Solar News

When Buildings attack! the solar death ray has been around for centuries as is shown at combobulate.com and yet architects designed a building which they knew might have a slight 'ignition' problem, shall we call it!

BLDGBLOG: Las Vegas Death Ray

Las Vegas Death Ray

All that focused sunlight could be put to better use than combusting plastic cups and hair... instead providing the heat for the Vdara Hotel itself via a system of solar collectors.

In other Solar related news, the generation of electricity via photovoltaic cells has long been the least efficient form of micro generation around, however a new type of solar panel could replace the inefficient PC cell capturing lost heat and the scifi sounding Exiton Particles... Go to IO9.com for the hard science, Exciting? no... Exiton!

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A new solution to rechargable batteries?

I don't know about you but we have a stack of rechargeable batteries that we've used two or three times and then given up because of the inherent inconvenience of waiting for 8 hours whilst the damn things charge. So i was very interested to see these things on NOTCOT. Notes from Knut: The SunCat Batteries - DIY prototypes describes his idea of wrapping a battery in a flexible photovoltaic cell.

Probably flawed in some way, but i love the simplicity of this.

Borderline Brilliant/Crackpot Renewable Energy

InfraNet Lab » Blog Archive » Harnessing the Energy from the Earth’s Rotation

Had to post this from InfraNet Lab

In most energy production, one form of energy is converted to another via gears, pulleys, magnets, etc. If we consider the earth’s rotation as a form of energy, to harness it, we would need to create a ring of resistance that would covert this to electricity. Gyroscopes are privileged devices in this manner because they maintain their orientation in space. According to Physicist, C Johnson, if one could build a massive ferris-wheel type gyroscope on the North Pole, there would theoretically be a potential to harness this energy. The gyroscope would initially be started with a motor and once in motion, it would spin endlessly. Further, the gyroscope would have to be fixed to the earth – the difference between the earth’s rotation and the gyroscope would create a torque, or moment force as Johnson posits, “The Earth’s rotation would externally directly drive the gear train, using the gyroscope simply as a fixed object to push against.”

Of course there maybe ramifications on the earth's rotational speed, length of an earth day, the position of our planet in the solar system and other trivial considerations like that.

Electricity from the oceans?

Plumbing the oceans could bring limitless clean energy - tech - 19 November 2008 - New Scientist

An interesting one this... generating electricity by exploiting the difference in temperature between seawater near the surface and deep down.

Whilst its not a new idea, it seems that this technology has fallen in and out of favour over 120 years. Successful pilot projects have been tried a number of occasions since the late 70's, none of which seem to get very far. With the current economic climate heading the way it is, here is yet another way in which we get clean energy from the planet.

With a company like Lockheed Martin behind it you'd think that this might actually get somewhere... watch this space.

p.s. gotta love new scientist... the comment threads are all so civil and intelligent. makes a change from the standard YouTube fare.

Wind Turbine Efficiency

Wind turbines are a technology which gets a bad rap occasionally. I think they are beautiful things, but there are those who think they are noisy, ugly, that they affect radio and tv signals (no bad thing you might argue) but more importantly that they are inefficient.

The inefficiency argument can now be addressed somewhat more successfully with one company rethinking the mechanics of the technology.

DailyTech - New Wind Turbine Generator Ditches Mechanical Transmission, Ups Efficiency 50 Percent

Startup ExRo is not your average wind power company, though. This think-outside-the-box firm has reinvented one of the most basic components of wind turbines -- the generator. Its new design promises up to 50 percent more efficiency and lower production costs as well.

Of course there are those who will see an end to humanities use of this nefarious technology

Wind turbine destroyed after 'octopus UFO' seen in sky - Telegraph