Even the most dedicated turbine-inspecting human may occasionally miss something. Fortunately, a new robot named RIWEA can detect the tiniest delaminations and cracks on rotor blades— even below the surface. RIWEA was built by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation in Germany, and comes equipped with … [continued]
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that BMW is giving the city a fleet of MINI Es as part of a feasibility test. In fact, BMW will be testing 500 electric MINIs worldwide. Other cities included in the program are Los Angeles, London and Berlin. >> Read the … [continued]
A few years ago, I slept at a campsite next to a trailer running an obnoxiously loud diesel-powered generator all night long. If AMP’s silent, solar-powered portable generator had been around, I may have gotten a full night’s sleep. The silent, all-weather generator is installed in a trailer with photovoltaic … [continued]
Fear not, unemployed masses: you may have a career in the wind energy industry ahead of you. According to a recent prediction from the Global Wind Energy Council, 1 million people will be employed in the wind industry by 2010, and up to 3 million people could have wind energy … [continued]
Yesterday, IST Energy released the world’s first compact, mobile waste-to energy system: the GEM (Green Energy Machine). The slick-looking device converts trash into pellets that are in turn converted into electricity and gas heat. 95 percent of daily consumer waste can be dumped into the machine, including paper, plastic, wood, … [continued]
A new year, a new solar cell efficiency record is broken. German researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems have built a solar cell with 41.1% efficiency, besting the previous record of 40.8% efficiency set by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The three-layer gallium-indium-phosphide, gallium-indium-arsenide, and germanium … [continued]
Solar companies are beginning to see the benefits in harvesting both forms of the sun’s energy (heat and light) with a single device. On the forefront of this developing trend is Entech Solar, based out of Ewing, NJ, with their ThermaVolt™ solar hybrid system.
Here’s your eye candy for the day— the Schwinn Tailwind hybrid electric bicycle. The Super Charge ion Battery (SCiB) equipped bike charges via a standard outlet in under 30 minutes (7 minutes via a 40 amp commercial charger). The 5ah, 24V battery works for 2000 charge cycles at full capacity … [continued]
We all know that conventional retro-reflective road markers, or “cat eyes”, don’t always work when you need to see into the distance. Luna Road’s new solar-powered LED cat eyes, however, illuminate the road ahead for miles. The company’s lights are built in poly-crystalline/ single crystalline solid, and come in economical, … [continued]
Earlier this week, CleanBoard started talking publicly about what it calls “the most environmentally friendly drywall on earth.” That’s quite a claim, but there might be something to it: the drywall will be produced in a solar-powered factory and made from coal-fired power plant residue.
