Tags: renewable energy

A master plan by Grant Associates of the UK has been selected from an international competition for the design of Singapore’s largest garden project to date, Marina South Gardens.  The architecture and landscape for the ambitious plan are inspired by orchid anatomy and include a series of micro-ecosystem conservatories to house plants from Mediterranean, temperate and tropical climates.  

Researchers in Jerusalem are developing a new type of solar cell that can generate power from diffuse light. The cells form panels that transmit light to silicon solar receptors at their edges. GreenSun Energy of  Tel Aviv say their panels have achieved a 12% efficiency rate, much lower than the world’s most efficient cells, but hope to eventually reach a 20% efficiency.

Researchers at the University of Texas are developing solar photovoltaics 10,000 times thinner than human hair that can be spray-painted onto surfaces.   The ambition of the  project is to develop a solution of sunlight-absorbing nanoparticles that can be sprayed onto a surface to create a solar panel–a process similar to newspaper printing. 

Catalyx Nanotech is the first company to use methane for nanofiber production. Through a demonstration project at a California landfill, the company was able to split methane into pure hydrogen and carbon to produce nanofibers.  Carbon-based nanofibers can be applied to a number of  uses: medical, energy, protection, textile; in this case, they’ll be used for hydrogren fuel supply. 

GreenEdge NYC and Solar One‘s free, seven-evening Solar-Powered Film Festival begins tonight on the East River.  A series of environmental documentaries will screen in Solar One’s outdoor eco-theater, with projector and sound system powered by solar energy captured nearby.

Thursday, September 10 – Addicted to Plastic (2007, 85 mins)
Friday, September 11 – Who Killed the Electric Car (2006, 93 mins)
Saturday, September 12 – Flow: For the Love of Water (2008, 93 mins)
Sunday, September 13 – [Rain Date for any of above]

Thursday, September 17 – A Sea Change (2008, 85 mins)
Friday, September 18 – The Garden (2008, 80 mins)
Saturday, September 19 – Burning in the Sun (2009, 65 mins)
Sunday, September 20 – [Rain Date for any of above]

September 25 at 7 PM [Rain Date September 26] – What’s On Your Plate?

The 2008 Massachusetts Clean Energy Biofuels Act requires petroleum suppliers in that state to make 2 to 3 percent of their sales, by volume, from biofuels by 2011.  And in a recent decision, the state says that waste-based biofuels are the only ones yet to meet the state’s renewable fuel standards, citing their significantly reduced contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. 

[youtube youtube.com/watch?v=Ervb3qX_xi8]

GOOD‘s series The Road Map to Harmony features BigBelly‘s wireless, solar-powered trash compactors, installed on various streets in Philadelphia.  The receptacles reduce sanitation pickup requirements from 17 times per week to 5 and send sanitation management a text message when they get full and ready to be emptied. 

Among Treehugger’s 10 greenest colleges in the US is the University of New Hampshire (UNH), the first college in the country to run primarily on landfill gas.  85% of electricity and gas needs on the 5 million square foot campus are met by methane produced at a private, nearby landfill operated by Waste Management and piped to the school from a cogeneration plant. 

UK supermarket chain Tesco is taking action to reduce methane emissions from landfills by diverting 100% of its food waste from landfill disposal.  Among other new practices, the company will send the 5,000 tons of post-date meat left over each year by its 2,315 grocery stores and distribution centers to produce electricity–enough to power some 6,000 homes–through biogas harvest.  

The rapid rise of wind turbine development and implementation continues to generate impressive data, big plans and cautious concern.  Some recent highlights:

• The market for small-scale wind turbines (100 kW or less capacity) has grown 78% in 2008 according to The American Wind Energy Association.

Zero-net energy buildings are designed to be as energy-efficient as possible and to offset what energy they do use through renewable power generation. Some have already been built, like the Omega Center for Sustainable Living in Rhinebeck, NY.  The state-of-the art education center and natural wastewater treatment facility boasts not only zero-net energy use due to its solar array, but also zero-net water use.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF44p7FG2AQ&feature=channel&w=507&h=370]

The Science Barge is a touring greenhouse that showcases techniques in sustainable agriculture.  All the energy used by the barge is produced by solar panels, wind turbines and biofuels, and the water used for irrigation comes from stormwater or purified river water.

Metropolis Magazine‘s 2009 Next Generation design competition asked entrants to “fix our energy addiction” at any scale and through any design specialty.  From 197 ent­ries, the winner was a proposal to integrate wind turbines into existing power transmission towers. 

The Waterpod is a a certified public vessel, a vegetable and chicken farm, a hodge-podge of sustainable systems (solar panels, rainwater collection, bicyle-produced electricity) and a recycled, floating home for six artists.  They’ve lived there since Saturday and call it “a floating sculptural living structure designed as a new habitat for the global warming epoch.” 

Looks like Saul Griffith’s ideas are catching on.  A recent study by Carnegie Institution and California State University, the first ever in high altitude wind power, says the jet streams 30,000 feet in the air, where the wind blows on average 10 times stronger than it does close to ground, could satisfy the  world’s energy needs. 

The 30-acre Bethlehem Steel Mill on Lake Erie was in operation for almost 80 years and was closed in the mid-1970s.  Contaminated with steel slag and industrial waste, the site was idle for 30 years.  In May 2002, the EPA awarded the City of Lackawanna a $200,000 grant to investigate the site’s potential for reuse. 

Integrating solar and wind power capture into natural and urban environments isn’t just a technical or engineering task–it’s also a design opportunity.  Some recent eye-popping ideas have ranged from a dragonfly-shaped urban farm on Roosevelt Island to a snakeskin-like PV-tiled stadium in Taiwan.

The Hiriya landfill in Tel Aviv, a 2,000-acre site adjacent to the city’s airport, has a lot in common with the Freshkills Park site.  From 1952 to 1999, the landfill was Israel’s largest garbage disposal site, at one point receiving one third of the country’s waste. 

An interesting public-private partnership in renewable energy production and use: at the Pennsauken Sanitary Landfill in New Jersey, the rooftops of a landfill gas-to-energy plant and a nearby aluminum extrusion factory are occupied by a photovoltaic array.  Some of the energy generated by the array is used to draw methane gas out of the landfill and into the gas-to-energy plant. 

Scientific American has run a two-week series of interviews with executives of alternative energy companies to explore the technical, infrastructural, and economic obstacles of developing and implementing non-fossil fuel energy technologies. 17 interviews altogether,  including responses from Robert Gates, Senior Vice president for Commercial Operations of Clipper Windpower; David Mills, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Ausra (solar thermal energy); and Lucien Bronicki, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of Ormat Technologies (geothermal and recovered energy).