skip to main |
skip to sidebar
With the evident effects of environmental neglect, energy all over the world is becoming more and more depleted. With energy sources becoming scarce, it generally results to a stiff competition to obtain the limited sources for energy resulting to high power charges. There are several sources of energy, and some of them are even natural resources such as wind, solar, and hydro. But even if the sources of energy are natural resources and should be delivered to the people at a lower cost, still, power costs are high due to expenses incurred while generating electricity.
For several years now, scientists and researches has been looking at other means to obtain the following:
* minimize generation costs of energy
* provide energy to the people without causing any damages to the environment
* generate renewable and recyclable energy resources
* provide energy and electricity with the least possible charges
* deliver electricity and energy to the public at the lowest possible cost
ACHIEVING THESE GOALS USING NANOTECHNOLOGY SOLAR PANEL
Nanotechnology aims to build important things with the use of tiny machines or by producing highly advanced, essential, and quality products using tools and techniques provided by nanotechnology.
Part of the researches being conducted is to come up with a solar panel that would accurately capture solar energy that can be utilized at home, in the office, and even in large-scale industrial areas. Although there are already solar panels available in the market today, these solar panels that are usually made of silicone panels only capture 67.4% light incident or solar energy emitted by the sun. Whereas, with nanotechnology, industrial and electrical manufacturers can now produce a coating for solar panels using nanorods that can capture 96.7 % light incident.
Nanorods used in nanotechnology solar panel looks like multi-layer funnels designed to capture light incident. The first layer absorbs the light that hits the panel at wide outer angles and turns it to a slightly narrower angle. The succeeding layers become narrower, like they are passing the light to the next layer even further as it funnels the light till it reaches the active region of the panel at a 90^0 angle. This process makes the solar panel securely capture the sun's energy without having to rotate with the sun.
BENEFITS OF NANOTECHNOLOGY SOLAR PANEL
Installing a nanorod on your solar panel can give out a lot of benefits not just for your personal advantages but to the whole of mankind. Some of these benefits include:
* Lower solar power cost. The usual silicone solar panels available in the market today are placed at a single angle and can therefore absorb and generate lesser energy making the cost of solar power high. Nanotechnology solar power is designed to absorb the sunlight from any angle thus making generating more energy and making it available at a lesser cost.
* Environment friendly. By patronizing renewable sources of energy such as energy coming from the sun, you would help in saving the world in your own little way. Solar power is also proven safe and does not emit hazardous waste.
Generating energy in a clean and green manner is, of course, just one element of a low carbon economy. Another element is the way in which energy is used and finding ways to reduce waste. In this area, home insulation is a very important factor - just think of how many poorly insulted homes there are in the world! A technology being developed to assist with insulating buildings use formaldehyde. The current tests are developing ways to coat ordinary doors and surfaces with the chemical to trap more air in, reducing heat transfer. This will be another breakthrough of the future.
Back from Conserve Energy with Nanotechnology Solar Panel to Nanogloss.com - Home
US Interior Department greenlights 550 MW projects in California, NevadaThe U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday announced the approval of two solar projects in the states of California and Nevada proposed by First Solar that will have a combined capacity of 550 MW. The first plant, the 300 MW Stateline Solar Farm Project, will go up in San Bernardino County, California, on approximately 1,685 acres (682 hectares ) of public land located two miles (3.2 kilometers) south of the California-Nevada border. The PV facility, which will generate enough electricity to power some 90,000 homes, will connect to the grid via a 4.3-kilometer, 220-kilovolt transmission line.The second installation, the 250 MW Silver State South Solar Project will be located near Primm, Nevada, on approximately 2,400 acres (971 hectares) of public land. The facility is expected to power about 80,000 homes and will be built adjacent to the 50 MW Silver State North Project, the first solar plant on public lands to deliver power to the grid.Southern California Edison has agreed to purchase the projects' energy output for 20 years.First Solar agreed to undertake significant project design changes and mitigation measures to minimize impacts to wildlife, water, historical, cultural and other resources, according to the Interior Department.The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) worked on the Stateline proposal to reduce the project's footprint by more than 20 percent to avoid and minimize project impacts, the agency said. In addition, as part of ongoing efforts to protect the threatened desert tortoise, the BLM is expanding the nearby Ivanpah Desert Wildlife Management Area by more than 20,000 acres (8,094 hectares) and requiring that the developer achieve 3:1 compensatory mitigation for desert tortoise for its 1,685 acres (682 hectares).For the Silver State South project, the project design was modified to reduce the size of the facility by 100 MW. In addition, First Solar will have to pay more than 3.6 million for desert tortoise mitigation and 3.5 million for studies intended to guide future efforts to protect the desert tortoise in the project area. The company is also required to assess the project's potential adverse impact if archaeological properties at the site are found to be eligible for National Register of Historic Places listing.Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said pointed out that in implementing the Obama administration's Climate Action Plan, "we need to do so in a way that takes the long view and avoids or minimizes conflicts with important natural and cultural resources."Despite the federal agency's efforts to mitigate potential threats to the desert tortoise, which was officially listed as a threatened species in 1994, some environmental groups have continued to oppose the facilities.Michael J. Connor, California Director of the Western Watersheds Project, told the Associated Press that the plants would effectively isolate the tortoises' habitats, eventually shrinking the gene pool."Once you have populations that are isolated they are more prone to chance events like disease die-offs and the like," he said.BLM Principal Deputy Director Neil Kornze said the "solar projects reflect exemplary cooperation between the Bureau of Land Management and other federal, state and local agencies, enabling a thorough environmental review and robust mitigation provisions."The Interior Department said the projects would support more than 700 jobs through construction and operations and generate enough electricity to power about 170,000 homes.The PV projects marked the 49th and 50th utility-scale renewable energy projects that the Interior Department has approved on public lands since 2009, including 27 solar, 11 wind and 12 geothermal projects with a combined capacity of 14 GW, among them the 377 MW Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, which began full commercial operation last week in California.ARTICLE FROM PV MAGAZINEACCESS TO MORE ABOUT LANDPOWER SOLAR PANEL MOUNTING: SOLAR MOUNTING SYSTEMS
The central dealing out has inclined profusely to the clean energy industry stuck-up the last few soul, funneling billions of dollars in grants, loans and tax breaks to renewable power sources alike wind and solar, biofuels and electric vehicles. "Upright tech" has been good in reimbursement.
At home the depression, it was one of the few sectors to add jobs. Administration of wind turbines and solar cells put up with fallen stuck-up the last five soul, electricity from renewables has expert than doubled, conception is under way on the country's rather new nuclear power plant in decades. And the Join States bump an foremost composer in the intercontinental clean energy market.
Yet this full connection is in venture, mostly so central funding is about to torrent off a promontory and the Republican wrecking crowd in the Conference bump something like hostile to programs that hang over the preeminence of the oil and gas interests. The clean energy incentives provided by Command Obama's 2009 bribe play a part are upcoming to an end, schedule other longer-standing subsidies are seen better days.
If zip changes, clean energy funding essence torrent from a highest of 44.3 billion in 2009 to 16 billion this year and 11 billion in 2014 - a 75 percent reduction.
This difficult news is local in a new report from experts at the Brookings Home-based, the Ground Reserves Institute and the Breakthrough Institute. It is a stimulate run to delay complete get rid of to an with time politicized planning stuck-up energy subsidies. Epoch Mr. Obama is creatively suspicious subsidies, the Republicans put up with used the extravagant market fail of one solar panel company, Solyndra, to safekeeping the figure up central run to incite nascent technologies.
The Republican delay obscures complete successes that by a long way would not put up with been discretionary lacking dealing out sustenance. Crisscross power is a conceal in mountain. By spurring evolve and increase, a central production tax acknowledgment for wind amounting to 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour has brought the charge of electricity from wind power to a mountain where it is expansively competitive with natural gas, at the bottom of 75,000 jobs in manufacturing, installation and upholding.
But the tax acknowledgment is overpower to stretch at the end of this year, with potentially fateful results: a 75 percent thinning in new investment and a impressive torrent in jobs. That is purely about what happened the last court the acknowledgment was allowed to distribute, at the end of 2003.
This is clearly the untrue court to step to the left from subsidies. But it may be the accurately court, the report says, to initiation reforms, both to make the programs expert functioning and to make them expert salable to cost-cutting measure hawks. One capable recommendation is to make the subsidies longing entitle (muggy the stand your ground collapse or in debt cycles) but rejigger them to cut sleek costs and in good health recitation.
The idea is not to sinewy up clean tech industries for all time. It is to get them to a mountain where they can perform on their own - an antique indication that, one would count on, oblige force rival to Conference Republicans.
SourcePost from CleanTechLaw.org: www.cleantechlaw.org
GUELPH, CANADA: Canadian Huge Inc.has executed a sales partnership to supply photovoltaic (PV) modules to two run scale projects count 146.4 MWp in Honduras.
These two projects, entitled Issue Developer/EPC Huge Mass S.A. de C.V. (SOPOSA) and Compan'ia Hondurena de Energia Huge S.A. de C.V. (COHESSA), mood be constructed in the southern responsibility of Honduras with December 2014 and Row 2015. What's more project powers disclose 73.2 MWp, bringing the elite to 146.4 MWp.
This is identical to supplying energy requests to 45,000 homes in Honduras with proficient and renewable green energy. These two projects describe a milestone for SOPOSA and COHESSA, whose dealings seek strives to develop solar projects that care for the maximum morals of sustainable development.
"We are subject matter to be select few to supply our PV modules to SOPOSA and COHESSA, both world superior developers and EPC providers. I am brave that Canadian Solar's cosmopolitan experience, recognized track film, and customary product acting out mood elevate to make us a co-worker of refinement in supplying our modules to key solar installations macro," supposed Dr. Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of Canadian Huge.
For instance 2010, Canadian Solar's PV modules hold without fail been ranked at the top of the PVUSA Research Background (PTC) Ratings, maintaining their imperative quotation in the market. What's more, for the fourth engagement in a row, Canadian Huge has achieved obedient fight on the Dominance Induced Ruination (PID) stab fight. This stab assesses how well modules dais hooligan untrained milieu in a stab laboratory.
Reference: amosrenewableenergy.blogspot.com
Sustainable Energy
Last week was "bad" energy, but there is "good" energy, generally referred to as sustainable or renewable. Sunlight can directly be utilized, but is also responsible for the winds and biogrowth. Geothermal energy is also generally recognized as okay. Direct solar can take the form of photovoltaic cells, tower/dish power devices, passive cooling and water heaters. Three important indirect alternatives are wind power, ocean energy and biomass. The USDOE link, http://www.eere.energy.gov/RE/solar.html, can be tapped for everything you want to know about renewable energy.
The world uses about 400 quads of energy each year, of which oil is 141 Q. 1 Q equals 2.52x1017 calories or 2.52x108 tons of TNT, but it's best to forget the Qs and cs. Look at relativity. If we can capture one-hundredth of one percent the available solar energy that shines on our planet, we should be fine, for now.
Consider, then, that the Sun provides Earth with as much energy each hour as humanity uses every year. The Sahara Desert can produce 450 Tera Watts of power, when the sun shines. The current global power consumption is about 13 TW. But no one lives in that desert, but they do in India, which basks in the hot sun and has the potential to produce 600 TW. Finally, the World Council for Renewable Energy reported in 2004 that renewable energy has the potential to supply 15,000 times the current annual consumption of nuclear and fossil energy. The simple story is that there is a lot of sustainable energy available.-The NYMEX Crude Future rests today at 132.97/barrel.
"By Anders Lorenzen"
Further to its divestment from 19 coal and oil sand companies last year, the Norwegian company Storebrand, one of the largest investors operating in Norway and Sweden, has this year excluded ten new coal companies from its portfolio. The total list of companies that excluded by Storebrand on the grounds of environmental degradation now tallies 46.
Storebrand, which is also one of the largest pension fund providers in Norway, has been concentrating on sustainable investments since as early as the 1990s. The company has 470 billion Norwegian kroner (NOK) invested in 2500 companies worldwide, 2400 of which have already been given a sustainability rating on a scale of 0-100. The highest rated companies qualify for membership of their flagship sustainability fund 'Storebrand Trippel Smart', and those rated lowest are at risk of exclusion by the Storebrand investor committee, as has happened with many with a high reliance on coal and tar sands.
Strong opposition to investment in the tar sandsThe company has also been active opposing tar sands; Storebrand owns a 0.4% share in the Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil, which is a Norwegian state owned company. Five years ago, Statoil became an investor in the tar sands oil project in Alberta, Canada, seen by many as the most destructive fossil fuel project on the planet. Storebrand has always disagreed with Statoil's tar sands investments, and has voted for a stakeholder meeting motion tabled by the environmental groups Greenpeace and WWF, requesting that Statoil withdraw from the project.
Storebrand's Head of Sustainable Investements Christine Torklep Meisingset. Photo credit: Storebrand.
When we met recently in Oslo, Head of Sustainable Investments at Storebrand, Christine Torklep Meisingset, told me that Storebrand continues to have an ongoing dialogue with Statoil on the tar sands issue. She explained that divesting from tar sands altogether would necessitate divestment from most of the oil and gas industry as most players in the global oil and gas market have some investments in tar sands. Furthermore, she said, Statoil is one of the lesser investors (number 17 to be exact) one of the major companies investing in tar sands. she insisted that Storebrand will continue to press Statoil and other companies on the issue, encouraging more local investment. In her words 'We concentrate our active ownership in the Nordic region, where we have a stronger position'.
In a recent meeting with Greenpeace Norway oil campaigner, Martin Norman, he told me that this was a position he agreed with as Statoil were one of the last oil majors to become involved in tar sands and therefore it would be easier for them to pull out of it. He urged concerned Statoil investors to attend Statoil future AGMs to oppose the company's investments in tar sands.
Fossil fuel divestment requires more credible alternatives Meisingset was clear that although Storebrand still has some holdings in tar sands, coal oil and gas, the company is taking gradual steps to fully divest from fossil fuels but this will take some time due to the complexity of the industries. She explains that a key challenge is the lack of a real investment alternative to fossil fuel companies; unfortunately there is as yet a lack of credible renewable energy companies to invest in. In her own words, "We are investing more in the best performers and less in the most risky companies. Divesting from the coal industry means we switch to companies with a lower exposure to fossil fuels, such as gas and also those who have a larger renewables portfolio'. One of the reasons we have to be careful how we go about this is due to our responsibility to our clients. We have to shift our investments gradually in order to secure returns"
Fossil fuels in our pensions: a global challengeA majority of the world's pension funds invest heavily in fossil fuels. The UK based NGO Carbon Tracker has warned about the concept of 'stranded assets' and the risks associated with pension funds if fund managers don't start to divert their investments into safer and more
sustainable investments. When we discussed this, Meisingset was adamant that the risks of the carbon bubble bursting had definitely contributed to Storebrand's decision to exclude fossil fuel companies with the highest carbon footprint from its expanding portfolio.
"Sub edited by Kirstie Wielandt"
