Via: Atissun

Dwindling natural resources and the ever-growing demands of the human populace have led us to seek out alternative means of living. The good news is that nature’s sources can give us an endless supply of raw materials. The world’s dependence on conventional resources like fossil fuels has led to a slump in supply as it takes years for them to regenerate. And since we can’t wait around for millions of years, it so happens that we now have to rely on inexhaustible and alternative resources.

Sun can be the answer to our energy needs, provided we invest time and research on how best to harness it. Apart from being inexhaustible, it is clean and free. This means less pollution, which in turn will guarantee better health, cleaner air, water and surroundings and a reduction in unnatural global warming. Today’s technology allows us to harness the sun’s energy and transform it into electricity to power homes and factories.

Modern technology makes use of photovoltaic cells that trap heat from the sun and convert it into electricity. Equipment, like solar collectors, can be placed on rooftops to collect heat for warming water and rooms. Incidentally, the sun’s heat can also be used as a cooling system. Here, moisture is extracted from the air which in turn cools the atmosphere. Meanwhile, thermal concentrating systems can produce high temperatures of up to 3000 degrees Celsius. The resulting heat can be used in industrial applications or to generate electricity.

What’s great is that excess energy need not go to waste. It can be reverted to the grid and used later. And that’s not all. Feeding energy back into the grid also rolls back power meters, which save a considerable amount of money.

While solar power can be the solution to our energy problems, there are drawbacks also. The most significant is the cost factor as solar panels don’t come cheap. Since panels contain glass and semiconductors, they need to be regularly maintained and replaced. The repair work also calls for professionals to do the job as regular electricians aren’t equipped to deal with them.

Placement of sufficient panels requires ample space. Since one panel isn’t enough to generate sufficient power, a large number is needed. Places that see unpredictable weather like storms and hurricanes may also cause damage to systems whose cost of replacement won’t be small. Individual homes that use their own panels will also need to consider space to store batteries and this can be an issue for those living in small homes.

Disposal of panels and batteries is also a concern as they are very likely to contain toxic chemicals. However, batteries are 98% recyclable; so if there is a proper disposable method, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Despite some of the problems associated with solar power, leaps in technology may soon see them virtually eliminated. In fact, researchers have come up with new devices that are far smaller and can harness solar energy on their own, without the need for large systems.

What’s next

1. Solar blinds

What’s new

Vincent Gerkens has come up with a new concept used to power the indoors during the night. He has devised a Venetian blind that traps the sun’s heat to produce ambient light. Computers and other devices can also be powered using an inverter.

What difference will it make

The blades of the blind can follow the sun’s motions around a room and trap energy, which is then converted into electricity using electroluminescent foil and solar cells to power light bulbs. This leaves the need for conventional energy far behind and you won’t need to pay large electricity bills.

2. Logitech solar keyboard

What’s new

Computer peripherals manufacturer, Logitech, has launched an innovative wireless solar-powered keyboard. Two solar panels mounted on top power the keyboard while you type, doing away with the need to recharge. A Solar App lets you know how much battery life remains. What’s unique is that the keyboard doesn’t necessarily need the sun to be recharged, fluorescent lights can do the job, too.

What difference will it make

Users can do away with the need for battery recharges. Besides, the PVC-free chassis and 100% recyclable packaging add to the allure.

3. SolarPrint

What’s new

Irish company, SolarPrint, has developed a very innovative solar cell technology which can convert light from any energy source. The technology has the ability to power wireless sensors and batteries. Since sensors have a limited battery life, this technology will prove to be a boon as it actually increases the life.

What difference will it make

Many modern gadgets and devices have in-built wireless sensors. SolarPrint’s technology will see these sensors being powered by batteries. In time, it could even have the potential for people to control lighting and heating if a wireless sensor network can be established.

Via: EcoFriend

A team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame has made a major advance toward this vision by creating an inexpensive “solar paint” that uses semiconducting nanoparticles to produce energy.

“We want to do something transformative, to move beyond current silicon-based solar technology,” says Prashant Kamat, John A. Zahm Professor of Science in Chemistry and Biochemistry and an investigator in Notre Dame’s Center for Nano Science and Technology (NDnano), who leads the research.

“By incorporating power-producing nanoparticles, called quantum dots, into a spreadable compound, we’ve made a one-coat solar paint that can be applied to any conductive surface without special equipment.”

The team’s search for the new material, described in the journal ACS Nano, centered on nano-sized particles of titanium dioxide, which were coated with either cadmium sulfide or cadmium selenide. The particles were then suspended in a water-alcohol mixture to create a paste.

When the paste was brushed onto a transparent conducting material and exposed to light, it created electricity.

“The best light-to-energy conversion efficiency we’ve reached so far is 1 percent, which is well behind the usual 10 to 15 percent efficiency of commercial silicon solar cells,” explains Kamat.

“But this paint can be made cheaply and in large quantities. If we can improve the efficiency somewhat, we may be able to make a real difference in meeting energy needs in the future.”

“That’s why we’ve christened the new paint, Sun-Believable,” he adds.

Kamat and his team also plan to study ways to improve the stability of the new material.

NDnano is one of the leading nanotechnology centers in the world. Its mission is to study and manipulate the properties of materials and devices, as well as their interfaces with living systems, at the nano-scale.

This research was funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

Story Source:  University of Notre Dame. 

“We have developed a new kind of electro-thermal nanoprobe,” according to William King, a College of Engineering Bliss Professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at Illinois. “Our electro-thermal nanoprobe can independently control voltage and temperature at a nanometer-scale point contact. It can also measure the temperature-dependent voltage at a nanometer-scale point contact.”

“Our goal is to perform electro-thermal measurements at the nanometer scale,” according to Patrick Fletcher, first author of the paper, “Thermoelectric voltage at a nanometer-scale heated tip point contact,” published in the journal Nanotechnology. “Our electro-thermal nanoprobe can be used to measure the nanometer-scale properties of materials such as semiconductors, thermoelectrics, and ferroelectrics.”

The electro-thermal probes are different than thermal nanoprobes typically used in King’s group and elsewhere. They have three electrical paths to the cantilever tip. Two of the paths carry heating current, while the third allows the nanometer-scale electrical measurement. The two electrical paths are separated by a diode junction fabricated into the tip. While the cantilever design is complex, the probes can be used in any atomic force microscope.

In addition to Fletcher, co-authors of the paper include Byeonghee Lee, and William King. The research was performed in the Nanoengineering laboratory as well as the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory and the Materials Research Laboratory at Illinois.

Story Source: University of Illinois College of Engineering.

The additional 10MW is distributed equally between the “Lotti” and “Petiva” sites — with 20,640 Kyocera modules installed at each of the two plants. Owing to its high efficiency and ability to reduce the amount of time and materials required for installation, the 60-cell module used for these two new plants is particularly suitable for industrial and utility-scale solar projects.

Recently completed, these new plants supplement an existing 6MW solar plant located in the Piedmont region, which is operated by Kyocera’s partner ENERMILL Energie Rinnovabili s.r.l.. With a total output of 16MW, the Enermill solar park is the largest project to use Kyocera modules in Italy. The overall solar park is comprised of 68,100 Kyocera modules — producing approximately 20GWh per year of electricity, which is the equivalent energy requirement of roughly 4,500 local households, and off-setting 18,000 tons of CO₂ annually.

Sunny future for the solar energy sector in Italy

Italy is one of the most important markets for solar energy in Europe. According to the GSE — an authority founded by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance for the promotion of renewable energies — in this year alone additional solar installations with an output of 6.5GW have been completed as of September. Furthermore, the sustainable production of electricity using solar energy is promoted by the Italian government with a feed-in tariff, for which the rates are considerably attractive in comparison to other European countries.

High quality solar modules with exceptional performance

Kyocera has notably shipped more than 50MW of modules for three large-scale power plants in Spain, and agreed to supply modules for a 204MW project in Thailand. Furthermore, data collected from three of these plants in Spain (Dulcinea: 28.8MW; Salamanca: 13.8MW) and Thailand (Korat: 6MW) show that the company’s modules are exceeding the installers’ own original power output estimates — demonstrating the high performance and reliability of Kyocera’s products.

This ALD method for manufacturing fuel cells requires 60 per cent less of the costly catalyst than current methods.

“This is a significant discovery, because researchers have not been able to achieve savings of this magnitude before with materials that are commercially available,” says Docent Tanja Kallio of Aalto University.

Fuel cells could replace polluting combustion engines that are presently in use. However, in a fuel cell, chemical processes must be sped up by using a catalyst. The high price of catalysts is one of the biggest hurdles to the wide adoption of fuel cells at the moment.

The most commonly used fuel cells cover anode with expensive noble metal powder which reacts well with the fuel. By using the Aalto University researchers’ ALD method, this cover can be much thinner and more even than before which lowers costs and increases quality.

With this study, researchers are developing better alcohol fuel cells using methanol or ethanol as their fuel. It is easier to handle and store alcohols than commonly used hydrogen. In alcohol fuel cells, it is also possible to use palladium as a catalyst.

The most common catalyst for hydrogen fuel cells is platinum, which is twice as expensive as palladium. This means that alcohol fuel cells and palladium will bring a more economical product to the market.

Fuel cells can create electricity that produces very little or even no pollution. They are highly efficient, making more energy and requiring less fuel than other devices of equal size. They are also quiet and require low maintenance, because there are no moving parts.

In the future, when production costs can be lowered, fuel cells are expected to power electric vehicles and replace batteries, among other things. Despite their high price, fuel cells have already been used for a long time to produce energy in isolated environments, such as space crafts. These results are based on preliminary testing with fuel cell anodes using a palladium catalyst. Commercial production could start in 5-10 years.

This study was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C. The research has been funded by Aalto University’s MIDE research program and the Academy of Finland.

Story Source: Aalto University.

Lead-acid batteries are able to deliver the very large currents needed to start a car engine because of the exceptionally high electrical conductivity of the battery anode material, lead dioxide. However, even though this type of battery was invented in 1859, up until now the fundamental reason for the high conductivity of lead dioxide has eluded scientists.

A team of researchers from Oxford University, the University of Bath, Trinity College Dublin, and the ISIS neutron spallation source, have explained for the first time the fundamental reason for the high conductivity of lead dioxide.

‘The unique ability of lead acid batteries to deliver surge currents in excess of 100 amps to turn over a starter motor in an automobile depends critically on the fact that the lead dioxide which stores the chemical energy in the battery anode has a very high electrical conductivity, thus allowing large current to be drawn on demand,’ said Professor Russ Egdell of Oxford University’s Department of Chemistry, an author of the paper.

‘However the origin of conductivity in lead oxide has remained a matter of controversy. Other oxides with the same structure, such as titanium dioxide, are electrical insulators.’

Through a combination of computational chemistry and neutron diffraction, the team has demonstrated that lead dioxide is intrinsically an insulator with a small electronic band gap, but invariably becomes electron rich due to the loss of oxygen from the lattice, causing the material to be transformed from an insulator into a metallic conductor.

The researchers believe these insights could open up new avenues for the selection of improved materials for modern battery technologies.

Professor Egdell said: ‘The work demonstrates the power of combining predictive materials modelling with state-of-the-art experimental measurements.’

Story Source: University of Oxford.

The claim is a part of ‘IBM 5 in 5′ which is a prestigious list of technological developments that the computing giant predicts would be realized in the next five years. The concept is wonderful and though several technological precedences for this stream of thought exist already and have been proven to be effective, alas, the laws of thermodynamics do not agree with IBM’s distinguished engineers.

Even in theory, the notion that the electricity generated from regular human movement such as walking can power a whole home is absurd. And not in the least because the technology doesn’t exist. The technology that enables people to harvest their own movement by drawing energy from vibration via piezoelectric materials has already been produced, studied and proven effective. Sadly, it hasn’t been proven to be able to generate enough power for our needs. This means that though a special pair of sneakers fitted with piezoelectric sensors can produce electricity; it won’t be enough to juice up your iPod given the current state of technology.

And that is why IBM’s claim falls flat on its face. There aren’t any studies to back this up just yet, but consider the amount of power a normal, mid-income family home needs to remain functional through a single day, and then compare it to the miniscule amounts of electricity that walking all day in a special pair of electricity would generate. Even without statistical data, the difference is huge and without a real hardcore study to back it, there is no way parasitic power collection that can power real homes within the next five years. Perhaps in the next fifty years when power collection technologies would advance by leaps and bounds, but definitely not in the next five years. Maybe its time IBM actually spent a little more moolah on trying to develop these technology and come up with actual stats and studies to back such claims rather than paying marketing whiz kids to come up with sensationalist catch phrases.

Via: CNET

The solar modules are installed on the top of shading structures in the parking lot. The solar power generating system, which is the first grid-connected system in the country, is comprised of 1,080 Kyocera 210W solar modules. Due to the high occurrence of typhoons on the island, the backside of the modules have been reinforced with extra support bars for enhanced wind-pressure resistance. The system is expected to produce an annual power output of 250MWh, off-setting roughly 80 tons of CO₂ per year.

On November 17, an inauguration ceremony was held with Palau’s President Johnson Toribiong and other officials from both Palau and Japan in attendance.