The SL1 is out the door
After about 1.5 person-years of work over the last 9 months or so, we finally released our first product at GreenMountain Engineering. I’ve been working for various different consulting firms (MindTribe, Ideo, and now GreenMountain) over the past few years, and this is the first time I’ve been involved in shipping a product that wasn’t owned by someone else. I feel proud, and I didn’t even do the hard part– most of the development and testing took place in our San Francisco office.
The product is the called the Trac-stat SL1. It’s a ridiculously accurate sensor for measuring how closely your solar tracker is aimed at the sun. I think the spec is 0.02 degrees for the more accurate of the two sensors it contains.
Max and two of his west coast disciples have been testing it at our secret rooftop testing facility in San Francisco for the last few months. (Pretend you don’t recognize the lights of the Giants’ baseball stadium in the background.) The graph below shows the output of the sensor. This was on a tracker of relatively low precision that we have used for a couple of different concentrating solar projects.
The largest target market for the SL1 is the roughly 30 companies worldwide that are trying to build concentrating photovoltaic systems. The key point of leverage behind concentrating solar is that if you can gather the same amount of sun with a drastically reduced amount of solar cell, you can win on cost. An unfortunate side effect is that as your target gets smaller, you need to aim ever more precisely at the sun. This means that to be able to evaluate the performance of your concentrating system, you have to know how well you are pointed at the sun. This alone is a serious research project; there is substantial empirical evidence that building a sensor to track the sun takes on the order of 1.5 person-years of work, and that doesn’t even get you any actuation. You can buy a pretty good tracker, but you won’t know how good unless you have some sort of diagnostic instrument that can measure your error very precisely.
When I worked in the Stanford Robotics Lab after grad school, a shrewd man told me on one occasion, “Don’t make everything a research project.” (I think I was proposing writing my own TCP/IP stack or something similarly idiotic that would have taken long enough to preclude completion.) My hope is that the concentrating solar companies will not spend the collective 45 person-years of engineering time it would take them to each build an SL1 equivalent.
And finally, did I mention that it also has a sweet command line interface?
(Perhaps I should note that the opinions listed above do not represent those of my employer. Especially not the unreasoning zeal for command line interfaces.)
Sourse: The SL1 is out the door
Auburn University’s Renewable Energy Message Goes Mobile
Sourse: Auburn University’s Renewable Energy Message Goes Mobile
City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee to Review Bioheat Act of 2007 on Thursday
Drafted by City Council Member David Yassky of Brooklyn’s 33rd District, the New York City Bioheat Act of 2007 would require a phase-in of biodiesel (fuel made from combining animal fat or vegetable oil, including recycled restaurant grease, with alcohol) for all heating oil purchased in New York City beginning on January 1, 2009. Pure biodiesel, which is referred to as B100, contains 100 percent biodiesel fuel, while B20 (twenty percent) can be used as an additive and combined with other fuels, obviating the need to retrofit fuel systems. The law would require B5 by 2009, B10 by 2011, and B20 by 2013. In addition, it would also mandate B10 and B20 for all heating oil purchased for use in any City-owned and operated building by 2009 and 2011, respectively. Many state laws in the U.S.- including here in New York- require public buildings to use B2 in their heating systems, but Mr. Yassky’s bill would obviously place Gotham at the vanguard of alternative fuel regulation. Compared to conventional diesel emissions, B20 offers a 20 percent reduction in hydrocarbons and 12 percent reduction in carbon monoxide. The City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee will review the bill on Thursday afternoon at 1PM; we’ll follow up with more details in the aftermath of the hearing.
Sourse: City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee to Review Bioheat Act of 2007 on Thursday
X6 to be First Hybrid BMW [Detroit Auto Show]
It looks like BMW is going to offer its first hybrid powertrain in the new X6 Sport Activity Vehicle. It’s likely that sales of the X6 hybrid will begin in 2009. The new X-Drive system should come in handy distributing the massive torque the electric motors are sure to develop to whichever wheel has the most grip. [Via eGM CarTech]
Sourse: X6 to be First Hybrid BMW [Detroit Auto Show]
Alternative Energy for the Home
Alternative Energy for the Home
Brought to you by Steven Anderson Enterprises. We also maintain a ebay store where you can get a great selection of Alternative Energy e-books. Check out the three links below if you are interested.
131 E-Book Package About Alternative Energy, Solar, Wind, Hydrogen Generators
The trend toward homes that are powered by alternative energy sources, ranging from wind turbines and solar collection cells to hydrogen fuel cells and biomass gases, is one that needs to continue into the 21st century and beyond. We have great need of becoming more energy independent, and not having to rely on the supplying of fossil fuels from unstable nations who are often hostile to us and our interests. But even beyond this factor, we as individuals need to get “off the grid” and also stop having to be so reliant on government-lobbying giant oil corporations who, while they are not really involved in any covert conspiracy, nevertheless have a stranglehold on people when it comes to heating their homes (and if not through oil, then heat usually supplied by grid-driven electricity, another stranglehold).
As Remi Wilkinson, Senior Analyst with Carbon Free, puts it, inevitably, the growth of distributed generation will lead to the restructuring of the retail electricity market and the generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. The power providers may have to diversify their business to make up for revenues lost through household energy microgeneration. She is referring to the conclusions by a group of UK analysts, herself included among them, who call themselves Carbon Free. Carbon Free has been studying the ever-growing trend toward alternative energy-using homes in England and the West. This trend is being driven by ever-more government recommendation and sometimes backing of alternative energy research and development, the rising cost of oil and other fossil fuels, concern about environmental degradation, and desires to be energy independent. Carbon Free concludes that, assuming traditional energy prices remain at their current level or rise, microgeneration (meeting all of one’s home’s energy needs by installing alternative energy technology such as solar panels or wind turbines) will become to home energy supply what the Internet became to home communications and data gathering, and eventually this will have deep effects on the businesses of the existing energy supply companies.
Carbon Free’s analyses also show that energy companies themselves have jumped in on the game and seek to leverage microgeneration to their own advantage for opening up new markets for themselves. Carbon Free cites the example of electricity companies (in the UK) reporting that they are seriously researching and developing ideas for new geothermal energy facilities, as these companies see geothermal energy production as a highly profitable wave of the future. Another conclusion of Carbon Free is that solar energy hot water heating technology is an efficient technology for reducing home water heating costs in the long run, although it is initially quite expensive to install. However, solar power is not yet cost-effective for corporations, as they require too much in the way of specialized plumbing to implement solar energy hot water heating. Lastly, Carbon Free tells us that installing wind turbines is an efficient way of reducing home electricity costs, while also being more independent. However, again this is initially a very expensive thing to have installed, and companies would do well to begin slashing their prices on these devices or they could find themselves losing market share.
Sourse: Alternative Energy for the Home
Clean Energy Stocks and Dividends
I’ve been meaning to learn more and more about a few things lately, including investing in the energy sector and taking advantage of stocks with a solid dividend.
For those that don’t know, dividends are “payments” that a company returns to its stockholders. You can either use that money to simply buy more of the stock (called dividend reinvestment) or you can take that money and keep it (but you’ll have to pay capital-gains taxes on it) .
Since the economy is apparently going into a recession and stocks in general are expected to be pretty flat, dividends are a great way to hedge against this, provided you pick the right securities (stocks, ETFs, or mutual/index funds).
It’s something I’m familiar with at an intro level, but I haven’t really gone into my obsessive research mode—which needs to happen before I make any money decision.
So it’s nice to bump into a fellow blogger who shares these and other concerns: Living Off Dividends is exactly what it sounds like and we both share an affinity for Warren Buffett. We both got started in all this after reading Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, too.
So if you want to know more about dividends definitely check out his site.
As for energy stocks, this is one of those things that, years from now, people will be saying “Duh, you didn’t invest in alternative-energy stocks back then? It was so obvious!”
This is the sense I’m getting for reading finance-related magazines and websites, but maybe I’m totally wrong. Being an index-fund fanatic, I don’t think I’m ready to make the commitment to one or two specific stocks, so this article really lays out some good options in terms of which ETFs are good possibilities.
A lot of them are small-cap businesses, which means they are more risky but have the capacity to grow more than established stocks. It’s one of those high risk, high reward deals.
If you have any good websites, articles, or blog posts relating to these two topics, please post them in the comments section and we’ll see what’s out there that may help us all out.
Sourse: Clean Energy Stocks and Dividends
Turning sunflowers into energy
Steven Taylor, Ph.D. heads Auburn’s Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts, which is part of the Natural Resources Management & Development Institute. He is a professional engineer, a professor and head of the Department of Biosystems Engineering at Auburn University. His post on sunflowers and biodiesel originally appeared in The Birmingham News blog. You can read his full post at The News or read an excerpt below.
Like countless other farmers, Annie and Mike Dee had seen their farm profits steadily eroded by rising energy costs. And like most other farmers, they were fed up.
For this brother-and-sister farming duo, the energy spike following Hurricane Katrina turned out to be the last straw. They were determined to do something about it. And with equipment and technical assistance provided by Auburn University’s Natural Resources Management & Development Institute, they did just that.
In a manner of speaking, they learned how to turn their combine into an oil rig by developing a way to grow and consume their own fuel. Sunflowers and soybeans grown on their sprawling west Alabama farm first are pressed into oil and then converted into biodiesel to power their farm equipment. But the Dees didn’t stop there. In conservation language, they have developed a way to close the loop by converting the waste co-products generated by this oil refinement process into a feed for their cattle.
The Dees are onto something, and so are other Alabama farmers who are adopting their own distinctive approaches to energy self-sufficiency. And there is a lesson here for all of us — farmer and nonfarmer alike — namely, that the path to energy efficiency will be winding and broad rather than straight and narrow. And just as the path will be wide, so will the array of technologies required to complete the journey.
In fact, no approach constitutes the final word on alternative energy production. Quenching our state’s and nation’s growing thirst for renewable energy calls for a multifaceted approach that not only encompasses biodiesel but also a host of other cost-effective technologies for converting biomass from plants, trees, crop residue and other byproducts into viable energy resources.
Corn-derived ethanol has and will continue to play a vital, albeit limited, role in powering our nation down the road to energy self-sufficiency. However, relying only on ethanol from corn will not enable us to achieve our energy security goals. That is why the Natural Resources Management & Development Institute’s bioenergy and bioproducts initiative is looking farther down the road toward the biomass-derived energy sources — wood, switchgrass and agricultural residues, to name only a few — that offer even greater potential as renewable fuels. It is also why the initiative is working with farmers and entrepreneurs to develop cost-effective strategies and technologies to capitalize on these sources.
Alabama constitutes a potential treasure trove of biomass-derived fuels — the reason why it and other Southern states often are described as this nation’s Middle East in terms of renewable energy. But the challenge remains of finding a way to break down this biomass into a form that can be readily and cost-effectively converted into renewable fuels. Much remains to be done, though much already has been done at Auburn and other major research universities.
In fact, Auburn researchers already are tantalizingly close to pay dirt. They have the ability to gasify biomass and to use it to power electrical generating plants. A big focus of Auburn’s bioenergy and bioproducts initiative’s efforts also is on refining thermochemical research already under way at Auburn and developing a cost-effective way to convert biomass into gas so it then can be turned into biofuels such as synthetic diesel fuel, gasoline or aviation fuel.
Sourse: Turning sunflowers into energy
Solar Trees
Solar Tree II, originally uploaded by Gnal.
In Vienna Austria they have been experimenting with solar trees. These are very aesthetically pleasing. From Solar Power Rocks:
Street lighting accounts for roughly 10% of total European energy consumption. That amounts to a staggering 2,000 billion kilowatts or nearly three billion tons of carbon emissions. While that figure is immense, then again, it’s worth it - in urban planning circles, street lighting is a tried-and-true tactic to reduce crime, increase livability, etc. And, bonus: they look like cybernetic trees.
This is a solid example of using art and aesthetics to get solar power up and running: it’s probably no coincidence that these trees have now been planted for display outside the opera house in Milan. And if people can imagine solar power as being an integrated part of their landscape, then we’ve got nowhere to go but up.
Sourse: Solar Trees
Alternative Energy Sources Today And The Future
There is a huge challenge on how we utilize alternative energy sources. The world’s success will be dependent upon how well we all work together in using these resources as constructively and economically as possible. Finding an alternative fuel source for the globe is a priority.
With alternative energy sources, the applications are nearly infinite for alternative energy. Sources such as geothermal energy which is generated from the internal heat of the planet.
The output of energy is minor and not able to impact on a large scale. However, the energy can be used to power steam turbines, which in turn can generate electricity.
Alternative energy sources that include fuel cell technologies are going to be at the forefront of the environmental revolution. These technologies will of course require the establishment of a hydrogen economy, but the result will be a safer and cleaner planet for everyone.
To read more Alternative Energy Sources Today And The Future
Sourse: Alternative Energy Sources Today And The Future
Alternative Energy and Taking Action
Your opinion doesn’t mean anything if you do not vocalize your feelings and take some action. Since you are an American citizen, you may have the right to some energy options and giving your opinion in the matter. You will find that there are many supporting alternative energies that will make a difference. There […]
Sourse: Alternative Energy and Taking Action
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