Green Options

The U.S. Air Force is building the largest solar plant on the continent for the Nellis Air Force base in the Nevada desert. The massive photovoltaic array with silicon wafer panels covers 140 acres and will produce 15 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 30 percent of the base’s needs. The panels will even rotate to follow the sun across the sky.

Cross section of nanotube tower: Photo credit: Georgia Tech Research InstituteThe Georgia Tech Research Institute has come up with a solar panel design that could revolutionize the solar industry.

The new design features many nano-towers - think of microscopic blades of grass - that capture more sunlight because they have a larger surface area than the traditional flat design of photovoltaic (PV) cells. These three-dimensional panels produce about 60 [...]

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed two major bills supporting renewable energy this week, keeping with his theme of a “New Energy Economy” for the state.

The first was HB 1281, which expands the state’s renewable energy standard by doubling the goal to 20 percent of all resources by 2020 for big utilities. It also includes a goal of 10 percent renewables by 2020 for small utilities and caps the implementation cost for customers of

[...]

We've got a couple of good questions that have shown up in the Discussion Forum over the past day:

1) GO member attacat asks about using biodegradable trash bags/bin liners:

The bin liners that are commonly used are made of synthetic polymers like polyethylene and polypropylene, and these are not considered biodegradable. Eventually, these plastics will break down, but only after being submitted to decades of heat and light.

Green Your Office proposes a new technology

[...]

Oregon has seen some exciting solar energy policies lately, like increasing its net metering laws to 2 megawatts (MW), proposed legislation for a renewable energy standard that includes provisions for community solar power, and a bill increasing the incentives for residential solar hot water and solar electric systems.

Now you can add “North America’s largest solar factory” to the state’s sunny solar outlook.

Installing solar energy on your home or business can be a daunting task, and even the process of gathering information can be overwhelming. Part 1 of this series discussed the basics of solar energy, but even more detailed information can be found at the Green Options wiki. In particular, the solar entry and the photovoltaic (PV) facts sheet are good introductions.

As I discussed in Solar Power Part 1, humans have been tinkering with solar energy for some time. So what makes the 21st century different, if at all?

To get a professional perspective, I spoke with Ron Rich, President of Atmosphere Recovery, Inc. His company owns a process that makes industrial furnaces run more efficiently, even recycling their CO2 emissions. In past lives, he’s been the head of

[...]

Welcome to Green Options! To help you begin greening your good life, my blog will feature a 3-part series on the basics of solar power. I’ll start today with a simple background and history of solar energy, then on Friday I’ll cover why we may be at the dawning of the Solar Age, and then finally on Saturday I’ll plug this all into Green Options and how we can help you take advantage

[...]