An ecologist and an engineer at Michigan State University are working together to create robot fish that can better monitor various factors in aquatic environments.
Combining the brilliance of nature with some top-notch engineering, these two scientists are on to something and getting the funding for it.
The researchers are breaking ground with this and looking to raise water monitoring to another level.
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Pittsburgh has been laying the groundwork for a high tech green jobs renaissance ever since its mighty steel mills shut their doors 30 years ago. Now the payoff is coming. FLABEG, the global specialty glass manufacturer, has just opened a solar mirror factory by Pittsburgh International Airport that will bring an estimated 200 jobs to the region, and perhaps as many as 300.
The new $30 million facility will initially focus on its core production line of parabolic curved solar mirrors. Months before the plant opened it already received 700,000 orders, and FLABEG expects to reach a capacity of 1 million mirrors annually.
Catch the Wind Ltd. of Virginia has just announced that its new Vindicator laser wind sensor has been deployed on a specialized buoy for a field test off Race Rocks Island in British Columbia. If successful, the laser sensor would be part of the world’s first buoy-based wind power assessment system, which could shave millions off the cost of assessing conditions at potential sites for offshore wind turbines.
Conventional site assessments for large scale wind farms are done through the construction of a permanent offshore tower, which can cost up to $10 million. Catch the Wind’s movable buoy-based system, called the WindSentinel, could virtually eliminate that expense and help open up sustainable offshore wind power to small communities, military bases, and other modestly scaled projects.
California-based company Cereplast has revealed that it is developing breakthrough technology to transform algae into bioplastics, and predicts that it could replace 50% or more of the petroleum content used in traditional plastic resins.
Cereplast already makes plastic from renewable material such as corn starch, tapioca, wheat and potatoes, but is keen to trumpet the advantages of the new approach.
According to Frederic Scheer, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Cereplast, “Algae-based resins represent an outstanding opportunity for companies across the plastic supply chain to become more environmentally sustainable and reduce the industry’s reliance on oil.”
San Diego Gas & Electric has embarked on a demonstration project to test the commercial viability of a new concentrated solar power system that uses shallow pools of water as a passive cooling system for high-efficiency solar cells. The unique proprietary technology was developed by Pyron Solar of Sorrento Valley, California.
The new technology could be attractive in land-rich areas, and it may also have some application for introducing sustainable energy to more densely developed areas, since its use of high efficiency solar cells enables it to pack more generating capacity into less space. It also may prompt some new exploration of the opportunity to double up solar energy generation with other operations, such as fish farming.
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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Sharp Corporation has just announced that it has achieved the world’s highest solar cell conversion efficiency using a compound layered design based on the technology used in the solar cells that power space satellites. Mindful of the link between sustainable energy and the future market for consumer electronics, Sharp has been aggressively pursuing solar efficiency improvements that lend themselves to commercial application.
Instead of silicon, compound solar cells use two or more photo-absorption layers composed of different elements. The trick is to find materials that generate the most current with the least waste. Sharp’s innovation is a proprietary technology that enables it to produce a high-efficiency crystalline compound, InGaAs (indium-gallium-arsenide), which boosted the efficiency of Sharp’s previous cells from 31.5% to 35.8%.
Every industry is taking steps to adopt greener methods, and it’s become particularly important in businesses that provide transportation services to consumers because this is what people are looking for. Even if they can’t take big steps to make their own homes and businesses cleaner, they can help reduce their carbon footprint by making wiser environmental decisions. In order to address this shift in environmental perception and need, companies like the Green Tomato Cars Taxi Service in the UK are marketing their businesses to the more environmentally conscientious.
A new Kansas-based company called EcoFit Lighting believes it can make the transition to LED street lighting not only much easier, but also much cheaper.
EcoFit’s design is a retrofit module that slides right into place in existing streetlights, eliminating the need to have a full replacement. The company claims using their product would bring down costs from $700 to $900 (for a complete replacement) to just $400. Savings also come in the form of energy efficiency and extended lifespan as EcoFit’s LED lights are 60 percent more efficient and last six times longer than sodium streetlights. Additionally, as it’s estimated that replacing street lights with EcoFit LED lights would take just five minutes (as opposed to taking up to 30 minutes to fully replace the head), labor costs are also expected to be reduced.
Somewhere in the U.S. there is a justice of the peace who still refuses to perform inter-racial marriages, but Principle Power, Inc. has no such backward looking qualms when it comes marrying two different forms of sustainable energy. Last week the company won a $750,000 development grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to adapt its patented WindFloat platform to bring wave energy generating capability on board, along with the wind turbines for which it was originally designed.
Of particular interest to DOE is WindFloat’s innovative three-corner design, which stabilizes the platform against turbulence and enables it to be deployed in deep water where winds are more favorable to energy generation. In addition to its obvious use in the civilian world, the marriage of wind and wave power may also prove fruitful for its application to the U.S. military’s need for non-petroleum energy sources at remote bases.
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