Technical advances jump-start electric cars, wind turbines, and solar power.
Great article with the lastest on:
solar concentrators
hybrid batteries.
storing solar power,
improvements in wind power efficiency
and other emerging technologies that are making renewable-power costs competitive with current technologies.
Technology Review:
By TR Editors
Homeowners can knock 20 to 40 percent off their electricity bills with a new wind turbine that can be mounted directly on a building.
The seven-foot-wide plastic turbine has a ring around its rotors that diffuses noise and limits vibration; the company claims that the turbine is no louder than a whisper. In windy locations, its power output should be about 2,000 kilowatt-hours a year.
Because investing in energy efficiency in buildings is the most effective way to create jobs and revive the economy (see Justification), Architecture 2030 recommends an investment of $171.72 billion ($85.86 billion each year for two years) in a plan that integrates a housing mortgage buy-down and an accelerated-depreciation program for commercial buildings with energy efficiency in buildings, specifically with the widely adopted energy reduction plan called the 2030 Challenge1. This investment will create 3.75 million direct jobs in the Building Sector, as well as 4.34 million indirect and induced jobs and over 350,000 jobs from consumer spending.
Of special note, tying the mortgage buy-down and accelerated depreciation to achieving specific energy reductions immediately creates the opportunity for a $1.6 trillion renovation market that does not currently exist. The immediacy and magnitude of this opportunity can turn the tide for the construction industry, as well as the nation.
The plan, called the 2030 Challenge Stimulus Plan (‘Plan’), would save consumers $142.33 billion to $200.88 billion2 in energy costs and mortgage payments over a five-year period, significantly reducing the risk of mortgage failure while increasing disposable income. Because the 2030 Challenge calls for buildings to be renovated or designed to reduce their fossil-fuel, GHG-emitting energy consumption in a range from 30% below that required by the IECC 2006 and ASHRAE 90.1-2004 code standards to carbon neutral3, the Plan will also reduce CO2 emissions by 481.13 MMT and energy consumption by 6.17 QBtu over the same five-year period.
Technology Review:
The first prototype cell to use photonic crystals looks promising.
By Prachi Patel-Predd
Researchers at MIT have unveiled a new type of silicon solar cell that could be much more efficient and cost less than currently used solar cells. Materials science and engineering professor Lionel Kimerling and his colleagues presented results of the first device prototype at a recent meeting of the Materials Research Society in Boston.
The design combines a highly effective reflector on the back of a solar cell with an antireflective coating on the front. This helps trap red and near-infrared light, which can be used to make electricity, in the silicon. The research team is licensing similar technology to StarSolar, a startup in Cambridge, MA.
Project Extends Xcel Energy and GridPoint Business Relationship
ARLINGTON, VA – Nov. 18, 2008 – GridPoint, Inc., a leading clean tech company whose smart grid software platform benefits electric utilities, consumers and the environment, announced today that Xcel Energy selected GridPoint’s software platform to control the flow of power between the grid and a NGK Insulators’ sodium-sulfur battery storing wind energy. When fully charged, the one-megawatt battery will hold approximately 7.2 megawatt-hours of electricity, potentially powering 500 homes for over seven hours. This is the first U.S. application of the battery as a direct wind energy storage device.
The GridPoint Platform applies information technology to the electric grid to provide utilities with an intelligent network of distributed energy resources that controls load, stores energy and produces power. It will allow Xcel Energy to explore using real-time grid conditions and energy pricing to determine when the battery charges or discharges. Based on system regulation and pricing signals received by the software platform, the battery’s charging behavior will be adaptively controlled. When the demand for electricity is high, as an example, stored wind energy could be automatically discharged to the grid, supplementing the power flow. When demand is low, the software platform could issue commands for the battery to store the available energy. (more…)
Technology Review: Sun + Water = Fuel
By Kevin Bullis
With catalysts created by an MIT chemist, sunlight can turn water into hydrogen. If the process can scale up, it could make solar power a dominant source of energy.
Daniel Nocera describes the challenges of artificial photosynthesis in a talk given before his recent advance.
“I’m going to show you something I haven’t showed anybody yet,” said Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry at MIT, speaking this May to an auditorium filled with scientists and U.S. government energy officials. He asked the house manager to lower the lights. Then he started a video. “Can you see that?” he asked excitedly, pointing to the bubbles rising from a strip of material immersed in water. “Oxygen is pouring off of this electrode.” Then he added, somewhat cryptically, “This is the future. We’ve got the leaf.”