cleantech

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.