Energy – Page 11 – Things Are Good

This Book Can Give You Power

Oil prices are rising again and oil is yet again at the centre of international conflict, it’s time to get off of oil. Sustainable energy is peaceful energy. Solar power is one such renewable energy source that can work anywhere the sun shines. Setting up a solar rig can be a challenge and intimidating for the average person. A freely available book, To Catch The Sun, provides the current knowledge you need to setup solar power generation of any size.

This is a book for people looking to build a better future together, that includes:

Inspiring stories: Real life accounts of building solar power in communities.
Technical details: Straightforward descriptions of solar components and diagrams of systems, replete with real examples (many from the systems described in the stories).
Math and science: Easy-to-follow math that allows readers to size small photovoltaic systems for all types of environments and uses.

Thanks to Trevor.

Dutch Climate Lawyer Wins Dresden Peace Prize

Yes, a lawyer won a peace prize. Roger Cox, a Dutch climate lawyer who took on Shell, has been awarded the 2022 Dresden Peace Prize for winning a case that inspired similar cases around the world. On behalf of Friends of the Earth, Cox won a ruling in a Dutch court against Shell last year (the case itself was launched in 2015) which forces the company to reduce its carbon output by 45% by 2030. The non-renewable energy company is based in the Netherlands making it subject to Dutch courts.

Climate activists hailed the decision as a victory for the planet that built on a 2015 case Cox brought requiring the Netherlands’ government to cut emissions at least 25 per cent by the end of 2020 from benchmark 1990 levels.
Since then, similar cases have been brought against governments and corporations around the world, with mixed results.
“Peace is more than the absence of war,” the organisers of the Dresden Prize said. “Standing up for peace in times of climate crisis means acting responsibly and fighting for a humane and thus peaceful life for future generations.”

Beer Cans for Passive Heating

They aren’t just for transporting a yummy beverage, beer cans can be used to create passive heating too. A simple contraption that you can make in your spare time can save you heating costs and help reduce your carbon footprint. A beer can heating system, like the one in the video above, is just a series of cans in a row painted black out in the sun under a casing. The dark cans heat up from the sun and move air through them using basic convection.

A DIY beer can heating system is perfect for a shed, garage, or even using it augment your home’s existing heating system.

The concept is relatively simple. The aluminum cans have both of their ends cut off and are fashioned into a series of long metal tubes, painted black. With a fan at one end, and some fins cut into the tubes slowing down the airflow, the metal is positioned in a way to get heated by the sun as the warm air is pulled into the building.

Thirteen years later, the same old beer cans are still chugging along, helping keep the space warm and heating bills low – about $300 annually, McLauchlin estimates.

“It’s -22 C right now and my furnace didn’t come on today,” he said over the phone in early December.

Thanks to Mike!

One Way Maritimers can Drastically Reduce their Energy Consumption

Canada’s Maritime provinces are blustery, cold, and powered by coal. The weather is fine for most people (and lovely in the summer), but they know they need to transition to renewable energy quickly or risk losing more land to the seas and worsening storms due to climate change. The work to get the power grid to be a green one is underway.

Researchers and policy makers are looking into ways to make their power grid more robust by incorporating modern battery technology. The technology varies from smart water heaters to store heat to phase-change energy storage which is gaining popularity around the world.

Several companies in the Maritimes are investigating the possibility of integrating phase-change materials into heat sources to allow more integration of renewables.

One is Fredericton-based Stash Energy. Dan Curwin, director of business development, said they’ve developed heat pumps with phase-change material storage built in, to store energy from renewable sources like hydro when it’s plentiful, such as overnight, and discharge it in the morning when demand is high, to be stored up again from renewables like solar during the day.

This can help with the integration of renewables and with greater adoption of electric heat pumps, which are the most efficient heating option but risk overburdening the grid.

Curwin said the company has partnerships with efficiency agencies across Atlantic Canada and New England, as well as housing authorities such as Housing Nova Scotia that recognize the particular burden posed by heating costs.

Thanks to Mike!

See Through Solar Panels

The future is powered by renewables, and the more sources of electricity we have the more resilient our power grid will be. Researches at Michigan State University have created a solar film that can be applied to existing windows to generate electricity from the sun. The system is not as efficient as a standalone solar cell, but the benefits of putting the film on existing windows outweighs the inefficiency. The film is see through which means the windows look like normal windows. Imagine every window in a skyscraper generating a little amount of power or the windows on every electric car.

Back in 2017 MSU profiled Lunt’s work and explained that he and his team “pioneered the development of a transparent luminescent solar concentrator that when placed on a window creates solar energy without disrupting the view. The thin, plastic-like material can be used on buildings, car windows, cell phones or other devices with a clear surface.”

“The solar-harvesting system uses organic molecules developed by Lunt and his team to absorb invisible wavelengths of sunlight. The researchers can ‘tune’ these materials to pick up just the ultraviolet and the near-infrared wavelengths that then convert this energy into electricity,” MSU adds.

Thanks to Mike!