new belgium brewery: solar array

New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins Colorado has recently announced the largest privately owned solar array in Colorado has gone live at their plant. The 200 kW system will produce 16 percent of New Belgium’s peak electrical load and 3 percent of their total electrical energy use.
The array is part of the brewer’s commitment to Fort Collins’ FortZED initiative, a public/private partnership that aims to create the world’s largest “active zero energy district” through Smart Grid and renewable energy technology.

Boulder-based Namaste Solar began the installation in late August 2009. The New Belgium packaging hall now holds 870 panels, and engineers estimate it can power the bottle line for up to eight hours on a sunny day.
New Belgium became the country’s first brewery to subscribe to 100 percent wind powered electricity in 1998 and can produce up to 15 percent of its electrical needs by capturing methane from its process water treatment plant to fire a co-generation engine which produces heat and electricity on-site.

garbage warrior: pre-screener

Gotta see this movie about Earthship construction around the world and trying to get a bill passed for experimental architecture that is environmental and energy efficient--you can rent it on Netflix.

tesla motors: new boulder, colorado location

Tesla Motors has opened a Colorado gallery at 915 Pearl St. on the Pearl Street Mall as it's newest strategic regional hub. Tesla is currently the only automaker producing and selling highway-capable EVs as well as the only automaker offering “house calls” with a mobile service squad, all customers can enjoy hassle-free service without leaving their home or office. Convenient, low cost house calls will be made for annual inspections, firmware updates and other services--Teslas require less maintenance than a conventional car. The Boulder facility the sole hub for customers throughout the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains.

The centennial state aims to be the most environmentally friendly in the nation, with Gov. Bill Ritter getting accolades as America’s “Greenest Governor.”US Roadster owners get a $7,500 federal tax credit, and Colorado’s progressive public policy offers additional incentives for residents who buy this year. Coloradans get more benefits if they replace their gas guzzler with an all-electric, zero-emission Roadster – the only car that’s faster than a Porsche 911 and twice as energy efficient as a Toyota Prius.

To date, Tesla has delivered nearly 900 cars, and many owners in Northern climates drive them all winter long. Tesla performed cold-weather testing on a frozen lake in Arvidsjaur, Sweden. Scandinavia is a leading European sales market, and Canadian deliveries start later this year. Electric seat warmers and heating vents thaw drivers on frigid nights. The Roadster can also be fitted with snow tires and chains, and customers may select from two hard-top roof options. In addition to being four-season friendly, the Roadster consumes no gasoline whatsoever and therefore never requires a time-consuming detour to the pump. Owners simply charge the Roadster overnight from a conventional 120- or 240-volt outlet, and every single morning the car is fully charged – roughly 240 miles of driving. With an EPA-estimated range of 244 miles per charge, it costs less than $5 to refuel.

Tesla’s goal is to produce increasingly affordable cars to mainstream buyers – relentlessly driving down the cost of EVs. San Carlos, Calif.-based Tesla sells cars online and has delivered nearly 900 Roadsters to customers in North America and Europe. In addition to Boulder, Colorado, Tesla has showrooms in California’s Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, London and Munich.

energy efficient refrigerator

The Ice Cool Fridge by Daniel Mason is showing what future appliances might be like. The refrigerator stores cooling power for periods of passive running and consumes five times less power than a conventional refrigerator. The designer believes that the refrigerator is so efficient that 5000 units would save one power station and another one will be saved when these units will run passively. The design includes laid-out drawers, with a large drawer designed toward the inside of the door. The ice compartment at the top and the salad drawer at the bottom make its design quite similar current refrigerators on the market.
via Royal College of Art

solar powered magnesium refining system

Oceans contain about 1800 trillion tons of magnesium, which if refined can be used to meet the world’s energy needs for the next 300,000 years. But refining this metallic element requires temperatures in excess of 4000C, which means a lot of money and energy. Future thinking scientist Takashi Yabe at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, believes that he has a system that can run on solar-power to refine magnesium.

Dubbed magnesium injection cycle or “MAGIC”, the process could well end the world’s dependence of fossil fuels with a fuel that emits no carbon. The process begins by extracting magnesium chloride from seawater using a special evaporation technique. This magnesium chloride is converted to magnesium oxide, which is then heated using plastic Fresnel lenses that focus sunlight into lasers and send it down microscopic fibers. The result of the process is refined magnesium.

The next stage is where the MAGIC engine kicks in, which mixes magnesium granules and water to create heat energy and hydrogen that can power a car. The by-products are water and magnesium oxide, which can be broken down again by the sunlight laser for more fuel. Yabe is also planning to sell refined magnesium for use in fuel cell batteries as magnesium batteries are seven times more powerful than lithium-ion batteries that are commonly used in electric and hybrid vehicles.

via EcoFriend

engineering giants go green

With positive business forecasts for profit in the green sector, some of the biggest U.S. engineering companies are moving toward power plant retrofits, solar and wind energy installments. Fluors, Jacobs and Bechtel are all changing direction and seeing profit in green energy, with current economic climate & current political leanings, this is just what US needs to make the full change over to the SmartGrid. More from Reuters.

energy back to the grid: google

Google has made its commitment to clean energy known--the company has made more than $10.5 million in goethermal energy investments and has declared that it wants to make renewable energy cheaper than coal. Now the search engine giant is expanding its ever-growing reach to include plug-in hybrid vehicles. Dan Reicher, Google's director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, announced today that the company is working on software to better integrate PHEVs into the power grid.
The software will reduce strain on the grid, possibly by letting cars send stored energy back to the grid--so utilities can have extra energy on-tap during times of peak usage. In such a scenario, utilities might also have the power to turn charging EVs on or off during peak times. In return, the car owner could receive a credit from the utility.
Google hasn't revealed a timeline for the software, but the company has been experimenting with PHEVs since 2007. It is inevitable that car companies will release competing plug-in software once more PHEVs hit the streets in the next few years. Perhaps the biggest competitor will be Ford, which embarked last month on a three-year project with the Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute to test vehicle-to-grid technology.
via Reuters

tesla motors: new models for its electric cars

Tesla Motors has secured a low-interest $350 million loan under the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program. The program, created as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and appropriated in the fall of 2008, is unrelated to the current stimulus or “bailout” package of some American automakers. The goal of the bipartisan ATVM is to accelerate the production of fuel-efficient vehicles for mainstream Americans and reduce the nation’s dependence on oil. The new loan from the DOE will enable Tesla to accelerate the production of fuel-efficient vehicles using their existing platform all electric power train of the S model by expanding upon it to create an all-electric family sized minivan, a crossover SUV, and a utility fleet van.

With the DOE loan, Tesla joins Ford and Nissan as the first recipients of federal loans designed to move America’s car companies toward more fuel-efficient technology. No funds have been dispensed yet, but Tesla has big plans for its taxpayer injection, most importantly the development of an assembly plant for the Model S sedan (the first actual mass-production car from the company) in Southern California and a powertrain manufacturing facility in Northern California, which combined should employ about 1,650 workers. Tesla unveiled the Model S sedan in March, but so far there's no word on when it will hit showrooms.

Tesla hopes their platform power train could be adopted or licensed in a sense by other manufacturers, saving them the time and cost of developing their own technology. This could help large entities like utilities or municipal governments save big money while drastically reducing carbon emissions.

With a range of 244 miles (on electricity only), the Tesla Roadster is six times as efficient as a gasoline car, and twice as efficient as a Prius. Now that the Roadster has proven Tesla’s powertrain works, if the company can flip that technology into mass-marketable vehicles.

Their power train manufacturing facility in Northern California, already sell EV components to Daimler, which will soon begin marketing an electric version of its popular and affordable Smart car.
via Treehugger

solar decathlon: 2009

For three weeks in October, the U.S. Department of Energy will again host the biennial Solar Decathlon at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Solar Decathlon is a competition of 20 teams of college and university students to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house. There are 10 subjective and objective contests in these categories: architecture, market viability, engineering, lighting design, communications, comfort zone, hot water, appliances, home entertainment, and net metering.
The competition educates students and the public, promotes solar technologies, promotes innovatiove whole building design, and demonstrates the potential for net zero energy homes.
My favorite contenders so far are:
silo house cornell u

lumenhaus virginia tech

icon solar house u of minn

mushroom catalysts for fuel cells

With my already heavy fascination with fungi, I am happy to find that yes, mushrooms may in fact save the world--after all, fungus was the first organism existing on this planet. A new enzyme extracted from a specific mushroom type could act as an essential catalyst in fuel cells reducing the use of polluting heavy metals in the future.

Scientists at Oxford University have uncovered a new variety of mushroom whose enzyme 'Laccase' could be used instead of heavy metals like platinum as a catalytic in fuel cells of the future. A prototype laccase fuel cell that is being designed will produce 400 milliamps for 2,500 hours-enough for your ipod.

Laccase (the mushroom enzyme) acts as a catalytic to speed up reactions on fuel cell electrodes. The Oxford chemists believe that current batteries could eventually be replaced by portable power sources from laccase-coated electrodes.

Batteries currently produce 200,000 tons of unrecycled waste each year— much of it consisting of heavy metals.


via Cleantechnica

concept: motion powered flashlight

Christian Moser an industrial designer, created this eco fabulous motion powered flashlight for the ski slopes. The PolarLight is a flashlight that is designed to harness the energy of motion for a recharge. The light can be worn on an arm and can be powered on easily when visibility is low.

via Eco Friend

audi e-tron electric car: my haute heaven

Audi has just unveiled the e-Tron, an electric concept car with four motors, super acceleration and uber torque.

The German automaker set out to prove electric cars can rival the best sports cars, so it gave the all-wheel-drive two-seater 230 kilowatts (313 horsepower) and 3,319 pound-feet of torque. Um, SICK!!!!

To put that number in perspective, the Tesla Roadster, arguably the benchmark for production electric sports cars, produces 276 foot-pounds. The Dodge Viper gets 600 out of its huge V10. The Bugatti Veyron puts down 922. And the M1 Abrams tank produces 2,750 (at 3,000 RPM).

70 percent of this torque goes to the back 19" wheels. Audi claims the concept e-Tron will do zero to 100 km/hr (62 mph) in 4.8 seconds. It also will do 60 to 120 km/hr (37 mph to 75 mph) in 4.1 seconds. Top speed is electronically limited to 200 km/hr (124 mph) to maximize battery range.....or keep you alive.
Speaking of, the e-Tron gets its juice from a 42.4-kilowatt-hour, liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery with a range of 154 miles. Recharge time is six to eight hours at 230 volts. The pack weighs 1,036 pounds and powers four asynchronous wheel-mounted motors with a total output of 230 kilowatts. (For the sake of comparison, the Roadster’s 53 kw/hr pack weighs 1,000 pounds and its motor produces 185 kilowatts).

The e-Tron weighs a light 3,527 pounds. That’s just 253 pounds more than the new Ferrari 458 Italia. Audi made extensive use of aluminum and carbon fiber in building the car — which is slightly smaller in every dimension than the R8 — and made the doors, roof and other body panels of fiber-reinforced plastic. Audi says the car has a 42:58 weight distribution.

At this point the e-Tron is just a concept...... BOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Thank you for making my day Wired!

a green rating for your hdtv

If you are in the market for a new television, you might want to take a gander at Greenopia's guide: green ratings for all electronics companies. It could come in very handy if you would like a lower electricity bill. A properly calibrated HDTV makes a difference too.

13 new solar plants in the west

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Senator Harry Reid announce plans to fast-track commercial-scale solar power development on public lands.

Federal agencies will work with western leaders to designate tracts of U.S. public lands in the West as prime zones for utility-scale solar energy development.

Under the zoning portion of the initiative, 24 tracts of Bureau of Land Management land located in six western states, known as Solar Energy Study Areas, would be evaluated for their environmental and resource suitability for commercial-scale solar energy production. Those areas selected would be available for projects capable of producing 10 or more megawatts of electricity. The Solar Energy Study Areas (maps) located in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah encompass about 670,000 acres.

The goal is to produce a total of 100,000 megawatts of solar electricity. The plan would streamline the entire development process; coordinate zoning and environmental studies, and; prioritize the processing of the projects. The new plan will tap resources made available in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law by President Obama.

via RGB

microbes will clean wastewater and generate electricty

A team of researchers from China and the US have modified a microbial fuel cell, which carries naturally occurring bacteria to convert wastewater into clean water, while generating electricity.

Much more efficient than a conventional microbial fuel cell, it uses 200 milliliters of artificial wastewater to desalinate about 3 milliliters of salty water and the team is confident that they’ve hit upon a system which can have enormous potential if more research is done. source

led candle substitute

Industrial designer Jasper Hou has created this self-powered LED light that converts mechanical energy into electricity.

'Time Your Light', comes with a timer base that is to be rotated by the user to wind up the crank mechanism on the inside. Once wound, the system starts to unwind, slowly converting the mechanical energy into electricity. The amount of winding depends on the time the light glows.

via Yanko

biodiesel from waste

A group of Spanish developers working for a company called Ecofasa just announced a new biofuel made up from trash. This isn't a biodiesel made from used frying oil; instead, it's made from general urban waste which is treated by bacteria. The result of that bacteria? Fatty acids that can be used to produce standard biodiesel. According to the company's CEO, the process is fully biologic, competes with no feedstock and is really sustainable. However, the process doesn't yield that much actual fuel: just one liter of biodiesel from 10 kg of trash. The project is now in a development phase, but Ecofasa said that a commercially viable model could be ready in three to four years.
Source

qnuru: outdoor led lighting

Fabulous solar and led lights by qnuru!