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Solar Sunday

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.

Sweden Kicks the Oil Habit

Though a fraction of Chicago’s size, this industrial city in southeast Sweden has plenty of similarities with it, including a long, snowy winter and a football team the town’s crazy about.

One thing is dramatically different about Kalmar, however: It is on the verge of eliminating the use of fossil fuels, for good, and with minimal effect on its standard of living.

The city of 60,000 – and its surrounding 12-town region, with a quarter-million people – has traded in most of its oil, gas and electric furnaces for community “district heat,” produced at plants that burn sawdust and wood waste left by timber companies. Hydropower, nuclear power and windmills now provide more than 90 percent of the region’s electricity.

New Developments in Solar Roofing

Sharp Corp. said Tuesday it will release a home-use solar power generation system in April that can be installed on a wide range of roof shapes with various roof surface areas.

The system has adopted a “Roofit Design” system that enables efficient installation of photovoltaic modules even on small roofs and on roofs with complex shapes, where installation has been difficult with conventional systems, Sharp said.

Among its features, the new device boosts installed system output by an average 24 percent in comparison with Sharp’s predecessor model, it said.

Designing a Zero Waste Future

It might seem strange to have a group of creative types clamoring to learn from the city dump, but there are numerous good reasons why their thinking is important to the waste management process. As we’ve often pointed out here on Worldchanging, getting to zero waste isn’t simply a question of how we deal with the garbage we’ve got. Much more important is how we handle things upstream, at the point where we design the stuff and systems that fill our lives. If we can design waste out of the picture, we save not only the final product that gets tossed in the trash, but also the materials, time and energy required to get it there.

Solar Growth Expected to Continue

Photovoltaics (PV) is a solar power technology that converts light from the sun directly into electricity. Photovoltaic production worldwide has been doubling every two years, increasing by an average of 48% each year since 2002, making it the world’s fastest-growing energy technology. 90% of this generating capacity consists of grid-tied electrical systems, in which PV panels generate electricity and interconnect with a utility’s power line.

According to a recent report by GlobalData, a business information company providing global business information reports and services, the US is the fourth largest solar PV market in the world. The market has grown from 168 megawatts (MW) in 2001 to around 1,111 MW by the end of 2008. Grid-connected solar PV grew to 61% of all solar PV installations, accounting for 677 MW in 2008.

One reason for the rapid growth in solar power can be found in a recent report by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, entitled Tracking the Sun: The Installed Cost of Photovoltaics in the US from 1998-2007. According to the report, average installed costs prior to receipt of any direct financial incentives or tax credits declined from $10.50/Watt in 1998 to $7.60/Watt in 2007. This equates to an average annual reduction of $0.30/Watt, or 3.5% per year in real dollars.

The GlobalData report, entitled “The US Solar PV Market Analysis and Forecasts to 2013,” finds additional reasons for the growth of solar power. The report credits growth in the solar market to supportive policy frameworks by federal and state governments for solar PV technology, as well as high-end investments by major solar companies.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.

Berkeley Goes Solar

Two Berkeley homeowners received checks for their new solar panels on Friday, becoming the first to flip the switch on the city’s much-ballyhooed, closely watched solar financing program.

“I’m a guinea pig, but there’s no way I could have afforded solar otherwise,” said Jeanne Pimentel, an editor who has 11 solar panels on her Allston Way home. “Because of this, I can help solve our energy problem without putting any money up front.”

Berkeley’s program allows property owners to pay for solar panels through a 20-year assessment on their property taxes. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. rebates and new tax breaks guaranteed in the federal stimulus package reduce the cost further, so most homeowners begin saving on electric bills immediately.

Twelve states, including New York, Washington and Colorado, and 50 California cities, including San Francisco and San Diego, are following Berkeley’s model and are closely watching how the program unfolds.

NYPD Hybridizes

Should you ever find yourself being pursued by the NYPD, now you can rest assured that the carbon footprint of your chase around the city will be just a little bit greener. As part of New York’s efforts to go green, the NYPD is rolling out 40 2009 Nissan Altima Hybrids for use during regular patrol. The vehicles get around 35 miles per gallon, which is about twice of the range of the current fleet of Chevy Impalas and Ford Crown Victorias.

More Solar Phones

Just last week we brought you news of the Blue-Earth, Samsung’s new solar powered touch phone. Well, it turns out that they are not the only company with solar dreams. Chinese mobile manufacturer ZTE recently revealed the Coral-200, a solar-powered handset with one very unique characteristic that sets it apart from its competitor: it will only cost 40 dollars!

Largescale Wind Power Proven Viable

Research by TU Delft proves that Dutch power stations are able to cope at any time in the future with variations in demand for electricity and supply of wind power, as long as use is made of up-to-date wind forecasts. PhD candidate Bart Ummels also demonstrates that there is no need for energy storage facilities. Ummels will receive his PhD on this topic on Thursday 26 February.

Wind is variable and can only partially be predicted. The large-scale use of wind power in the electricity system is therefore tricky. PhD candidate Bart Ummels MSc. investigated the consequences of using a substantial amount of wind power within the Dutch electricity system. He used simulation models, such as those developed by Dutch transmission system operator TenneT, to pinpoint potential problems (and solutions).

His results indicate that wind power requires greater flexibility from existing power stations. Sometimes larger reserves are needed, but more frequently power stations will have to decrease production in order to make room for wind-generated power. It is therefore essential to continually recalculate the commitment of power stations using the latest wind forecasts. This reduces potential forecast errors and enables wind power to be integrated more efficiently.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.

ETC goes LED

After long speculation about whether entertainment-lighting leader ETC would enter the LED market, the company has announced their acquisition of the Selador™ product line from Selador co-founders Rob Gerlach and Novella Smith.

“We didn’t want to make a ‘me too’ RGB or RGBA product that didn’t provide the kind of significant innovation in lighting we strive for,” says ETC CEO Fred Foster. “With its exclusive x7 Color System™, the Selador product line produces a far superior quality of color and light to anything that we had seen before in LEDs. We also benefit from the brainpower of Selador LED experts Novella and Rob – great people who will join our ETC team.”

The Sun turns CO2 into Fuel

Powered only by natural sunlight, an array of nanotubes is able to convert a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour into natural gas at unprecedented rates.

Such devices offer a new way to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into fuel or other chemicals to cut the effect of fossil fuel emissions on global climate, says Craig Grimes, from Pennsylvania State University, whose team came up with the device.

Although other research groups have developed methods for converting carbon dioxide into organic compounds like methane, often using titanium-dioxide nanoparticles as catalysts, they have needed ultraviolet light to power the reactions.

The researchers’ breakthrough has been to develop a method that works with the wider range of visible frequencies within sunlight.

Cell Phones Go Solar

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. recently unveiled its new, innovative solar powered full-touch screen phone, the “Blue Earth.” The Blue Earth phone is also part of “The Blue Earth Dream: Eco-living with SAMSUNG mobile,” an environmental initiative by the company to reduce its CO2 emissions, eliminate its use of hazardous substances and encourage cell phone recycling.

The phone is made from a recycled plastic prodct called PCM, which is made from water bottles. The packaging for Blue Earth is designed to be small and light, is made from recycled paper and comes with a 5-star energy efficient charger that uses standby power lower than 0.03W. The phone and charger are also free from harmful substances such as brominated flame retardants, beryllium and phthalates.

No Heating Required

Judd Blunk’s house is like a womb. Although the temperature outside is in the 20s, his triple-pane windows overlooking the Fox River feel warm from inside.

Because there is no furnace, the rooms are quiet. The only sound in the kitchen is the hum of a refrigerator, which along with other appliances, helps supply heat to the airtight 2,300-square-foot Batavia, Ill., home.

Blunk is part of a small movement of engineers and homeowners who are taking President Barack Obama’s vision of building energy-efficient homes to another level. They are inspired by “passive houses” in Germany that are so well-insulated and energy-efficient they eliminate the need for a conventional heating system.

Such design could be the future as Americans become more concerned with shrinking their carbon footprints and look at ways to avoid volatile energy prices.

Butterfly Effect

THE light-scattering structures that make butterfly wings so striking could be used to make cheaper, more efficient solar cells.

In dye-sensitised solar cells a dye coating on a titanium dioxide surface forms a “photoanode” that absorbs photons and pumps out electrons. To improve their efficiency, Di Zhang of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and colleagues borrowed the light-absorbing properties of the wings of the Paris peacock butterfly.

After soaking samples of the wing in a titanium-containing solution, they processed it to produce a titanium dioxide deposit that reproduced the wing’s honeycomb structure (Chemistry of Materials, DOI: 10.1021/cm702458p). When this was used to make a photoanode, the resulting cell’s efficiency was 10 per cent higher than normal.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.

Greening Shanghai’s Skyline

Recently Gensler broke ground on a soaring sustainably skyscraper that is set to become the tallest tower in China. The slender, elegantly spiraling Shanghai Tower will rise 632 meters, making it the latest super-tall to spring up in China’s rapidly developing Luijiazui Finance and Trade Zone. A beacon for a more sustainable future, the skyscraper will feature a high-performance façade that shelters no fewer than nine sky gardens, a rainwater recycling system, and a series of wind turbines perched beneath its parapet.

Climate Change Makes Buildings Go Green

For buildings the future is bright – bright green, that is. New research into how stone facades will be altered by changes in the atmosphere suggests that the days of smutty grey and black buildings are gone.

The coming century will see iconic limestone structures like the Empire State Building, the Pentagon, and the gothic cathedrals of Europe and the US turn yellow, reddish-brown, and even green with lichen and moss.

Cities will become more colourful as pollution patterns change and wind-swept rain washes away the black coal soot typical of the 20th century. What’s more, legal requirements to use clean fuels are likely to mean lichens and mosses will grow more easily, turning buildings green in parts.

Travel The World In A Solar Car

he first solar-powered car to travel around the world ended its journey at the U.N. climate talks Thursday, arriving with the message that clean technologies are available now to stop global warming.

The small two-seater, hauling a trailer of solar cells and carrying chief U.N. climate official Yvo de Boer, glided up to a building in Poznan, Poland, where delegates from some 190 nations are working toward a new treaty to control climate change.

Boifuels Solve Global Warming Twice

Converting agricultural land to perennial grasses, such as Miscanthus, has a beneficial effect on soil carbon.

Converting forests or fields to biofuel crops can increase or decrease greenhouse gas emissions, depending on where – and which – biofuel crops are used, University of Illinois researchers report this month.
The researchers analyzed data from dozens of studies to determine how planting new biofuel crops can influence the carbon content of the soil. Their findings appear this month in the journal Global Change Biology Bioenergy.

Plants use the sun’s energy to convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the organic carbon that makes up leaves, stems and other plant parts. As plants decay, this carbon goes into the soil. Organic carbon is an important component of soil health and also influences atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Whenever the soil is disturbed, as occurs when land is plowed or cleared of vegetation, some of this carbon returns to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide.

Hydrogen Goes Soalr

Scientists have found that a polymer material is an excellent catalyst in a process to produce hydrogen fuel using sunlight and water. The material meets the basic requirements for an ideal catalyst — including being abundant, easy to work with, and non-toxic — and could help this “green” alternative-energy production method become mainstream.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, November 30th, 2008

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.

Saving the World, One Home at a Time

A super-efficient system that has the potential to power, heat and cool homes across the UK is being developed at Newcastle University.
It works by burning vegetable oil to power a generator and provide electricity for the home.

The waste heat from this process is then used to provide heating and hot water and is also converted to cool a fridge.

At each step, the waste heat that is produced from engine gases and cooling is used elsewhere to recover the maximum amount of energy from the system.

In addition to this, the plant producing the fuel absorbs carbon whilst growing – resulting in near zero overall carbon emissions.

Using these three forms of energy for home use is known as micro-trigeneration and this new design will take the concept of combined heat and power to the next level.

California Roads are Electric

Recently the cities of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland unveiled a massive concerted effort to become the electric vehicle capitol of the United States! This groundbreaking development heralds a nine-step plan that includes everything from buying fully electric vehicles for all government transportation to expediting the approval of charging outlets throughout the bay area, including those located on the street. The creation of this essential infrastructure marks a huge step towards the acceptance of electric vehicles as a viable alternative to those that run on fossil fuel.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.

Guess What Markets My Investment Money Is Going To

The election of Barack Obama has put the wind back into the sails of the renewable energy sector, where investor confidence had been badly punctured by the credit crisis. Clean technology and green energy stocks have soared as City analysts predict a major boost from the incoming president.

Solar Integrated Technologies rose by 30% yesterday after increases of 22% by Renewable Energy Corporation and 16% by the wind turbine maker Vestas in the 24 hours before, when they were helped upwards by oil prices returning to above $70 a barrel.

Obama has promised to invest $150bn over 10 years in renewables as part of a wider plan to increase US energy security amid fear of oil shortages, while also reducing the country’s carbon emissions in a bid to tackle global warming – and create jobs during an economic downturn.

LEDs Go Solar

Thanks to rapid improvements in photovoltaic and LED lighting technology, solar-powered LED lighting is now suitable for a range of illumination applications, according to Sean Bourquin and Anthony Tisot of Carmanah Technologies.

Against a climate of rising energy costs and escalating environmental concerns, today’s advanced LED technology is creating new opportunities in solar-powered area lighting. Thanks to a new generation of bright and efficient LEDs, solar-powered lighting is expanding from its role in signal lights and flashing beacons to offer a renewable energy alternative for general illumination applications.

Shrinking Solar

Some of the tiniest solar cells ever built have been successfully tested as a power source for even tinier microscopic machines. An article in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE), published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), describes an inch-long array of 20 of these cells — each one about a quarter the size of a lowercase “o” in a standard 12-point font.

The cells were made of an organic polymer and were joined together in an experiment aimed at proving their ability to power tiny devices that can be used to detect chemical leaks and for other applications, says Xiaomei Jiang, who led the research at the University of South Florida.

Traditional solar cells, such as the commercial type installed on rooftops, use a brittle backing made of silicon, the same sort of material upon which computer chips are built. By contrast, organic solar cells rely upon a polymer that has the same electrical properties of silicon wafers but can be dissolved and printed onto flexible material

Solar Gets More Efficient

No matter which way you look at it, the notion of harvesting energy from the sun to power our homes and businesses is more absorbing than ever.

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered and demonstrated a new method for overcoming two major hurdles facing solar energy. By developing a new antireflective coating that boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire solar spectrum from nearly any angle, the research team has moved academia and industry closer to realizing high-efficiency, cost-effective solar power.

“To get maximum efficiency when converting solar power into electricity, you want a solar panel that can absorb nearly every single photon of light, regardless of the sun’s position in the sky,” said Shawn-Yu Lin, professor of physics at Rensselaer and a member of the university’s Future Chips Constellation, who led the research project. “Our new antireflective coating makes this possible.”

Fungal Diesel

A unique fungus that makes diesel compounds has been discovered living in trees in the rainforest, according to a paper published in the November issue of Microbiology. The fungus is potentially a totally new source of green energy and scientists are now working to develop its fuel producing potential.

“This is the only organism that has ever been shown to produce such an important combination of fuel substances,” said Professor Gary Strobel from Montana State University. “The fungus can even make these diesel compounds from cellulose, which would make it a better source of biofuel than anything we use at the moment.”

The fungus, which has been named Gliocladium roseum, produces a number of different molecules made of hydrogen and carbon that are found in diesel. Because of this, the fuel it produces is called “myco-diesel”.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.

Solar Efficiency Increases

Researchers have created a new material that overcomes two of the major obstacles to solar power: it absorbs all the energy contained in sunlight, and generates electrons in a way that makes them easier to capture.

Ethiopia Gets Windy

When faced with the need to develop additional sources of energy, the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation recently decided that its best option was not to build conventional power plants. Instead, the electricity provider opted to fulfill its energy needs by building Africa’s largest wind farm! The 120 megawatt Ashegoba plant in north Ethiopea will provide for 15 percent of the nation’s present energy capacity.

Singapore Goes Green

Currently slated for construction in Singapore, the EDITT Tower will be a paragon of “Ecological Design In The Tropics”. Designed by TR Hamzah & Yeang and sponsored by the National University of Singapore, the 26-story high-rise will boast photovoltaic panels, natural ventilation, and a biogas generation plant all wrapped within an insulating living wall that covers half of its surface area. The verdant skyscraper was designed to increase its location’s bio-diversity and rehabilitate the local ecosystem in Singapore’s ‘zeroculture’ metropolis.

Approximately half of the surface area of the EDITT Tower will be wrapped in organic local vegetation, and passive architecture will allow for natural ventilation. Publicly accessible ramps will connect upper floors to the street level lined in shops, restaurants and plant life. The building has also been designed for future adaptability, with many walls and floors that can be moved or removed. In a city known for its downpours, the building will collect rainwater and integrate a grey-water system for both plant irrigation and toilet flushing with an estimated 55% self-sufficiency.

855 square meters of photovoltaic panels will provide for 39.7% of the building’s energy needs, and plans also include the ability to convert sewage into biogas and fertilizer. The tower will be constructed using many recycled and recyclable materials, and a centralized recycling system will be accessible from each floor.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.

China’s First Zero Emissions Building

Situated in Ningbo, China, the University of Nottingham’s new Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies (CSET) is a welcome addition to the landscape as well as the air above Zhejiang province. Inspired by Chinese lanterns and traditional wooden screens, Mario Cucinella Architects packed CSET with a variety of sustainable attributes to make it the the first zero-emissions building in China.

Located in a country that relies heavily on coal power to support a population nearing 1.5 billion, CSET’s sustainable attributes are are vigorous as its environmental curriculum. The building is powered by a large array of photovoltaic cells and geothermal energy (which cools and heats the five story floor slabs). Any additional energy collected is stored in batteries that can provide up to two week’s worth of electricity for sunless days.

CSET’s double-glass skin reduces solar radiation, and the large rooftop opening creates natural ventilation while allowing daylight to illuminate the interior spaces. The building also makes extensive use of locally sourced materials in its construction and boasts an onsite rain and gray-water recycling center.

Streetlights go Solar

The latest high power LED street lights from European leader JolietTechnology, coupled with ultra efficient photovoltaic panels offers a new generation of energy efficient, pollution free solar street lighting solutions.

The advantages of cost effective LED lighting for streets, crossings, parking areas, gardens and public areas compared to conventional sodium lamps are undeniable. Adding a photovoltaic power source offers a new dimension.

The new ‘Cleanstreet’ solar LED street light from Joliet Technology is an integrated mast head fitting which employs two 130Wp photovoltaic modules and a electronic controller to charge batteries which operate the 56W LED lamp unit. The advanced system controller offers a night/day sensor for automatic switching.

The Future of Hydrogen is in Corn

The next alternative fuel in a vehicle’s tank might be nothing more than gas with a little help from corn. However, instead of the usual petroleum-based fuel, this gas will be hydrogen, and the corn will be in the form of corncob-charcoaled briquettes. To further develop this alternative fuel concept, researchers at the University of Missouri and Midwest Research Institute (MRI) were recently awarded a three-year, $1.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to continue studying a solution to hydrogen storage in vehicles.

“Developmental hydrogen vehicles exist today but current designs require large, bulky tanks of compressed hydrogen gas to hold the fuel,” said Peter Pfeifer, professor and chair of the Department of Physics in the MU College of Arts and Science. “The tanks also have a relatively small range, only holding enough fuel to travel up to 200 miles. We will be working on reducing the size and weight of the tank and increasing the storage capacity by developing storage materials that hold hydrogen at a much lower pressure than the current high-pressure tanks. The new tanks will store hydrogen on the surface of appropriately engineered carbons.”

The Future is Organic

On a bank of the Mohawk River, a windowless industrial building of corrugated steel hides something that could make floor lamps, bedside lamps, wall sconces and nearly every other household lamp obsolete. It’s a machine that prints lights.

The size of a semitrailer, it coats an 8-inch wide plastic film with chemicals, then seals them with a layer of metal foil. Apply electric current to the resulting sheet, and it lights up with a blue-white glow.

You could tack that sheet to a wall, wrap it around a pillar or even take a translucent version and tape it to your windows. Unlike practically every other source of lighting, you wouldn’t need a lamp or conventional fixture for these sheets, though you would need to plug them into an outlet.

The sheets owe their luminance to compounds known as organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs. While there are plenty of problems to be worked out with the technology, it’s not the dream of a wild-eyed startup.

OLEDs are beginning to be used in TVs and cell-phone displays, and big names like Siemens and Philips are throwing their weight behind the technology to make it a lighting source as well. The OLED printer was made by General Electric Co. on its sprawling research campus here in upstate New York. It’s not far from where a GE physicist figured out a practical way to use tungsten metal as the filament in a regular light bulb. That’s still used today, nearly a century later.

The invention of the incandescent bulb created the pattern for home lighting: Our light sources are small and bright. Maybe there are a few in the center of the ceiling, and a few in the corners of the room. Because they’re too bright to look at, they need to be reflected and diffused with lamp shades and frosted glass.

OLEDs could overturn all that, with broad, diffuse light sources bathing rooms in a gentle glow. Photographers go to great lengths to diffuse the illumination they use when shooting portraits, because they know we look our best in soft light.

The big glowing sheets could also make light sources out of everyday things. GE imagines putting OLEDs on the inside of window blinds – pull them down, light them up, and you have light streaming from the window, even at night. You could even make OLED wallpaper, since the material is flexible.

Paris Triangulates Green Architecture

Recently Herzog & de Meuron revealed Le Project Triangle, an incredible structure that will rise 200 meters from the Porte de Versailles in Paris. The stunning skyscraper will feature a profile so slim that it casts virtually no shadow, and its orientation will be optimized to take advantage of both solar and wind power. Paris’ new pyramid will be the first high-rise to be approved for construction is the city’s center since 1977, thanks to the recent lifting of a 31-year-old ban established by the previous Mayor of paris, Jacques Chirac.

The Real Cost of Renewables

As utility costs mount ever higher, Americans now have real options to take home energy matters into their own hands with “green” systems that can pay for themselves in as little as a few years.

Among the choices: wind, solar, geothermal and a “microhydro” option that is potentially cheaper than a year’s tuition at many state colleges.

Choosing the do-it-yourself route can offer the freedom of going partially or totally off the grid. And, if the energy generated exceeds your actual usage, you can even sell the excess juice to your utility company. But none of this is free.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.

California goes Bio-Solar

One oft-heard, if rather feeble, critique of solar power goes something like, “what happens when the sun isn’t shining? You’ve got to have some other power source available to come online to take up the slack.” Fair enough. Even in the sunniest places there still is night, there still can be rain or dust storms which cause the panels to become so dirty that capacity is reduced. Pacific Gas & Electric is addressing this concern with two new solar thermal-biomass hybrid power plants.

Renewable hybrid technology from Portugal
PG&E announced yesterday that it will be contracting with Portuguese manufacturer Martifer to build two plants near Coalinga, California with a total capacity of 106.8 MW. It is expected that the projects will supply enough power for 75,000 homes in northern and central California.

Solar Houses made out of fabric ! ! !

If architect Sheila Kennedy gets her way, textiles will soon be able to take the sun’s energy and turn it into electricity. Kennedy is an expert in the integration of solar cell technology in architecture. And, her team from KVA Matx has designed the Soft House, a structure that can create close to 16,000 watt-hours of electricity by transforming household curtains into flexible, semi-transparent, solar collectors.

Queen Elizabeth is an Air-Head

The Crown Estate of England knows which way the wind blows and has decided to acquire the prototype of the world’s biggest wind turbine, Clipper’s 7.5 megawatt MBE turbine, also known as the Britannia (pictured above is Clipper’s Liberty model, which produces 2.5 megawatt).

The previous record was held by the Enercon E-126 wind turbine which is rated at 6 megawatt (pictured below), but can produce around 7 in real world conditions. While the Enercon is land-based, the Britannia will be located in deep waters near the UK. This makes sense because the marine interests of The Crown Estate include almost the entire UK territorial seabed out to 12 nautical miles , about 55% of the UK’s coastal foreshore, and rights to lease seabed for the generation of renewable energy on the continental shelf within the Renewable Energy Zone which extends out to approximately 200 nautical miles..

Chicago gets some Spanish Sun

Chicago’s city skyline is about to be graced by a stunning new super-structure that will rise above its shore like a helical seashell. Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, the 2000 foot Chicago Spire will be the world’s second tallest building upon its completion in 2011. The halcyon monolith is beautiful example of biomimicry, taking cues from the spiraling structure of the nautilus. It’s an iconic spire with a timeless form that will take strong future-forward steps with a projected LEED gold rating.

Green Politics is Good Politics

Hey, this green thing’s catching on! Not that anyone reading this likely needed convincing that solar power’s a good thing, but a new survey shows that a lot of other people now think similarly. According to the SCHOTT Solar Barometer report a whopping 98% of Independents, 97% of Democrats and 91% of Republicans think that developing solar power is in the vital interests of the United States. On the flip side of this, only 3% of people surveyed thought that favoring coal was a good direction for the country to head. Additionally, a near-equal amount of Democrats (72%), Republicans (72%) and Independents (74%) thought that extending federal tax credits were a good way to encourage further development of solar. Granted this is a survey conducted by two groups with an overt economic stake in the results, but the figures are certainly compelling.

Oil goes Green, like actually green

THIS is one biofuel that lives up to its green billing in more ways than one. It’s an emerald-green crude oil, produced by photosynthesis in algae, which could fuel cars, trucks and aircraft – without consuming crops that can be used as food.

“This product can go right into today’s oil pipeline,” claims Jason Pyle of Sapphire Energy in San Diego, California, which developed the fuel. He says the “green crude” is similar in quality to naturally occurring crude oil. It is produced as a by-product of photosynthesis by a genetically engineered strain of algae, housed in tanks of treated waste-water and exposed to sunlight. The tanks can be placed on non-arable land.

Gasoline, diesel and jet fuel have already been refined from the green crude, and the company aims to produce 10,000 barrels per day within five years.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.

Collaboration, the future of green commerce

“Increasing political momentum around issues such as resource scarcity, climate change, security, and new regulations brings to light critical challenges that our industry will face in the coming years,” said Sabine Ritter, general manager for GCI. “The 2007 Bali Treaty and other political initiatives are driving the industry to come up with breakthrough solutions. Such solutions require new thinking, new approaches and new collaboration on infrastructures.”

The key, the report puts forth, to a more sustainable supply chain is sharing. Companies need to share warehouses, transportation, and, most importantly, information to help reduce carbon footprints and cut costs.

Ritter explained, “The coming years will see a new era for industry collaboration, which will become an important factor for future success. In many cases, this will require companies to rethink their areas of competitive advantage. Some business areas that are now considered to be core differentiators may well become candidates for non-competitive collaboration with competitors, such as replenishment in inner cities. In addition, industry collaboration will be essential to encourage governments to enact more appropriate regulations.”

Greening LA

Aptly nicknamed the “green blade,” Jean Nouvel’s newest addition to the asphalt laden City of Angels slices through the concrete jungle at 10,000 Santa Monica, adding much needed greenery to the surrounding office towers. Standing 45 stories tall and little more than 50 feet deep, this statuesque green structure is bound to make an sustainable impact that we hope others will follow.

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With $400 million going into a mere 177 residential unit, you can be sure that nothing will be spared in the new residence. Each unit will run the width of the building with views from the balconies on the north and the south façade. The narrow units help with energy efficiency but still have plenty of square footage on multiple stories ranging from 3,400 to 9,400 sq feet each. Plans currently show the south side landscaped in natural California foliage, while the north will take on more tropically lush feeling , providing plenty of green those viewing from afar while offering each residence to step out into a re-defined urban jungle. Not just for looks, the greenery will help minimize the heat island effect in LA.

Tokyo follows California

Tokyo’s mayor has seen the (green) light and is taking major steps to introduce a climate change programme for the city despite Japan’s reticence nationally on the matter. Mayor Shintaro Ishihara is a 75 year old self-acknowledged rightwinger who has decided to go it alone and impose strict curbs on local green house gas emissions. Some have compared his initiatives to those of California’s Governor Schwartzenegger’s differences with the Bush administration.

As of 2010 Tokyo will impose caps on emissions on its largest polluters, along with credit trading for those who go over the limit. The city has budgeted $191M for green initiatives this year including subsidies to small businesses to help them comply. Building regulations are being tightened for new buildings and increased energy efficiency is being promoted in Tokyo homes and offices. Almost 1,000 hectares of new parks and trees will be planted in the next 8 years. Tokyo has a population of 13M people but it is only responsible for 5% of Japan’s emissions because it is has little heavy industry. However this stance will certainly send a strong message to the Prime Minister in time for the G8 summit next month where he has promised to put global warming high on the agenda, and hopefully show more leadership in this area.

Self-Healing solar-wind skins to retrofit older buildings

There’s nothing like a towering wind turbine to inspire NIMBY sentiment from neighbors and city councils alike. Enter a striking new alternative energy concept by Mexican-born Agustin Otegui, who works with economies of a much smaller scale. He has conceived of a next-gen Nano Vent-Skin that sheathes structures in a shimmering solar weave studded with micro-turbines. The concept takes advantage of a structure’s maximum available surface space, and its modular composition allows it to retrofit our old buildings instead of pouring resources into new ones. Plus, the stunning superstructure incorporates micro-organisms to soak up C02.

In the past we’ve covered approaches to alternative energy that seek to synthesize solar with wind. It’s an exciting area to watch as technology improves and processes are streamlined, and Ostegui’s concept charts some innovative new territory.

The Nano Vent-Skin is a zero-emission material that takes a tri-partite approach towards energy efficiency. First, it soaks up sunlight via a photovoltaic layer, and transfers energy via nano-wires to storage units at the end of each panel. Second, its tiny turbines employ “polarized organisms” to create chemical reactions, generating power each time the turbine makes contact with the structure. Third, the organisms present in the inner skin of each turbine soak up C02.

At the core of the technology is an elaborate system of bio-engineered micro organisms which “have not been genetically altered; they work as a trained colony where each member has a specific task in this symbiotic process.” Ostegui even has plans for the system to be self-healing: “Every panel has a sensor on each corner with a material reservoir. When one of the turbines has a failure or breaks, a signal is sent through the nano-wires to the central system and building material (microorganisms) is sent through the central tube in order to regenerate this area with a self assembly process.”

CFLs are not so green

More and more countries are banning incandescent light bulbs in favor of energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs. But options to recycle the mercury-laden alternatives are often scarce.

A variety of European Union recycling regulations make it unlawful for EU residents to dispose of CFLs in the trash. In the United States, some states are following suit, though most localities rely on consumers to voluntarily mail the bulbs back to manufacturers for recycling. In developing countries, recycling is less available, and proper landfills often do not even exist in the event that the bulbs are discarded as trash.

To reduce hazardous waste at its source, leading CFL manufacturers have committed to reduce the mercury content of their products. Martin Goetzeler, CEO of Munich-based Osram, said his company aims to cut the mercury content of its CFLs by half in the coming years. “It should be part of any new technology that hazardous substances are regulated,” he said. “And we should use the lowest levels [of toxins].”

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