From Magenn power Inc comes an interesting new design for a wind turbine. This could be a goodyear for renewable energy. Called the 'M.A.R.S' - a fantastic acronym for the Magenn Power Air Rotor System - which promises lower costs, better performance, and enhanced environmental benefit. The turbine is a lighter than air blimp, which rotates around a horizontal axis. A unique design orients the blimp into the wind. One of the interesting facets of this technology, is that as it is anchored to the ground by a 1000 foot cable, the MARS could be anywhere up to 707 ft from its base.

The MARS blimp will come in a variety of sizes. First, in small applications that will produce around four kilowatts of power at roughly 20 cents per kilowatt. These, obviously, are useful only in off-grid situations. However, Magenn plans to create much larger MARS turbines that will produce up to 2000 kw per turbine (twice that of the world's largest wind turbines.) These would likely be cost effective in wind farms and, if implemented correctly, could even be combined with today's current farms.

This device is higher than your average turbine, but lower than other tethered turbines we've seen. Thus, you can neither see nor hear the MARS turbine, and it is able to harness unobstructed higher-altitude wind currents. But, unlike some kite- turbines that we've seen, the MARS turbine won't interfere with commercial air traffic any more than cell tower would.

We see a lot of potential for these blimp turbines in the future of wind power, and we'll be following Magenn closely in the coming months.

One of the best ways to add to the efficiency of a solar panel is to create a mechanical means for the panel to track the movement of the sun. Unfortunately, these mechanical trackers are expensive and difficult to maintain.

Sphelar cells are made from small, spherical droplets of silicon, rather than flat films or sheets of material. This configuration allows the cells to efficiently create power at any solar angle, eliminating the need for an expensive and difficult to maintain mechanical tracking equipment. Sphelar cells also are able to better take advantage of indirect and reflected light, as well as the direct light from the sun.

The individual spheres are tiny, measuring only 1mm (less than 1/16 inch) in diameter. Sheets of Sphelar modules can be made flexible and partially transparent. Sphelar cells could also be used to make energy generating glass. The small cells could be applied to conventional glass, and the space between the cells would allow vision and daylighting through the same window.

The manufacturer, Kyosemi, makes the Sphelar cells in a 14 meter (~45 foot) tall tower. Molten silicon is sprayed at the top and crystalizes into small droplets in free fall producing thousands of single crystal spheres each second. The manufacturing process is also highly efficient, with almost no waste of silicon material.

The company is just beginning to develop large scale production, so it will be some time before these start to show up on the market, and it will be some time before we see how much of an impact this technology will have on the solar energy generating market.

via: Ecofriend

We're geeks for all kinds of cool transportation options. And we're geeks for solar-powered stuff. So a solar-powered plane to go around the world is right up our alley.

The Solar Impulse is an experimental solar-powered airplane project under development. Ultimately, the team hopes to be able to fly around the world powered only by solar power.

Rather than maintaining a consistent level altitude for its flight, the Solar Impulse will capitalize on the daytime solar energy to climb to higher elevations, and then slowly descend at night, while relying on batteries to maintain forward propulsion. It will climb to nearly 10,000 meters (roughly 33,000 feet) during the day, and gradually soar back down to 3,000 meters (roughly 10,000 feet) altitude at night.

The wingspan for the Solar Impulse is slightly wider than that of the new Airbus A380 double-decker super jumbo jet (80 meters). But the solar Impulse will weigh just 2 tons, versus the 560 tons for the A380. (This is almost as wide a wingspan as was on the NASA Helios solar-electric test aircraft project a few years ago, but that was an unmanned vehicle.)

The project is presently at the prototype design phase of the project. If all goes according to schedule, the team expects to fly around the world some time in 2011.

via: Cocolico

"A typical hardware refresh period for Microsoft Windows is 3-4 years. A major UK manufacturing organisation quotes its hardware refresh period for Linux systems as 6-8 years." A significant difference...a doubling even, of the lifetime of a computer.

Thus, a world using Linux would be a world with half the computer waste (and, admittedly, halved sales for Dell and the rest.)

A widespread switch to Linux could prevent millions of tons of waste from going into landfills. Every computer not needed would prevent the use of 240 kg of fossil fuels. Spread that out over the 17.5 million computers that wouldn't be going obsolete every year and Linux could deliver the world a much more sustainable future.

The good news is, the world looks like it's increasingly ready to upgrade from Windows. Most of Asia has switched, as least in part, to Open Source Software (OSS); some countries, such as Indonesia, also think that Linux changes scofflaws into legit users. Cuba has reported a 500 percent increase in Linux installation in two years; of course, they can't really get Windows due to export restrictions. Big Blue is giving a specific tutorial to switch from Windows to Linux, and two out of three Dell customers are now demanding that The Bird be pre-installed.

Many versions of Linux will run on a Pentium 1 with 128MB of RAM, while Slackware can run on a 486. It's also generally free, and available for download, so there's no packaging or shipping associated. Linux, it turns out, is far and away the most green way to run your home computer system. And, these days, it's as simple, as usable, and almost as pretty, as OSX or Vista anyhow.

According to a recent GE press release, incandescent bulbs with an efficiency comparable to compact fluorescent bulbs could be available within a few years.

It's just a general announcement about the company's direction. "Over the next several years, these advancements will lead to the introduction of high-efficiency incandescent lamps that provide the same high light quality, brightness and color as current incandescent lamps..."

There is no product being introduced, or even proposed for a future release date. However, the prospect of this is intruiging. There is no indication in the press release of what materials or technologies are being used to derive these increases in efficiency. But, if they are able to make these improvements and, at the same time, eliminate the need for using mercury (which is used in compact fluorescents) and the need for electronic ballasts (which add to the cost and waste complexity of CF bulbs) then this could turn into a real bright idea.

In the meantime, keep swapping your old incandescents for compact fluorescents. And, for the future, my money's still on LEDs.

via: Inside Greentech

In a dramatic move on the 22nd of February, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard moved to ban incandescant light bulbs by the year 2010. This makes Australia the first country to take nationwide action to ban inefficent incandescant light bulbs. The Australian government believes that the ban will slash carbon emissions Down Under by over a million tons by 2012.

Howard's decision is a bit of a surprise, as for the past decade his refusal to sign up to the Kyoto protocol has ostracised Howard from the hub of the growing movement against global warming.

Bill Turnbull, Environmental Minister is said: "It's a little thing but it's a massive change. If the whole world switches to these bulbs today we would reduce our consumption of electricity by an amount equal to five times Australia's annual consumption of electricity."

By contrast, bold action in the other great nations of the world is somewhat lacking. We heard on EcoGeek earlier this month that legislators in the state of California and New England are looking to ban incandescant bulbs, whilst in Britain, Tony Blair changed the light outside his house from a incandescant bulb to a energy-saving bulb, in a bold move to provide weak symbolic support to the cause.

Despite this move, Australia will still produce 561 million tonnes of CO2, if this plan makes the 4 million ton savings in CO2 which are hoped for.

While I still like the idea of using my muscles to power my devices more, this is available now, and it'd certainly be a good addition to any EcoGeek's arsenal, but only if you live in the UK.

Buy it at SolarTech Via: TreeHugger

The UK Telegraph is reporting that, in ten years, solar power will be half as cheap as oil and gas. Their basing their estimate on reports from companies producing solar panels, who I'm sure aren't biased at all, specifically companies creating Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (cigs) panels.

These panels do have a lot of potential, but I worry about the feasibility of coping with the world's energy needs with indium and gallium, two elements that are quite rare. Currently, the solar boom is trying to overcome a global shortage in processed silicon. And that's silicon! One of the most common elements on Earth.

Indium is a fairly rare, and difficult to process element. In 2003 the price of indium was $90 per kg. Now, because demand in solar and LCD displays, indium costs over $900 per kilogram.

There's a future in CIGS solar, and I hope that it can bring the cost per watt of solar power down significantly, but assuming that the cost of indium is going to stay the same when CIGS solar plants ramp up for global supply is rather silly. Nonetheless, solar is taking off, and EcoGeek is going on record predicting that per watt solar power will be cost competitive in less than ten years. CIGS panels are one step on that journey, but there's no reason to get overly optimistic.

Vertical farming takes the old idea of a greenhouse and stretches it upwards so that the available growing area is a multiple of the building footprint, as opposed to the 1:1 ratio from a typical greenhouse. A vertical farm building would be a supremely green building because its inhabitants would be (literally) green.

Vertical farming could allow extended growing seasons. The food could be grown organically, and herbicides and pesticides could be eliminated. There would be an enormous reduction in crop loss due to weather and pest damage.

Vertical farming would allow food production to be closer to urban centers, meaning food could be provided with lower transportation and distribution costs.

There are many problems that would need to be addressed to make something like this a practical and wide ranging solution. Housing is already a problem. Extending the construction industry to provide the resources (both material and labor) to build towers for farming would likely push up the cost of all building. The costs and tradeoffs may not yet make this a practical idea, but its day may be coming.

via: Archinect

The short stance of the Mag-Wind turbine seems to provide an added benefit of enabling it to keep generating in extremely high winds. It can withstand a top wind speed of over 100 mph, where most other wind turbines have safeties to stop them if wind speeds get too high (some even as low as 40 mph or less). And, it is designed to capitalize on the effect of a sloped roof increasing the wind pressure to boost its efficiency (though how well that works probably depends on the orientation of the roof and the direction of the prevailing winds).

The company claims a faster payback than solar or a typical horizontal axis wind turbine, and a cost of only 3.5 cents per kWh.

I'm somewhat concerned about how well it would work in northern winters. If I had one on my house right now, I imagine it's wide base would be clogged with ice and snow. I'm also afraid many people will find it unattractive (and tellingly, the only image of what it would look like is an edited composition, rather than a photograph of an installed turbine). But, having a lower energy bill would certaily look good to homeowners who will choose this option. And if it becomes popular, designers will certainly find ways to incorporate its look into new homes in the future.

via: TreeHugger