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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, 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 26th, 2008

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

Bugs Are Getting Worked Out Of Bioethanol Production

f the biofuel known as bioethanol is to make a major contribution to our fuel supplies, then we may well require the assistance of some tiny insect helpers, says Michael Scharf, an assistant professor of entomology at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

In a review to be published in Biofuels, Bioproducts & Biorefining, Scharf and his colleague Aurélien Tartar describe how the enzymes produced by both termites and the micro-organisms that inhabit their gut – known as symbionts – could help to produce ethanol from non-edible plant material such as straw and wood.

“Through millions and millions of years of evolution, termites and their symbionts have acquired highly specialised enzymes that work together to efficiently convert wood and other plant materials into simple sugars,” says Scharf. “These enzymes are of the most value to bioethanol production.”

Current bioethanol production processes tend to use edible plant materials, such as starch from corn (maize) and sugar from sugar cane, which contain easily accessible sugar molecules that can be fermented to produce ethanol. However, using food crops to produce ethanol has proved highly controversial, with bioethanol being blamed for much of the recent rises in food prices.

The non-edible parts of many plants also contain a large number of sugar molecules, which could potentially be used to produce ethanol. But the problem is that these sugar molecules are far less accessible. This is because they’re locked up within a substance known as lignocellulose, which provides structural support for plant cell walls.

Breaking this substance up into its component sugar molecules is far from easy. One approach involves pretreating the lignocellulose by heating it in combination with acids or bases and then exposing the pretreated material to various enzymes. Another approach is very fine grinding followed by enzymatic treatment.

Termites, on the other hand, don’t seem to have too much trouble digesting wood and other lignocellulosic materials into their component sugars, as many homeowners can attest. The termite appears to favour the fine grinding approach in combination with its own unique set of enzymes. These enzymes are secreted by both termites and the symbionts that colonise their gut, and act on the lignocellulose that has been chewed to very small particle sizes by the termite.

Space Age Solar

Ben Bova, the president emeritus of the National Space Society, recently suggested an incredible solution to the world’s energy crisis. Instead of taking solar panels and sticking them on your roof, he wants to send photovoltaic arrays off into space and beam solar energy down to earth. Since they are constantly exposed to the sun, such solar power satellites could provide a continuous stream of 5-10 gigawatts of energy!

In a recent Washington Post article Mr. Bova explains that the technology is not as farfetched as one would think. We already know how to send materials into space, and we have built large superstructures in zero-gravity environments (think the space station), so perhaps building a giant solar collector in space is not entirely out of the question.

His proposal is to build and launch solar power satellites – large photovoltaic arrays that constantly convert sunlight into electricity and use microwaves to beam that energy back to earth-bound receiving stations. According to Mr Bova, a single one of these satellites would send enough energy to power all of California. Since one would need a large surface to collect all of this energy, the best locations for receiving stations are dry areas such as the Nevada Desert or the Sahara.

Although the costs involved are fairly astronomical, the technology exists today, and this is not the first space-bound solar proposal that we have seen. So, what do you think – should someone give it a try?

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

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

High Tide for Tidal Power

Underwater turbines that harvest tidal currents have already become an established technology in the world of clean energy. So in order to push the frontier further, a group of engineers at Oxford have been tinkering away on a design that promises to be even more powerful and efficient. The group recently introduced an innovative Transverse Horizontal Axis Water Turbine that will not only collect more energy but require 60% lower manufacturing costs and 40% lower maintenance costs.

Germany Cleans Up Its Coal

Vattenfall’s CO2-free power plant in the eastern German town of Schwarze Pumpe. One of Europe’s biggest power companies inaugurates on Tuesday a pilot project using a technology that it is presenting as a huge potential breakthrough in the fight against climate change

One of Europe’s biggest power companies inaugurates on Tuesday a pilot project using a technology that it is presenting as a huge potential breakthrough in the fight against climate change.
But green campaigners have denounced the project as a cosmetic operation that does not really address the problem of global warming.

At the site of the massive “Schwarze Pumpe” (“Black Pump”) power station in the old East Germany, Vattenfall wants to the new method to allow it continue burning coal — but with radically reduced emissions.

To do so, the Swedish firm is using Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS for short, which captures the greenhouse gases produced when fossil fuels are combusted.

This prevents the greenhouse gases escaping into the Earth’s atmosphere and contributing to global warming.

This Just In: The Sun provides energy and helps grow crops

A new breed of solar tower may soon be sprouting up in Namibia, providing the nation with a carbon-free source of electricity and food during the day and night. At one and a half kilometers tall and 280 meters wide, these massive solar updraft towers could potentially produce 400MW of energy each – enough to power Windhoek, the nation’s capital. Proposed by intellectual property company Hahn & Hahn, the towers generate energy by forcing heated air through a shaft lined with wind turbines. Additionally, the base of each tower will function as a 37 square km greenhouse where crops can be grown.

New Developments In Ethanol Production

Genetically engineered bacteria could make cellulosic ethanol cheaper to manufacture, researchers report. The finding could unlock more energy from the waste products of farming and forestry.

Ethanol from cellulose, the kind of sugar in cornstalks and sawdust, is being promoted as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, with the advantage that it does not use food crops such as corn as raw materials.

The genetically engineered bacteria are able to ferment cellulose to produce ethanol more efficiently than current methods, says Lee Lynd of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, an author of the study.

Naturally occurring bacteria can also ferment cellulose, but they do it at lower temperatures that require the use of an expensive enzyme called cellulase.

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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, April 6th, 2008

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

Food, the original solar powered fuel

With the UK’s chief scientist warming of a looming food crisis, and with consumers around the world changing their eating habits in the face of increasing prices, the need to find alternatives to our current food system becomes ever more pressing. TreeHugger is a big fan of urban food production and community gardening, so it’s unsurprising that we were excited to read about ambitious efforts in the UK town of Middlesborough to turn public space into productive land:

Middlesbrough borough council turned over parkland, town-centre planters and other landholdings for fruit and vegetable growing. The eight-month project culminated in a town meal outside the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, where up to 8,000 people shared meals from the food that had been grown.

This year, Middlesbrough plans to supply seeds and containers to anyone interested, and already has 2,000 individuals and groups lined up, including 31 out of 51 schools, with 280 growing sites. “This has caught people’s imagination. But we’ve gone beyond novelty now and people want to make it a mainstream activity,” says Ian Collingwood, a regeneration consultant at the council.

While high-tech food growing solutions like vertical farming, underground agriculture, and aquaponics may have great potential in meeting the challenge of feeding the world, we suspect that projects like this one that simply reconnect people with the skills to feed themselves will be at least as important as we navigate our way out of the era of cheap food.

A new definition of Eco-Tourism

Environmentally conscious visitors to Shanghai who are looking for the luxury experience can stay carbon-free and enjoy green living on the go at URBN Hotels. Designed to attract ‘urban world travelers’, the 28-room full-service hotel fuses Western and Chinese influences and a host of green-minded practices to create an urban eco-oasis for tourist and business travelers. From the building’s design and materials to cleaning products to energy-efficiency, URBN Hotels is an eco-friendly refuge amid the bustle of Shanghai.

The building design used an existing structure and locally sourced materials such as reclaimed hardwoods and old Shanghai bricks. Passive solar shades, rain water retention basins and water-based air conditioning have been used to decrease the hotel’s environmental impact. For the health and wellbeing of each guest, 6 square meters of green is space allocated per person, low-VOC paints used and interiors are cleaned with environmentally sensitive products.

What carbon emissions the hotel does produce – such as staff travel, stock deliveries and the energy consumed by each guest – will be tracked and offset by investing in clean energy development and energy efficiency projects elsewhere in China. Guests can also buy international standard carbon credits from the hotel to offset their flights.

Economic factors influenced the decision to introduce green measures, as the hotel will be cheaper to run in the long term. Over the next three years, 20 URBN hotels and resorts are set to open in Beijing, Hangzhou, Dalian, and Suzhou, containing up to 70 rooms each.

States Rights

Officials of 18 states are taking the EPA back to court to try to force it to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that rebuked the Bush administration for inaction on global warming.

In a petition prepared for filing Wednesday, the plaintiffs said last April’s 5-4 ruling required the Environmental Protection Agency to decide whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, from motor vehicles.

The EPA has instead done nothing, they said.

“The EPA’s failure to act in the face of these incontestable dangers is a shameful dereliction of duty,” Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

The petition asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to require the EPA to act within 60 days.

In last year’s decision, the Supreme Court ruled the EPA has the authority to regulate emissions from new cars and trucks under the Clean Air Act, and said the reasons the EPA gave for declining to do so were insufficient.

Algae Power

As gas prices continue to soar to record highs, motorists are crying out for an alternative that won’t cramp their pocketbooks.

Scientists at U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are answering that call by working to chemically manipulate algae for production of the next generation of renewable fuels – hydrogen gas.

“We believe there is a fundamental advantage in looking at the production of hydrogen by photosynthesis as a renewable fuel,” senior chemist David Tiede said. “Right now, ethanol is being produced from corn, but generating ethanol from corn is a thermodynamically much more inefficient process.”

Some varieties of algae, a kind of unicellular plant, contain an enzyme called hydrogenase that can create small amounts of hydrogen gas. Tiede said many believe this is used by Nature as a way to get rid of excess reducing equivalents that are produced under high light conditions, but there is little benefit to the plant.

Tiede and his group are trying to find a way to take the part of the enzyme that creates the gas and introduce it into the photosynthesis process.

The result would be a large amount of hydrogen gas, possibly on par with the amount of oxygen created.

Power Cubed

Portable green power sources are steadily gaining momentum as alternative energy tech gears up to help shoulder the strain of our overloaded energy grids. This recently released generator, dubbed the PowerCube 6000, is showing plenty of potential as an all-inclusive clean energy system. Whether you’re greening your home’s energy sources, preparing for an emergency, or opening up a Black Rock smoothie stand, the PowerCube offers an enticing (if expensive) way to break free from the grid.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

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

Solar Paint

The Swansea Solar Paint project is led by Dave Worsley, who, together with his team, were researching ways to make make steel last longer. By chance that they started to focus on the degradation of paints in steel surfaces, when they realized that their research could lead them to develop a new way of getting energy from the sun.

The idea is to coat every piece of steel cladding with a solar cell paint. As steel is passed through the rollers multiple coatings of of the solar cell system are applied to it. Based on the preliminary research, the materials that are being applied are suited to capturing low level solar radiation, which means that they should work just as well in areas where the sun doesn’t directly shine on them.

Invest in Algae

Earth2Tech has a roundup of biofuel startups that are working on turning algae into fuel. We can’t yet know what will happen; Some of these companies might become huge in the next few years, or they might be left in the dust by new developments (solar energy below $1/watt and advances in battery or hypercapacitor technology, for example). Only the future will tell, but in the meantime, they are worth keeping an eye on.

The companies are: GreenFuel Technologies, Solazyme, Blue Marble Energy, Inventure Chemical, Solena, Live Fuels, Solix Biofuels, Aurora Biofuels, Aquaflow Binomics, Petro Sun, Bionavitas, Mighty Algae Biofuels, Bodega Algae, Seambiotic and Cellena.

SoCal goes Solar

Edison International plans to launch a roof top photovoltaic solar project. The process requires no fuel or a transmission station to operate. The plans include an initial phase to be up and running by Summer, 2008.

In an exclusive interview with John Bryson, Chairman and CEO of Edison International by CNBC reporter, Dylan Ratigan explained a new direct method of delivering solar energy. The process is called Photovoltaic technology,which means it converts sun energy directly into power within the solar cell. The unique aspect of this project, as explained by John Bryon involves leasing about 2 ½ miles of rooftops in the hotter regions of Southern California.

The roof tops will be fitted with thin-film solar cells and have the ability to literally dump electricity into the surrounding community. The communities have been preselected to include areas where Southern California Edison has a growing customer base. The advantage of the photovoltaic technology is that it does not require a separate transmission station or added fuel costs. The thin-cell solar manufacturers has not been determined at this time.

According to Mr. Bryson, the Photovoltaic Roof Top Project is planning to be up and running in its initial phase by this Summer. The process when it begins can almost immediately begin to produce electricity to relieve the additional burden of air conditioning and the like during the hot season.

Investing in Forests

It is either a visionary piece of capitalism or throwing money into the wind. A venture capitalist today made a huge environmental bet – that one day the environment services that sustainable forests provide will be worth big money.

The Iwokrama reserve in Guyana is a 371,000 hectare chunk of tropical forest – roughly the size of Majorca – and is a successful experiment in sustainable forest management.

Hylton Murray-Philipson, director of the UK-based financiers Canopy Capital, has signed a deal with Iwokrama guaranteeing a “meaningful” contribution to their running costs for five years, a deal which may be renewed.

In return for these funds, Canopy Capital is given “ownership” of the forest’s ecosystems services and a claim on any profits that might one day be made from them.

Solar soon to be cheaper than coal

Researchers from MIT have improved commercial solar cells that will soon be significantly cheaper and more efficient than those available today. Ely Sachs, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, predicts that by 2012 such solar cells will be comparable in price with coal, which is about $1 per watt.

Sachs and his colleagues have started a company called 1366 Technologies. With the help of a recent $12.4 million grant, the team is building a pilot-scale manufacturing plant to fabricate their first batch of solar cells. The cells currently have an efficiency of 19.5%, and cost about $1.65 per watt. That´s a 27% improvement in efficiency over similar commercial solar cells of today, which have about 15% efficiency and cost about $2.10 per watt.

Carbon Neutral Power

The company that generates the largest proportion of New Zealand’s electricity has been certified carbon neutral for more than a year.

Meridian Energy generates around a third of New Zealand’s total energy demand (approx 12,000 GWh) exclusively from wind and hydro sources. The company has a history of advocating a carbon credit marketplace.

Clothing goes Solar

A year ago Bonnie modelled a solar powered bikini for us, but it was just a prototype. Now, the Guardian tells us that flexible solar cells will be woven right into our clothing, to charge our iPods and phones.

Dave Pritchard at Fujitsu, told David Smith of the Guardian: ‘Within a year it will be possible to design clothing with solar cells on the back or arms, so you can recharge wearable devices.’ He said the clothing would be useful on the ski slopes, outdoor holidays and for the emergency services. It would also appeal to the environmentally conscious as a means of reducing power consumption.

Sustainable Add-ons

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Old is New

Step right in ladies and gentlemen, and gaze at the marvels of modern technology! Allow us to show you the most amazing car of the century: The magnificent Detroit Electric, the car of summer luxury! This 100 year-old antique electric car will be available in early 2009 from ZAP and China Youngman Automotive Group, proving once and for all that there is no such thing as a new idea. The Detroit Electric is considered to be the most popular electric car in history — and was produced by the Anderson Electric Car Company in 1907 (production ran from 1907 to 1939). This cute little EV could go fo 130 miles on one charge, and had a top speed of about 32km/h. Famous Detroit Electric owners included Thomas Edison, Charles Proteus Steinmetz and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

So why is this relevant? Well, Zap, who is creating the Zap Alias, in partnership with the China Youngman Automotive Group, decided to resurrect the Detroit Electric as a promotional vehicle and are planning to produce a small number to market. The joint venture is also set to release an array of cars, buses and trucks under the Detroit Electric brand — all electrically powered, of course.

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Solar Sunday

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

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

Arizona goes Solar

The lucky sunny state of Arizona is about to become home to the world’s largest Solar Plant! Thanks to a just-announced contract between Abengoa Solar and Arizona Public Service Company (APS), the enormous solar plant called Solana will power up to 70,000 homes, and will be the first example in the country of a major utility getting the majority of its energy from solar.

Virgin Biofuels

Virgin Atlantic carried out the world’s first flight of a commercial aircraft powered with biofuel on Sunday in an effort to show it can produce less carbon dioxide than normal jet fuels.

Some analysts praised the jumbo jet test flight from London to Amsterdam as a potentially useful experiment. But others criticized it as a publicity stunt and noted scientists are questioning the environmental benefits of biofuels.

“This breakthrough will help Virgin Atlantic to fly its planes using clean fuel sooner than expected,” Sir Richard Branson, the airline’s president, said before the Boeing 747 flew from London’s Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

He said the flight would provide “crucial knowledge that we can use to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint,” he said.

Russian Green

Composting, Mexican Style

Each day Mexico City produces 5,100 tons of organic waste, 600 of which come from the city’s sprawling Central de Abasto, or central marketplace. The center, known as the CEDA, is the largest food distribution center in the country and one of the largest in the world. In February, the city closed one of its principal dumps, the West Dump, when it reached maximum capacity. The closure has forced experts to think creatively about new ways to divert waste.

A diverse group of researchers from the National Autonomous University (UNAM) and the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) recently came together to find a way to redirect the food waste from the dump to local farmers for compost.

“Close to 80 percent of the CEDA’s waste goes to the landfill. We have to…recuperate the organic material to reduce the amount disposed at the dump,” said Luis Tovar, head of the project and an IPN researcher. Before the closure, only a small fraction of the organic waste generated at the market — between 30 and 40 tons — was reused as compost at the West Dump.

Composting as Carbon Sink

Applying organic fertilizers, such as those resulting from composting, to agricultural land could increase the amount of carbon stored in these soils and contribute significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research published in a special issue of Waste Management & Research (Special issue published today by SAGE).

Carbon sequestration in soil has been recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the European Commission as one of the possible measures through which greenhouse gas emissions can be mitigated.

One estimate of the potential value of this approach – which assumed that 20% of the surface of agricultural land in the EU could be used as a sink for carbon – suggested it could constitute about 8.6% of the total EU emission-reduction objective.

“An increase of just 0.15% in organic carbon in arable soils in a country like Italy would effectively imply the sequestration of the same amount of carbon within soil that is currently released into the atmosphere in a period of one year through the use of fossil fuels,” write Enzo Favoino and Dominic Hogg, authors of the paper.

Political Change is Environmental Change

After 49 years in power, Fidel Castro has stepped aside and allowed his brother Raúl, 76, to become president. While hopes that “a younger generation might take power” have been washed away, many still expect to see changes with the “pragmatic military officer” in charge. One of the more surprising changes may come in the form of an ethanol boom in Cuba, where experts believe as much as 2 billions gallon could one day be produced annually, which would place Cuba third in worldwide production.

Space Goes Solar

Instead of doing the old-fashioned solar power thing, and capturing the sun’s rays as they hit the Earth’s surface, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Osaka University Institute of Laser Engineering is bolding going where no space station has ever gone before – in terms of solar power. Pioneering scientists at Jaxa have found a way to harness solar power even closer to the source- from outer space! The Space Solar Power System (SSPS) technology would capture solar rays in space and transport the energy to be used here on the ground. A single unit placed in space would generate enough energy to power 500,000 homes!

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