Green Options » solar energy

The Solar Powered Plane – It Lives!

Chris Milton — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:15:37 +0000

Mad scientists don’t usually hang around in Switzerland, tinkering around with their crazy ideas and running after them down the asphalt.

Thankfully Bertrand Piccard, who flew the Breitling Orbiter hot air balloon around the world in 1999, isn’t mad. In fact, this idea may just fly.

In 2003 he and the Solar Impulse Foundation announced their intention to fly a Solar Powered Plane around the world. In 2007, they started to build it.

Now the plane has taken it’s first small, but confident, steps.

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Polaris, ARPA-E Pump Money Into Nocera’s Breakthrough in Biomimic Photosynthesis

Susan Kraemer — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:53:55 +0000

Daniel Nocera’s Sun Catalytix was one of the 37 ARPA-E awardees last month with a $4.1 million vote of confidence from the Nobel prizewinner-driven Department of Energy. Now Polaris Venture Partners has just added $1 million to its earlier $2 million investment in the MIT spin-off to bring their total investment to $3 million.

Nocera’s work first burst on the world in 2007 with his work in figuring out how to ape the process of photosynthesis to create cheap solar energy stored as fuel. Nocera’s research, which was published last year in Science has been called the most important single solar energy discovery of the century.

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How Do Brits Like to Be Green?

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:16:43 +0000

How do Brits like to be green, and what green behaviors do they still avoid?

That’s what a new survey by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), and the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) is showing us by examining the environmental actions and preferences of 100,000 British people from 40,000 households.

The findings presented below are the first from a new annual household survey in Britain named Understanding Society. The environmental topics are one subset of the whole survey, which also examines the “working lives, relationships, health, finances, neighbourhoods, education, transport and more” of Brits.

What are the main findings thus far?

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Asia Light Years Ahead of the US in Clean Tech Investment — Financial and Economic Consequences

Zachary Shahan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:50:06 +0000

Asia is investing hundreds of billions of dollars more than the US in clean technology, according to a new report by two research institutions. In the future, the US may be importing trillions of dollars of needed clean technology (and losing countless jobs to Asia) as a result.

In total, the report showed that China, Japan, and South Korea will invest about $509 billion in clean tech over the next 5 years, whereas the US (with our greenest President in decades, maybe ever) is only expected to invest $172 billion (about 3 times less) — this is assuming the climate and energy legislation in Congress passes.

If the US were to invest the same percentage of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as South Korea, it would invest almost $140 billion per year ($700 billion over this five year period)! Compared to China, the anticipated per-GDP investment ratio is 1:4 (US to China).

In 2008, Japan almost matched US R&D spending on energy and achieved almost the same number of international clean energy patents despite having dramatically lower GDP.

The financial investment is not the only thing giving these countries a major advantage in this field, though.

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Altus Air Force Base is Flying High on New Green Award

Tina Casey — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:47:24 +0000

Off they go into the wild green yonder: the 97th Air Mobility Wing at Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma has just earned the top “Green” rating from the Air Force’s Environmental, Safety and Occupational Health compliance program.

The 97th spent months prepping for its evaluation and earned a “you knocked our socks off” comment from the ESOHCAMP program manager, but that’s not the only sustainability feather in Altus’s cap. The base is also home to one of the Air Force’s premier green remediation sites.

New Report Forecasts Solar Boom in NC — “Growing Solar in North Carolina”

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:26:23 +0000

A new report by Environment North Carolina’s Research and Policy Center, “Growing Solar in North Carolina,” found that North Carolina (home of my UNC Tar Heels) could be a solar power giant soon.

The new report found that North Carolina has a lot of solar energy potential due to its “vast” solar energy intensity (which is nearly as much as Florida’s) combined with other economic, policy and technological factors.

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Group Buying = Lowest Price for Solar. Ever.

Susan Kraemer — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:38:35 +0000

What with the Vice President promoting the PACE model of super affordable city financing for solar; and the econo-apocalypse-related drop in solar panel prices, you’d think that solar was in the bag by now, but group buying on top of all that will still buy the cheapest solar for your roof.

For example, in the Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs and Coachella area, you could now get all your electricity free for the next 25-40 years for $10,000! That’s about $90,000 lower than you would have paid your utility for 25 years.

One Block off the Grid’s completely unique model of group buying combined with the financing of their partnering banker SunRun (which offers one of the few solar financing options to remain viable in the downturn) has made group purchasing the cheapest way for going solar ever.

The solar company 1BOG selected for this neighborhood; HelioPower is able to install that neighborhood for $5.49 a watt—the lowest rate 1BOG has ever negotiated for their group discount.

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Thin-Film Solar Panels to Double their Share of the Market by 2013?

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:12:39 +0000

A new report by iSuppli Corp. predicts that by 2013, 31% of the solar panel market will be accounted for by thin-film solar panels. These thin-film panels are rapidly replacing traditional crystalline photovoltaic panels.

Thin-film solar is being used in a variety of new applications, from solar roof shingles to solar tiles (like clay tiles) to solar panels glued right onto the roof. Its flexibility in use is one major benefit of this technology.

Lower cost is the number one factor responsible for its anticipated growth, but there are trade-offs as well.

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Sulfurcell Creates Solar Cladding for Modular Building Systems

Susan Kraemer — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:05:47 +0000

The German solar producer Sulfurcell produces these durable solar integrated panels as cladding modules that can be designed onto new buildings as well as retrofitted onto old buildings to power the building. The exterior is hardened glass; on the back is thinfilm.

The retrofit is possible because each module is hung like a conventional cladding system on the outside of the building installed on a substructure, so even uneven exterior surfaces could be used.

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M&M’S® and MARS Going Green? New Solar Garden at Headquarters in New Jersey

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:13:04 +0000

Candy giant MARS, parent company of M&M’S®, DOVE®, MILKY WAY®, SNICKERS®, 3 MUSKETEERS®, and TWIX®, turned on a huge new solar array (a “solar garden”) at its headquarters in New Jersey today. No matter what you think of candy food like this, it is good to see such a company going solar. Popular with millions, billions perhaps, and about as mainstream as you can imagine, this is a good step for solar’s more widespread use across the country.

This facility is PSEG Solar Source’s first large-scale solar project. It is one of the largest solar projects in the state of New Jersey, which is already 2nd only to California in its amount of installed solar capacity. The MARS headquarters adjacent to the solar garden is the workplace of about 1,200 employees and is where M&M’S® Brand Chocolate Candies are manufactured.

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Land of the Rising Sun Power! Japan May Build a Solar Station in Space by 2030

Andrew Williams — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:37:01 +0000

The Japanese space agency has unveiled an incredible new plan to start collecting solar power in space, and zap it down to Earth via microwaves or laser beams.

Under the plan, known as the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), floating photovoltaic dishes several square miles across would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth’s atmosphere as soon as 2030.

According to a researcher at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, “Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming. The sun’s rays abound in space.” (Another picture after the jump).

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$4 Million Goes to MIT from French Oil Company for Solar Energy Battery Project

Zachary Shahan — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:02:21 +0000

Total, a French oil company, recently agreed to give the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) $4 million for a 5-year research project to develop stationary batteries that can more efficiently store solar energy.

More efficient energy storage has been a difficult issue for scientists to crack. It is a major issue preventing more widespread use of renewable energy, and solar energy in particular.

Is this project, one funded by a true oil giant, the one that will make it happen?

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Electric Mole Takes a Bite Out of Energy Costs, with Help from Solar Power

Tina Casey — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:28:51 +0000

Veteran solar installer Parkson Corporation is lending its expertise to a new wastewater treatment plant upgrade for the town of Berlin near the Maryland coast. When it’s finished, the new plant will almost eliminate the use of fossil fuels for drying and converting biosolids, also known as sludge, into a lightweight Class A soil amendment or sustainable fuel. The process is pushed along by a stainless steel “Electric Mole” that automaticaly mixes, aerates, and granulates the sludge as it dries.

The $16 million upgrade project is funded by ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Parkson’s Thermo-System Active Solar Sludge Drying Chambers will enable the sludge conversion process to operate under more than 90% solar power rather than using gas or oil. For disposing sludge in landfills, that translates into a significant savings in preparation and transportation costs. Even better, it makes sludge products more cost-competitive with conventional soil amendments and fossil fuels, effectively taking the “waste” out of wastewater.

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New Cycle Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Invest $12.2 Million in PACE Solar Renewable Funding

Susan Kraemer — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:21:32 +0000

Renewable Funding’s PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) solar funding, begun by Cisco DeVries with Berkeley First was a breakthrough in making solar affordable. Now VC high-flyers Draper Fisher Jurvetson, New Cycle Capital, and RWE Ventures have just invested $12.2 million in a first round of financing to make this sober and sensible solar funding available to more homeowners.

Renewable Funding is a business in the Common Good. And it could be big too. There’s potentially a gigaton of greenhouse gas reductions to be made, at no cost to local, state, or federal governments from a $280 billion potential market in PACE solar funding in the US, acording to a UC Berkeley study published in Environment Magazine.

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Ex-United Technologies Rocket Scientists To Build 150 MW Solar Heliostat in Sonoran Desert

Susan Kraemer — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:55:01 +0000

SolarReserve; a California start-up spin-out from United Technologies’ Rocketdyne has filed an application with the CPUC to build a 150-megawatt heliostat solar farm with seven hours of after-sunset energy stored in molten salt. These are the rocket scientists responsible for our solar-powered space exploration.

Theirs would be the first heliostat type of solar array to produce grid power in California. Abengoa has several in Spain, and plans one in Arizona. United Technologies has licensed the original technology to the new company SolarReserve and its wholly owned subsidiary Rice Solar Energy, LLC, (RSE).

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Welcome Back, Pittsburgh: FLABEG Brings 200 Green Solar Jobs to Steel City

Tina Casey — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:09:47 +0000

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Pittsburgh has been laying the groundwork for a high tech green jobs renaissance ever since its mighty steel mills shut their doors 30 years ago. Now the payoff is coming. FLABEG, the global specialty glass manufacturer, has just opened a solar mirror factory by Pittsburgh International Airport that will bring an estimated 200 jobs to the region, and perhaps as many as 300.

The new $30 million facility will initially focus on its core production line of parabolic curved solar mirrors. Months before the plant opened it already received 700,000 orders, and FLABEG expects to reach a capacity of 1 million mirrors annually.

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Scientists Make Foldable 3D Solar Cells around an Optical Fibre

Andrew Williams — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:45:11 +0000

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have made a three-dimensional photovoltaic solar cell around an optical fibre, a revolutionary new approach that could pave the way for a new generation of hyper-flexible solar systems.

According to team-leader Professor Zhong Lin Wang, “Using this technology, we can make photovoltaic generators that are foldable, concealed and mobile. Optical fibre could conduct sunlight into a building’s walls where the nanostructures would convert it to electricity. This is truly a three dimensional solar cell.”

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DESERTEC $555 Billion Renewable Energy Project Moving Forward

Zachary Shahan — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:53:31 +0000

The huge project to build a $555 billion renewable energy “belt” in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, funded largely by German companies, moved another step forward a few days ago.

The articles of association for the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative (DII) were signed by the joint venture group of 12 companies and the DESERTEC Foundation in Munich on October 30.

Additionally, a CEO for DII was appointed — Paul van Son.

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Spanish Solar Company SOLARIG Building 8 PV Parks in Italy

Zachary Shahan — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:15:24 +0000

SOLARIG, a company based in Spain that incorporated about four years ago, just began construction of eight photovoltaic parks in Italy this month. The parks will provide 8 MW of energy in total. Over the next few months, it plans to construct photovoltaic projects producing 30 MW throughout different regions of Italy.

But this is just the beginning. SOLARIG has a more global vision.

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South Africa’s Move to Solar Power Threatened By Eskom’s Problems.

Dave Harcourt — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:10:37 +0000

Eskom, the South African state owned electricity generator, recently announced that it has budgeted a billion dollars over the next ten years for a demonstration and pilot concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. However, moving from budget to implementation is proving more difficult!

Why Concentrated Solar Power

Two of the widely used alternatives for collecting the suns energy are the concentrated solar power (CSP) plant where sunlight is focussed on a receiver in which a circulating working fluid is heated and used as the heating media for a conventional power station and the photo voltaic (PV) plant where sunlight is converted directly into electrical energy.

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