[TECHNOLOGY] Futuros dispositivos de Apple podrían utilizar energía solar

Empleados de Apple han solicitado una patente para integrar celdas solares dentro de los dispositivos portátiles colocándolos bajo las capas de la pantalla sensible al tacto, de acuerdo con la solicitud. La energía solar le ayudaría a hacer dispositivos verdaderamente portátiles, liberándose de la necesidad de cables para conectarlos a la fuente de energía.

Cuando se genera electricidad con paneles solares, cuanto más grande sea el panel mejor, pero la patente advierte “de paneles solares en dispositivos portátiles”, luego de permitir espacio para los botones, pantalla y una manera de alojar el dispositivo, solo un a pequeña área se deja en la mayoría de los dispositivos para las celdas solares.

Una de las maneras sugirió que la patente es para colocar una capa sensible al tacto, una pantalla y un panel solar uno encima del otro. Esto haría del iPhone y el iPod Touch de Apple buenos candidatos para dichas fuentes de energía, ya que la pantalla ocupa casi toda la carátula de estos aparatos.

El uso de carga con energía solar en aparatos portátiles está comenzando a tomar más atención para uso más inmediato de consumidores.

Cuando Vodafone anunció su plan en abril para reducir las emisiones del gas invernadero CO2 en un 50 por ciento para el 2020, también anunció planes para cargadores de teléfono alimentados por luz solar y cargadores universales para teléfonos de los aparatos de marca Vodafone.

En la reciente conferencia ITU Telecom Africa 2008, el ministro ugandés de comunicaciones y tecnologías de información y comunicación, Ham-Mukasa Mulira habló sobre los acuerdos de uso de carga con energía solar, que había prometido.

Source: PC World|By Mikael Ricknäs (IDG News Service)

Found this post useful? Consider subscribing to
Sustainable Affairs Feed/RSS.

ASIA: Solar energy in Uzbekistan

An era of record-high oil prices topping $80 a barrel has left investors and nations scrambling to develop alternative sources of energy. The theoretical annual potential of solar power is estimated to exceed all fossil fuels reserves by more than 10-20 times.

In Central Asia, solar power is receiving renewed attention, particularly in Uzbekistan, with a population of 26 million.

Besides a climate suited to solar power, Uzbekistan brings advantages to the table, including a longstanding interest in generating power from sunlight, an advanced industrial base and a highly literate, hard-working population. Since 1965, the Uzbek Academy of Sciences has published the quarterly journal Geliotekhnika ('Applied Solar Energy,') the former Soviet Union`s sole scientific publication devoted to solar power. Topics covered range from solar radiation, photovoltaics and solar materials to direct conversion of solar energy into electrical power.

The technical potential of solar energy in Uzbekistan is immense and is estimated to exceed by 400 percent the country`s annual energy needs of 65 million tons of oil equivalent. The problem for Uzbekistan, as with many alternative energy sources, is the relatively high start-up costs.

Initial projects have been modest in scope, with a major effort being made to develop solar-powered hot-water supply systems for use in such enterprises as agricultural hothouses, cattle farms and the drying and canning of fruits and vegetables.

Officials in Tashkent have been busy searching out funding for solar projects from a variety of sources, including the United Nations. Under a grant from the U.N. Development Program, scientists of the Uzbek Physical and Technical Institute and Agency for Technology Transfer have instituted the 'Pure Energy for Rural Communities in Karakalpakstan' project, which allowed specialists at Uzbekistan`s 'Foton' Plant to produce 25 photoelectrical systems for supplying the people of the Aral Sea region with electricity and hot water in the designated Ayazkala tourist complex, which uses solar photovoltaic batteries to supply the facility with energy and desalinated drinking water.

Uzbekistan has also sought cooperation with foreign specialists from countries including Israel, Denmark and Japan through its 'Physics-Sun' Scientific Industrial Association. Currently operating solar facilities include a 'Big Solar Stove' located in Parkent`s Materials Science Institute with a generating capacity of 1 megawatt.

Uzbekistan is on the crest of a development wave in alternative energy sources, as high energy prices are driving many nations to consider solar power. In March, Portugal opened the world`s largest solar power plant in Serpa. The $109 million 11-megawatt facility, a joint GE Energy Financial Services, PowerLight Corp. and Catavento project containing 52,000 photovoltaic modules, sprawls across a 150-acre site 124 miles southeast of Lisbon and produces 40 percent more energy than Germany`s Gut Erlasse solar plant, the world`s second largest. Environmentally friendly, the Serpa facility is capable of generating 20 gigawatt-hours of power per year and will produce sufficient power for 8,000 residences as it replaces fossil-fuel fired plants that would otherwise emit 30,000 tons of greenhouse gases annually.

Uzbekistan is pressing forward with bringing together solar specialists from around the world to share ideas on research on solar power. Later this month the 'Physics-Sun' Scientific Industrial Association is holding an international conference covering collateral solar issues of magnetism and superconductivity in the Academy of Mamun in Khiva. The Uzbek government, the Uzbek Academy of Sciences and Cambridge University are sponsoring the seminar, which is expected to bring together 120 participants from 70 nations.

Uzbekistan also has a potential partner in developing its burgeoning interest in solar -- its rising trade partner China. In 2006 China passed the United States to become the world`s third-largest producer of solar panels, behind Germany and Japan. While the costs of polysilicon, the chief material in photovoltaic solar panels, remains high, some specialists estimate that costs could fall 40 percent in the next few years as purified polysilicon production is boosted by more than a dozen companies in Europe, China, Japan and the United States, with many analysts speculating that China, with its industrial base and lower labor costs, will quickly develop a commanding lead in the field. Chinese solar-cell makers already export 90 percent of their output to Germany, Japan the United States and other countries, surging a ten-fold increase in prices for polysilicon to $200-300 per kilogram. Chinese-Uzbek trade has similarly expanded; during January-July 2006, the volume of bilateral trade soared to $659 million, a 62.6 percent gain from the same period in 2005.

Sad to say, there seems to be a nexus between energy and terrorism, and the issue has even indirectly touched Uzbekistan`s growing interest in solar power. On Aug. 15 German authorities arrested Tolga Durbin, a 29-year-old German of Turkish descent, and charged him with incitement to violence after his deportation from Pakistan, where on June 10 he was arrested on the Iranian-Pakistani frontier. Durbin, born in Turkey, introduced his friend Fritz Gelowicz, whom he knew from working in Gelowicz`s father`s solar heating firm in Ulm, to radical Islam. On Sept. 4 Gelowicz along with German Muslim convert Daniel Martin Schneider and Turkish citizen Adem Yilmaz were taken into custody. German authorities allege that the men were members of the anti-Uzbek Islamic Jihad Union and received terrorist training in Pakistan, after which they returned to Germany and procured 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide to fashion into explosives to attack U.S. military installations in Germany.

Both terrorism and renewable energy resources are global problems. Power generation can in itself be a tool to combat terrorism, as it produces a rising standard of living for those with access to it. As the world searches for acceptable alternatives to increasingly expensive fossil fuels, nations previously seen as marginal players in the global energy market will increasingly come to the fore. Given its expertise and abundant sunshine, the future of Uzbek solar power looks bright indeed.

Via|Monster & Critics News | by John C.K
Martin Schneider,solar power,solar energy,Japan,Uzbekistan,PowerLight,GE,Adem Yilmaz,Fritz Gelowicz,Germany,Uzbek solar power,energyblog

Found this post useful? Consider subscribing to
Sustainable Affairs Feed/RSS.

CALIFORNIA: The biggest solar farm of teh World is planned in AMERICA

A San Francisco company said Friday it plans to build the world's largest solar power farm near Fresno, California.

The 80-megawatt farm is to occupy as much as 640 acres (260 hectares) and upon completion in 2011 will be 17 times the size of the largest U.S. solar farm, said Cleantech America LLC, a privately held 2-year-old company.

The farm will also be about seven times the size of the world's biggest plant and double the largest planned farm, both in Germany.

Bill Barnes, CEO of Cleantech, said the scale of the Kings River Conservation District Community Choice Solar Farm will change renewable energy and make California the global leader for huge solar projects and replace Germany as the solar energy hub of the world.

"We're pretty confident that solar farms on this scale are going to have an industry-changing impact," Barnes said by telephone on Friday. "We think it's the wave of the future. This scale of project, I think, creates a tipping point for renewable energy."

Barnes declined to give the estimated construction cost of the Community Choice farm.

"We think the impact for it will be similar to the impact of the computer chip," which gained computing power once made on a large scale, Barnes said.

"So too will economies of scale like the Community Choice farm drive down the cost of solar," Barnes said.

Cleantech has announced two solar farms so far and the future projects it will announce are, as of now, to be in California and also in the range of the 80-megawatt farm near Fresno, Barnes said.

Cleantech will partner with public agency California Construction Authority in building its projects.

Among the hurdles to be crossed before the new farm can be built, said Barnes, is buying the acreage somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley, hooking the farm to transmission lines, and contracting with a manufacturer of photovoltaic solar panels.

Cleantech plans to sell the solar-generated power -- enough for almost 21,000 homes -- to the Kings River Conservation District, which is a public agency that seeks to supply power generation for 12 cities and two counties in California's Central Valley.

Kings River is the water management arm of the San Joaquin Valley Power Authority, which was formed in November in order to purchase and generate enough power for the 12 cities and two counties to replace power now bought from investor-owned utilities Pacific Gas and Electric Co. a unit of PG&E Corp. and Southern California Edison, a unit of Edison International.

Last week, Cleantech announced plans to build a five-megawatt solar farm on 40 acres near Mendota, California, also in the Central Valley. Power will be delivered to PG&E.

The biggest solar farm now in operation is the 4.6-megawatt Springerville Generating Station near Tucson, Arizona which delivers power to Tucson Electric Power, a subsidiary of UniSource Energy Corp..

The Community Choice farm will not need state approval because Kings River is a self-generator and the farm is a renewable resource and does not emit pollution, Barnes said. But that designation must be approved by the California Energy Commission. Local permits must be given, he added.

Via: REUTERS
by Bernie Woodall

TECH: The space solar power

The Pentagon's National Security Space Office (NSSO) may begin a study in the near future on the possibility of using satellites to collect solar energy for use on Earth, according to Defense Department officials.

The officials said the study does not mean that the military plans to demonstrate or deploy a space-based solar power constellation. However, as the Pentagon looks at a variety of alternative energy sources, this could be one possible method of supplying energy to troops in bases or on the battlefield, they said.

The military's work in this area also could aid development of a system that could provide energy to non-military users as well, according to Lt. Col. Michael Hornitschek, chief of rated force policy on the Air Force staff at the Pentagon.

Hornitschek, who has been exploring the concept of space-based solar power in his spare time, recently briefed the NSSO on the concept of space-based solar power, and stimulated interest in conducting a formal study, according to Lt. Col. M.V. "Coyote" Smith, chief of future concepts at the NSSO. The NSSO would need to find the financial resources and available manpower to conduct the study, Smith said.

Hornitschek would lead work on the study on behalf of the NSSO if the NSSO elects to pursue it, and he said he hopes that a system could be deployed in roughly 20 years.

John Mankins, president of the Space Solar Power Association in Washington, said space-based solar power could offer a massive improvement over terrestrial solar collection devices because constant exposure to the sun avoids the nighttime periods where terrestrial systems cannot collect solar energy.

The ability to constantly gather solar energy would allow a space-based system to avoid safety concerns to other satellites or people on the ground by constantly transmitting energy to Earth at a level that is high enough to be useful but low enough so as not to cause any damage, said Mankins, a former NASA official who previously served as manager of advanced concept studies at NASA headquarters before leaving the agency in 2005.

Jeff Kueter, president of the Marshall Institute, a Washington think tank, said it is too early to determine if space-based solar power is viable, but said that if the concept is successful, it could be a potential "game changer" for energy use.

The concept could find broad bipartisan support as it could meet the desires both of conservatives seeking to end dependence on foreign energy sources, as well as liberals who are looking for an environmentally friendly source of energy, Kueter said.

While space-based solar power may sound like a high-risk proposal, it is worth investing several million dollars in the near term to study the concept because of the potential high payoff, Kueter said. If the studies indicated that the concept might be feasible, it would be worthwhile for the Pentagon to conduct flight demonstrations to prove out the technology in space, he said.

If the Pentagon chose to pursue flight demonstrations or deployment of a space-based solar power system, it could share costs by partnering with NASA, the Department of Energy and other government agencies, Kueter said.

The concept of space-based solar power might appear to threaten traditional energy industries, Kueter said. However, the rapidly increasing demands for energy and diminishing supply of natural resources means that traditional energy companies may need to find new ways of doing business in the future, and they could likely find a way to be a part of the space-based solar power effort through ways like contributing expertise in areas like energy distribution, he said.

The NSSO would likely ask experts from industries like electrical power to be involved in the study if it chooses to conduct it to draw on their experience with power distribution, Smith said.

If the NSSO initiates the study on space-based solar power, it would likely be the first time that the Pentagon has looked at the concept, Hornitschek said.

Smith said he hoped the study could create a repository of information about space-based solar power that may have been conducted by other agencies, as well as any that may have existed within the military.

Hornitschek said it is too early to estimate the likely constellation size, types of orbits or cost of a space-based solar-power constellation. However, the satellites would likely feature very large, powerful solar arrays. In addition, the cost of launching a constellation of such large satellites with the types of launch vehicles available today would be a challenge, Hornitschek said.

Mankins said a large constellation could demonstrate a significant launch opportunity to industry, and could provide the stimulus needed for industry to bring reusable launch concepts to fruition.

SPACE

spacesolar powerThe Pentagon,National Security Space Office,
alternative energy sources
Blogalaxia Tags: Energia,
Sostenibilidad y
Tecnologia

CHALLENGES: Burnt By The Sun?

Solar power, the once hippie-dippy technology touted by crunchies from Berkeley, Calif., to Cambridge, Mass., is good at more than just turning sunlight into electricity. Thanks, in part, to rich government subsidies for solar power put in place by governments from Spain to Germany, it has also turned out to be one of the few green technologies able to reliably turn big stacks of money into even bigger stacks of money.

The result? A boomlet of stock offerings from Chinese outfits whose low manufacturing costs give them an edge in the labor-intensive business of cranking out solar panels. The latest comes from LDK Solar, which manufactures the silicon wafers that other firms turn into solar panels. For now, at least, the numbers look good: For the three months ended March 31, the company reported net income of $25 million on sales of $73.4 million.

The firm--based in Xinyu City, north of the electronics manufacturing hub of Guangdong province--will offer 13.4 million shares at between $25.00 and $27.00 this week on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol LDK (existing shareholders will sell another 4.0 million shares). The offering could raise as much as $361.6 million, before subtracting underwriting fees, which will be used to expand LDK Solar's factory, pay for polysilicon feedstock--the raw material the company uses to make silicon wafers--and to invest in research and development. Morgan Stanley (nyse: MS - news - people ) and UBS (nyse: UBS - news - people ) are the lead underwriters on the deal.

The catch? The market for solar panels is in flux right now. High oil prices have demand booming. But without government subsidies, solar-power still costs more per unit of energy than the conventional alternatives. So what could happen? Just look at the ethanol industry. A wave of hype around the alternative fuel last year caused an IPO boomlet--but as corn prices shot up and the hype wore off, profits faded, burning investors.

FORBES

by Brian Caulfield

solar power, Blogalaxia Tags: Energia,
Sostenibilidad y
Tecnologia