The general state of the Earth's climate is dependent upon the amount of energy stored by the climate system, and in particular the balance between the amount of energy the Earth receives from the Sun, in the form of light and ultraviolet radiation, and the amount of energy the Earth releases back to space, in the form of infrared heat energy. There are climate “forcing” functions that cause climate change. There are many climate forcing processes, but broadly speaking, they can be separated into internal and external types.
External processes operate outside planet Earth, and include changes in the global energy balance due to variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, and changes in the amount of energy received from the Sun. Internal processes operates from within the Earth's climate system, and include changes in the global energy balance due to changes in ocean circulation or changes in the composition of the atmosphere. Other climate forcing processes include the impacts of large volcanic eruptions and collisions with comets or meteorites.
Luckily, the Earth is not hit by large comets or meteorites very often, perhaps every 20 to 30 million years or so, and therefore their associated climate changes occur rarely throughout Earth History. However, other causes of climate change influence the Earth on much shorter time scales, with changes sometimes occurring within a single generation. Indeed, our present pollution of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases may be causing the global climate to change. This man-made climate change has become known as global warming.
The U.S. Congress passed climate change legislation HR 2454 that will include some form of carbon cap- and-trade scheme. CEOs of major utilities—Jim Rogers of Duke Energy being one of the most prominent—have taken a proactive stance to position the industry to meet the carbon challenge. And finally the public has also embraced the need for change in personal habits to fight global warming.
Q: China and India are building fossil power plants at a rapid pace to meet their individual rising demands. China will soon surpass the US in carbon emissions. Why should the US take the lead in addressing Climate Change?
A: There is no easy answer but the one that finds most resonance is that the US must take the lead because it is the leader. The West has "ridden the back of carbon" for over a century and so lecturing China and India or any other country on curbing expansion will be a non-starter. For example, an Indian company has introduced a $2,500 car called the Nano that will bring a four-wheeled vehicle well within the reach of 300- 400 million middle class Indians. The West can play a large role in offering hybrid electric technology so that instead of fossil-fueled cars, the Indians can leapfrog into clean technology. Electricity is helping raise millions of Indians and Chinese out of poverty. Our best bet is to continue to develop new carbon-mitigating technologies and offer them to developing countries so that the climate challenge can be addressed globally rather than piecemeal. This would require very strong technical and political leadership here in the US. Several US utility CEOs have firmly stepped up to the plate and are leading by example.
Q: What is Asset Intelligence? Why is it important?
A: Asset intelligence in the context of the power industry means to understand the condition, operation and value of the asset well before it fails. This is enabled through powerful sensor and monitoring technologies. For taking a vital system off-line means to devote maintenance expense and, depending on the criticality of the system/equipment, to pay unscheduled replacement power costs for the plant to be in an outage, sometimes at several million dollars a day.
New sensor technologies and associated software enable not only continuous monitoring but also the intelligence to perform diagnostics of equipment health to perform what is called "condition-based" maintenance. In particular wireless technologies-- some that use a protocol similar to what is used in your cell phone-- can perform remote monitoring without costly wiring. Some of the most useful applications of wireless technology will be in remote monitoring of assets critical to infrastructure security.
Finally, on-line monitoring enables global assets to be monitored under a virtual "center" so that expertise from anywhere-anytime can be called upon to review and disposition diagnostic data. Imagine if you had the best doctors spread around the world able to simultaneously diagnose patient condition from, say, X-ray diagnostic data. That is the technology and business model asset intelligence offers.
Q: What are wireless sensors? And why are they important?
A: Sensors are vital outposts to alert the operator of impending equipment problems and wireless technology enables this to be performed and avoid potentially high wiring costs. Wireless sensors can be used to monitor remote assets, hard-to-access assets that conventional wired sensors cannot; for example, rotating equipment. Wireless sensors consist of usually conventional sensors with a radio transmitter that can broadcast the sensed signal to a wireless network. Depending on the specific protocol, the wireless network can gather signals from several sensors in its vicinity. New wireless sensor protocols enable use of voice and data to be carried over existing channels so that communications can be more integrated. For example, http://www.automationworld.com/view-1735 , indicates compelling advantages of wireless sensors. Several commercial vendors offer wireless sensors for industrial applications.
Q: How is Signatech Systems organized?
A: Signatech Systems is an S Corporation formed under the laws of the State of Delaware. It was incorporated in June 2007.
Page modified on 12/05/09 11:49 AM