Archive for September, 2009
U.S. hybrid sales soar in August
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009It looks like the Cash for Clunkers program at least hit one of its goals – the average mpg of vehicles sold in August hit 23 mpg, which was its highest average ever. Hybrids made up a nice chunk of those sales. According to this article in AllCarsElectric, hybrid sales jumped 10% over [...]
MIT spin-off stores solar energy
Monday, September 28th, 2009I’ve written a couple of articles about Daniel Nocera before (see the links at the bottom of this article), and there’s some more news out. Daniel Nocera is an MIT professor who has developed a catalyst that can easily split water into hydrogen and oxygen and wants to use it to store solar energy. [...]
Going green with Bob’s Big Boy
Friday, September 25th, 2009They don’t have any Bob’s Big Boy’s in my neck of the woods, but over the years, I’ve seen a few while on travel. For those of you who don’t know, Bob’s Big Boy is an old time hamburger joint that’s been around for 60 years. And this year, they celebrated their birthday by [...]
Greensun Energy’s colored solar panels – direct sunlight not needed
Sunday, September 20th, 2009GreenSun Energy’s solar cells are made with fluorescent dyes and nanoparticle metals – when light (either direct or indirect sunlight) hits the panel, the nanoparticles concentrate the sunlight to the edges where the silicon is.
Innovalight and JA Solar collaborating on silicon ink for solar cells
Saturday, September 19th, 2009 Innovalight solar cell
Innovalight, a company that has been working on a process to create ink-jet manufactured solar cells using their silicon ink, announced this week that an independent study of its processes by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy System confirmed that its silicon ink cells “demonstrated a [...]
GM’s fuel cell powered Equinox reaches 1 million mile mark
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009The Equinox, GM’s hydrogen fuel cell car that is currently being tested in Los Angeles, New York, and Washington DC, has reached a milestone for fuel cell powered electric cars. There’s about 100 cars in the Equinox test program, which has been underway for slightly more than 2 years, and the program recently hit [...]
Sapphire Energy’s Algaeus begins 10 day cross country tour
Friday, September 11th, 2009What is an ‘Algaeus’? It’s the world’s first plug-in hybrid to cross the country powered by fuel containing a blend of algae-based renewable gasoline, according to Sapphire Energy. Sapphire Energy is a developer of algae biofuel, dubbed ‘green crude’. One of the things that significant about Sapphire’s biofuel, is that it’s a drop-in fuel [...]
Nanosolar announces $4.1 billion in contracts, boosts efficiency, starts
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009Nanosolar came out with flurry of announcements today, after months and months of quiet time for the company. And the announcements were pretty big – Nanosolar’s thin film CIGS solar cells have hit 16.4% efficiency (verified by the DoE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory), which is currently the highest efficiency seen from a printed photovoltaic [...]
Solar cells capture heat and light
Monday, September 7th, 2009 Prototype fluid cooled solar panel from the Australian National University
Researchers at the Australian National University have developed solar cells that capture both light and heat from the sun. Their new solar concentrators use a fluid to trap the heat generated when the light from the sun hits the cells – the heat then can [...]
Electricity producing speed bumps tested at NJ Burger King
Sunday, September 6th, 2009 Motion Power Energy Harvester from New Energy Technologies
If you go through the drive thru lane at the Burger King in Hillside, New Jersey, you’ll be producing electricity when you do it. New Energy Technologies is currently testing at the Burger King a prototype “Motion Power Energy Harvester” that’s designed to capture kinetic energy from [...]