Energy

Soaring Solar

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

Solar boat It seems that every year solar power efficiency improves and that this increased energy production allows for more and more uses. People also figure out other ways to use the sun’s heat. And what’s technological innovation without a competition? Well, we all know there are solar-powered competitions around the world like the classic World Solar Challenge that travels across Australia.

Did you know that there are solar powered boat competitions? I didn’t. The Frisian Nuon Solar Challenge is all about raising boats that gather power from the sun’s rays. Recently, Technical University of Delft won the competition.

Tempted to get your own solar boat, check out all of these crazy looking solar boats.

A New Way to Produce Coal From Biomass

- Cam Proctor

Good news from Germany!
Markus Antonietti from Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces has devised a chemical process that converts biomass like leaves, pine cones and other plant residue into wet coal (coal + water). Biomass goes into the autoclave, a kind of pressure cooker, water goes in, too, along with a citric acid catalyst. A chemical reaction takes place and coal is produced.

The single major by-product of the reaction is water, which can be filtered off. In contrast to other biomass techniques this reaction does not generate carbon dioxide. It also gives a higher energy product, which even smells acceptable.

We underestimated this when we started. We could calculate how much energy was stored in the sugar – in the leaf material. But the first time – as you see – we had a runaway reaction, which is obviously dangerous, so we need to carry it out under safe conditions.

-Markus Antonietti

See Solar Run

- Cam Proctor

A Drawing of the Sun from the USA EPA siteA solar cell absorbs a small range of light wavelengths based upon the density and width of silicon crystals. Light strikes the crystals and causes electrons to propagate along the network. We call this flow of electrons electricity.

More crystals of different widths in the network mean that more different wavelengths can be absorbed and more power can be generated. Adding different layers of crystals to absorb a wider range of wavelength is one way to increase the power, but the process to spread these crystals over a surface is very expensive and energy intensive.

Prism Solar Technologies is going a different path by splitting the incoming sunlight and concentrating specific wavelengths onto a variety of cells designed to collect those specific wavelengths, yielding 25% greater electricity yields. These concentrators and splitters are orders of magnitude cheaper to produce than solar cells and increase the power of each solar cell. Oh, by the way, the Prism splitter is clear.

Toronto Offers Incentive to Save Power

- Fraser Birt

Summers in Toronto can be kind of, well, hot. With lights, machinery, and air conditioning at their yearly peak, the strain on the city’s power-system can be enormous.

To reduce the summer strain on the city’s electrical system, Toronto Hydro-Electric System Ltd. is offering consumers a financial incentive to conserve power.

If Toronto power consumers can reduce their summer power consumption by 10% from the previous summer’s bill, Toronto Hydro-Electric will knock 10% off of autumn’s electricity bill. Using fans instead of air conditioning, even for part of the day, can put a 10% reduction well within reach of most consumers. A financial incentive to conserve is hard to ignore.

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