Japanese breakthrough will make wind power cheaper than nuclear. NOTE: Some major wind projects like the proposed TWE Carbon Valley project in Wyoming are already pricing in significantly lower than coal power -- $80 per MWh for wind versus $90 per MWh for coal -- and that is without government subsidies using today's wind turbine technology. The International Clean Energy Analysis (ICEA) gateway estimates that the U.S. possesses 2.2 million km2 of high wind potential (Class 3-7 winds) — about 850,000 square miles of land that could yield high levels of wind energy. This makes the U.S. something of a Saudi Arabia for wind energy, ranked third in the world for total wind energy potential.
The United States uses about 26.6 billion MWh's, so at the above rate we could satisfy a full one-third of our total annual energy needs. Now what if a breakthrough came along that potentially tripled the energy output of those turbines? You see where I'm going. Well, such a breakthrough has been made, and it's called the "wind lens. " Editor's note: Want more info? Think Big! Arizona Solar Tower 2X Taller Than the Empire State Building Will Produce 200 Megawatts.
Image: Enviromission 2625 Feet Tall! Solar towers, which are kind of big funnels that generate electricity by using the fact that hot air rises, are too often forgotten when we discuss solar energy. Solar PV and CSP get all the press, but solar towers have attractive power-generating characteristics and I wish more companies were working on perfecting them. EnviroMission is an Australian company working on that very thing, and they've announced that they want to build a gigantic 2625 feet/800 meters solar tower in the Arizona desert that would produce about 200 MW, enough to power 150,000 US homes.
Read on for a video, more photos, and more details. How a Solar Tower Works There are 3 main components. -The Tower The Tower is the thermal engine of the Solar Tower technology. -The Canopy The canopy converts a large percentage of the insulation into heat, which in turn, heats the air trapped under the canopy roof or is stored in the ground soil thermal storage system. -The Turbines. Completely Off The Grid. Mike Strizki says he’s figured out how to store solar energy in a way that could provide the world with an infinite source of year-round, emissions-free power, but also says no one is listening to him.
For more news and information on the rapidly evolving energy industry, please sign up for the Breaking Energy newsletter. For the quickest updates, follow us on Twitter @AOLEnergy. At his house in the woods of western New Jersey, the civil engineer turned green energy evangelist uses fuel cells to convert the power generated by about 150 solar panels so that it can be stored in 11 hydrogen tanks about 100 yards from the house. For eight or nine months of the year, the photovoltaic cells mounted on Strizki’s workshop roof and scattered around his yard generate more than enough electricity for a full range of domestic appliances including energy-guzzlers like a hot tub and a big-screen TV in his white-sided suburban home. A Dream No More Government Support Fades The Inevitable Question. Solar goes Hyper in the U.S.
As the U.S. government continues to heap billions in subsidies to the world's wealthiest coal and oil companies, the solar industry has been struggling to make it in the United States. This is sad for many reasons, not the least of which is that we're missing out on one of the biggest growth industries in the world. Currently there are 16 gigawatts of installed solar power globally.
That number will grow to about 1,800 gigawatts in the next 20 years, making it one of the best job creators. U.S. engineers invented the solar panel, and the U.S. should be dominating that market. Instead, foreign manufacturers (particularly in China) have taken our IP and run with it, as we become increasingly dependent on foreign oil and dirty coal operations to meet our power needs.
Fortunately HyperSolar, a new U.S. company, offers a ray of sunny hope on the clean energy frontier. The company does not manufacture solar panels. Innovations like this make several recent reports ring true. Inkjet printing could change the face of solar energy industry. What if solar got fossil fuel subsidies? Chaîne de Sub4SubRob
Hot solar cells are the cool way to water and power - tech - 14 April 2011. PUMPING water through micro-channels on the surface of a solar panel not only makes it more efficient but can also make seawater drinkable. Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) cells use lenses to focus large areas of solar energy onto a relatively small section of photovoltaic material, so it is not surprising that they can reach temperatures of 120 °C. These high temperatures make the cells less efficient, reducing the amount of electricity they can produce. That is why keeping them cool is so important, says Bruno Michel, head of advanced thermal packaging at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory in Switzerland.
So with this in mind IBM has developed the "ultra-high concentrated PV", a hybrid solar panel that incorporates technology originally developed to help cool computer chips. The idea is to use water-filled microchannels to cool the cell - the hot water would then be used in desalination. One method of desalination uses hot water to distil seawater, evaporating it to remove the salt. Stuff to Read - [R] Plotting multiple columns on same graph. Future Homes. Turn Steel Into Solar Panels With Photovoltaic Spray Paint. No, it's not a joke or a crazy awesome futuristic concept . It's real. Tata Steel Europe (formerly Corus) and Swansea University in Wales, UK are collaborating to develop a spray-on technology that would transform steel sheets into solar panels.
Earth and Industry says , The technology has significant applications since it is highly efficient even in diffused sunlight. Therefore, countries at higher latitudes or those with limited solar energy resource can generate significant amounts of solar-powered electricity with going for large-scale power plants. If extended, the technology can find its way to the automobile industry where photo-sensitive dyes can be applied to cars to generate electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for fuel cells. Tata recently invested in an American company, Sun Catalytix, which integrates low-cost catalyst with solar-powered fuel cells to generate power.
Imagine the applications of such a product. The power options could be limitless. Scientists Develop Affordable Solar Panels That Work In The Dark. It's about damn time, don't you think? Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced Wednesday that they have been able to confirm a new high-efficiency solar cell design that utilizes nearly the entire solar spectrum.
Translation: They figured out a way to make solar panels generate electricity in the dark. CleanTechnica says , In earlier trials, the researchers used different alloys that achieved full spectrum responses but involved very high production costs. The advantage of gallium arsenide nitride is that it is very similar to a conventional semiconductor, gallium arsenide, and it can be produced with a commonly used fabrication method involving chemical vapor deposition.
The Lawrence Berkeley breakthrough represents just one path to increasing the efficiency and lowering the cost of solar cells. In the meantime, you could just turn any metal surface into solar panels with photovoltaic spray paint . [Photo: Norby /Flickr] DIY Skylights From Used Water Bottles Replace 50-Watt Bulbs. Image via YouTube video An ingenious invention by an engineer in Brazil has made an enormous difference in his town. Simply placing a bottle of water in a hole in the ceiling can light up a room with the same brightness as a 50-watt light bulb! Residents have better lighting and are using less electricity. Check out how it works in the video. >> WATCH SLIDESHOW: 13 Really Cool Lighting Ideas (Slideshow) I think the part that made it most convincing was the bucket comparison -- when they took the buckets off the bottles to show what a difference they make in lighting the room, my jaw dropped open.
While it's obvious that these only work for certain types of structures, and only provide extra light when the sun is out, it shows that you don't have to construct a complex skylight in your roof to get some daylight into your home. And to hear that the bottles are lasting years without needing any maintenance at all is exciting. What a great bottle-reuse-zero-electricity idea! SOLAR IMPULSE - AROUND THE WORLD IN A SOLAR AIRPLANE. Climate Classroom.
Ma Maison Durable - Le blog de batiproduitsmaison - Mozilla Fire. Hydrogen Combustion. Solar Tower. Arcosanti. Coordinates: Arcosanti is an experimental town and molten bronze bell casting community that has been developed by the Italian-American architect, Paolo Soleri, who began construction in 1970 in central Arizona, 70 mi (110 km) north of Phoenix, at an elevation of 3,732 feet (1,130 meters). Using a concept he called arcology, he started the town to demonstrate how urban conditions could be improved while minimizing the destructive impact on the earth. He taught and influenced generations of architects and urban designers who studied and worked with him there to build the town. Overview[edit] The goal of Arcosanti is to explore the concept of arcology, which combines architecture and ecology. An Arcosanti apse Construction broke ground at the site in 1970, and has continued at a varying pace through the present. Many features are particular to the design and construction of Arcosanti.
Visitors' center and residence The Arcosanti site has a camp area built for the original construction crew. Saul Griffith's kites tap wind energy. One Per Cent: Green Machine: solar street lamp feeds energy to the grid. Helen Knight, technology reporter (Image: Adam Mørk/SunMast) The humble street light is joining the ranks of wind turbines and solar power plants in supplying renewable energy to the electricity grid. A street lamp covered in photovoltaic cells, which can generate more energy from sunlight than it consumes to light the street, is being tested in the UK.
And the lamp is already supplying electricity to the National Grid. The SunMast, developed by Scotia, based in Aarhus, Denmark, generates electricity from sunlight during the day, which it supplies to the grid. If the trial in South Mimms in the UK is successful, the lamps could reduce the emissions produced by streetlights by 120 per cent, the company claims. The photovoltaic solar cells, which are designed to generate electricity even on cloudy days, are fitted down the length of the mast, to increase their surface area.
Cheaper, Spray-On Solar Panels Could Appear in Three Years | Business. AUSTIN, TX — Researchers at the University of Texas have developed a method to create photovoltaic panels at one-tenth the cost of existing technologies using nanoparticle "inks" to generate electricity from the sun. The group, lead by Brian Korgel in the University's chemical engineering department, predicts that the technology, which would allow solar panels to be painted on rooftops or the sides of buildings, could be market-ready in three to five years. "The sun provides a nearly unlimited energy resource," Korgel said in a statement, "but existing solar energy harvesting technologies are prohibitively expensive and cannot compete with fossil fuels. " The technology has been in development for the past two years, with Korgel collaborating with professors Al Bard and Paul Barbara, both of the University of Texas's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Professor Ananth Dodabalapur of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.
Men: Pee And Wash In The Same Fixture! Lenny Bruce would have had such fun with this, but this just makes so much sense, a sink built on top of a urinal! And designer Yeongwoo Kim has made it look good, too. The theoretical sequence is that you use the urinal, then wash your hands and the washwater rinses the urinal, saving water. Since of course, everybody washes their hands after peeing, right? It makes even more sense in multiple units in mens rooms, saving both space and water. According to Yanko, it is a iF Concept Design 2010 winning entry. The designer writes on his website: To save water, Eco Urinal is designed to use the water that was used for washing hands to flush the urine.
This in some ways makes more sense than a waterless toilet and probably saves as much water. More on urinals:No Splash, No Flush Urinals from KohlerWaterless Urinals Introduced for Home UseUrinals Disguised as Trash Cans: Everyday Objects vs Anti-Social BehaviorPee in Style and Save WaterPopup Pissoir Solves Wee Problem. Pond-Powered Biofuels: Turning Algae into America's New Energy. Just three years ago, Colorado-based inventor Jim Sears shuttered himself in his garage and began tinkering with a design to mass-produce biofuel. His reactor (plastic bags) and his feedstock (algae) may have struck soybean farmers as a laughable gamble. But the experiment worked, and today, Sears' company, Solix Biofuels in Fort Collins, is among several startups betting their futures on the photosynthetic powers of unicellular green goo.
The science is simple: Algae need water, sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow. The oil they produce can then be harvested and converted into biodiesel; the algae's carbohydrate content can be fermented into ethanol. The reality is more complex. Solix addresses these problems by containing the algae in closed "photobioreactors"—triangular chambers made from sheets of polyethylene plastic (similar to a painter's dropcloth)—and bubbling supplemental carbon dioxide through the system. Given the right conditions, algae can double its volume overnight. Some Earthy Figures and Facts About Solar Energy You Have to Know - Phoebe-Elle's blog. Want more facts about solar energy? The best thing about it is that there are no rising and annoying importation costs of gas, oil or coal, which are by the way, increasing almost half the time. For more earthy figures and facts about solar energy, here they are: * In 2004, the solar cells' global production magnified by 60%.
Nevertheless, these cells' materials are made of silicon which has been short in supply since then and has impeded production. * By the end of 2005, the installed solar panels' total worldwide peak power was about 5,300 MW. * The energy production of a 1 kilowatt solar energy unit is more or less equivalent to the 300 pounds of carbon dioxide being discharged into the earth's atmosphere and also equivalent to the burning of 170 pounds of coal. * In the current years, production costs of photovoltaic cells has considerably reduced by 3-5% per annum whilst government subsidies have grown.
The facts about solar energy, nevertheless, are not only about technology per se. Algae. Biodiesel. Turbine Manufacturers. Magenn Power Inc. Wind news. BioPower Systems – Wave and Tidal Energy. Hydrogen produced by earth friendly WINDHUNTER Maritime Hydrogen Generation System - Alternative Energy That Works.
Solar Forest Keeps Cars Cool And Juiced. Super Cheap Solar Cells Just Got Cheaper, Switch Gold For Nickel. One of the major drawbacks of most renewable energy sources is high cost. In order to see a huge rise in the use of renewable energy sources, prices must come down. In the world of solar there have recently been some major breakthroughs in cost advantages and efficiency increases. Scientists at the University of Toronto in Canada have come up with a way to reduce colloidal quantum dot solar cell prices by up to 80%, by swapping out costly conductive gold for cheap nickel. Quantum dot solar cells consist of a silicon substrate that has a thin film coating of nanocrystals — or quantum dots. Gold was previously used as the conductive material in the cells and when scientists tried to switch the gold out for nickel the nickel formed new particles with the quantum dots that weren’t able to capture energy. Via Science Daily. MIT researchers create super efficient 'origami' solar panels.