Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.
Solar power without the sun ? ! ?
Despite the enormous untapped potential of solar energy, one thing is for sure- photovoltaics are only as good as the sun’s rays shining upon them. However, researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory are close to the production of a super-thin solar film that would be cost-effective, imprinted on flexible materials, and would be able to harvest solar energy even after sunset!
Biofuels, once seen as a useful way of combating climate change, could actually increase greenhouse gas emissions, say two major new studies.And it may take tens or hundreds of years to pay back the “carbon debt” accrued by growing biofuels in the first place, say researchers. The calculations join a growing list of studies questioning whether switching to biofuels really will help combat climate change.
Biofuel production has accelerated over the last 5 years, spurred in part by a US drive to produce corn-derived ethanol as an alternative to petrol.
The idea makes intuitive environmental sense – plants take up carbon dioxide as they grow, so biofuels should help reduce greenhouse gas emissions – but the full environmental cost of biofuels is only now becoming clear.
Extra emissions are created from the production of fertiliser needed to grow corn, for example, leading some researchers to predict that the energy released by burning ethanol is only 25% greater than that used to grow and process the fuel.
To the long list of natural blessings to resent Hawaii for, you can add a dizzying abundance of clean, renewable energy sources. The state announced in late January that it had formed a partnership with the federal Energy Department to plunge into green technologies and to outpace the nation in moving beyond fossil fuels. Two highly plausible reactions to the news were: 1) of course, and 2) what took it so long?It’s almost embarrassing how green things could be in blue Hawaii. There’s all that sunshine and those trade winds, plus a volcano that has been lazily erupting for the last 25 years. Many barrels of biofuel await tapping in vast acres of sugar cane. Funkier ideas like harnessing tides and waves and growing oily algae play to Hawaii’s strengths. Energy-wise, Hawaii is like that “Star Trek” planet that Captain Kirk was trapped on, with all the raw minerals he needed to save himself from an angry alien lizard if he could only … figure out … how to put them … together.
City of the Future = Carbon Neutral
Norman Foster’s Masdar City is poised to become world’s most sustainable, zero-waste, car-free, carbon neutral city. The model for the city was formally unveiled on 21st January at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. We’ve talked about the grand scheme before, but the official debut deserves some new attention, given its viewing and support from everyone from General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi to the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company and even President George W. Bush. The construction would start the next month, and the city is likely to open in late 2009.The city, to be built on an area of six square kilometers on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, has been designed by British architect Lord Foster (Foster and Partners). The city would be walled on all sides, and house 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. The electricity for the entire city would be generated by solar energy harnessed by photovoltaic panels. To start with, a large solar power station would be built that would meet the energy requirements during the construction of the city, while buildings would be cooled by wind towers.
People, the energy source of the future
The designers at New York City based Fluxxlab studio have come up with an ingenious sustainable energy harvesting idea that makes you wonder why no one else has thought of it before. Their Revolution Door manages to capture otherwise wasted human energy from the revolving doors we all see at various large buildings. If you think about it, this concept is quite similar to a turbine spinning somewhere deep inside a hydroelectric dam or within wind turbine to generate renewable electricity.
It’s the little things that count
Researchers at MIT and Texas Instruments have unveiled a new chip design for portable electronics that can be up to 10 times more energy-efficient than present technology. The design could lead to cell phones, implantable medical devices and sensors that last far longer when running from a battery.
