Brewing up some whiskey and biofuel
By MB-BigB | August 21, 2010
Sounds like a joke, but scientists at Edinburgh’s Napier University in Scotland have come up with a process that creates biofuel out of the stuff left over when you make whiskey. The ’stuff’, also called pot ale and draff, are the byproducts from the distilling process – the pot ale is the liquid residue from the copper still, and the draff is the leftover grain. The researchers have taken the leftovers and used it to create butanol, which is a more powerful biofuel than ethanol – it gives you about 30% more power output than ethanol. The butanol can be used in regular cars with no modifications – something that’s known as a “drop in” biofuel.
The Napier University team that developed this biofuel have filed a patent and plan on starting a company to commercialize their process. Sounds like a win-win. Currently, the whiskey byproducts are simply thrown away. By locating a biofuel plant right next to a whiskey distillery, you have a built in source of feedstock for biofuel – no new crops are needed for the biofuel. The grain and other things that you use to make whiskey goes in one end, and out the other end comes whiskey and biofuel. You can’t do much better than that!
via: Discovery News
Topics: biofuel | No Comments »
New solar farm in Ohio opens – adds 12 megawatts to the grid
By MB-BigB | August 21, 2010
The largest solar farm in Ohio started operations this week, providing enough electricity to power more than 9,000 homes. The 12 megawatt Wyandot Solar Farm, which uses First Solar panels and power conversion systems from Ohio based Myers Controlled Power, was built by the New Jersey company Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG). The solar plant consists of 159,000 solar panels on an 80 acre site.
<--nevermore-->
PSEG is also close to completing a 15 megawatt plant down in Jacksonville, Florida.
Topics: Solar Power | No Comments »
US Air Force continues push to go green
By MB-BigB | August 14, 2010
The United States Air Force is planning on building what will be the largest solar plant on US government property. By the summer of 2011, 52,00 solar panels that will be installed on an unused tract of land at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona should be kicking out 15 megawatts of electricity – enough electricity to handle about half of what the base needs. Luke AFB is located near Phoenix, Arizona. The project will be owned by the local utility company – Arizona Public Service, which will sell the power produced back to the Air Force under a long term agreement. Officials at Luke AFB expect to save millions of dollars in energy costs over the length of the contract.
The Air Force will be using SunPower solar panels, along with SunPower’s sun tracking technology that will tilt the panels to follow the course of the sun throughout the day. The panels will be located on 101 acre tract of unused land on the base. They expect the project to create about 550 jobs in the local area – plans are to begin construction of the solar plant in January, with a completion date set for the summer of 2011.
This isn’t the only alternative energy move the the military is working on. The Air Force has a long term goal to reduce the amount of oil used to fuel its planes by moving toward the use of biofuel. Just this year, they’ve conducted several test flights using a mix of 50/50 jet fuel and biofuel.
Topics: Solar Power | No Comments »
Read about some of the largest wind power projects around the world
By MB-BigB | August 13, 2010
If you want to learn about some of the larger wind power projects that are currently underway, head on over to EnergyDigital. They recently posted an article describing some of newer projects that are out there. Some of them I knew about – some I’ve never heard of before.
Topics: Wind power | No Comments »
Solar cell stick-ons can make them more efficient
By MB-BigB | August 11, 2010
By applying transparent stickers to your solar cells, you can make them more efficient. Not just any old stickers, though, Genie Lens Technologies, a startup located in Colorado, has developed a polymer film embossed with microstructures that bend the incoming sunlight. By bending the sunlight, it allows the solar cells to absorb more light, thereby increasing the efficiency of the cells.
According to Genie Lens, these thin plastic sheets won’t cost much, and they can be applied to already installed solar panels. According to Seth Weiss, CEO and cofounder of Genie Lens, their stickers increase efficiency 3 different ways. The stickers lower the reflectivity of the solar panels so more light can be absorbed, they help trap light inside the solar cells, and they redirect incoming sunlight so that more light travels along the surface of the cell, increasing the chance that the light will be absorbed.
Tests performed at NREL (the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (part of DoE) showed average increases of between 4% and 12.5% for the cells. (At 10% improvement, a cell that currently is 15% efficient would yield 16.5%). The best improvement occurred when it was cloudy – that’s when incoming light is already diffuse and when solar cells tend to be the most inefficient. Genie Labs estimates that the cost of the film would add between 1% – 10% to the cost of the panels, but that they would more than produce enough electricity to justify the price. One big concern is over how long the film will last – Weiss says that their films will last for 20 years, but that hasn’t yet been demonstrated.
Topics: Solar Power | No Comments »
PETE solar cells generate electricity from both light and heat
By MB-BigB | August 4, 2010
PETE stands for “photon enhanced thermionic emission”, and it stands for a process being worked on by Stanford University researchers as they develop solar cells that can generate electricity both from sunlight and the heat of the sun.
One of the problems with the current crop of photovoltaic solar cells is that they tend to get less efficient as they get hotter. Most solar cells can only use specific wavelengths of the light – the unused frequencies don’t get used and instead generate heat. It gets even worse when you have concentrating solar cells (CSPs) – even more of the energy gets wasted as heat, and you need to have methods to try to keep the solar cells cool, because once a regular solar cells hit 100 degrees C, they stop working. The PETE process uses this heat, instead of it going to waste. The Stanford researchers, led by Nick Melosh, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, are using a process called thermionic energy conversion that was actually first developed in the 1950’s, as NASA and the Soviet Space Agency worked to develop generators for space missions. What the Stanford researchers have done is combine this heat using process with the semiconductors used in solar cells. By coating a piece of semiconducting material with a thin layer of cesium, the cell was able to generate electricity from both light and heat.
They’re finding that the hotter the cell gets, the better it is in converting the heat to electricity, and that the coating keeps the cell working at even higher temperatures – it doesn’t even reach peak efficiency until it hits 250 degrees C. This makes the PETE process better suited for large solar farms using concentrating arrays to focus the sun. The Stanford team feels that the PETE devices could reach as high a 60 percent efficiency.
The below video from Stanford and their press release go into more detail about their solar cell design.
Topics: Solar Power | No Comments »
Solyndra gets deal to put solar panels on Southern California big box stores
By MB-BigB | July 31, 2010
Solyndra, makers of cylindrical thin film solar cells, this week signed a deal with Southern California Edison (SCE) to install solar systems on the roofs of 18 big box retail stores and industrial buildings. When complete in 2011, the photovoltaic solar arrrays will provide 16.2 megawatts of electricity for SCE.
It’s been a busy month for Solyndra, with not all the news being good. Earlier this year, Solyndra announced plans for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), but then cancelled those plans in June. And this week, Solyndra replaced its CEO, by bringing in former Intel exec Brian Harrison to replace founder Chris Gronet. (Gronet is staying on as executive chairman.)
Topics: Solar Power | 1 Comment »
Windpower’s Aerogenerator changes design, gets even bigger and more powerful
By MB-BigB | July 27, 2010
There are several claimed benefits from this design. To reduce stress, the generator and the electronics are mounted in the base – this makes maintenance easier too, which is handy for an offshore turbine. Since the stress on the blades is reduced, they can be made lighter and bigger, which makes the turbine more efficient and able to generate even more electricity. And since the turbine goes out instead of up (like with most VAWT’s), overall visibility against the horizon is reduced.
The group building the new Aerogenerator X (Windpower, engineering firm Arup, Rolls Royce, BP, Shell and architects at Grimshaw and academics from Cranfield University) want to have the first full sized Aerogenerator X up and running by 2013.
You can read about the Aegenerator X, along with some other ideas for large offshore wind turbines at the Guardian.
Topics: Wind power | 1 Comment »
Ten Million Solar Roofs bill moves forward in Senate
By MB-BigB | July 24, 2010
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ Ten Million Solar Roofs bill was approved this week by the Senate Energy Committee and now can move forward to a full Senate vote. With the Committee’s approval, Sen. Sanders has asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to include the bill in the comprehensive energy legislation that Sen Reid is trying to get passed this summer.
The Sanders bill would give rebates for smaller solar projects – under two megawatts in capacity. It’s designed to push individual and smaller localized solar power, create jobs, reduce the cost of solar power technology, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The bill proposes rebates for these smaller solar projects, in the amount of $1.75 per watt in 2010 and 2011, with lower rebates going forward. The rebates would cover about half of the project costs that would remain after current federal and local incentives are taken into account.
via: Brighterenergy.org
Topics: Solar Power | 1 Comment »
2011 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid – a quick first look from Autoweek
By MB-BigB | July 21, 2010
Expected to come out late this fall, pricing for the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid hasn’t been announced, but is expected to be in the mid $20’s, depending on trim. It mates a 2.4 liter 4 cylinder gas engine with a 30 kilowatt electric motor, along with a 6 speed transmission. It can operate on either the gasoline power engine, the electric motor, or both. The battery is lithium-polymer, which is smaller and lighter than the NiMH batteries used in most hybrids on the road today (include the Pirus). MPG is expected to be 37 mpg in the city, 39 on the highway
The version of the car the Autoweek drove is not the final version – suspension tuning is still being tweaked. But in the short test drive, Autoweek says that the car felt perfectly fine compared to other midsized sedans, maybe even a “touch livelier” than the competition.
Topics: hybrid and electric cars | No Comments »
