Obama Signs Stimulus Packed With Clean Energy Provisions
February 18, 2009 by editor
Filed under American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Featured, Research, Videos
President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus package today, and the clean energy industry - among the biggest winners - is celebrating.
The signing ceremony was heavily loaded with solar symbolism: Mr. Obama signed the bill after touring the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which has solar panels on its roof. He was also introduced by Blake Jones, head of Namaste Solar Electric, a Colorado company that installed solar panels on the governor’s mansion there.
President Barack Obama (right) and Vice President Joe Biden (center) tour the roof of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science with Blake Jones (left), president of Namaste Solar Electric, a Colorado solar company, ahead of signing an economic stimulus package loaded with clean-energy incentives.
“It’s an investment that will double the amount of renewable energy produced over the next three years,” said Mr. Obama, who also promised that the bill would help “transform the way we use energy.”
The text of the bill is posted by the House Appropriations Committee here. This detailed summary is particularly helpful.
The provisions include:
* A large sum for energy efficiency, including $5 billion for low-income weatherization programs; over $6 billion in grants for state and local governments; and several billion to modernize federal buildings, with a particular emphasis on energy efficiency.
* $11 billion for “smart grid” investments.
* $3.4 billion for carbon capture and sequestration demonstration projects (otherwise known as “clean coal”).
* $2 billion for research into batteries for electric cars.
* $500 million to help workers train for “green jobs.”
* A three-year extension of the “production tax credit” for wind energy (as well as a tax credit extension for biomass, geothermal, landfill gas and some hydropower projects).
* The option, available to many developers, of turning their tax credits into direct cash, with the government underwriting 30 percent of a project’s cost.
Kate Galbraith
The New York Times
University of California, Santa Barbara and Université Laval Significantly Advance Efficiency Performance of Konarka’s Polymer Solar Cells
December 9, 2008 by admin
Filed under Research, Technology
Lowell, Mass., Dec. 9, 2008 - Konarka Technologies, Inc., an innovator in development and commercialization of Power Plastic®, a material that converts light to energy, today announced that the National Energy Renewable Laboratory (NREL) has verified that the material class within Konarka’s portfolio of flexible organic based photovoltaic (PV) solar cells has demonstrated 6% efficiency performance. The results were achieved by Dr. Alan Heeger of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and chief scientist at Konarka, under the scope of the Sustainable Development Technology Canada program (SDTC), which provides funding to partners Université Laval (Quebec), the National Research Council of Canada (Ottawa) and Saint Jean Photochimie (Saint Jean, Quebec) for the development of low cost printable organic solar cells. Konarka is the U.S. industrial solar cell partner.
“Achieving the power conversion efficiency of 6% for this relatively young material class is an important milestone,” commented Dr. Alan Heeger. “This progress gives us confidence that we are on a technology pathway toward the vision of high efficiency, low cost ‘plastic’ solar cells. Increasing the efficiency and performance of organic based photovoltaic (PV) solar cells at this rate is bringing us closer to making solar electricity from photovoltaics cost-competitive with conventional forms of electricity.”
Joint IBM and Harvard University Online Network for Solar Research
A joint project between IBM and Harvard University is tapping into thousands of computers, in an attempt to discover new solar and energy storage materials. 
The Clean Energy Project uses distributed computing to number-crunch molecular equations.
Users volunteer the processing power of their computers, with a grid server assigning tasks.
The project is part of IBM’s World Community Grid, which assists research projects that “benefit humanity”.
Other efforts include researching new cancer-fighting drugs, improving the nutritional content of rice by examining new protein structures, and trying to prevent the onset of AIDS by blocking HIV protease, the enzyme that makes HIV infectious.
The Clean Energy Project has two goals: finding new organic photovoltaics to provide inexpensive solar cells, and then researching possible polymers for the membranes used in fuel cells.
Heavy in light
Traditional solar cells, made with silicon, are usually heavy and inflexible. Organic solar cells have the potential to be much cheaper, flexible, and lightweight.
However they are not as efficient when compared to traditional cells, and their working life is shorter.
The lead researcher behind the project - Professor Aspuru-Guzik - said that currently solar cells using organic molecules have an efficiency of between 5 and 6%, but that an efficiency of 15% was required to make them commercially viable.
The task is to perform chemical calculations on tens of thousands of organic molecules to determine which show the most promise, utilising the CHARMM molecular mechanics package developed by the Karplus group at Harvard University.
“It would take us about 100 days of computational time to screen each of the thousands of compounds for electronic properties without the power of World Community Grid,” he said.
By distributing the computations among thousands of volunteered PCs, the project could be completed in two years. By contrast, a traditional supercomputer approach would take more than 20 years.
Distribute and conquer
Modern home computers can perform billions of calculations a second. Most of the time, that’s far more power than the average user needs - so even though you’re working hard, your computer is just ticking over. Distributed computing projects make use of this spare computer potential.
Distributed computing is a particularly valuable tool for scientists who have large amounts of data to analyse, or who are modelling very complex systems.
For example, the Folding at Home project, which aims to unravel molecular protein chains is now in its eighth year, and there are now more than 3m computer users working on the SETI@home project looking for signs of contact from alien life.
IBM hope that their World Community Grid can attract a similar number of users.
UCB’s Global Venture Lab Technical Briefs on Large Scale Deployment of Electrical Vehicles in the Bay Area
About the Technical Briefs
U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology publishes the Global Venture Lab Technical Briefs. This new series shares analysis of distinct research questions designed to provide insight into solving significant challenges. The initial three briefs represent the preliminary results of a multi-disciplinary research project that models the impact of large-scale deployment of electrical vehicles in the Bay Area.
1. Electrical Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Rollout Strategy
2. Electric Power Supply and Distribution for Electric Vehicle Operations
3. Economic Impact of Electric Vehicle Adoption in the United States
Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Analysis
Solar Power Game-Changer: “Near Perfect” Absorption of Sunlight, From All Angles
November 4, 2008 by editor
Filed under Research, Technology
A new antireflective coating developed by researchers at Rensselaer could help to overcome two major hurdles blocking the progress and wider use of solar power. The nanoengineered coating, pictured here, boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire spectrum of sunlight from any angle, regardless of the sun's position in the sky.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered and demonstrated a new method for overcoming two major hurdles facing solar energy. By developing a new antireflective coating that boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire solar spectrum from nearly any angle, the research team has moved academia and industry closer to realizing high-efficiency, cost-effective solar power.
“To get maximum efficiency when converting solar power into electricity, you want a solar panel that can absorb nearly every single photon of light, regardless of the sun’s position in the sky,” said Shawn-Yu Lin, professor of physics at Rensselaer and a member of the university’s Future Chips Constellation, who led the research project. “Our new antireflective coating makes this possible.”
Results of the year-long project are explained in the paper “Realization of a Near Perfect Antireflection Coating for Silicon Solar Energy,” published this week by the journal Optics Letters.
Konarka Opens World’s Largest Roll-to-Roll Thin Film Solar Manufacturing Facility with One Gigawatt Nameplate Capacity
October 7, 2008 by admin
Filed under Research, Technology
Former Polaroid Facility in New Bedford, Mass. Prepares Konarka for Large Scale Production of Power Plastic® Thin Film Photovoltaics
Lowell, Mass., Oct. 7, 2008 - Konarka Technologies, Inc., an innovator in development and commercialization of Power Plastic®, a material that converts light to energy, today announced the company has opened the largest roll-to-roll flexible thin film solar manufacturing facility in the world, preparing for the commercialization and mass production of its patent-protected thin film solar material, Power Plastic. Located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the 250,000 square foot building was previously the location for Polaroid Corporation’s most advanced printing technologies.
“This facility has state-of-the-art printing capabilities that are ready for full operation, with the future potential to produce over a gigawatt of flexible plastic solar modules per year,” commented Howard Berke, executive chairman and co-founder of Konarka. “Our technical leadership and innovation in flexible thin film solar, along with this facility’s capabilities of producing in excess of 10 million square meters of material per year, will allow us to produce Power Plastic for indoor, portable, outdoor and building integrated applications.”
New Methods Slice Solar Power Costs
University of Utah mechanical engineers Dinesh Rakwal and Eberhard Bamberg watch as an electrified molybdenum wire cuts a thin wafer of germanium semiconductor, which is used in a solar power cells. Their new cutting technique promises to reduce the cost of the most efficient type of solar power cell.
New Method Cuts Waste in Making Most Efficient Solar Cells
Sept. 15, 2008 - University of Utah engineers devised a new way to slice thin wafers of the chemical element germanium for use in the most efficient type of solar power cells. They say the new method should lower the cost of such cells by reducing the waste and breakage of the brittle semiconductor.
The expensive solar cells now are used mainly on spacecraft, but with the improved wafer-slicing method, “the idea is to make germanium-based, high-efficiency solar cells for uses where cost now is a factor,” particularly for solar power on Earth, says Eberhard “Ebbe” Bamberg, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “You want to do it on your roof.”
Major Discovery From MIT Primed To Unleash Solar Power Evolution
Scientists mimic essence of plants’ energy storage system
In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn’t shine.
Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today’s announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.
MIT and Chesonis Foundation Announce Solar Revolution
Goal: Bring the sun’s power to the people
Promising to transform solar power from a “boutique” option to an affordable, dependable, mainstream energy solution, MIT and the Chesonis Family Foundation today launched a “solar revolution” with the ultimate aim of making solar energy America’s primary carbon-free fuel.
The Solar Revolution Project (SRP), funded by a $10 million gift from the Foundation, will explore new materials and systems that could dramatically accelerate the availability of solar energy. The SRP will complement and interact closely with other large solar projects at MIT, creating one of the largest solar energy clusters at any research university.
