05Sep
Low-Cost Solar Energy
Since we can’t avail the benefits and drawbacks of conventional fuels indefinitely scientists are working constantly to improve on the non conventional resources of the energy. Researchers at South Dakota State University are trying to minimize the drawbacks of solar energy. They are working on new materials which can turn solar energy into an efficient and cheaper source of electricity. This new technology uses carbon based polymers and molecules as semiconductors so it is rightly referred as “molecular electronics” or “organic electronics.” Generally inorganic material silicon is used in semiconductors. No Comments
Inventions, PhotoVoltaics, Solar Power
Today we all are feeling the need of growing green. We have already put the various resources of planet earth on risk and some of the resources will not last for our great-great grandchildren for future use. So it’s better that we start mending our ways. Scientists from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and North Carolina State University (NC State) are in the process of developing new green technology that could lead to production of hydrogen from nitrogen-fixing bacteria. ARS inventors Paul Bishop and Telisa Loveless and NC State inventors Jonathan Olson and José Bruno-Bárcena developed the patent-pending technology. Bishop first demonstrated novel aspects of bacterial nitrogen-fixing more than two decades ago. 
The latest generation of hybrid cars will be blessed with revolutionary fuel cells developed by Monash University scientists that can make hybrid cars more reliable and cheaper to produce. This breakthrough was published on August 1, 2008 in the Science Journal. The key component in the latest design of these fuel cells is Goretex(R), which a specially-coated form of popular hi tech outdoor and sporting clothing material. 
Nicholas Albertini, a physics major from Lawrence University recently came up with an idea for a new renewable energy source. They propose that a plant be developed to generate an electrical current. The most likely base organism, suitable to be genetically engineered for this purpose, seems to be prairie grass (Poaceae stipoideae). Such grasses have the physiology, growth period, growing conditions and reproductive fitness needed for this use. The base organism will need to be genetically recombined with genes from other useful organisms or synthetic genes produced in the laboratory. 
Efforts are continuously on to make solar panels more efficient so that in future sunlight can be used as an alternative to fossil fuels. Researchers are putting tremendous effort to minimize the inadequacies of current solar panels. Both, Michael Jensen, Ph.D., a mechanical engineer and Anna Dyson, an architectural scientist from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, along with their team are trying to make solar systems in terms of power and heat nearly eighty percent efficient. 
How does it feel to have the best of both worlds? People who are using hybrid cars might have a taste of it. Hybrid technology tries to combine the advantages of combustion engines and electric motors. This way a person can save fuel especially in an urban environment. But the million dollar question is how to improve the performance of storage units? How to make high performance storage units safe for the end user? 
Have you walked barefoot across a parking lot on a hot summer day? You don’t have to be a space scientist to know the fact that blacktop is remarkably good at soaking up the sun’s heat because you have felt the heat underneath your feet. Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) are trying to tap that heat for alternative energy source. Asphalt roads can be used for source of electricity and hot water in future! 
The generation and disposal of organic waste without adequate treatment result in significant environmental pollution. Besides health concerns for the people in the vicinity of disposal sites, degradation of waste leads to uncontrolled release of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere. Conventional means, like aeration, is energy intensive, expensive and also generates a significant quantity of biological sludge. In this context, anaerobic digestion offers potential energy savings and is a more stable process for medium and high strength organic effluents. Waste-to-Energy (WTE) plants, based on anaerobic digestion of biomass, are highly efficient in harnessing the untapped renewable energy potential of organic waste by converting the biodegradable fraction of the waste into high calorific gases. Apart from treating the wastewater, the methane produced from the biogas facilities can be recovered, with relative ease, for electricity generation and industrial/domestic heating. 
Mediterranean Union was launched by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy in concurrence with the European Union. This new international organization will include sixteen non-EU states from around the Mediterranean and all the twenty seven EU countries will be its member too. But why are we discussing political unions in an alternative energy site? Because Mediterranean Union will not only tackle various issues such as regional upheavals, trade, counter terrorism, security immigration pollution etc. but the organization will take up the energy issue too. 
When it comes to eliminating the use of fossil fuels, why just keep setting percentages and meeting partial goals; why not create social environments that are totally fossil-fuel-free? A community in Colorado intends to achieve exactly that – it’s going to be the world’s first fossil fuel free community. Most of its energy demands will be met from the earth and the sun. The community, called Geos, will be spread over an area of 25 acres, bordered on the West by the Croke Canal, and on the South by Ralston Creek. 
"Plastic sheets containing billions of nanoantennas that collect heat energy generated by the sun and other sources could dramatically improve the use of a type of energy we are all aware of, but have no use for so far," believe Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory. They further predict that under the right conditions, the simulated nanoantennas could harvest up to 92% of energy at infrared wavelengths. 
GE Energy Financial Services, an investor in energy and water industries and a business unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), is investing $141 million into a wind farm. This wind farm is owned by a Spanish renewable energy developer and wind turbine manufacturer named Acciona. This Tatanka Wind Farm, on the North Dakota-South Dakota border, will power 60,000 homes. It is estimated that this $141-million-wind-farm will generate 180-megawatts of electricity. GE recently crossed the $4 billion mark with a $100 million investment in three wind farms in New York. 
The United States has taken over from previous champion Germany in wind power production. For this USA has to be thankful to nature and human resource that produce technology. Nature has gifted USA with stronger wind than Germany. Randall Swisher, the executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, said that the US wind energy capacity is growing faster than anyplace else. But if we try to view those stats differently, Germany harnesses seven percent of their power from wind and Denmark generates twenty percent of power from wind. Wind energy only constitutes 1.2% of total power consumption in America. 
We are conversant with the fact that solar cells absorb the visible light of the sun, though half of the sun’s output is made up of infrared light that too strikes the earth and it remains completely un-utilized. That is why only about 30% of the total sunlight can be converted to electricity thus lowering photovoltaic cells’ efficiency. But Spanish scientists have developed a new material that can absorb this invisible infrared light too. It will possibly give a boost to the solar cells producing energy and help in combating the current energy crisis. These special solar cells are developed by the scientists from Institute for Solar Energy at the Polytechnic University and the Institute of Catalysis of the Spanish Higher Scientific Research Council in Madrid, Spain. 
A company called Green Energy Capital Partners based in Philadelphia is planning to build what they term as the second largest solar energy plant in the nation, in the Carbon County. The $60 million, 100-megawatt solar energy plant will be built on 100 acres of land near the Green Acres Industrial Park in Nesquehoning. The solar energy plant is predicted to contain 40,000 solar panels on rotating mounts. 
Wind energy is 'sustainable energy', just like solar energy and water power. We already know the benefits of wind energy and why we should opt for it. But currently manufacturers are concentrating on the drawbacks of the wind energy and trying to eliminate or minimize those shortcomings. For example turbines are noisy and this sound nuisance can be a problem for the residents of the areas. Wind turbines are unsafe for birds too. Birds can be injured or die if they are caught up in the wings of the turbines. Turbines might annoy you due to horizon pollution i.e. they might meddle with your aesthetic sense. 
A Utah based solar company (IAUS) has begun construction on the first phase of a project they claim could produce electricity for Californians for a cheaper price than either coal or gas. The first solar lenses are being installed near the Great Basin Desert in Eastern California. The unique thin-film lens focuses the sun's energy, producing super-heated steam for power generation at an efficiency rate of 92%. They can be produced at a fraction of the cost and will be very easy to maintain. IAUS hopes the cost-effective technology will enable solar companies to compete head-to-head with the fossil fuel industry. 
Middle Eastern oil sheiks move over. There’s a new kid on the energy block! Bio-fuel is the new green, completely clean fuel source. It’s also known as “agro-fuel” and can be broadly defined as any solid, liquid or gas fuel consisting of or derived from biomass. Biomass is nothing more than materials that were recently living organisms—in this case, plants and their by-products. Even better, it is a renewable energy source, unlike petroleum and coal, which once used are gone forever. Thanks to a new miraculous feat of engineering and science, this energy source has suddenly become competitive with oil, catapulting it from a backyard business into a global economic phenomenon. 
The fossil fuel scenario is pressing us to look for alternative sources of energy and that too, soon. We all are tightening our purse strings when fuel prices are rising irrespective of whether we own a vehicle or not. We need some dependable alternative source of energy to power our industries, offices and homes. Though we have abundance of air water, sunlight and tidal forces on this earth to produce power but one limitation or another always crops up before us which won’t allow these power sources to replace the fossil fuels completely. 
Jerry Schneider has put together a comprehensive list of more than 100 ready and emerging alternative transportation technologies. The alphabetical list includes a link to each project's homepage, as well as a comparison table with the location and status of each. The emerging technologies listed have been self-evaluated by the inventors/developers of that technology, as of mid-2008. We've found this to be an invaluable resource and highly recommend it for anyone doing research into new transportation technologies. 
