Theenergynet's Favorite Links on solar from Diigo

Giant solar tower could power the future - LiveScience- msnbc.com

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:04:23 -0000

A new energy concept called a solar tower could generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes. Looking like a giant smokestack, it would release no noxious fumes — just sun-heated air.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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Vacuum cleaner king James Dyson plans solar-powered car | Mail Online

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:06:17 -0000

James Dyson is working on a solar-powered car to match the success of his bagless vacuum cleaner.

Engineers at the entrepreneur’s Wiltshire HQ are developing a lightweight electric motor that could power a family saloon for hundreds of miles.

Tags: energy energy.news cars solar

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CLIMATE CHANGE: 100-Percent Renewables Not a Pipe Dream

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:05:34 -0000

KINGSTON, Ontario, Jun 25 (IPS) - North America's abject failure to meet the challenge of climate change has been "un-American", environmentalist and scientist David Suzuki told delegates Tuesday at the World Wind Energy Conference, the first ever in the region.

"We're facing an ecological crisis, a crisis far, far worse than Pearl Harbour," Suzuki said.

Twenty years ago this week, one of the United States' leading scientists warned Congress of the imminent danger of climate change and said that waiting decades to take action was too risky. Now James E. Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has published new research indicating that greenhouse gas concentrations have pushed the climate near a dangerous tipping point that will unleash far-reaching changes in the atmosphere and oceans that could take millennia to reverse.

Tags: energy energy.news solar renewables

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Community Solar Power : Green Building Elements

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:02:36 -0000

A community in Canada has an unusual form of solar power that can provide over 90% of the annual heating and hot water needs for the homes, despite being situated in a cold Alberta location where winter temperatures can reach -33 degrees C (-27 F).

The Drake Landing Solar Community collects solar energy in a heat storage fluid through an array of solar panels on the roof of each home and covering all of the garages at the back of each home. The heated fluid is transferred to a neighborhood energy center, and then into the ground beneath an insulated layer, where the heat is stored in the earth.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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Solar Water Heaters Now Mandatory In Hawaii | MetaEfficient

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:02:01 -0000

Hawaii has become the first state to require solar water heaters in new homes. The bill was signed into law by Governor Linda Lingle, a Republican. It requires the energy-saving systems in homes starting in 2010. It prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Hawaii relies on imported fossil fuels more than any other state, with about 90 percent of its energy sources coming from foreign countries, according to state data.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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Solar Energy Development PEIS Information Center: Solar PEIS site

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:22:45 -0000

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Department of Energy (DOE); and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Department of the Interior (DOI), are preparing a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to evaluate utility-scale solar energy development, to develop and implement Agency-specific programs that would establish environmental policies and mitigation strategies for solar energy projects, and to amend relevant Agency land use plans with the consideration of establishing a new BLM solar energy development program.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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U.S. Suspends Solar Power Projects | CleanBeta

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:22:00 -0000

The Bureau of Land Management said it will suspend all new solar energy projects on federal land for the next two years until it completes an environmental impact review. As discussed briefly in the preceding post, the BLM holds the country’s most valuable sites in terms of solar energy potential, which are heavily concentrated in the southwest. The federal government owns roughly 650 million acres of land - nearly 30% of its total territory. The vast majority of those lands are located in the Western states and the vast majority of federal lands in the Western states are owned by the Bureau of Land Management. Here’s a state by state breakdown of government land ownership.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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The Sietch Blog » Solar Powered Solar Power

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 07:28:09 -0000

Something that has long been a dream of mine looks like it will be a reality soon. I have always wanted to see a solar powered solar panel factory, or a wind powered wind turbine factory. Basically you use a little fossil fuels to get started, then the first however many turbines/panels off the line power the factory, from then on in it’s all carbon neutral.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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news journal: FPL plans world's largest solar plant

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:39:48 -0000

MIAMI -- FPL plans to build three photo-voltaic solar energy plants in Florida in the coming year, including one at Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County.

The three plants will provide up to 110 megawatts of energy, enough to meet the needs of about 35,000 customers, said Lew Hay, FPL's chief executive officer. A planned 75-megawatt solar center in Martin County would become the largest of its kind in the world, he said.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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Another silicon valley? | Economist.com

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:44:00 -0000

WIND power works, and will work better in the future. But wind is only an interim stop on the way to a world where electricity no longer relies on fossil fuels. The ultimate goal is to harvest the sun’s energy directly by intercepting sunlight, rather than by waiting for that sunlight to stir up the atmosphere and sticking turbines in the resulting airstreams.

Tags: energy energy.news solar wind

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Revealed: UK's blueprint for a green revolution | Environment | The Guardian

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:05:43 -0000

One in four British homes could be fitted with solar heating equipment and 3,500 wind turbines could be erected across Britain within 12 years as part of a green energy revolution to be proposed by the government next week.

Tags: energy energy.news uk solar wind

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MIT team plays with fire to create cheap energy | csmonitor.com

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:03:36 -0000

Out on a lawn at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with joggers and traffic passing nearby, Spencer Ahrens is demonstrating what looks like either the future of solar power – or perhaps a death ray.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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DailyTech - MIT Students Develop Revolutionary Solar Dish That is Hot Enough to Melt Steel

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:01:25 -0000

The solar industry is booming. With waves of investment and grants, the solar power industry is for the first time becoming a serious business. New power plants will soon be pumping power out to consumers, while other firms market to sell panels directly to the consumer, providing them with a more direct means of experiencing solar energy.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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Reid Statement on Federal Solar Power Development Moratorium

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:25:34 -0000

Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senator Harry Reid today made the following statement regarding the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) moratorium on new applications to develop solar power plants, which could delay development by close to two years:

“This notice of intent is the wrong signal to send to solar power developers, and to Nevadans and Westerners who need and want clean, affordable sun-powered electricity soon. While the BLM’s proposed delay won’t affect developers with existing applications, it could discourage or slow new development to a crawl.

Tags: solar energy energy.news

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Cost of solar energy to fall dramatically by 2025 - San Jose Mercury News

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:25:30 -0000

Solar energy will cost the same as power produced by coal, natural gas and nuclear plants in about a decade, a report released today suggests. By then, the price parity could propel solar adoption so that it accounts for 10 percent of U.S. electricity generation by 2025.

Tags: energy energy.news solar economics

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The Renewable Revolution: World's Biggest Solar Farm Is About to Open—Is the End of Oil Near?

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:25:34 -0000

The world’s largest solar photovoltaic farm is strangely beautiful. Fields lined with solar panels tilting sunward seem almost like a massive environmental art project—one with an empowering message to the world. We can find ways to run the world predominantly on clean energy if we choose to. It’s already beginning. By 2020, Portugal plans to generate over a third of its energy from renewables, with that percentage increasing every year.

Tags: energy energy.news solar peakoil

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Inhabitat » Solar Harvesting Textiles Energize ‘Soft House’

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:32:08 -0000

Textiles have been a fixture of architecture and design for their ability to define and modify a space. For Sheila Kennedy, textiles are just another material from which energy can be generated. The thin-film photovoltaic textiles are essentially solar panels created from organic photovoltaics. While not as efficient as the silicon based type, they are able to be molded and modified without any manufacturing process.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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Solar Power's New Style - TIME

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:31:07 -0000

Mike Gering, CEO of the start-up Global Solar, picks his way along his factory floor, tracing the convoluted path that his thin-film solar panels follow from birth to shipping truck. The raw materials the workers carry are ultra-thin sheets of flexible plastic, which are then coated with a series of chemicals--indium, gallium, diselenide--that allows the module to turn sunlight into electricity.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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Nanosolar Price Barrier Breakthrough Makes Solar Electricity Cheaper Than Coal

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 07:25:04 -0000

(NaturalNews) A new combination of nano and solar technology has made it possible for solar electric generation to be cheaper than burning coal. Nanosolar, Inc. has developed a way to produce a type of ink that absorbs solar radiation and converts into electric current. Photovoltaic (PV) sheets are produced by a machine similar to a printing press, which rolls out the PV ink onto sheets approximately the width of aluminum foil. These PV sheets can be produced at a rate of hundreds of feet per minute.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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Discovery News : Africa's hot deserts could power entire continent

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 03:26:55 -0000

June 5, 2008 -- Solar power from Africa's deserts could supply all 600 million citizens currently without electricity and even export power to Europe, a green energy conference in Nairobi heard Thursday.

The ferocious desert sun could provide the energy equivalent of 1.5 barrels of oil per square kilometer, said Gerhard Knies, project manager for Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), at a meeting of nine African states.

Tags: energy energy.news solar

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