Adelaide home to the Tindo solar-powered bus
Friday, December 14th, 2007A
Original post by Nathan
Archive for the ‘solar’ Category
This year’s Solar Challenge isn’t just about solar power
Sunday, October 21st, 2007
For the past twenty years, the World Solar Challenge has demonstrated the ability to run a car purely from the power of the sun. With climate change and resource scarcity registering as a significant public issue, however, the organisers last year added a new class to the competition that promotes environmentally friendly vehicles that don’t necessarily need to run on solar power. Here’s some of the entrants for this year:
- Team Ethanol, from Queensland, is using a production Saab BioPower vehicle to aim for its second consecutive Greenfleet Technology Class title. The team will be running on ᭉ fuel produced in Sarina, in Queensland’s north.
- The University of Adelaide has entered using its BioBike, a modified motorcycle that runs on pure biodiesel.
- Bios Fuel Corp will be running a diesel-powered vehicle on a controversial 60/40 combination of waste oil and water. The New Zealand-based team says that their H2W+ fuel is more advanced than ethanol or biodiesel.
- The Japanese ˒Solar vehicle won’t be competing for a title, but the JonaSun team is using the race to demonstrate their technology. The experimental vehicle runs on both solar power and a hydrogen fuel cell.
The race is currently underway, with the first teams expected to make it to Adelaide by the weekend.
Original post by Nathan
Solar Thermal Power: Reliable Renewable Energy?
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007Solar proponents love to run the math on how much (or how little) Southwestern desert one would need to cover with solar energy installations to power the United States. David Mills, founder and chairman of Palo Alto, CA solar startup Ausra, has his own estimate: 145 kilometers. Mills’ estimate is more credible than most, and not […]
Original post by pfairley
Re-embracing the Grid
Monday, September 3rd, 2007One month ago (a thoroughly inexcusable gap for a webjournal) I began my annual migration to an island-bound off-grid retreat, promising to make up for my absence by bringing Carbon-Nation fresh insights on low-energy living.
First realization: Energy efficiency is a loser. People want energy. Fellow islanders, suddenly attuned to energy like the rest of North America, had trouble […]
Original post by pfairley
Solar power records smashing like pumpkins
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007Wow. What a time for solar energy. On top of recent gains in plastic and thin-film photovoltaics the University of Delaware now reports the world’s most efficient solar cell at 42.8% — if the finding is confirmed it will boost high-end PV output an incredible 2.1% over the previous record set by Boeing-subsidiary SpectroLab last […]
Original post by pfairley
Solar Redux: Thin Film’s Time in the Sun
Friday, July 27th, 2007Power-plant scale installations of solar panels using next-gen technology from photovoltaics developer First Solar’s provided a nice follow-up to a story I wrote for IEEE Spectrum five years ago, when BP’s solar subsidiary pulled its investment in the same technology, casting a pall over solar R&D. The followup on First Solar’s success perserverance and success is on the MIT Technology Review […]
Original post by pfairley
Payoff from Sustained Solar Power R&D
Friday, July 13th, 2007Something good is happening in the world of photovoltaics: renewed investment in R&D is increasing the efficiency with which solar cells convert sunlight into electricity. See, for example, two reports I recently posted to MIT’s Technology Review website:
Today’s on the latest in plastic solar cells: “Record Efficiency for Plastic Solar Cells”. And last month’s on […]
Original post by pfairley
Payoff from Sustained Solar Power R&D
Friday, July 13th, 2007Something good is happening in the world of photovoltaics: renewed investment in R&D is increasing the efficiency with which solar cells convert sunlight into electricity. See, for example, two reports I recently posted to MIT’s Technology Review website:
Today’s on the latest in plastic solar cells: “Record Efficiency for Plastic Solar Cells”. And last month’s on […]
Original post by pfairley
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