Published on October 27th, 2009
Obama discussed a big project long overdo and sorely needed today — modernizing the US electric grid. But it is more than discussion. $3.4 billion in Recovery Act funding is going towards this new project.
This is the most money ever awarded for clean energy in a single day from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act!
Obama spoke at the opening of the Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center (the nation’s largest PV electricity center) to announce and discuss the various benefits of this project.
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electric grid,
Energy,
energy efficiency,
grid,
Obama,
Recovery Act,
Recovery Act funding,
renewable energy,
renewable resources,
smart grid,
smart grids,
White House
Published on October 27th, 2009
Have you ever done the math on commuting to work? Telecommuting saves money, it’s a fact. Yet most folks are fearful of stepping out of the in-person environment. Luckily the barriers have been broken by Adobe as their new Acrobat Connect Pro software has video, audio, and interactivity that create an almost in-person experience for meeting attendees.
In addition, Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro online meeting software is now offering a free trial and every time someone signs up they donate twenty-five dollars to help a school go green. In fact, Adobe has partnered with the U.S. Green Building Council and the mayors of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco to help schools go green in their communities. Each city will receive up to $100,000 to create classrooms that foster learning alongside smart environmental practices. Read the rest of this entry »
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Adobe,
Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro,
Boston,
Chicago,
Connect and Conserve campaign,
energy efficient lighting,
green classrooms,
green schools,
LEED,
LEED-certified,
online meeting software,
rush hour traffic,
San Francisco,
solar panels,
Telecommute,
telecommuting
Published on October 25th, 2009
Chances are, if you run a major polluting company, you’re not reading cleantechnica. But you never know. So here’s my advice, based on my experience writing about energy; gathered into one easy quick read for the non-eco reader, on how a polluting company can benefit from the new energy bill requirements to cut carbon emissions.
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Published on October 23rd, 2009
Solarmer Energy broke the world record for plastic cell efficiency last year. Now, they’ve just broken it again.
The new efficiency record is 7.6% and it breaks 7% for the first time.
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Tags:
Center of Newport Corporation,
Gang Li,
Newport Corporation,
photovoltaics,
plastic PV,
plastic solar,
plastic solar cells,
PV,
Ruben Zadoyan,
solar,
solar cell efficiency,
solar efficiency,
solar energy,
solar energy efficiency,
solar power,
solar technology,
solarmer,
Solarmer Energy,
Technology and Application Center,
world record
Published on October 22nd, 2009
It’s rare that you’ll encounter a home owner today who says that if they had the option, they wouldn’t want to reduce their carbon emissions or reduce their energy consumption, and in turn, the costs of home ownership. The problem is, that in many cases, greener home technology is just out of reach of many North Americans because of the high costs that are still associated with the options available on the market. This has been the case with voltage optimization technology that can accomplish the above goals, but until recently, it’s only been attainable to large organizations looking to optimize their energy use because of cost. A UK company has decided to address this lapse in the industry by introducing the VPhase, an affordable voltage optimization technology for home owners.
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Published on October 19th, 2009
A University of Rochester team has been awarded $1.7 million to generate hydrogen fuel with sunlight using artificial photosynthesis and nanotubes. Generating hydrogen without using a fossil fuel is not easy. Using sunlight to split hydrogen off from water has been done before, but the process has not been cheap or efficient.
They propose to change that by dividing the nanoscale process into three separate modules that can be manipulated separately to isolate the process of gathering sunlight from the process of generating hydrogen.
This way they can better control each step.
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Published on October 16th, 2009
This year’s Solar Decathlon at the National Mall has come to a close, and the winner has been crowned! Germany, for the second year in a row, has taken the gold for it’s Net Zero, solar powered home after a week long competition that brought many innovative ideas to light.
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Published on October 14th, 2009
A Florida school district was way ahead of the clean energy curve in the ’80’s. The Hillsborough School District contracted with the first companies pioneering the use of cheap excess off-peak night time power to freeze water at night which would then provide simple cooling by day for air conditioning. Some of those companies had not yet ironed out the kinks in the brand new technology, and recently the district had to find a replacement for these coolers.
A more timid school district might have run from off-peak energy storage altogether. But not Hillsborough. They are taking what they learned and applying their school of hard knocks expertise in selecting from the many companies that now provide second generation night cooling technology to power air conditioning systems.
What’s changed since the eighties is the addition of more wind power to the grid, and the likelihood of more to come with RPS legislation requiring the purchase of more renewable power in many states.
Typically most wind power comes ongrid at night; much more than can be used.
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Published on October 12th, 2009
Lighting Science Corporation has just announced a new breakthrough in high efficiency LED (light emitting diode) technology that outperforms existing LED streetlights, providing an even greater incentive for the nation’s roadways and institutions to make the switch from standard streetlights to more sustainable LED lighting.
The new LEDs, dubbed the PROLIFIC Series Roadway Luminaires, offer substantial savings over conventional HID (high intensity discharge) streetlighting. Lighting Science also claims that PROLIFIC performs up to nearly 90 lumens per watt, giving it a big advantage over current LED technology, which performs at up to 60 lumens per watt. To sweeten the payback even more, federal stimulus funds are available for cities to make the switch from conventional lighting to LED.
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Published on October 11th, 2009
A team of students at MIT has just developed a temperature sensitive roof tile that turns black and absorbs heat in cold weather, and turns white, reflecting heat away when it’s hot.
In cold weather, the polymer stays dissolved and the black backing shows through, but exposed to heat, tiny droplets form and scatter the light back to produce a white appearance. The tiles reflected 80% of the sunlight falling on them when white, and only 30% when black.
The cooling needs would then be reduced 20%.
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