Bangkok--19 Mar--Image ImpactProgram Title: Modern Marvels: Renewable EnergyChannel: The History ChannelTelecast date: Thursday, March 20, 2008Telecast Time: 7.00 p.m. (Thai)Duration: 1 hour In the young 21st Century, two realizations are dawning on the world's population: 1. We are hopelessly dependent on petroleum, which is only going to get more expensive, and 2. Global warming, caused mainly by our burning of fossil fuels, will impact civilization in ways that we're only beginning to grasp. Stepping in to fight both of these massive problems: the rapidly evolving technologies that harness renewable energy. On Modern Marvels: Renewable Energy, we will see how air, water, earth, and fire are transformed into clean, reliable sources of heat, electricity and even automobile fuel. We'll take an in-depth look at the most proven and reliable sources: solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, and tidal power. We'll begin at Federal Express' busy West Coast hub in Oakland, California. This 350,000 square-foot facility handles 260,000 packages on a typical day. And it gets 80% of its electricity directly from the sun, thanks to the 81,000 square feet of solar panels on its otherwise unused rooftop. The Fed Ex hub illustrates the benefits of solar energy: after a few years, the system will have paid for itself, providing free (and clean) energy for years to come. And the next time California's unpredictable power grid goes down, the Fed Ex facility will keep on going. Solar panels that convert the sun's light into electricity use photovoltaic cells, which are built of thin layers of semi-conducting material, such as silicon. When the silicon absorbs the sun's light, its extra electrons are knocked loose, creating a flow of electrons that's picked up by metal conductors and used as electricity. We'll also visit a high-tech facility that uses solar thermal technology. Out in California's Mojave desert, we'll see how a network of powerful solar reflectors, called parabolic troughs, focus the sun's heat to the point at which it can boil liquid. The steam from the liquid turns turbines, just like any other power plant. Amazingly, these high-tech mirrors generate enough electricity to power 100,000 homes. From the blazing Mojave Desert, we go to the windswept foothills of the nearby Tehachapi range, where wind power, the fastest-growing segment of the renewable energy market got its start. Up here, we'll see hundreds of giant wind turbines, some as tall as 500 feet, converting wind into electricity. These turbines are linked together to form the nation's most powerful "wind farm," producing enough electricity to power 620,000 homes. We'll see how the blustery alley between the Texas panhandle and North Dakota has enough potential wind energy to power the entire U.S. electrical grid. Europe is already a major wind user. Denmark will soon be getting 20% of its electricity from wind, with many other European nations not far behind. Iceland, meanwhile, is the world's foremost user of geothermal energy. Geothermal energy exists in the form of steam and hot water under the earth's surface, especially in volcanically active regions. Icelandic geothermal plants pump up to hundreds of gallons per second, to provide heat and hot water to the entire island nation. These power plants also use the steam to turn turbines, providing close to 20% of the country's electricity. Geothermal energy has the potential to provide 17% of the world's electricity needs. We'll look at the most promising and creative ways to power automobiles using renewable energy: from a mechanic who will convert your car to run on used vegetable oil… to the high-performance fuel known as ethanol (alcohol that's been distilled from plant sugar)… to the new plug-in hybrids, which get over 100 miles to the gallon thanks to a second battery that can be powered by renewable sources such as wind or solar. It's a mad race to see which technology can best replace the old dinosaur known as gasoline. (We'll also survey the surprising history of biodiesel, ethanol and electric cars, which goes back to early 1900's). Finally we'll look at the sleeping giant of renewable energy: the ocean. Just as hydroelectric dams were the great renewable energy source of the 20th Cenury, tidal power, wave power, and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) may prove to be the 21st Century's great untapped resource. Tidal and wave power convert the ocean's kinetic energy into electricity with turbines, while OTEC relies on a "heat engine" created by the vast temperature difference between warm surface water and cold deep water. From the experimental to the tried-and-true, renewable energy sources are overflowing with potential… just waiting to be exploited on a massive scale. And unlike fossil fuels, they'll always be there.