This luminaire is made up of 36 tiny solar panels that power a series of internal lights. The panels are laid out in a circular fashion to ensure that they’ll capture the most sunlight possible. This charges the the battery for night time use!
[Design by Damien O'Sullivan | via make]
energy / environment / Eric Schmidt / Google / green / solar / talks / videos / wind
November 19, 2008 0Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the New America Foundation, and a member of President-Elect Barack Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board, addressed a packed auditorium at the Ronald Reagan Building on Tuesday, November 18th.
Schmidt provided insight into the junction of technology and government, stressing that solid infrastructure is the key to an efficient and effective government, and using the internet as the model for how government should approach the current fiscal crisis facing our nation and the world. He also pressed the need for open networks and systems as a foundation for innovation.
The Google CEO also emphasized that engagement is the fundamental component in finding solutions to our countrys current economic woes, and used President-elect Obamas addresses on YouTube as an example of the way government should enlist modernization and embrace the voices of all as it contemplates solving the financial and social ills of our society.
Schmidt concluded that while there is no silver bullet, but he remains optimistic in our countrys future and its prosperity.
It’s fascinating to see environmental technologies advacing in places you wouldn’t expect to find them. Like cargo ships…
Solar Sails:
Ben Cubby writes:
Solar-powered sails the size of a jumbo jet’s wings will be fitted to cargo ships, after a Sydney renewable energy company signed a deal with China’s biggest shipping line.
The Chatswood-based Solar Sailor group has designed the sails, which can be retro-fitted to existing tankers.
The aluminium sails, 30 metres long and covered with photovolatic panels, harness the wind to cut fuel costs by between 20 and 40 per cent, and use the sun to meet five per cent of a ship’s energy needs.
China’s COSCO bulk carrier will fit the wings to a tanker ship and a bulker ship under a memorandum of understanding with the Australian company, which demonstrates the technology on a Sydney Harbour cruise boat.
“It’s hard to predict a time line but at some point in the future, I can see all ships using solar sails – it’s inevitable,” said the company’s chief executive, Dr Robert Dane.
Once fitted, the sails can pay for themselves in fuel savings within four years, Dr Dane said. They don’t require special training to operate, with a computer linked in to a ship’s existing navigation system, and sensors automatically angling the sails to catch a breeze and help vessels along.
The company is supported by NSW Government’s Australian Technology Showcase program.
“This is a breakthrough opportunity for Solar Sailor to play a leading role in the future of international shipping design during a period when rising fuel costs and environmental concerns have taken centre stage,” said the NSW Minister for Primary Industry, Ian Macdonald.
“This is a case of back to the future – back to the days of sailing ships but to the future in terms of high technology solar and wind sails operated by computer rather than sailcloth and rigging manned by crew.”
Sky Sails:
skysails.info:
It is a simple fact: wind is cheaper than oil and the most economic and environmentally sound source of energy on the high seas. And yet, shipping companies are not taking advantage of this attractive savings potential at present – for a simple reason: So far no sail system has been able to meet the requirements of today’s maritime shipping industry.
Now for the first time, SkySails is offering a wind propulsion system based on large towing kites, which meets all these requirements.
Depending on the prevailing wind conditions, a ship’s average annual fuel costs can be reduced by 10 to 35% by using the SkySails-System. Under optimal wind conditions, fuel consumption can temporarily be cut by up to 50%.
The first pilot systems are in operation on board of cargo vessels. Currently, SkySails is offering towing kite propulsion systems for cargo vessels with an effective load* of between 8 and 32 tons. The planned product program comprises towing kite propulsion systems with an effective load* of up to 130 tons.
Virtually all existing cargo vessels and new builds can be retro- or outfitted with the SkySails auxiliary wind propulsion system.
Fish trawlers and super yachts of over 30 meters in length can be retro- or outfitted with the SkySails auxiliary wind propulsion system as well.
[smh | solar sailor | skysails]
DESERT HOT SPRINGS, Calif. — Solar power, with its promise of emissions-free renewable energy, boasts a growing number of fans. Some of them, it turns out, are thieves.
Just ask Glenda Hoffman, whose fury has not abated since 16 solar panels vanished from her roof in this sun-baked town in three separate burglaries in May, sometimes as she slept. She is ready if the criminals turn up again.
“I have a shotgun right next to the bed and a .22 under my pillow,” Ms. Hoffman said.
Police departments in California — the biggest market for solar power, with more than 33,000 installations — are seeing a rash of such burglaries, though nobody compiles overall statistics.
Investigators do not believe the thieves are acting out of concern for their carbon footprints. Rather, authorities assume that many panels make their way to unwitting homeowners, sometimes via the Internet.
Last November, someone tried to sell solar panels stolen from a toll road in Newport Beach for $100 each on eBay. Detectives from the local police department entered the bidding and won the panels, which were worth nearly $1,500 apiece, according to Sgt. Evan Sailor, a Newport Beach police spokesman.
[Continue reading at the New York Times | photo by clownfish]
“MADRID (AFP) — US automaker General Motors said Tuesday it will equip the roof of its factory in Zaragoza in northeastern Spain with solar panels to create the world’s largest rooftop source of power from the sun.
The electricity produced by the 10 megawatt installation will be used by the plant, GM’s biggest in Europe, and also be sold to the local power grid, a company spokesman said.
“GM’s Zaragoza plant will become home to the biggest roof-top solar power station worldwide. This has significant potential to reduce costs at the plant,” GM Europe President Carl-Peter Forster said in a statement.
The company may install similar projects at GM Europe’s 11 other assembly and eight component plants depending on the results in Zaragoza, he added.
The installation will generate enough power annually to supply 4,600 households when it is completed at the end of September, the statement said.
It will comprise about 85,000 solar panels and cover about 2,000,000 square feet (183,000 square metres) of roof at the plant which assembles more than 480,000 vehicles a year for the European market.
GM currently has two of the largest solar power installations in the United States on the roofs of its Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, California parts warehouses.
The company is due to install solar panels on its factory in Saint Petersburg, Russia next.
US firm Clairvoyant Energy and France’s Veolia Environment will build, own and operate the rooftop solar installation at Zaragoza.”
“GreenPix is a groundbreaking project applying sustainable and digital media technology to the curtain wall of Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympic Games. Featuring the largest color LED display worldwide and the first photovoltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China, the building performs as a self-sufficient organic system, harvesting solar energy by day and using it to illuminate the screen after dark, mirroring a day’s climatic cycle”
“The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art, while offering the most radical example of sustainable technology applied to an entire building’s envelope to date. The building will open to the public in May 2008, with a specially commissioned program of video installations and live performances by artists from China, Europe and the US.”
Official Site | via inhabitat
“We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. … 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 and coal run out before we tackle that.”
In conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone (1931)
[photo by helmet13 on Flickr | WikiQuote via Eriks Brolis]
