Sustainable Technology

Ontario homeowners to reap solar benefits in 5 years, association says

by

Within five years Ontario homeowners could save enough money by putting solar panels on their roofs that they won’t need any subsidy to make installation worthwhile.

That’s the conclusion of a new analysis from the Canadian Solar Industries Association being released Thursday, which says the plunging costs of solar equipment, combined with rising overall electricity costs, will put the two in balance by 2020.

Currently, many Ontario homeowners are installing solar panels, but the incentive is a provincial program that pays them high rates for the electricity they generate – considerably above market prices.

The CanSIA analysis essentially says that within five years, without any kind of subsidy, homeowners will save enough money by generating their own power to pay for the solar equipment over its lifespan.

“There has been a 50-per-cent drop in the price of residential solar already,” said CanSIA president John Gorman. “We’re going to see continued drops over the coming years, and that means not only diminishing subsidies, but an actual payback starting in five years time.”

The analysis is based on a 3 kilowatt solar system costing about $7,800 in 2020, with a 25-year lifespan. It models electricity rates rising at about 2 per cent per year, and installation costs for home solar panels falling by about 26 per cent between now and 2020.

Mr. Gorman said that by 2025 it will be economic for homeowners to also shell out for a battery system to store solar power, essentially allowing them to tap into their solar panels to supply their electricity around the clock.

There has been criticism that the current subsidies for renewable power – including commercial scale solar and wind farms – have been driving up the overall cost of electricity in Ontario, thereby hurting both homeowners and businesses. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce released a survey on Wednesday that suggested as many as 5 per cent of businesses in the province say they might have to shut down in the next five years because of high electricity prices.

Mr. Gorman said the subsidies to solar power generators, and other renewable power companies, contribute only a very small part of higher power prices.

“The rate increase has been the result of investments that are made in all parts of the system – transmission lines and other things that desperately needed to be done to modernize our antiquated system,” he said. These investments will make the electricity system cheaper over the long run because they will “produce and monitor electricity better,” he added. Mr. Gorman also noted that most power systems in North America are seeing the same kinds of price boosts.

CanSIA’s director of policy and regulatory affairs Ben Weir said the price analysis would also apply to other provinces, if the capital costs for a solar system were roughly the same at in Ontario, and electricity prices at or above those in Ontario.

IKEA to install electric car-charging stations at all Canadian stores

by

​Swedish home furnishings giant IKEA says it will have free electric car-charging stations at all 12 of its stores in Canada by the end of this summer.

IKEA announced at the Climate Summit of the Americas just outside Toronto on Thursday that it will install 60-amp charging stations at all of its Canadian stores by the end of August.

“Charging will be provided to customers at no cost, on a first come first serve basis,” the chain said.

Every location will get two chargers per store to start with.

The infrastructure will be installed by Canadian energy firm Sun Country Highway, which says the type of charger it will be installing is compatible with every electric vehicle currently for sale in Canada and is strong enough to recharge approximately 80 per cent of an electric car battery in under three hours.

IKEA says it is an ideal retailer for the initiative because its stores tend to be located next to major highways, so they can help fight “range anxiety” among electric car drivers worried about running out of juice on a long trip.

The decision is part of the chain’s overall move toward sustainability. Last year, IKEA achieved 100 per cent renewable energy use in all of its stores through investments in things like a 46 megawatt wind farm in Alberta, almost 4,000 solar panels on the roofs of three Ontario stores, and a geothermal installation in Manitoba that is the province’s largest.

“Electric vehicle charging stations are an important step on IKEA Canada’s continuing journey towards sustainability,” the company’s sustainability manager Brendan Seale said.

Canadians make 25 million visits a year to the retail chain’s 12 stores across the country, Ikea said.

World’s First Solar Road Already Generating More Power than Expected – NationofChange

by

A new solar bike path in Krommenie, a village northwest of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which functions as a massive solar array, is already generating more power than expected. And guess what the SolaRoad is helping to generate-the electricity grid. Brilliant!

SolaRoad, the world’s first “solar road,” has only been in operation since November, but it’s already generating more power than expected. SolaRoad is a bike path in Krommenie, a village northwest of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, that also functions as a massive solar array. The project was developed by TNO, the Province of Noord-Holland, Ooms Civiel and Imtech.

“We did not expect a yield as high as this so quickly,” said Sten de Wit, spokesman for SolaRoad. “The bike road opened half a year ago and already generated over 3,000 kWh. This can provide a single-person household with electricity for a year, or power an electric scooter to drive 2.5 times around the world.”

The pilot period will run for another two and half years to see how well the panels hold up and how much electricity they generate. Since opening six months ago, more than 150,000 bicyclists have used the road. At the end of December and in early spring of this year, a small section of the panels needed repair, but otherwise the panels are holding up very well, according to the project developers. The solar cells are protected by a thin layer of transparent, skid-resistant tempered glass that is able to support bicycles and vehicles.

Where does this electricity go you ask? “The solar electricity from the road is fed into the electricity grid and can be used, for example, for street lighting, traffic systems, households and (eventually) electric cars that drive over it,” the project developers said.

The road is only 70 meters, or about 230 feet, so imagine the potential of this technology if adopted on a wider scale. We featured a similar Idaho-based project, Solar Roadways, whose Indiegogo campaign became extremely successful when their video went viral last year.

The project does have its detractors though. ZME Science points out the three-year project costs 3.5 million euros and the solar panels could need regular repair from winter weather and normal wear and tear. ZME Science said, “Maybe we should first cover every available inch on our rooftops first.”

Watch the video from SolaRoad to see how it could be the road of the future:

Here’s what your kitchen will look like in 2025, according to IKEA

by

IKEA didn’t just imagine the kitchen of the future, it actually built it.

The Concept Kitchen 2025, a pop-up exhibit featured at EXPO Milano 2015, isn’t about your kitchen and its appliances doing all the work for you; its about helping you make thoughtful decisions about food and waste. New designs for passive conservation of food are popping on the internet and IKEA is giving us a look of how it could fit together

The kitchen was developed with IDEO London, a global design firm, and college students focused on “the social, technological, and demographic forces that will impact how we behave around food in 2025.” Check out all the bells and whistles below.

Welcome to 2025. This is what your kitchen looks like.

 

IKEA1

Not sure what to do with that tomato that’s about to go bad? Place it on IKEA’s Table for Living to get a quick and easy recipe. The aim here is to reduce food waste.

 

IKEA2

All of the recipe information shows up on the table — leave your iPad on the couch.

 

IKEA3

For tiny apartment dwellers, the table eliminates the need for a stove. Hidden induction coils heat the inside of pots and pans rather than the surface to make the table amenable to working, cooking, or eating.

 

IKEA4

Meanwhile, The Modern Pantry takes the doors off of your refrigerator to keep your eyes on your food, so you know what you have on hand and won’t overbuy.

 

IKEA5

Refrigerated food is stored in transparent containers that are temperature controlled via an induction-cooling technology that’s embedded into the shelves.

 

IKEA6

This piece of fish is placed inside a container labeled “2 degrees Celsius.” The shelf will keep it at that temperature until you’re ready to use it.

 

IKEA7

The Mindful Water System encourages responsible water use. It has two sinks: one for toxic “black water” that goes out to the sewers and one for “grey water” that is reused in the dishwasher or to water the plants above the sink.

 

IKEA8

The Thoughtful Disposal System keeps us conscious of what we’re throwing away. Trash is manually sorted, crushed, vacuum-sealed, and labeled for pick-up.

 

IKEA9

 

If you’re interested in passive food conservation and what the kitchen will look like in the future. Check out La Denise, a kickstarter campaign that’s running today, made locally!

La Denise triple

 

The director of Avatar just designed a beautiful alternative to ugly traditional solar panels

by
Written By 

Everything James Cameron does is big.

Eighty-five years after the world’s largest ship sank, the famed Hollywood director turned the RMS Titanic’s fatal voyage into a movie that set records for longevity at the box office.

“Avatar,” meanwhile, needs its own Wikipedia page to list all the records it has set.

Now Cameron is bringing his love of magnitude to solar energy with the Sun Flower, a large solar structure that’s actually nice to look at.

Brandon Hickman

Composed of one central panel surrounded by 14 smaller “petals,” each Sun Flower is designed to provide an alternative to traditional solar panels that, while functional, strike many people as eyesores.

“The idea was to unify form and function with this life-affirming image that anyone looking at it would instantly get,” explained Cameron, who first launched the Sun Flower grid near Malibu’s MUSE School, to Gizmodo’s Alissa Walker.

MUSE School CA

Sun Flowers, like their yellow-petaled counterparts, track the sun over the course of the day to catch the maximum amount of rays.

This is both an artistic choice and a functional one.

Traditional solar panels sit idly on a hillside, roof, or angled platform. This causes them to miss out on valuable hours of solar energy as the sun moves across the sky, reducing their efficiency.

Total Sun Flower output can reach 260 kilowatt hours per day, or enough to satisfy 75 to 90% of the school’s total energy needs, Gizmodo reports.

Cameron says the project will be patented, but released on an open-source platform.

Brandon Hickman

The designs follow Cameron’s earlier work developing a set of retractable solar panels with FEMA. The panels are designed for emergency situations when the power goes out.

His other environmentally-conscious missions have included making the “Avatar” series the first film production entirely powered by the sun, and eliminating the need for helicopters in aerial shots, since drones can accomplish many of the same tasks without the heavy footprint.

Cameron has even launched a contest in New Zealand to find the optimal drone-based camera rigging.

But act fast: The deadline to enter is July 5.

‘Cow Poop Bus’ running on bio-methane breaks service bus land speed record

by

A service bus from Reading, UK, converted to run on bio-methane broke a land-speed record for a service bus recently, hitting 76.785 MPH, which is about 20 MPH faster than a typical bus can go (the driver said that he unofficially went above 80 MPH, but that wasn’t recorded as the official speed). Granted, that’s not exactly a face-melting speed, but the stunt had more to do with the fuel than the speed; the bus was powered by cow poop.

I’m not a big fan of most biofuels. In fact, I think the internal combustion engine (ICE) is on the way out because it’s inefficient and complex compared to electric motors, and it’s limited to only a few kinds of fuels while electric motors are omnivorous and can munch on electricity from any source (and as the grid becomes cleaner, they become cleaner too).

But some biofuels can make sense. Not those made from food crops like corn, because they jack food prices up and agriculture requires a lot of water and energy, making environmental benefits slim, if any. But biofuels made from waste can make sense, especially if that waste is methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that would otherwise go in the atmosphere and mess with its chemical and thermal balance.

Here’s the math:

According to the EPA, agriculture accounts for around 9 percent of the United States’ total greenhouse gas emissions. Of that, the majority is due to livestock, especially cattle, where methane is released into the atmosphere as the waste stews in fields and such places.

Compared to the 27 percent transportation contributes to the U.S.’s emissions problem, this might seem like a minor issue – but methane’s effect is around 20 percent stronger than that of carbon dioxide; if you could remove the cow manure using methane digesters from most California dairies, it would equate to the equivalent of eliminating one million cars from the roads. And that’s from just one state; there are around 88 million cattle on farms throughout the United States. What’s more, Sustainable Conservation suggests the biogas produced from that methane in California alone could power more than 100,000 vehicles. ( source)

So capturing methane from the decomposition of waste (all kinds), either to burn directly in converted large vehicles that we can’t electrify just yet, or in power plants, displacing fossil fuels, makes a ton of sense.

UPS/Promo image

I recently wrote a piece about UPS deploying ‘renewable biogas’ in 400 of its vehicles, and hopefully other big fleet operators will do the same. These trucks drive all day, every day, and require a lot of fuel. They’re a low-hanging fruit for these types of alternative fuel conversions (and ultimately, to go all electric).

Youtube/Screen capture Wikimedia/Public Domain

As you can see, the bus was painted black and white like a Holstein Friesian cow. It normally carries passengers around Reading, a city West of London, UK.

Biotech firm creates fake rhino horn to reduce poaching

by

Pembient, based in San Francisco uses keratin – a type of fibrous protein – and rhino DNA to produce a dried powder which is then 3D printed into synthetic rhino horns which is genetically and spectrographically similar to original rhino horns.The company plans to release a beer brewed with the synthetic horn later this year in the Chinese market.

The Chinese and Vietnamese rhino horn craze has caused an unprecedented surge in rhino poaching throughout Africa and Asia bringing the animal to the brink of extinction. In South Africa, home to 80 percent of Africa’s rhino population, 1,215 rhinos were killed in 2014.

Matthew Markus, CEO of Pembient says his company will sell rhino horns at one-eighth of the price of the original, undercutting the price poachers can get and forcing them out eventually.

We can produce a rhinoceros horn product that is actually more pure than what you can get from a wild animal. There are so many contaminants, pesticides, fallout from Fukishima. Rhino horn in the lab is as pure as that of a rhino of 2,000 years ago.

However, conservative groups are skeptical about the success of synthetic horn and may actually have harmful long term effects in combating the illicit trade. Susie Ellis, Executive director of International Rhino Foundation says:

Selling synthetic horn does not reduce the demand for rhino horn [and] could lead to more poaching because it increases the demand for “the real thing.” In addition, production of synthetic horn encourages its purported medicinal value, even though science does not support any medical benefits.

Five clean technology trends to watch

by

Earlier this year Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government and now the special representative for climate change, told a climate conference that there should be a greater focus on green technologies to help tackle climate change. While most people would have no problem with this idea, the real issue is which technologies to back. We are not short on innovation.

Over the last 20 years, there have been 1.2m granted patents and published patent applications from across the US, Europe and some world territories, on the clean tech patenting site CleanTech PatentEdge.

Of course, many of these ideas may never see the light of day or are unworkable on a mass scale, so what are the more realistic and practical innovations? We’ve picked out five technologies that are worth keeping an eye on.

Related: Colourful ‘solar glass’ means entire buildings can generate clean power

Transparent solar cells

An interesting development in alternative energy tech is the transparent solar cell. Imagine a phone or building or car being able to harness energy through its glass. Ubiquitous Energy, a startup born out of MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts and now residing in Redwood City, California, showcased its ClearView Power technology to the public for the first time last week.

With a thickness of less than one thousandth of a millimetre, the “glass” (it’s really a film) transmits light visible to the human eye, while selectively capturing and converting ultraviolet and near-infrared light into electricity to power a mobile device and extend its battery life. This, according to Ubiquitous Energy co-founder and CEO Miles Barr, is a key target for the company.

Could it replace the battery? It’s definitely an ambition of Barr’s. Bob Raikes, a display specialist from the consultancy Meko Ltd, believes the technology will not take over from batteries just yet, but it “could significantly raise the time between charges.” Raikes also suggests the technology has a real and immediate application in electronic shelf labels as it would reduce the need for constant battery replacement.

Biodegradable batteries

Approximately 22,000 tonnes of household batteries end up in landfill sites every year, according to Recycle More. Recycling rates are low, at around 10%, so the idea that batteries could be more efficient, biodegradable or at least made from sustainable materials is a welcome one.

Related: Sugar battery offers hope of green-powered gadgets within three years

This month researchers in Sweden and the US announced they have developed a battery made of a squishy wood-based foam substance called aerogel. Made primarily from wood pulp, the battery is lightweight, elastic and high-capacity. Target markets include wearable computing and in-car electronics.

Research into new battery technology is not new. Last year scientists at the University of Illinois and Tufts University in Massachusetts developed a biodegradable battery that could dissolve in water.

But these technologies are unlikely to transform the home battery market just yet. Both are still early stage (at least 5-10 years away from commercial market) and still expensive to produce on a mass scale.

For the moment at least, we will have to make do with partially recycled batteries, such as Energizer’s EcoAdvanced range, launched in February this year. Although at present only 4% of each battery is made from recycled parts, the company hopes that by 2025 this will rise to 40%.

Induction charging cars

Some of the most public advancements in clean technology have been in transport development. But, while Google’s driverless cars and Elon Musk’s Tesla have received plenty of attention, research and development into electrical vehicle charging has gone largely unnoticed. OK, plugging cars into sockets may not be especially interesting, but imagine an electric car being charged while it drives on the road?

Related: Wireless charging could drive electric vehicle take-up, developers say

The UK’s Transport Research Laboratory announced in March this year that it is conducting a feasibility study into dynamic wireless power transfer (WPT) technology on Britain’s roads in order to prepare for – and potentially encourage – greater usage of electric vehicles. It’s still some way off but the intent is good.

A more immediate goal is to introduce induction charging in cars to remove the need for cumbersome cables. Qualcomm Halo is one of a few companies (including BMW and Volkswagen) pioneering the development of wireless electric vehicle charging (WEVC) technology. Trials have already been held in London and according to Anthony Thomson, the vice president of Qualcomm Technologies, “the future of urban mobility is electric and wireless – and wireless EV charging holds the key to mass adoption of EVs.”

Hydrogen fuel cells

We have been hearing for years about possible oil-replacement innovations, from jojoba-based biofuel through to rubbish-powered cars, but the truth is we are still some way off creating Doc Brown’s compost fuel-powered De Lorean from Back to the Future Part II. The same was once said of hydrogen-fuelled cars but now Toyota and Hyundai are changing all that with commercial releases.

Related: Toyota to begin selling hydrogen fuel cell car Mirai for first time

One company behind this advance in hydrogen fuel cells is Intelligent Energy. CEO Henri Winand is bullish, saying “the hydrogen age has arrived” but it is not just automotive where the company is finding a home for hydrogen.

“We are deploying fuel cells to replace small diesel back-up generators in India on a landmark scale,” says Winand, “and the rollout of our charger Upp in Apple stores in the UK brings us a step closer to consumer electronics.”

Microgeneration boilers

Affordable means of alternative power in the hands of the consumer has been a goal for some time and finally seems to be becoming a realistic prospect. Last year solar panel installations almost doubled in the UK but one area where there has been very little advancement is the domestic boiler.

Suffolk-based energy company Flow claims to have changed that with the launch this year of a domestic gas boiler that generates electricity while it heats the home. As well as claiming to cut electricity bills, Flow says the model reduces carbon emissions by 20%. The company says that with a five-year return on investment, the savings could eventually be as much as £500 a year.

It is this sort of energy-saving initiative, driven by consumer technology and based in the realms of reality that could help drive real difference in energy consumption and emissions. These are just five examples but the broader point is that – while there is still some way to go – the sector is driving innovation across industries.

Not all technologies are ready yet and as with most innovation there are premium costs to consider both in terms of outlay and maintenance. But as politicians prepare their proposals for the forthcoming climate change meeting in Paris, they would do well to listen to Sir David King – because the answers to fighting climate change could well exist already.

Chemists devise technology that could transform solar energy storage

by

( Nanowerk News) The materials in most of today’s residential rooftop solar panels can store energy from the sun for only a few microseconds at a time. A new technology developed by chemists at UCLA is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks — an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells.

The scientists devised a new arrangement of solar cell ingredients, with bundles of polymer donors (green rods) and neatly organized fullerene acceptors (purple, tan).

The new design is inspired by the way that plants generate energy through photosynthesis.

“Biology does a very good job of creating energy from sunlight,” said Sarah Tolbert, a UCLA professor of chemistry and one of the senior authors of the research. “Plants do this through photosynthesis with extremely high efficiency.”

“In photosynthesis, plants that are exposed to sunlight use carefully organized nanoscale structures within their cells to rapidly separate charges — pulling electrons away from the positively charged molecule that is left behind, and keeping positive and negative charges separated,” Tolbert said. “That separation is the key to making the process so efficient.”

To capture energy from sunlight, conventional rooftop solar cells use silicon, a fairly expensive material. There is currently a big push to make lower-cost solar cells using plastics, rather than silicon, but today’s plastic solar cells are relatively inefficient, in large part because the separated positive and negative electric charges often recombine before they can become electrical energy.

“Modern plastic solar cells don’t have well-defined structures like plants do because we never knew how to make them before,” Tolbert said. “But this new system pulls charges apart and keeps them separated for days, or even weeks. Once you make the right structure, you can vastly improve the retention of energy.”

The two components that make the UCLA-developed system work are a polymer donor and a nano-scale fullerene acceptor. The polymer donor absorbs sunlight and passes electrons to the fullerene acceptor; the process generates electrical energy.

The plastic materials, called organic photovoltaics, are typically organized like a plate of cooked pasta — a disorganized mass of long, skinny polymer “spaghetti” with random fullerene “meatballs.” But this arrangement makes it difficult to get current out of the cell because the electrons sometimes hop back to the polymer spaghetti and are lost.

The UCLA technology arranges the elements more neatly — like small bundles of uncooked spaghetti with precisely placed meatballs. Some fullerene meatballs are designed to sit inside the spaghetti bundles, but others are forced to stay on the outside. The fullerenes inside the structure take electrons from the polymers and toss them to the outside fullerene, which can effectively keep the electrons away from the polymer for weeks.

“When the charges never come back together, the system works far better,” said Benjamin Schwartz, a UCLA professor of chemistry and another senior co-author. “This is the first time this has been shown using modern synthetic organic photovoltaic materials.”

In the new system, the materials self-assemble just by being placed in close proximity.

“We worked really hard to design something so we don’t have to work very hard,” Tolbert said.

The new design is also more environmentally friendly than current technology, because the materials can assemble in water instead of more toxic organic solutions that are widely used today.

“Once you make the materials, you can dump them into water and they assemble into the appropriate structure because of the way the materials are designed,” Schwartz said. “So there’s no additional work.”

The researchers are already working on how to incorporate the technology into actual solar cells.

Yves Rubin, a UCLA professor of chemistry and another senior co-author of the study, led the team that created the uniquely designed molecules. “We don’t have these materials in a real device yet; this is all in solution,” he said. “When we can put them together and make a closed circuit, then we will really be somewhere.”

For now, though, the UCLA research has proven that inexpensive photovoltaic materials can be organized in a way that greatly improves their ability to retain energy from sunlight.

Biomimicry inspires the development of environmentally sustainable performance apparel

by

Designers of performance apparel are being urged to look to nature for inspiration when developing their ranges, according to a new report from the global business information company Textiles Intelligence – Biomimicry: science of nature inspires design of high-tech performance apparel.

This process, known as biomimicry, is being driven in part by the need to make performance apparel items more environmentally sustainable and, in particular, recyclable at the end of their useful lives. This is not easy at present as performance apparel is becoming increasingly sophisticated and is being manufactured from a variety of polymeric fibres and other materials.

 

Advocates of biomimicry point to the fact that animals, insects, plants and other living organisms have survived and adapted in dynamic environments by evolving over billions of years, and many natural adaptations have proved to be more effective than man-made solutions.

The wing of the morpho butterfly, for example, has inspired developers to produce fabrics in vivid colours without the use of pigments or dyes. In Japan, Teijin Fibers has developed a chromogenic fibre called Morphotex by arranging polyester and nylon fibres in 61 alternating layers.

Many plants and insects have surfaces with water repellent properties which have provided inspiration for the development of water repellent and stain repellent materials for use in hunting outfits, military uniforms, rainwear and skiwear.

Schoeller Technologies in Switzerland has copied the self-cleaning properties of the lotus leaf in its development of NanoSphere – a finishing process which is said to be one of the most functional and sustainable water repellent treatments on the market, as well as being one of the safest. It has also developed ecorepel – a water repellent finish made from long chain paraffins which are biodegradable.

Schoeller Technologies has also looked to pine cones for inspiration in the development of a product called c_change – a windproof and waterproof hydrophilic membrane with a flexible polymer structure which reacts independently to changing temperatures. At high temperatures, when body moisture levels rise, the structure of the membrane opens to allow excess heat and moisture to escape. At cooler temperatures the structure contracts, thereby helping the body to retain heat and prevent chilling.

Researchers in the textile industry have also taken inspiration from the ability of birds and polar bears to remain warm in cold or even freezing temperatures in the design of thermal insulation garments.

One team of scientists has even created a self-repairing water repellent fabric for use in the manufacture of garments which are designed to be worn by fishermen and sailors. The fabric’s surface features microcapsules containing a glue-like substance. When the fabric is damaged, the microcapsules rupture and the substance is released and subsequently hardens, thereby repairing the damage.

Other properties inspired by nature include antimicrobial efficacy, bioluminescence, camouflage, drag reduction, dry adhesion – inspired by the toe pads of the gecko – and high strength.

Specialists in solutions inspired by nature for the performance apparel industry are continuing to make valuable new discoveries. This is thanks in no small measure to advances in technology – especially nanotechnology – which have enabled such specialists to probe more deeply into biological mechanisms.

These discoveries will no doubt pave the way for the introduction of new types of fabrics and garments which are smart and sustainable.

Biomimicry: science of nature inspires design of high-tech performance apparel was published by the global business information company Textiles Intelligence and can be purchased by following the link below:

Biomimicry: science of nature inspires design of high-tech performance apparel

Other recently published reports from Textiles Intelligence include:

Performance apparel markets – product developments and innovations, (4Q, 2014) Profile of Vaude: a role model for sustainability Performance apparel markets – business update, (4Q, 2014)

Drones Drop Beneficial Bugs On Crops As Natural Pest Control

by

Here’s a use for drones we’re sure you’ll approve of.

As part of a summer scholarship project at the University of Queensland in Australia, Michael Godfrey came up with the idea of utilizing remote control technology to drop beneficial bugs on crops as a natural form of pest control.

The “bug drone” buzzes over pest-infested crops and drops Californicus mites – which eat harmful bugs – on cornfields like little paratroopers.

“The idea [is] to use natural predators or diseases to control agricultural pests. [We can] mitigate chemical use, which is not only harmful for the environment but also costly,” he stated in an email to FastCo-Exist.

This method has been found to be much faster and more economical than walking through corn rows and spreading them by hand, as is the traditional method.

The five-and-a-half pound, six-rotor drone with a converted seed spreader on the bottom to hold the mites can cover 12 acres in just 15 minutes. A small motor on the bottom turns a wheel that releases the bugs while the drone soars over the cornstalks.

“The bugs come in small cylinders with vermiculite as a medium. Spreading them around a five hectare field is just time consuming and dull. The drone can cover a field that size in less than 15 minutes,” he says.

Drones2.jpg

To be able to compare fields he’s treated with those he hasn’t, an infrared camera has been mounted on the device to allow Godfrey, an agricultural science student, to see how well the “bug drone” is working.

“Remote sensing with precision agriculture is an interesting field, and it has opened my eyes to the career opportunities,” he said.

At the University of Queensland Gatton, students can study precision agriculture in a course run by Associate Professor Ki Bryceson who also manages the Agriculture and Remote Sensing laboratory.

We certainly love learning about and sharing the positive ways drones can be utilized. Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

This article (Drones Drop Beneficial Bugs On Crops As Natural Pest Control) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com. .

Giant Solar Floating Farm Could Produce 8,000 Tons of Vegetables Annually

by

The world is less than 40 years away from a serious problem: producing enough food for 9 billion mouths. But with climate change cutting more than a quarter of crop yields by 2050, innovators must devise strategies to confront dwindling global food supplies.

Enter Forward Thinking Architecture.

The Barcelona-based design company’s Smart Floating Farms (SFF) concept is a sustainable, solar-powered vertical farm that floats on pontoons, making it possible to grow food off a coast, in the open sea or just about any large body of water. The designers estimate that SFF can produce an estimated 8,152 tonnes of vegetables and 1,703 tonnes of fish annually.

The farm is comprised of three levels and features innovative agricultural technologies that are already in use around the globe. It can be modified or stacked in different ways to suit the needs of respective locations.

The top level incorporates rainwater collectors for irrigation needs, photovoltaic panels for electricity and skylight openings to provide natural light for plants. It’s also possible to integrate other renewable power technologies such as micro wind turbines or wave energy converter systems.

These solar-powered floating farms could cut the reliance on imported food and reduce number of miles that food has to travel to get to our plates. Photo Credit: Forward Thinking Architecture
These solar-powered floating farms could cut the reliance on imported food and reduce number of miles that food has to travel to get to our plates. Photo Credit: Forward Thinking Architecture

The second level features a greenhouse and hydroponic systems (which allows crops to grow year round in any weather and without soil).

“Because it does not require natural precipitation or fertile land in order to be effective, it presents people who are living in arid regions and others with a means to grow food for themselves and for profit,” the designers said.

The second level features hydroponics, which is a method of growing crops without soil. Photo Credit: Forward Thinking Architecture
The second level features hydroponics, which is a method of growing crops without soil. Photo Credit: Forward Thinking Architecture

Lastly, the ground level is designated for offshore aquaculture. According to the designers, this cage fishing method takes place in the open sea and eliminates the exposure to wind and waves.

This level also includes a hatchery where fish eggs are incubated and hatched, a nursery for growing fish, a slaughterhouse and a storage room to hold the fish before they are ready for the market.

Workers on the bottom level catch fish and other seafood in an enclosed farm. Photo Credit: Forward Thinking Architecture
Workers on the bottom level catch fish and other seafood in an enclosed farm. Photo Credit: Forward Thinking Architecture

“Facing the current challenges of cities growing, land consumption and climate change, I believe projects like the Smart Floating Farms can help change some of the existing paradigms which have led us to the present situation and open new possibilities which can improve the quality of human life and the environment,” said SFF project director Javier F. Ponce on the company’s website.

The designers said the farm is ideal for many large cities or densely populated areas with access to water, such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Tokyo, Singapore, Mumbai, Jakarta, Cairo, Hong Kong, Shangai, Sao Paulo, Osaka, Bangkok, Shenzen, Istanbul, Montreal, Seoul, Karachi, Sydney and more.

With more people moving away from farms and into cities, advancements in urban agriculture is more important than ever.

The company says the project design is flexible enough to adapt to local food production needs and can be located close to many mega-cities or dense populated areas with water access. Photo Credit: Forward Thinking Architecture
The company says the project design is flexible enough to adapt to local food production needs and can be located close to many mega-cities or dense populated areas with water access. Photo Credit: Forward Thinking Architecture

5 Solar Innovations That Are Revolutionizing the World

by

Solar power is lighting up the world, and not just on rooftops. Forward-thinking minds are discovering ways to harness the sun’s energy in many exciting ways, from the ground beneath our feet to the shirt off our back. The following innovations are shining beacons in a renewable energy future.

1. Strides in solar efficiency
Most solar generators can convert up to 23 percent of sunlight into electricity. However, Swedish company Ripasso Energy claims they can covert 34 percent of the sun’s energy into power with their contraption (see photo above), making it the world’s most efficient solar electricity system. According to The Guardian, independent tests found that a single Ripasso dish can generate 75 to 85 zero-emission megawatt hours of electricity a year, or enough to power 24 typical homes in the UK. To compare, to create the same amount of electricity by burning coal would release roughly 81 metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, the newspaper reported.

2. Battery technology and shared solar untether us from Big Power
Elon Musk really is Tony Stark. The billionaire entrepreneur recently unveiled a revolutionary suite of Tesla batteries that he says could ” fundamentally change the way the world uses energy” and get us off dirty fossil fuels. Musk’s sister company SolarCity is now offering Tesla batteries at a price point that’s more than 60 percent less than previous solar power storage products, paving the way for more people to peel themselves off the grid.

For people who don’t have the funds or the right roof for photovoltaic panels, peer-to-peer solar startup Yeloha is offering a genius solution: solar sharing. The company allows customers to “go solar” without owning a single panel by essentially feeding off their neighbors who do (and at a price that’s less than what they’d normally pay to their utility).

3. Portable solar brings light to developing world
For places recovering from disaster or communities lacking access to electricity, solar systems provide an alternative or a complement to traditional power sources such as fossil fuel generators (diesel or gasoline is not only expensive, it emits noxious fumes and can cause fires). For example, after the first of two devastating earthquakes struck Nepal, solar company Gham Power deployed solar power systems to help power lights and mobile charging stations for relief workers and the displaced. And in Haiti, the nonprofit organization Field Ready is trying to use a solar powered 3D-printer to make a whole range of simple, life-saving medical supplies at a fraction of the cost.

4. Solar desalination: solution to drought?
Scientists are solving the planet’s fresh water worries with a little help from the sun. Recently, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jain Irrigation Systems have come up with a method of turning brackish water into drinking water with a solar-powered machine that can pull salt out of water. It then further disinfects the water with ultraviolet rays. With parts of the planet running perilously low on fresh water, realization of this technology can’t come soon enough.

5. Solar transportation
In the air and on the road, solar technology is going the distance. Currently, the Solar Impulse 2, the first solar airplane able to sustain flight at night with a pilot on board, is making its historic round-the-world trip powered only by the sun.

Over in the Netherlands, SolaRoad, the world’s first “solar road,” has defied expectations and has generated about 3,000 kWh of power, enough to provide a single-person household with electricity for a year. Considering it’s only a 230-feet bike path, the potential for this technology could be big, kind of like photovoltaic technology itself.

Your Old Laptop Can Bring Change In Enormous Ways

by

So I just got off the phone with Becky Morrison, the founder of Globetops, an organization that receives your unused old laptop, cleans ’em up and sends them to social entrepreneurs in remote or technologically-deficient parts of the world. Maybe this sounds trivial, but as an active member of humanitarian organizations, I can tell you that it isn’t being done …

Read more

This giant straw is actually a vertical bladeless wind turbine

by

At the risk of getting slammed with comments claiming that small wind turbines aren’t viable, here’s a look at another bladeless wind generator hoping to disrupt the wind energy industry.Small-scale wind generators, especially vertical designs, are the renewable energy pariahs, and the clean energy concept that many cleantech enthusiasts love to hate.

But that hasn’t stopped anyone from continuing to develop new versions of wind generators that break with the conventional windmill design, and the team behind the Vortex Bladeless design believes their creation is a leap forward in wind energy, and is a “more efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly way to produce energy.”

I’ve previously covered other designs of bladeless wind turbines here on TreeHugger, with the comments mostly resembling that of Eeyore saying, “It’ll never work,” but like many innovations intended for established industries, that’s par for the course. That’s not to say that there aren’t any clean energy startups (or startups in general) that mislead the public about the claims of their products, or that there aren’t any scams or hoaxes in the green energy field, but rather that it’s easy to take a quick look and say something’s a scam, even if you’re only talking about a company that overpromises and underdelivers on its marketing claims.

The Vortex wind generator represents a fairly radical break with conventional wind turbine design, in that it has no spinning blades (or any moving parts to wear out at all), and looks like nothing more than a giant straw that oscillates in the wind. It works not by spinning in the wind, but by taking advantage of a phenomenon called vorticity, or the Kármán vortex street, which is a “repeating pattern of swirling vortices.”

Here’s a quick video overview of the device:

And here’s a little background on the principles behind the Vortex design:

The company claims that its design can be reduce manufacturing costs by 53%, cut maintenance costs by 80%, and would represent a 40% reduction in both the carbon footprint and generation costs, when compared to conventional bladed wind turbines. The Vortex is also said to be quieter (than standard wind turbines), and to present a much lower risk to birds and the local environment.

According to Vortex, the devices can be used to generate more power in less space, because not only is the wind wake narrower than a traditional turbine, but installing them closer together can actually be beneficial to the technology, based on wind tunnel testing.

“We tested in a wind tunnel to put one Vortex just in front of another and the second one actually benefits from the vortices given off by the first structure.” – David Suriol, Vortex

The first model that Vortex will introduce is the Mini, a 4 kW unit that stands 12.5 meters in height, which is intended for small-scale and residential wind energy applications. Also in the works is a Gran version, a 1+ MW model that is designed for large-scale wind generation for utilities and other similar applications.

According to an interview in Renewable Energy Magazine, the company has already raised over 1 million Euros from both private and public funds in Europe, and is expected to roll out its pre-commercial prototype within the year.

The company’s website states that it will be launching a crowdfunding campaign in June of this year, although no other details about the goal of the campaign are listed on the site yet.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments.

+ More