Archive for November, 2006
« Previous EntriesReunion Power to reduce town’s electric bills in exchange for wind farm
Thursday, November 30th, 2006In Cherry Valley, New York, Reunion Power said that it will reduce all the residential electric bills in the town by about 50 percent for the next 20 years. While Reunion Power can’t sell power directly to the town residents, it can reduce the local electric bills through a partnership with [...]
Research into Quantum Dots helping solar cell efficiency
Monday, November 27th, 2006Although years away from a prototype, a team of researchers from the University of Idaho are working on developing quantum dots consisting of copper, indium, and selenium that would be embedded between layers of a solar cell. The quantum dots would absorb energy that would otherwise be wasted due to overheating, thereby possibly [...]
The Arizona Republic – Is Home Solar Energy Affordable?
Sunday, November 26th, 2006Arizona Republic has an article describing how some Arizona home builders are offering incentive loaded deals to new homeowners to get them to add solar panels onto their new construction houses. VIP Homes recently became one of the first Arizona homebuilders to incorporate solar generated electricity into its construction projects. [...]
Review of the Toyota 2007 Camry Hybrid
Friday, November 24th, 2006SeattlePI.com has a review of the new Toyota 2007 Camry hybrid. While more expensive than a standard Camry, the hybrid model gets 40 mpg in the city and 38 mpg highway. The reviewer actually averaged 36.4 mpg in combined highway and city driving, but that was with the air conditioning [...]
USA Today – rundown on US States’ alternative energy legislation
Friday, November 24th, 2006USA Today has a short article detailing some of recent proposed legislation going on in various US states to increase the use of alternative energy.
The states mentioned include California, New Mexico, Oregon, and Colorado.
MIT Technology Review – Cheap, Superefficient Solar
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006In the November 9th online edition of the MIT Technology Review, Kevin Bullis talks about some of the advances that have been made in the area known as concentrating photovoltaics. While the idea of concentrating sunlight in order to both reduce the size of solar cells and make the entire process of converting sunlight [...]
China to build one of world’s largest solar power plants
Tuesday, November 21st, 2006Various news articles are out today detailing China’s plans to build one of the largest solar power plants, a 100 megawatt facility to be built in northwest China. The project is expected to take about 5 years to complete. Last month Australia announced plans to build a 154 megawatt [...]
Walmart pushing green concepts
Sunday, November 19th, 2006We’ve linked to a couple of articles in the past about how Walmart has been at the forefront of trying out alternative energy ideas for its stores. Walmart is one of the largest, if not the largest, commercial users of electricity in the world, and they have realized that any savings they can [...]
Continued interest in Solar Power leads to successful IPO for First Solar, Inc.
Friday, November 17th, 2006First Solar, Inc had a very successful opening on Wall Street today, opening above its original price range and jumping 24% on its first day of trading. First Solar, which makes thin film solar panels, was originally set to price out between $17-$19, and opened up at $24.50. What’s this [...]
Dishing Out Power with a Solar Engine
Thursday, November 16th, 2006Bad pun aside, C|net posted an article a couple of weeks ago about a different type of solar power generator being built by Infinia. Their design, which looks like a satellite dish, uses a Stirling engine as its basis for generating electricity. The Stirling engine, which was invented in the 19th century and [...]
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