Orbital solar power plants touted for energy needs

The sun’s abundant energy, if harvested in space, could provide a cost-effective way to meet global power needs in as little as 30 years with seed money from governments, according to a study by an international scientific group.

Orbiting power plants capable of collecting solar energy and beaming it to Earth appear “technically feasible” within a decade or two based on technologies now in the laboratory, a study group of the Paris-headquartered International Academy of Astronautics said.

Such a project may be able to achieve economic viability in 30 years or less, it said, without laying out a road map or proposing a specific architecture.

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Solar-Skyscraper

Living skyscrapers? Not quite. While organic solar cells are one of several types of photovoltaics currently being explored, Scientific American reports that work is being done that could lead to windows acting as solar panels, by using a compound very similar to chlorophyll.

Chlorophyll, as we all remember from elementary school, is the green chemical in leaves that turns water and carbon dioxide to oxygen and glucose with the use of sunlight (through a horrible cycle learned once in bio class and then forgotten forever). A chemist by the name of Michael Graetzel of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology thinks he can use it to build a better solar cell.

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Solar-Powered Artwork Around the World

When Spanish researcher Nacho Zamora first stumbled upon an image of “Solarsail,” an energy-generating art installation in Switzerland, he knew he had found something different from the other public artworks he had been studying — and something important.

Since that discovery, Zamora has been carefully cataloging solar-powered artworks around the world and interviewing their creators for his Solar Artworks Project, an online compendium of public art that is aesthetically striking, environmentally sustainable, and raises awareness about crucial renewable technologies.

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Technologies for the City of Tomorrow.

A city that obtains its power from renewable resources, where electric cars move quietly along the streets and which emits almost no carbon dioxide — German federal minister Mrs. Schavan and the president of Fraunhofer, Hans-Jörg Bullinger, shone a spotlight on the scenario of a sustainable city of the future in the vision of “Morgenstadt.”

At the UrbanTec Trade Fair in Cologne from October 24 -26, 2011, Fraunhofer researchers are demonstrating which of the technologies shown can already be implemented today.

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Seven devices and technologies that harness human power for clean energy 7

The importance of renewable energy and other green energy have been increasing day by day and we get to see new technologies been developing each day. The most popular energy which is being talked everywhere is the green energy which has become so popular that every person wants to try their hands on it and there is no sign for its stopping. The trend these days is the development of clean energy using the human power. Human power is considered to be the ultimate power that can be used to do all sorts of jobs. This clean energy that is being developed using human power is quite popular and is being used worldwide. This idea was first given and started by a novelist named Frank Herbert who used the human power to harness the energy. There are various techniques available these days to do this sort of conversion. Here we are with a list of seven devices and technologies that harness human power for clean energy.

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Five ways to harvest clean energy from trains

Trains are the world’s most popular mode of transport, even popular than cars due to their speed, accessibility and reasonable fare. Ever since the invention of the first railway engine, trains have served as the medium between far-off distances, inspired many artists, poets and writers and offered time-to-time luxury services for those who cannot spend a fraction of their time devoid of them.

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MIT researchers just officially unveiled a device that uses sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The device builds upon a breakthrough hydrogen producing technology developed in 2008, and they are calling it an “artificial leaf” because of it capacity to create chemical fuels directly from sunlight. The cell is also made from common materials like silicon, cobalt and nickel, which means that the “leaf” could potentially be mass-produced. If the technology proves itself it could create hydrogen fuel directly from the sun, which could be used for transportation, heating, and running fuel cells for electricity. Check out a video of the leaf’s bubbling action by reading on.

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sOccket, the Power-Generating Soccer Ball, Is Ready to Go Global

Four Harvard grads invented a way to harness the energy of the world’s most popular sport with sOccket, a soccer ball that collects kinetic energy with every kick. We thought the idea was so clever we gave it a Breakthrough Award last year. Now, sOccket is ready to hit the ground in countries around the world this fall. We asked sOccket co-founder Julia Silverman about the team’s technology and how they plan to distribute 10,000 sOcckets to countries such as Mexico, El Salvador, Haiti, Costa Rica and Nigeria by the end of 2011.

Last year PopMech honored your prototype soccer ball. Now, you’re launching one for mass distribution. What’s different in the new version?

 We have a whole new patent. While the first design was based on the inductive coil mechanism, like a shake-to-charge flashlight, this one is based on a gyroscopic mechanism. So instead of just capturing energy from one dimension of motion, it’s capturing energy from all possible dimensions of motion. It’s constantly going to be capturing energy with even the slightest movements. And because of that, we can capture a lot more power. For example, the first prototype could only power an LED lamp. Now we can power a large lamp with multiple LEDs, and also a water purifier.

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7 Most innovative wind turbine designs

Are you looking for an environment friendly power source which is cordial, visual, and beautiful too? The answer is wind turbine! A wind turbine is a mechanism that transfers kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. It drifts in the air; some spin vertically and other horizontally, some of them are lighter-than air though others are regally incorporated into high buildings. These wind turbines are the best alternative to produce electricity without harming the environment.

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If you look closely, you may notice that some buildings are installing solar-powered windows. With scientists focusing on putting see-through solar windows on the fast track to a wider market, innovations for solar windows are popping up more and more.

Take the concept of spray-on solar coatings. Rather than replacing entire windows to offer solar power, scientists are crafting alternatives. For instance, New Energy’s technology joins a growing list in the achievements of solar inks and sprays.

Such spray-ons have the potential to lower the cost of installed solar energy, a rate that has been dropping faster than ever.

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