THIN FILM SOLAR PANELS

Archive for May, 2009

After a year-long demonstration project, the U.S. Navy is poised add its own contribution to reducing the military’s carbon bootprint - or carbon wake, as the case may be.  The Navy stands to gain up to 87% in savings for shipboard lighting, by switching from conventional light bulbs to high efficiency LED and HID systems developed through DARPA under the HEDLight (High Efficiency Distributed Lighting) program.  One recent retrofit has been accomplished by Ohio-based Energy Focus, Inc. Saving energy is just part of the picture: the quantum leap to HEDLight is also expected to yield significant gains in the Navy’s strategic efficiency.

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A new study from Greenpeace, the European Solar Thermal Agency, and the International Energy Agency’s SolarPACES Group has shown that concentrated solar power (CSP) could generate a quarter of the world’s energy needs by 2050–and create thousands of new jobs and prevent millions of tons of CO2 from being released.

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From the Environmental News Network (ENN.com)

New research by the National Center for Atmospheric Research points to the possibility that water from the melting Greenland Ice Sheath could change oceanic circulation in the North Atlantic, in a way that would raise sea levels off the Northeast by about eight inches more than the average global sea level rise that is expected with global warming.

Results of the study are being published this week in Geophysical Research Letters. They suggest that moderate to high rates of ice melt from Greenland may shift ocean circulation by about 2100, causing sea levels off the northeast coast of North America to rise by about 30 to 51 centimeters (12 to 20 inches) more than other coastal areas.

The research builds on recent reports that have found that sea level rise could adversely affect North America, and its findings suggest that the situation is even more urgent than previously believed.

“If the Greenland melt continues to accelerate, we could see significant impacts this century on the northeast U.S. coast from the resulting sea level rise,” says scientist Aixue Hu, the paper’s lead author. Hu is at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. “Major northeastern cities are directly in the path of the greatest rise.”

To assess the impact of Greenland ice melt on ocean circulation, Hu and his coauthors used the Community Climate System Model, an NCAR-based computer model that simulates global climate.

They considered three scenarios: the melt rate continuing to increase by 7 percent a year, as has been the case in recent years, or the melt rate slowing down to an increase of either 1 or 3 percent a year.

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This is a guest post contributed by Colin Hickey, BCE, of Green Planet Pest Control, serving all of Massachusetts

In an industry notorious for environmental health neglect, some companies have recognized that providing a green service for pest control can be achieved without sacrificing effectiveness. Reducing impact in pest control relies on changing several practices. GPS and smart mapping software allow a company to consolidate its daily driving to minimizegas and emissions. Incorporating non-chemical control measures into a treatment protocol reduces the amount of chemical pesticide applied. Using least-impact, low-toxicity products and confining treatment to pest harborages will considerably reduce the hazard of using chemical pesticides. While effective pest control can be achieved solely by non-chemical means in some instances, there will always be a need for professional pest control services. You can find an eco-friendly pest control service near you here.

Green control services rely on a course of action that integrates different available techniques to target the source of the infestation and achieve lasting and sustainable control. Identifying the specific pest, knowing its behavior and directing control efforts where they will be most effective is the basis for an educated pest control program. While chemical pesticides can sometimes be applied to temporarily mitigate a pest invasion, in most instances the source of the infestation can be linked to a particular condition or several existing conditions that are promoting pest activity. Sometimes educating a customer about different pest species can be the most important step in controlling (or not controlling them) them. All organisms need the availability of food, water and harborage to thrive. Non-chemical control measures deny these requirements and force pests from harborages. For instance, water is a strong attraction for many pests; therefore, fixing a water leak would send all pests depending on that leak elsewhere.

Many low-impact pesticides have been marketed for pest control. Usually any product designed to kill bugs will do so when treating point-blank but I would suggest to anyone interested in controlling their own pests to consider educating themselves before they apply any product for control. You can find out about natural pest-control alternatives here, such as soaps and oils and other natural products most of us have in our homes.  It is important to note that there is no effective product that has zero impact and many products that are sold over-the-counter can have harmful effects if not correctly used.

DSC modules yearly generated 10-20% more electricity than conventional crystalline-Si modules of the same rated output power.