29Dec
Boosting Solar Cell Power
Scientists are continuously improving the existing solar cells. Now they are taking the help of computer simulations and real lab testing. A group of physicists and engineers at MIT have discovered new methods to make the existing solar cells more efficient by 50%. Currently the most efficient solar cell gives 45% output and is extremely expensive to produce. Cells produced by using this new technology will be more efficient and cost effective. Their cost effectiveness emerges from just 1% use of refined silicon. It should be noted that refined silicon is quite costly. 1 Comment
Future Energy, PhotoVoltaics, Solar Power
A dynapod is a stationary pedal-powered device. The word 'Dynapod' comes from the Greek words for power and foot. The dynapod can be attached to any kind of device or tool and used to generate power for a multitude of activities. The first design for this type of unit was introduced in 1968.
Although it was not built, Alex Weir (Edinburgh University) built one and two person dynapods at Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. An cement-filled bicycle wheel was used as a flywheel. He developed and built many prototype units using square tubing for the framework. His prototype inventions were tested as corn grinders and a winnowing machine.
The city of Los Angles is taking up the world's most ambitious solar power project. Till date this project will be the largest solar power plan started by any city in the world. They are planning to install 1.3 Giga Watts (GW) of solar power and register their city's name in the book of green economy. The plan was announced by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council President Eric Garcetti, Council member Jan Perry and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). This program is known as Solar LA. They aim to replace the fossil fuels during peak energy requirement and the program lays out a far-reaching and long-lasting course of action for a network of residential, commercial and municipally-owned solar systems to replace fossil fuels during peak energy demand. 
Hydrogen-powered fuel cells hold enormous promise as a power source for future generations. Hydrogen is the simplest element known to humans. Each atom of hydrogen has only one proton. It is also the most abundant gas in the universe. Hydrogen has a unique property. It carries the highest energy content of any common fuel by weight (about three times more than gasoline), but interestingly it has the lowest energy content by volume (about four times less than gasoline). Hydrogen is the lightest element, and it is a gas at normal temperature and pressure. Hydrogen is not a widely used fuel today but it has great potential as an energy carrier in the future. Hydrogen can be produced from a variety of sources (water, fossil fuels, and biomass) and is a byproduct of other chemical processes. 
India is facing an acute energy scarcity which is hampering its industrial growth and economic progress. Setting up of new power plants is inevitably dependent on import of highly volatile fossil fuels. Thus, it is essential to tackle the energy crisis through judicious utilization of abundant the renewable energy resources, such as biomass energy, solar energy, wind energy and geothermal energy. Apart from augmenting the energy supply, renewable resources will help India in mitigating climate change. India is heavily dependent on fossil fuels for its energy needs. Most of the power generation is carried out by coal and mineral oil-based power plants which contribute heavily to greenhouse gases emission. 
The main work of wind turbines is to utilize the energy of wind and convert it into electricity; stronger wind is considered good for electricity production. But the speed of wind should not be too strong because it makes turbines spin too fast and in this process it commits suicide! Why is it so? Because turbine blades get ripped off by stronger winds – excessive heat damages the alternator. Turbine tower too can't remain unaffected by the strong wind. To prevent all this damage a mechanical breaking system furling is generally used. This method prevents wind turbine from spinning too quickly by turning the blades away from the direction of the wind. Furling can be manual or automatic with same goal i.e. turning the turbine blade edges into the wind when the wind is dangerously strong and stormy. 
We all want to live in a clean and green environment and leave this planet in a livable condition for future generations. Scientists are continuously trying to find alternative clean and green fuel for our daily use. These days we hear and read about ethanol and biobutanol as alternative fuels. Biobutanol seems to have several advantages over ethanol. New pipelines are not required for transportation of biobutanol – existing pipelines will do. Biobutanol is less corrosive compared to ethanol. Biobutanol is less prone to water contamination. Biobutanol can be used alone in internal combustion engines or it can be mixed with gasoline. Biobutanol provides more energy per gallon than ethanol. 
Automobiles companies are on the lookout to manufacture tomorrow's car. They want to minimize the disadvantages of the today's hybrid cars and capitalize on its positive features. Mechanical and electrical engineers at DaimlerChrysler, General Motors and BMW are jointly making an effort in this direction. They want to roll out a tomorrow's car equipped with technology that shuts off the internal combustion engine on its own when the vehicle is not moving. This car will work well within the city where traffic is characterized by stop and start again. But you can safely drive this car on highways too where you can speed up and enjoy a smooth ride. This car will be 100-percent electric. "It takes the combination of hydrogen and oxygen to form water, and at the same time produce electricity," says Doanh Tran, an advanced vehicle engineer with DaimlerChrysler’s Fuel Cell Vehicles & Technologies. The exhaust pipe of the car will emit water vapor. 
Consider a technology that not only keeps your surroundings clean it also produces renewable energy at a low cost. Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., a U.S. pioneer for municipal waste-to-energy technology, wants to make sure that your waste doesn’t go waste. Literally. Wheelabrator's waste-to-energy facilities produce steam and electricity by burning large quantities of municipal trash and they have been using this proven and time-tested mass-burn technology to produce energy for the past 100 years! 
Barack Obama has been elected as the 44th President of the USA and with his election, Solar Integrated Technologies rose by 30% yesterday after increases of 22% by Renewable Energy Corporation and 16% by the wind turbine maker Vestas. Barack Obama promised to spend $150 billion over the next 10 years developing alternative energy. Promises like these leave a legacy for future generations to imitate. Clean technology and green energy stocks have registered a new high as City analysts anticipate a major boost from the incoming president. The US election result has provided a much-needed encouragement at a critical time and that too for an industry which is still in its nascent phase. And this sector is threatened by the banking crisis and emerging economic recession. Some companies had seen their share prices halve in the turmoil that began in September. Reduction of carbon level, a cushion against fluctuating oil prices and creation of more jobs in economic slowdown would be the natural offshoots of this policy. 
Although the idea of driving a hybrid vehicle (and getting a better car insurance rate for doing it) has become increasingly common for the automotive public, designers are still hotly contesting the best form "alternative" fuels should take and happily experimenting with everything from electrical and hydrogen-powered cars to those that run on compressed air or draw power from solar cells. With the venerable Toyota Prius now an everyday sight on American streets, the two most productive areas of improvement for currently available and soon-to-be introduced models can be found in battery tech and the changed view of driving underlying the interest in plug-ins. 
As the conventional sources of energy are dwindling, scientists are continuously looking for alternative sources of energy. We are frequently reading about generation of alternative and clean energy from unconventional sources. Portugal built Agucadoura, the world's first wave farm off its coast. This wave farm has three Wave Energy Converters which are producing a total of 2.25MW. 
We have all enjoyed watching rainbows and at some point wanted to travel to the end of them for those fabled pots of gold. We can make out the distinct seven colors of the rainbows. But what we see as colors are actually different frequencies or energy levels of the sunlight. A solar panel converts some portion of sun light into energy for our use. 
Officials from Highland Community College (HCC) and EcoEnergy officially broke ground in early October for a facility to house the HCC Wind Turbine Technology Program, the first associates’ degree program of its kind offered in the state of Illinois. 
Biomass power is the largest source of renewable energy as well as a vital part of the waste management infrastructure. An increasing global awareness about environmental issues is acting as the driving force behind the use of alternative and renewable sources of energy. A greater emphasis is being laid on the promotion of bioenergy in the industrialized as well as developing world to counter environmental issues. 
Currently a team of MIT researchers are using platinum electrodes and ficus plants to discover the truth of feeble electric currents from trees. They have come up with an answer. They state that the pH difference between the soil and the living tree is the cause of creating electric currents. Now scientists are debating over how to use this power source for human benefits. 
It seems humans are facing the biggest challenge of the century i.e. to solve energy crisis. We are running the risk of exhausting fossil fuel reserves. Scientists all over the world are working hard to solve this problem. Researchers at the University of Arhus, Riso-DTU and the University of Copenhagen are banking heavily on properties of thermoelectric materials, which is of great importance for their practical application. This material turns heat into electricity more efficiently than anything available today. 
While alternative fuels are being heavily studied for automobiles, we’re now seeing a push from a different direction. The aviation industry has taken an intense interest in the subject, and this might be enough to push biofuels over the edge into economic viability. The aviation industry produces only about one-ninth as much carbon dioxide as motor vehicles do. However, environmentalists are vocal about emissions from aviation, because they tend to go into the upper atmosphere, where some scientists say the impact is greater. Plus, the industry is growing quite rapidly. 
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), is a mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol for promoting technology transfer and investment from industrialized countries to the developing world for projects focused on mitigating emissions of greenhouse gases. It provides for industrialized countries to invest in emission-reducing projects in developing countries and to use the resulting Certified Emissions Reductions (CER) credits towards their own compliance with the emission limitation targets set forth by the Kyoto Protocol. 
Wind energy has a formidable place in the field of alternative energy but critics always worry about the preservation of bio-diversity and farm birds. It is always a priority for the wind energy producers to keep in mind the comforts of the human and bird population. When plans were announced that UK will built the tallest wind turbines in the country the Npower Renewables tried to tackle the issue of biodiversity to alley the fears of environmentalists. Though they propose a plan of placing 65 turbines on nearly 5,000 acres (2,000ha) of hillside near Llanbrynmair in Powys they are tackling the issue of ecosystem too. Each turbine would be 137m (449ft) high. 
