Posts Tagged: business

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10
Sep 10

A solar-powered airplane that can fly at night

It has the wingspan of a jumbo jet, weighs around the same as an SUV, and stayed aloft through the dead night on stored solar energy. Welcome to the future of zero-carbon air travel

…The world’s first solar-powered plane capable of flying at night has completed a 26-hour test flight in the skies over Switzerland. The one-man aircraft, which resembles an enormous glider and has the same wingspan as an Airbus 340, relied on stored solar energy as it flew loops over Lake Neufchatel and nearby mountains at an average speed of 26 mph. It was developed by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard. This is a “wonderful achievement,” says James Fallows in The Atlantic. Flying for more than day “without using a drop of gasoline” is a feat of human endeavor worth celebrating. Airline emissions are a “major environmental threat,” says Sean McLachlan in AOL’s Gadling blog, and we have to find some way of dealing with them. “Think of…

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A solar-powered airplane that can fly at night

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9
Sep 10

Solar power done cheap

In a construction van winding through Los Angeles’ crowded streets one hot spring morning, 25-year old Tim Morris laid bare his contribution to changing America’s dirty, fossil fuel-based economy.

…Andrea Kreuzhage is proud of the way her panels look atop her Los Angles home.Morris is an installer for California-based SolarCity, one of a handful of companies pioneering an all-inclusive approach to solar, making it as easy and cheap for the consumer as possible.Under the company’s model, customers agree to a monthly lease and sign the rights to claim subsidies over to SolarCity. In return, homeowners get a solar array installed on their roof, maintained for the life of the lease. They’re hooked up to the electric grid, so when they need more power than the panels provide, there’s no disruption. And SolarCity guarantees the panels will produce a set amount of power, which the company says should offset the electric bill and more than compensate for the monthly fee.”Our goal is to get millions of homes to go solar, but the biggest barrier is the experience,” said Lyndon Rive, the company’s 33-year old CEO with major entrepreneurial connections. “Humans are lazy by nature. They want to do the right thing,…

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Solar power done cheap

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9
Sep 10

Solar-Powered Camera Strap Charges DSLR Batteries - PSFK

Designer Weng Jie uses flexible panels to prevent dead batteries in DSLRs.

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July 1, 2010
An eco-friendly concept design by Weng Jie embeds solar panels into a camera strap to help charge its battery. It makes sense considering wider straps more evenly distributes the weight of heavy DSLRs while also creating more surface area for solar panel integration. Outdoor photographers wearing the strap may no longer need to fear the untimely circumstance of when great shots are prevented by a dead battery.
Weng Jie…

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Solar-Powered Camera Strap Charges DSLR Batteries - PSFK

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7
Sep 10

Bio Robots, Solar-powered Refrigerators Contribute to Green

The green revolution has advanced several areas of the automotive, power, and appliance industries. Two refrigerators in the appliance category could change the face of the green industry in the kitchen.

…http://toopone.blogspot.com/2010/06/bio-robots-solar-powered-refrigerators.html

The green revolution has advanced several areas of the automotive, power, and appliance industries. Two refrigerators in the appliance category could change the face of the green industry in the kitchen. One is a futuristic concept called the Bio Robot Refrigerator, which would use gel to preserve food, and the other, a complete product, is a solar-powered refrigerator that stores vaccines in developing countries. The Bio Robot Refrigerator is an idea in its earliest stages by Electrolux’s Design Lab competition semifinalist Yuriy Dmitriev, and is supposed to be a zero-energy refrigerator that uses a gel-like substance that is odor-free to preserve and cool food. It is four times smaller than a traditional refrigerator, but possesses maximized storage space and the absence of doors, which “allows horizontal or vertical placement and displays food in plain…

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Bio Robots, Solar-powered Refrigerators Contribute to Green

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31
Aug 10

Solar Power Information Page

Solar Power Information Page

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Solar Power Information Page

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30
Aug 10

Portable Solar Power, Solar Battery Charger, Solar Power Sys

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Brunton Sync, the next generation in portable solar power battery solutions for the outdoor
enthusiast and…

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24
Aug 10

Solar-Powered Toothbrush Doesn’t Require Toothpaste

Researchers have designed a toothbrush that cleans teeth by creating a solar-powered chemical reaction in the mouth, doing away with the need for toothpaste.

…Dr. Kunio Komiyama, a dentistry professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan, designed the first model of the unconventional toothbrush 15 years ago. Today, Komiyama and his colleague Dr. Gerry Uswak are seeking recruits to test their newest model, the Soladey-J3X. The toothbrush, which is manufactured by the Shiken company of Japan, will soon be tested by 120 teenagers to see how it compares to a normal toothbrush.
The Soladey-J3X has a solar panel at its base that transmits electrons to the top of the toothbrush through a lead wire. The electrons react with acid in the mouth, creating a chemical reaction that breaks down plaque and kills bacteria. The toothbrush requires no toothpaste, and can operate with about the same amount of light as needed by a solar-powered calculator.
The researchers have already tested the toothbrush in cultures of bacteria that cause periodontal disease, and demonstrated that the brush causes…

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Solar-Powered Toothbrush Doesn’t Require Toothpaste

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3
Aug 10

New Project to Deliver Solar Power After the Sun Goes Down

The holy grail of renewable energy is a solar power plant that continues producing electricity after the sun goes down. A California company has taken a step toward that.

…s license application.
So-called dispatchable solar farms would in theory allow utilities to avoid spending billions of dollars building fossil fuel power plants that are fired up only a few times a year when electricity demand spikes, like on a hot day.

SolarReserve is literally run by rocket scientists, many of whom formerly worked at Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of the technology giant United Technologies. Rocketdyne developed the solar salt technology, which was proven viable at the 10-megawatt Solar Two demonstration project near Barstow, Calif., in the 1990s.
United Technologies has licensed the technology to SolarReserve and will guarantee its performance a crucial advantage for the startup when it seeks financing from skittish bankers to build the Rice solar farm.
As many as 17,500 large mirrors each one 24 feet by 28 feet will be attached to 12-foot pedestals. The mirrors, called heliostats, will be arrayed in a circle around a 538-foot concrete tower.
Atop the tower will sit a 100-foot receiver…

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New Project to Deliver Solar Power After the Sun Goes Down

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30
Jul 10

Plans for Largest PV Solar-Power Facility in North America

Sempra Generation plans to add a 48-megawatt solar energy plant to its 4-month-old, 10-megawatt El Dorado site in Nevada, which would create the largest operational photovoltaic solar-power facility in North America, the company said. The new solar plant could be operational by late 2010.

…The firm says the new solar plant would be operational by late 2010 and capable generating enough electricity to power more than 30,000 homes. All told, the two plants would use almost a million photovoltaic panels, Allman said. The existing plant uses 167,000 photovoltaic panels.

The expansion project is also expected to create more than 200 construction jobs.

The plan by Sempra is the latest in a string of solar projects to be announced recently, ranging from a 1,500-panel system to be built in San Jose, Calif., to a project in Florida that would turn city of Babcock Ranch into the world’s first fully solar-powered city.

Images of the El Dorado solar energy plant courtesy of Sempra Generation….

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Plans for Largest PV Solar-Power Facility in North America

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28
Jun 10

Is Solar Power Good Business? - VOA Story

Climate change is now a popular topic. World leaders are discussing it this week at the G8 summit in Prague. And just last week in San Jose, California, high tech industry leaders gathered to give solar energy a boost. The global warming issue definitely is hot. Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”, helped make human induced climate change a glitzy issue. The film won an Academy award and has gotten a lot of attention. But is climate change now good business? The St. Francis of Assisi School in London is the first of 100 schools across Britain that will be fitted with solar technology. And in Palo Alto, California, the sun powers all the townhouses in a development that opened just last month. Stephanie Pruitt, of Warmington Homes, says, “It will create significant cost savings in electricity bills for homeowners. And we do see this as the wave of the future.” Nearby, the Silicon Valley area hopes to take the lead in the solar power industry. Solar power is a billion global industry. Not huge, but the Solar Energy Industries Association in the US says the business is expanding by 40 percent each year. Businessman Alan Gartner says it is striving to meet the needs of the market. “I do not think I would be here unless I thought our company was wildly capable of morphing and changing and meeting whatever the needs of the energy market are.” Industry leaders say they still need assistance from national governments. In the US, the push is to extend tax credits …

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