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  #61  
Old Posted Aug 5, 2010, 2:44 AM
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Solar Power Could Soon Compete with Oil


Aug 4, 2010

Read More: http://spacefellowship.com/news/art2...-with-oil.html

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Unlike photovoltaic technology currently used in solar panels – which becomes less efficient as the temperature rises – the new process excels at higher temperatures. Called “photon enhanced thermionic emission,” or PETE, the process promises to surpass the efficiency of existing photovoltaic and thermal conversion technologies. “This is really a conceptual breakthrough, a new energy conversion process, not just a new material or a slightly different tweak,” said Nick Melosh, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research group. “It is actually something fundamentally different about how you can harvest energy.”

And the materials needed to build a device to make the process work are cheap and easily available, meaning the power that comes from it will be affordable. Melosh is senior author of a paper describing the tests the researchers conducted. It was published online Aug. 1 in Nature Materials. “Just demonstrating that the process worked was a big deal,” Melosh said. “And we showed this physical mechanism does exist; it works as advertised.” Most photovoltaic cells, such as those used in rooftop solar panels, use the semiconducting material silicon to convert the energy from photons of light to electricity. But the cells can only use a portion of the light spectrum, with the rest just generating heat.


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  #62  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2010, 4:12 PM
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Solar funnel


Anne Trafton, MIT News Office



Read More: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/s...enna-0913.html

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Solar cells are usually grouped in large arrays, often on rooftops, because each cell can generate only a limited amount of power. However, not every building has enough space for a huge expanse of solar panels. Using carbon nanotubes (hollow tubes of carbon atoms), MIT chemical engineers have found a way to concentrate solar energy 100 times more than a regular photovoltaic cell. Such nanotubes could form antennas that capture and focus light energy, potentially allowing much smaller and more powerful solar arrays.

“Instead of having your whole roof be a photovoltaic cell, you could have little spots that were tiny photovoltaic cells, with antennas that would drive photons into them,” says Michael Strano, the Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and leader of the research team.

Strano and his students describe their new carbon nanotube antenna, or “solar funnel,” in the Sept. 12 online edition of the journal Nature Materials. Lead authors of the paper are postdoctoral associate Jae-Hee Han and graduate student Geraldine Paulus.

Their new antennas might also be useful for any other application that requires light to be concentrated, such as night-vision goggles or telescopes. The work was funded by a National Science Foundation Career Award, a Sloan Fellowship, the MIT-Dupont Alliance and the Korea Research Foundation.



This filament containing about 30 million carbon nanotubes absorbs energy from the sun as photons and then re-emits photons of lower energy, creating the fluorescence seen here. The red regions indicate highest energy intensity, and green and blue are lower intensity.

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  #63  
Old Posted Oct 9, 2010, 11:49 PM
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'Jellyfish' smoothies offer solar solutions


http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/inn....html?hpt=Sbin

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- Scientists say by liquidizing the humble Aequorea victoria -- a glow-in-the-dark jellyfish commonly found off the western coast of North America -- they can use the green fluorescent protein (GFP) it contains to create miniature fuel cells. These, say their creators, could be used to power microscopic "nanodevices" that could operate independently inside the human body, helping reverse blindness or fight tumors.

- Zackary Chiragwandi at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden told CNN he has developed a method of generating power at a nano-level by administration a droplet of jellyfish-type GFP onto aluminum electrodes and exposing it to ultraviolet light. The technique, he says, is more foolproof than existing light-powered cells, doing away with the need for expensive and tricky titanium elements found in "Gratzel cells" -- acclaimed solar-power fuel cells that mimic plant photosynthesis.

- Chiragwandi says his cell can even utilize enzymes from fireflies and Renilla reniformis sea pansies to create its own light source, making it completely self-contained. In Chiragwandi's "biophotovoltaic nanodevice," electrons flow through a circuit when light hits the green fluorescent protein. He says this generates a current measuring "tens of nano amperes." The amount may seem negligible, but if scaled up would appear to offer a more efficient power supply than existing solar cells.

- "The output characteristics of the biophotovoltaic nanodevice are comparable with those of earlier reported high efficiency solar cells," says Chiragwandi, adding that the power cells could be deployed within one or two years. "The biological fuels may be a means to independently power nanotechnology embedded in a living organism, such as diagnostic, medical or even communication devices residing within a living organism without need for an external electrical power source," he says.



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Old Posted Dec 28, 2010, 1:49 AM
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Researchers Develop Reactor to Make Fuel From Sunlight


Dec 27, 2010

By Damian Carrington

Read More: http://shatterlimits.com/researchers...from-sunlight/

Quote:
A simple reactor that mimics plants by turning sunlight into fuel has been demonstrated in the laboratory, boosting hopes for a large-scale renewable source of liquid fuel. “We have a big energy problem and we have to think big,” said Prof Sossina Haile, at the California Institute of Technology, who led the research. Haile estimates that a rooftop reactor could produce about three gallons of fuel a day. She thinks transport fuels would be the first application of the reactor, if it goes on to commercial use.

But she said an equally important use for the renewable fuels would be to store solar energy so it is available at times of peak demand, and overnight. She says the first improvements that will be made to the existing reactor will be to improve the insulation to help stop heat loss, a simple move that she expects to treble the current efficiency.

The key component is made from the metal cerium, which is almost as abundant as copper, unlike other rare and expensive metals frequently used as catalysts, such as platinum. Therefore, said Haile, availability would not limit the use of the device. “There is nothing cost prohibitive in our set-up,” she said. “And there is plenty of cerium for this technology to make a major contribution to global gasoline supplies.”

The fossil fuels used by vehicles, ships and aeroplanes pose the biggest challenge in the search for low-carbon energy, as they are highly energy-dense and portable, unlike alternatives such as batteries or nuclear reactors. An efficient, large-scale way of converting solar energy into a renewable liquid fuel could play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate change.

The device, reported in the journal Science, uses a standard parabolic mirror to focus the sun’s rays into a reaction chamber where the cerium oxide catalyst breaks down water and carbon dioxide. It does this because heating cerium oxide drives oxygen atoms out of its crystal lattice. When cooled the lattice strips oxygen from surrounding chemicals, including water and CO2 in the reactor. That produces hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be converted to a liquid fuel.

In the experiments the reactor cycled up to 1,600C then down to 800C over 500 times, without damaging the catalyst. “The trick here is the cerium oxide – it’s very refractory, it’s a rock,” said Haile. “But it still has this incredible ability to release oxygen. It can lose one in eight of its oxygen molecules.” Caltech has filed patents on this use of cerium oxide.



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Old Posted Jan 15, 2011, 7:38 PM
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China turns out first solar-powered air conditioner


http://www.globaltimes.cn/www/englis...12/600477.html

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China's first solar-powered air conditioner that can also send excess electricity to the power grid began rolling off a Gree Electric Appliances production line Wednesday. The first 50,000 units will be sold in the American market. After that, the units will also be available for purchase in China, according to company sources.

The air conditioner, independently developed by Gree, mainly uses solar power, using normal electricity only when solar power is inadequate, said Huang Hui, chief engineer of Gree Electric Appliances. The American government is supporting efforts to send excess solar energy to local power grids, and so the model should be popular in America, said Huang.
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  #66  
Old Posted Jan 17, 2011, 4:10 AM
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Giant balloons floated as idea for Arctic lighting


http://www.vancouversun.com/Giant+ba...#ixzz1BGKV1AwI

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Two Ontario architecture students have big ideas on how to light up Arctic communities that remain dark through the winter months.

University of Waterloo students Virginia Fernandez and Claire Lubell, both 24, have won an honourable mention in an international architecture competition for their project called Buoyant Light.

The concept: Giant solar balloons that would hover by the shore and near major centres in a northern village. In the summer months, a device inside the balloons would collect sunlight; through the winter months, the balloons would give off light.

What's more, balloons over water could be attached to research buoys which collect information on tides, currents and temperature.

The devices would measure ice thickness and send that information to the balloon, which would change colour indicating when the frozen waterway is safe to travel on.

In the students' design proposal, Lubell and Fernandez used Igloolik, Nunavut as their model, because of the community's strong cultural and research activity.

"The balloons would be predominantly out over the water or ice," Lubell said, "and then some closer to town that would act as urban lighting."

The balloons over water would act as lighthouses and way-finding markers, Lubell said, while the balloons on shore could be clustered around main buildings to illuminate public gatherings.
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Old Posted Jan 19, 2011, 9:58 PM
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New reactor paves the way for efficiently producing fuel from sunlight


January 19, 2011

By Kathy Svitil



Read More: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-...-sunlight.html

Quote:
Sossina Haile and William Chueh next to the benchtop thermochemical reactor used to screen materials for implementation on the solar reactor. Solar energy has long been touted as the solution to our energy woes, but while it is plentiful and free, it can't be bottled up and transported from sunny locations to the drearier—but more energy-hungry—parts of the world. The process developed by Haile—a professor of materials science and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)—and her colleagues could make that possible.

The researchers designed and built a two-foot-tall prototype reactor that has a quartz window and a cavity that absorbs concentrated sunlight. The concentrator works "like the magnifying glass you used as a kid" to focus the sun's rays, says Haile. At the heart of the reactor is a cylindrical lining of ceria. Ceria—a metal oxide that is commonly embedded in the walls of self-cleaning ovens, where it catalyzes reactions that decompose food and other stuck-on gunk—propels the solar-driven reactions. The reactor takes advantage of ceria's ability to "exhale" oxygen from its crystalline framework at very high temperatures and then "inhale" oxygen back in at lower temperatures.

"What is special about the material is that it doesn't release all of the oxygen. That helps to leave the framework of the material intact as oxygen leaves," Haile explains. "When we cool it back down, the material's thermodynamically preferred state is to pull oxygen back into the structure." The ETH-Caltech solar reactor for producing H2 and CO from H2O and CO2 via the two-step thermochemical cycle with ceria redox reactions.

Specifically, the inhaled oxygen is stripped off of carbon dioxide (CO2) and/or water (H2O) gas molecules that are pumped into the reactor, producing carbon monoxide (CO) and/or hydrogen gas (H2). H2 can be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells; CO, combined with H2, can be used to create synthetic gas, or "syngas," which is the precursor to liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Adding other catalysts to the gas mixture, meanwhile, produces methane. And once the ceria is oxygenated to full capacity, it can be heated back up again, and the cycle can begin anew.

For all of this to work, the temperatures in the reactor have to be very high—nearly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. At Caltech, Haile and her students achieved such temperatures using electrical furnaces. But for a real-world test, she says, "we needed to use photons, so we went to Switzerland." At the Paul Scherrer Institute's High-Flux Solar Simulator, the researchers and their collaborators—led by Aldo Steinfeld of the institute's Solar Technology Laboratory—installed the reactor on a large solar simulator capable of delivering the heat of 1,500 suns.

.....



The ETH-Caltech solar reactor for producing H2 and CO from H2O and CO2 via the two-step thermochemical cycle with ceria redox reactions.





This is the ETH-Caltech solar reactor for producing H2 and CO from H2O and CO2 via the two-step thermochemical cycle with ceria redox reactions. Credit: Courtesy of ETH

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  #68  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2011, 8:22 PM
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Solar power enters the plastic age


January 24, 2011

By Matthew Knight



Read More: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/inn...ion/index.html

Quote:
Cheaper and lighter compared to its more expensive, cumbersome silicon cousin, plastic photovoltaics (PV) could herald a revolution in the solar power market, according to a UK solar panel expert. "Plastics are much cheaper to process than silicon. In principle the devices we've been making might be very, very cheap and cover large areas," said David Lidzey from the UK's University of Sheffield. Unlike rigid silicon panels, plastic (or organic) PV is far more flexible making it easier to install, which Lidzey says could hand it a huge advantage.

"If you've got panels that almost roll up like a big sheet of wallpaper then that might be a very good way of powering developing countries," he said Polymer solar panels differ from most commercial plastics like polythene which are essentially insulators. Turning them from a material that prevents conductivity into ones that promote it requires chemists to "tweak their molecular structure," says Lidzey. But he says some everyday plastic products aren't a million miles away from the plastic PV he's researching.

"If you look at a (chip) packet, what you've got is a plastic film, a few layers of inks and a printed metal layer to keep the materials fresh. Rearrange the order of those layers and you get to a structure that's very similar to the PV devices we're looking at," Lidzey said. On of the leading lights in developing plastic PV is U.S.-based tech company, Konarka who are already applying their "Power Plastic" technology to a wide range of products including luggage and parasols. Larger arrays are also being fitted to street furniture, as can be seen with San Francisco's bus shelters. Researchers are also hopeful that buildings could also get the plastic treatment in the future.

In 2009, Konarka installed a "curtain wall" to an outside section of its Florida offices as part of a pilot project. Plastic PV, say the company, can absorb sunlight from "all sorts of ranges" allowing it to be installed onto vertical walls. Founded in 2001, Konarka are one of many companies trying to perfect the technology. And the news is increasingly promising. But there are some issues to be resolved before plastic can truly find its place in the sun. Whereas silicon has an efficiency of around 15-18%, plastic devices can only achieve 7-8% at best, currently.

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  #69  
Old Posted Feb 4, 2011, 10:58 PM
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'Tall Order' Sunlight-to-Hydrogen System Works, Neutron Analysis Confirms


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0203152544.htm

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Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a biohybrid photoconversion system -- based on the interaction of photosynthetic plant proteins with synthetic polymers -- that can convert visible light into hydrogen fuel. Photosynthesis, the natural process carried out by plants, algae and some bacterial species, converts sunlight energy into chemical energy and sustains much of the life on earth. Researchers have long sought inspiration from photosynthesis to develop new materials to harness the sun's energy for electricity and fuel production.

In a step toward synthetic solar conversion systems, the ORNL researchers have demonstrated and confirmed with small-angle neutron scattering analysis that light harvesting complex II (LHC-II) proteins can self-assemble with polymers into a synthetic membrane structure and produce hydrogen.

The researchers envision energy-producing photoconversion systems similar to photovoltaic cells that generate hydrogen fuel, comparable to the way plants and other photosynthetic organisms convert light to energy. "Making a, self-repairing synthetic photoconversion system is a pretty tall order. The ability to control structure and order in these materials for self-repair is of interest because, as the system degrades, it loses its effectiveness," ORNL researcher Hugh O'Neill, of the lab's Center for Structural Molecular Biology, said.

"This is the first example of a protein altering the phase behavior of a synthetic polymer that we have found in the literature. This finding could be exploited for the introduction of self-repair mechanisms in future solar conversion systems," he said. Small angle neutron scattering analysis performed at ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) showed that the LHC-II, when introduced into a liquid environment that contained polymers, interacted with polymers to form lamellar sheets similar to those found in natural photosynthetic membranes.



Neutron scattering analysis performed at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory reveals the lamellar structure of a hydrogen-producing, biohybrid composite material formed by the self-assembly of naturally occurring, light harvesting proteins with polymers. (Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

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Old Posted Feb 26, 2011, 1:55 AM
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From the Los Angeles Times:

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Lawsuit alleges solar projects would harm sacred Native American sites

Native American group and its allies sue to stop six solar facilities from being built in the Southern California desert, arguing that they would affect treasured geoglyphs, burial sites and relics.






February 24, 2011|By Phil Willon and Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Blythe, Calif. — Stepping gingerly across a small mesa of manganese-stained stones, Alfredo Acosta Figueroa explained how the giant image of the creator etched into the earth guides the souls of mothers and children west toward Old Woman Mountain.

The image of Cicimiti, more detectable from the sky than on foot, is just one of many geoglyphs, Native American burial sites and ancient relics that Figueroa says are threatened by solar projects being fast-tracked near Blythe and other remote expanses in the Southern California desert. . . . . . .
Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb...-suit-20110224
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Old Posted Apr 6, 2011, 6:20 PM
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Solar Power May Already Rival Coal, Prompting Installation Surge


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...tion-boom.html

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Solar panel installations may surge in the next two years as the cost of generating electricity from the sun rivals coal-fueled plants, industry executives and analysts said. Large photovoltaic projects will cost $1.45 a watt to build by 2020, half the current price, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimated today. The London-based research company says solar is viable against fossil fuels on the electric grid in the most sunny regions such as the Middle East.

“We are already in this phase change and are very close to grid parity,” Shawn Qu, chief executive officer of Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ), said in an interview. “In many markets, solar is already competitive with peak electricity prices, such as in California and Japan.” Chinese companies such as JA Solar Holdings Ltd., Canadian Solar and Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. are making panels cheaper, fueled by better cell technology and more streamlined manufacturing processes. That’s making solar economical in more places and will put it in competition with coal, without subsidies, in the coming years, New Energy Finance said.

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Old Posted Apr 6, 2011, 6:38 PM
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U.S. Photovoltaic Project Order Backlog Now Surpasses 12 GW
in News Departments > New & Noteworthy by SI Staff on Wednesday 06 April 2011
http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107...p?content.7645comments: 0

The solar photovoltaic project order backlog for the U.S. market has now soared past 12 GW, according to the latest edition of the Solarbuzz United States Deal Tracker report.

Although the PV industry is facing the effects of large cuts in feed-in tariffs across Europe, the order backlog in the U.S. confirms that the country will be one of the most promising growth markets over the next 24 months, Solarbuzz says. The U.S. market doubled in size in 2010 and is forecast to do so again this year.

The April edition of the report logs over 375 nonresidential projects in the U.S. project pipeline being planned or going through a request for proposal process. It also includes an additional 775 projects that total 0.7 GW of PV systems either installed or being installed since Jan. 1, 2010.

Nonresidential PV systems in the US market range from just 50 kW up to hundreds of megawatts. Even with the growing utility presence in the market, the corporate and government sub-segments still have 76% of the completed projects since Jan. 1, 2010, Solarbuzz says.

Utility-scale projects under development are found in 29 states, but four states account for 80% of this total (measured in MW). This segment is increasingly being serviced by specialist project developers, but also directly by major cell and module manufacturers acting in that role. The top 10 developers account for 57% of the utility pipeline in megawatt terms.

"The nonresidential segment has traditionally been driven by corporate and government customers," says Craig Stevens, president of Solarbuzz. "As renewable portfolio standards take effect, utilities have become a key driver of medium-term market growth.”

The top 10 states for non-residential PV projects are California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, North Carolina, Nevada and Florida, according to the report.

Over 260 different installation companies are servicing the identified 1,150 nonresidential projects that buy their modules either directly from manufacturers or through distributors. First Solar, Suntech Power, Sharp, Yingli Green Energy and SolarWorld are the most represented module manufacturers in this segment.

The installed system pricing data shows that the largest US projects are now being completed in the range of $3 to 4 per watt DC. The reduction in nonresidential PV system prices is key to stimulating US market growth.

SOURCE: Solarbuzz
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Old Posted Apr 15, 2011, 3:53 PM
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Cities Use Brownfields to Go Solar


April 13, 2011



Read More: http://sustainablecitiescollective.c...ields-go-solar

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New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia increasingly view their contaminated inner-city brownfield sites as natural locations for large-scale solar installations. At the national Brownfields conference, each city explained how solar farms can be set up in the unlikeliest places, saving the money involved in cleaning up some of the worst sites.

- In Chicago, Dave Graham, who works on the city’s brownfield program, said the City Solar project just “fell into our laps.” He was called into a meeting in the mayor’s office with representatives from Exelon and SunPower, and found they wanted to create a massive solar farm on a derelict brownfield site. Actually, massive is an understatement for this project: it’s the largest urban solar plant in the U.S. Its 32,000 photo voltaic (PV) panels provide 10 MW of energy, enough for 1,500 local homes. In addition, GPS tracking systems help tilt the panels, ensuring the most efficient use of solar energy.

- Philadelphia won a Solar America Cities grant, which they will use to help create renewable power purchasing agreements. Kristin Sullivan, Philadelphia Mayor’s Office for Sustainability, said a number of city-owned sites are already being prepped for solar. In an example of multi-use infrastructure, Philadelphia Water Department’s treatment facilities will also host panels, generating 250 KW of power. In addition, the city will soon be issuing a request for proposals for a new 3 MW facility. Sullivan said Philadelphia hopes to encourage private sector developers to take the lead on creating solar power plants, even on city-owned lands. This makes more financial sense for the city then owning and operating its own solar power facilities.

- New York City launched SPEED, a searchable database of brownfield properties, a “real estate search engine”, that has gotten great traffic from the local developer community. Dan Walsh, Mayor’s Office of Operations, New York City government, said SPEED includes historical maps so developers can “toggle through time” and explore some 3,150 vacant commercial and industrial brownfield sites spread throughout the city. The idea is to use some of these sites for solar power plants. To make it even easier for developers, the city launched a $9 million brownfield reinvestment fund. Each developer of a brownfield site gets $60-140,000 “fast” if they commit to cleaning-up a brownfield or redeveloping for energy uses. The grants can be used to cover expenses involved in design, investigation, clean-up, or insurance, says Walsh.

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Old Posted Apr 27, 2011, 3:13 AM
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MIT Researchers Use Army of Subjugated Viruses to Build Solar Cells

Jason Mick (Blog) - April 26, 2011 10:35 AM

Read more:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=21468


All solar cells at a fundamental level rely on some sort of energy harvesting layer. For most cells today this layer is either a thin film or layers of elements deposited on a silicon substrate.

Outside of solar cells, in the realm of nanomedicine and materials engineering, carbon nanotubes are a hot item. These nanoscopic tubes, composed of hexagonal units of bonded carbon, are super strong -- and in some cases -- highly conductive.

Many researchers have considered tossing the tubes in solar cells, but early results were not promising.

Undeterred the MIT team set out to find why. What they determined was that past efforts had failed as they deposited a mix of certain types of tubes that acted as conductors and certain types of tubes that acted as semiconductors. Worse, the tubes clumped together, further impairing the efficiency.

In order to create the desired target -- a conductive nanotube layer -- the MIT team opted for a novel approach, enlisting the help of viral henchmen. Graduate students Xiangnan Dang and Hyunjung Yi, along with Energy Professor Angela Belcher [profile], found that a specific genetically engineered virus -- known as M13 -- improved the tube conductivity by reducing clumping and the number of semiconducting tubes.

Since they were already going the unconventional route, the team decided to test the newly created material layer on a special type of cell, based on titanium dioxide. These TiO2 cells don't use a silicon substrate and are known commercially as "dye-sensitized" solar cells. Their advantages include that they can be less expensive to produce and are lighter than silicon substrate designs.

Adding the nanotube layer improved the efficiency from 8 percent to 10.6 percent -- an increase of about a third. And that huge boost comes despite the fact that the virus/nanotube mix only takes up 0.1 percent of the finished cell's weight. Professor Belcher summarizes, "A little biology goes a long way."





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Old Posted May 19, 2011, 9:57 PM
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Record efficiency of 18.7 percent for flexible CIGS solar cells on plastics

May 19, 2011



Read more:http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-...igs-solar.html

Scientists at Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, have further boosted the energy conversion efficiency of flexible solar cells made of copper indium gallium (di)selenide (also known as CIGS) to a new world record of 18.7 percent -- a significant improvement over the previous record of 17.6 percent achieved by the same team in June 2010. The measurements have been independently certified by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg, Germany.

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Old Posted May 22, 2011, 11:50 PM
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Japan 'plans solar panels for all new buildings'


http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-...ar-panels.html

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The plan, expected to be unveiled at the upcoming G8 Summit in France, aims to show Japan's resolve to encourage technological innovation and promote the wider use of renewable energy, the Nikkei daily said.

Japan has reeled from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the nuclear crisis they triggered as it battles to stabilise the crippled Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant.

On Thursday, the first day of the two-day summit in Deauville, France, Prime Minister Naoto Kan is expected to announce Japan's intention to continue operating nuclear plants after confirming their safety, the Nikkei said without citing sources.

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Old Posted Jun 20, 2011, 2:54 AM
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Groundbreaking for Blythe Solar Power Project; World's Largest

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MNGS1JVJEU.DTL

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Completion of the world's largest solar power plant will be a major milestone in the nation's march toward a renewable energy world and a more stable economy, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Friday during a groundbreaking ceremony.

Government and corporate leaders lifted shovels of dirt to toast the Blythe Solar Power Project in the California desert, 225 miles east of Los Angeles.

The estimated cost of the plant is $4 billion. The U.S. Department of Energy has pledged a $2.1 billion loan guarantee to support it. When finished, the plant will generate enough electricity to power 300,000 homes, Salazar said...
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  #78  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2011, 5:08 PM
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Solar PV Price Parity no longer years away (now months!)

Applied Materials sees critical inflection point reached in the cost of solar energy
A key point from Applied Materials third annual solar energy survey, undertaking to coincide with the summer solstice (June 21st) in the northern hemisphere is that electricity produced by solar PV panels will cost the same as traditional sources of residential power in 19 countries, including Italy and Spain and Brazil, and California by the end of 2011. Module prices have dropped 70% since 2008, according to the major equipment supplier and are expected to reach US$1 per watt in the next couple of years, echoing recent reports from market research firms such as IHS iSuppli.

"We've reached a critical inflection point in the cost of solar energy,” noted Dr. Charlie Gay, president of the Applied Materials Solar division. “In 2010, 32 megawatts of solar PV were installed worldwide, which is equal to the total amount of solar capacity installed in the history of the technology. This tremendous growth, coupled with new technologies that are making panels more efficient and scalable, has made solar power more affordable than ever before."

Applied Materials is forecasting that by the year 2020, more than 100 countries will have access to solar power at the same cost as current residential power. This would include 98% of the world's population and 99.7% of the world's Gross Domestic Product and 99.2% of energy-related CO2 emissions.

The latest survey found that 32% of Americans polled, believed solar energy was the most efficient renewable energy source that was most easily converted from a raw material into useable energy. However there was a perception disconnect as one-fifth (21%) of Americans believe the U.S. is the solar energy leader. As the report pointed out, Germany, Spain, Japan and Italy use more solar power than the US. Not withstanding that over 50% of PV manufacturing was located in China.

The report said that 51% of Americans believe solar energy makes up more than 5% of total U.S. energy consumption, while the truth is less than one percent.

More incentives, especially in reducing up-front costs would see greater willingness from Americans to adopt solar, even though the survey said more than a quarter (27%) of Americans would consider installing solar panels on their home. The vast majority of consumers (72%) would expect the energy savings from solar panels installed on their homes to equal the cost of installation in 10 years or less.

Leading factors that would make consumers more likely to install solar panels include:

• Government incentives to help offset the installation costs (65%)
• Increase in the home's value (54%)
• Having more information (49%)
• Ability to sell excess power to an energy company (47%)

The survey also noted that younger consumers were more attracted to solar than other age groups. Almost one-third (32%) of those 18 to 44 would consider installing solar, compared to 27% of those 45 to 64 years old. and 15% of Americans age 65 and older (15%).
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/applied_...he_cost_of_sol
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  #79  
Old Posted Jul 11, 2011, 5:11 AM
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Double solar world record
July 7, 2011



(PhysOrg.com) -- A world record double by UNSW solar cell researchers promises to make solar power more affordable, with world-beating new technology delivering substantial efficiency gains at minimal extra cost.

Using a patented laser process, researchers from UNSW’s Photovoltaics Technology Transfer Team, working with solar technology firm Centrotherm, achieved a new world benchmark of 19.3 percent efficiency in May for a mass-produced, crystalline silicon solar cell. They improved that result in June to advance the record to 19.4 per cent.

The previous record for cells created with this process was 18.9 per cent.

The new cells compare favourably with the 18 per cent-efficient cells commonly used in rooftop solar panels.



http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-solar-world.html
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  #80  
Old Posted Jul 12, 2011, 2:48 PM
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New MIT-developed materials make it possible to produce photovoltaic cells on paper or fabric



The technique represents a major departure from the systems used until now to create most solar cells, which require exposing the substrates to potentially damaging conditions, either in the form of liquids or high temperatures. The new printing process uses vapors, not liquids, and temperatures less than 120 degrees Celsius. These “gentle” conditions make it possible to use ordinary untreated paper, cloth or plastic as the substrate on which the solar cells can be printed.


http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/07/new...s-make-it.html
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