-
-
Scientists Develop Solar Cells With a Twist
US researchers have found a way to make efficient silicon-based solar cells that are flexible enough to be rolled around a pencil and transparent enough to be used to tint windows on buildings or cars.
The finding, reported on Sunday in the journal Nature Materials, offers a new way to process conventional silicon by slicing the brittle wafers into ultrathin bits and carefully transferring them onto a flexible surface.
"We can make it thin enough that we can put it on plastic to make a rollable system. You can make it gray in the form of a film that could be added to architectural glass," said John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the research.
"It opens up spaces on the fronts of buildings as opportunities for solar energy," Rogers said in a telephone interview.
Rogers' team uses a special etching method that slices chips off the surface of a bulk silicon wafer. The sliced chips are 10 to 100 times thinner than the wafer, and the size can be adapted to the application.
Once sliced, a device picks up the bits of silicon chips "like a rubber stamp" and transfers them to a new surface material, Rogers said.
"These silicon solar cells become like a solid ink pad for that rubber stamp. The surface of the wafers after we've done this slicing become almost like an inking pad," he said.
"We just print them down onto a target surface."
The final step is to electrically connect these cells to get power out of them, he said.
Adding flexibility to the material would make the cells far easier to transport. Rogers envisions the material being "rolled up like a carpet and thrown on the truck." US researchers have found a way to make efficient silicon-based solar cells that are flexible enough to be rolled around a pencil and ... more -
New Zeitgeist Addendum Movie Released
You should watch this. No, seriously. "it's not perfect, but it's probably better" -AES
-
BioSolar reduces cost of solar power with cotton and castor beans
BioSolar surprised attendees at the SPIE Symposium on Solar Applications and Energy in San Diego by revealing that materials derived from cotton and castor beans compose the company's proprietary BioBacksheet, a protective covering, traditionally made from expensive petroleum-based film, used in the back of virtually all photovoltaic solar cells.
"This information has remained highly-guarded over the past 18 months as BioSolar established academic and industry credibility," said BioSolar Chairman and CEO, Dr. David Lee. "Now that our technology is strongly protected both domestically and abroad, we are able to share this exciting news with the public."
While not revealing core proprietary or patent-pending elements of the intellectual property, BioSolar's Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Stan Levy, divulged in his presentation that the bio-based components are a composite of cellulosic material derived from cotton, combined with an arcane nylon (nylon 11) derived from castor beans.
Dr. Levy detailed the procedures and results of the company's 18-month product development effort to engineer the BioBacksheet from non-food, plant-based materials. He provided an in-depth look at the science and applied technology behind the unique bio-sustainable formulation and state-of-the-art manufacturing processes used to create the company's BioBacksheet product.
The two sustainably sourced components are combined utilizing the company's proprietary manufacturing process.
"We have demonstrated that functional photovoltaic backsheets can be produced from renewable resources," said Dr. Levy. "We believe that the BioBacksheet is a viable alternative to backsheets currently in use. Not only is this product produced from sustainable and renewable resources, but is expected to be more cost effective than the current backsheets."
"Also, manufacturers currently enduring a six-month wait for materials like DuPont's petroleum-based Tedlar protective material will undoubtedly be interested in this development," added Dr. Lee.
_________________________________
Take that DuPont. Clean, renewable, efficient, and economical solar energy. That IS the future. BioSolar surprised attendees at the SPIE Symposium on Solar Applications and Energy in San Diego by revealing that materials derived f... more -
Under the Florida Sun
A brief glimpse into Florida's practices with renewable energy.
-
Wind and solar tax credits still worth it
Hallelujah!
Likely feeling the pressure from the pundits, lobbyists, populace, and the benevolent voices deep inside their collective souls whispering to them the sustainable secrets of the universe, Congress unanimously agreed that tax credits awarded for renewable energy production should be upheld.
A gracious word from Gregory Whetstone, Senior Director of Governmental and Public Affairs at the American Wind Energy Association:
“We salute Members of Congress in both parties who fought under difficult conditions to keep the renewable energy production tax credit and small turbine investment tax credit on the agenda until the very end, and then pushed them across the finish line. These tax credits are essential to the continued growth of wind energy, to the economic and energy security of the United States, and to a successful beginning in the fight against global warming. We look forward to working next year with a new Congress and Administration to fashion a serious long-term clean energy policy that increases domestic energy, increases our reliance on clean renewable energy, and creates jobs for Americans.”
Photo by Stormygirl. Hallelujah! ... more -
Vatican Goes Green
he first solar panels were installed Monday on top of the papal audience hall at Vatican City.
-
New advancements in "solar ink" may transform the future of energy!!!
If you like the idea of solar power, but aren’t convinced by expensive, clunky solar panels just yet, here’s a more manageable option: print your own on an inkjet! Konarka Technologies has just debuted a printable solar panel film that uses a common inkjet printing process to manufacture paper-thin photovoltaic solar cells. Using the existing and very simple technologies of your office inkjet printer, Konarka has essentially replaced ink with the solar cell material, and paper with a thin flexible sheet of plastic.
Read more at: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/10/printable-solar-cel... If you like the idea of solar power, but aren’t convinced by expensive, clunky solar panels just yet, here’s a more manageable option:... more -
Senate passes tax breaks on renewable energy
The Senate Tuesday voted to extend $17 billion in tax credits for wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectric, and geothermal power, easing fears that the fledgling alternative energy industry would find itself unable to compete with fossil fuels. The Senate Tuesday voted to extend $17 billion in tax credits for wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectric, and geothermal power, easing fe... more
-
Solar plants in deserts could yield fresh water and crops
Vast greenhouses that use sea water for crop cultivation could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers.
The Sahara Forest Project, which is already running demonstration plants in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, envisages huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), a technology that uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays, creating steam to drive turbines to generate electricity.
The installations would turn deserts into lush patches of vegetation, according to its designers, and do away with the need to dig wells for fresh water, an activity that has depleted aquifers across the world.
Charlie Paton, a member of the team, and the inventor of the Seawater Greenhouse, said the scheme was a proven way to transform arid environments. "Plants need light for growth but they don't like heat beyond a certain point," he said.
Above certain temperatures the amount of water lost through leaves' stomata rises so much plants stop their photosynthesis and do not grow. The solar farm planned by the project runs seawater evaporators, pumping damp, cool air through the greenhouses. This reduces the warmth inside by about 15C, compared with the temperature outside.
At the other end of the greenhouse from the evaporators, water vapour is condensed. Some of this fresh water is used to water the crops, some for cleaning the solar mirrors.
"So we've got conditions in the greenhouse of high humidity and lower temperature," said Paton. "The crops sitting in this slightly steamy, humid condition can grow fantastically well."
The designers said that virtually any vegetables could be grown in the greenhouses. The demonstration plants already produce lettuces, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes. The nutrients to grow the plants could come from local seaweed or be extracted from the seawater.
Michael Pawlyn, of Exploration Architecture, based in London, worked on the Eden Project for seven years and is now part of the Sahara Forest team. He said that the Seawater Greenhouse and CSP provided substantial synergies for each other. "Both technologies work extremely well in hot, dry, desert locations. CSP produces a lot of waste heat and we'd be able to use that to evaporate more seawater from the greenhouse. And CSP needs a supply of clean, de-mineralised water in order for the [electricity generating] turbines to function and to keep the mirrors at peak output. It just so happens the Seawater Greenhouse produces large quantities of this."
Paton said the greenhouse produced more than five times the fresh water needed to water the plants inside, so some of the water could be released to the outside, creating a microclimate for hardier plants such as jatropha, a crop that can be turned into biofuel. Vast greenhouses that use sea water for crop cultivation could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and cl... more -
Sunniest place on Earth could bring power to poor in West Africa
NASA scientists have identified a site in the Sahara desert in northern Niger as the sunniest piece of land in the world.
"We have the natural resource -- enough sunshine that can supply our total power requirements," Kwame Ampofo, an energy expert and a member of Ghana's parliament, told Reuters late on Tuesday after legislators from the region discussed the project.
The meeting, held in electricity-hungry Ghana beside one of the biggest hydropower lakes in the world, urged regional leaders to form a West African Renewable Energy Community to promote sustainable power projects.
West Africa's richest country, Nigeria, is the continent's top oil producer but many of its people lack reliable power. Sub-Saharan Africans have the lowest average power consumption in the world, and just one in four have access to electricity.
snip
SUN IN THE SAHARA
One of the main projects proposed at the Ghana meeting would use mirrors to concentrate sunlight and boil water to drive electrogenic turbines.
The U.S. space agency NASA says the sunniest spot on land is in northern Niger -- the sunniest part of the planet being in the Pacific Ocean, less practical for solar projects.
"This form of power generation could serve the populous coastal regions well, if connected to the northern parts of West Africa, where there are desert areas with good solar radiation for much of the year," Gerhard Knies, a German physicist who presented the project to the Ghana meeting, said in a statement.
"This technology has been shown to work and is in operation in Spain and the United States. Above all, it does not pollute, is inexhaustible and will not be subject to rising fuel costs," said Knies, whose country is planning solar projects in Algeria.
A closing declaration from the meeting at the Akosombo Dam on the 250-mile (400 km) long Lake Volta called for a feasibility study to address technical, economic, financial and political aspects of the clean energy project.
Legislators also agreed to push countries across the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to pass a special funding tariff law to ensure investors in renewable energy projects could recoup the high investment costs -- a major obstacle to clean energy projects. NASA scientists have identified a site in the Sahara desert in northern Niger as the sunniest piece of land in the world. ... more -
Solar brick provides integrated outdoor lighting solution
September 23, 2008 Sunrise Solar Corp has unveiled a new building brick that integrates solar technologies into traditional construction materials http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/construction . The Solar Light Brick is able to capture the sun’s rays and convert them to energy to power a light embedded within the brick, without the need to connect to the electrical grid.
The solar brick incorporates solar cells solar cells , an energy storage device and a crystal lighting system that surrounds the energy module in a square or rectangle. The light within the brick is then automatically activated after dark.
The solar brick is able to be designed to light in any color and can be embedded into a range of construction materials including walls or concrete slabs as an integrated part of the structural design. The super bright LED light can operate for 8-10 hours in sunny conditions and 3-4 hours on continuously rainy days.
The light is made from boro-silicon glass and fitted into the brick by a stainless steel fastener and waterproof silica gel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silica_gel sealing washer. The high http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Street%2C_Oxford efficiency solar cell solar cell generates no carbon emissions, making it entirely clean technology.
Potential applications for this technology include fixed public spaces, bridges, rural airfields, building lighting, safety lights and decorative lighting. September 23, 2008 Sunrise Solar Corp has unveiled a new building brick that integrates solar technologies into traditional constructi... more -
Live Earth in India to help boost solar energy
India will host the next Live Earth concert to raise funds for lighting homes with solar energy in places where people do not have access to electricity, organizers said.
The December event will see rocker Jon Bon Jovi and Bollywood's biggest superstar, Amitabh Bachchan share the stage, and is described by organizers as one of the biggest events held in India.
The concert will be held in India's financial capital Mumbai on December 7, Live Earth founder Kevin Wall said in Mumbai.
"(Former Vice President) Al Gore asked me whether we could do this in India, and I said yes," Wall told Reuters in Mumbai. "This is going to be huge."
"Jon Bon Jovi is just one name and Mr Bachchan is just one name, but there will be a lot of international artists," he said.
Wall, who organized a series of concerts last year with the former vice-president, said the event in India would be telecast live in more than 100 countries.
Gore, who spoke via satellite this week during a news conference held in Mumbai on Thursday said India could provide the leadership required to bring about changes in world policies on climate change.
The proceeds from the concert will go to the "Light A Billion Lives campaign," supported by Nobel Prize-winner Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the United Nation's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
_____
Photo credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26162736@N07/2469499562/
_____
We can work around the world to mitigate the climate crisis. We must not be myopic in our view or distressed thinking that only one person sitting in a white house in Washington Dc can or will do it. This goes so far beyond just one president, one American election, one year, or one time. This crisis must make us see our similarities as humans on this Earth which is the only home we will have and act together.
While political will in Washington Dc is indeed a great part of that progress, it is not in my view something to place all hopes on. We can and must take it upon ourselves to do all in our power to bring solar energy and other alternate sources to other developing countries like India so that their economic progress will begin on a more sustainable footing, and hopefully that message will then spread around the globe including our own country. This is the good message Live Earth brings and the message we must take upon ourselves to spread to others. We are the ones with the power, and with that power we can do great things when mobilizing for a good and noble cause. India will host the next Live Earth concert to raise funds for lighting homes with solar energy in places where people do not have acc... more -
Living Rainforest Exhibit Goes Green - California Academy of Sciences - Popular Me...
Amazonian trees and plants in the California Academy of Sciences' new "Living Rainforest" exhibit are thriving—without an overload of human-produced energy. Amazonian trees and plants in the California Academy of Sciences' new "Living Rainforest" exhibit are thriving—without ... more
-
12-Year-Old May Hold Key to Solar Energy
One significant problem with existing solar technology is that it's not terribly efficient at harvesting solar energy and turning it into electricity.
Solar technology is improving all the time, but one 12-year-old boy may have the key to making solar panels that can harness 500 times the light of a traditional solar cell. William Yuan is a seventh grader in Oregon whose project, titled "A Highly-Efficient 3-Dimensional Nanotube Solar Cell for Visible and UV Light," may change the energy industry and make solar energy far easier to harness and distribute.
At the heart of Yuan's project is a special solar cell that can harness both visible and ultraviolet light. Most solar cells in use today are either photovoltaic, meaning they harness only visible light, or thermal. While visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light are all heavily scattered or absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, ultraviolet light comes in at shorter wavelengths and with higher energy than both visible and infrared light. Ultraviolet light can provide more energy to a collector than other, longer-wavelength members of the electromagnetic spectrum. Yuan's solar cells are not just innovative for their collection of UV light, but also because they're engineered to stand freely in three dimensions (which allows them to collect more light) and make use of carbon nanotubes, which allow the cell to distribute the energy it collects without dissipating as much as traditional cells do.
Yuan is looking for a manufacturer to invest in building his new solar cell, and likely won't have a problem finding a partner. Yuan's solar cells have earned him a $25,000 scholarship to fund his education and research, a fellowship at the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, and a host of other awards in science and engineering. Yuan isn't the only young inventor making a difference, more and more young innovators are changing the face of clean technology. One significant problem with existing solar technology is that it's not terribly efficient at harvesting solar energy and turning... more -
National Park(ing) Day This Thursday
PARK(ing) Day - a one-day global event held on September 19th where artists, activists, and citizens transform metered parking spaces into parks, playgrounds, and social spaces.
Greenery, shade, bike technician, art bikes, sculpture, sidewalk art, solar powered music... PARK(ing) Day - a one-day global event held on September 19th where artists, activists, and citizens transform metered parking spaces ... more -
The Answer My Friends.....Is Blowing in the Wind........
.....Hugh Piggott is one of the Worlds leading authorities on harvesting the power of the wind......He also has helped so many to understand how to create wind generators all over the planet........giving away knowledge that he has gathered over a lifetime of devotion to Mother Earth......there is so much that can be done......
so many new jobs that can be created.......
Hope you will check out his site and consider using the Wind and Sun.....
they are here for you.....always have been...............
...Hugh Piggotts site....... http://www.scoraigwind.com/ .....Hugh Piggott is one of the Worlds leading authorities on harvesting the power of the wind......He also has helped so many to unde... more -
MIT boffins promote solar-fuel cell combo
The smart way to tap into solar powers maximum efficiency
-
Sunrise Solar introduces solar building brick
Sunrise Solar has announced the introduction of a Solar Light Brick for the integration of solar technologies into traditional construction materials.
This innovative technology includes advanced solar cells, an energy storage device and a crystal lighting system that surrounds the energy module in a square or rectangle.
The imbedded solar cell generates electricity when the sun shines and stores it in the storage device. The light is automatically activated after dark. The solar brick can be designed to light in any color.
Potential applications include rural airfields, building lighting, safety lights and decorative lighting. The solar brick can operate without any connection to the electrical grid and can be imbedded in construction materials.
"As we continue to introduce innovative solar products that deliver dynamic energy solutions that can be applied today, we are proud to introduce the 'solar light brick'," said Mr. Eddie Austin, Chairman and CEO of Sunrise Solar Corp.
"This creative product can provide lighting and decoration with no connection to a power grid and can be imbedded in a wall or concrete slab as an integrated part of the structural design."
*******
Imagine the possibilities. Sunrise Solar has announced the introduction of a Solar Light Brick for the integration of solar technologies into traditional constru... more -
Breaking Down The LRO
Discovery-News.com: Before NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter heads to the moon in February, Discovery Channel's Dave Mosher learns more about the instruments that will scout the lunar surface. Jorge Ribas produces. Discovery-News.com: Before NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter heads to the moon in February, Discovery Channel's Dave Moshe... more
-
Amid bluster over energy, Senate cuts a deal - BusinessWeek.com- msnbc.com
To pass the legistlation to many's new opinion drilling and nuclear for the GOP and the democrats get some incentives for solar and wind energy. Somethings moving through congress we might not all like all of the deal, but things ARE happening people!!!! To pass the legistlation to many's new opinion drilling and nuclear for the GOP and the democrats get some incentives for solar a... more
-
related topics
Solar
Contributors (522)
Solar
