Hasta La Gadget!

Mid-September is a busy time of year in the world of design as the Solar Decathlon Europe takes place in Madrid and the London Design Festival kicks off — and Inhabitat has correspondents on the ground at both events bringing us a steady stream of photos and updates. At the Solar Decathlon, Team Portugal designed an innovative house that can actually rotate to follow the sun in order to increase energy production and adjust interior daylighting. Team Valencia developed a modular home that can grow or contract depending on the family’s needs. And the team from Tongji University produced an eye-catching house that embraces both Western and Daoist principles. In the competition, Rome’s super-efficient MED in Italy house jumped out to an early lead — but it’s still too soon to call the winner so stay tuned.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: rotating house, desktop 3D printer and a Star Trek-style warp drive

Filed under: Misc, Science

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: rotating house, desktop 3D printer and a Star Trek-style warp drive originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Sep 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Man-made technology is great, but Mother Nature is the greatest inventor of them all — and scientists are discovering new ways to take advantage of the tools found in nature. Take, for example, a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University who developed a solar cell using the photosynthetic protein found in spinach. In New York, Scape Studio has proposed to use the oyster’s natural cleaning ability to help clean up the contaminated waters of the Gowanus Canal. The firm has received funding to create Oyster-tecture, an oyster park at the mouth of the canal where millions of mollusks will “eat” toxins. Meanwhile, the US Forest Service has been deriving cellulose nanocrystals from wood pulp extract to create a material that’s stronger than Kevlar and carbon fiber.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: fluorescent bulb moon, fuel-efficient supersonic jet and a toxin-eating oyster park

Filed under: Misc, Science

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: fluorescent bulb moon, fuel-efficient supersonic jet and a toxin-eating oyster park originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Sep 2012 10:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

An advance in solar panel material research is pointing to something that is potentially huge: solar panels that can generate electricity and Hydrogen at the same time. This is extremely important because this would increase the effective energy efficiency of the panel by generating extra energy in a clean way. Hydrogen is seen by many as the energy source of the future.

This new development is based on synthetic nano-crystals: one is rod-shaped and produces hydrogen by photo catalysis (if the panel is submerged) while the second is photovoltaic (creates electricity from light).

This is still at the research stage, however, its creators think that it is possible to market and mass-produce it. If this works, it could be a great alternative to current solar energy gathering methods. Energy storage has been particularly challenging to build clean and reliable energy. Options include using batteries, or even pumping water up behind a dam. However, creating Hydrogen sounds like a much more efficient solution, which can be done in addition to existing system. [press release]

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: New spray-on batteries could revolutionize energy storage, Researchers come up with self-powered solar microchips,

When producing power, one can not ignore the common pattern of power demand. Power demand usually subsides during the night and at midday, it peaks, thus requiring maximum power supply required at that time.

For long, peaker plants have provided this additional power required during peak hours. Typically, peaker plants make use of dirty energy sources and are have been frequently criticized in the past. But the good news from Australia are that the solar-power plants are all set to replace these peaker plants. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: A solar energy plant generates power through the night, Solar panels of the future inspired by sunflowers,

There have been more than a few solar power efficiency records set in the past few months, let alone years. What makes IBM, DelSolar, Solar Frontier and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo think they can just waltz in and claim a record of their own? By using more commonplace elements in the periodic table, that’s how. The partnership’s new photovoltaic cell based on copper, zinc and tin (CZTS for short) can convert light rays to electric power with a 11.1 percent efficiency rate — still nothing to upset traditional silicon power, but a large 10 percent more efficient than anything else in the class. In its early form, CZTS can already be manufactured through ink printing and could be produced in quantities equivalent to about 500 gigawatts of power per year, or five times more than some of the next-closest alternatives. The group wants to improve CZTS’ efficiency over the course of the next several years, ideally reaching the point where it’s useful as a truly cheap, ubiquitous source of power. We’re looking forward to the day when there’s a little slice of solar energy in just about everything, hopefully including a few more hybrid cars and private aircraft.

Filed under: Science

IBM alliance sets efficiency record for solar power cells using common materials originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink MIT Technology Review  |  IBM Research  | Email this | Comments