Here’s a new technology that we should all keep an eye on: inflatable solar mirrors that focus the sun’s energy in one spot, collecting huge amounts of solar energy in relatively small solar panels. The mirror-panel looks like a mylar balloon you might buy your kid for his or her birthday, but it could shape the future of solar technology.
Cool Earth, a San Francisco-based energy company, has developed a gizmo that collects the sun’s rays and focuses them on a point, concentrating the energy in one spot – a rather small, photovoltaic cell that turns the energy into electricity. Standard solar cells collect the sun’s rays as they travel through space – widespread and unconcentrated – requiring lots of space to collect enough energy for use. Focusing the rays is Cool Earth’s genius, because it cuts down on the amount of area needed to collect enough energy and cuts costs by using mirrors (which are relatively cheap) and smaller solar cells.
An Israeli company Innowattech have developed a road that produces energy every time a car is driven over it! This is because the road surface has piezoelectric crystals built into it, which vibrate whenever a vehicle passes over the surface. This is what produces the energy, which is then fed into transformers.
The amount of energy produced is only small, it works out at about four hundred kilowatts per kilometre, but imagine the power produced if all of the world road surfaces where covered in this material, the savings would be colossal. Although it would depend on the cost if this is to be practical. Innowattech will be testing a hundred metre stretch of road early in 2009.
Source [Inhabitat]
A British company has won the contract to build the world largest tidal power scheme in south Korea, costing around £500 million the system will make use of the fast flowing tides that will run through the filed of three hundred 60ft tall underwater turbines, which have been fixed to the sea bed. These turbines are simply dropped into place on the sea bed, which will take them well away from any shipping that use the area. The British company involved is Lunar Energy, they have partnered with the Korean company Midland Power Company. Once this project is completed sometime around 2015, there will be enough power produced to power up around 200,000 homes.
Honda Honda has been quick to signal some radical changes in direction to enable it to endure the tough times expected in 2009. Following news that it is cancelling all F1 racing involvement and development, and likewise with the successor to the NSX sports car , the company has announced it intends to pursue ever cleaner automotive technologies and the most exciting of its announcements is that it will have an electric motorcycle on the market before the end of 2010. Honda’s original core product was the motorcycle and history shows that motorcycle sales remain strong in difficult times – the Honda announcement of an electric motorcycle is likely to spur rivals Yamaha and Suzuki into action, with both having shown fantastic electric bikes already, and both afraid to give Honda a head start in what will surely be a massive market.
Google is constructing a solar electricity system which will become the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the United States. The 1.6 megawatt project will provide enough green energy to supply 1,000 average California homes using rooftop and parking-lot panels. The project will involve 9,212 solar panels provided by Sharp Electronics. A majority will be placed on the rooftops of some of the buildings in the Googleplex (pictured) and others will provide shaded parking as part of newly constructed solar panel support structures on existing Google parking lots. The solar energy will be used to power several of Google’s Mountain View office facilities.
EI Solutions, the systems integration arm of Energy Innovations, has the job and will begin constructing the solar electricity system shortly. With a total capacity of 1.6 megawatts –– the Google system will be the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the United States and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world.
Designed by Hyun-Joong Kim and Kwang-Seok Jeong deserve top marks for ingenuity. As well as providing UV protection from the sun, the concept employs dye solar cells integrated into the lenses to power your portable electronic devices.The Self-Energy Converting Sunglasses (SIG) collect energy through the solar panels and connect to your iPod IPod , mobile phone or PDA via a power jack in the back of the frames.
from:www.gizmag.com
Geothermal energy is an alternative energy source, although it is not resourceful enough to replace more than a minor amount of the future’s energy needs. Geothermal energy is obtained from the internal heat of the planet and can be used to generate steam to run a steam turbine. This in turn generates electricity, which is a very useful form of energy.
Some systems pump hot-water into permeable sedimentary hospots found underground and then use the steam to generate electricity. Then the used steam is condensed and sent back down to the permeable sedimentary stream. Another system utilizes volcanic magma which is still partly molten at around 650 degrees, celsius, to boil water which would generate electricity. Also there is a system which uses hot dry rock, which is just hardened magma, but still is extremely hot. To recover this heat from these rocks, a system is used which circulates water through the rock and transfers the heat up to a steam generator. The first system listed here is not as useful as other methods because of the acidic nature of the fluids found under the ground. These acidities require a lot of maintenance and upkeep on the equipment, and this cost reduces the economic effectiveness of the system. Therefore, geothermal energy systems are more inefficient than other alternative energy sources because of the costs required in upkeep and the shortage of potential sites.