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. The technology has significant applications since it is highly efficient even in diffused sunlight. 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. Imagine the applications of such a product. The power options could be limitless. And if you think the spray-on solar technology is years away from reality, think again. The technology gains significance because the process of 'printing' these dyes on the steel sheets has already been mastered by Tata's European subsidiary Corus which is working on a new plant for the production of these steel sheets. [Photo: Jaredmoo /Flickr]
Clean, cheap hydrogen production from water using cobalt catalyst For years, proponents of the hydrogen economy have argued that hydrogen will replace traditional hydrocarbon fuels for transportation purposes. But, so far, a lack of new, inexpensive methods for hydrogen production and storage has impeded this goal. Over the last several years, an MIT professor has been pushing cobalt catalysts as a cheap replacement for the expensive metals typically used to split water. A paper in this week's Proceedings of the National Academies of Science describes the latest progress here: integrating the cobalt catalyst with a silicon solar cell to create a device that uses the sun to split water. Hydrogen is a desirable fuel, because when it is burned or otherwise consumed (as in a fuel cell), it only produces water, although combustion results in small amounts of nitrogen oxides as by-products.
Le classement 2011 des entreprises françaises ayant le meilleur bilan carbone selon l'ONG Environmental investment organisation Qu'ont en commun Axa, Crédit Agricole et l'Oréal ? Voilà, parmi les fleurons le tiercé gagnant "vertes" des entreprises françaises. C'est du moins ce qu'indique le tout nouveau classement des bilans carbones des 300 plus grandes entreprises européennes publié ce mardi par Environmental investment organisation (EIO), institut de recherche britannique spécialisée dans les investissements verts. Respectivement 4e, 12e et 16e du classement européen effectué par EIO, l'assureur, la banque et le fabricant de cosmétiques seraient, en France, les compagnies qui émettent le moins de carbone par rapport à leur chiffre d'affaire. Accor, la moins pollueuse des entreprises de service européennes Des entreprises opérant dans des secteurs réputés polluants sont relativement bien classées. En Europe, c'est l'assureur Aviva, en Grande Bretagne, qui émettrait le moins de carbone.
Magenn Power Inc. AquaSun Floating Solar Panels To Be Deployed In France Solar panels take up a lot of space, but Israeli company Solaris Synergy (working with French EDF Group) have found a solution: placing floating solar panels on inland bodies of water. The project, called AquaSun, would not only see the panels placed on lakes and reservoirs, but the panles would use the water as a cooling system. AquaSun’s panels are made from silicon cells, which may be cheap but are also prone to inefficiency caused by overheating. Now we know what you’re thinking: what effect would the solar panels on the ecosystems within lakes and other bodies of water? A prototype has been designed and is set to be presented at the 4th International Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy Conference in Israel. Time will tell whether AquaSun delivers the goods, but its good to see renewable companies floating new ideas. + Solaris Synergy via Gizmag
Top 10 Solar Technologies to Watch Out For Solar Energy Published on October 11th, 2009 | by Derek Markham Solar power technology is moving forward by leaps and bounds, with some new advancements being built out into usable installations virtually every day. Design concepts once thought to be ‘pie in the sky’ ideas are being implemented, and making a simple solar panel array look like old-school technology. While it may be some time before you see some of these solar technologies in use, chances are it will be sooner rather than later, so keep your eyes on these: 1. 2. “The idea is to use solar panels to power the electrolyzer to produce hydrogen which would be stored in tanks. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. As a bonus solar technology to watch out for, CoolEarth’s solar balloons are made with metallic plastic films, with half of the balloon being transparent, which lets the sunlight in to be concentrated on a small high-efficiency solar panel. Tags: solar technology About the Author
How to Build a DIY Portable Solar Charging System! 5 years ago, it was a lot harder to build your own solar-charging systems but now there are so much more resources plus price of solar systems have dropped quite a bit. If you own a home and you have some space in your backyard (or roof) for solar panels, there’s absolutely no reason why you aren’t powering some of your home electronics via the power of the sun (unless you live in Alaska and it’s no-sun season). Here’s a great example of a DIY portable solar charging system built completely from scratch with most parts bought on eBay, a portable solar charging system with wheels and you can plug-in anything. You’ve probably found this Instructable to gather ideas about making a portable solar power supply yourself. For starters who don’t know anything about solar circuits, you might also want to check out this Solar Power System on Amazon.
Mobility planet Wallace Energy Systems & Renewables Facility :: Oregon State University, College of Engineering In 2007/2008, OSU, in collaboration with Columbia Power Technologies (CPT) and the U.S. Navy, evaluated 18 different direct-drive technologies, and down-selected to five promising designs. OSU and CPT built each of those prototypes at the 200W peak level and tested them on OSU's new wave energy linear test bed. OSU and CPT also comprehensively simulated each of the designs, and scaled the simulations up to 100kW, including full 100kW designs with costs, maintenance, operations etc., to give estimates for total costs of energy for each. This has been a tremendous collaboration enabling the zeroing in on optimum designs, and based on this work, in September 2008, OSU and CPT completed a series of very successful bay and ocean testing (see pictures). CPT is now driving these efforts to commercialization, and OSU will continue to partner with them in a supporting/research role.
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. 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. I saw an early prototype for such a magnifying optical layer a few years back, but the company was "dark" at the time, so I couldn't write about the innovation. Theoretically that means cutting the installation cost of a solar array in half.
13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence While most 13-year-olds spend their free time playing video games or cruising Facebook, one 7th grader was trekking through the woods uncovering a mystery of science. After studying how trees branch in a very specific way, Aidan Dwyer created a solar cell tree that produces 20-50% more power than a uniform array of photovoltaic panels. His impressive results show that using a specific formula for distributing solar cells can drastically improve energy generation. The study earned Aidan a provisional U.S patent – it’s a rare find in the field of technology and a fantastic example of how biomimicry can drastically improve design. Photo by Cristian Bortes Aidan Dwyer took a hike through the trees last winter and took notice of patterns in the mangle of branches. To see why they branch this way he built a small solar array using the Fibonacci formula, stepping cells at specific intervals and heights. His results did turn out to be incorrect though. Via Treehugger