Tag Archives: solar

IBM Turns Electronic Trash Into Solar Cache

IBM has started a new program that recycles old computer chips and converts them into solar panels. They are taking computer chips (which are usually chopped to bits) and ‘erasing’ the chip pattern then putting them as wafers in solar panels. This will surely make solar power cheaper in the future!

The 3 million scrapped wafers each year could be used to create solar panels to power 6,000 houses, IBM said.

“It’s a simple process but it really returns benefits on so many different levels,” Jagielski said. “Not only do we reduce our overall use of silicon, but then to be able to create a raw material for the solar panel industry is kind of a good story all the way around.”

Solar is Hot in Germany

A german co-worker told me how it rains practically everyday in his native town. So how does the country become the world’s top solar power producer?

Apparently, what’s good for the planet is also good for the German economy:

There are now 250,000 jobs in Germany in the renewables energy sector… jobs in solar power alone to double to 90,000 over the next five years and hit 200,000 in 2020.

As with any new development, there are critics who want to slow down government incentives for solar power use, but the government has other plans:

So far just 3 percent of Germany’s electricity comes from the sun, but the government wants to raise the share of renewables to 27 percent of all energy by 2020 from 13 percent.

But why in Germany and not anywhere else in the world? Frank Asbeck of SolarWorld AG explains:

Germans have a fondness for inventing and developing technologies — especially when it might lead to big export rates. Helping fight climate change is a bonus.

Reflecting on the Sun

http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11993
It’s good to know that already scientists have figured out backup plans for when climate change becomes so destructive that we have a way to turn down the thermostat. The solutions being put forward include blocking or diffusing the sun’s energy out into space – essentially making the Earth a giant mirror. The catch is that this geoengineering could change the way we see the world by altering the rays that hit the planet’s surface. The solutions maybe drastic, but at least we have a plan.

A solar shield that reflects some of the Sun’s radiation back into space would cool the climate within a decade and could be a quick-fix solution to climate change, researchers say.
…
His computer models simulated a gradually deployed shield that would compensate for the greenhouse effect of rising carbon dioxide concentrations. By the time CO2 levels are double those of pre-industrial times – predicted to be at the end of the 21st century – the shield would need to block 8% of the Sun’s radiation.

Ontario Goes Solar

After recently banning old light bulbs, the province of Ontario has permitted a Californian company permission to build a rather large solar power facility.

The Ontario government has approved a California company’s plan to build North America’s largest photovoltaic solar farm, the provincial energy ministry announced Thursday.

OptiSolar Farms Canada Inc. of Arthur, Ont. — a subsidiary of California-based OptiSolar Inc. — will install more than one million solar panels at four farms outside Sarnia, Ont., providing the province with 40 megawatts of power by 2010. Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan said that’s enough to power 6,000 homes.

Solar Skyscraper

Skyscrapers are bombarded with solar rays and all they did before was heat the building, now an entire skyscraper is being covered in solar panels! No more wasting of that precious light.

Buy 10 million dollars of solar panels and cover the building with them! They’re just as pretty as any facade, and produce hundreds of kilowatts of power for use in the building. In concert with 24 roof-mounted wind turbines, 10% of the CIS tower in Manchester will be powered by building-bound renewable energy. While that might not seem like much, it is a very big building. Only the building’s service tower (shown) will be covered with panels. The attached office building (which gets to have windows instead of solar panels) is much larger.