Can anyone give me any advice on an engineering career in renewable energy?

Any information or links on careers available, or degrees/universities would be greatly appreciated, because I'm totally lost! (I live in the UK if that helps, but hope to emigrate to USA/Canada/Australia and don't mind which country I study in?)


Thank you so much for any help!!Can anyone give me any advice on an engineering career in renewable energy?
If you believe in something, go for-it.


I don鈥檛 think it is fair to say that it is a bad idea, some countries politicians are more pro than others.


Personal conviction is one thing, politics is another ball of wax altogether.


As to what is available in jobs today may have nothing to do with what will be available tomorrow.


Me, I am in electronics, I think lawyers make a whole lot more money than us, but (in general) electronic engineers are much happier campers!


It is normal that we feel lost throughout our life about different situations.


Don鈥檛 worry too much; it will all come together sometime.Can anyone give me any advice on an engineering career in renewable energy?
This is not a very good idea. A lot of renewable energy research is not cost effective, and is being quietly shut down. For example, Obama has already shut down most hydrogen economy development.


http://www.planetforlife.com/h2/index.ht鈥?/a>


If you count nuclear energy as renewable, there are good careers to be had in that field. In order to be truly renewable we need fast breeder reactors, but even without these nuclear energy is a growth industry.
Get a degree in Environmental Engineering...research colleges with this degree choice.
I would be very concerned with whether a particular technology, no matter how politically favored, makes any sense.


For example, corn ethanol as made in the USA is more about buying farm state votes; it produces at most a very little net energy [the distillation energy is a killer]. Biodiesel makes vastly more sense, but Congress followed the money, not the BTUs.





You could also get shafted if you went into, say, windmills, and Congress [or Parliment] had very generous tax credits, then later slashed them so the technology was no longer cost effective, or seriously less so. Then there would be a savage shakeout in the industry, lots of plants closing and people unemployed. Any time your career depends on what specific rules come out of the politicians, and where those rules changing can do you in, well, go into that field only if you have a strong stomach lining and no family history of depression. Talk to anyone who worked in aerospace in the later '70s....





Another example of a politically favored but technologically ridiculous idea is hydrogen. Load of garbage. Been seeing it talked up since I was in college, and it hasn't yet made it, and I don't think ever will [well, maybe after we have working fusion plants]. Yes, hydrogen *can* be made by electrolysis. But where do you get the electricity ? Steam boiler ? Efficiency of maybe 40%.


Most hydrogen is made from petroleum or natural gas, losing some 60% of the energy content while doing so. And emitting lots of CO2.


Yeah, when you burn hydrogen, the only product is water, but in making the hydrogen there is pollution....


Not to mention that the gas tank on a car is much lighter than the gasoline it contains. THat is very definitely not the case for hydrogen storage !!!! There the tank greatly outweighs the hydrogen, and hauling heavy tankage around gobbles energy.


Hydrogen is the leakiest gas there is. I ran part of a high pressure lab where we did a lot of 15,000 psi work. You could have a setup that would hold CO or Ar just fine that would leak like a bastard with H2. So all the claims that hydrogen could be distributed through existing natural gas lines, many of which are *polyethylene* are ridiculous. Yes, it *could* be transferred that way, but not anywhere near me if you please !


As an exercise for the student, look up hydrogen embrittlement of metals, particularly some steels.


Besides which, you will get nowhere near as many pounds per hour through the pipe, and hydrogen has less energy per pound than does methane.


Another kink with hydrogen is that its Joule Thompson Inversion Temperature is below room temperature. Below the JTIT a gas cools on being adiabatically expanded [ie, letting it escape from high pressure], but above the JTIT it HEATS UP ! Ideal gases have no JTIT, but we have to deal with REAL gases in the real world which engineers, though not politicians, inhabit.


Hydrogen leaking from 5,000 psi to atmospheric will actually heat enough to reach its autoignition temperature. We could always tell when it was a hydrogen rupture disc that blew because the paper tag we had hung on the disc holder [to show the disc pressure rating] would be on fire.


Ammonia plants have a lot of really high pressure [15,000 psi on up] hydrogen in their piping, and a hydrogen flame is nearly invisible in any decent light. So to find leaks the operators walk along holding a straw broom against the piping. When the broom bursts into flames they have found the leak....





Now, did the popular press mention any of the above ? Nooooo. So let yourself be guided by the technical press; the popular press is usually gosh-wow cr@p written by people who do not understand what they are writing about, who usually have some personal spin they are throwing on it, and are usually unable to tell when their sources are spinning or lying. Cold fusion or polywater ring any bells ?





The above rant aside, though, I can see how renewable energy COULD have a bright future. It could also be utterly and completely screwed up by the politicians who want to run everything and play their little industrial policy games.


And if you think politicians never screw up, just look at the banking system....


The field might also be subject to some very disruptive technologies out of biotechnology. It would be ugly if you became an expert on biodiesel and then Monsanto or someone came out with some plant that had berries filled with pure iso octane....








Since your college tuition in the UK is free, I'd say stay there and get as much free schooling as you can. No point racking up a quarter million $ or more in debt. You could do a PHD at an American university later if you wanted.