Characterization of the Wind Power Resource in Europe and its Intermittency

Wind power is assessed over Europe, with special attention given to the quantification of intermittency. Using the methodology developed in Gunturu and Schlosser (2011), the MERRA boundary flux data was used to compute wind power density profiles over Europe. Besides of the analysis of capacity factor, other metrics are presented to further quantify the availability and reliability of this resource and the extent to which wind-power intermittency is coincident across Europe. The analyses find that, consistent with previous studies, the majority of European wind power resources are located offshore. The largest wind power resources at onshore locations are found to be over Iceland, the United Kingdom, and along the northern coastlines of continental Europe. Other isolated pockets of higher wind power are found over Spain and along the Mediterranean coast of France. Overall, the availability of onshore wind power is low and is highly intermittent, while offshore locations show a high degree of persistence. However, for the strongest onshore locations of wind power—primarily over northern coastlines as well as the United Kingdom and Iceland—the evidence indicates that intermittency can be reduced by aggregation and interconnection of wind-power installations.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this work provided by the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change through a consortium of industrial sponsors and Federal grants, including U.S. Department of Energy grant DE-FG02-94ER61937. In addition, the authors would like to thank Mr. Hervé Le Treut and Prof. Ronald G. Prinn, who have given the opportunity to Alexandra Cosseron, French graduate student from Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines de Paris, to join the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change for this work

Adsorption of volatile organic compounds in pure silica CHA, ⁄BEA, MFI and STT-type zeolites

International audienceFour pure silica zeolites, chabazite (CHA-structure type) and SSZ-23 (STT-structure type) with cage-like structure and silicalite-1 (MFI-structure type) and beta (⁄BEA-structure type) with channel structure, were synthesized and fully characterized. Their sorption properties were examined using gravimetric method combined with Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulations (GCMC). Of particular interest is the large difference in the adsorption rates of n-hexane, p-xylene and acetone observed for these zeosils at 25, 75 and 150 C. As expected, in most cases, a decrease in the adsorption capacity is observed with increasing the molar volume of the used probe molecule and the temperature. An exception is observed for the pure silica CHA-type zeolite due to its small pore size which prevents molecules from entering its porosity. However, at higher temperature, the window size widens slightly and allows n-hexane and acetone, which have kinetic diameter close to the pore opening, to enter easily in chabazite. As a result, for this zeosil, an increase in the adsorption capacity compared to that obtained at 25 C is observed. All these zeosils are promising for technological uses in car exhaust gas decontamination