Blogs & Ecology

Europe's Leading Eco-Center Offers Clean Energy Surgeries
Here’s an exciting opportunity for any UK-based folks who are planning a renewable energy project of any kind. The Center for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales is launching a series of Renewable Energy Consultancy Surgery Days to allow renovators, home builders and anyone interested in harnessing the sun, the wind, biomass, ground source heat pumps, small scale hydro or a combination of the above to leverage CAT’s expertise, accumulated over 35 years of leading renewable en...

photo: Chris

As part of its efforts to become the world’s first carbon neutral state (a much easier proposition for a nation only 108 acres in size and with 800 citizens), the Vatican has completed installation of a 5,000 square meter rooftop solar array.

photo: Daniel Figueroa

Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has unveiled a solar power plan for the city that the LA Times is right to call ‘ambitious’: The plan the calls for the city to get 1,280 MW of power from solar panels by 2020.

The financial analysis of the solar plan, and what (if any) rate increases that LA electric customers will pay, will be done over the next 90 days. Here’s how the plan would work:...

How, and How Not, to Heat a Swimming Pool Using the Sun
Soundtrack or no soundtrack, who’d have thought that watching water boil could be so interesting? There’s something endearingly geeky about the folks at Green Power Science – from their impressive demonstrations of

Spanish Concentrated Solar Thermal Plants Set to Grow Exponentially

(photo credit: Universal Studios Hollywood) Debut of Universal Studios Hollywood's Solar Golf Cart

Golf carts have long been associated with either business men with really bad taste in clothing (khaki pants and a gator/polo shirts), or important, silicone injected celebrity figures in Hollywood, such as Cher, Joan Rivers, Barnie the purple dinosaur, and Shrek the ogre.

If it were in France, this solar power installation would be receiving more money for the electricity it generates. Photo: Chris Muezer

image: Recurrent Energy

photo International Polar Foundation

image: Solar Technologies FZE

In an area of the world with no shortage of sunlight, awash in oil wealth (and being able to detect the way the cleantech wind is blowing...) and with a penchant of late of doing things to the n-th degree it should come as no surprise that the Middle East’s largest solar panel manufacturing facility will be built in Dubai.

1-Million Square Foot Facility to Open 2010

photo: SolFocus

While its previous concentrating solar PV products convert about 18% of the light hitting them into electricity, the new SolFocus 1100S can achieve a panel efficiency of 25%. Intended for use in medium to utility-scale installations, the panels will be used by Spain's EMPE Solar in the recently announced 10 MW ‘world’s largest’ CPV project, expected to be completed in 2010.

Here’s how SolFocus touts the 1100S:...

Courtesy Energy Island

The pictured MSolar (Portable Solar Power Solution) devices by Solzar look like a metal tool box; but, there's some design going on. They come pre-wired with the appropriate solar panels, balance of system electronics, and batteries. The MSolar product line is suggested for emergency services communication power backup, recreation, emergency power relief, and temporary lighting. Look below for TreeHugger links to 12V, 16V, and 24V application ideas.

While it’s not exactly an answer for a question I put to Al Gore in a recent post, more details have come out about how the clean energy vision Gore articulated in his Repowering America speech can be made a realit...

image: Rensselaer/Shawn Lin

This is why Shawn-Yu Lin of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute thinks he can change the solar power game:

To get maximum efficiency when converting solar power into electricity, you want a solar panel that can absorb nearly every single photon of light, regardless of the sun’s position in the sky. Our new antireflective coating makes this possible.

Think this is mere enthusiasm, maybe not. Read on:
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