Free Republic

Related Links Relevant Reading: Optoelectronics of Solar Cells Solar & Alternative Energy in the SPIE Digital Library Career Solutions: spieworks.org Solar & Alternative Energy Toward textile-based solar cells Max Shtein A fiber-based organic photovoltaic may form the building block of cost- effective, energy-harvesting textiles. A 100km2 area covered with 10% efficient solar cells can produce enough electricity to satisfy the national requirement.1 Unfortunately, the total area of cells produced and installed to date is 1,000 times smaller than needed. Despite the high annual growth rate of the photovoltaic (PV) industry, current manufacturing methods face a scalability barrier that makes fulfilling...

Thin-film solar maker Nanosolar was already one of the more well-funded startups in cleantech with at least $150 million behind it. But this morning Nanosolar’s CEO Martin Roscheisen writes on the company blog that Nanosolar has raised $300 million in an oversubscribed equity financing round, which closed in March, that brings its total to just under half a billion dollars. That could make it one of the most well-funded startups. Period. Roscheisen says the funding comes from power company AES, the Carlyle Group, French utility EDF and Energy Capital Partners, which made investments through Riverstone Holdings, and EDF Renewables; the...

Scientists Mimic Essence Of Plants' Energy Storage SystemScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2008) — In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine. Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy. Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials,...

A new type of solar energy collector concentrates the sun into a beam that could melt steel. Researchers say the device could revolutionize global energy production. The prototype is a 12-foot-wide mirrored dish was made from a lightweight frame of thin, inexpensive aluminum tubing and strips of mirror. It concentrates sunlight by a factor of 1,000 to produce steam. "This is actually the most efficient solar collector in existence," said Doug Wood, an inventor based in Washington state who patented key parts of the dish's design - the rights to which he has signed over to a team of students...

"Liquid Metal" at the Center of IBM Innovation to Significantly Reduce Cost of Concentrator Photovoltaic Cells ARMONK, NY, May 15, 2008 IBM today announced a research breakthrough in photovoltaics technology that could significantly reduce the cost of harnessing the Sun's power for electricity. By mimicking the antics of a child using a magnifying glass to burn a leaf or a camper to start a fire, IBM scientists are using a large lens to concentrate the Sun's power, capturing a record 230 watts onto a centimeter square solar cell, in a technology known as concentrator photovoltaics, or CPV. That energy is...

Innovalight's Silicon Ink by Joe Kwiatkowski, Physicist, Imperial College London London, UK [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] The last quarter of 2007 was an exciting time for the Silicon Valley start-up Innovalight: first a successful finance round that drew US $28 million of new capital, then the accolade of being amongst Red Herring's top one hundred innovators. Why the interest in Innovalight? Because of its remarkable claim to be able to print thin-film silicon solar cells. Printing is generally a low-cost and high throughput process, in stark contrast to conventional methods used to produce amorphous and crystalline silicon solar cells. As such, Innovalight claims...

Solar power, the holy grail of renewable energy, has always faced the problem of how to store the energy captured from the sun’s rays so that demand for electricity can be met at night or whenever the sun is not shining. The difficulty is that electricity is hard to store. Batteries are not up to efficiently storing energy on a large scale. A different approach being tried by the solar power industry could eliminate the problem. The idea is to capture the sun’s heat. Heat, unlike electric current, is something that industry knows how to store cost-effectively. For example, a...

The Frito-Lay plant in Modesto will start using a new ingredient of sorts to make its SunChips brand snack — the sun. The company is installing a football field-sized farm of solar collectors next to its plant in the Beard Industrial District, with plans to flip the switch on Earth Day. The solar field is made up of large curved mirrors that move with the position of the sun, focusing the heat into tubes of glass filled with water. That water is directed into the plant's boiler system, where it will be converted into steam to heat the oil used...

It's a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards. "The land where you dump or bury it will be infertile. No grass or trees will grow in the place. . . . It is like dynamite -- it is poisonous, it is polluting. Human beings can never touch it," said Ren Bingyan, a professor at the School of Material Sciences at Hebei Industrial University.

A 'sun tower' is one of the concepts being considered by researchers Scientists are assessing the possibility of embarking on a space engineering project that would eclipse the effort to construct the International Space Station. Researchers from Europe, Japan and the US are considering the viability of building giant solar panels in a low earth orbit that would supply cheap, inexhaustible energy to industry and homes. Building a huge array outside the Earth's atmosphere would have the advantage of having no clouds to interrupt the flow of solar energy to the arrays. Yet the sizeable downside would be the...

TACOMA, Wash., Oct. 22 — The sun was shining for a change, which was good news for Richard Thompson, known throughout these parts as Solar Richard. “Pennies from heaven,” Mr. Thompson said as his electric meter spun round — in reverse. Not that a shining sun is required for the meter to spin backward. An overcast sky does the job. The meter just spins a bit more slowly. That would be the meter attached to Mr. Thompson’s house, painted sunshine yellow with a large solar panel out front next to the bedraggled remains of giant sunflowers — “organic solar trackers,”...

Three years ago our top scientists and Nobel Prize winners met in Washington in search of a solution to energy-related Global Warming. Four points came from the meeting: - there is no solution available - yet we must implement one by 2050 - the only power source that presents a viable solution is solar - but solar energy is currently far too expensive. Cool Earth was formed to solve this problem. Now. With currently available technology. We are working to reduce the cost of solar electricity by a factor of 25, making it cheaper to produce than energy from coal...

The trade association for the nuclear power industry recently asked 1,000 Americans what energy source they thought would be used most for generating electricity in 15 years. The top choice? Not nuclear plants, or coal or natural gas. The winner was the sun, cited by 27 percent of those polled. It is no wonder solar power has captured the public imagination. Panels that convert sunlight to electricity are winning supporters around the world — from Europe, where gleaming arrays cloak skyscrapers and farmers’ fields, to Wall Street, where stock offerings for panel makers have had a great ride, to California,...

HUMANS are just one of the millions of species on Earth, but we use up almost a quarter of the sun's energy captured by plants - the most of any species. The human dominance of this natural resource is affecting other species, reducing the amount of energy available to them by almost 10 per cent, scientists report. Researchers said the findings showed humans were using "a remarkable share" of the earth's plant productivity "to meet the needs and wants of one species". They also warned that the increased use of biofuels - such as ethanol and canola - should be...

HUMANS are just one of the millions of species on Earth, but we use up almost a quarter of the sun's energy captured by plants - the most of any species. The human dominance of this natural resource is affecting other species, reducing the amount of energy available to them by almost 10 per cent, scientists report. Researchers said the findings showed humans were using "a remarkable share" of the earth's plant productivity "to meet the needs and wants of one species". They also warned that the increased use of biofuels - such as ethanol and canola - should be...

Berlin, Ohio- A drive through the rolling hills of this Holmes County farming community 80 miles south of Cleveland delights the senses with smells of farm manure and sawmill resins mingling with limestone dust rising from the roads. Amish farmers work the fields with horse-drawn plows while their beef cattle and milk cows slowly graze nearby pastures. Women tend laundry on sagging clotheslines as their toddlers play with wooden toys. Weaving around horse-drawn buggies, a visitor might miss the sight that seems out of place here - a technology that most Americans only dream about - solar panels. Designed to...

Tower of light traps Sun's energy

The wires have been overflowing lately with news of plant expansions, companies scrambling to tie up silicon supply, and sales successes for equipment suppliers — all within the solar market. Solarbuzz recently reported that the photovoltaic market grew by 19% last year, which is not expected to slow down this year, despite continuing polysilicon supply issues. Check out the items below for just a sampling of the latest news in this red hot market. To keep up with all the latest, check in regularly at our Emerging Tech Info Channel: www.semiconductor.net/emerging

ANNAPOLIS -- From the soap used to wash dishes to the cars driven to work, Marylanders will feel large and small effects from the recent legislative session some have called the most environmental in years. Democrats this year celebrated their stronger grip on state government and their return to the governor's mansion with a spate of earth-friendly bills that became the dominant theme of the session. Lawmakers tightened emissions standards on new cars. They slashed the amount of water-polluting phosphorus allowed in dishwashing detergent. They ended the commercial harvest of diamondback terrapins and set new goals for solar energy. Oysters...

January 20, 2007 Is the Sun finally rising on Solar Power? An Interview with Rob Styler of Citizenre (Press Release from Affordable Photovoltaics LLC) In the past, "going green" usually implied sacrifice. You get to feel good about saving the planet but most "green" products are more expensive than their "dirty" counterparts. With Citizenre, going green can actually save you money. In 1931, Thomas Edison had a conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone. He said, "I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil...

The snob appeal of regressive solar energy taxes The Pasadena Pundit - Jan. 21, 2007 Recently, the mainstream media has been surprised that a few "conservatives" are becoming "converts" to green solar power while missing the bigger story that "liberals" across-the-board are now supporting regressive "green power" taxation. The January 12 issue of the Daily Breeze newspaper in the South Bay of Los Angeles believes it was newsworthy to caption a column by New York Times reporter Gregory Dicum "Seeing the Light: Political conservatives begin to embrace solar power as an alternative energy." http://www.dailybreeze.com/today/articles/5167237.html Dicum reports to his astonishment that...

Investor's Business DailyAcquisition Of Solar Installer Warms SunPower's FutureWednesday December 27, 7:00 pm ETBrian Womack The math isn't complicated for the solar energy sector.The industry wants to cut solar prices by roughly half to compete against traditional power utilities without government incentives. SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR - News), a major solar panel maker, has been a leader in this effort and recently announced one of the biggest acquisitions in the industry's history to help the San Jose, Calif., company reach that goal.The company plans to buy PowerLight, a firm that installs solar panels, for about $330 million. The cash-and-stock deal should close...

If California's $3.4 billion solar initiative succeeds in promoting 1 million more rooftop, solar-electric systems, it could still be considered a failure. That's because the 10-year program, set to begin next month, aims to do more than just subsidize installations. It's also intended to make solar electricity's cost comparable to the power provided by utilities. Today it costs twice as much. If solar costs could be made competitive, the impact would be profound. Most conventional power is produced by burning coal or natural gas, making the electric-generation industry a leading source of greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Cheap and...

State to embark on its biggest-ever photovoltaic project When the sun rises on New Year's Day, it will signal the start of California's most ambitious effort yet to generate electricity from sunlight. HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune California hopes to subsidize the installation of enough photovoltaic systems, like this one atop a Qualcomm building in Sorrento Mesa, to generate 3,000 megawatts of solar electricity. That could power nearly 3 million homes on a sunny day. The California Solar Initiative commits the state to spending more than $3.4 billion over the next 10 years to subsidize the installation of 1 million solar...

A tiny solar cell doubles the efficiency of common photovoltaics' conversion of sunlight to electricity by capturing the energy from a broader spectrum of light. A tiny chip similar to the solar cells carried by many satellites and other spacecraft today--including the surprisingly long-lived Mars Rovers--has shattered previous records for maximum efficiency in producing electricity from sunlight. "This is the photovoltaic equivalent of the four-minute mile," affirms Larry Kazmerski, director of the Department of Energy's National Center for Photovoltaics in Colorado. "This is a disruptive technology that eventually could provide us, at least in the Southwest, with cost-competitive electricity fairly...

ST. LOUIS, Dec. 06, 2006 -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] today announced that Spectrolab, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary, has achieved a new world record in terrestrial concentrator solar cell efficiency. Using concentrated sunlight, Spectrolab demonstrated the ability of a photovoltaic cell to convert 40.7 percent of the sun's energy into electricity. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo., verified the milestone. "This solar cell performance is the highest efficiency level any photovoltaic device has ever achieved," said Dr. David Lillington, president of Spectrolab. "The terrestrial cell we have developed uses the same technology base as...

Once regarded as costly and impractical, solar technology is now poised to play a larger role in the future, thanks to new developments that could result in lower costs and improved efficiency. Potential applications include cell phones, computers, automobiles, homes and office buildings. The American Chemical Society will address the progress and challenge of this technology during a first of its kind symposium, "Science and Technology of Next Generation Photovoltaics," from Sunday, Sept. 10, through Tuesday, Sept. 12, in San Francisco during the Society's 232nd national meeting. Here are a few highlights of research toward improving the efficiency of solar...

Sharp sees solar power costs halving by 2010 Thu Aug 31, 2006 12:48 PM ET By Georgina Prodhan BERLIN (Reuters) - Japan's Sharp Corp. <6753.T>, the world's biggest maker of solar cells, expects the cost of generating solar power to halve by 2010 and to be comparable with that of nuclear power by 2030, Sharp's president said. "By the year 2010 we'll be able to halve generation costs," Katsuhiko Machida told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. "By 2020 we expect a further reduction -- half of 2010 -- and by 2030 we expect half the 2020 level. "By 2030...

When the Costco managers at the headquarters in Issaquah, Wash., decided it was time to embrace solar photovoltaic technology, they selected the Costco warehouse in Lancaster - from among their 480 warehouses worldwide - for the prototype project. At the completion of the project the last week of August, the Lancaster facility will be the site of one of the largest privately owned commercial photovoltaic systems in the United States, said the builders. According to Craig Peal, assistant vice president, when powered up, the system will reduce 44% of the building's peak electrical load on a peak day and "if...

A well-financed California startup is promising to build a solar-cell factory that could finally make solar power affordable. This week, Nanosolar, a startup in Palo Alto, CA, announced plans to build a production facility with the capacity to make enough solar cells annually to generate 430 megawatts. This output would represent a substantial portion of the worldwide production of solar energy. According to Nanosolar's CEO Martin Roscheisen, the company will be able to produce solar cells much less expensively than is done with existing photovoltaics because its new method allows for the mass-production of the devices. In fact, maintains Roscheisen,...

Will the list never end of what China has the most of, does the most of, or is growing the quickest at? The number of rooftop solar water heaters in China exceeds that of ALL the rest of the WORLD combined! It is also changing the way Chinese live their daily lives. Cell phones now allow farmers to get up-to-the-minute crop prices. Solar hot water heaters now allow those in the outer districts to take a bath more regularly. Hah! But, I guess it isn't funny if you are one of those who had to wait to take a bath...

California's landmark efforts to increase solar power, supported by environmentalists, state leaders and the governor, could be in peril. In the next few months, PG&E, the largest utility company in the state, will reach the cap on how much solar energy it will buy back from customers. If the Legislature fails to pass a new bill raising that cap, new solar users in PG&E's territory won't be eligible for the benefits currents users enjoy, which some fear could bring the rise of solar energy in California to a grinding halt. "It will destroy the industry," said Ken Adelman, a retired...

SAN JOSE, Calif. — T. J. Rodgers is surrounded by a sea of silicon wafers on the roof of his company's headquarters in a Silicon Valley industrial park. No, not the ones that Mr. Rodgers, who founded Cypress Semiconductor in 1982, used to make high-speed computer memories or the newer specialized chips that go into iPods and high-end Mercedes-Benzes. These wafers are soaking up the sun's rays and turning them into electricity. On the roof, he fusses over the occasional weed that has grown up in the cracks between the panels and speculates about using robots to keep the glass...

For Immediate Release: 1/12/2006 For More Information: Contact Bernadette Del Chiaro (916) 446-8062 x 103 "It's Official!" CPUC Approves $3.2 Billion Solar Program Landmark Vote Creates Nation’s Largest Solar Roofs Program and Puts California on Pace to Become a World Solar Power Leader SAN FRANCISCO—Today, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved the California Solar Initiative (CSI), committing a combined $3.2 billion in incentive funds to drive consumers toward solar power over the next 11 years. The CSI, modeled largely on the Million Solar Roofs bill that ran aground in the state Legislature last year, is designed to provide rebates...

The [Australian] federal Industry Minister says the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate will have a greater impact on greenhouse gases than the Kyoto Protocol. The partnership brings together Australia, Japan, China, India, South Korea and the United States. Ian Macfarlane says Australia's decision to join the partnership will prove to be a far better move than signing the Kyoto accord. "The reality is new technology will deliver three times the savings in greenhouse gas as the Kyoto Protocol will," he said. "Things like geosequistations, solar energy, better utilisation of the newer technologies that are going to see more...

California regulators on Thursday allocated $300 million collected from electricity customers to subsidize purchases and installation of solar energy units in 2006. The action was aimed at "jump starting our implementation of what was originally called the governor's million solar roofs initiative," said California Public Utilities Commission President Mike Peevey. That proposal was "a marquee idea of the governor's ... legislative agenda (but) got bogged down in politics in Sacramento," said PUC member Susan Kennedy, who attended her last meeting after being tapped to become chief of staff for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A broader plan that would tap ratepayers for...

what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s. The increase would only be significant to Earth's climate if it has been going on for a century or more, said study leader Richard Willson, a Columbia University researcher also affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The Sun's increasing output has only been monitored with precision since satellite technology allowed necessary observations. Willson is not sure if the trend extends further back in time, but other studies suggest...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is prepared to veto his top legislative priority - the "million solar roofs" proposal - after Assembly Democrats last week added labor-friendly amendments. The standoff between the Republican governor and legislative Democrats has left proponents afraid the solar plan will fall victim to politics in the shadow of a divisive November special election. "Senate Bill 1 abruptly lost its bipartisan support when union-sponsored amendments were added that would drive up the costs of solar installations," said Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson. "The governor does not support the recent amendments and considers the bill unacceptable in its current form."...

With a bill in California that aims to put solar power in half of new homes within 13 years, and with installation incentives in the federal energy legislation passed last week, the future of solar energy in the United States would seem all the brighter. But the future may have to wait, if only a little while. American suppliers for the solar energy industry say that burgeoning demand both domestically and overseas, a weak dollar and shortages of raw material have created back orders of several months on electricity-generating photovoltaic, or PV, panels. "For all the years I've been doing...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to make a cameo appearance on the ABC television show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" on Sunday to tout the use of solar electricity in homes and businesses. The Republican governor will appear during Sunday night's episode, when a home is renovated with a solar photovoltaic system that allows the house to produce its own electricity, helping the owner to save on electricity bills, according to ABC's Web site and the San Francisco nonprofit Vote Solar. Schwarzenegger is championing new legislation - known as the Million Solar Roofs Initiative - that would create...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger aims to make California a world leader in solar energy with a new proposal he's sending to lawmakers Monday. The plan, which drops some controversial provisions that doomed his "million solar homes" proposal last year, would create a 10-year incentive fund encouraging both residences and commercial buildings to install solar power. But it would drop a requirement that half of all new homes eventually be solar powered. Those changes are designed to mute opposition from businesses and the building industry. The Public Utility Commission would decide how electricity consumers pay into the incentive fund,...

Pure hydrogen fuel is non-polluting. Current methods of extracting hydrogen, however, use energy derived from sources that pollute. Finding ways to use the sun's energy to split water to extract hydrogen would make for a truly clean energy source. Several research efforts are using materials engineered at the molecular scale to tap the sun as an energy source to extract hydrogen from water. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University have constructed a material made from titanium dioxide nanotubes that is 97 percent efficient at harvesting the ultraviolet portion of the sun's light and 6.8 percent efficient at extracting hydrogen from water....

Scientists create cells that can harness sun's rays Posted by: Earth on http://PEJ.org Monday, January 10, 2005 - 10:18 PM 299 Reads Scientists create cells that can harness sun's rays Sarah Staples CanWest News Service - Van Sun ;http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=1751c381-ec3b-48ac-8264-bef1d95f3ab1 Monday, January 10, 2005 Canadian scientists have made a discovery that could become a catalyst for new generations of "battery-less" consumer electronic devices and the long-awaited solar-hydrogen economy. They have created paintable plastic solar cells that are the first to harness the sun's invisible, infrared rays, and could deliver up to five times the power of the most advanced photovoltaic cells...

In a paper published on the Nature Materials Web site on January 9, senior author and Professor Ted Sargent, Nortel Networks -- Canada Research Chair in Emerging Technologies at the University of Toronto's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and his team report on their achievement in tailoring matter to harvest the sun's invisible, infrared rays. "We made particles from semiconductor crystals which were exactly two, three or four nanometres in size," Sargent said. "The nanoparticles were so small they remained dispersed in everyday solvents just like the particles in paint," explains Sargent. Sargent's team then tuned the tiny nanocrystals...

Silicon Valley players seek breakthroughs in alternative-power technology http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage1819.html Publication Date:09-January-2005 Source:Matt Marshall -San Jose Mercury News Until recently, the energy business didn't hold much appeal for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs -- too old-world, too regulated, too, weell, unenergetic. That's changing fast. As the price of oil soars and China's insatiable appetite for growth sparks a race to sign energy contracts, valley start-ups are realizing there could be real profit in alternative energy. The challenge to make technical breakthroughs -- and good money -- is drawing eager scientists. And all this is turning the heads of leading venture capitalists. "That's what...

New plastic can better convert solar energy Canadian Press TORONTO — Researchers at the University of Toronto have invented an infrared-sensitive material that's five times more efficient at turning the sun's power into electrical energy than current methods. The discovery could lead to shirts and sweaters capable of recharging our cellphones and other wireless devices, said Ted Sargent, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university. Sargent and other researchers combined specially-designed minute particles called quantum dots, three to four nanometres across, with a polymer to make a plastic that can detect energy in the infrared. Infrared light is...

...The short answer to your question is that no one knows the answer. I have come across some interesting information, though, and I will try to give you my thoughts on the matter from a physicist's point of view, but you might also want to resubmit the question with my answer attached and see if you can get further input from a biologist. First, let's consider how long the planet could support large land animals like ourselves. Just think about the temperature difference between night and day and it should be pretty clear that the atmosphere (at least the troposphere,...

Prospect Of Sudden Climate Change snap frozen in a single lifetime? Washington (SPX) May 31, 2004 By now, many of us have heard the ominous predictions of a possible future global apocalypse, where cataclysmic floods, tornadoes, and blizzards threaten to destroy civilization. As a consequence of climate change, the melting of polar ice supposedly could send vast quantities of fresh water into the North Atlantic's salty oceans. This torrent would work to shut down a major Atlantic Ocean current that stabilizes the Northern Hemisphere's climate system, unleashing abrupt and drastic changes to our climate. While these forecasts are extreme, most...

A London accountant has described how Pakistan's disgraced nuclear hero Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan visited the West African state of Mali on three occasions between 1998 and 2000. Abdul Ma'bood Siddiqui accompanied A.Q. Khan on three mystery trips  between 1998 and 2000. Their final destination was Timbuktu, a remote outpost in the desert that has always been a magnet for explorers and adventurers from around the world. The mystery behind the visits has deepened following recent revelations that Khan is also the owner of a small hotel in the town that he has named after Hendrina, his Dutch-born wife and...

'Out of Gas': They're Not Making More By PAUL RAEBURN Published: February 8, 2004 If all you knew about David Goodstein was the title of his book, you might imagine him to be one of those insufferably enthusiastic prophets of doom, the flannel-shirted, off-the-grid types who take too much pleasure in letting us know that the environment is crumbling all around us. But Goodstein, a physicist, vice provost of the California Institute of Technology and an advocate of nuclear power, is no muddled idealist. And his argument is based on the immutable laws of physics. The age of oil is...