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 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]
Interactive: New York's Roofscape Gets Climate Makeover
Most visitors to New York City crane their necks for a view of the city's famous skyline, but locals know better: To get the best views, you have to go up. Here's your chance to take a rare—and vivid—journey atop a few of the city's billion square feet of rooftops. As the Big Apple faces ever-hotter summers, officials are looking for ways to cool off in some of the only unused space left in a crowded city: rooftops. Fertile vegetated "green" roofs absorb the sun's rays, while reflective "white" roofs bounce them back to space. Both are sprouting up in response to a 2008 city rule that requires new roofs to be climate friendly. Climate Desk strapped on hardhats, jumped into elevators, and scaled ladders to see firsthand how the roofscape of New York is adapting to face a changing climate.
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Green Roofs: An Introduction with Pretty Pictures
It's not just for hobbits anymore. The logic of green roofs is becoming more apparent. We can minimize our bills while maximizing the beauty of the urban landscape. And every day it's becoming a little easier to live in a house that just happens to have plants growing on it. Vegetated roofs, or green roofs have a layer of living plants on top of the structure and the waterproofing elements. Intensive green roofs often have a soil depth of a foot or more, and require substantial structural elements to support the weight of the whole roof. Extensive roofs are much shallower, typically only 2 to 4 inches deep, and are planted with particularly hardy plants. Why are green roofs such a great idea? Green roofs also protect the roof membrane from sunlight, which breaks down the roofing material. Green roofs keep the roof cooler, which helps to reduce the heat-island effect, which contributes to cities being hotter than the surrounding countryside. What is a green roof made of? Image Key: 1.
Smog-eating tiles gobble up air pollution
U.S. company Boral Roofing has introduced a line of roof tiles that it says have pollution-busting properties. The company says chemicals in its smog-eating tiles react with nitrogen oxides released by vehicles, extracting them from the air and cleaning up the atmosphere, as this cartoon shows. The tiles are coated with titanium dioxide, a photocatalyst, activated by daylight, which reacts with nitrogen oxides in the air turning them into harmless calcium nitrates, as this cartoon shows. When it rains the calcium nitrate -- a regular garden fertilizer -- is washes off the roof, as this cartoon shows. Los Angeles has the highest levels of ozone pollution of any U.S. city, according to 2012 rankings by the American Lung Association. The downtown skyline of Los Angeles is enveloped in smog shortly before sunset. Los Angeles' high levels of ozone pollution and smog come from heavy road traffic and very busy trade ports. Smog-eating tiles Cleaning up the air Harmful to helpful Garden fertilizer
ACROS Fukuoka – That’s What We Call a Green Roof
EmailEmail Built on the last remaining green space in the city center, ACROS Fukuoka (Asian Crossroads Over the Sea) is an amazing building in Fukuoka City, Japan. It got our attention because it preserves the green space as much as possible, thanks to its stunning design. On one side it has glass walls and looks just like a conventional office building that looks onto the most important financial street of Fukuoka, while the other side is an enormous green roof (a garden roof) with some 35,000 plants that step down floor-by-floor, in a stratification of low, landscaped terraces into a park. Argentinian architects Emilio Ambasz & Associates are those with the vision, the looks and actually the whole idea. Reaching up to 60 meters above the ground, the green roof is responsible to keeping the whole building at lower and constant temperature levels, which will obviously lead to less power consumption.
