Thin Film Solar Panels Are Here
Take part in the “weight loss” challenge from Native Energy and you can lose 30 pounds while helping to build the greenest town in America.
“Our ‘weight-loss’ challenge is a simple, fun way to get people thinking about how
they can easily join in the fight against global warming.”
-Regina Farrell, Native Energy
University of Texas researchers have been working with nanoparticle ‘inks’ to create photovoltaics that could be sprayed onto surfaces to make solar panels. If functional, they could be used at one-tenth the cost of current technologies, it has been estimated.
The idea is that the inks could painted onto rooftops and building walls. The catch is right now the inks are only one percent efficient, whereas current solar panel technology can be 25% efficient.
The nanoparticle technology, however, has not hit its’ top efficiency and the researchers are optimistic. Brian Korgell who has been working on the project for two years stated, “If we get to 10 percent, then there’s real potential for commercialization, if it works, I think you could see it being used in three to five years.”
As PG&E ramps up renewable power in response to the California RPS requirement that it get 33% of its electricity from renewables by 2020; it has been exploring ways to add that much renewable power to the grid while smoothing out the ups and downs of wind energy, which often peaks at night.
The utility needs a way to turn sometimes-too-much wind into anytime-always-there electricity.
The solution? Simple tech. Underground compressed air.
With compressed air energy storage; air is compressed and then pumped in natural underground reservoirs. The air is released later and converted into electricity. With enough storage, even fickle wind could actually supply base-load power.
So PG&E has applied for DOE smart grid stimulus funding under The Recovery Act; to build a compressed air energy storage project with output capacity of 300 megawatts. They are applying for $25 million.
By comparison, building a plant to burn fossil fuels would cost around $850 million for the same 300 megawatts of fossil energy.
A team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin has developed a type of spray-on solar cells that could lower costs of production dramatically.
The concept of spray-on solar cells is by no means a new approach – the Australian National University has been working on one for the past three years. The University of Texas at Austin team led by engineer Brian Korgel uses copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) as the main component for the ink used to manufacture the solar cell. This nanoparticle ink allows manufacturers to completely deviate from the conventional expensive method of solar cell production. Using this ink, solar cells can be made through a roll-to-roll printing process, similar to how newspapers are printed. Plastic substrate and stainless steel are a couple of possible bases for the printing.
A breakthrough discovery from Sandia National Laboratories could help keep a lid on the rising cost of chemical water treatment and make clean drinking water more affordable in “water challenged” areas of the world. Working with researchers at the University of California, the Sandia team substituted one atom in aluminum oxide, a common chemical used to coagulate impurities in water. The new compound promises a more sustainable way to decontaminate wastewater as well as purify drinking water. Next step: Sandia has partnered with the award-winning water technology company Kemira to bring the new compound into commercial production.
High-tech membranes are catching on as a lower cost, non-chemical and more sustainable water treatment process, but there’s a catch: they can quickly foul with dirt and other particles. Enter NanoBrane, a nanotechnology company with a patent-pending breakthrough in membrane properties that prevents fouling. That makes the treatment process run more efficiently and reduces the downtime needed to service the membranes, potentially reducing operating expenses by up to 20%.
We’re all familiar with the vast solar thermal power stations in the desert that use mirrors to make steam to drive turbines. Giant solar thermal arrays are already making electricity in the desert in Spain and California. But what if we could have just one of these units in the backyard, just for our own use?
That’s what motivated a team of MIT students to find the way to make the cheapest solar power station out there. Mass produce it for the home user and market it under their own new start up RawSolar.
Sure, it melts steel. But even more practically for the home owner, it makes steam in a flash:
If you live in one of the states now sweltering through heat waves; even more frequent sweltering days are in your future as a result of climate change.
But it’s not only your children’s children who will suffer heat waves more often. Your property values in these states will also sink over time as your neighborhoods heat up to unlivable levels over the next decades.
A/C will be a necessity. But adding a heat recovery system will at least cut those losses to your home values:
The biggest commodities boom of the 20th century was a bust for water and wastewater utilities, which found themselves locked in a battle with manufacturers for vital water treatment chemicals over the past five years. Competition for more chemicals to grow biofuel crops didn’t help, either. Prices for some chemicals almost tripled between 2003 and 2008 as utilities scrambled to find scarce supplies. Though the global recession helped to ease the price and supply issues, the next boom cycle could bring things to a boiling point. Fortunately, more sustainable non-chemical water treatment methods are on the horizon and could play a role in stabilizing the situation over the long run.
I was always fascinated by dirt bikes when I was young - I was one of the many kids whose parents wouldn’t let me get one, so I jealously watched my neighbors scoot up and down the street and through the nearby pasture on their little Kawasaki. My Schwinn Stingray was nowhere near as cool. [...]