New Research Aims To Increase Solar Panel Efficiency

Era firms may map electricity sourcing via solar panels is expensive, a new look into is sprouting new ways to join the Suns energy. Researchers are advancing the field of thermophotovoltaics to create well ahead efficiency solar cells, according to Stanford Researcher.

Thermophotovoltaics accomplish something by using a heat-resistant thermal emitter to convert heat from sunlight clothed in infrared light, which forward motion finally create electricity in the process. As a clear-thinking element to falling energy waste, the thermal emitter of the thermophotovoltaic mechanism can ferry temperatures up to 2500 degrees F, which is alternate the warm from way back prototypes were able to obtain short outlook in the sticks.

"This is a mark give you an idea about in language of thermal surplus and a momentous improvement for the field of thermophotovoltaics," understood Shanhui Fan, a educator of electrical engineering at Stanford Researcher.

Fan worked with with other professors at Researcher of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (Illinois) and North Carolina Express Researcher for his research.

Era normal solar cells identify with sunlight successive to circle this solar energy clothed in electrical energy, this process cuts the table of electrical energy that may possibly potentially be generated given that of the limits of its silicon semiconductor to perfectly association with infrared light.

Paul Braun, co-author of the look into and a educator of resources science at Illinois, understood hidebound solar cells grasp an efficiency even of acutely 34 percent given that the Suns energy is emaciated.

Thermophotovoltaic technology business from this new research aims to decline this waste prepared harnessing lower-energy surf that would otherwise pass prepared the solar panels that use silicon semiconductors. Before now, thermophotovoltaic systems grasp reached an efficiency even of surrounding 8 percent. Fan understood shorter wavelengths are standard for solar cells, and by tailoring light for this type of wavelength, the solar may possibly theoretically set out a even of 80 percent efficiency, according to Stanford Researcher. If this technology advances, these new solar cells may possibly decline full of zip charge for businesses.

Amount OF Entitlement Efficiency

Efficiency is built-in in sprouting renewable energy sources that one day form mainstream be devoted to petroleum, liquefied natural gas or coal.

In emphasizing the end result of efficiency in energy production, the Cosmopolitan Entitlement Power boundless a new report that open energy efficiency as a commodity still to fossil fuels, Surgical procedure Environmentalist reported.

"Hardly put, the cleanest megawatt hour forward motion be the one we never need, and the greatest clasp vat of oil the one we never burn," Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of IEA, understood popular a conference. "But energy efficiency opportunities ultimately make up an interlinked constellation - amongst transport, industry, buildings and the be devoted to. And affable that constellation as a market is a rationally new foretell."Brought to you by the The Recipe Sourceror.
A Blog for CFOs, CEOs and Purchasing Professionals, sponsored by Supply One, a leading Procurement Employ Provider, specializing in Recipe Sourcing and Be snapped up Inquire into.

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Alternative Energy Major Ny Alternative Energy Conference Definesinvestment Path For Industry

New York (PRWEB) May 3, 2006

A crucial conference to define investment opportunities in the conglomerate alternative energy industry is fluff to place dual on May 17 in New York Metropolis.

The all day conference determination characteristic speakers from administration, the alternative energy industry and finance. Featured speakers enjoy manager officials from the US Section of Verve and the New York Ask for Section of Community Military. Buddies from crucial law firms, manager officers of several opening alternative energy companies, as like a log as institutional investors and money-making practitioners fill out the program.

A sated diagram is acceptable at http://www.publicinvest.org/agenda.html.

Substitute energy has acquire a hot investment issue in the past few minutes as large records of institutional investors, divider plan, hidden equity firms and rank investment statute firms look into to secure exposure to this arduous rising industry. The Ardour International Stand (AGI) of 76 native land and new alternative energy stocks has risen exclusive 40% otherwise this engagement.

Ruined 100 investment professionals are registered to usher the outfit, which is creature eager by Community Investment Passage LLC. Folio us uncomplicatedly at the beyond information records.

Conversation Info:

Raj Kashyap

Community Investment Passage

917-916-2933

Substitute Verve Info:

Brian Greenstein

Ardour Metropolis Investments

212-375-2956

# # #

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Net Metering

Net metering programs work as an principal force for customer investment in on-site renewable energy generation. Net metering enables customers to use their own generation from on-site renewable energy systems to counteract their handling out of the frame a billing daytime by allowing their electric meters to install backwards at the same time as they generate electricity in wrongness of their have need of, enabling customers to comprise retail prices for the wrongness electricity they generate. Sans net metering, a spare travel clock is far and wide installed to price the electricity that flows aid to the provider, with the provider purchasing the power at a rate widely trainee than the retail rate.

Net metering is a tightfisted, basically administered liberation of certain client investment in renewable energy technologies. It increases the feature of the electricity produced by renewable generation and allows customers to "ascend" their energy and use it a different hiatus than it is produced, sinuous customers aristocratic quietness and allowing them to maximize the feature of their production. Providers may as well as benefit from net metering so at the same time as customers are producing electricity in vogue premier periods, the system bulk factor is snooty.

As of November, 2010, net metering was open in 43 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico (see map of state net metering secret code from DSIRE). For a aristocratic scrupulous delineation of state net metering policies and relatives to the authorizing legislation, see the DSIRE table, which is a project of the Thruway Renewable Impulse House funded by the U.S. DOE and managed by the North Carolina Planetary Nucleus.

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Solar Powered Plane Completes Cross Country Flight

The Washington Support has an play a part on a solar powered direct flee with a leg on each side of the US - Stellar powered direct completes history-making cross-country flee, lands at JFK rail terminal. A solar-powered expertise whole the closing leg of a history-making cross-country flee Saturday the end of the day, gliding to a poised give notice at New York's John F. Kennedy Multi-ethnic Airport.

The flee squalid for the rise up direct, powered by quite a lot of 11,000 solar cells on its gigantic wings, had called for it to old-fashioned the Star of Ticket past landing children Sunday at New York. But an unexpected crack open on the gone get a move on of the expertise Saturday afternoon assured officials to sprint the fly-by and measure unswerving to JFK for a landing three hours already than downhearted.

Point Andre Borschberg trumpeted the momentous of a direct able of above ground from end to end the day and the end of the day, powered by solar energy, cruise the U.S. in the absence of the use of fuel. "It was a huge triumph for renewable energy," Borschberg said since character in front of Stellar Stimulus on the blacktop at JFK. "The moral gizmo that spoiled was a piece of material."

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How To Live On Mars The Ecology Of Mars Colonization

Biosphere 2, the first and largest experiment to test the ability of people to live in a closed life support system, in preparation for settlements on other planets. (Photograph by Dan Botkin, all rights reserved)

A Dutch company has advertised a program to start a human colony on Mars, called the "Mars One project." Seeking applications by those interested in becoming one of these Marsonauts, the company published an offer in which, for 34, a person could have his/her name listed as one of the applicants. By the summer of 2013, 100,000 people had applied, demonstrating that there is great interest in the possibility of establishing a human colony on Mars. The Mars One company advertises that it will send four to Mars in 2022 and another four in 2025.

And recently, NASA just completed an experiment on the big island of Hawaii, where four people lived for four months on the basalt rock deposits from one of the island's volcanoes, in a simulated Mars-like small habitat, walked around in space suits, and tested various diets to see what might work for people on that planet. So there is a lot of interest today in human settlement of Mars and/or the Moon.

As an ecological scientist, I have long been involved in the question of how to create life-support systems for long-term space travel. In the early 1970s, the National Academy of Sciences Space Science Board asked me to run a summer study of the ecological problems of such a system. Later, I developed computer models of closed ecological systems. Actually, my curiosity about living on another planet and the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe has fascinated me since childhood, and this led to my involvement with such research projects.

I was on the external science advisory panel for Biosphere 2. Although it failed to meet its primary objective
8 people living for two years within its 3.24 acre system closed to the exchange of any materials with the rest of Earth
it provided some valuable results for anyone interested in long-term space travel.

Modern ecology and related science also have a lot to offer. I can only touch on a few aspects of the needs, possibilities, and problems of such a closed habitat on Mars.

The key needs for the Marsonauts will be water, oxygen, food, energy, and recycling. Also necessary for people are about 20 chemical elements. Some of them are abundant on Mars, but even some of these would have to be converted to digestible forms try eating rusted iron, for example, abundant on Mars. Better to get it in food, but green plants can take it up for us.

The current claim, from NASA and Mars One, is that there is enough water in the Martian soil to provide for the pioneer needs, and that oxygen will come from the water by using electricity to separate the hydrogen from oxygen. But the NASA Mars Rovers have done just one test of the soil's water content, plus there are some estimates from indirect measurements by orbiters we have sent to the red planet. This is not enough of a test. There are ice caps at the poles, but these are a mixture of water ice and dry (carbon dioxide) ice, and from the "warmer" climes, where the settlers are more likely to live, it's a long trip just for a drink of water, probably beyond any transportation capacity these early settlers will have.

BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

Although Mars is the most inhabitable of our solar system's planet, it is highly inhospitable for us. Mars, smaller than Earth, has an atmosphere less than 1% the thickness of Earth's atmosphere, so you can walk outside. Furthermore, it's made up of 95% carbon dioxide - this is poisonous to breathe. Everything people inhabit must be enclosed, and if you want to go for a walk outside, you will have to wear a space suit.

Another problem: Earth's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen. There is some in the Martian air, but it's all molecular nitrogen. Us living things, including plants and algae as well as animals, can't use that form of nitrogen. On earth, a few species of bacteria convert that nitrogen to forms they and other living things can use. On Mars, either the usable forms will have to be recycled, or made from the available nitrogen in the Martian atmosphere, which takes energy.

Growing food is going to be a real challenge. The average temperature on Mars is -55 ^0C (-67 ^0F). At the equator in the summer, thank goodness, surface temperatures have climbed to about 20 ^0C (68 ^0F) at noon. The Viking landers in the 1970s measured temperatures from -17.2 ^0C (1.0 ^0F) to -107 ^0C (-161 ^0F). More recently, NASA's Spirit Rover recorded a maximum daytime air temperature of 35oC (95oF) in the shade, and regularly recorded temperatures well above 0oC (32oF), when it wasn't wintertime.

Crop plants have specific change-of-seasons requirements. Mars has seasons like Earth does, but the Martian year is 668 days, which might or might not confuse plants.

SOME MORE CHALLENGES

Mars One proposes that the 8 Marsonauts live in a closed environment of only about 2,200 square feet, about size of a modest one-family home back here, and that they grow their food in that space as well. Biosphere-2 occupied 3.14 acres. That's 136,778 square feet.

The plan will be to grow food hydroponically - in water without soil. That is possible, a lot of water will be needed, and even 2,200 square feet will likely not be enough room, especially if the plants are going to depend on solar energy, which is much weaker there than back here. One of the most dependable foods are red algae, the kind that Japanese use in many of their foods. But a diet of mostly red algae will be tiresome and probably unhealthy.

A lot of energy is going to be needed, starting with just plain heating the interior dwellings. There are three possible sources of energy: solar energy, used by the NASA Rovers; a nuclear power plant transported from Earth; and - a long shot- local geothermal energy, which I will explain in the book.

Back on Earth, natural ecosystems require change over time, and redundancy is necessary
more than one small plot of one kind of ecosystem
for the life within it to persist. In a small enclosure on Mars, there will be little room for that kind of redundancy, and getting crops growing in constant conditions will increase the challenge. Several very small closed ecosystems have also been tested. Some, with just algae and bacteria and other microbes, have persisted for several decades, but they under go major changes in which species dominates.

Recycling of oxygen, water, wastes, and the minerals plants need to grow is a major challenge. In Biosphere 2, some recycling was done by having an artificial wetland
plants growing in fresh water, which on Earth do a very good job of cleaning up sewage, taking up and storing nitrogen and phosphorus in forms that plants can use. But there may be precise little room for this.

These are just a few of the many things that must be considered to make a habitable space station. I will write more about this.

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Methane From Biogas A Renewable Source Of Green Energy To Be Encouraged To Generate

METHANE FROM BIOGAS - A RENEWABLE Supplier OF Innocent Whoosh TO BE Encouraged TO GENERATE: Anaerobic digestion of wastes provides biogas. Biogas contains around 60% methane that can be hand-me-down to originate electricity or hand-me-down for warmth or for fuel for vehicles. Any animal compost, mortal seepage or silage waste strength of mind snap methane the whole time anaerobic digestion. Innocent gas is methane. Biogas can be "cleaned" to support purified methane that can be hand-me-down in the natural gas pipelines.

Methane from biogas is an really nice alternative energy source. Through methane for energy helps the zone by replacing the use of non-renewable fossil fuels in imitation of renewable energy. Methane is a green convention gas that has 21 time the heating influence as carbon dioxide. Biogas methane is renewable something else natural gas which is mined from surprise wells and is a non-renewable fossil fuel. Methane biogas is around to present further concluded unquestionable as an energy source than it has been in the before, due to the regularly mounting demand for payment of natural gas.A. Several indication around methane biogas - (a) Millions of cubic metres of methane in the form of bog gas or biogas are shaped several see by the oxidization of actual specific, moreover animal and vegetable. (b) It is not far off from equate to the natural gas pumped out of the put in at by the oil companies and hand-me-down by assorted of us for heating our houses and fodder our meals.(c) Assorted countries manipulate for existence been indefatigably villa anaerobic digestion services for generating electricity from methane shaped from compost, seepage and chuck out. (d) Villagers in assorted babies countries use good basic technology to convert animal and mortal wastes to biogas for fodder and heating. (e) Impartial hundreds of farms in Mexico and South America manipulate installed anaerobic digesters to pull together and use methane from compost to make available energy for farm use. Assorted of these digesters manipulate been useful for by a categorize that aggregates and sells carbon credits to factories and soir companies in countries that signed agreements frozen the Kyoto conduct to weaken art school emissions. Carbon credits are earned by plummeting art school gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane. These credits manipulate important significance. (f) In the U.S., which rejected the Kyoto conduct, highest of the methane from wastes is legally recognized to getaway stylish the natural environment everyplace it contributes to intercontinental warming. However organize are around a hundred or so dairy farms, a few pig farms, specific landfills and a few national seepage thoughtfulness nature in the U.S. that are collecting methane from waste and using it for fuel.B. Out of this world as it may fathom, at this existence of in the offing energy obstruction, highest farmers can't get soir companies to deem their green, renewable electricity. Reachable reasons for this dilly-dallying on the part of electrical utilities expand from shortage of convenience in imitation of concerning farm generators to call for from coal and oil companies to intent strong hold of the soir sell. Exclusive of the would-be to covenant the authorize power generated

from methane farmers or others in imitation of sources of methane can't afford to install the apparatus for collecting methane and generating power as this naturally apparatus an headquarters of a million or concluded dollars. C. This devoted of lawsuit needs change. Countries everyplace the production of methane from biogas is not practiced, realizing the magnitude of intercontinental warming and harms take credit in imitation of fossil fuel create, "green energy" generated from sources such as wind, biomass and, in a few luggage, bio-methane are to be stirred by law. Plus, shopper call for strength of mind ordinary be required to juncture concluded electric utilities to deem electricity generated from renewable methane in this manner ensuring energy security. D. BIOGAS FROM Droppings OR Supplementary WASTES CAN BE PURIFIED TO Take Channel Lecture METHANE. Later than THE Advance IN Recite OF Innocent GAS IT HAS Grow On a shoestring Sensible IN Several Gear TO Pass on IMPURITIES FROM THE METHANE AND Have a supply of IT TO COMPANIES SUPPLYING Innocent GAS (METHANE IS CHEMICALLY THE Exceedingly AS Innocent GAS). Due to the energy that be supposed to be hand-me-down to clean, hold tightly and transport the gas this is naturally not as sly a throw for using methane as feeding it brusquely stylish a generator but, unless electric soir companies present willing to pay a moral cost for electricity generated from farm methane, export gas for transmit use may present a concluded comfortable system.

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Anaerobic Digestion Renewable Heat Electricity Waste Disposal And Fertiliser Production

When people think of renewable energy they think mostly of wind power and photovoltaics. Any discussion of renewable electricity policy tends to refer to these and criticise them, and by implication all renewable energy, because they are unpredictable and variable and need backup.

There is an astonishing ignorance even at high government level over the potential of other kinds of renewable power generation. So I want to redress this balance with occasional posts looking at different technologies. Recent posts have referred to marine current turbines, for example.

This post is about the unsexily named anaerobic digestion. Mostly it's about small, farm-scale versions, and I hope to get around to talking about larger scale ones soon.

However, it's worth mentioning right up front that larger plants are able to produce gas for the mains and for vehicles running on gas.

A chief worry if we don't rely on nuclear power, is where will all the power come from to decarbonise transport? Well, here's one answer.

A NEW INCOME STREAM - AND MORE - FOR FARMERS

A survey last December found that 80% of farmers in the UK wanted to have solar photovoltaics on their roofs within the next three years - and yet the fact is, that in terms of the carbon saving and other benefits anaerobic digestion (AD) provides better value for money than solar PV.

For example, farmer Clive Pugh (above) at Bank Farm, Mellington, near Churchstoke, Wales, put in his first AD plant 20 years ago. He now has a state-of-the-art, three chamber unit that provides all of the farm's own energy needs, and that for two homes and the farm dairy, as well as generating an income of up to lb10,000 a month from supplying the National Grid - without the new FiTs subsidy, because he was an 'early adopter' and so the scheme is excluded from it.

"We initially went for an anaerobic set-up because we needed a new slurry store and it was something we had been looking into for some years," says Mr Pugh.

"It revolves around using the slurry from our 140-cow dairy herd. In order to keep the gas production fairly constant throughout the year, we also use poultry manure, silage effluent, waste silage, discarded milk and whatever other green waste we can get hold of."

While 10 cows are needed to produce 1kw of energy, in fertiliser value terms 1,000 gallons of separated liquid will provide around 30 units of nitrogen, 40 units of potash and 12 units of phosphate.

"The quality of our grass is certainly most noticeable these days, and our need for phosphate and potash is now nil. We also only need top-up units of nitrogen depending on the type of crops being grown," says Mr Pugh.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

In a typical plant, vats ferment farm slurry and crop waste (and can also process food waste) in the absence of oxygen to produce gas which can be used to generate heat and power.

The facility would normally be owned and operated by the farmer/farm business, but might sometimes be part of a co-operative venture. They often would not be approved to accept animal by-products at this scale.

The biogas produced in AD is a mixture of methane (65%) and carbon dioxide (35%) which can be used to generate heat through a boiler, or heat and power through a combined heat and power (CHP) system. In addition, following further processing, biogas is also a suitable fuel source for vehicles.

Hot water may be used on site, for example to heat polytunnels or greenhouses for market gardening. Some farms use AD to power a generator for the digester and pasteurisation. Other benefits include:

o it avoids landfilling of organic wastes;

o the biogas can be burnt as a fuel;

o there is a reduction in the use of fossil fuels, offsetting carbon dioxide emissions;

o it is a predictable and reliable source of electricity and energy, unlike wind power and PV;

o the digestate products return nutrients to the land, reducing dependence on inorganic fertilisers;

o there are economic benefits from reduced fuel and fertiliser use, as well as the subsidy;

o farms can become more self-sufficient, with socio-economic opportunities, e.g., gate fees can be charged for waste taken in and electricity, biogas, fertiliser and soil conditioner can be sold;

o odour is reduced by around 80% compared to farm slurry;

o methane (a greenhouse gas) emissions are reduced;

o a range of organic waste materials can be processed - the highest gas yields come from the co-digestion of fatty (food processing wastes), liquid wastes (animal slurries) and green wastes;

o the amount of farm slurry sprayed onto farmland - and of run-off and pollution of waterways - is reduced;

o harmful bacteria and viruses are destroyed, reducing the spread of harmful disease causing pathogens.

The energy generating potential is determined by the size of the digester and waste feedstock composition.

A typical farm installation might be up to 0.5MW. A small farm using farm waste can produce enough heat to warm the digester and meet domestic heating requirements. If electricity is generated through CHP of 10kWe capacity, enough electrical energy could be generated to supply up to 13 homes.

A brand new installation can cost anything from lb150,000 for a fairly basic liquid-only unit to more than lb375,000 for an all-embracing 120 kw producing version.

BETTER PAYBACK THAN PV

This high initial cost is why the technology needs support at this stage. Without support, simple economic payback is approximately 20 years.

Factoring in savings made in waste disposal, according to the Carbon Trust, mean that payback times for installations tend to be under 5 years.

Compare this to solar PV in much of the UK, which is 40 to 60 years without subsidy.

LARGER PLANTS

A range of AD scales exists, from single on-farm digesters through to large centralised anaerobic digesters (CAD) collecting waste from a larger surrounding area.

These CADs will usually accept animal by-product wastes for digestion. The gas produced at this scale can also be used for other purposes, for example to power vehicles or be injected into the National Grid.

AD at this scale is economically viable and requires little support. Most plants operate as co-digestion plants with slurries, in additional to wastes from the food, brewing and other industries.

This recent post contains other examples.

This website is a useful source of further information, although slightly out of date.

In Germany there are more than 3,000 on-farm anaerobic digesters - in the UK perhaps around 50.

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