Tag Archives: green

15 Photovoltaics Solar Power Innovations

15 Photovoltaics Solar Power Innovations You Must See

Researchers at McMaster University (coolest name ever) have succeeded in ‘growing’ light-absorbing nanowires made of high-performance photovoltaic materials on carbon-nanotube fabric. In other words, hairy solar panels.

The aim is to produce flexible, affordable solar cells that, within five years, will achieve a conversion efficiency of 20%. Longer term, it’s theoretically possible to achieve 40% efficiency!
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while looking for a solution, researchers noticed that moths have very non-reflective eyes (“most likely an evolutionary defense against nocturnal predators”). The moth-eye process creates panels that reflect less than 2% of light. That’s a vast improvement over the 35 to 40% reflection rate seen without the anti-reflection coating layers.
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Some experts are speculating that First Solar might beat over 80 competitors to achieve manufacturing costs low enough to market solar panels at less than $1 per Watt, the target considered necessary for solar to compete with coal-burning electricity on the grid.

A Cheap And Efficient Wind Turbine

Energy Ball – A Cheap And Efficient Wind Turbine

Home Energy is a Swedish company which has designed a new wind turbine that is very silent and it’s based on six curved rotor blades attached to a rotor hub at both ends. The new and futuristic wind turbine is called Energy Ball and when it rotates it looks like a sphere and it creates a wind flow which resembles the rapids of a river – this wind flow pattern is called the Venturi effect.

Bill Nye the Science Guy, Interview

Bill Nye the Science Guy Makes Green “Stuff Happen”

One of your first “Stuff Happens” episodes is about breakfast. What’s so special about breakfast and the environment?
Are you kidding? It’s the most important meal of the day. It had the iconic story that North American pigs – from where we get bacon – I presume unwillingly are fed feed made with South American anchovies (and herrings and sardines). Farmers say eating fish helps their animals grow to that wonderfully ample size consumers want. Because of this, we’re accidentally destroying an ecosystem. It’s the story of stories.

How so?
We’re seriously depleting the world’s anchovy population and leaving the penguins and South American seabirds with nothing to eat. These birds are dangerously close to starving because the anchovy and sardine populations have been decimated.

What can we do?
Strange as it may seem, you could eat more anchovies. This would raise the price of the fish and make anchovy fish feed more costly and less desirable to pig farmers. Also eat organic bacon from pigs raised on 100% agricultural feed. If you’re looking for the true organic meat products, make sure it’s grass-fed only.

Google.org Invests $10 million in Geothermal Energy

Google is investing huge sums in renewable energy with the aim of cheaper than coal renewable energy. Google.org (the philanthropic arm of Google) announced $10.25 million in investments in a breakthrough energy technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS).

EGS expands the potential of geothermal energy by orders of magnitude. The traditional geothermal approach relies on finding naturally occurring pockets of steam and hot water. The EGS process, by comparison, replicates these conditions by fracturing hot rock, circulating water through the system, and using the resulting steam to produce electricity in a conventional turbine.

A recent MIT report on EGS estimates that just 2% of the heat below the continental United States between 3 and 10 kilometers, depths within the range of current drilling technology, is more than 2,500 times the country’s total annual energy use.

“EGS could be the ‘killer app’ of the energy world. It has the potential to deliver vast quantities of power 24/7 and be captured nearly anywhere on the planet. And it would be a perfect complement to intermittent sources like solar and wind,” said Dan Reicher, Director of Climate and Energy Initiatives for Google.org.

Google’s Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative focuses on solar thermal power, advanced wind, EGS and other potential breakthrough technologies. Google has set a goal to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity, enough to power a city the size of San Francisco, in years, not decades.
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Compressed Air Powered Car Webcast

I posted on a car powered using compressed air previously. Here is a webcast on that car:

More webcasts on the car: Catvolution’s Air Car ride + interview Cyril Negre – CATvolution YouTube webcasts

Compressor-free Refrigerator

Compressor-free refrigerator may loom in the future

Refrigerators and other cooling devices may one day lose their compressors and coils of piping and become solid state, according to Penn State researchers who are investigating electrically induced heat effects of some ferroelectric polymers.

“This is the first step in the development of an electric field refrigeration unit,” says Qiming Zhang, distinguished professor of electrical engineering. “For the future, we can envision a flat panel refrigerator. No more coils, no more compressors, just solid polymer with appropriate heat exchangers.”
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Zhang’s approach uses the change form disorganized to organized that occurs in some polarpolymers when placed in an electric field. The natural state of these materials is disorganized with the various molecules randomly positioned. When electricity is applied, the molecules become highly ordered and the material gives off heat and becomes colder. When the electricity is turned off, the material reverts to its disordered state and absorbs heat.

Science and the City: Science Barge

Science and the City is (among other things) an excellent podcast series from the New York Academy of Science. The latest podcast discusses the science barge project we posted about earlier. They discuss looking at commercially viable urban farms (on rooftops in NYC) and the establishing educational gardens at schools.

See the Curious Cat Science and Engineering Podcast Directory for some great resources for podcasts. Don’t miss the naked scientists from the BBC.

Nearly Waterless Washing Machine

Professor Stephen Burkinshaw, Chair of Textile Chemistry at the University of Leeds, has created a nearly waterless washing machine. Xeros ltd. has been created to commercialize products based on this system (both for home use and for solvent-based commercial garment cleaning). Given the predicted trouble for supplies of freshwater technology that can reduce water use will be very useful.

Virtually waterless washing machine heralds cleaning revolution

Researchers at the University of Leeds have developed a new way of cleaning clothes using less than 2% of the water and energy of a conventional washing machine.
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A range of tests, carried out according to worldwide industry protocols to prove the technology performs to the high standards expected in the cleaning industry, show the process can remove virtually all types of everyday stains as effectively as existing processes whilst leaving clothes as fresh as normal washing. In addition, the clothes emerge from the process almost dry, reducing the need for tumble-dryers.

TX Active Cement

TX active cement graphic

Industry scrambles to find a ‘greener’ concrete

While Italcemente’s smog-eating cement has been used in Europe for several years, it was released in the United States only in 2007 under the name TX Active. It contains titanium dioxide, which, in the presence of sunlight, acts as a photocatalyer, hastening the decomposition of such pollutants as nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and ozone. TX Active also keeps a building shiny white – a quality admired by architects – by preventing the buildup of pollutants on the surface.

Research suggests that if 15 percent of the surface area of Milan, Italy, were covered in TX Active, air pollutants there could be reduced by 50 percent.

When weighing the environmental effects of concrete, some other benefits need to be included, says Rick Bohan of the Portland Cement Association (PCA), a nonprofit trade group based in Skokie, Ill. For example, the insulation provided by concrete walls combats greenhouse-gas emissions by reducing the energy needed for heating and cooling a building by up to 40 percent compared with wood- and steel-frame structures, according to PCA research.

TXActive Cement graphic from HeidelbergCement

The Science Barge

The Science Barge is a prototype, sustainable urban farm and environmental education center. It is the only fully functioning demonstration of renewable energy supporting sustainable food production in New York City. The Science Barge grows tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce with zero net carbon emissions, zero chemical pesticides, and zero runoff.

From May to October 2007, the Science Barge hosted over 3,000 schoolchildren from all five New York boroughs as well as surrounding counties as part of our environmental education program. In addition, over 6,000 adult visitors visited the facility along with press from around the world.

NY Sun Works: The Science Barge

Limited growing space means growing upwards, with stacked pots for strawberries, and vines that grow up to the ceiling and are then folded over to grow back down. Instead of using pesticides, pests are kept in check using ladybugs, parasitic wasps, and other predators as needed. Environmentally friendly substrates such as rice husks, coconut shells, and Earth Stone (recycled glass), are used to aerate the root systems for the plants.

Most fascinating of all was the Aquaponic system for providing nutrients to the plants using catfish. Nutrients from the plants and worms feed the catfish, who produce nitrogen-rich waste, which feeds the plants. Tilapia were originally used, but eventually replaced with catfish, which were better suited to the climate. The result of all this effort is a bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables given out to all the children who visit the barge.