OUT OF OIL

Quoted from www.inhabitat.com:
Inhabitat » World’s First Positive Energy Building in Masdar, Abu Dhabi

March 6, 2008

World’s First Positive Energy Building in Masdar, Abu Dhabi

by Cate Trotter

Not settling for mere zero-energy, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill’s Masdar Headquarters are setting new design standards for green building, with their scheme that generates more energy than it consumes. The Masdar Headquarters building outside of Abu Dhabi is also the first building in history to generate power for its own assembly, using a solar roof pier that will be built first to power the rest of the construction.

The building’s sustainability gave it the edge to beat 159 others in the international design competition. The $300 million, 1.4 million square foot headquarters will serve as the stunning centerpiece of the super-green, car-free Norman Foster-designed Masdar City, the $22 billion development just outside Abu Dhabi.

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Quoted from Triple Pundit

Nanoantennas: Solar arrays that absorb energy even in the dark!!

A collaboration of physicists, scientists and businesses have teamed up to create cheap and highly effective solar cells on a nanoscopic scale. Spearheaded by the Idaho National Laboratory, this team is onto a fresh way of producing solar panels that can continue to absorb energy even after the sun has set. The technology, not only efficient at nearly 80%, will also be cheap to manufacture, at estimated pennies a yard.

A specialized manufacturing process will stamp tiny square spirals of a conducting metal onto a think sheet of plastic that have been coined “nanoantennas.” At the slight width on the order of 1/25 the diameter of a human hair, these nanoantennas can absorb energy produced through the infrared spectrum. Infrared energy is produced in massive quantities by the sun, a portion of which is absorbed by the earth only to be released as radiation after the sun has set. These nanoantennas can absorb energy from both the rays of the daylight sun and the heat radiated from the earth at a higher efficiency than modern solar cells.

Steven Novak, a physicist at the Idaho National Laboratory spoke on this technology he is working on at the National Nano Engineering Conference in Boston. He said, “I think these antennas really have the potential to replace traditional solar panels.”

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Traditional NiMH or Alkaline batteries still rule the market for stored energy, a reliable but as we all know not very sustainable and clean . Admitted, the rechargeable ones are getting better and better, but still they aren’t and probably never will be as clean as we would like it. So it may be time for a new generation. The most promising technology now available seems to be fuel cells, energy storage units based on Hydrogen power. Well here it is! Ladies and gentlemen Millenium Cell in cooperation with Horizon Technologies proudly present a new portable battery based on hydrogen power technique, the Hydropak.

You’re right, it is not exactly new and maybe not really a breakthrough, but it is another step forward towards a new standard for batteries, one that is better for the environment and so better for all of us. Amen. The advantages of the Hydropak over traditional batteries? There are many. The device delivers 350 Wh, enough to keep it going for about fourteen hours  at full speed. It could reload your laptop battery up to ten times.  Since in fuel cell systems the energy supplier and power system is separated there is no reloading time when it’s empty, just plug in a new cartridge, add some water and it’s ready to go again. Furthermore it does it’s work in silence and the only byproduct is water, clean pure water, so it can be used indoors as well as outdoors. Oh, and another advantage over rechargeable NiMH batteries, the fuel cells energy won’t leak away that quickly, in fact it hardly does. Of course there are some disadvantages too. The device is not yet cheap, 400 dollars plus 20 for each new cartridge. But prices will drop as soon as enough people buy them. It’s just like with your computer, by the time you first manage to get the peep thing running the price has dropped 10% already. It sucks but that’s life. So far the Hydropak is only available in the US of A.

Whether you like it or not the days of the gas slurping mastodons are about to end. Okay, there are still a lot suvs (most of the suv drivers really look a lot like sportsmen don’t you think?)  rolling by every day, but believe me it’s a species on the brink of extinction. I have to admit I’ve always wanted to drive these Cadillacs and Studebakers of the fifties and sixties. Still love to see them, but I wouldn’t like to be paying their fuel bills… .

So now, since that episode is almost over, let us look ahead. Many people made plans and presented futuristic drawings of ‘the car of the future’ but only very few actually tried to make one. Well, these guys did. And they didn’t just try, they really did it! The efforts of their team resulted in the Aptera, which is Greek for “wingless flight”. And this is how it looks.

Liking it or not is a personal thing. How it looks is however not the most important thing, well it shouldn’t be, what it can and cannot do is. For those of you who love to exceed all speed limits it’s probably not the perfect car yet. It won’t go faster than about 90 Mph or 140 km/h and if you hope to impress an old lady on the curb by racing away from the traffic lights don’t buy one. But you wouldn’t anyway. If you like the thought of driving 100 kilometers on only 1 liter gasoline however, this might be the one for you.  It still could do with some restyling is my humble opinion but it’s a promising start. They even made a commercial for it, it’s not really dazzling but hey, they’re still young.

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Now I suggest the designers /engineers contact The guys from Nanosolar and use their ink based solar foil for the cars top layer, so its batteries will be charged all the time.

One of the reasons solar energy still isn’t mainstream yet is the volume the panels usually have and the high costs involved in purchasing and installing the damn heavy things. Wouldn’t it be much better if thin and flexible solar sheets could be produced? Well that’s been done already, many companies produce solar panels that can be rolled up and folded, for instance for outdoor sports. But still these sheets are rather thick and by no means cheap. A solar panel as thin as a sheet of paper would be ideal, a solar panel that could be produced on the roll, in a mass production system to lower the costs. Roll it of, cut off the length you need and simply paste it on the roof or wherever you need it, now thát would be some innovation, wouldn’t it?

Well, whatever you may think, the jury of the innovation contest 2007 by Popular Science Magazine thought it was innovative enough to deserve the first price. The California based firm of Nanosolar managed to develop a thin layer or coating of some kind of solar absorbing ink that simply can be printed on an metallic foil base using newspaper printing techniques. With this technique they are able to create very light solar panels or foils that cost only about a tenth of the traditional panels and still be as efficient. This sounds quite promising so maybe you are thinking about investing in the company? You are by no means the first, the founders of Google did already invest more than a fistful of dollars in Nanosolar. By the way, another plus is that for the production of these nanosolar cells no silicon is needed like for all other type of solar panels. And since there happens to be a global silicon shortage this comes in handy.  Solar ink might actually prove to be the future. 

More about this at Celsias.

I’m a flatlander, I live in the Netherlands. No, not beneath the sea level but not that far above it too, high enough however to keep it dry if the pessimists scenario’s about rising sea levels become reality. One of the famous Dutch projects to control the waters and live happily ever after is the Afsluitdijk, a dike that keeps the North Sea out and after completion (in 1932) transformed the former Southern Sea into a freshwater lake, the IJsselmeer. The dike is ever since the physical boundary between the lake’s fresh water and the sea’s salty water. And guess what, there happens to be energy in it. I bet Mister Lely, the engineer who managed the whole project never thought of that. The process is called Reversed Electro Dialysis (RED) and is based on the principle that when fresh and salt water meet or mix, energy is released.

The project is still in the early stages of progress but by the time it will be finished the installation at the Afsluitdijk should provide about 200MW. The situation in the Netherlands have a total potential of 3000MW, roughly 10% of the national energy needs. Not bad for a 75 year old dike only created to protect the land behind it. For the technicians among you, this is how it works:

It’s very fashionable to to create ‘The Best Of’ lists. The magazines serve us a top three of this or a top five of that and I always wonder who or what just didn’t make it to the list or wasn’t even considered.  Guess I’ll never know. In the world of those who care about the environment we all spent our days in charts are popular too. Here is one for you, it’s the top ten of green building products 2007. Take a look and see if there’s something to your liking among it. This one is my favorite.

And this is how it works.

1. External radiated heat is reflected.

2.  Direct heat from the sun is reduced.

3. Internal radiated heat is reflected.

Sometimes all it takes is one person with a vision, an idea and last but not least a good deal of stubborness and initiative. Down Under this man could be Roger Davey, Executive Chairman of Enviro Mission ltd and his dream, his passion or better, his obsession is the Solar Tower Project. Australia is known for it’s sunny climate, however this energy potential is not yet taken advantage of at a large scale on the continent. If this project will prove to be a success, this might change in the near future.

The first tower (the plan is to add four more later on) will appear south of Sidney at Buronga, in the Wentworth Shire of New South Wales. This area is chosen because of low land-prices and lots of sunshine - Buronga is nicknamed Sunraysia for over 300 sunny days are counted each year. Originally the tower would point 1000 meters into the air. The latest plans however speak of a height of 600 meter, still quite a stalk. The technique is actually quite simple; the air is heated under an extensive collection zone made of glass panels. Hot air rises, in this case seeking it’s way out through the chimney, thus powering the turbines. Each tower should generate about 200 megawatt, enough for roughly 200.000 households. Discovery Channel made this item about it.

The idea is as old as humanity, if you want to be closer to heaven you climb a mountain. If there are no mountains around you simply built a high tower. They did so in Babylon a few thousand years ago. they do so now, just about everywhere. And if you spent an awful lot of money in building a monumental tower why not put some of the latest high tech into it in order to make the whole thing friendly to the environment ? That’s what they did designing these skyscrapers.

In Miami the building of this one started in July 2007 and it should be completed somewhere in 2010.  The energy used by the future residents of this COR building will be generated partly by wind-turbines on the roof and via photovoltaic arrays, their hot water will be heated by solar power too. In the ’sunny state’ it seems no less then logical that the sun is used as a major power source, yet so far it is not. Now that the energy prices are rising, maybe this will change soon, I guess it should.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in not so sunny London another eco-tower will rise downtown.  Wind will be the main source for the building’s hunger for power. Three nine meter windmills on the roof should take care of it.

Another couple of thousand kilometers to the southwest the sun is in charge once again. The hot and dry Arabian desert has always been a hostile place for humans to live, yet they have for many ages. To make live less harsh over there cooling is needed and -oh paradox- the sun can provide it. The twentieth century was the oil age for the Arabian peninsula. Now that the wells are getting empty the ever shining sun might very well be the new gold for the coming ages. Some sheiks are already anticipating on this by using their oil-dollars to put up big but sustainable towers. 

This energy-wise fully self supplying skyscraper, the Bur al-Taqa, exists only in the computer of its designer, the German architect Eckhard Gerber. He hopes to sell it in the Middle East, both Dubai and Riyadh may be interested. The tower uses a mix of systems to generate power. Photovoltaic systems off course but also wind energy for ventilation and cooling, Building in the Middle East usually means that the sea is not far away so a floating array will be used to take in energy from the waves. And if there is a surplus of energy this will be used to extract hydrogen from the seawater, filling fuel-cells for use during the dark and less windy hours. Interesting detail is that the wind catcher on the roof is actually based on a traditional Iranian cooling system.

The Nuna 1, 2,and 3 won the last three editions of the race and now the Nuna 4 will try to win the World Solar Challenge for the fouth consecutive time. The Dutch team of students from the Delft University of Technology created another shiny racing car, naturally powered completely by solar energy. The match starts in Darwin and the finish will be in Adelaide, a journey of 3000 km. On the Dutch version of their site they keep a blog (only in Dutch) during the week of the match (October 21 - 28 2007). Check out the Dutch site too for a cool Google-maps application.

UPDATE: October 28 - Yes they did it again…. .