Posts Tagged: energy

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9
Sep 10

Solar-Powered Bamboo Radio to Save Madagascar Economy

A design student form the University of Plymouth, Becky Barber, has come up with a radio design intended to spark up a cottage industry in Madagascar, an island that is equally as beautiful as it is rife with economic and ecological troubles.

…Physorg writes, “After meeting with aid organizations on her most recent trip earlier this year, Becky found that they were very receptive to her proposed project, as radios could enable agencies to communicate with remote villages to provide both important health updates and also act as education channels.”

WATCH VIDEO: Sustainable Skateboards - TreeHuggerTV gets on board with Comet Skateboards and learns that they are dedicated to making a positive impact on the community as well as the environment.

Bamboo is a favorite material among designers who focus on sustainability since it grows at an incredible pace. Solar cells are also a favorite, since it means gadgets can be freed from the electrical grid. The materials can be kept to a cost minimum, making starting up workshops for producing the radios a bit easier.

She’s developed two designs, one for a desktop and one that is portable, and she hopes that they can be sold in both Madagascar as well as in England.

As Barber’s project highlights,…

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Solar-Powered Bamboo Radio to Save Madagascar Economy

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31
Aug 10

Solar Power Help Guide

Solar Power Help Guide

…of your power to come from the sun. Keep in mind that your air conditioner is the single biggest obstacle you have to tackle first if you want to run your entire house off of solar power energy.
What you need to learn is that nothing in your home can be run off of a solar panel. Things in your home are run off a battery bank. The solar panels job is only to keep your battery bank charged. You might think this is just clever semantics but it is not. Voltage spikes are very bad and can fry computer chips in all sorts of appliances. This is why power strips have voltage spike protection in them. If you plugged things in your home directly into a solar panel, every little cloud or bird that crosses between your solar panel and the sun would send a massive voltage spike to whatever you are running off it causing it to fry. You must have a steady flow of electrons coming into your home to power things. This is precisely what a battery bank does for you.
You should slowly increase the number of solar panels by…

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Solar Power Help Guide

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30
Aug 10

Solar Wind Power

Solar Wind Power

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Solar Wind Power

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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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25
Aug 10

World’s First Hybrid Solar-Coal Power Plant Opens in Colo.

Preheating water with a new solar parabolic trough array will reduce coal consumption by 3 to 5 percent at a Colorado coal-fired power plant.

…In a traditional coal-fired power plant, coal that has been pulverized into a fine dust is burned to heat water until it becomes steam. The steam then turns the blades of a large turbine, which turns the generator and produces electricity. But if the fresh water is heated before it enters the boiler, less coal is needed in order to make the steam — and that is the principal behind Xcel Energy’s brand new solar-coal hybrid power plant in western Colorado.
The $4.5 million Colorado Integrated Solar Project connects thermal energy from a new parabolic-trough-concentrating solar plant built by Abengoa Solar with the steam cycle of Unit 2 at Xcel Energy’s (NYSE:XEL) existing coal-fired Cameo Generating Station on the Colorado River near Grand Junction, Colorado. Xcel officials say it is the first actual demonstration of the concept using parabolic-trough solar technology anywhere in the world.
If this project works as we expect it to,” says Marty Smith director of environmental policy at Xcel, “it would be…

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World’s First Hybrid Solar-Coal Power Plant Opens in Colo.

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25
Aug 10

Engineers Develop Solar Cell Powered Both by Light and Heat

Stanford engineers have figured out how to simultaneously use the light and heat of the sun to generate electricity in a way that could make solar power production more than twice as efficient as existing methods and potentially cheap enough to compete with oil.

…it works as advertised.”
Most photovoltaic cells, such as those used in rooftop solar panels, use the semiconducting material silicon to convert the energy from photons of light to electricity. But the cells can only use a portion of the light spectrum, with the rest just generating heat.
This heat from unused sunlight and inefficiencies in the cells themselves account for a loss of more than 50 percent of the initial solar energy reaching the cell.
L.A. Cicero
Nick Melosh, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, stands beside the ultra-high vacuum chamber used in the tests that proved the PETE process works.

If this wasted heat energy could somehow be harvested, solar cells could be much more efficient. The problem has been that high temperatures are necessary to power heat-based conversion systems, yet solar cell efficiency rapidly decreases at higher temperatures.
Until now, no one had come up with a way to wed thermal and solar cell conversion technologies.
Melosh’s group figured out…

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Engineers Develop Solar Cell Powered Both by Light and Heat

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24
Aug 10

DIY Solar Power: Solar Panels

DIY Solar Power: Solar Panels

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DIY Solar Power: Solar Panels

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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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10
Aug 10

How to Get Started With Solar Power

The following guide will help you start exploring the possibility of going solar at your house. Learn the basics of solar panels, inverters, installers, siting, and financing, as well as how you can save money by harvesting your own clean energy from the sun.

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How to Get Started With Solar Power

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7
Aug 10

Half Moon Bay Solar Companies California Residential Home In

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…Contact us today. Expert consulting starts with the determination of your requirements at your home - or at the site where your new home is to be built. Schedule an initial solar evaluation
that includes federal tax incentives and California utility rebates. We will have one of our companies certified installation technicians call you to see if solar, for your Half Moon Bay home or business, is right for you.
We hope you will go solar. It will benefit you and benefit the planet. We’ll work hard to go the extra mile for you. Together with a passion for
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sustainability.
Solar Photovoltaic Energy is …
… Tapping into the
most direct sources of power…
The
natural thing to do… Helping the planet…
Reducing pollution from fossil
fuel… A clean source of energy that will never run out…
The satisfaction of
doing the right thing…
A wise investment in a sustainable USA future
… A step away from energy dependence and the unpredictable high…

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Half Moon Bay Solar Companies California Residential Home In

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