12 Year Old Revolutionizes Solar Power.
September 25th, 2008
A new invention could revolutionize solar energy – and it was made by a 12-year-old in Beaverton, OR.
Despite his age, William Yuan has already studied nuclear fusion and nanotechnology, and he is on his way to solving the energy crisis.
It all started with Legos – after he learned nanotechnology to make robots take off. The seventh grader then got an idea inspired by the sun.
“Solar it seems underused, and there are only a few problems with it,” Yuan said.
Encouraged by his Meadow Park Middle School science teacher, the 12-year-old developed a 3D solar cell.
“Regular solar cells are only 2D and only allow light interaction once,” he said.
And his cell can absorb both visible and UV light.
“I started to realize I was actually onto something,” Yuan said.
At first, he couldn’t believe his calculations.
“This solar cell can’t be generating this much electricity, it can’t be absorbing this much extra light,” he recalled thinking.
If he is right, solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells.
“Which would make solar energy actually a viable energy source for the Pacific Northwest,” Yuan said.
While college students have come up with unusual solar cars and the state of Oregon recently unveiled solar panels to power highway lights, Yuan is thinking global.
“It’ll have a really positive impact on society and the environment,” he said.
His next step is to get a manufacturer and market it.
Yuan is flying out to Washington D.C. on Monday to accept a $25,000 scholarship for his research. He earned the Davidson Fellow award, which is for those 18 and under.
Adjusting Your Lighting for a Green Life
August 30th, 2008
You already know to save energy by turning lights off when they are unnecessary, but did you know you could save energy every time you turn on a light? An LED light bulb can use 70 percent less energy than the traditional bulb would use – some estimates are even higher! They can be found with different wattage to add the right amount of brightness to your home.
Anywhere you need light is a good place to install LED lights. While they can be rather expensive, you can find some that are on the affordable side. Once you buy one, it starts paying for itself as soon as it is turned on. LED bulbs are famous for their longevity, with some varieties lasting over 50,000 hours. An LED light bulb would be an excellent choice for using with ceiling fixtures and in regular lamps.
If you find that regular bulbs make your bathroom too hot, try installing LED bulbs instead; they usually do not heat up so much. Desk lamps can also make your office uncomfortably warm; use an LED bulb here, and you can cut down the temperature while still giving your eyes the light they need. The cooler temperature also makes these bulbs a safer choice for lamps that are within the reach of toddlers or children.
You can find lovely LED bulbs that provide the same amount of light as their counterparts, but need 15 times less energy in the form of watts! Some bulbs are manufactured especially for outdoor use, and can save you a lot of money each evening.
If you think that switching to LED light bulbs is too small a step to make much difference, consider what the research shows: if every family in America used just one LED light instead of a regular bulb, the national energy savings would exceed the energy made at one of our biggest power plants. You can see the particular light bulb this refers to here: 5 watt led
Living green can be as simple as switching a light bulb! Why not try it for yourself?
Energy Efficient Hard Drives
August 30th, 2008
Western Digital has announced a new line of hard drives designed with energy efficiency in mind.
Even the tiniest reductions in energy consumption can make a big difference. Case in point, Western Digital announced that their line of external storage units, the Mybook, will now include the new GreenPower hard drives. While individually these units might not make much of a difference, as soon as this technology hits the enterprise market, which should be happening soon, the CO2 savings start adding up (large enterprises can use around 10,000 hard drives for their data-hungry storage needs).
According to WD, each of these drives will save about 13.8kg CO2 per year compared to similar products. For a large data center, say for instance, a bank, that saving could turn out to be around 248 tons of carbon a year. The first of these 3.5 inch hard drives, the 1TB WD Caviar GP, was available as of July 1st.
Green Basics – Thermostat
August 30th, 2008
Some of the best ways to save money and go green are surprisingly easy, and this is a great example. For anyone who works in a location away from home during the day, setting the thermostat to a higher temperature during those hours can save money in cooling costs. But, how much can you expect to save and what temperature differences make sense?
Taking the time to program your thermostat can net up to $180 per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). With heating and cooling costing an average household about $900 per year, that’s sizeable cut!
Keep in mind though, that if the temperature in your home fluctuates too much, it will cause the air conditioning to run a long time to catch back up. The key is incremental adjustments. The EPA recommends “raising your home’s usual temperature setting by 7 degrees when you’re away and 4 degrees when you’re asleep”.
When you plan to be away from home for a while, turn the air conditioner off by using the hold feature on your thermostat.
And just like cars that require regular maintenance, heating and cooling systems can benefit from the same sort of attention. Checking for air leaks replacing air filters regularly are just a few examples.
Energy Star has produced a video podcast that gives a good overview of how to purchase a good programmable thermostat.
This sort of planning becomes especially important as fuel sources like propane and electricity continue to increase their prices. It’s possible to save money using a manual thermostat as well, but requires more active participation from the household.
Hybrid School Bus Developed
August 30th, 2008
The basic yellow school bus hasn’t changed much in 30 years: a shoe-box-on-wheels built to transport kids safely at low cost.
Now Ewan Pritchard wants to turn that soot-spewing school bus into a clean, green plug-in-hybrid machine. High mileage. No more exhaust cloud at each stop.
When Mr. Pritchard, a mechanical engineer, unveiled his plan to a major bus manufacturer in 2002, snickering officials nearly laughed him out of the room. That was before hurricane Katrina hit, and diesel prices skyrocketed.
“When we first talked about this, manufacturers acted as if we were asking them to build flying cars or something,” says Pritchard, hybrid program manager for Advanced Energy, a small nonprofit energy-consulting company in Raleigh, N.C.
That laughter has subsided. Now, the nation’s biggest school-bus maker has orders for 19 buses from districts in 11 states – including Washington, California, Texas, Iowa, Arkansas, and North Carolina.
In Bradenton, Fla., Manatee School District officials last month became proud owners of the nation’s first two plug-in hybrid school buses. Students are catching the spirit of their new ride, too. Emily Mulrine, a district student, helped name her middle school’s new plug-in hybrid bus “Limpio,” the Spanish word for clean.
Such plug-in hybrid buses use both a diesel engine and an electric motor – plugging into a power socket at night to charge batteries. Environmentalists and energy-security hawks love the idea.
“Buses are a great way to use off-the-shelf technology that can reduce pollution and energy use,” says Roland Hwang, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This move creates greater pressure on the automakers to produce similar technology.”
Indeed, while big automakers tout plans to build plug-in hybrid cars a few years from now, Navistar International Corp.’s school bus division, IC Corp., is already rolling out plug-in hybrid buses. This week, another one will be delivered in Pennsylvania.
Algenol Biofuels
August 23rd, 2008
This new direct to ethanol process uses both a new algae and new collection method to produce cost effective ethanol that:
1. Does NOT require food based feedstocks like corn or sugarcane.
2. Does NOT require harvesting.
3. Does NOT require fossil fuel based fertilizers.
4. Does NOT require fresh water.
5. Does NOT require large amounts of fossil fuel.
6. Does NOT require arable land.
7. Does use desert land and marginal land.
8. Does make fresh water from seawater during the process.
9. Does use treated manure instead of fossil fuel based fertilizers.
10. Does have an energy balance over 8 : 1 (energy output : fossil fuel input).
