methodology for identifying multidisciplinary research leadership.

To develop an alternative methodology for identifying scientific leadership, Elsevier adopts a reference-based classification, in which 2.1 million highly
cited references are clustered into 40,400 categories and 5.6 million current articles are then assigned to this classification system. The categories, or
“paradigms,” in which a university has a leadership position are identified, and the cluster of related paradigms where a university has a leadership position is
defined as its “distinctive competencies.”

Therefore, DC represent expertise of an institution in specific research areas and reveal the degree to which an institution has constructed multidisciplinary
networks with the organization focusing on achieving specific breakthroughs, which is unlike papers being published in isolated silos. Elsevier argued that
examining output in DC, compared to traditional measurement methods by simply counting the total number of published papers, offers a more accurate way of determining real research leadership.

Dick Klavans, Senior Development Advisor for Elsevier A & G and also a presenter at the webcast is quoted as saying that “There is a common misperception that the most significant research is being conducted at only a handful of top-ranked universities,” and “There is a need to look beyond total paper counts as leaders in specific sub-topics exist within all levels of the university rankings. Examining distinctive competencies shines a light on overlooked output and unrecognized leaders.”

Over 1,000 academic and government executives, researchers and librarians joined live or viewed the recorded version of the webcast “Research Leadership
Redefined: measuring performance in a multidisciplinary landscape” organized by Elsevier in Amsterdam recently.

The study employs SciVal Spotlight, a research performance measurement tool built to reflect the current structure of science. Co-citation analysis is
conducted on a comprehensive database including 5.6 million separate papers published between 2003 and 2007 and another 2 million of the heavily cited
reference works within these papers. Elsevier stated that they will strive to be true to accuracy and transparency in the adoption and development of their
methodology.

Elsevier admitted that the relatively new technique called “science mapping” is still under experimentation for improvement and better techniques are needed to label distinctive competencies. However, by increasing the number of science building blocks from 554 disciplines to 40,400 paradigms, a finer structure of
research that can better model the real science is constructed. This also reveals new areas of science, especially research on important social issues
such as global warming and environmental degradation can be strengthened. Elsevier argued that the most important benefit of science mapping is that it
can reveal the specific research strength of a university, be it achieved or on-going.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, US, with a total of 309 papers in DC, ranked top and US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, with 271 DC papers, ranked the 2nd. The Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy, Germany, with 240 DC papers, ranked the 3rd and the Forschungszentrum Julich, Germany, with 234 DC papers, ranked the 4th on this list. Among the top 25 institutions, 12 are North American institutions (11 US and 1 Canadian), 4 are European institutions (2 German, 1 British, and 1 Dutch), and 9 are Asian institutions (3 Japanese, 3 Chinese, 1 Taiwanese, 1 Singaporean, and 1 Korean).

The three main alternative energy sub-topics or topic groups defined by Elsevier in this study include solar/photovoltaic, fuel cells and environmentally-related
areas such as efficiency, renewable energy, biomass, wind, etc. The NCKU alternative energy research team include: biomass – Prof. Wen-Teng Wu , Dean of
College of Engineering, Prof. Jo-Shu Chang ), Department of Chemical Engineering, Prof. Mei-Jywan Syu, Department of Chemical Engineering; hydrogen
energy – Prof. Wei-Hsiang Lai and Prof. Fei-Bin Hsiao of Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics; wind power – Prof. Ta-Hui Lin and Prof. Yung-Chun
Lee of Department of Mechanical Engineering, Prof. Fei-Bin Hsiao of Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics; solar power – Prof. Tsorng-Juu Liang and Prof. Ching-Ting Lee of Department of Electrical Engineering; solar cells – Prof. Yu-Min Yang and Prof. Yu-Lang Lee of Department of Chemical Engineering; solar thermal energy – Prof. Keh-Chin Chang of Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Related posts

• An Energy Alternative: Free Energy (0)
• Alternative Energy Research And Development – University Activities Revealed (0)
• 4-H Youth Take the Lead on Alternative Energy (0)

When one hears the phrase “free energy device”, one might be hearing about one of several different concepts. This might mean a device for collecting and transmitting energy from some source that orthodox science does not recognize; a device which collects energy at absolutely no cost; or an example of the legendary perpetual motion machine. Needless to say, a perpetual motion machine—a machine which drives itself, forever, once turned on, therefore needing no energy input ever again and never running out of energy—is impossible. However, it is not so simple to say that a new technology for harnessing the energy “floating” in the atmosphere is impossible. New technologies replace old ones all the time with abilities that had just been “impossible”. Harnessing the power of the atom for providing huge amounts of energy was “impossible” until the 1940s. Flying human beings were an “impossible” thing until the turn of the 20th century and the Wright Brothers’ flight.

The biggest claim of the proponents of “free” energy is that enormous amounts of energy can be drawn from the Zero Point Field. This is a quantum mechanical state of matter for a defined system which is attained when the system is at the lowest possible energy state that it can be in. This is called the “ground state” of the system. Zero Point Energy (ZPE) is sometimes referred to as “residual” energy and it was first proposed to be usable as an alternative form of energy way back in 1913 by Otto Stern and Albert Einstein. It is also referred to as “vacuum energy” in studies of quantum mechanics, and it is supposed to represent the energy of totally empty space. This energy field within the vacuum has been likened to the froth at the base of a waterfall by one of the principal researchers into and proponents of Hal Puthof. Puthof also explains, the term ‘zero-point’ simply means that if the universe were cooled down to absolute zero where all thermal agitation effects would be frozen out, this energy would still remain. What is not as well known, however, even among practicing physicists, are all the implications that derive from this known aspect o quantum physics. However, there are a group of physicists—myself and colleagues at several research labs and universities—who are examining the details, we ask such questions as whether it might be possible to ‘mine’ this reservoir of energy for use as an alternative energy source, or whether this background energy field might be responsible for inertia and gravity. These questions are of interest because it is known that this energy can be manipulated, and therefore there is the possibility that the control of this energy, and possibly inertia and gravity, might yield to engineering solutions. Some progress has been made in a subcategory of this field (cavity quantum electrodynamics) with regard to controlling the emission rates of excited atoms and molecules, of interest in laser research and elsewhere.

Related posts

• Alternative Energy Research And Development – University Activities Revealed (0)
• Wind turbine is alternative energy source in Medford (0)
• NCKU’s Research Expertise Matches International Standards and Ranks 19th Worldwide in Alternative Energy Distinctive Competency Papers (0)
• Alternative Energy Development in Japan (0)