OE Designs: The OE Solar Oak Charger

Solar Tree Electric Car Charger

[by G.Chance using Google SketchUp]

The OE Technology design team has created this concept electric car charger for supermarket and corporate parking lots. By using alternative forms of energy like the Bloom Energy Box, these charging stations would use both solar energy and alternative fuels to charge parked electric cars such as the Tesla Roadster, Toyota Prius, or the Chevy Volt.

The station is built out of recycled aluminum, with organic polymer solar panels, and uses energy efficient light bulbs to provide light under solar panel awning. The idea for the solar awning was first seen at the Dell Computer Compound in Texas, where solar trees provide electricity for the computer company, as well as shaded parking.

The chargers would most likely be GE WattStations. These chargers would be placed at each parking spot, and signs would be up for electric car parking only. There should be incentives to drive an electric car as well, placing electric car parking structures in between handicap parking spots and regular parking, allowing electric car users to park closer to the buildings.

With the recent birth of the GE WattStation, parking lots in America will have to find new ways of allowing electric cars to successfully charge during the typical daily routine. By placing this charging stations in large parking lots where people park for a number of hours allows for mid day electric car charges, spanning the average



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Stanford's New Nano-Thin Solar Cell

Stanford's new solar cell uses "light trapping" to stop light from bouncing around as it does on normal solar cells, making these ultra thin cells absorb up to 10 times more sunlight. These new ultra thin cells are also "thinner than the wavelengths of light," about 400 to 700 nanometers thin. These cells are also made out of organic polymers, making them cheaper than current solar cells.

Source: [Inhabitat]

Wind & Solar Cell Phone Towers

Ericsson Wind and Solar Cell Towers

Ericsson is planning to power 118,000 mobile phone towers using renewable energy in the Developing world. The project is expecting to save 600 million gallons of diesel. Ericsson is using "vertical wind turbines [which] can have some noise-cutting, cost-cutting and reliability advantages over traditional spinning windmills and may be perfect for in-city wind electricity generation, as well as personal backyard installations." [TreeHugger] [Gizmodo] [TreeHugger]

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Motorola Solar and Wind Powered Cell Phone Networks in Africa

Motorola has installed solar and wind powered in Dordabis village in the Khomas region of Namibia. The green solar and wind toers will operate the MTC Namibia's GSM network. [TreeHugger]

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T-Mobile Solar Cell Towers in US

These solar cell towers are "... in Chalfont, Pennsylvania. The 12 panels are enough to take the tower off grid, and even occasionally add power back onto the electric grid." [TreeHugger] [Green Yahoo!]



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The Development Train

For the past 150 years, trains have been used to develop nations by allowing the transfer of goods from rural areas in to urban markets, allowing economies to develop. Historically, colonial trains built in Africa and India allowed the Europeans [British, French, Dutch...] to take advantage of third world by pillaging natural resources from rural areas.

The goal of the development train is to provide electricity, telephones, internet access, and purified water to rural areas of developing nations. The development train wants to rebuild old third world train lines that currently carry goods and precious materials and transform the train lines into tools for economic development.

By enhancing the transportation abilities of peoples and goods, the development train is helping the local government's ability to control rural and forgotten areas. A train system that provides utilities is a powerful tool for changing rural living in poor nations, allowing the government to reach more people, eventually leading to official census information and the ability of proper taxation infrastructure to develop.

Solar Energy:
The trains themselves have two separate solar energy uses. The first use is on top of each of the train cars, [like the Italian Solar Panel PV Trains] creating power for inside the car lighting, refrigeration of perishable goods (perfect for rural markets sending agricultural goods to urban centers) and to help lower the amount of energy needed to power the electric trains.

The second set of solar panels will be located on the tracks themselves. These panels are meant to absorb energy when there is no train around, creating new forms of electricity for rural areas [Aiding the Efforts of Solar Aid] that previously had poor power infrastructure. Imagine miles of solar panels stretch across entire deserts and nations. The energy created by these track solar panels can help create stronger and more dependable energy grids in these regions.

Electronic Development:
Three feet beneath the train tracks, a few feet to the right from the tracks themselves, lies a canal of fiber-optic wires meant to bring telephone communication, internet, and electricity from urban centers into rural areas. Telephones are important to rural development as it allows for greater communication between producers and sellers. The internet is important for rural areas as it grants access to farming and weather information, and it is an amazing tool for education purposes. Electricity is of course necessary to power the growth of new rural businesses and markets.

Purified Water:
Instead of having children walk over 20 miles to drink polluted water, the development train brings purified water to rural areas. Water pumps would be placed along the sides of tracks every few miles in order to allow for equal access to clean drinking water for rural communities.

This water would be pumped through the train water pipes from water purification factories set up near coasts and rivers, and water pump usage would be carefully monitored.

Oil Transfers:
Using the idea from the Asia High-Speed Train, the development train can also be used to as a vehicle for oil and gas transportation. As oil producing nations get rich off exporting oil, it would be more beneficial for economic development if these nations shared and transfered this oil to surrounding poorer nations. For example, most nations that export oil cannot refine it and end up importing gasoline. Wouldn't it be better if a oil rich nations start exporting oil to a neighboring country that then could invest in gasoline refinement to sell back to the oil producing nations.

[Oil Rich Nation]                                         [Neighboring Poor Nation]

----------------------- OIL ---------------------------->

<---------------- GASOLINE ------------------------

The oil from the oil rich nation would use the development train oil pipes to send oil to a poor neighboring nation, who now specializes in oil refinement into gasoline. Then the poor country would send gasoline back to the oil producing country through the same development train piping, creating a cooperation regional system of utility trade and ending western dominance in the gasoline refinement.

Rural Market Creation
The development train would also cause major rural markets to be developed along all the train stops and water pump locations. For example, a rural fruit vendor moving to a development train stop would have access to:

- clean drinking water
- electricity for food storage, refrigeration, and lighting
- a train to place goods on and sell to urban markets
- telephones and internet

It would be impossible to keep people from moving in around these areas and rural markets would start to develop as the development train line carries goods and economic opportunity. These new rural markets hopefully would slow down urbanization in cities that have more residents than jobs and create new rural opportunities as well.

Micro lending will be important to funding rural market creation, but the Development Train would provide the tools and utilities necessary for market creation.

Cheap, Organic, and Clear Solar Panels

Imagine having the entire side of a New York City skyscraper act as one large solar panel, while still giving it's tenants beautiful windows. We're almost there...

The University of Cambridge has created a low cost and organic solar cell, made from organic plastic. The future uses of this product are said to be used in awnings, umbrellas, and even windows. These organic photovoltaic cells are cheap to produce but have lower efficiency rates.

But university researches in the Cavendish Lab and Carbon Trust have been working on efficiency improvements, a longer lifespan, a low cost, low toxicity raw materials, a "cost-effective manufacturing process," an an economy of scale focused product line. This technology could possibly lower China's grip around solar panel production.



Source: [Inhabitat]

The "Green" War

Europe: The Current Kings Solar Energy
According to the 9th Annual Photovoltaics Status Report, Europe is responsible for 73% of the worlds solar installations in 2009. Europe had a total of 5.8 GW of solar energy, with Germany as the continued dominate European solar leader. [TreeHugger]

World Solar Energy Levels:
Germany (3.8 GW)
Italy (0.73 GW)
Japan (0.48 GW)
United States (0.46 GW)


China: The Clean-Tech Lab for the World
China has now become a green technology center for the world, as they are planning to build a 102 MW Wind Farm by Shanghai. As OE Tech has said before, China is the world's leader in solar panel production, and now has become a leader in green technology development.

Peggy Liu, the founder and chairwoman of the Joint US-China Collaboration in Clean Energy, said "What the US doesn't realize [is that China] is going from manufacturing hub to the clean-tech laboratory of the world," clearly placing US clean energy development under the spotlight. [New York Times]


The US?
In order for the US to catch up to German solar investment, Obama would need to multiply current solar output by levels 8, which would cost quite a bit of money, but would also create a lot of new US jobs in the process. To catch up with China, the US will need to start investing in grand scale clean-energy projects, [like Operation Green Goods], in order to compete with China and Europe.

Brian Merchant recently wrote an article entitled, "If Obama had Chosen Energy over Health Care...," where writes about David Brook's article, An Alternate History, discussing if Obama had chosen his Energy Bill before health care, and how this decision would have allowed Democrats, "to spend the entire summer talking about technological advances, private sector growth and breakthrough productivity gains." Though this maybe true, I disagree with both Merchant and Brooks. Choosing healthcare before [not instead of] energy allows Obama to concentrate on green job development during the second half of his term, a perfect jump start into his second term.

Merchant writes, "But Brooks is right about one thing -- doing energy would have given Obama and the Democrats a chance to engage the public on the economy, and to make genuine strides towards genuine, sustainable job creation..."What I don't agree with here is the phrase, "doing energy would have..." helped out economy, but is this to say that passing a huge multi billion dollar energy plan tomorrow would not help stimulate US employment? Timing is everything, waiting to pass an energy bill and create more jobs for our returning troops and the currently unemployment meant waiting for a war to be over. The new National Train System will cost the US $50 billion and should create many new jobs as well.

In the end, it is clear that the US is under scrutiny for not investing in more Green technology programs, both at home and abroad. Not investing in major green tech programs hurts our reasoning for not joining the Kyoto Protocol. But I truly believe that this is on purpose. Creating mass amounts of green sector jobs for unemployed Americans and returning US troops is a sure-fire way to win the 2012 election.

Watch and see..!


Sources: [TreeHugger] [New York Times] [TreeHugger - Obama]

Solar Panel News

Black Silicon Solar Cells
[Cheap + More Efficient]

New Black Silicon Solar Cells, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory [NREL], are cheap and absorb more energy from the sun making them more efficient. The black silicon solar cells have thousands of tiny holes in each silicon wafer, causing them to appear black while simultaneously allowing them to absorb almost all the suns rays.

These cells are also quick, easy, and cheap to manufacture:

"By mixing gold and chemicals into a cocktail and spraying it on silicon, they were able to create a black silicon wafer in under 3 minutes at room temperature. At 100 degrees Fahrenheit they can do it in less than a minute — this bodes well for mass manufacturing..." which makes these cells perfect for Operation Green Goods. [Inhabitat]


SkyFuel's SkyTrough
[Solar Concentrators]

SkyTrough uses solar collectors to increase the efficiency of the system's collectors and its ability to concentrate/follow the sun. SkyFuel, the US based solar company, claims that their solar concentrators have a thermal efficiency that exceeds standard by 73%. This statement was just confirmed by the NREL, which placed SkyTrough as the most efficient solar concentrator in it's class. [Inhabitat]

Operation Green Goods: US Trains and Chinese Solar

Operation Green Goods is based on three main components:

1. Cheap efficient solar panels
2. The development of the US train and trucking system
3. Green job creation

China is currently the worlds leading producer of cheap solar panels [Earlier OE Post] and the United States has been making a lot of green trade deals with China recently. In 2011, the Chevy Volt will be released in China, creating a huge new market for developing the green US auto industry. It seems quite clear that the US government's new solar contracts with SunPower are a part of President Obama's "FDR" spending project that will create more American green jobs, but America currently imports most of its solar-panels from China. Green trade between the US and China is instrumental to building a solar based transportation network, as China will supply the panels as the US government and American solar companies will supply the man-power and jobs for installation.

President Obama's new High-Speed Rail Project is the perfect place to implement Operation Green Goods. As new railways are going to be built, the installation of solar panels on top of the trains as well as on the hundreds of miles of train tracks, would create enough energy to power a train system. The train project plus the incorporation of solar panels installation would create around a hundred thousand more jobs in the US, perfect for Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.

OPERATION Green Goods Equation:

CHEAP CHINESE SOLAR PANELS

 + DEVELOPED US TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

US JOBS CREATION

Sources: [OE Technology Solar] [TechCrunch]

The Pros and Cons of Solar Energy

Now that four US states get 10% of their energy from solar power, it is clear that solar energy is picking up some steam as a considerable future energy source. But there have been some critics of solar who argue that individual solar panel units are not worth the bang for their buck.


Solar Criticisms:

• The process of producing solar panels can be harmful to the environment and releases a large quantity of CO2 emissions.
• Solar panels are only 12% efficient. [SolarExpert]
• Government "feed-in tariffs" for solar energy and other micro-renewables  are not as effective in lowering CO2 emissions as other forms as subsiding, "an army of caulkers, insulators and energy auditors to descend on every home..." to make every house as energy efficient as possible. [TreeHugger]

Recent Solar Advancements: 

• As most solar plants are in desserts, dust can be a major problem. Scientists have developed a self-cleaning coating for solar panels, used on the Mars Rover, that uses a electrically sensitive material deposited on glass or transparent plastic sheets and sensors to monitor dusk levels. When dust levels get too high, an "electric charge sends a dust-repelling wae cascading over teh surface of the material, lifting away the dust and transporting it off," the panels. [TreeHugger]
• Photon enhanced thermionic emission [PETE] cells, developed at Stanford University, allow solar panels to harness light and heat from the Sun simultaneously, which could double the current rate of solar panel efficiency. [Engadget]

Social Advancements Due to Solar Energy:

• MORE JOBS. England's first utility-scale solar plant was just announced, highlight government support for the solar industry. This government support has allowed Solarcentury, Britain's largest solar company, which was able to hire 150 new employees. [TreeHugger]

Development Achievements Due to Solar Energy:

• SolarAid is an amazing organization that has been bringing solar power to rural Africa through micro-lending, giving villages and schools electricity for the first time. [TreeHugger]

SolarAid | Where donations go | Schools from Brad Bell on Vimeo.

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Flexible Stick-On Solar Panels

New flexible, stick-on, solar panels have been created by Global Solar. This new flexible solar module allows builders to stick it directly on the roof rather than needing to use heavy glass-covered cells. Each module is 19 feet long and is made out of copper, indium, selenium, and gallium.

OPERATION GREEN GOODS IS UNDER WAY:

These new flexible stick-on solar panels are perfect for cargo train and 18-wheeler applications. They just need the proper development for US goods transportation. OE Technology would like to be the first to develop this application, but that would require mass funding. Luckily, the US government has already started to heavily invest in solar industry development and green job creation.

As I said a year ago, the United States will be the leader in developing solar technologies. During the current economic recession, solar and wind technology is the perfect way to develop new American jobs. In President Obama's Oval Office Press Conference ending the War in Iraq, a major part of his plan was providing jobs for returning military men and women at home.

The American solar company, SunPower, that started in 1988 "... won several US Government contracts to install solar products for numerous agencies " ... Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), the General Services Administration (GSA), the Navy and the Air Force. ... " These will create " ... more than 1000 local jobs during the construction ... represent a minimum of 20 megawatts (MW) of new solar projects ..." [Green Technology]

Sources: [White House] [Inhabitat] [Green Technology]

Australia Invests in Solar Like Nobody's Business

Cobra Energy is planning to construct a $1billion, 250 MW solar plant in the Australia.

From Inhabit:

When completed, Cobra’s plant will be powered by both photovoltaic panels and solar thermal technology, which uses boiled water to generate energy. Cobra’s key to effective solar thermal is the use of molten salts to store extra energy during the day. When the sun goes down, the salts can continue to generate power for another 7.5 hours.

The Cobra plant isn’t a done deal quite yet — the Spanish company is still deciding between a number of sites in Australia. And while Cobra has applied for funds under the Australian government’s $1.5 billion solar flagships program, it has yet to receive approval. But if the deal goes through, Cobra’s plant could provide over half of the country’s goal of 400 MW of solar power.

The Sequoia Solar Truck

Sources: [Green Technology] [Sequoia Solar]

This Week in Solar Technology

MicroEnergy Credits Create Solar Water Heating Systems in Africa

 [Micro Energy Credits]

Possible Solar Fabric - Silicon Nanowire

This silicon nanowire technology could allow for the creation of weaved fabrics that can absorb solar energy. These technology is still in the early phases of development at Cal. Tech. University.

Solar Camels

Sources: [Tree Hugger] [Green Technology] [Tree Hugger]

This Week in Green Development

Complete, Stand-Alone Off-Grid Refrigeration System

Promethean, an MIT offshoot, has designed a solar powered stand alone refrigeration system for the developing world.

Solar-powered food storage container: our refrigeration system is designed from the ground up to use very little electrical power. The food storage container can cool and preserve a variety of products—such as milk, fruits and vegetables—using as little as 100W of power. As a result, we could efficiently and economically power it with solar photovoltaic (PV) panels.


Solar-power optimizer: a "black-box" control system maintains the operation of the entire system, minimizes energy consumption and optimizes the use of available solar power. The solar-power optimizer uses proprietary algorithms to efficiently transfer power from solar panels to various electrical loads in the system.


Low-power, low-cost heat exchangers: to reach our cost and power consumption goals, we’ve designed our own heat exchangers to cool and preserve the products. For milk cooling, one of our heat exchanger cools the milk immediately to arrest bacteria growth and maintain milk quality according to international standards.


World's Largest Wind Turbine Offshore

Underway in Norway, the wind turbine will generate 10 MW of Power.



Sources: [Tree Hugger] [Green Technology] [Promethean]

Stayin' Mobile - The Solar Backpack

The Piggy Back - Soular Back-Up Pack

I hate it when my iPod dies on my way to work. Now I can charge it on my walk to the train so that I can listen to my music for the entire ride.


Sources: [Crunch Gear] [Neon Green]

Solar News: The Future of Chinese Solar

With the worlds largest solar powered building being constructed in China [above], it is clear that China has invested heavily in solar panel production. The video below illustrates how the Chinese vision of the solar energy market has the country uniquely positioned to become the World's number one manufacturer of solar panels. This will benefit other nations by driving down the cost of solar panels so that industries of solar panel installation can thrive world wide.

Caution: Allowing China to control the world solar panel market means US and other world markets will continue to import cheaper technology from China instead of  developing and manufacturing it at home, adding to an already high deficit balance of payments problem. Also, a solar energy war with China could be just what the US needs to boost the economy and create more jobs.

Sources: [Gizmodo] [Green Technology] [Climate Works]

Solar Cellphone Charger

The Scosche solBAT II

For the price of $30, the extra solar powered battery charger is perfect for the modern tomb raider, adventurer, traveller, or forest enthusiast.


Sources:
[Gizmodo]  [Scosche]

Operation Green Goods: Roll-able Solar Panels

Imagine having a roll-able solar panel tarp that easily tied on to the back of tractor trailers and cargo trains, allowing for a truck driver to buy the solar tarp and use it on any trailer he had to carry. When pitching this idea recently I was asked about the actual feasibility of such a product and if this even exists...

POWERFILM R-15-1200 18W 12 VOLT ROLLUP SOLAR PANEL

Using this specific rollup solar panel covering an entire truck would cost a little over $1500 [using 4 of the panels which are $388.96 each]. The point here is that the technology is currently available to transform the US transportation system. More research needs to be done to consider how much spending over $1500 would save a truck driver in electricity and fuel use, especially when driving an electric hybrid truck.

This is just one example of the many different kinds of rollup solar panels being currently produced. Increasing production and usage of these products will not create a lower price per square foot of solar panel and improve efficiencies through greater market competition.

Source: Solar Sphere

Charge your cellphone with your dog?

Perfect for powering your laptop while dog sledding across the North Pole.

Source: Gizmodo

Solar Cell Technology

University of Minnesota: Self-Assembling Solar Cells 

Sceintists at the University of Minnesota have created "a self-assembly technique that arranges microscopic electronic elements in their proper order thanks to the absolute enmity that exists between water and oil."

"By coating elements with a hydrophilic layer on one side and some hypdrophobic goo on the other, they've achieved the proper element orientation, and the final step in their work was the insertion of a pre-drilled, pre-soldered sheet, which picks up each element while being slowly drawn out of the liquid non-mixture."

Source: Engadget