Category Archives: Alternative Energy
The Belgian coast will soon play home to the world’s most powerful wind turbine ever conceived. To be set up by German energy company RWE Innogy, this record-breaking wind turbine is capable of generating up to 6MW of clean and green renewable energy and sports a rotor radius of 400 feet! Rated at 6.15 MW, this one is to be installed at the Thronton Bank wind farm, helping generate about 325 MW of energy, enough to power up the lives of 600,000 people for a year! Working alone, this massive wind turbine can generate enough energy to supply for 6,000 people and is a ground-breaking technological development in the renewable energy industry.
[inhabitat]
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The United States Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) is in for an energy-efficient and environment-friendly makeover. The facility located in Michigan plays home to cutting-edge vehicle research and will be the Army’s first to be powered by a solar microgrid. The microgrid will use photovoltaics and will also include wind energy generators, fuel cells, a mobile solar generator and also a charging station for EVs. The microgrid will power up two System Integration Laboratories and the parking lot as well and will add on to the Army’s efforts to go greener and more self-sustainable by the day.
[cleantechnica]
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Japan is now looking for cleaner sources to power up and seems to have learned a bitter lesson from the recent nuclear power disaster at Fukushima. Now, Marubeni Corp along with the University of Tokyo and a bunch of other organizations will begin testing the feasibility of a floating wind power generation system. To be located off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, the project is funded by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and will sport floating windmills that are anchored to the seabed. The energy will then be sent back to shore. The Fukushima Prefecture could have quite a bit of green energy trickled into its grids, helping power Japanese homes with renewable energy.
[Via TechOn]
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Solar panels aren’t the only way to light your home using eco-friendly renewable energy. Heliostats function pretty well too and have been around since quite a while now. These however have generally been used for industrial purposes, and aren’t usually affordable for home use. Bringing Heliostats back home, the SunFlower system is both inexpensive and efficient too. Priced at $400, this one beams a good 50,000 lumens of sunlight into your living space. All you need to do is have this one propped up on a pole and position it just where you need the light. The SunFlower then automatically tracks the sun and keeps the specified area illuminated, making this heliostat a great way to light up during the day, in an eco-friendly manner.
[gizmodo]
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Designer Phil Pauley came up with a design that could pretty much change our lives today. A portable power source in all essence, the Powerpack365 soaks in energy from the sun to power your gadgets on the go. The device basically piggybacks onto other devices like laptops and smartphones and power them up with renewable energy. Sporting solar cells and light emitting technology facing one another in an enclosed housing, the Powerpack365 concept seems to be an efficient answer to power up while away from grid connections. Also, the Powerpack365 could very well find larger applications up ahead, and designer Phil Pauley plans to have this one accompany a $200 price tag.
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Water buoys now get greener with this interesting concept by designer Dr. Hakan Gursu. Sculpted out for Designnobis, the Triton buoy is an eco-friendly self sustained warning device that requires no grid connections to power up. By harvesting energy from the wind and the sun, the Triton powers on all of its warning signals efficiently. Winner of the prestigious Design Turkey Award, the Triton uses LEDs, solar panels and wind turbines and comes with GPRS, making it easier to locate by port authorities and ships alike.
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The U.S. Air Force has big plans for renewable energy development over the next 15 years, and we’ve just had a sneak peek at it all. One of the proposals that have had us hooked is the space solar stations the Air Force is planning. These will beam energy generated from the sun directly back home to planet Earth as well as space satellites. The exact technologies that will be used to wirelessly transfer energy from these solar-energy-collecting stations to the earth however are yet being perfected. Also, the Air Force currently has just 27 kilowatt (kW) arrays for satellite power and is looking to expand out on the same with this future proposal. We wish the U.S. Air Force all the luck it needs in this endeavor of sending clean renewable energy to our planet right out of space!
[zmescience]
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A bunch of researchers from the Wake Forest University’s Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials have come up with a new way to generate small amounts of energy. Using a fabric called Power Felt made from “tiny carbon nanotubes locked up in flexible plastic fibers, this fabric generates energy from changes in temperature. Meaning, a simple touch could generate a trickle of energy. Using the principals of thermoelectric, the Power Felt fabric seems to be a promising way to power up smaller devices if used to create clothing. Also, these fabrics could wind up as car seats and generate substantial amounts of energy for automobiles, given that people do tend to wriggle and move about in their seats while travelling, helping generate some clean green renewable energy in the bargain!
[popsci]
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With the world turning to greener renewable energy sources of energy to power up, the Chattanooga Metropolitan Authority too decided to sway to the greener side and has hooked up the Chattanooga Airport to solar panels. By Atlanta-based Inman Solar, the installation covers a whopping 4.5 acres and trickles in green energy for the airport’s use. These high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells and modules were developed by Suniva, also an Atlanta-based solar company. Since completion in December, the installation has already generated 90,000 kilowatt-hours of power and saved 62 tons of Co2 from entering the ecosystem, making the Chattanooga Airport a green place to fly.
[smartplanet]
[inmansolar]
[chattairport]
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Trading firm Marubeni has decided to put the Japanese winds to better use and is currently drawing up plans for a wind farm of the coast of Fukushima. Wind farms have worked well to keep the Japanese grid alive in times of natural calamities that have struck in the past, pulling down nuclear plants in the bargain. Now, Marubeni will begin work on a 1GW floating offshore renewable energy generating plant that will add some clean and green energy to the Japanese power grid. Also, the Japanese government will lend a helping hand with funds for the initiative, while companies like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nippon Steel Corp, and Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding will lend their support too.
[inhabitat]
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The Belgian coast will soon play home to the world’s most powerful wind turbine ever conceived. To be set up by German energy company RWE Innogy, this record-breaking wind turbine is capable of generating up to 6MW of clean and green renewable energy and sports a rotor radius of 400 feet! Rated at 6.15 MW, this one is to be installed at the Thronton Bank wind farm, helping generate about 325 MW of energy, enough to power up the lives of 600,000 people for a year! Working alone, this massive wind turbine can generate enough energy to supply for 6,000 people and is a ground-breaking technological development in the renewable energy industry.
