cleantech

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars Arrive: Chevrolet, Honda and BMW are road testing hydrogen powered cars with consumers now.  Hydrogen fuel cells provide electricity to run the cars.  While hydrogen mostly comes from fossil fuels at present, there are plans to change over to renewable sources of the clean fuel.  When burned, hydrogen produces only water as a byproduct.

Why should I add insulation to my home? Improving your home insulation system is one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to increase energy efficiency and comfort in your home. By investing in proper home insulation and weatherization products, you can significantly reduce your heating costs and reduce your cooling costs. The chart below shows the average percentage of energy usage in a home.

Investment in green technologies have reached two billion dollars in the second quarter of this year for companies Cleantech. The most important investments were made in solar-thermal systems and in new technologies for biofuel.

In India alone, 2 billion litres of diesel fuel are burned annually just to power the diesel generators needed to keep Base Stations running.

To get a sense of the scale, 2 billion litres is the annual milk production in Venezuela, and the total amount of bottled water consumed in the UK every year.

5 cents per kWh is claimed by a new company that combines extreme solar concentrators with hardy solar panels. To market next year!

Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems (VWS:DC) had a big week. First, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer announced that they would be building a tower manufacturing plant in Colorado.

Minnesota beat out 16 other states to land the International Renewable Energy Technology Institute (IRETI). IRETI will be a collaboration bewteen Minnesota, New York, Georgia and Sweden to exchange renewable energy technology.

A review of advances in solar panel technology and traditional polycrystalline silicon technology, with comments about advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. Problems with the Chinese silicon production industry are mentioned, as are successes in Germany and Spain. Links and references are provided.

Margot Gerritsen visits the Palo Alto Research Center again to have a look at the new concentrated solar PV system designed at PARC with Solfocus, a start-up incubated at PARC. It's a clever device that is designed to reduce the amount of silicon needed in PV systems per Watt produced.

Margot Gerritsen, Faculty Member, Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University,  interviews Scott Elrod, Manager of the Hardware SystemsGroup, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC); about the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center's ventures into the clean technology area. Recently, PARC worked together with the start-up SolFocus on the development of a new type of solar PV system, which is as effective as existing solar PV technology but requires a muchsmaller volume of silicon per unit area.

Brian Hannafin, Vice President, Business Development and Marketing, Center for Economic Growth (CEG), provides a tour of the New York State booth at theWashington International Renewable Energy Conference, discussing the clean energy companies and activities in New York.

On February 15th, the US national academy of engineering (NAE) unveiled its 14 engineering's grand challenges for the 21st century. A major forgotten challenge could be going beyond classical engineer area boundaries.

The Dow Jones Financial News recently called 2008 "the year to forget" and with the credit crunch from the sub-prime mortgage crisis, even politicians are talking about recession--something practically unheard of in an election year.

This week Israel hosted WATEC 2007, the International Exhibition for Water Technologies and Environmental Control. Israeli exports of water technology will pass $1 bln mark in 2007, not a small achievment for small country.

Serious Materials has developed EcoRock, an ecologically safer form of drywall which uses 90% less energy in production than standard gypsum and could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 billion lbs/year.

Thanks to emerging technology, greener, cleaner day-to-day living is becoming a reality.