I hate to say it, but it’s about time! That’s right, it’s about time our very own United States Department of Energy started heavily adopting some of the very same technologies they have been stressing as important to all of this country’s citizens!
According to recent reports, the U.S. Dept. of Energy is actually having some pretty major architectural changes in light of a winner emerging from their recent “Solar Wall” competition. The winner has been announced, and they were proud to give the award to New York architecture firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz. Their new “Sun Wall” will cover 32,000 square feet and will cover the South Elevation of the Dept. of Energy’s Washington D.C. headquarters. First off, congratulations to Solomon Cordwell Buenz, and second off, congratulations to the Department of Energy for not only adopting such awesome technology, but inspiring such a great competition in the first place.
“As the largest building-integrated solar energy system on any US federal building, the sun wall will generate 200 kW of energy. SCB’s design also includes a solar thermal installation for hot water in addition to photovoltaic panels.”
I’m guessing the installation will be wildly expensive, but nevertheless, it’s great to see that such beautiful design can come from such beautiful technology. Gone are the days of the gigantic square solar panels on the roofs of 1970’s homes. We’re in the future now baby.
It’s Friday and we all know that means that each and every one of us is beyond ready to get out, get home, and start enjoying the weekend. Plus, the simple fact that this is the first Real week back to our schedules after what I’m sure was a very hectic Holiday Season, means you’re probably ready to call it a week, and head home.
So, that said, I won’t keep you long, but I did want to share an awesome little video that should help highlight a great deal more on China’s solar situation. The fact of the matter is, China is a MAJOR player on the global scale and the fact that they are taking strides to reduce their negative environmental output and start doing some serious good for the Earth as well as their energy use.
Check out this video, get a little more informed on things all the way around the world, and then have an amazing weekend. Might want to check out Northern Tool before you go, there are some Great sales going on, and stocking up with that extra Christmas cash is not a bad idea!
The world is a very big place, with a lot of very big places inside of it. While I was pleased to report the news about the United States becoming the largest producer of wind energy in the world, the fact remained…the world is a big place and we need a lot of those big places to be doing a whole lot more in the world of alternative energy solutions.
One such “big place” that IS taking a very positive step forward this New Year’s Eve, is Japan, and I couldn’t be happier. For such a small island, they use a whole lot of energy to power their light-heavy cities like Tokyo, and hopefully this new, well, renewed push towards alternative energy use will help take a huge chunk out of their energy debt. According to reports, the Solar Power push for Japan is officially back on and might even be stronger than ever. Get this…while Japan is so tiny, they are the 2nd largest economy and, yikes, the 5th largest contributor to greenhouse gasses. Not good.
“Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced on Tuesday 9 billion yen (AUD$145 million) in the first quarter of 2009 to encourage home solar power; with further funding to come. Japan aims to have solar power systems installed on over 70% of new houses…In an action plan tabled in November, Japan confirmed targets of increasing the number of installations of solar power generation systems tenfold by 2020 and 40-fold by 2030, while halving the current price of systems within three to five years. The new program will have a substantial positive impact on Japan’s solar industry and generate thousands of new jobs.”
Home Solar Power Systems in 70% of new houses?! I love it! To help themselves reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, they are going to need every bit of this, as well as educating their people, which is part of their larger plan. All in all, it is great to see a country stand up and take responsibility for their future, and the future of this whole planet.
Each and every day, wireless carriers are expanding further and further into the world. Whereas 10 years ago, cellular phone service and towers were few and far between and only major cities had major service, now, almost anywhere you go on this planet you can fire up your cell phone and get service. The question remains…at what cost?
That answer might be too scary to answer, but the good thing is, wireless carriers the world around are now looking to harness the power of something readily available to us all, the sun, to help expand even deeper into the known world. Base stations for cell phone service requires a lot of energy. That energy can help drive costs up for service in developing areas; by using solar power to power the base stations, costs could go down and the number of people who could afford the service will go up. Win win, right?
According to the article I read, “Solar power, of course, is not the only renewable energy source being looked at by carriers. Wind power may also have potential in areas that receive less solar energy, but it tends to be less predictable.” I just love seeing alternative energy being used as a viable means to power something that we all rely on. Keep tuned to this one, I’m loving the idea!
Happy Wednesday, we’re almost there! If you’ve ever read this blog you know, we ADORE solar power. Solar powered cars, houses, heck, anything that uses the power of the sun to run makes us happy and its why we at Northern Tool are trying hard to supply all of YOU with solar powered products. When we find great news about solar power, therefore, it makes our whole week. It’s only Wednesday, but consider our week made.
Why? Simple, the world’s LARGEST solar panel manufacturing plant is about to be built. Granted, it’s being built in Dubai, which is unfortunate as it then requires a great deal of energy to actually transport all of those beautiful solar panels, but nevertheless, it is being built. The fact that it’s being built means there is quite obviously a demand. According to reports, “Construction is to start in November, and is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2010. The roughly 93 000 square meter manufacturing plant, Solar Technologies FZE, will be able to produce solar panels of up to 5.7 square meters.” Yes!
The company behind the operation hopes that a plant of this size will help not only produce more solar panels, but reduce the costs as well, hopefully getting the technology into a great deal more hands, a great deal sooner. The best news of all is, you don’t have to wait to dive head first into solar technology. Head over to Northern Tool and start doing some solar shopping!
I do not know how Winter treats you wherever you happen to be reading this fine blog, but here, it is BRUTAL. When I say brutal, I feel as though I should elaborate: We often will go 10+ days where the temperature never once peaks over 0 degrees for the HIGH; during those cold spans, there are times that with wind chill, the mercury will fall to -40 degrees below zero. The weird thing is, during those spans the skies are often bright and clear and the sun even peeks out. Hey, who said it was warm sun?
The question is, this Winter how do you harness the power of that aforementioned sun to turn it into some heat for your house or your garage?! Turns out it’s not as hard as I personally would have believed, and turns out it is actually a very Do-It-Yourself thing that you can handle! It’s called passive solar heat, and it’s entirely possible to turn that sun beating down on your cold roof into some heat to keep your garage or workspace a bit warmer during these frosty months. The plans I found on Planet Green are basically 5 steps and you should head over and check them out, but here’s basically what you’ll need to get started in materials:
“4 lengths of 2 X 4 wood
1-2 sheet(s) of plywood (any thickness)
a lot of soda cans
flat black barbecue grill paint
low energy draw fan
temperature on/off sensor
Sheet of Plexiglas (or equivalent acrylic glass)
electric drill
1″ to 1 1/2″ hole cutter for drill
2″ to 3″ hole cutter
one roll (24″ X 10′) reflective foil “double bubble” insulation
sand (optional)”
Once you have all those, check out the 5 Steps, and get started on making YOUR very own passive solar heating system for your garage, workspace or similar environment. This design can heat around 500 square feet all the way up to 10 degrees or more, depending on the existing insulation.
Hello and Happy Monday! October is almost over, meaning two things: 1) You probably won’t have to mow your lawn again for quite some time, and B) You probably WILL have to mow your lawn just to pick up the thousands of leaves left by the trees shaking free of them. Both are probably true, but in order to get to the beauty of number 1, you’ll have to deal with the annoyance of the leaves. Lucky for us, I found a potential solution!
I just found something pretty amazing, a new Solar-Powered Robot from Husqvarna that can actually do the grunt work FOR you. Now, this may come as a big surprise, but the fact is, the new solar-powered beast will actually do a lot more than just help save You some sweat. According to the EPA, a traditional, gas-powered lawnmower “produces as much air pollution as 43 new cars each being driven 12,000 miles.” WOW. Now, there are lawnmowers that run on biodiesel, electricity, or even nothing at all that require you to do the work, but this is entirely different. On a single charge, the new18 volt, 4 amp Auto Mower 230 can mow up to 3/4 of an acre all on its own. It relies on little collision sensors to avoid your lawn furniture, pets, walls, fences and whatever else might be in the way. Sweet.
Before you’re ready to roll you simply place tiny wire perimeters around your lawn and then the mower does the rest. The COOLEST feature, however, I read about in an article…when the mower is almost out of juice, it finds its charging station, charges itself, and then finishes the job once it is full. Unreal.
So, if you’re in the market, if you’ve got leaves and grass that need cutting, why not invest in a New kind of technology that can actually help the earth while it helps you? Seems like a no-brainer to me!
Wow, the title of this post sounds like an ad for some crazy laundry detergent or some futuristic product, not just a headline about a pretty exciting and amazingly awesome advance in solar cell technology! Thank goodness for you, me, and the Earth we dance upon that it IS about an advance in solar cell technology though! That’s right, the title says it all, a new solar power material has been developed, and is being fine tuned, that can actually capture, harness and use every colar of the rainbow in its technology.
When it comes to solar power technology, one of the chief drawbacks has always been efficiency. With so much of the visible light spectrum going to waste with current and past solar technologies, it is not hard to see why a great deal of people were not exactly overjoyed with the current state of things. The ability to catch the entire range of the solar spectrum, however, changes everything and could potentially revolutionize the use of solar technology. Without wasting large percentages of light, the new material can absorb and harness All of the energy from the sunlight, and therefore turn it into much mure usable energy for us. Win win.
The discovery was apparently made by a group of Ohio State scientists, and while the material is said to be years away from actual commercial use, the simple fact remains that HUGE innovations are being made in a technology that was a bit stale for some time. If the cost-effectiveness can just be tweaked and brought down to realistic levels, the use of these products the world-around could be a very exciting, and very realistic goal for the near future. It is things like this that give me great hope for this planet in the coming decades.
It’s been awhile since we went into the technical aspects of solar power, and I Just so happened to stumble upon a pretty great article from the folks at Scientific American that is all about exactly how solar power really works. It’s a question that baffles a lot of people new to alternative energy, how does simple sunshine get stored, converted and put to use as electricty? How is it even possible?
Turns out it is, and it is not at all simple. The idea is simple, but the actual mechanics of making it work are fairly complicated. From the design, to the production, to the installation, to the conversion and finally to the actual use, solar power is an impressive display of human ingeninuity and learning how it works is a great way to get your feet wet in new, green, technology. Here, in this sentence, is the most simple way solar power can be summed up: “The sun’s light (and all light) contains energy. Usually, when light hits an object the energy turns into heat, like the warmth you feel while sitting in the sun. But when light hits certain materials the energy turns into an electrical current instead, which we can then harness for power.”
Older technology to harness that power used large crystals made of silicon that would produce an electrical current when struck by light; new technology, however, uses much smaller, much more flexible materials for the crystals, like copper-indium-gallium-selenide, so the actual solar panels themselves can be shaped and reshaped in finer ways. The only drawback to this new tech, however, is the copper-indium-gallium-selenide crystals are not as productive or efficient at turning light into useable energy as silicon.
The bottom line is, if you need a refresher course on just how solar power works, this article is pretty informative, and easy to understand. Of course you can always just go to Northern Tool’s own Solar Power Buyer’s Guide. It’s just as packed with information and will actually show you what you need to buy to make it work for you!
Every single day, every single week, and every single month there are developments being made in solar power that give everyone in the alternative energy world great hope. Recently, I even mentioned that a young child has made some seriously exciting developments in the world of solar energy, and today, I just found some even newer innovations that make me very excited about what could be the future of alternative solar cell energy.
What if solar cells, and solar powered panels were “roll-able” and could be rolled up like carpet? What if they could be rolled and stored in tightly compacted tubes, only to be unrolled when they were ready to be installed? While current and conventional solar panels use plastic in their production, it makes them extremely rigid and forming them around curves, or even onto things like fabric is nearly impossible. This new technology, developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University, creates a new silicon solar cell that is extremely flexible and can be bent, curved and yes, even rolled.
While they are still deciding if the cost of this new style of solar cell is worth it, the applications are amazing. As mentioned in the article, if cost-efficient, this new flexible solar panel could be used “as a solar skin on top of buildings or aircraft, as large rollable sheets, or even as a tinting film on sunroofs.” Hopefully, and I’m crossing my fingers here, this turns out to be an extremely cost-effective method of implementing solar power. The ability to contort, twist, curve and layer these solar panels could revolutionize the use of an alternative energy source that by all accounts SHOULD be catching on like wildfire already.
Keep your fingers crossed with me, and stay tuned to this one.
I hate to say it, but it’s about time! That’s right, it’s about time our very own United States Department of Energy started heavily adopting some of the very same technologies they have been stressing as important to all of this country’s citizens!
