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Coolstuff and MetaCafe have videos which show the power of a focused solar array melting steel. (Click here for CoolStuff -  Here for MetaCafe) It’s basic college mechanics - and also pretty amazing.

The Gore Energy Challenge - 100% clean, renewable, sustainable electricity in 10 years, can be described in 3 words. Reasonable, Achievable, Visionary. Here’s how: 40% Land Based Wind = 100 GW: $200 Billion. 40% Offshore Wind = 100 GW: $286 Billion. 20% Solar = 50 GW: $325 Billion. 100% Clean Energy = 250 GW: $811Billion. Save the Earth, and the Economy - Priceless. The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. And the age of fossil fuels is ending not because we have run out of fossil fuel, but because we have figured out how better technologies. Biofuels, Geothermal, Marine Kinetic, Solar, Wind, and of course, Conservation.

The World Renewable Energy Congress is meeting this week in Glasgow, Scotland. Conference details here for any

interested in last-minute attendance. NanoTechWire reports that Professor Darren Bagnall and his Nano Group at the University of Southampton will be announcing progress in applying nanotechnology to the production of solar panels.

Professor Bagnall and his Nano Group at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) have conducted extensive research into how nanotechnologies can contribute to the creation of solar cells which can be manufactured on cheap flexible substrates rather than expensive silicon wafers by using nanoscale features that trap light.

Speaking in the conference session on Photovoltaic Technology on Tuesday 22 July, Professor Bagnall will deliver a presentation entitled: Biomimetics and plasmonics: capturing all of the light. He will describe how his group has investigated biomimetic optical structures, which copy the nano structures seen in nature so that they can develop solar cells which allow efficient light-trapping. One type of structure is based on an anti-reflective technique exploited by moth eyes. Others are based on metallic nanoparticles that form plasmonic structures.

According to Truth and Progress, Al Gore’s renovations - delayed, apparently, because of zoning restrictions - are well  underway. JekyllnHyde on Gore’s improvements, initially quoting the Associated Press:

In an Associated Press interview, Gore responded to the phony attacks levelled against him a few months ago by a conservative think tank in Tennessee for consuming too much energy

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Al Gore, the environmental activist stung by criticism over his house’s energy efficiency, said Friday that renovations are nearly complete to make it a model “green” home.”This plan has been in the works for a long time,” the former vice president said in an interview with The Associated Press. “The only thing that has changed is that we’re more public about it because of the misleading attack by a global-warming denier group.”

Gore’s renovation project, which he said has been in the works for months, seeks to meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Now, I’m no environmental guru (as I’m sure there are people here on Truth & Progress with far greater knowledge on the subject than me) but it seems to me that Gore is a man who practices what he preaches.  After his neighborhood council passed new zoning laws - ones that previously prohibited the installation of solar panels - Gore said that he’d be able to take the following additional steps

* install a geothermal system that will, among other things, drastically reduce the cost of heating his pool.
* upgrade windows and ductwork.
* install more energy-efficient light bulbs.
* create a rainwater collection system for irrigation and water management.

Al Gore’s “Green” Home Almost Ready. Is He?

Matthew L. Wald - who reliably turns out ahead-of-the-pack energy stories - with lots of detail, good news and bad - got to write about GM’s announcement that it plans to build the world’s largest rooftop solar array. “Large Solar Array Set for G.M. in Spain.”

The array will power a G.M. manufacturing plant. (For his labors - Wald didn’t even get to go to Spain - but apparently he didn’t have to go to Detroit either, so perhaps it’s a wash).

Why is GM building this in Spain? Because the Spanish current subsidize solar at a rate five times that of the United States.

MetaEfficient reports that starting in 2010, Hawaii will require solar hot water heaters in new residential construction

Hawaii has become the first state to require solar water heaters in new homes. The bill was signed into law by Governor Linda Lingle, a Republican. It requires the energy-saving systems in homes starting in 2010. It prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Hawaii relies on imported fossil fuels more than any other state, with about 90 percent of its energy sources coming from foreign countries, according to state data.

The new law prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Some exceptions will be allowed, such as forested areas where there are low amounts of sunshine.

State Sen. Gary Hooser, vice chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee, first introduced the measure five years ago when he said a barrel of oil cost just $40. Since then, the cost of oil has more than tripled.

“It’s abundantly clear that we need to take some serious action to protect Hawaii because we’re so dependent on oil,” Hooser said. “I’m very pleased the governor is recognizing the importance of this bill and the huge public benefits that come out of it.”

Other Resources

Makezine - several recipes for DIY solar hot water heaters

Another recipe from Makezine

From the Sietch - a solar water heater also suitable for distillation, purification, and possible boiling/cooking. Thanks to Sustainable Design Update for the link

Architect Sheila Kennedy has, with her colleagues (whose names we don’t know, hence no attribution) designed The Soft House; Jorge Chapa at Inhabitat has an excellent post on Kennedy’s prototype house whose solar-collecting curtains would produce 16KWH. We strongly recommend you read Chapa’s post - and that you check in regularly at Inhabitat.

Given our concern with worst-case scenarios - and preventing them - this technological use could go far in prevention by producing more power cleanly and locally. But we want to see rugged and waterproof textile uses for tents and canopies and emergency shelters and sails - consider the possibility of transporting the equivalent of a circus tent to the site of a disaster or power failure - as contrasted to the transportation of heavy petroleum-consuming generators - or solid photovoltaic panels or turbines.

One last thought: Kennedy’s design, we suspect, likely does more than produce energy: it probably acts as a cooling mechanism, preventing or mitigating the effects of a heat emergency.

NanoTechWire has a short interview with Sheila Kennedy here.

After Gutenberg reports in IBM Concentrator Photo Voltaic Cells that

IBM has managed to squeeze 230W of power on to a centimeter square of solar panel using concentrator photovoltaics. The energy was then converted to 70W of usable electric power, the best power efficiency yet achieved, the company claims.

Relying on a piece in EETimes, After Gutenberg, which routinely spots the details that matter, points out that this is a place where semiconductor and photovoltaic technologies overlap. After Gutenberg further quotes the EEtimes as follows:

The IBM researchers used a very thin layer of a liquid metal made of a gallium and indium compound that they applied between the chip and a cooling block. Such layers, called thermal interface layers, transfer the heat from the chip to the cooling block so that the chip temperature can be kept really low.

They suggest that if the silicon can be cooled effectively, concentrated photovoltaics could take over as the cheapest form of solar energy.

However, IBM admits there is much work to be done to move the research project from the lab to the fab.

By using a much lower number of photovoltaic cells in a solar farm and concentrating more light on to each cell using larger lenses, IBM’s system enables a significant cost advantage in terms of a lesser number of total components.

The researchers said that the concentration increases the power of the sun’s rays by a factor of ten, allowing cells that normally generate 20W of power to generate 200W instead.

Their initial results were presented at this week’s 33rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists conference , where the researchers showed how their liquid metal cooling interface is able to transfer heat from the solar cell to a copper cooling plate much more efficiently than anything else available today.

“We believe IBM can bring unique skills from our vast experience in semiconductors and nanotechnology to the important field of alternative energy research,” said Dr. Supratik Guha, the scientist leading photovoltaics activities at IBM Research. “This is one of many exploratory research projects incubating in our labs where we can drive big change for an entire industry while advancing the basic underlying science of solar cell technology.”

The researchers developed a system that achieved the “breakthrough” results by coupling a commercial solar cell to an IBM liquid metal thermal cooling system using methods developed for the semiconductor industry.

IBM adds that concentrator-based photovoltaics technologies have the potential to offer the lowest-cost solar electricity for large-scale power generation, “provided the temperature of the cells can be kept low, and cheap and efficient optics can be developed for concentrating the light to very high levels.”

John Walko, “IBM claims major boost in solar cell efficiency,” in EETimes Europe.

Via the increasingly indispensable, and ever mysterious J.C.W. at After Gutenberg.

There are magic numbers in New Jersey: $450, $550, $771, $150 and $600.

In Jersey you can produce a widget that would cost you $150 to buy, use or sell the widget, and then sell it again for $450 to $550 - that is sell it for $600 or $700. The question is, how much does it cost to produce? And the raw ingredients and fuel are free, so the production costs are only are only the amortized costs of the machine.

Allow me to explain.

Spencer Reiss, writing in Wired Magazine says “Nuclear Power is The Most Climate Friendly Insdustrial Scale Form of Energy“. Forgetting for a moment that nuclear power requires fuel, waste management, national security infrastructure, massive government subsidies, including artificial limits to liability, nuclear releases tremendous amounts of heat into the environment, and new nuclear are estimated to cost about 2 to 4 times the price of new wind facilities, without cost overruns (and cost overruns are a given with nuclear power plants) and take 10 to 12 years.

The climate friendly industrial scale forms of energy are Solar, Offshore Wind, large scale Marine Kinetic - tapping the Gulf Stream, Deep Geothermal, CoGen, and the NegaWatts available via conservation. Just as a screw can propel a ship thru the water, a screw anchored to the ocean floor will spin because of currents, and can power turbines. Marine Current Turbines, Ltd., based in Bristol, England has just completed the world’s first megawatt scale tidal/marine current driven power plant in the Strangford Narrows in Northern Ireland. If with wind, the sky’s literally the limit, with MCT the sea’s the limit. Geothermal exploits temperature differentials for heating and cooling. Deep Geothermal would use the earth’s heat in abandoned mines and wells to generate steam for industrial process power. Recycled Energy Development, RED, of Westmont, Il does CoGen. RED captures industrial waste energy to produce electricity and thermal power, often without burning any additional fuel or emitting any additional pollution. For industrial partners, RED reduces energy costs substantially, increases reliability, and offers the opportunity for emissions credits. Akeena, Evergreen Solar, First Solar, Sunpower, World Water and Solar, and Vestas Wind are old news. Ausra develops and deploys utility-scale solar thermal technologies to serve global electricity needs in a dependable, market competitive, environmentally responsible manner.

Wired Magazine also published a companion piece by Matt Power that says “Pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer” (click here). The fallacy here is that they forget to mention that a Hummer weighs about three times more than a Prius, so to have an honest statistic you need to compare 3 pounds of Hummer to each pound of Prius. They do note that the operating efficiency of the Prius outweighs any manufacturing inefficiency. And they point out that it is better for the planet to buy a used car than a new car.

The Swiss Firm MW Line makes solar boats that are ferrying people around lakes and rivers in Switzerland, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The only backup power, apparently, is on-shore charging from the grid. They’re also the shipbuilder for the PlanetSolar project which plans to have a solar-only craft in the water ready for a two-person, 120-day around-the-world trip in 2009.

The New York Times reported on January 4th that New York Water Taxi, the only operator of Queens/Manhattan and Brooklyn/Manhattan ferry service has cancelled service for the winter - largely because of fuel price increases. That notwithstanding a monthly subsidy from the real estate developers who established Schaefer’s Landing, a high-end project in Williamsburgh. A ferry powered by photovoltaic cells wouldn’t be directly affected, if at all, by petroleum price increases. Given the relatively short distances involved, on-board solar panels and batteries could be supplemented with electricity dockside. If that electricity is generated via wind (often best captured on or near water) or solar, ferry operating costs could be insulated from petroleum price fluctuations.

Why is Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, venture capitalist, and environmentalist, critical of Dr. Hermann Scheer, economist, member of the German Parliment, and author of Germany’s clean energy program?

Is this like a Wind Power advocate from west Texas criticizing California based Solar installer because there is too much rain and cloud cover in Seattle, for solar to work effectively?

Diane Moss, above, writing on Diane’s POV, has a comprehensive analysis of Khosla’s criticism of Scheer.

As noted in my previous post, Scheer says says “A Solar global economy will enable the total demand for energy and raw materials to be met. … By the systematic use of solar … all material needs of humanity can be satisfied on a permanent basis.” (For the text of the article, click here.) And the fact is that Germany has set the standard.

Then there’s Ausra Solar, which has some pretty hot technology and hopes to be a pioneer in what the Venture Capitalist might call “The Solar Thermal Space.” Venture Capitalists, including Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield, and Byers, and Khosla Ventures, have just invested $40 Million in Ausra. And Khosla runs Khosla Ventures. Maybe Khosla’s critical of Scheer because Scheer focuses on PhotoVoltaics, not Solar Thermal. Are Khosla’s criticisms of Scheer and Solar in Germany like Bill Gates’ criticisms of Steve Jobs and the Mac - i.e. different - and competing technology?

According to this Reuters dispatch, Cloncurry, Australia, a

sun-drenched town in Australia’s north hopes to use only solar power in two years after being chosen as the site for a solar thermal power station.

Remote Cloncurry, which boasts recording Australia’s hottest day, would be able to generate electricity on rare cloudy days and at night from the station, which runs off heat stored in graphite blocks.

The Queensland state government said on Sunday it would build the A$7 million ($6.5 million), 10-megawatt power station as part of a push to make Cloncurry one of the first towns to rely on solar power alone.

“The town of Cloncurry has long claimed the title of having recorded Australia’s hottest day — 53 degrees (Celsius) in the shade in 1889, so I reckon we’re on a winner,” Queensland Premier Anna Bligh was quoted as saying by Australian Associated Press.

Solar thermal power differs from photovoltaic panels that make power directly.

Instead, 8,000 mirrors will reflect sunlight onto graphite blocks. Water will be pumped through the blocks to generate steam which generates electricity via turbines.

Heat stored in the graphite produces steam well after the sun goes down, allowing electricity generators to keep running at night.

Via Treehugger.