At night our bedrooms need to be a sanctuary, free of man made pollution such as EMF, light, noise, and chemical exposures.

Some diffusers use household power to operate and may potentially expose you to electric and magnetic fields when used in close proximity.

 As a precaution ensure that a minimum distance of 1 meter is kept between you, the electric wiring to the diffuser, and the diffuser itself.

The same advice applies to multiplugs, bedside lights and electric chargers.

For nightime a free and highly effective solution is to switch the power off (at the distribution board) to the bedroom.  This should include lighting circuits, as well as the adjacent rooms and any spaces directly below the bedroom.

A battery powered diffuser might be a better option.

Additionally, when using a diffuser, ensure the room is well-ventilated to maintain fresh air and prevent any buildup of essential oils that might cause irritation or discomfort.

By following these guidelines, one can minimize EMF exposure and create a more health-conscious sleeping environment.

The post Electrical Household Diffusers appeared first on EMFSA.

A bit of common sense is required when converting to solar energy products.

Photovoltaic (PV) or solar cells convert sunlight into electricity. When light strikes the semiconductor material of a solar cell, it releases electrons that generate electric current.

A solar panel or PV panel is a frame with several connected solar cells. The more solar panels are connected together, the more electricity is produced.

Solar panels produce direct current (DC), not alternating current (AC) electricity. The voltage is also low, [for smaller domestic installations] and being DC, it is impossible for the solar panels which charge the batteries to create dirty electricity or harmful electric and magnetic fields.

In other words, the electrical power from the panels is low voltage (DC) and is not problematic.

The charged batteries power the inverter, which changes the current from low voltage DC to the 230v AC required in order to power the lighting and power circuits. This is where problems could occur.

The inverter should preferably be a pure sine wave inverter to match the requirement for the household appliances that are designed to operate on a pure sine wave ( the same pure sine wave as is generated by the power utility).

Non sine wave inverters have been found to give high readings on dirty electricity meters and sometimes these readings cannot be reduced by the conventional methods.

Claims of “pure sine wave” inverters might not be correct and technical advice may be required,

Needless to say that solar panels must be installed properly by a qualified professional to ensure for example that earthing has been done properly.

The electric and magnetic fields created by an inverter fall off very quickly with distance. Regardless, inverters should not be placed in areas where one spends time, or where a bed is located on the other side of the wall to the inverter.

This topic was included in EMFSA’s comments on the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Environment, Forestry and Fisheries; Climate Change Bill tabled in Parliament in February 2022:

“The bill should make strong provision for regulation of renewable energy products, for instance as EMFSA we have encountered some products that are advertised as generating a “pure sine wave” when in our opinion, it does not.” 

The post Solar panels and inverters appeared first on EMFSA.

Abstract

Electricity, the interaction between electrically charged objects, is widely known to be fundamental to the functioning of living systems. However, this appreciation has largely been restricted to the scale of atoms, molecules, and cells. By contrast, the role of electricity at the ecological scale has historically been largely neglected, characterised by punctuated islands of research infrequently connected to one another. Recently, however, an understanding of the ubiquity of electrical forces within the natural environment has begun to grow, along with a realisation of the multitude of ecological interactions that these forces may influence. Herein, we provide the first comprehensive collation and synthesis of research in this emerging field of electric ecology. This includes assessments of the role electricity plays in the natural ecology of predator-prey interactions, pollination, and animal dispersal, among many others, as well as the impact of anthropogenic activity on these systems. A detailed introduction to the ecology and physiology of electroreception – the biological detection of ecologically relevant electric fields – is also provided. Further to this, we suggest avenues for future research that show particular promise, most notably those investigating the recently discovered sense of aerial electroreception.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34643022/

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01-Aug-2021

As 5G developers look desperately for a “killer app” to prove the usefulness of the superfast wireless technology, mobile carriers in China are complaining about the high energy cost of 5G signal towers.

And the situation is, according to experts, more complicated than many have thought.

The costly 5G

5G technology can be 10 or more times faster than 4G and significantly more responsive to users’ input, but the speed comes at a cost.

A 5G base station consumes “four times more electricity” than its 4G counterpart, said Ding Haiyu, head of wireless and terminals at the China Mobile Research Institute, during a symposium on 5G and carbon neutrality in Beijing.

But concerning each bit of data transmitted, 5G is four times more energy-efficient than 4G, according to Ding.

This means that mobile carriers should fully occupy their 5G network for as long time as possible, but that can be hard at this moment, as many people are still holding 4G smartphones.

“When the 5G stations are running without people using them, they are really electricity guzzlers,” said Zhu Qingfeng, head of power supply design at China Information Technology Designing and Consulting Institute Co., Ltd., who represents China Unicom at the symposium. “Each of the three telecom carrier giants are emitting about ten million tonnes of carbon in the air.”

“We have to shut down some 5G base stations at night to reduce emission,” he added.

Read more at https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-08-01/Is-5G-a-waste-of-electricity-Experts-say-it-s-complicated-12lTM5o5r6E/index.html

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April 29, 2021

Article by Ellen Fungisai Chipango

Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Johannesburg

Zimbabwe is one of the African countries that hopes renewable energy technologies will help to address their energy problems. About 42% of Zimbabwe’s households are connected to the electricity grid.

The country has huge and diverse renewable energy potential. Its sustainable energy portfolio could include solar, hydro, biomass and, to a limited extent, wind and geothermal. Zimbabwe put forward a National Renewable Energy Policy in 2019. The policy aims to have 16.5% of the total generation capacity (excluding large hydro) from renewable sources by 2025. This increases to 26.5% by 2030. These are among the goals it has presented to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and they are promoted in its climate policy.

For policy makers, non-governmental organisations, the private sector and some researchers, it’s a given that renewable energy technologies are the answer. They could meet Zimbabwe’s growing energy demand and achieve universal access sustainably. At face value this is appealing – but the devil is in the details.

My research looked into how renewable energy technologies are understood and how they could alleviate energy poverty in Zimbabwe.

I found that they’re only one piece of the puzzle and other pieces are habitually missing. No matter how well designed and efficient technologies are, their effectiveness is linked to the country’s political economy.

Socio-economic and political factors keep conventional energy out of reach of the poor. My study shows that they can do the same with renewable energy. These factors may even worsen inequality. Adding renewable energy technologies into the existing energy sector structures is like pouring new wine into old wine skins.

The research

I analysed how policy makers and implementers have highlighted some aspects of energy poverty rather than others. This has led to renewable energy being touted as an antidote to energy poverty.

From the data, the following political and economic factors emerged. They explain why renewable energy isn’t a magic bullet for energy poverty:

The politics of energy and technological dependency: China has become a source of finance for large-scale energy projects in Zimbabwe. This is true for both coal-based and renewable energy generation.

Read more at https://theconversation.com/why-renewable-energy-wont-end-energy-poverty-in-zimbabwe-159008

The post Why renewable energy won’t end energy poverty in Zimbabwe appeared first on EMFSA.

Abstract

Energy poverty is well acknowledged in the global public and scholarly discussions. Nonetheless, it is habitually analysed in isolation from the discourse through which it is framed, produced, represented and known. Using Zimbabwe as a case study, inductive qualitative research reveals that there is one main discourse associated with energy poverty: net deficit (supply–demand mismatch). This discourse is expressed by narratives that have competed for dominance in the Zimbabwean energy sector (2012-present), in particular, the effect of changes in the climate, vandalism of electricity infrastructure, the impact of sanctions, and the low rate of renewable energy adoption, are analysed. Findings reveal that these narratives construct and interpret energy poverty as an outcome of external factors, while alternative views are scarcely considered due to asymmetrical power relations. The paper concludes that energy poverty cannot be understood outside of the political-economic discourse that constructs and interprets it. Hence, a discursive approach to energy poverty is apt for informing a well-balanced energy policy and practice.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629621001195?via%3Dihub

The post Constructing, understanding and interpreting energy poverty in Zimbabwe: A postmodern perspective appeared first on EMFSA.

April 9, 2021

Authors

Elena Gaura

Associate Dean for Research, Coventry University

James Peter Brusey

Professor of Computer Science, Coventry University

At the height of his career, the pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla became obsessed with an idea. He theorised that electricity could be transmitted wirelessly through the air at long distances – either via a series of strategically positioned towers, or hopping across a system of suspended balloons.

Things didn’t go to plan, and Tesla’s ambitions for a wireless global electricity supply were never realised. But the theory itself wasn’t disproved: it would have simply required an extraordinary amount of power, much of which would have been wasted.

Now, a research paper has suggested that the architects of the 5G network may have unwittingly built what Tesla failed to construct at the turn of the twentieth century: a “wireless power grid” that could be adapted to charge or power small devices embedded in cars, homes, workplaces and factories.

Because 5G relies upon a dense network of masts and a powerful series of antenna, it’s possible that the same infrastructure, with some tweaks, could beam power to small devices. But the transmission will still suffer from the key drawback of Tesla’s towers: high energy wastage, which may be difficult to justify given the urgency of the climate crisis.

Extract

At present, the proposed system is rather reminiscent of the fictional “Wonkavision” in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which achieved the feat of beaming confectionary into TVs – but had to use a huge block of chocolate to produce a much smaller one at the other end.

Because it’ll consume a high amount of power compared to the power it’ll deliver to devices, 5G wireless power is, for the moment, speculative. But if engineers can find more efficient ways to beam electricity through the air, it may well be that Nikola Tesla’s dream of wireless power could be realised – over 100 years since his attempts failed.

Read more at: https://theconversation.com/nikola-tesla-5g-network-could-realise-his-dream-of-wireless-electricity-a-century-after-experiments-failed-158665

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Karpowership, a unit of the Turkish Karadeniz Energy Group, is on track for its longest contract to date to supply power from vessels to South Africa in a deal worth as much as R218 billion ($15 billion).

The company that advertises a “fast, flexible, reliable” solution of floating electricity generation was named last week as a preferred bidder for three projects fueled by liquefied natural gas to provide 1,220 megawatts of electricity.

The program is aimed at closing a supply gap in South Africa that’s resulting in periodic blackouts.

The 20-year deal will cost as much as R10.9 billion annually, according to a presentation by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, a state institution.

The estimate is based on the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s evaluation price of the bids. It didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.

The award adds a significant amount of generation capacity from fossil fuels for two more decades as South Africa plans a move away from coal that dominates its current power supply and has made it the world’s 12th biggest source of greenhouse gases.

Other, smaller, projects chosen use a mix of solar and wind with batteries and LNG.

“Power ships have proven effective at providing fast-response, emergency electricity — hence the maximum 10-year tenor for past contracts,” said Antoine Vagneur-Jones, an analyst at BNEF’s energy transition policy team for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

“That the South African government would procure one for 20 years speaks to the depths of the country’s power crisis, and questionable long-term planning in light of dropping renewables costs.”

The post South Africa will pay R218 billion for electricity from powerships – CSIR appeared first on EMFSA.

By Valentina Pop, Sha Hua and Daniel Michaels Feb. 7

Nearly every product in American homes, from lightbulbs to couches, windows and Wi-Fi routers, conforms to standards and measurements of a global system established to ensure quality and seamless operation.

Industrial standards, created by the U.S. and its allies over decades, form an invisible matrix of rules that underpin the global marketplace. Mundane though it may sound, this uniformity is critical to international trade in how it guarantees that bolts, USB plugs and shipping containers can all be used interchangeably world-wide. The standards reflect the consensus of international panels long dominated by Western technical experts.

China now wants to take the lead in fields of the future. To the consternation of many Western countries, Beijing is employing state funding and political influence to try to define the norms for all manner of cutting-edge technologies that span telecommunications, electricity transmission and artificial intelligence.

“Dominance of technical standards underpinning information and communications technologies and other emerging fields is integral to Beijing’s ambitions,” said Congress’s U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in its annual report in December.

Read more at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/from-lightbulbs-to-5g-china-battles-west-for-control-of-vital-technology-standards-11612722698

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South Africa could be stuck with load-shedding until at least 2025 due to Eskom’s continued problems with generation capacity and inability to properly maintain its infrastructure.

This is according to energy expert Ted Blom, who told MyBroadband that he concurs with the recent findings published by the CSIR regarding the outlook for the power utility.

The CSIR recently published a presentation which said South Africans should not only expect load-shedding to continue over the next three years but added that it is expected to get significantly worse.

Read more at: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/364212-eskom-load-shedding-here-to-stay-for-the-next-5-years-expert.html?utm_source=newsletter

Added note by EMFSA:

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