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Those who believe that future wars will be fought over global energy supplies and other natural resources include John Reid (former UK Defence Minister), Paddy Ashdown (former High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina), Bill Clinton (former US President), Joe Lieberman (Senator and former Vice Presidential running mate to Al Gore), and Mike McConnell (US Director of National Intelligence to George W Bush).

Improved global energy conservation will need to play a vital role in trying to pre-empt the occurrence of these harrowing scenarios. But large amounts of energy will still be required as the world population expands and develops.

Finding new sources of energy in this context is an essential part of establishing and maintaining world peace and stability. Reserves of traditional fossil fuels are depleting, and their are even doubts about the adequacy of global uranium supplies to fuel nuclear reactors. By contrast there are other sources of energy which cannot be depleted as long as the sun continues to shine.

Most forms of renewable energy are driven partly or wholly by the sun - wind, wave, hydroelectric, near surface ground source heat, biomass, and even tidal (through gravitational effects, although the influence of the moon is much greater), are all part of the framework of solar energy in one form or another.

All of these have a potentially important role to play in moving humanity towards the onset of a new solar based society. This web page, however, focuses on news items related to the development and use of direct solar thermal and solar photovoltaic energy systems.

MORE ENERGY INFORMATION
PEAK OIL AND ENERGY CRISIS NEWSBITES
'ENERGY UPDATE' BULLETINS

'Solar Energy Update' Bulletins
A Solar Age Is Dawning - Solar Power Systems Become Cheaper Than Coal
Solar Breakthrough - World Peace And The Death Of The Internal Combustion Engine

'We Need A New Way Of Thinking' - Consciousness-Based Education

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"PlanetSolar has unveiled the world's largest solar boat that will be powered by more than 35,000 high-efficiency solar cells and which will embark on a round-the-world tour in 2011. The boat, which was unveiled Thursday at the HDW Shipyard in Kiel, Germany, was designed using 38,000 next-generation solar cells that will operate at an efficiency of at least 22 percent, matching the best efficiency of any cells on the market. The cells will be integrated onto the skin of the boat to generate the solar energy required to power the boat.  'We are excited that the solar-powered boat is now a reality,' said Raphael Domjan, CEO of PlanetSolar. 'As we embark on the next phase of this project, we look forward to our around-the-world trip, and are confident that SunPower's proven technology will get us there.' The catamaran-style boat is also expected to be the fastest solar boat to ever cross the Atlantic Ocean during its round-the-world trip that will take place next year. During the trip the boat will be available for public display in each of its stopover sites, which will include Hamburg, London, Paris, New York, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi."
World's largest solar-powered boat unveiled in Germany
CoolerPlanet, 26 February 2010

"A scientist has come up with a new method to reconfigure the way solar panels are connected, which could lead to solar arrays in the future that are more energy efficient and reliable. According to Dr Jonathan Kimball, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, the conventional method of connecting solar panels is in a series, one after the other. 'But just as one bad bulb in a string of Christmas lights can black out the entire set, so can a single solar panel disrupt the flow of electrical current through the other panels in a series,' Kimball said. 'If one of the panels is shaded, dirty or damaged, it affects them all,' Kimball said. 'The conventional approach to solar arrays inherently limits the amount of power they produce if there's any variation in the panels,' he said. Rather than connecting solar panels in a series - where the electrical current must flow from one panel to get to the next - Kimball suggests parallel wiring for the panels. The parallel approach would connect each panel to its own power converter instead of sending the electrical current through a series of panels to a single converter."
New method may lead to more energy efficient solar panels
ANI, 21 February 2010

"IBM researchers are developing a solar cell with an eye towards what's in the ground. Researchers on Wednesday published a technical paper in the journal Advanced Materials that describes a solar cell made of abundant materials with relatively high efficiency. The cell can convert 9.6 percent of solar energy into electrical energy, a 40 percent boost over current methods. That level of efficiency is already far exceeded in commercial silicon-based cells and even beat by thin-film solar cells, which are cheaper to make than silicon cells but are less efficient. But IBM researchers set out to make a cell that uses materials that are relatively abundant elements--copper, zinc, tin, and sulfur, or selenium (CZTS). The availability of materials for existing solar technologies limits their long-term potential, according to IBM. First Solar, which claims to have the lowest cost per watt, makes its thin-film cells from cadmium and tellurium. GE, too, plans to sell solar panels with cadmium telluride cells as early as next year as well. There are also several start-up companies, including Nanosolar, Miasole, and HelioVolt, which make cells using a combination of copper, indium, gallium, and selenide, or CIGS. The problem with these is the scarcity of materials or the environmental impact, according to IBM researchers Teodor Todorov, Kathleen Reuter, and David Mitz, who authored the paper. That means that other solar cell materials are needed to meet anticipated renewable energy demands, they said..... One of the advantages of thin-film technologies is that that not much material is needed to make a cell, compared to traditional cell manufacturing. CIGS cells can be made using high-speed fabrication techniques, such as roll-to-roll manufacturing. The technique developed by IBM uses a similar 'ink-based' method. Matthew Beard, a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratories not involved in the work, called the IBM research a 'breakthrough.' The researchers estimate that if the technology can be taken beyond its basic state right now and achieve 12 percent efficiency, it could be an economically viable alternative to current products."
IBM boosts solar cell made of abundant materials
CNET News, 11 February 2010

"Sunlight + water = hydrogen gas, in a new technique that can convert 60 per cent of sunlight energy absorbed by an electrode into the inflammable fuel. To generate the gas Thomas Nann and colleagues at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, dip a gold electrode with a special coating into water and expose it to light. clusters of indium phosphide 5 nanometres wide on its surface absorb incoming photons and pass electrons bearing their energy on to clusters of a sulphurous iron compound. This material combines those electrons with protons from the water to form gaseous hydrogen. A second electrode – plain platinum this time – is needed to complete the circuit electrochemically. Organic molecules have been used before to perform the same feat. But they are quickly bleached by the sunlight they are collecting, rendering them inefficient after a few weeks. The inorganic materials used in the University of East Anglia's system are more resilient. Their first generation proof of concept is 'a major breakthrough' in the field, they say, thanks to its efficiency of over 60 per cent and ability to survive sunlight for two weeks without any degradation of performance. 'In fact the 60 per cent figure is probably a worst-case scenario,' says Nann. 'This is still a preliminary study.'...He and colleagues now plan to refine the system, including lowering the cost by making it with less expensive materials. 'There is no major reason for using gold or platinum,' he says: those materials were used simply because they are common in the laboratory."
Sun-powered water splitter makes hydrogen tirelessly
New Scientist, 11 February 2010

"When it comes time to refuel Honda’s FCX Clarity fuel-cell car with hydrogen, the company is letting the sun shine in. Last week, Honda announced that it had begun operating a 'next generation' solar hydrogen refueling station, using Honda’s own solar cells, at its Torrance research and development headquarters. The new solar station is small enough to fit into a Clarity owner’s garage, and that’s its intended home. 'We’ve eliminated the compressor, which was the largest and most expensive component,' said a Honda spokesman, Chris Naughton. 'The station pulls in solar energy during the day and then the customer can slow-fill with hydrogen over an eight-hour period at night.' Honda claims that its smaller station is the world’s most compact, as well as the first home unit without a compressor. The station uses 48 panels of thin-film Honda-developed cells to produce six kilowatts of electricity. It’s designed to complement the network of public stations that California has endeavored to create as part of its 'Hydrogen Highway,' but which in practice is developing slowly. Honda’s Soltec panels are also being used by Dongfeng Honda in China, the company said, providing lighting and air-conditioning at an administrative facility. According to Honda, the Chinese panels are capable of generating 100,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, and can displace 101 tons of carbon dioxide. According to Patrick Serfass, a spokesman for the National Hydrogen Association, 'One of the benefits of hydrogen is that it can be made from a variety of different sources, including both renewable and traditional fuels. We applaud Honda for producing hydrogen renewably. At this point, fossil fuels are still very cheap, so it takes a commitment to advance the installation of renewable energy.'"
Honda Opens New Solar Hydrogen Station in California
New York Times (Blog), 4 February 2010

"China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year. China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants. These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China. “Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ' said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy. President Obama, in his State of the Union speech last week, sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. 'I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders — and I know you don’t either,' he told Congress. The United States and other countries are offering incentives to develop their own renewable energy industries, and Mr. Obama called for redoubling American efforts. Yet many Western and Chinese executives expect China to prevail in the energy-technology race. Multinational corporations are responding to the rapid growth of China’s market by building big, state-of-the-art factories in China. Vestas of Denmark has just erected the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturing complex here in northeastern China, and transferred the technology to build the latest electronic controls and generators."
China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy
New York Times, 30 January 2010

"Businesses in the Tees Valley are being urged to get a move on if they want to secure as much Government cash for electric cars as possible. Teesside has been chosen as a testbed area to trial the low-carbon vehicle revolution - but first a robust network of chargepoints must be installed. Stockton Council is among the organisations already signed up. Between 30 and 50 plug-in points will be installed at key locations, including car parks, community centres and supermarkets, for both authority and public use. A council spokesperson said: 'Stockton Council is committed to carbon reduction, both for its own operations and the wider community.' But time is running out for private businesses that want to help rev things up. Spending chiefs at regional development agency One North East have told company bosses if they sign up for a charging point at their premises before January 31, the Government will meet half the costs, bringing the bill down to £2,500."
Join the drive to aid electric vehicles
Evening Gazette, 25 January 2010

"Although the commercial solar-cell business dates back almost 50 years, solar panels still cannot compete with fossil fuels when it comes to generating electricity relatively cheaply. Even during periods of high oil prices, government subsidies are needed to encourage consumers and companies to install solar power, exposing the sector to sharp contractions when support is dramatically reduced, as happened in Spain in 2009 and could happen in Germany later this year. Yet solar-panel companies are increasingly optimistic that, with technological advances and improvements in manufacturing efficiency, it won't be too long before 'grid parity' — the point at which solar power is equal to or cheaper than conventional energy sources — is reached, especially if oil prices remain high. Manufacturers of the common crystalline variety of solar cells continuously leap-frog each other with claims of improving their product's efficiency (measured by the percentage of solar energy put into a cell that emerges as electricity). Last month, Norway's REC, together with Dutch research institute ECN, unveiled a 17%-efficient solar module, trumping Suntech, which a few months earlier had hailed its creation of a 16.5%-efficient module. Other manufacturers, like First Solar, are improving on a type of solar-cell technology known as 'thin film,' in which an energy-generating substance — usually a compound called cadmium telluride — is layered onto a glass, plastic or steel substrate. Thin-film cells are generally less energy-efficient than the crystalline variety but are potentially much cheaper to manufacture. If the technology continues to improve, solar power could achieve parity within five to 10 years, says Peter Thiele, executive vice president of Sharp's energy-solutions division in Europe. Or even sooner, if panel prices continue to fall while oil prices rise. Observers say sales growth is rebounding as buyers respond to increasingly cost-effective solar power."
Solar Power: Sunshine's Cloudy Days
TIME, 25 January 2010

"United Nations climate talks are a bigger threat to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia than increased oil supplies from rival producers, its lead climate negotiator said on Sunday. Saudi Arabia's economy depends on oil exports so stands to be one of the biggest losers in any pact that curbs oil demand by penalizing carbon emissions.....The possibility that oil demand might peak this decade was a 'serious problem' for Saudi Arabia, Sabban said. The kingdom had looked at the assumptions behind studies that pointed to demand peaking in 2016 and saw 'some truth in it,' Sabban said. The kingdom was watching future demand projections closely and would match any future investment in capacity expansion with demand, Sabban said. 'We will continue keeping the same spare capacity but no more,' he said. Saudi had plenty of spare capacity to increase output if global demand warrants, Sabban said. Demand should grow this year with the economic recovery, he added. The kingdom completed a program to boost its capacity last year, coinciding with the global contraction in oil demand due to the economic recession, and led record OPEC output cuts, leaving it with more than double the spare capacity it targets. The kingdom has around 4.5 million bpd of spare capacity while having a policy of holding 1.5 million to 2.0 million bpd to deal with any surprise outage in the global oil supply system. The kingdom is producing around 8 million bpd. Meanwhile Saud Arabia plans to invest heavily in solar energy technology, Sabban said, and hopes to begin exporting power from solar energy by 2020. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi has said the kingdom aims to make solar a major contributor to energy supply in the next five to 10 years."
Climate talks bigger threat to Saudi than oil rivals
Reuters, 24 January 2010

"India plans to install 20 million solar lights and 20 million square meters of solar thermal panels to generate 20,000 megawatts by 2022 as part of its National Solar Mission, formally launched Monday. 'We propose to provide up to 90 percent support for setting up solar power plants,' Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah said at the launch. 'In many other solar applications, where the initial cost is still very high, we're considering proposals for providing up to a 30 percent grant in aid,' he said. India, Asia's third-largest energy consumer, relies on coal for more than half of its power capacity. Just a small fraction of India's power currently comes from solar energy, which costs about two and a half times more than power from coal.  By installing 20 million solar lights, for example, the minister said India would save 1 billion liters of kerosene every year. As a 'first benchmark' in the next three years, India also plans to add 1,300 megawatts of solar power of which 1,100 megawatts will be grid-connected and 200 megawatts will be off-grid, Abdullah said. 'If we achieve this, achieving the remaining target will not be impossible.' Noting the high initial cost of solar energy, especially for grid power generation, Abdullah said he aims to bring down the cost 'as quickly as possible.' Abdullah said India is working in 'close coordination' with other stakeholders, particularly the United States, so India can emerge as a global solar power while making solar energy affordable in the country."
India launches National Solar Mission
United Press International, 13 January 2010

"A U.S.-based solar power company has entered into a large-scale agreement with a Chinese power equipment manufacturer that will lead to the creation of solar thermal power plants across China that will generate at least 2 gigawatts of power. The deal, which was signed last week in the Chinese State Council building, will partner U.S. solar power plant builder eSolar with Penglai Electric to make official what will become China's largest concentrating solar power project."
China solar power project will generate 2 gigawatts of solar energy
Cooler Planet, 12 January 2009

"As it moves rapidly to become the world’s leader in nuclear power, wind energy and photovoltaic solar panels, China is taking tentative steps to master another alternative energy industry: using mirrors to capture sunlight, produce steam and generate electricity. So-called concentrating solar power uses hundreds of thousands of mirrors to turn water into steam. The steam turns a conventional turbine similar to those in coal-fired power plants. The technology, which is potentially cheaper than most types of renewable power, has captivated many engineers and financiers in the last two years, with an abrupt surge in new patents and plans for large power operations in Europe and the United States. This year may be China’s turn. China is starting to build its own concentrating solar power plants, a technology more associated with California deserts than China’s countryside. And Chinese manufacturers are starting to think about exports, part of China’s effort to become the world’s main provider of alternative energy power equipment. Yet concentrating solar power still faces formidable obstacles here, including government officials who are skeptical that the technology will be useful on a large scale in China. Much of the country is cloudy or smoggy. Water is scarce. The sunniest places left for solar power are deserts deep in the interior, far from the energy-hungry coastal provinces that consume most of China’s electricity. Provinces deep in the interior have few skilled workers or engineers to maintain the automated gear that keeps mirrors focused on towers that transfer the heat from sunbeams into fluids."
China Tries a New Tack to Go Solar
New York Times, 8 January 2010

"A new study in West Africa shows how farm irrigation systems powered by the sun can produce more food and money for villagers. The study in Benin found that solar-powered pumps are effective in supplying water, especially during the long dry season. Sub-Saharan Africa is the part of the world with the least food security. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that more than one billion of the world's people faced hunger last year. Around two hundred sixty-five million of them live south of the Sahara Desert. Lack of rainfall is one of their main causes of food shortages....The researchers note that only four percent of the cropland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated. Using solar power to pump water has higher costs at first. But the study says it can be more economical in the long term than using fuels like gasoline, diesel or kerosene."
Solar-Powered Pumps Aid African Farmers
Voice of America, 10 January 2010

"Massachusetts is planning a new drive for solar energy in 2010 with a string of programs designed to dramatically increase the number and size of solar panel arrays in the state. The push comes as Gov. Deval Patrick, heading into an election year, hopes to make good on his pledge to turn Massachusetts into one of the nation’s renewable energy hubs. The administration is already touting what it says are its successes in helping encourage the use of solar panels — pointing to 'a nearly 15-fold increase in solar installations over Governor Patrick’s first four-year term.'....The state is also developing regulations for a third program, a new solar credit market. The program was authorized by the state’s 2008 Green Communities Act to provide predictable market support for the solar industry. The initiative is also set to begin this month. Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles said the goal of all the programs is to make Massachusetts 'a national solar energy powerhouse.'....The administration said the solar push has also translated into jobs."
Mass. planning new solar energy push in 2010
Associated Press, 1 January 2010

"Light-emitting wallpaper may begin to replace light bulbs from 2012, according to a government body that supports low-carbon technology. A chemical coating on the walls will illuminate all parts of the room with an even glow, which mimics sunlight and avoids the shadows and glare of conventional bulbs. Although an electrical current will be used to stimulate the chemicals to produce light, the voltage will be very low and the walls will be safe to touch. Dimmer switches will control brightness, as with traditional lighting. The Carbon Trust has awarded a £454,000 grant to Lomox, a Welsh company that is developing the organic light-emitting diode technology. The trust said it would be two and a half times more efficient than energysaving bulbs and could make a big contribution to meeting Britain’s target of cutting carbon emissions by 34 per cent by 2020. Indoor lighting accounts for a sixth of total electricity use. The chemical coating, which can be applied in the form of specially treated wallpaper or simply painted straight on to walls, can also be used for flat-screen televisions, computers and mobile phone displays. As the system uses only between three and five volts, it can be powered by solar panels or batteries. Lomox, which will use the grant to prove the durability of the technology, believes it could be used in the first instance to illuminate road signs or barriers where there is no mains electricity. Ken Lacey, the chief executive of Lomox, said that the first products would go on sale in 2012. 'The light is a very natural, sunlight-type of lighting with the full colour range. It gives you all kinds of potential for how you do lighting,' he said. Although organic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been available for several years, Mr Lacey said that concerns over cost and durability had prevented further development. He said that Lomox had developed a much cheaper process and discovered a combination of chemicals that were not vulnerable to the oxidation that shortened the operating life span of other types of organic LEDs. Mr Lacey said the technology could be used to make flexible screens that could be rolled up after use, or carried into a presentation, for example. Mark Williamson, director of innovations at the Carbon Trust, said: 'Lighting is a major producer of carbon emissions. This technology has the potential to produce ultra-efficient lighting for a wide range of applications, tapping into a huge global market...'"
Glowing walls could kill off the light bulb
London Times, 30 December 2009

"While the world's attention was tuned to the recent global climate conference in Copenhagen, in an old airplane hangar on a small Swiss airfield, a group of visionaries, dreamers and engineers was busily assembling a vehicle that is their solution to global climate change and the future of commercial aviation. This airplane uses no fossil or bio-fuels. It is a solar-powered airplane, collecting the sun's rays on 12,000 solar cells spread across its wings to charge the special lithium-polymer batteries that will continue to power the airplane from sunset till the next sunrise....Solar Impulse president Dr. Bertrand Piccard reminds those skeptics that when Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in 1927, his airplane was only large enough for the pilot and a whole lot of fuel and it took 33 hours to cross the ocean....Piccard wants to demonstrate that solar power can be used for most modes of transport. 'If we manage to fly around the world with an airplane that takes no fuel at all,' says Piccard, 'nobody will be able to say afterwards that it is impossible for cars.' Looking like an astronaut in his pilot jump suit, Dr. Piccard conjures another famous Picard: the legendary Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the USS Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation, as he takes us where no one has gone before.... The Solar Impulse airplane is not the first solar airplane to take flight. Numerous other solar airplanes have been successfully tested in the last few decades, but the Solar Impulse airplane could become the first to fly continuously day and night, and the first to fly around the world if successful. Over the past six years, Piccard has assembled a team of 70 engineers and business support staff and has raised approximately $67 million of the $105 million budgeted for the project. Major corporations like Deutsche Bank, Swiss watch maker Omega, and pharmaceutical giant Solvay are underwriting the Solar Impulse venture. If all goes according to plan, the solar airplane will take off next summer and climb to an altitude of 27,000 feet. On a 36-hour flight it will fill the batteries and run the engines all day. 'Then there is only one goal,' says Piccard: 'To reach the next sunrise before the battery dies.'"
Can a solar-powered airplane be the future of aviation?
USA Today, 29 December 2009

"A hi-tech company in Cardiff is poised to take advantage of the global growth in solar power generation with its next generation solar technology. High-efficiency solar cells are being developed by IQE in Cardiff – including one of the first photo-voltaic (PV) devices of its kind in the world using semiconductor materials. Project manager Rob Harper said the development of the world class product will position IQE for strong growth in the future, securing and creating highly skilled jobs at its Cardiff plants. The technology developed at IQE uses specially engineered layers known as multi-junctions to convert different parts of the solar spectrum into electrical energy. A higher percentage of solar radiation can be harvested using this method compared to other types of solar cells. IQE’s solar cells are already capable of converting around 40% of solar radiation into electrical power and further research is being conducted to improve this. By concentrating sunlight using inexpensive lenses and mirrors, the amount of active solar cell material can be reduced, further lowering the overall unit cost. Known as concentrating photo-voltaic (CPV) this approach is suited to large installations of 5MW and above, and works best in regions with high levels of direct sunlight. Although CPV is a new technology and accounts for less than 0.5% of currently installed PV power, a number of large CPV installations are under way in Australia, the US, Spain, Italy and Greece. CPV has substantial market potential because of its high conversion efficiencies, and industry experts anticipate a compound annual growth rate of 45% between 2009 and 2015. IQE, whose manufacturing facility and global headquarters was established in St Mellons, Cardiff in 1988, has recently produced the world’s first triple junction devices with a new, patented combination of semi-conductor materials. This is attracting the attention of CPV manufacturers worldwide because it has the potential to provide improved efficiency at lower cost."
IQE poised for growth with advanced solar technology
Western Mail, 26 December 2009

"Mayor Boris Johnson has pledged every Londoner will be no more than one mile from an electric car charge point by 2015. His £60m plan would see 22,500 charge points at workplaces, 500 on the street and 2,000 in public car parks. Mr Johnson made the announcement at a meeting of city leaders in Copenhagen. But London Assembly's Green Party said there are doubts about the environmental gains of charging vehicles using grid electricity. 'A golden era of clean, green electric motoring is upon us and London is well ahead of cities around the globe in preparing the right conditions for this,' Mr Johnson said at the conference."
Mayor's £60m electric car scheme
BBC Online, 15 December 2009

"The Japanese Government is working on a 'growth blueprint' that would exploit the prolonged weakness of the US dollar and mount a state-backed resource grab for rare technology metals around the world. If the plans, which are in their early stages, come to fruition, the Government would assist companies in buying the rights to mine rare earth minerals wherever they are up for grabs. Tokyo is understood to have placed a high economic priority on securing global rare earth rights for Japanese companies because of the looming prospect of a resource war with China. The metals most coveted by Japan are a collection of 14 lanthanides that make hybrid vehicles possible and will be critical to the future of electric cars because their strong magnetic properties allow for lighter motors....Over the past decade, Beijing has reached the point where it enjoys a 90 per cent global monopoly over the production of rare earth metals. As its high-tech industries have developed, it has consumed an increasing quantity of those produced domestically and significantly lowered export quotas to places such as Japan. Even large Japanese manufacturers have resorted to illegal quota-busting and source about a quarter of their annual supplies from illicit rare earth mines in China. As China has hardened its stance on exports, Japan has begun a frantic search for supplies elsewhere."
Government ready to back business in minerals race
London Times, 9 December 2009

"The world’s electricity industry will set out a plan on Tuesday for rolling out the technologies needed to cut carbon dioxide emissions, showing how ambitious plans to tackle global warming could be achieved.Electricity generation accounts for about a third of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions from energy use, which in turn accounts for two-thirds of all greenhouse gas emissions. This is one of the sectors in which deep cuts in emissions are most practicable – the technologies for producing electricity without emitting carbon dioxide are either in use or close to deployment. Europe’s electricity industry has already committed to going carbon-free by 2050. Electrification also offers the prospect of cutting emissions from other sectors. Electric cars look a better bet than biofuels for greening road transport. Electric heat pumps, which carry heat into the home, are an alternative to burning coal and gas for warmth. However, low-carbon power is going to be more expensive, at least initially, and will require a huge investment in infrastructure as well as a steep improvement in energy efficiency. In short, there will have to be an entirely new type of electricity grid.... Even so, any transition to carbon-free generation will take decades. Low-carbon technologies are generally more expensive than fossil-fuel plants: in the case of some, such as offshore wind, they are a lot more expensive. At the same time, power generation will not always be available. The British government, which is backing Europe’s fastest expansion of wind power, is building into its plans for 2030 a huge margin of spare generation capacity which can be used when there is no wind.  Managing demand will become crucial. Lars Josefsson, who is chief executive of Sweden’s Vattenfall, one of Europe’s biggest electricity companies, and president of Eurelectric, the industry association, says: 'The key to Europe’s low-carbon future will be on the demand side.' If power supply is inflexible, it is particularly important that demand is flexible to balance the grid. A higher cost of energy will make consumers more worried about wasting it. The electricity system will probably have to be based on a “smart grid”, which uses information technology to manage flows of power around the network. This would include smart meters – which show consumers how much energy they are using and also allow flexible pricing – devices in homes that can send information and receive instructions, and even smart appliances, that would switch off automatically when not needed."
Industry looks to green electric future
Financial Times, 9 December 2009

"California regulators on Thursday approved an ambitious project to beam solar energy from space starting in 2016. Under a power purchase agreement approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, utility Pacific Gas & Electric will purchase electricity from technology provider Solaren if it successfully deploys its space-based solar collectors, which would be the first of its kind. PG&E has contracted to buy 1,700 gigawatt hours per year for 15 years from Solar for its space-based solar arrays, which will have a generating capacity of 200 megawatts. That's smaller than a full scale nuclear or natural gas plant but enough to supply thousands of homes. The anticipated date of operation is June, 2016. Space-based solar, an idea that has been around for decades, is being pursued by companies and researchers around the world. Its key advantage over land-based solar or wind power is that can generate renewable energy around the clock. The California Public Utilities Commission gave the go-ahead to the project in an effort to meet the state's aggressive renewable energy goals."
California gives green light for space-based solar
CnetNews, 3 December 2009

"Egypt, which plans to start its first solar power unit in 2010, said on Tuesday it wanted to expand solar power production for export but that costs of the technology would need to fall first to make it feasible. The North African country, a gas and oil producer, aims to generate 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. It already has installed wind capacity of 430 megawatts and is adding 120 megawatts by mid 2010. Wind farms are expected to meet 12 percent of Egypt's power needs by 2020 but solar power projects have lagged. 'Solar energy is four times as expensive as energy generated from combined cycles so when this figure starts going down to three or two times as much, this is when we will see developing countries go heavily into the business,' Electricity and Energy Minister Hassan Younes told Reuters. 'Exports are in our plan, but taking into consideration the development of suitable technology and its spread so that the price goes down,' he added. Egypt, whose population is concentrated on just 10 percent of its land, has ample desert areas to set up solar power units. The most populous Arab country is also situated in the sun belt where sunshine is available all year round for power generation."
Egypt eyes solar power exports, costs too high now
Reuters, 1 December 2009

"Sun Catalytix, a company that's trying to develop a revolutionary clean-energy system, has finished a round of seed funding and secured a technology license from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company was formed about one year ago to commercialize research from MIT professor Daniel Nocera in which he attempts to mimic the process of photosynthesis. Polaris Ventures finalized a $3 million seed round of funding for Sun Catalytix and expects to raise a series A round next year, said Polaris' Bob Metcalfe, who is also on the board. The core of the company's technology, which Nocera has sought to patent, is a low-cost catalyst for an electrolyzer, a device that splits water to make hydrogen. That hydrogen can be used with a fuel cell to make electricity. Or the hydrogen could be combined with other materials to store energy in a liquid fuel, such as methanol or ammonia, Metcalfe said. Nocera envisions that homes would be equipped with solar panels to produce hydrogen from water during the day. At night, the stored hydrogen could power a home without releasing carbon emissions. The key difference with the Sun Catalytix electrolyzer is that it is being designed to be made with cheap materials and work with all sorts of water, said Metcalfe. 'Splitting water to make hydrogen is as old as the hills. The breakthrough here is that it's dirt cheap. They operate in dirty water like water from the Charles River and they've used salt water from the Boston Harbor,' he said. The catalyst that splits the water molecules uses cobalt phosphate, which is cheap and abundant compared to expensive metals such as platinum, Metcalfe added. So far, the five-person company has built a number of prototypes made from PVC plastic. A fully functioning system would take a number of years to develop and depend on other components being cheaper, including solar panels and hydrogen storage, Nocera has said. But Metcalfe said that Polaris believes the company can commercialize the technology 'in the short attention span of a venture capitalist.' Typically, venture capitalists expect to generate a big return in five to seven years."
Sun Catalytix secures money for low-cost solar fuel
CNet, 22 November 2009

"A shingle that generates solar energy was named one of the 50 Best Innovations of 2009 by Time magazine. Dow Chemical, the Powerhouse Solar Shingle's inventor, will make the shingles commercially available by the middle of next year. Dow's technology 'will make affordable renewable energy a reality now and for future generations,' said Dow Solar Solutions managing director Jane Palmieri. The Powerhouse design includes thin-film cells of copper indium gallium diselenide. Dow notes the cells' low cost relative to other solar technologies. And, on top of low cost, Dow's new shingle has other advantages. The company reports that the installation process is no different than that of traditional shingles, making Powerhouse shingles attractive to contractors. And in addition to saving money for homeowners by cutting energy use, the shingles are anticipated to make a lot of money for Dow - up to $10 billion a year by 2020. The Powerhouse Solar Shingle was number 13 on Time magazine's list."
New solar energy technology wins accolades
Cooler Planet, 16 November 2009

"If every south-facing building in the UK fitted solar panels, the country would have all the electricity it needs, an expert has claimed. Tim Bruton, chief technology officer of the New and Renewable Energy Centre (Narec), in Northumberland, was speaking ahead of a national conference in County Durham that will highlight the business opportunities photovoltaics – solar power – could bring. The North-East is putting foundations in place to become a European centre for renewable energy expertise, bringing with it scores of jobs and new industries, with photovoltaics (PV), alongside wind power, electric vehicles and green energy, playing a major part. Mr Bruton, a fellow of the Institute of Physics who has published over 70 papers in the PV field, believes the North-East is on the verge of 'something very exciting'. He said: 'The University of Northumbria carried out a study for the Department of Trade and Industry looking at the existing south-facing buildings in the UK. All we have to do is take the things we have already built and put solar panels on them and we can generate all the electricity we need.' Rather than being the technology of the far future, Mr Bruton believes it is only two to three years away from being widely used in the UK. He said: 'If you look at what has happened in Germany, Spain and California where you have the right subsidy structure from the government, the market has taken off.' Mr Bruton pointed out that a similar subsidy scheme was due to be introduced by the Government in this country in April. It is then that the new Renewables Feed In Tariff (FIT) system comes into force, offering both domestic and business customers using technology such as photovoltaics for electricity, payback rates of up to 40p per kWh."
'Solar panels could solve energy crisis'
Northern Echo, 11 November 2009

"Every two weeks, the sun pours more energy onto the surface of our planet than we use from all sources in an entire year. It is an inexhaustible powerhouse that has remained largely untapped for human energy needs. That may soon change in a big way. If a consortium of German companies has its way, construction of the biggest solar project ever devised could soon begin in the Sahara desert. When completed, it would harvest energy from the sun shining over Africa and transform it into clean, green electricity for delivery to European homes and businesses. Prospects for the project, called Desertec, have blossomed over the past year, and this month 20 major German corporations are expected to announce the formation of a consortium that will provide the €400 billion needed to build a raft of solar thermal power plants in north Africa. They include energy utilities giants E.ON and RWE, the engineering firm Siemens, the finance house Deutsche Bank and the insurance company Munich Re. The current plan, outlined by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in a report to the federal government, envisages that the project will meet 15 per cent of Europe's electricity needs by 2050, with a peak output of 100 gigawatts - roughly equivalent to 100 coal-fired power stations. Preliminary designs in the German report show electricity reaching Europe via 20 high-voltage direct-current power lines, which will keep transmission losses below 10 per cent (New Scientist, 14 March, p 42). Trans-Mediterranean links will cross from Morocco to Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar; from Algeria to France via the Balearic islands; from Tunisia to Italy; from Libya to Greece; and from Egypt to Turkey via Cyprus....But is this really the best use of such a colossal amount of money? Critics are lining up to point out the project's shortcomings. They say it could make Europe's energy supply a hostage to politically unstable countries; that Europe should not be exploiting Africa in this way; that it is a poor investment compared to covering Europe's roofs with photovoltaic (PV) solar panels; and that, while deserts have plenty of sun, they lack another less obvious but equally indispensable resource for a solar thermal power plant - water. Is Desertec really the model of future power generation, as its promoters would have us believe, or is it politically misconceived and a monumental waste of money?.... Solar thermal energy is now coming to the fore, as it proves itself to have several advantages over PV. Among these is its ability to produce electricity in power-station quantities, without the complex organisation that distributed generation entails. What's more, it can feed electricity into the grid at night as well as by day. This is done by storing the heated fluid in an insulated container and releasing it hours later when the energy is required. Storing energy from PV panels would require a new generation of high-capacity batteries - still a research project in its infancy for the scale needed. The clincher is cost. Building a power-station-scale solar thermal installation costs only a fraction of PV generators with the same output. As a result, an army of new solar thermal plants are being planned for the US, China, Australia and Israel....PV cells have one clear advantage, however. Solar thermal requires direct sunlight, and so a cloudy day will slash power output to near zero, whereas PV cells will generate at least some power until night descends. But the intensity of sunshine blasting the Sahara desert more than compensates for this. Every year, each square metre of the Sahara receives more heat from the sun than would be obtained by burning two barrels of oil. Desertec reckons that a patch less than 600 kilometres across could meet the entire world's electricity needs today and that all of Europe's electricity could be made in an area 250 kilometres across.....Out in the Sahara, however, another problem has to be solved. Like a regular coal or oil-fired plant, a solar thermal generating station requires large amounts of cooling water to condense the steam after it goes through the generator's turbines, and there are inevitable losses from evaporation. The solar trough plant in the Mojave desert consumes around 3000 litres of water for every megawatt-hour of electricity it produces, and others are likely to need similar amounts. That's a lot of water to find in a desert. A typical Saharan solar farm would be expected to deliver abount 120,000 megawatt-hours of electricity per year per square kilometre. That equates to some 350 million litres of water,or enough to flood its area to a depth of 35 centimetres - not much less than would be needed to irrigate a crop of wheat....Switching to air cooling for thermal solar power stations would cut water demand by up to 90 per cent, but brings problems of its own. Air cooling is less efficient than water cooling, so the installations would require more land and more mirrors, adding to the capital and running costs. David Mills, whose company Ausra in Palo Alto, California, wants to build an air-cooled solar thermal plant in the Nevada desert, says air cooling involves about a 10 per cent penalty in terms of cost or performance.....If the argument comes down to cost, how do the numbers stack up? In terms of capital cost, large-scale solar thermal installations are the clear winner. Building the plant now operating in Spain has cost €1670 for each megawatt-hour of electricity it produces each year. Jeremy Leggett, who heads Solar Century, a London-based company which sells PV technology, says that installing PV panels would eat up more than double that, at €4000 per megawatt-hour per year. But capital cost is not the end of the story. While a solar thermal power plant requires a round-the-clock crew, PV installations pretty much run themselves. What's more, PV power plants can grow piecemeal: they can start generating power for the grid from the day the first panel is installed, while solar thermal mirrors are useless until the entire power station is completed. For Desertec, there is also the small matter of getting Desertec's electricity from Africa to Europe. With this many variables in the equation it becomes hard to make realistic comparisons between the available options. To fill the gap, Anthony Patt of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, a think tank in Laxenburg, Austria, is conducting a detailed feasibility study of solar thermal power generation. He reckons that Desertec is unlikely to be competitive with coal-fired power generation for at least two decades, during which time it will swallow between €20 and €50 billion, similar in scale to Germany's expected subsidy for PV cells over the same period. And then there are the tricky political issues that arise from a plan that will exploit land in Africa, and possibly Asia too, to generate electricity for Europe. Desertec says that two-thirds of the potential solar resource in north Africa and the Middle East lies in Algeria, Libya and Saudi Arabia. Europe, like the US, wants to reduce its reliance on energy imported from distant lands with an unpredictable political future. Why create a new hostage to fortune? The stage is set to recreate an uncomfortable parallel with western dependency on oil from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq."
Solar superpower: Should Europe run on Sahara sun?
New Scientist, 26 October 2009

"The U.S. military is tackling a new mission in the field of alternative energy, moving to power up a 500-megawatt solar facility at Fort Irwin's sprawling desert complex in California....The project, located at the Army's largest training range in California's Mojave Desert, could grow as large as 1 gigawatt in the future. The companies will finance and build the plant in exchange for leasing of the military land. The project, planned for five sites over 13 years, could cost $2 billion. The solar power plant is part of the Army's mission to meet a federal mandate that calls for it to cut its energy use by nearly a third by 2015 and get a quarter of its energy needs from renewable resources by 2025."
U.S. Army to build 500 MW solar power plant
Reuters, 15 October 2009

"Dow Chemical Co (DOW.N) said on Monday it would begin selling a new rooftop shingle next year that converts sunlight into electricity -- and could generate $5 billion in revenue by 2015 for the company. The new solar shingles can be integrated into rooftops with standard asphalt shingles, Dow said, and will be introduced in 2010 before a wider roll-out in 2011. 'We're looking at this one product that could generate $5 billion in revenue by 2015 and $10 billion by 2020,' Jane Palmieri, managing director of Dow Solar Solutions, told Reuters in an interview. The shingle will use thin-film cells of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), a photovoltaic material that typically is more efficient at turning sunlight into electricity than traditional polysilicon cells. Dow is using CIGS cells that operate at higher than 10 percent efficiency, below the efficiencies for the top polysilicon cells -- but would cost 10 to 15 percent less on a per watt basis. Dow Solar Solutions said it expects 'an enthusiastic response' from roofing contractors for the new shingles, since they require no specialized skills or knowledge of solar systems to install. The new product is the latest advance in 'Building Integrated Photovoltaic' (BIPV) systems, in which power-generating systems are built directly into the traditional materials used to construct buildings. BIPV systems are currently limited mostly to roofing tiles, which operate at lower efficiencies than solar panels and have so far been too expensive to gain wide acceptance. Dow's shingle will be about 30 to 40 percent cheaper than current BIPV systems. The Dow shingles can be installed in about 10 hours, compared with 22 to 30 hours for traditional solar panels, reducing the installation costs that make up more than 50 percent of total system prices."
Dow to sell solar shingle, sees huge market
Reuters, 5 October 2009

"China launched on Wednesday the country's biggest on-grid solar power project with electricity capacity of 10 megawatts in Shizuishan of Ningxia, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The project, run by the China Energy Conservation Investment Corp, was only the first phase of a total 50-MW project, Xinhua said. 'After the completion of the first phase, construction for the second and third phases will be finished by 2011,' it added."
China launches 10-MW on-grid solar power project
Reuters, 30 September 2009

"Google Inc is in the early stages of looking at ways to write software that would fully integrate plug-in hybrid vehicles to the power grid, minimize strain on the grid and help utilities manage vehicle charging load. 'We are doing some preliminary work,' said Dan Reicher, Google's director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives. 'We have begun some work on smart charging of electric vehicles and how you would integrate large number of electric vehicles into the grid successfully. 'We have done a little bit of work on the software side looking at how you would write a computer code to manage this sort of charging infrastructure,' he said in an interview on the sidelines of an industry conference. Google, known for its Internet search engine, in 2007 announced a program to test Toyota Prius and Ford Escape gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles that were converted to rechargeable plug-in hybrids that run mostly on electricity. One of the experimental technologies that was being tested by the Web search giant allowed parked plug-ins to transfer stored energy back to the electric grid, opening a potential back-up source of power for the system in peak hours. Google has pushed ahead in addressing climate change issues as a philanthropic effort through its Google.org arm. Reicher said Google has been testing its fleet of plug-in hybrids 'pretty intensely' for the last couple of years. 'One of the great things about plug-ins is this great opportunity for the first time to finally have a storage technology,' he said. Reicher said the company is trying to figure out how to manage the impact of having millions of future electric vehicle owners plugging in their vehicles at the same time. 'We got to be careful how we manage these things,' he said. 'On a hot day in July when 5 million Californians come home, you don't want them all plugging in at the same moment.' Reicher laid out a scenario where power utilities, during a time of high demand, could turn on or off the charging of electric vehicles. The owner of these vehicles, who have agreed to such an arrangement, would get a credit from the utility in turn. 'The grid operators may well be indifferent to either putting 500 megawatts of new generation on or taking 500 megawatts off,' he said. 'The beauty of plug-in vehicles is that with the right software behind them, you could manage their charging.' Apart from plug-in hybrids, Google also is working on other green technologies such as developing its own new mirror technology that could reduce the cost of building solar thermal plants by a quarter or more, and looking at gas turbines that would run on solar power rather than natural gas. The often-quirky company also said in late 2007 that it would invest in companies and do research of its own to produce affordable renewable energy -- at a price less than burning coal -- within a few years, casting the move as a philanthropic effort to address climate change."
Google working on 'smart' plug-in hybrid charging
London Times, 29 September 2009

"Only in California, some observers are saying, but solar enthusiasts see the solar electric car charging stations as the wave of future. A joint venture between Foster City-based SolarCity and San Carlos-based Tesla Motors, the solar charging stations will be placed at four specific Rabobank locations (Salinas, Atascadero, Santa Maria and Goleta) along the 101 route from San Francisco to Los Angeles, one of the most heavily traveled roadways in the world. Rabobank, another participant in the revolutionary endeavor, is an international financial services provider located in 16 countries with headquarters in the Netherlands. Together, the three entities now offer solar charging venues to Tesla drivers. Next year, according to SolarCity spokesman Jonathan Bass, the company will refit the charging stations to correspond to standards established by the Society of Automotive Engineers, making them available to drivers of other electric vehicles as well. The solar charging stations are part of a marketing strategy, of course, but they also represent the companies’ focus on reducing the use of fossil fuels and the attendant emissions that contribute to global warming....Funding for the project came from the California Air Resources Board, which in 2007 provided a grant to Tesla of $641,000, according to Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad. Part of that grant went into the cooperative development, with Auburn-based EV supplier Clipper Creek, of a fast-charging unit that Tesla has named the 'High Power Connector'. This unit delivers up to 70 amps (240 volts) of electricity, which can charge the Tesla Roadster in as few as 3.5 hours....The High Power Connector comes with a price tag of $3,000, but can be installed in any garage or carport with a 15-amp circuit. Tesla cars can also be charged with any 110-volt outlet, but this process can take up to 1.5 days."
California Highway 101 Gets Solar Power Car Chargers
Cooler Planet, 28 September 2009

"Marc Zakian - I am cruising the outskirts of London in a vehicle that could turn white van drivers green. Green with envy, as a tank of diesel costs £100 compared with our £5 fill-up; and environmentally green because the van I am steering is electric. The curved-nosed box-van can carry up to two tonnes (think Transit, but longer and taller). It is made by Modec, a Midlands-based company set up in 2004 by the former chairman of Manganese Bronze – makers of the iconic London taxi. After a £30m development, the Modec was launched in 2007. Driving the Modec is a contradictory experience. Perched in its cabin, you command the road, and yet the ride is extraordinarily quiet; with none of the shake and rattle or the whiff of diesel of a traditional van – only the squeaks from the chassis and the beehive hum of the electric motor let you know you are driving. With no noise pollution or tailpipe emissions, the electric van should be the bright green future for commercial transport. But if the Zev (Zero Emission Vehicle) is to replace Britain's 3m diesel vans it will have to satisfy two demands: the distance it can travel on one charge, and its price....It is once the Zevs are on the road that savings are made. 'We spend £25 a week charging an electric van, compared with £200 on a diesel equivalent,' says Nick Murray, TNT's communications manager. 'After three years an electric van works out cheaper than diesel.' As well as costing less in fuel, electric vans don't need an MOT, are zero-rated for road tax and have no oil or filters to change. And with only four moving parts in the engine – compared with more than 1,000 on an internal combustion engine – electric vehicles are cheaper to maintain and suffer fewer breakdowns....Although electric HGVs are starting to make an appearance – last May the port in Los Angeles started using electric trucks to move sea containers – they are short-range vehicles. Electric vans recharge on the move, generating power when the vehicle brakes and returning that power to the battery. So the stop/start rhythms of a delivery van are well-suited to electric power. Long-distance trucks drive for hours without stopping, way beyond the current 100- to 150-mile battery range. One potential solution is already incorporated into the Modec van. The battery is exchangeable. This future-proofs the vehicle, so that as technology improves, vehicles can be retrofitted with the latest batteries. Currently this swap takes about 15 minutes. But if the exchange were speeded up, it would pave the way for a relay of 'battery stations' around the country, with electric vans or trucks swapping spent batteries for charged ones, giving them an infinite range. This potential is being exploited by Project Better Place, who with Renault and Nissan are planning an electric car battery station network which they plan to deploy by 2011. But Dan Jenkins, from Smiths Electric Vehicles, believes the eventual solution will be improved battery technology. 'Lithium ion battery technology is only at the beginning of its performance curve,' he stresses. 'In the next few years we will see the range being extended to 200 miles and beyond. And in the long term, batteries using ultra-capacitors should mean you can fast-charge in minutes.' In the meantime, for the newly greened white van driver the Zev is good news. Goodbye to the bone-battering rattle of the diesel engine, and hello to the gearless, silent, stress-free world of the electric van."
Electric vans are a viable cleantech alternative
Guardian, 23 September 2009

"India wrong-footed the United States and other rich nations yesterday by agreeing for the first time to set numerical targets for curbing its greenhouse gas emissions. The move added to pressure on the Obama Administration to deliver on its own climate change pledges even as senior Democrats warned that US legislation may face severe delays....The announcement marks a breakthough in international talks, which have stalled over whether emissions curbs in a new UN climate treaty should apply to developing nations as well as to the developed countries covered by the Kyoto Protocol.... India has long refused to commit itself to any cuts on the ground that its per capita emissions are far lower than developed countries’ and any caps would hamper its economic development. Mr Ramesh said that in Copenhagen, India would stick to its long-standing commitment to keep per capita emissions below those of developed nations – and would not agree to any internationally binding cuts. He added, however, that India was drafting legislation that would set its own targets for mitigating carbon emissions through various domestic initiatives, such as a massive plan to promote solar energy. Carbon emissions in India are set to soar as its economy expands rapidly and industrialisation gathers pace. The new targets would be consistent with an annual growth rate of 8 to 9 per cent for India’s GDP, Mr Ramesh said. The announcement was designed to improve India’s image in the West as an obstacle to climate change talks and to put the onus on the developed world to commit to deeper emissions cuts."
India challenges US by agreeing to impose limits on carbon emissions
London Times, 18 September 2009

"BrightSource Energy Inc. today said it has scrapped a controversial plan to build a major solar thermal power facility in eastern Mojave Desert wilderness that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.) wants to transform into a national monument. The announcement ended a long-running dispute between backers of renewable energy and environmentalists strongly opposed to the idea of creating an industrial zone within 600,000 acres of former railroad lands that had been donated to the Department of Interior for conservation."
Controversial plan for solar thermal power facility in Mojave Desert dropped
Los Angeles Times, 17 September 2009

"California is on track to more than double its power generated by solar panel installations in 2009, going against a downward global trend, according to research released on Wednesday. Research house iSuppli Corp also expects the Golden State's hot-streak to continue in 2010, when California's photovoltaic installations, in terms of megawatts of power generated, would increase another 68 percent, while solar panel installations around the world grow 54 percent. The solar power industry has suffered in the credit crisis, which has dried up available financing for new projects and a dramatic fall in solar panel prices has cut into companies' profits."
California to more than double solar power in '09
Reuters, 16 September 2009

"A solar-powered house built by a group of Texas students offers a blueprint for recession-hit U.S. families to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions and their electricity bills without busting their budget. The Zerow House, built by students at Rice University in Houston, will compete against other solar homes in Washington D.C. in October as part of the Solar Decathlon sponsored by the U.S. Energy Department. But unlike some of its competitors, which are integrating high-concept, high-price features like tricked-out home entertainment systems and moving solar arrays that track the sun, the Rice team's aim is affordability...The house, about the size of a New York-style efficiency apartment, is a case study in frugality, and could easily be built in Houston for about $100,000, Sanchez said....Thanks to strong government incentives, Germany is the world's biggest solar market and is expected to remain so until 2013, when the United States will become its equal. China will be slightly behind, according to research firm Lux Research."
Cheap solar? Texan house aims low to win contest
Reuters, 16 September 2009

"Since its founding in 2002, Nanosolar has raised a lot of money – half a billion dollars to date – and made a lot of noise about upending the solar industry, but the Silicon Valley start-up has been a bit vague on specifics about why it’s the next big green thing. On Wednesday, Nanosolar pulled back the curtain on its thin-film photovoltaic cell technology — which it claims is more efficient and less expensive than that of industry leader First Solar — and announced that it has secured $4.1 billion in orders for its solar panels.  Martin Roscheisen, Nanosolar’s chief executive, said customers included solar power plant developers like NextLight, AES Solar and Beck Energy of Germany. The typical Nanosolar farm will be between 2 and 20 megawatts in size, Mr. Roscheisen said in an e-mail message from Germany, where he was attending the opening of Nanosolar’s new factory near Berlin. 'This is a sweet spot in terms of ease of permitting and distributed deployment without having to tax the transmission infrastructure.' Nanosolar, based in San Jose, Calif., has developed a solar cell made from copper indium gallium (di)selenide. The semiconducting materials and nanoparticles are contained within a proprietary ink that makes it possible to print flexible solar cells on rolls of cheap aluminum foil."
$4.1 Billion in Orders for Thin-Film Solar
New York Times, 13 September 2009

"Chinese officials have signed a deal with America’s First Solar, the world’s largest manufacturer of solar cells, to convert a remote desert area of inner Mongolia into a giant power station. First Solar, based in Arizona, said that the plant would be the largest solar station on the planet and would eventually involve carpeting 25 square miles of the remote Chinese province — an area roughly the size of Manhattan — with gleaming panels. Once completed, in 2019, the site will generate 2,000 megawatts of electricity — equivalent to nearly double the output of the Dungeness nuclear power station and enough to power three million Chinese homes. Mike Ahearn, the chief executive of First Solar, said that construction of a pilot project would begin by June 2010. A further three phases will gradually boost power generation at the site from 30 to 2,000 megawatts.... He added that a solar plant of this size would cost $5 billion (£3 billion) to $6 billion in the US, but that it would be cheaper to build in China. While some of the details have not yet been worked out, the plant will be located within a huge new development zone that is eventually expected to generate nearly 12 gigawatts of renewable energy from wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric power. Beijing is eager to position China as a world leader in renewable energy. It plans to generate 15 per cent of its energy from green sources by 2020 and a variety of government incentives have been introduced. First Solar will provide about 27 million thin-film panels for the site by 2019 and is considering building a factory to support the project."
Mongolia poised to become a world leader in solar power
London Times, 10 September 2009

"Google Inc is disappointed with the lack of breakthrough investment ideas in the green technology sector but the company is working to develop its own new mirror technology that could reduce the cost of building solar thermal plants by a quarter or more. 'We've been looking at very unusual materials for the mirrors both for the reflective surface as well as the substrate that the mirror is mounted on,' the company's green energy czar Bill Weihl told Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday. Google, known for its Internet search engine, in late 2007 said it would invest in companies and do research of its own to produce affordable renewable energy within a few years. The company's engineers have been focused on solar thermal technology, in which the sun's energy is used to heat up a substance that produces steam to turn a turbine. Mirrors focus the sun's rays on the heated substance. Weihl said Google is looking to cut the cost of making heliostats, the fields of mirrors that have to track the sun, by at least a factor of two, 'ideally a factor of three or four.' 'Typically what we're seeing is $2.50 to $4 a watt (for) capital cost,' Weihl said. 'So a 250 megawatt installation would be $600 million to a $1 billion. It's a lot of money.' That works out to 12 to 18 cents a kilowatt hour. Google hopes to have a viable technology to show internally in a couple of months, Weihl said. It will need to do accelerated testing to show the impact of decades of wear on the new mirrors in desert conditions."
Google plans new mirror for cheaper solar power
Reuters, 9 September 2009

"In a nation known more for its belching smokestacks, solar water heaters are on nearly every roof in some cities. Manufacturers are eyeing foreign markets, including Southern California....Before her family bought a solar water heater, Liu Yan would bathe the way many working-class Chinese have for generations: boil water, dampen a rag and wipe away the dirt. Today, the 40-year-old mother and her family shower every day and wash their dishes with hot water. The stainless steel heater affixed to her red-tiled roof cost about $220. The device has become a symbol of China's rising standard of living and its leap into the era of clean energy. In the seaside city of 2.8 million where Liu lives in Shandong province, 99% of households use solar water heaters. The mattress-sized contraptions dominate Rizhao's skyline, resting haphazardly on almost every residential rooftop. In the global race to develop green technology and stem climate change, China has quickly become a leading producer of solar panels and wind turbines. It also dominates the lesser-known technology of solar water heaters. Using principles of solar heating more than a century old, the humble, low-cost devices consist of an angled row of cola-colored glass tubes that absorb heat from the sun. The most common models fill the tubes with cold water. As it heats, the water rises into an insulated tank where it can remain hot for days....The technology's gains here lie in its affordability, the dearth of residential natural gas service and the modest expectations of consumers, many of whom had never enjoyed hot water at home before. The starting price for one of the clunky devices is around $220, about the same as an electric heater in China. In the United States, where labor costs are higher and systems tend to be larger and more elaborate, solar water heaters can easily cost $1,500 or more. 'The key to the success in China is that the low price enables people to have an instantaneous payback,' said John Perlin, a solar energy historian and author of 'From Space to Earth: The Story of Solar Electricity.' A thriving, hyper-competitive industry of 5,000 manufacturers has grown up in the last decade or more, driving costs down and widening the range of quality. 'The market is huge, but the competition is fearsome,' said Bi Bangquan, president of Ri- zhao Gold Giant Solar Power, one of 150 manufacturers based in the city."
China, green? In the case of solar water heating, yes
Los Angeles Times, 6 September 2009

"The technological breakthrough that led to digital cameras was the charge-coupled device, or CCD. The equivalent for electric cars is the lithium-ion battery, or Li-ion. Just as CCDs were used first in specialist applications, such as television cameras, so Li-ion batteries have been used in laptop computers and mobile phones. By 2003, however, their price had dropped to a level where Elon Musk, an entrepreneur who had helped launch PayPal, an online payments service, thought that they might be cheap enough to form the basis of an all-electric sports car. The 'killer app' of this car would be its acceleration. Unlike internal-combustion engines, electric motors have full torque, as pulling-power is called, from zero revs. They are thus predisposed to go like a bat out of hell without the aid of a gearbox. Mr Musk’s brainchild is known as the Tesla Roadster (pictured above). The sports version goes from zero to 100kph (62mph) in 3.7 seconds—not much slower than a top-line Ferrari. The desire for acceleration at any price ($121,000, since you ask) is a niche market, but niche markets are the classic way in for a disruptive technology. Tesla’s next vehicle, the Model S, is a more mainstream family car. At about $50,000 it will still not be cheap, but it should be cheap enough to appeal to those who like to think of themselves as early adopters, but who also have spouses and children to worry about.   Another reason for the high price of Tesla’s cars is their range. According to its maker, the Roadster can travel almost 400km between charges. The Model S should be able to do even better. But cheaper electric cars have to make a trade-off between range, price and convenience. Since batteries can be recharged only slowly (the process takes hours, not minutes), a car’s effective range is limited by the size of its battery. And batteries are expensive. A lot of researchers are working on making them cheaper and faster to charge, of course. In the meantime, though, there are three approaches to the trade-off, each of which has its champions. One is to accept the range limit and design small, thrifty vehicles specialised for city use. This has the virtue of simplicity and the vice of inflexibility. The second is to add a petrol-driven generator known as a 'range extender'. This complicates the mechanics, but provides the driver with a security blanket, for he knows he will never be stranded if he can find a petrol station. The third answer is to keep the car all-battery, but to introduce a network of battery-exchange stations similar to the existing network of petrol stations, so that someone who is running out of juice can pull in, swap over and pull out. A leading contender in the first category is Mitsubishi’s i-MiEV, which should go on sale next year. Its initial price will be ¥4.6m ($49,000), although that is expected to be cut in half once the car goes on sale outside Japan. That halving (and potential quartering) of price compared with a Tesla Roadster is achievable because the i-MiEV’s battery has only 88 Li-ion cells, rather than the Tesla’s 1,800. It uses its limited resources well, however. Its quoted range is 160km. Other electric city cars are expected from firms such as Fiat and Toyota. And in November Daimler (which also owns 6% of Tesla) plans to start producing a Li-ion-powered version of its Smart Fortwo. In Germany, a full charge will cost about €2 ($2.80) and keep the vehicle going for around 115km—although there is room in the car, as the name suggests, for only two people....The third answer, though, is perhaps the most radical. Instead of a petrol engine, with its widespread infrastructure of filling stations providing the security blanket, why not build new infrastructure to refuel cars with new, fully charged batteries? The leading proponent of this idea is Better Place. This firm, which is based in California, has been scouring the world for car markets that are, in its terminology, 'islands' and offering to fit them with networks of car-charging and battery-swapping stations that will use robots to exchange exhausted batteries for fully charged ones in seconds. Better Place defines an island as a place with an edge that motorists rarely cross, and the first to be picked by Shai Agassi, the firm’s founder, was Israel. Though more of the country’s edge is land than sea, few cars leave by either route. Israel is now being fitted out with the Better Place infrastructure. Meanwhile, Nissan is tooling up to start building cars with batteries of the appropriate dimensions, for sale starting next year, and Tesla plans to offer swappable batteries on the Model S. Other 'islands' that Better Place has signed deals with include Denmark, Hawaii and Australia. The firm also has a partnership with Tokyo’s largest taxi operator, Nihon Kotsu, to provide swappable batteries for a new fleet of electric taxis which will take to the streets of the Japanese capital. With some 60,000 taxis in Tokyo, this could turn into a huge market. Besides providing drivers with secure refuelling, the Better Place approach has a second advantage. Separating ownership of the battery from ownership of the car changes the economics of electric vehicles. If you rent the battery rather than buying it, that becomes a running cost (like petrol) and the sticker price of the car drops accordingly. This might not matter to a sophisticated economist, who would amortise the battery cost over the life of the vehicle. Many people, though, are swayed by the number they write on the cheque that they give to the dealer. Better Place, indeed, plans to go further. It will charge for its services (battery and electricity) by the kilometre travelled. The cost per kilometre will be lower than for petrol vehicles, and if you sign up for enough kilometres a month, it will throw in the car for nothing....That is possible in part because electric cars are efficient. According to Bosch’s calculations, a conventional internal-combustion-engined car can travel 1.5-2.5km on a kilowatt-hour (kWh) of energy. A hybrid with a combined electric and diesel engine would go up to 3.2km. But a battery-powered car can travel 6.5km. On top of that, the energy put into them is cheaper. Owners with garages or driveways can top up at night using the domestic supply. The long recharge time will thus not be an issue, and the electricity will be cheap, off-peak power. Even if more expensive daytime power is needed (some office and supermarket car parks are already being fitted with recharging points, in anticipation of mounting demand), the cost of such juice is still favourable compared with petrol. Only for garageless owners does recharging become complicated. They will need street-based electrical infrastructure, and a lack of this will limit the spread of electric vehicles to start with. That said, the batteries are expected to get better quite fast. No one is talking of Moore’s Law—a doubling of capacity every 18 months or so. But an improvement of about 8% a year into the foreseeable future is on the cards. A doubling in a decade, in other words. Bosch, for example, calculates that a car fitted with a 40kW motor capable of speeds of up to 120kph would need a Li-ion battery with a capacity of 35kWh. Today such a battery might cost around €17,000. With the technology and economies of scale Bosch expects to be available in 2015, that could drop to €8,000-12,000. As Ford recently pointed out, if the industry were to move towards a common standard for battery packs, this would help boost production volumes and so bring prices down even more. Bosch reckons that for electric cars to become universally popular, a threefold increase in energy density and a fall of two-thirds in the price of batteries will be needed. To that end, it has set up a joint venture with Samsung of South Korea to develop and produce Li-ion batteries for automotive use. Indeed, battery firms, both old and new, are coming up with innovations that add up to the 8% annual gains. These involve changes to the lithium chemistry of batteries, their mechanical properties and the electronics that control them. Among the newcomers are two American firms, A123 Systems and Boston Power, both of which are based in Massachusetts. A123 was founded in 2001 and is backed by General Electric. It uses nanoscale materials to boost the performance of its batteries (making an electrode out of nanoparticles increases its surface area, which in turn decreases the battery’s internal resistance and improves its ability to store and deliver energy). Its batteries are already used in power tools, and the company has formed alliances to supply Chrysler and SAIC Motor Corporation of Shanghai with car-sized versions. Its batteries were also being considered for the Volt, but GM eventually picked ones made by LG Chem, a South Korean firm.... Some carmakers are forming partnerships with battery-makers to ensure supplies and gain access to technology. Others are building their own battery factories. And some are doing both: Nissan has formed a joint venture with NEC to produce advanced Li-ion batteries that use a laminated structure to improve cooling. The firm is planning to put the batteries in a new five-seater family car called the Leaf that it intends to launch late next year in Japan and America as part of its alliance with Renault. The group plans to build 200,000 a year, the most ambitious production target so far for a pure-battery car. The Leaf will be powered by an 80kW electric motor and will have a range of at least 160km on a full charge. It can be charged to 80% capacity in 30 minutes with high-powered quick chargers which Nissan hopes will be installed in petrol stations and other public places.  At least one battery-maker, though, has loftier ambitions than merely supplying carmakers with its wherewithal. BYD, a Chinese firm, seems to have Panasonic’s success in the world of cameras in mind. Earlier this year it launched the first of what it promises will be a range of electric cars that will undercut those made by American and European producers, in part by using a novel material in the batteries’ electrodes."
The electric-fuel-trade acid test
Economist, 3 September 2009

"The number of cars in the rich world will grow only slowly in the years ahead, but car ownership elsewhere is about to go into overdrive. Over the next 40 years the global fleet of passenger cars is expected to quadruple to nearly 3 billion. China, which will soon overtake America as the world’s biggest car market, could have as many cars on its roads in 2050 as are on the planet today; India’s fleet may have multiplied 50-fold. Forecasts of this kind led Carlos Ghosn, boss of the Renault-Nissan alliance, to declare 18 months ago that if the industry did not get on with producing cars with very low or zero emissions, the world would 'explode'. Cars already contribute around 10% of the man-made greenhouse gases that are responsible for climate change. In big cities, especially those in fast-developing countries in Asia and Latin America, gridlocked traffic is responsible for health-threatening levels of local air pollution. To its credit (and under increasing pressure from legislators), the car industry is heeding Mr Ghosn’s call. Biofuels have fallen out of favour because of concerns that those produced in rich countries are not particularly green; but huge efforts are being made to develop cleaner conventional engines and, at the same time, move beyond them to electric, battery-powered vehicles, which produce fewer emissions even when the generation of the electricity needed to charge them is taken into account. By the end of next year, in addition to the increasing number of petrol-electric hybrids on offer, it will be possible for the first time to buy proper cars from mainstream manufacturers that are propelled solely by electric motors (see article). Among them will be Nissan’s Leaf and Chevrolet’s Volt. The Leaf will rely on battery power alone and will have a range of about 160km (100 miles) before it needs to be plugged in for a fresh charge. The Volt will have a small petrol-engine generator to recharge its batteries on trips of more than 65km. Both are medium-sized cars offering decent performance, practicality and safety—and neither looks off-puttingly weird. Electric cars from other mainstream manufacturers are not far behind. Problem solved, then? Alas, electric cars still face several roadblocks. The Leaf and the Volt will be expensive, costing around twice as much as comparable petrol-engined cars. That is because of the high cost of batteries, and because other components must be redesigned for electric vehicles. In an industry driven by scale, small volumes lead to high costs. A further problem is that the Volt and the Leaf must be plugged into the mains every night—fine if you have your own garage or driveway, but a bit tricky otherwise. All this could limit the appeal of electric cars to affluent greens living in leafy suburbs. Carmakers cannot overcome these problems on their own. Governments must also do their part, and not just in order to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. A switch to electric vehicles, along with better public transport, would also reduce choking air pollution in the developing world’s megacities. And most governments would prefer to be less dependent on imported oil: no country has embraced electric cars with more enthusiasm than Israel."
Electric cars: Charge!
Economist, 3 September 2009

"The electric car, so long promised, may finally be pulling into your driveway. In the U.S., a humbled General Motors just showed off one of its rare rays of light — the plug-in Volt, which GM says will get 230 miles per gallon when it hits roads in late 2010. Daimler is trialing an electric version of its baby Smart car and claims to get the equivalent of 300 m.p.g. In Japan this month, a confident Carlos Ghosn said that Nissan's upcoming, all-electric Leaf will get 367 m.p.g. Compared with those experienced players, Chinese manufacturers are like teenagers just getting their car keys. When it comes to electric, though, that could be an advantage. Beijing knows that promoting electric vehicles could be a way to stem the country's rising dependence on foreign oil and clear its polluted air. At the same time, Chinese battery companies like Lishen and Shenzhen-based BYD are looking to leverage their technology and leap into electric cars. Foreign automakers may have a century-long head start on conventional cars, but Chinese companies can compete on new electric technology today — on cost and on performance. 'When it comes to electric and hybrid cars, China is challenging the automotive industries in the Western industrial countries,' writes Wolfgang Bernhart, a consultant with Roland Berger who estimates that electrics and plug-ins could account for more than half the auto market in China by 2020. 'The race for electric mobility is just getting under way.'....the government in Beijing has made it very clear that it considers electric and plug-in vehicles a priority for Chinese companies, and it's willing to spend. The Chinese State Council announced in January that it would spend $1.6 billion over the next three years to develop alternative fuels, and there's already an $8,800 subsidy for local governments and taxi companies that buy electrics and hybrids — which is more than the U.S. government offers. And China already makes more lithium-ion batteries — the energy-dense technology key to new electric cars — than any other country on the planet. 'This is a priority for the Chinese government,' says Kelly Sims Gallagher, author of the book China Shifts Gears: Automakers, Oil, Pollution, and Development. 'They see it as a pathway to a more energy-secure future.'...'The Chinese customer is just getting off a bike, so they're not worried about not being able to drive six hours without a recharge," says Philip Gott, a director for automotive consulting at research firm IHS Global Insight. 'China has the chance to work out the kinks in its own backyard.'...Chinese companies don't have a hundred years of auto manufacturing to unlearn before they tackle electrics. Just as the country skipped ahead on mobile phones, it could do the same on electric cars. 'Electrics could be a way for Chinese automakers to leapfrog the rest of the globe,' says Perkowski. If automakers in the U.S. and elsewhere aren't worried about losing the race for the next great technology to the Chinese, they should be. On Aug. 5, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a long-awaited $2.4 billion in government grants to support the manufacture of electric cars and batteries. 'I don't want to just reduce our dependence on foreign oil and then end up dependent on foreign innovations,' Obama told an audience in the economically depressed state of Indiana. 'I want the cars of the future and the technologies that power them to be developed and deployed right here, in America.' U.S. automakers will need to move fast — China is already pulling away."
Electric Cars: China's Power Play
TIME, 31 August 2009

“Homeowners who install solar panels and wind turbines will be paid for any electricity that they feed back into the National Grid, the Government confirmed yesterday. The payments will be based on a fixed price per unit of electricity and will be set high enough to encourage hundreds of thousands of homes to invest in renewable sources of power. Local energy suppliers will adjust the bills that they issue according to the number of units fed back into the grid. Homeowners with low energy consumption and a solar panel could receive net payments from their energy company. Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said that the ‘feed-in tariffs’ would be available from next April.”
Money back for homeowners with solar panels and wind turbines
London  Times, 15 July 20099

“The world's most ambitious green energy project is about to take shape. It is a plan for a chain of mammoth sun-powered energy plants in the deserts of North Africa to supply power to Europe's homes and factories by the end of the next decade. In a few days' time a consortium of 20 German firms will meet in Munich to hammer out plans for funding the giant €400bn (£343bn) project, named Desertec. The scheme is being backed by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government and several German industry household names including Siemens, Deutsche Bank, and the energy companies RWE and E.ON. The Munich meeting will also involve Italian and Spanish energy concerns, as well as representatives from the Arab League and the Club of Rome think-tank. Energy experts have calculated that Desertec could meet at least 15 per cent of Europe's needs, and be up and running by 2019. By 2050, they estimate the contribution could be between 20 and 25 per cent. Although no host countries have been named, Desertec envisages a string of solar-thermal plants across North Africa's desert. The plants would use mirrors to focus the sun's rays, which would be used to heat water to power steam turbines. The process is cheaper and more efficient than the usual form of solar power, which uses photovoltaic cells to convert the sun's rays into electricity. The project also envisages setting up a new super grid of high-voltage transmission lines from the Mahgreb desert to Europe. Hans Müller-Steinhagen, of German Aerospace, has researched the project for the German government. He said that although the idea behind the scheme had been around for several years, investors had been deterred by the high costs of setting up the infrastructure. .. Germany's largest solar energy company, SolarWorld, argues that North Africa is too risky a location. ‘Building solar power plants in politically unstable countries opens you to the same kind of dependency as the situation with oil,’ said Frank Asbeck, the firm's managing director. Other critics claim that by singling out comparatively poor North African countries as a location for a sophisticated European solar energy project amounts to a form of ‘solar imperialism’.”
€400bn energy plan to harness African sun
Independent, 12 July 2009

"Declaring it a record total, Pacific Gas & Electric on Wednesday announced an expansion of solar-power contracts with Oakland's BrightSource Energy for a total of 1,310 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 530,000 California homes during peak hours of noon to 7 p.m. The power purchase agreements, which will now include seven power plants, add to a previous contract the two companies struck in April 2008 for up to 900 megawatts of solar thermal power. BrightSource called it the largest solar deal ever. The company now has 2,610 megawatts under contract, which it said is more than any other solar thermal company and represents more than 40 percent of all large-scale solar thermal contracts in the United States."
PG&E strikes huge solar power deal with BrightSource
Mercury News, 13 May 2009

"Solar panels provide a cheaper and more effective way to power buildings. 'If you had one of these arrays on your home,' says Vaguhn Prost of Missouri Solar Applications, 'it would produce about half of your electricity that you'd need for your average home.' This array is Columbia's solar panel, which provides a small amount of electricity to Columbia's electric grid. But Prost's company, which built the panel, will soon be bringing solar energy to Columbia's rooftops in another form. 'In the coming years, I think that people will look at solar shingles on their house as something as normal as having plumbing inside their house,' says Prost. His company has teamed up with the Dow Chemical Company to produce solar shingles. 'The solar market in Columbia is getting going,' says Connie Kacprowicz of Columbia Water and Light. 'It's still going to be a few years before we see a huge amount of production, but I think it's important that we're developing a renewable resource right here in Columbia.' The solar shingles would collect the energy and send it through a series of wires and transformers and into the home or power grid. While estimated costs are high right now, Prost says he is confident that demand will drive prices down once the shingles are on the market. 'It's going to be a little higher to start with, but you've got to try and work it and find ways to get the price down, and eventually it will get down,' he says. The solar shingles aren't scheduled to be sold until 2011. Prost said that part of the $50 million project will include test roofs in the same location as the current Columbia solar panel."
Solar Shingles Provide New Energy
Komu (Missouri), 17 February 2009

"Iran has announced the opening of its first ever solar power plant in the town of Shiraz in the Southwest of the country. Energy Minister Parviz Fattah told reporters that the facility was constructed using Iranian materials and expertise. Speaking to the Iranian News Agency he said, 'The country backs the use of alternative and renewable energy sources. In future alternative energy sources will be greatly developed in the country. The growth of investments in this sphere is expected.' According to Fattah, the Shiraz solar plant employs parabolic mirrors to direct energy from the sun’s rays into its solar receivers. At this stage, it appears that the plant is a pilot project intended to test the viability of future larger-scale projects. Any movement towards the development of domestic renewable energy supply is likely to be welcomed by many of the countries suspicious of Iran’s ambitions to develop nuclear power."
Iran Opens its First Solar Power Plant
CleanTechnica, 29 December 2008

"Using computer modeling, researchers at MIT are working to boost the output and efficiency of solar cells while lowering the cost of solar power. A team of MIT physicists and engineers say they have been able to boost the output of solar cells by as much as 50% by adding a combination of antireflection coatings and multilayered reflective coatings to silicon films on the cells. The research team said that the advancement could dramatically reduce the cost of using solar power because the amount of very pricey high-quality silicon traditionally used is slashed down to 1% of the normal amount."
MIT researchers boost the power of solar energy
Computer World, 1 December 2008

"In three years, buildings covered in steel sheets could be generating large amounts of solar electricity, thanks to a new photovoltaic paint that is being developed in a commercial partnership between UK university researchers and the steel industry. A laboratory built to develop the new solar technology that replicates plant's photosynthesis is due to start work on October 30th in Shotton, North Wales. 'If the solar cell paint can be successfully brought to the market, it could spell big changes when it comes to the future production of electricity,' said Steve Fisher, spokesperson of the Corus Group, the Anglo-Dutch steel manufacturing group that is believed to be pouring tens of millions of euros into the venture. The photovoltaic paint is made up of a layer of dye and a layer of electrolytes and can be applied as a liquid paste. Altogether, the sheets of steel get four coats of solar paint — an undercoat, a layer of dye-sensitized solar cells, a layer of electrolyte or titanium dioxide as white paint pigment and, finally, a protective film. The paste is applied to steel sheets when they are passed through the rollers during the manufacturing process. The four layers of the solar cell system are built up one after the other in rapid succession. Light hits the dye-sensitized solar cells, exciting the molecules that act as a light absorber or sensitizer. The excited molecules release an electron into the nanocrystalline titanium dioxide layer, which acts as an electron collector and a circuit. The electrons finally move back into the dye, attracted by positively charged iodide particles in a liquid electrolyte. The solar electricity that the area covered with paint generates is collected and provides power for whatever application it is connected to. Corus Colours produces about 100 million square meters of steel sheets a year. If the company's entire output of steel is given a lick of solar paint, then these steel sheets together could have a capacity of as much as 9,000 gigawatts [hrs] (GW) of electricity every year, assuming the solar cells attain a power conversion efficiency of about 11 percent. Because the photovoltaic paint has none of the material limitations of conventional silicon-based solar cell, it could, at least in theory, provide terawatts of clean solar electricity at a low cost in the coming decades. These new solar cells also have the advantage of being able to absorb across the visible spectrum. That makes them more efficient at capturing low radiation light than conventional solar cells, and so well suited to the British climate with its many cloudy days. Stephen Fisher said that Corus was developing the photovoltaic paint as part of its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions....Researchers working at the PV Accelerator Laboratory in Shotton are aiming to develop a method of applying the solar paint to steel at a rate of 30 to 40 square meters per second. Swansea University is leading the research together with Imperial College London and Bangor and Bath University. G24 Innovations started manufacturing dye-sensitized thin-film solar cells to be used for solar-powered chargers for mobile phones and digital cameras in Cardiff in Wales in 2007. The company claims its cells are the closest human beings have as yet come to replicating plant's photosynthesis."
Solar Paint on Steel Could Generate Renewable Energy Soon
RenewableEnergyWorld, 1 October 2008

"A UK-built solar-powered plane has set an unofficial world endurance record for a flight by an unmanned aircraft. The Zephyr-6, as it is known, stayed aloft for more than three days, running through the night on batteries it had recharged in sunlight. The flight was a demonstration for the US military, which is looking for new types of technology to support its troops on the ground. Zephyr has demonstrated that it can cope with extremes of temperature - from the blistering 45C heat found at ground level in Arizona's Sonoran Desert, to the minus 70C chill experienced at altitudes of more than 18km (60,000ft). The engineers from the Farnborough-based company are now collaborating with the American aerospace giant Boeing on a defence project codenamed Vulture. This would see the biggest plane in history take to the sky, powered by the sun and capable of carrying a 450-kilo (1,000lb) payload. US commanders say the design must be able to maintain its position over a particular spot on the Earth's surface uninterrupted for five years. QinetiQ is also developing UAV technology for civilian uses."
Solar plane makes record flight
BBC Online, 24 August 2008

"A new type of solar energy collector concentrates the sun into a beam that could melt steel. Researchers say the device could revolutionize global energy production. The prototype is a 12-foot-wide mirrored dish was made from a lightweight frame of thin, inexpensive aluminum tubing and strips of mirror. It concentrates sunlight by a factor of 1,000 to produce steam. 'This is actually the most efficient solar collector in existence,' said Doug Wood, an inventor based in Washington state who patented key parts of the dish's design — the rights to which he has signed over to a team of students at MIT."
Solar dish may revolutionize energy production
MSNBC, 20 June 2008

"It has been called the holy grail of the modern era - cheap solar energy. And scientists say it may be within our grasp soon. Queensland University team has grown the world's first titanium oxide nano crystals that are likely to revolutionise the way solar energy is harvested and used. Creating these highly efficient miniature crystals with large reactive surfaces was thought of as impossible by most scientists. Max Lu, who led the study, sounded upbeat that they were a step closer to the holy grail of cost-effective solar energy with their discovery. 'Highly active surfaces in such crystals allow high reactivity and efficiency in devices used for solar energy conversion and hydrogen production,' said Lu. 'Titanium nano-crystals are promising materials for cost-effective solar cells, hydrogen production from splitting water, and solar decontamination of pollutants. The beauty of our technique is that it is very simple and cheap to make such materials at mild conditions.' .... Details of the project have been published in the latest edition of the journal Nature."
Cheap solar power now within reach, says study
Sify, 30 May 2008

"IBM today announced a research breakthrough in photovoltaics technology that could significantly reduce the cost of harnessing the Sun's power for electricity.  By mimicking the antics of a child using a magnifying glass to burn a leaf or a camper to start a fire, IBM scientists are using a large lens to concentrate the Sun’s power, capturing a record 230 watts onto a centimeter square solar cell, in a technology known as concentrator photovoltaics, or CPV. That energy is then converted into 70 watts of usable electrical power, about five times the electrical power density generated by typical cells using CPV technology in solar farms. If it can overcome additional challenges to move this project from the lab to the fab, IBM believes it can significantly reduce the cost of a typical CPV based system. By using a much lower number of photovoltaic cells in a solar farm and concentrating more light onto each cell using larger lenses, IBM’s system enables a significant cost advantage in terms of a lesser number of total components. For instance, by moving from a 200 sun system ('one sun' is a measurement equal to the solar power incident at noon on a clear summer day), where about 20 watts per square centimeter of power is concentrated onto the cell, to the IBM Lab results of a 2300 sun system, where approximately 230 watts per square centimeter are concentrated onto the cell system, the IBM system cuts the number of photovoltaic cells and other components by a factor of 10....The trick lies in IBM’s ability to cool the tiny solar cell. Concentrating the equivalent of 2000 suns on such a small area generates enough heat to melt stainless steel, something the researchers experienced first hand in their experiments. But by borrowing innovations from its own R&D in cooling computer chips, the team was able to cool the solar cell from greater than 1600 degrees Celsius to just 85 degrees Celsius. The initial results of this project will be presented at the 33rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists conference today, where the IBM researchers will detail how their liquid metal cooling interface is able to transfer heat from the solar cell to a copper cooling plate much more efficiently than anything else available today. The IBM research team developed a system that achieved breakthrough results by coupling a commercial solar cell to an advanced IBM liquid metal thermal cooling system using methods developed for the microprocessor industry....While concentrator-based photovoltaics technologies have been around since the 1970s, they have received renewed interest in recent times. With very high concentrations, they have the potential to offer the lowest-cost solar electricity for large-scale power generation, provided the temperature of the cells can be kept low, and cheap and efficient optics can be developed for concentrating the light to very high levels."
IBM Research Unveils Breakthrough In Solar Farm Technology
Physorg.com, 15 May 2008

"...more than a decade of pioneering work has resulted in an organic solar cell that doesn't use expensive silicon. Conventional photovoltaic (PV) solar cells are made from a thin slice (around 200 microns) of silicon that is doped with chemicals to form a bilayer structure called a p-n junction. When photons of light are absorbed by the silicon, electrons flow, creating a small electric current. An organic solar cell takes a similar approach but uses an ultra-thin (100 nanometre) film mixture of two semiconducting polymers instead. The prototype organic solar cell - the size of Greenham's hand - produces enough power to run an electronic calculator. The idea of a purple-coloured polymer as a conductor seems odd when plastics are normally considered excellent insulators. But mounted on glass, this solar cell uses the same class of materials as the polymer light-emitting diodes: long-chain plastics with double bonds which permit electron flow.... Greenham is now working on a £5m project funded by the Carbon Trust to deliver solar energy at radically lower cost. Led by the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory with The Technology Partnership, there's a huge target: deploy more than one gigawatt of organic PV by 2017 to make carbon dioxide savings of more than 1m tonnes per year.....If all goes well, O'Brien reckons the new solar cell technology may be one hundredth of the cost of a silicon cell when in mass production - promising a solar energy revolution."
How solar power could become organic - and cheap
Guardian, 29 November 2007

"Renewable energy company Solar Systems says it has developed a way of converting solar power into electricity around the clock, even when the sun is not shining. Managing director Dave Holland told BusinessDaily that although the process, which produces hydrogen and stores it, is still years from connecting to the electricity grid, it has been demonstrated to produce baseload power. He said less than 1 per cent of the planet's arid lands could produce the entire world's energy needs using the technology, without harmful emissions, concern about finite fuel supply, or toxic waste. The company already operates four small commercial solar power stations in central Australia and is in advanced talks to export its technology through the Asia Pacific Partnership (AP6). Its innovative solar concentrating technology is much further down the cost curve than conventional photovoltaics.... It is envisaged the hydrogen technology will be added to Solar Systems' proposed $420 million solar power station near Mildura, which when it is complete in 2013 will have  the capacity to supply electricity to 45,000 homes. Solar Systems began to develop research by its technical director John Lasich 17 years ago and employs 90 people. Recently the company said it would spend $22 million to establish a manufacturing plant in Melbourne employing 150 people to make high efficiency photovoltaic components for domestic and overseas markets. The components produce up to 1500 times more electricity per square metre than traditional photovoltaic cells. The established outback generators use mirrors on giant dishes to concentrate solar energy and focus it on to photovoltaic receivers connected to the dish. The next generation technology being developed at Bridgewater takes the mirrors and lines them up in dozens of flat rows, rather than in dishes. Known as heliostats, the mirrors track the sun and focus its energy on to a receiver mounted on a tall pole. The technology that will continue to produce electricity when the sun goes down works by using the concentrated solar energy to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen through a spectrum splitter and then an electrolyser. The hydrogen is then stored in large onsite tanks, ready to be used by fuel cells for electricity generation at night."
Solar Systems making the sun work after dark
Herald Sun (Australia), 22 November 2007

"Power electronics company Hykon India Pvt. Ltd. has introduced a window collector solar water heater, claimed to be the first in the country. Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, the company's CMD, Christo George, said the window solar heaters were designed for installation on balconies and windows of flats, apartments and individual villas where conventional roof-top water heaters do not fit in."
Window solar water heaters now in India
Sify (India), 4 October

• Generation 1 is today, and that is bulk silicon, either single crystalline and polycrystalline silicon. That’s about 95% of the solar silicon market today.
• Generation 2, which is where people are going, is thin-film. In recent years, it has been about 5% of the market but is attracting a lot of attention in the industry and is expected to grow in market share in the coming years. Generation 2 produces solar cells at lower cost in dollars per Watt, but to date they also have lower module efficiency, typically less than 10% with a few exceptions up to about 12%. Laboratory cells as high as approximately 19.5% have been demonstrated however. With technologies such as thin-film, there are efforts to improve those module efficiencies.
• Then, we come to Generation 3 solar cells, where you can have both low-cost and high-efficiency – greater than 20% efficiencies with costs similar to Generation 2. These typically take advantage of new energy conversion mechanisms. The exact Generation 3 technologies to emerge are yet to be determined.

Nanotechnology is currently most relevant to Generation 3 cells, though it may also have an impact on Generation 1 and 2 devices.  In recent years the [silicon] supply was artificially constrained. In fact, silicon is the second most abundant element in the earth’s crust. So, the so-called ‘silicon shortage’ over the last few years was mostly due to the fact that [solar companies] relied on recycled silicon from electronics companies. But, now we see people adding new capacity for silicon made specifically for the solar industry, because the required purity is not as high as for the electronics industry. Nanotechnology does not seem to offer an immediate answer to the shortage since conventional approaches are being used. There are 4 different classes of nano-structures the community is applying to photovoltaics.... First you need to capture the light, and that’s critical to transfer the light into the structure. And, then you have to convert that into electron-hole pairs to create the electricity. That conversion is where nanotechnologies offer various improvements. And, as I mentioned, we are also looking at optical properties of nanowires, and how to apply what we learned there.... Overall, the field of improving solar technologies is still in the research phase in nano-related areas, and so we are still developing technologies and designs, but moving forward with nano-manufacturing will be a key aspect to making solar at much lower cost.... GE is involved with the Department of Energy’s Solar America Initiative, which is looking at 3 different solar cell approaches – high-efficiency silicon-based solar cells, molded silicon wafer cells, and flexible thin-film cells. These are all geared toward lowering the cost and improving efficiencies of solar cells. We are collaborating with several universities and small companies in this program. The research under [SAI] is not directly nano-focused, but we’re certainly using what we learn under SAI for our nano research programs. SAI is about applying innovative concepts for mass production of Generation 1 and 2 technologies.... There is a lot of promise. A lot of interesting work is going on out there, and it’s getting more interesting all the time."
GE’s Loucas Tsakalakos, a project leader in GE’s Nanotechnology Program
GE Looks at Nano to Power Next-Gen Solar In Historic R&D Labs of Thomas Edison
Nano World News, 24 September 2007

"Placing a film of silicon nanoparticles onto a silicon solar cell can boost power, reduce heat and prolong the cell's life, researchers now report. 'Integrating a high-quality film of silicon nanoparticles 1 nanometer in size directly onto silicon solar cells improves power performance by 60 percent in the ultraviolet range of the spectrum,' said Munir Nayfeh, a physicist at the University of Illinois and corresponding author of a paper accepted for publication in Applied Physics Letters. The process of coating solar cells with silicon nanoparticles could be easily incorporated into the manufacturing process with little additional cost, Nayfeh said."
Silicon Nanoparticles Enhance Performance Of Solar Cells
Science Daily, 20 August 2007

"It rains year round in Germany and clouds cover the skies for about two-thirds of each day, yet the country has managed to become the world's leading solar power generator.Millions of Germans may flee their damp, dark homeland for holidays in the Mediterranean sun but 55 per cent of the world's photovoltaic (PV) power is generated on solar panels set up between the Baltic Sea and the Black Forest. That makes up just 3 per cent of Germany's electricity but the Government wants to raise the share of renewables to 27 per cent of all energy by 2020 from 13 per cent."
Germany an unlikely hot spot for solar power
Reuters, 1 August 2007