The Homely Scientist

Remember me talking about wind-power hitting a tipping point and how solar was almost there?  In a case of news almost made to order is this bit of news:

The University of Delaware has inched up the record for solar cell efficiency with a new device that can convert 42.8 percent of the light that strikes it into electricity.

That beats the old record of 40.7 percent hit in December. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has been funding research to get efficiency up to 50 percent.

The cell, created by Christina Honsberg and Allan Barnett of UD, splits incoming light into three buckets: high energy, low energy, and medium energy light. The light is then directed to different materials, which then extract electrons out of the photons that make up sunlight.

The device also has an optical concentrator, sort of like a lens that directs more sunlight to the solar cell than would occur naturally and thereby increasing efficiency. Source: A new record in solar cells | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

While this might not seem huge, the combination of technologies is extremely important.  By using three different materials to extract the electrons and a concentrator the stage is set for more improvements to follow.  This development isn’t something we’ll see on people’s houses anytime soon, they are going to be very expensive to produce at first, but all innovations, all breakthroughs aren’t mystical bolts from the blue, they all build on the work done before.  This is just one of those steps or pieces of the puzzle.

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Nice to start off the week with some good news:

The wind power industry made big strides last year, according to a Worldwatch Institute report released late Thursday.

15,200 megawatts of new wind turbines were installed around the world last year, representing a 26 percent jump in global wind power capacity, according to the study.

By year’s end, total wind power capacity exceeded 74,200 megawatts, enough to offset 43 million tons of carbon dioxide, the institute said. Source:Study: Wind power soared in 2006 | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Large-scale deployment and adoption of any alternative energy is the key.  Once it hits that magic tipping point, then things just move on their own.  Costs decrease, technology improves by leaps and bounds.  I’d wager that wind-power has hit that point now.  Solar energy is close to that point.  The technologies are improving and with examples like Google’s solar array, I can see reaching that tipping point soon.

Heck, I think the idea of solar panels on laptop bags (which has been done) will start to catch on more.  Imagine charging your gear as you take a walk … double carbon savings!  Use the sun to charge the device (not the Grid) and not use a vehicle!

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 Microsoft is in the midst of building a new data centre.  Building, of course, means trucks and in this case trucks of cement.  One problem, when those trucks use petroleum diesel, they spew all kinds of garbage into the air.  Those chemicals and particles aren’t just bad for the planet in the long term they are bad for people in the short term.  Solution to the potential workplace hazard?  Biodiesel!

The construction company working on the new data centers approached Steve Verhey, the chief executive of Central Washington Biodiesel, with a problem earlier this year, he said. The company had built the shell, including walls and ceiling, of the 500,000-square-foot (46,451-square-meter), 11-acre building and found that laying the cement floor and finishing the rest of the interior presented a health and safety issue. That’s because cement trucks and other machinery that run on diesel and propane emit harmful exhaust into the enclosed space.
They wanted to know if biodiesel might solve the problem, Verhey said. The exhaust from biodiesel contains half the carbon monoxide of regular diesel, he said. In addition, one gallon (3.78 liters) of biodiesel lets off just 1.5 pounds (0.68 kilograms) of carbon dioxide, compared to 22 pounds per gallon for regular petrodiesel, he said, so biodiesel has a much smaller impact on the environment. Source: WinBeta.org Beta News and Reviews

Those stats are amazing.  Think about how internal air quality can be improved in warehouses even fire stations (which have to employ sophisticated venting systems now because of truck exhaust).  These are problems that can save real money.  Now the big question is, how quickly can we get more trucking companies to use biodiesel and how fast can we get in in the distribution system?

Technorati Tags: biodiesel, alternative energy, green technologies

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 Okay raise your hand, who hates bugs?  Yeah I figure everyone’s hands went up.  I’m not fearful of bugs (much), and am often called on for insect removal duty, but mosquitoes, yellow jackets, and flies are certainly pests we all would like to keep at bay.  In the segment below talks about Ultrafobos which is supposed to emit sounds from your computer speakers that will repell bugs (and other animals as well)…more after the jump..

 Seems like this could work.  Sound is a very powerful thing.  Sound waves can destroy buildings, glass, and if your a parent of teenagers, drive you batty.  I’ve downloaded it and will give it a try.

The principle is sound, the question is just the application.  What’s interesting is that if you follow the link above to download the program the screenshot shows a preset for teenagers.  I wonder what that plays?  Lawrence Welk?

Hat tip to Bill at the Repell-em Blog (disclosure, Repell-em is a client of mine, but the post is still cool).

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 In the Andes, the Incas and modern-day descendents have been gathering water from the fog for centuries.  The process there is simple, the fog hits some kind of cloth or sheeting and the water condenses on it.   Then the water collects and rolls down into a container.  These work amazingly well, but they are also huge and need pretty heavy fog to work well.  Max Whisson has taken the idea that there is always (pretty much) water in the air and uses condensation to make a water gathering machine:

There’s a lot of water floating around in the air everywhere, and inventor Max Whisson has figured out a way to extract it using Max Water, a wind-powered contraption he named after himself. Max Water uses the concept of condensation, where lower temperature allows less water to hang around in the air, and Whisson says that will amount to 10,000 liters per day dripping from this single rooftop device. Man, that’s a lot of water. Source: Green Invention: Max Water Cranks Moisture Out of the Air, Seems Miraculous - Gizmodo

This looks like another great way to gather supplemental water for things like gardens, etc in the city.  Of course it can serve as drinking water if it is purified.  Only hitch is that right now they will set you back about $44 grand.  Maybe with larger production the price can come down.

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First this is one of my favourite songs:

Maybe it isn’t as easy as I make it out to be, but in honour of today’s SciHealth Theme day, which is being Green, here are some of the easiest ways to be Green(er):

1. Recycle
2. Use compact florescent bulbs
3. Turn off lights (even ones with CF bulbs) when not in use
4. Unplug cell phones, etc when they are done charging (they are still drawing current)
5. Use low-flow shower heads and sink aerators
6. Turn down your water heater
7. Change the oil in your car
8. Keep your tires inflated (yep this really does help to save fuel)
9. Walk/Bike more - drive less
10. By used from thrift stores (less in the landfills, saves manufacturing resources)
11. Compost (if you can)

See that’s not so hard.  It can be easy to be green.

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How would you like to have a device that generates electricity just from the vibrations that are all around us?  How about if this device were smaller enough to be used in lots of small devices?  Making things like wireless transmitters small, cheap, and self-powered?  It’s a reality now:

The trick with this generator is efficiency: Its vibrating magnets are 10 times better at generating current than other machines of this sort. The obvious use for this is in wireless sensors, that currently use batteries that need to be replaced, and therefore must be located in accessible spots. With a vibration generator like this, you can stash a sensor wherever you like. Wherever you like.

The generator may also one day be used to power a pacemaker, which would indeed be a funny twist: It would derive its power from the beating of the heart that its job is to keep on track. How’s that for existentialism? Source: Free Energy Isn’t Free: Here’s One Magnetic Free Energy Machine That Actually Works - Gizmodo

Just to recap how this actually works, when you spin magnets around a copper coil you generate current.  Basic stuff … it’s what powers all those wind up radios and flashlights.  Through the same principle and physics these two vibrating magnets do the same thing.  If you want to know more about the physics behind this Wikipedia’s article on electrical generators is very cool.

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Need a daily dose of ideas to help save energy (and the planet…but that is such a huge concept, too distant for many…stick to stuff closer to home and you)?  Check out LiveEarth’s Twitter feed:

Shading windows. It can lower your home’s temperature and reduce your cooling costs by 30%. Source: Twitter / LiveEarth070707

This tip is especially good right now as the hottest part of the summer is coming our way in the Northern Hemisphere (the Dog Day … which are named such because Sirius the Dog Star become visible this time of year).  Another great one is to put a fan at the top of the stairs to your cellar (if you have one) to bring cold air up from there.

The LiveEarth concert is this weekend.  I’m going to try to listen to it as much as possible, but since it should be a nice weekend I think I’m going to get everyone out of the house for some fun.

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Insulating buildings is one of the most important aspects of the building process.  Insulation not only has to, well, insulate, but it also has to not grow nasty things and last for a long time (who wanted to rip open all their outside walls every few years–if ever).  Insulation, which is typically fiberglass now, does take resources to make and isn’t recyclable (although it is made from recycled glass).  Now, what if you could grow insulation?  Yeah, grow.  Couple smart guys figured out how to make a growing medium for oyster mushroom spores that could become suitable insulation material:

Placed in a dark environment, the cells start to grow, digesting the starch as food and sprouting thousands of root-like cellular strands. A week to two weeks later, a 1-inch-thick panel of insulation is fully grown. It’s then dried to prevent fungal growth, making it unlikely to trigger mold and fungus allergies, according to Bayer. The finished product resembles a giant cracker in texture.

“It really allows for a myriad of uses,” said McIntyre. He said they’ve envisioned modifying the product to make structural panels that could be grown and assembled onsite to produce sustainable homes.

“Green building materials should be evaluated on the idea of cradle to cradle,” said Evelyne Michaut of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In the cradle-to-cradle industrial model, goods should either be fully biodegradable or reusable, limiting waste and pollution, according to Michaut, a sustainable city advocate from Santa Monica, Calif.

“That’s the ultimate environmental reference,” she said, adding that it seems like Greensulate is on its way to fulfilling that criteria.

For Bayer and McIntyre, their next step will be creating larger pieces of Greensulate to use in building a wall. From there, they’ll perform further testing to see how the product stands up to various elements, including saturation and humidity. McIntyre said they have one two-year-old sample that’s been exposed to the elements and shown no sign of degradation. Source: Mushrooms become source for eco-building - Yahoo! News

Cool stuff.  Of course, it’s a little ways from being a part of your next building project, but it shows the amazing untapped potential of natural materials.

Hat tip: Boing Boing

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