SolarFold and SolarFan Use Thousands of Tiny Spheres to Charge Your Gadgets
Image via Engadget
Two new foldable solar chargers from AmbienTech have hit the market. But…They look a little odd, right? That’s because they’re the first mobile chargers to use spherical solar cells. Each cell has around 1,900 spheres collecting solar energy. They’re strong, bendable, and just look cool.
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Canada’s Largest Supermarket Chain to Install Solar Panels on 100+ Stores in Ontario
Photo: Google Maps
Loblaw Couldn’t Resist Ontario’s Generous Feed-in Tariff?
Loblaw is announcing today that it will put solar panels on the roof of 4 supermarkets in a pilot program, with the ultimate goal of installing solar arrays on more than 100 stores in Ontario. This is not surprising considering how insanely generous the feed-in tariffs for solar power are in the province (between 53.9 and 80.2 ยข/kWh, with 20-year contracts). I just hope that measures have been taken to avoid repeating what happened in S…Read the full story on TreeHugger
More Efficient Biomass Gasification Through Solar Concentrating Mirrors
photo: Alex Lang via flickr.
Here’s a new twist on biomass gasification, one which more or less merges it with solar thermal. Technology Review is highlighting the efforts of Colorado-based Sundrop Fuels to develop a system which uses the heat of the sun to vaporize biomass and turn it into syngas:…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Finding the Key to Subsidizing Solar Power
Photo via International Rivers
The International Herald Tribune has an interesting (if embarrassingly headlined–in the print edition, they went all-out for an Icarus reference) look at the boom and bust of the Spanish solar industry today. Basically, in a rush to jumpstart a pioneering solar industry, the Spanish gov offered far too sweet a feed-in tariff for solar investors–a whopping 58 U…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Colorado Legislature Approves 30% by 2020 Renewable Energy Standard – Only California’s is Higher
Distributed generation for utilities is part of the mandate. Photo: Solar Dave via flickr.
Now this is getting somewhere… Climate Progress reports that the Colorado House of Representatives has passed an increase in the state’s <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/higher-national-renewable-…Read the full story on TreeHugger
A Party for a Solar Powered New York
Image credit: Solar One
If you are anything like me, you can be supportive of a particular piece of legislation. But that support doesn’t always turn into action. From clean energy legislation to local feed-in tariffs, there is plenty that law makers can do to help us move to a greener, saner, more efficient econo…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Hit Or Miss? The Light Tree Combines Solar Street Lighting and Planters
Image via Yanko Design
This seems like a slightly more Alice In Wonderland, slightly less majestic version of Ross Lovegrove’s solar tree-like streetlights, but designer Omar Ivan Huerta Cardoso is giving fake-tree-solar-streetlighting a go with the Light Tree. This one, however, has a few real sprouts incorporated into the design, which is nice – but can that overcome some of the other problematic design flaws?…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Solar Powered Plant Mate Puts Your Garden’s Vitals On Your iPhone
Images via Yanko Design
If you’re a fretful gardener with a gadget geek streak, you might love this concept design by Tom Dooley, Mansour Ourasanah, and Mathieu Turpault. Using solar powered spikes distributed throughout your garden, you can get the vitals delivered to your iPhone, showing you everything from nutrition levels in soil to sun exposure and their impacts on your favorite plants. …Read the full story on TreeHugger
Google Develops a Cheaper Mirror for Solar Thermal, Could Cut Cost in Half
Photo: Public domain, Sandia Labs
The Search Giant is Working on Cheaper Mirrors
Solar thermal power has a bright future (ha!), but at the moment the biggest hurdle in the way of wider adoption is capital cost. All those mirrors cost a lot of money and add up to a significant portion of the total cost of a solar thermal power plant. Thats why Google’s energy division has been working on making cheaper mirrors. Bill Weihl, the company’s green energy czar, claims that their latest prototype could cut by …Read the full story on TreeHugger
California Doubles Net-Metering Cap on Wind and Solar to 5%
Photo: Flickr, CC
Your Solar Roof or Micro Wind Turbine Produces Excess Power?
The Californian legislature just passed a new bill that would increase the amount of power that utilities can buy from people who produce power at home (mostly solar panels, and small wind turbines). The current law limits this to 2.5%, but once the governor has signed the new law, this will be raised to 5%. “The Assembly adopted the bill on a 53-1 vote. Rachel Arrezola, a spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the governor intends…Read the full story on TreeHugger
