Each month, I come across a couple of dozen cleantech business concepts, and, when I refer to some of them as “silly” or some such, I’m sure readers think that perhaps I’m being rash or unfair. OK, check this out: a solar-powered attic fan. The value proposition: pay $700 for the hardware, and God-knows-how-much to pay someone to chop a hole in your roof to install it. Then sit around and pray your roof doesn’t leak as a result. (more…)
I had an interesting conversation yesterday at the Solar Power International show with a young lady whose mission was to ensure that women in the solar industry are accorded the same respect as men. I actually was unaware that this was a huge issue, but I eagerly assented to support her cause, as suggested in the photo here. I noticed that she had another placard that read “I am not a booth babe,” which I presume she would have recommend for my colleague and me had we been female.
Upon reflection, I sadly admit that all trade shows, whether they concern renewable energy or steel blast furnaces, still utilize/exploit pretty girls to attract males’ attention. It’s a regrettable vestige of the sexism that continues to remain in the workplace, and we’ll most certainly be a better society when it’s gone.
I had a terrific discussion with a spokesperson for Abengoa at the Solar Power International show yesterday, from which I walked away quite pleased to learn that CSP (aka solar thermal) is still very much alive and kicking. Abengoa’s approach is a proprietary glass parabolic trough focusing on a tube filled with molten salt. This eliminates the losses associated with transferring heat from another working fluid to molten salt (for energy storage) in a series of heat exchangers. The levelized cost of energy is $0.12 – $0.15 per KWh, almost three times that of PV, but it’s very competitive in islanded applications where the grid cannot be used to absorb off-peak power.
Keep up the good work, guys.
At the recent Solar Power International show. I ran into a spokesperson for NREL, and engaged in a discussion of the most exciting development happening out there in Golden, Colorado. As it turns out, it’s perovskites, especially calcium titanium oxide, CaTiO3.
What’s the big deal here? Actually, there are two aspects of this: (more…)
Those who grew up with the rock/pop of the 1960s will recognize that the title here is a take-off on the song: “(Hey Little Girl) Psychotic Reaction.”
Now that we have that bad pun out of the way, let me explain that protecting the metal poles that are driven into the earth to support ground-mounted PV systems is not a joke at all; in the wrong soil conditions, they can corrode to the point of complete destruction in as few as five years. That’s where the people from Corrpro come in. Imagine that you have a utility-scale PV array that costs $100 million to install; now imagine that you can extend its life another 15 years with an investment of under $2 million. (more…)
I urge you to check out this article called Arctic Tipping Points Can Ripple Around the World and especially its comments. You’ll note that the discussion offers some of the most intense knee-jerk reactions you’ll ever see on the subject of climate change, where people of science debate the denier zombies.
Coincidentally, it’s the 166th birthday of Ivan Pavlov, of salivating dog fame. We’re told when we are young that we shouldn’t argue with crazy people and idiots, yet we are the descendants of the animals; in many ways, we just can’t help ourselves.
By the time this post is published early tomorrow morning, 2GreenEnergy’s young intern Fabio Porcu and I will be on our way to the Solar Power International show in Anaheim (near Los Angeles) California. SPI is the largest solar conference in the U.S., and, if I’m not mistaken, the world—and we intend to see as much of it as possible in our one-day visit, to check out the latest and greatest in everything that is even remotely connected with the subject: building-integrated photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, and so forth.
Anyone in the area who wants to come by and meet us over a cup of coffee is more than welcome; just hit the “contact” button above.
Here’s good news for all you people with lungs. Australia has ousted Tony Abbott (pictured), its extreme right-wing prime minister, and replaced him with Malcolm Turnbull, a gentleman known to be much more in tune with a variety of social issues; he’s a man who is likely to help his country join the 21st Century and work to address our planet’s environmental challenges.
This is a good change in so many ways; most obviously, it’s one fewer fossil fuel puppet / climate change denier at the helm of an important nation. But here’s another way to look at it: it’s less cognitive dissonance (“mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time”) for people all around the globe, who have been wondering how in blazes a country that’s home to so many fun-loving and fair-minded people wound up being led by such a repulsive, hateful reactionary. We’ll probably never know, but now the point is moot; now we can stop speculating, and breathe a little more easily—both figuratively and literally.
Storage systems play an increasingly important role for renewable energy development in our modern society. Their primary function is to store energy produced from variable energy sources, i.e., those which, by their nature, are discontinuous since they are linked to the presence of wind (in the case of wind energy) or sunlight (photovoltaics). Thanks to storage systems it is possible to stockpile electricity, to be delivered onto the grid at a time that it is needed to harmonize supply and demand. (more…)
Here’s an article on Utah State University’s project to build a track on which to test the concept of the inductive charging of a moving electric vehicle.
My question: Why? No one’s doubting that it can be done, but at the same time, I don’t hear anyone saying that this has practical consequences in the real world. It’s pretty clear that this is not a direction we’re going to pursue in the evolving world of transportation, for the reasons I provided in the post linked above.
I had the pleasure of meeting Steven Chu (pictured) a couple of times when he was the U.S. Energy Secretary, and I believe in his position: we’re fairly close to battery packs that will give us a 350- or 400-mile range, which is all any sane person wants to drive in a day.
