Energy
Advances in Solar Panel Technology
Solar energy technology is advancing fast enough that I’ve decide to lump together several updates into single posts now and then. To start with, the Frauenhofer Institute has showed off some highly flexible solar panels, placing them on a ski helmet. This may not sound like a big deal, flexible panels have been around for … Continue reading
The PowerPot
Here’s a cool gadget that’s a bit counter to the ‘keep it simple’ philosophy. It’s a thermoelectric device buried under a pot, designed for backpacking use to charge your iPhone and other gadgets (you’re not really keeping it simple if you’re depending on those while backpacking!). So if you really can’t leave those gadgets behind … Continue reading
Self-sustaining solar-powered Hydrogen generator
Engineers at the University of Delaware have developed a prototype hydrogen generator that has the potential to revolutionize solar energy production. Solar thermal energy is used to vaporize zinc oxide powder. This gas is then reacted with water to produce hydrogen gas and zinc powder (which can then be fed back into the system). The … Continue reading
Electricity From Ambient Heat
While there are many methods of converting heat energy into electrical energy, they’re typically inefficient (thermoelectric) or need to be done at a larger scale (steam turbines). Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University are showing promising results with a different approach. You see, the atoms in a liquid are in constant motion. They found … Continue reading
Envia Systems Battery – 400Wh/kg
Electric cars are great, but battery technology continues to be holding them back from mainstream acceptance, the limiting factors being battery capacity and cost. Many companies are working on this problem, and Envia Systems recently announced they’ve achieved an energy density of 400Wh/kg, roughly 2-3X the energy capacity per unit of weight as current batteries … Continue reading
Flexible Thermoelectric Fabric
Thermoelectric devices have been around for a long time, and offer the awesome ability of converting a heat difference (one side of the device cold, the other hot) into electrical energy – or reversing the process and using electricity to create that thermal difference (great for car-powered refrigerators, for example). Now, researchers at Wake Forest … Continue reading
Solar power…from grass?
Can we generate solar power from grass? Researchers at MIT think this might be a possibility. While efficiency is low, the real metric to look at is energy per unit cost. Watch the video below for some really interesting information on this.
Solar Power in the Developing World
Watching the propagation of technology throughout our global society can be fascinating. Case in point, the telephone. First world telephone users started with hard wired phones, which transitioned to cordless phones (still using the wired infrastructure), and are only recently transitioning en mass to cell phones. In developing countries, the infrastructure for a wired phone … Continue reading
Solar Panel Efficiency Gains
North Carolina based Semprius has set a new standard for solar panel efficiency at 33.9 percent! While only a small gain over the previous record of 32%, it’s nice to see this trend continue, as improved efficiency helps increase solar’s competitiveness in the marketplace. They accomplish this through the use of lenses and mirrors to … Continue reading
Palm Oil Biodiesel – not green
The EPA has ruled that biodiesel made from palm oil does not meet US standards for being defined as a renewable fuel, due primarily to the fact that the palm plantations are often created by clearing out the rainforest that once thrived there. It’s a nice reminder that when you see something being touted as … Continue reading