The Turanor PlanetSolar, the first completely solar-powered boat to go all the way round the world, will finish its journey tomorrow. The catamaran will pull into Hercule Harbor in Monaco, the place it started, after 19 months at sea.

The world's largest solar-powered boat set off on September 27, 2010 and made its way across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, through the Panama and Suez canals and docked at Miami, Cancun, Brisbane, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and other ports along the way.

The PlanetSolar was made to be as lightweight and aerodynamic as possible. The 31x15 meter boat is made from carbon fiber and features 537 square meters of solar panels with a capacity of 93.5 kW, backed by a lithium-ion battery system. The route kept the boat and its four-person crew cruising as close to the equator as possible to provide the maximum amount of sunlight.

The project was masterminded by Raphael Domjan, an electronics engineer and outdoors enthusiast who wanted to do something big to promote the potential of solar power. I'd say mission accomplished.

When the boat reaches the finish line tomorrow, the solar power system on the boat will power a light show to celebrate. There will be a book and documentary released in September to coincide with the two-year anniversary of the beginning of the voyage.

via NY Times Green

A lot of emphasis is placed on batteries for electric vehicles, but fuel cells are another means of producing electricity that will get more attention as the technology develops further. Fuel cells offer efficient conversion of fuel to electricity. They also offer a way of combining electric drive with a system that can use portable fuels, and that may be able to overcome the "range anxiety" that is one of the obstacles to further acceptance of electric vehicles.

The good folks at Car Talk pointed us to their article about fuel cells covering both automotive fuel cells, as well as stationary fuel cells used in industrial settings. The US Department of Energy has a lot of programs dealing with fuel cells, and research is certainly moving ahead in this field in both the private and public sectors. Expect to see more about fuel cells in the coming years.

The Honda FCX Clarity, GM's Project Driveway and the Mercedes Benz F-Cell Hydrogen Electric Drive pilot programs are some of the first steps to fuel cell vehicles. But because of the very limited number of hydrogen fueling stations, hydrogen fuel cell vehicle drivers must also have their own "range anxiety" to contend with. While we usually think of fuel cells using hydrogen, other fuels such as methanol and natural gas can also be used in fuel cells. Compressed natural gas is more widely available than hydrogen, but it still takes some searching to find.

CoolNYC is a cooperative program being offered by Con Edison and ThinkEco which will provide up to 10,000 free thermostats and Modlet plug-in electrical outlet controllers to New York City residents to be used to monitor and control window air conditioning units. The hope is that controlling window AC units can help reduce peak electrical demand this summer.

You may recall the Modlet, which we noted late in 2010 when it was a Top 10 Green Building Product. The Modlet is a smart outlet that plugs in to a conventional outlet and allows you to control and monitor energy usage wirelessly. With the Modlet, appliance use can be scheduled for particular times. There are also apps to allow iPhone and Android devices to control Modlet outlets remotely.

The Modlet networks to a computer via a wireless USB dongle, but it has built in memory so it can run for up to two weeks without connecting to the computer. If there are several Modlets in the home or office, they will conect to each other with a mesh network, so not every one has to be in range of the computer in order to work.

For those outside New York or who don't qualify for this program, the Modlet retails for about $50.

via: Apartment Therapy

Tidal power is one of the renewable energy sources that you hear the least about even though its potential for generating electricity is incredibly vast. The problem is that deploying turbines out into the ocean or rivers can prove to be awfully tricky. But one major project is moving full steam ahead and will be delivering power by this fall.

The Maine Tidal Energy Project started construction of the bottom support frame for Ocean Renewable Power Company's TidGen turbine generator system in March. The project's first phase will see five of those generators deployed in the Gulf of Maine with a capacity of 900 kW. That phase should be online by October.

The complete project will reach a capacity of 4 MW and already has 20-year power purchase agreements with Bangor Hydro, CMP and Maine Public Service.

The TidGen system consists of slowly rotating foils that power a permanent magnet generator at its center. It is gearless and made from composite materials that won't corrode underwater.

A group of entrepreneurs has announced the formation of a new company called Planetary Resources with the goal of collecting valuable, useful minerals from asteroids. "Planetary Resources hopes to go after the platinum-group metals — which include platinum, palladium, osmium, and iridium — highly valuable commodities used in medical devices, renewable energy products, catalytic converters, and potentially in automotive fuel cells."

The technology and information about asteroids is not in place for this to be undertaken immediately. The company plans successive levels of exploration, beginning with a series of private, orbital telescopes to be used to survey asteroids. This would be followed by spacecraft to intercept asteroids approaching Earth's orbit for further study and analysis, and then further deepspace explorer craft to study and gather information about more distant asteroids, and then finally get to the mining of minerals from the asteroids. Whether these materials would be refined in space or whether the ore would be returned to Earth for processing is one of many questions about the process that would ultimately be used.

The development of new, low-cost space technology is likely to have additional spin-off benefits. But does this make mining asteroids a really green technology? The mining of minerals from the Earth's crust creates huge despoiled areas across the globe. But, it is enormously expensive to launch vehicles into space, and the cost of minerals returned from asteroids will have enormous costs that need to be paid off before they can be cost competitive with mining on Earth. But, if the concentrations are high enough to make it practical, and the automation of the process can be developed, then it may be worthwhile. The forests that do not have to be torn away and the mountaintops that don't need to be removed in order to provide minerals for human technology can come from elsewhere, and the planet can be returned to supporting life, something it is apparently unique in being able to do.

Ultimately, the answers to the viability of this method will have to be proved. It seems promising in the abstract, and we won't know for sure for many years. But for now, it's an intriguing thought, and we'll be interested to see what future developments this idea brings.

After teetering on the brink of extinction, Chrysler is continuing its rebound with the start of production this week for the new Dodge Dart. The Dart marks Chrysler's return to the compact car segment. As other manufacturers have been doing, the Dart offers increasing efficiency through conventional improvements without relying on big technological changes like hybrids or electric drive.

One version, the Dodge Dart "Aero" model, is expected to offer "at least" 41 mpg highway according to a company press release.

The standard engine for the Dart is a 2.0 liter, 160 horsepower engine that gets an EPA fuel economy rating of 25 miles per gallon (mpg) City/36 mpg Highway/29 mpg Combined. An optional 1.4 liter MultiAir Turbo engine gets an EPA fuel economy rating of 27 mpg City/39 mpg Highway/29 mpg Combined. The "Aero" package, which will be available later this year, uses the smaller turbo engine along with extra features to boost that to 41 mpg Highway.

This is the kind of improvement all manufacturers are pursuing as fleet efficiency standards continue to push for greater efficiency across all segments of their vehicles. The super efficient vehicles may lead the way, but most of us will continue to drive more conventional cars for a long time to come, and the overall impact of improvement to the conventional segments far outweighs the benefits from the far less prevalent, super-efficient models.

via: Michigan Radio

The EPA has announced the winners of its annual P3 award that honors innovative environmental solutions developed by college teams. This year 45 teams were judged by a panel convened by the American Association for the Advancement of Science on their idea's potential to provide "innovative, cutting-edge sustainable solutions to worldwide environmental problems." Fifteen teams won the award and received $90,000 each to further develop and market their solutions.

Here are the winning teams and their entries:

• Appalachian State University for developing an artificial wetland suitable for recycling of grey water from small businesses for immediate reuse.
• Butte College for developing structural insulated panels for building construction using rice hulls, an abundant agricultural waste, as the primary raw material.
• Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University for designing a foldable solar power water purification system that can fit into a backpack for easy transport for use after a disaster affecting drinking ether supply.
• Gonzaga University for developing a simple ventilation system for kitchens in rural dwellings using electrical power generated from thermoelectric cells driven by waste heat from cooking fires.
• Oregon State University for raising awareness of pollution associated with the production and use of plastic mulch by farmers and testing alternative biodegradable mulch material.
• Princeton University for developing, testing and deploying an electricity generation system that can be transported in a standard shipping container and rapidly set up in rural communities and post disaster areas.
• Santa Clara University for developing a fuel cell capable of continuous sustainable energy supply to meet energy demands in rural communities in developing nations lacking reliable energy grids.
• Southern Illinois University - Carbondale for developing methods to extract (recycle) metals from Coal Combustion Byproducts (CCB) to reduce mining and to produce a concrete with reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
• SUNY College of Environmental Science and Engineering for studying ways to recover struvite, a slow release fertilizer, from digested animal manures and assesses its marketability.
• Texas State University - San Marcos for converting rice husks, a byproducts of agriculture, into a starter material called lignocellulose for producing fabrics, biofuel and silica nanoparticles.
• University of California - Riverside for designing a solar collector to heat ambient air for use in home appliances, such as clothes dryers and space heaters, to reduce home energy consumption.
• University of Cincinnati for developing a pilot scale system to convert trap grease from restaurants, a waste set to landfill, to renewable biodiesel.
• University of Connecticut for investigating ways to use local industrial byproducts such as steal slag and lime kilm dust to control erosion and to stabilize roads in Nicaragua.
• University of Oklahoma - Norman for design, field-test, construct, instrument, analyze and document a habitat for humanity house built of compresses earth blocks (CEB).
• Vanderbilt University for developing a biohyrid solar panel that substitutes a protein from spinach for rare metals (mined) and is capable of producing electricity.

I don't know about you, but reading that list makes me feel really hopeful about the future knowing that so many college students are thinking up and creating such innovative solutions to environmental problems. You can see a list of Honorable Mentions for this prize that also contains some amazing ideas here.

via EPA.gov

Tesla Motors has found a new application for its battery technology -- off-grid solar-powered homes. The automaker is teaming up with solar panel installer SolarCity to connect its batteries to solar-powered homes, unlinking the panels from the grid and using the batteries as back-up.

The team has submtited applications for 70 different projects to California utility PG&E's solar incentive program that would see homes linked together with Tesla battery packs and solar panels. The batteries would store energy produced by the panels for use during the night, on cloudy days and during grid power outages, allowing the homes to operate fully free of the grid.

The partnership is relying on incentives to get the projects moving. If the projects qualify for the California incentives and federal tax incentives, the cost of these installations could be cut in half, making them much more appealing to homeowners since solar panel installations are already expensive and those coupled with battery storage would be even more so. But if they can get the costs down and market this combined system, we could see off-grid living become much more approachable.

via SolarCity and GigaOm

The city has begun using a paint called Boysen KNOxOUT that is able to filter out nitrogen oxides from the air. The chemical within the paint reacts with sunlight and water vapor making it absorb NOx at a rate of about 20 percent. The city is also taking a beautifying approach by not just slathering the paint on surfaces, but by using it to paint murals along the main highway in Manila, putting the paint right at the source of much of the smog while also making it a more attractive place.

The scientists that developed the paint say that one square foot of the paint absorbs the same amount of pollution as a full-grown tree. The city is painting 11,000 square feet of murals, which means the city will see the same air quality benefits as if they planted 11,000 trees. Cities in the U.S., especially somewhere like Los Angeles that suffers from its own heavy share of smog, could benefit from a little of this paint as well.

Honda has apparently been paying attention because it announced this week that it would start recycling the rare earth metals used in the nickel-metal hydride batteries in its hybrids to be used again in Honda vehicle parts.

Honda is the first auto company to take this on. According to the automaker, the partnership with Japan Metals & Chemicals is not a small experimental project. The recycling of these metals will be a mass-production process at a recycling plant -- the first of its kind in the world.

Japan Metals & Chemicals has established a process that can extract as much as 80 percent of rare earth metals in the batteries with purity as high as newly mined and refined metals. The metals will go on to be used in new batteries as well as other auto parts. Honda hopes to begin extracting the metals from additional auto parts soon.