itsfullofstars: The Solar Revolution Is HappeningChile has just...

itsfullofstars:

The Solar Revolution Is Happening

Chile has just contracted for the cheapest unsubsidized power plant in the world, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reports.

In last week’s energy auction, Chile accepted a bid from Spanish developerSolarpack Corp. Tecnologica for 120 megawatts of solar at the stunning price of $29.10 per megawatt-hour (2.91 cents per kilowatt-hour or kwh). This beats the 2.99 cents/kwh bid Dubai received recently for 800 megawatts. For context, the average residential price for electricity in the United States is 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.

👏🏻

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thebeakerblog: Should aircraft emissions be more tightly...

thebeakerblog:

Should aircraft emissions be more tightly regulated? 

A recent editorial in Nature seems to think so, saying that while airplanes are a “relatively slight (although growing) contribution to the global-warming problem,” both governments and the industry need to do more to tamp down emissions. 

Most international frameworks to tackle carbon emissions struggle to include aviation. When the European Union tried to encompass emissions from international aviation in its emissions-trading scheme in 2012, it met with widespread protest from the industry and governments.

Read the full editorial in Nature:  “Green Sky Thinking: Environmental agencies must go much further in regulating aircraft emissions if they want to make a real difference.”

(Image Credit: Creative Commons, farhanamoor)

I don’t think there’s any reason that we shouldn’t more tightly regulate airplane emissions.

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Scientists have invented a solar cell as light as a soap bubble

Scientists have invented a solar cell as light as a soap bubble:

mindblowingscience:

Scientists have invented incredibly thin, flexible photovoltaic cells that are so lightweight, they can rest on top of soap bubbles without breaking them. Cells this thin and light could eventually be placed almost anywhere, from smart clothing to helium balloons.

“It could be so light that you don’t even know it’s there, on your shirt or on your notebook,” said one of the researchers, Vladimir Bulović from MIT. “These cells could simply be an add-on to existing structures.”

It’s that versatility that makes the experiment so exciting - even if it’s still only a proof-of-concept at this stage. Key to the creation of the new cell is the way the researchers have combined making the solar cell itself, the substrate that supports it, and its protective coating, all in one process.

Continue Reading.

Awesome.

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thebeakerblog: skunkbear: Morocco just switched on a massive...

thebeakerblog:

skunkbear:

Morocco just switched on a massive solar power plant in the middle of the Sahara Desert. It’s called Noor I. When Noor II and Noor III are built next door, it will be the largest solar power production facility in the world.

Full story here.

Image credits: Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images, NASA

Fascinating! -Patrick

Why isn’t the US focusing more of our desert space on solar energy production?

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materialsscienceandengineering: Swedish scientists use wood to...

materialsscienceandengineering:

Swedish scientists use wood to create biodegradable, renewable alternative to Styrofoam

Maybe soon we can say goodbye to polystyrene, the petroleum-based material that is used to make Styrofoam. In what looks like an ordinary bicycle helmet, Swedish designers have replaced Styrofoam with a new shock-absorbing material made with renewable and biodegradable wood-based material.      

Researcher Lars Wågberg, a professor in Fibre Technology at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, says the wood-based foam material offers comparable properties to Styrofoam.

“But even better, it is from a totally renewable resource—something that we can produce from the forest,” Wågberg says.

That’s a big plus for a country where forests are planted and harvested continuously, much like any other cash crop.

Trademarked under the name, Cellufoam, the material was developed by Wågberg together with Lennart Bergström, professor in Material Chemistry at Stockholm University, and Nicholas Tchang Cervin, a former PhD student at KTH, in theWallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC).

Read more.

Cool.

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Fully transparent solar cell could make every window in your house a power source

Fully transparent solar cell could make every window in your house a power source:

engineeringisawesome:

So, to achieve a truly transparent solar cell, the Michigan State team created this thing called a transparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC), which employs organic salts to absorb wavelengths of light that are already invisible to the human eye. Steering clear of the fundamental challenges of creating a transparent photovoltaic cell allowed the researchers to harness the power of infrared and ultraviolet light.

The TLSC projects a luminescent glow that contains a converted wavelength of infrared light which is also invisible to the human eye. More traditional (non-transparent) photovoltaic solar cells frame the panel of the main material, and it is these solar cells that transform the concentrated infrared light into electricity.

Guys, this is huge.

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materialsscienceandengineering: Organic Photovoltaic Material...

materialsscienceandengineering:

Organic Photovoltaic Material Offers Great Promise for Solar Energy

Scientists at MIT believe modeling electron excitation in organic photovoltaic material could change the future of solar energy.

The semi-conducting plastic is lightweight, flexible, relatively inexpensive, and easy to make. The problem is that, unlike inorganic photovoltaic material, it is not very efficient or stable. But work by Adam Willard, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at MIT, has the potential to change that.

Willard is a theoretical chemist who uses modeling and simulation to study molecular systems. The goal of his research group is to explore and understand the fundamentals and consequences of molecular disorder — which lies at the heart of the challenge posed by organic photovoltaic material.

While organic photovoltaic films may appear smooth and homogeneous to the naked eye, they are extremely disordered at the molecular scale, where they appear as a giant tangle of unaligned molecules. That tangle makes it difficult to understand how electrons, when excited by photons, could more easily travel through the structure and reach an external electrode. Even understanding the behavior of a single electron is a challenge.

Read more.

Hopefully this can get into the market sooner rather than later.

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appleloverapple: Harmony… Art. But real talk, I love the...

appleloverapple:

Harmony…

Art.

But real talk, I love the green color on the iPhone 5c.

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randdmag: Authored by Greg Watry, www.rdmag.com Though capable...

randdmag:

Authored by Greg Watry, www.rdmag.com

Though capable in laboratory settings of achieving 25% efficiency, commercially produced silicon solar cells typically reach levels between 13% and 14%.

Challar V. Kumar, of the Univ. of Connecticut’s Dept. of Chemistry, unveiled an edible and digestible light antenna capable of increasing the efficiency of commercial solar panels. He presented his findings at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

Simply put, the process uses an edible protein (bovine serum albumin) and mixes it with a fatty acid from coconut oil. When warmed, the combination forms a gel, made up of around 95% water. The gel is mixed with four dye molecules, allowing the substance to absorb the blue, green and yellow regions of the solar spectrum and emit in the red region. Thus, low-energy photons can successfully be used for electrical currents.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1FgocGx

I mean, this is cool, but I feel like this is a solution to a problem that we don’t really have… People aren’t skipping solar because it’s “not efficient.”

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