Justin C.

unknownskywalker:

How much energy? by GOOD

How much energy whether electric, coal, nuclear, or otherwise - is required for a 100 watt lightbulb to run for a year , 24 hours a day?

infoneer-pulse:

Stanford researchers may have solved the problem of range anxiety by wireless charging technology that could one day create an electric highway.

Wireless recharging already is used by some electric vehicle charging stations to fill up batteries without cords or plugging into an outlet. MIT helped pioneer this technology and spun it off into a wireless charging startup, WiTricity. However, Stanford researchers improved on this concept and devised a way to transmit 10 kilowatts of electric power across a 6.5-foot distance with minimal energy loss. By overcoming transmitting electricity across a significant distance, researchers will make it possible to pave a highway with wireless conduits that can provide addition power to EVs and let them operate indefinitely.

» via CNET

drweidinger:

Fake Leaf is Twice as Efficient as the Real Thing

http://www.nextnature.net/2012/01/fake-leaf-is-twice-as-efficient-as-the-real-thing/

trendd:

Magnetic fields in roads could also power hover boards. (I wish)

“While we used AC and wires to build a massive electrical grid in the 20th century, wireless energy could be a game changer in the years to come. Researchers at Stanford just announced that they have developed a way to charge moving electric vehicles using a series of coils embedded in freeways. The system would power cars while they drive at full speed, effectively untethering the electric car from the plug and providing unlimited range at high efficiency.”

(via Stanford Develops Wireless Electric Car Charging System For Highways | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World)

smarterplanet:

BOXX electric bike: two wheels, four corners, all-electric transport for one — Engadget

Has bicycle design reached its pinnacle? Or are electric bike manufacturers just not trying hard enough? The YikeBike begs to differ, and here joining it is BOXX Corporation’s diminutive BOXX. Coming in at just under a meter (or 36-inch inches) long, the 120 pound aluminum “bike” has a top speed of 35 miles per hour and can even haul up to 300 pounds of heft. Yet, despite that compact footprint, the company hasn’t skimped on tech, as it boasts traction control, anti-lock brakes and yes, even LED lights. Available in one of ten colors, $3,995 nets you a base 40-mile range model, which can optionally be doubled to 80 by ticking the $599 CORE 2 box.

Solar power cheaper than fossil fuels for 1.3 billion people

Here in the U.S., we’re used to thinking about solar power as one of those happy eco-friendly things that we’d all totally be using except for the fact that it’s so much more expensive than fossil fuels. In the developing world, though, it’s exactly the opposite: solar power is gaining ground with 1.3 billion people simply because it’s the cheapest way to go.

 

Let’s just forget about the fact that fossil fuels are all extracted from the Earth by evil corporations controlled by evil states and that they do evil things to our atmosphere. Thereal problem with fossil fuels is that unless you have a ton of infrastructure already in place, getting, refining, distributing and using liquid fuel is stupidly inefficient and expensive. And we’re not even talking about cars: millions of households in Africa rely on kerosene lamps to provide light at night, which is important because (among other reasons) it extends the amount of time with which people are able to work or study.

Kerosene, like any fossil fuel, is expensive. In fact, it costs twice as much to use a kerosene lamp as it does to use a small solar panel, battery and LED lights, and it’s cleaner and safer at the same time. Plus, with a solar panel, you can charge your cellphone too, which otherwise might cost you more money since (in Africa) you might have to rent a charger.

There’s a whole new industry springing up to meet this demand with cheap and efficient microsolar systems. For about $10, you can buy a solar lighting system that includes a 2.5 watt solar panel, two LED overhead lights and a battery pack. Every week, you pay a small fee (about $1) to use the power the solar panel provides (offsetting the subsidized up-front cost). After about 18 months, the system has been completely paid off, and you can upgrade it to a larger solar panel with more lights and battery capacity. Eventually, it’s even possible to work your way up to a system than can run a sewing machine or a refrigerator.

All this time, you’d be helping to both save the environment and fund a green tech industry, but again, that’s really not the point. The point is that sometimes solar power really does make the most sense, both socially and financially, and if companies can leverage this developing world market to help make solar power more attractive and affordable to those of us who are stuck living in the first world, everybody (in every world) might just come out a winner.

Eight19, via MIT

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DVICE

discoverynews:

Fold-Up Car of the Future

A tiny revolutionary fold-up car designed in Spain’s Basque country as the answer to urban stress and pollution was unveiled Tuesday before hitting European cities in 2013.

The “Hiriko,” the Basque word for “urban,” is an electric two-seater with no doors whose motor is located in the wheels and which folds up like a child’s collapsible buggy, or stroller, for easy parking.

The car was dreamed up by Boston’s MIT-Media lab.

jstn:

My dream car for 2012: Mercedes SLS AMG E-Cell

An all-electric version of the SLS, each wheel with its own motor (!) totaling 525 horsepower. Zero to sixty in four seconds. Starts production this fall. Not sure I would go with that color.

givemecars:

Tesla Roadster (by Scott Dukes)

jtotheizzoe:

Wind Energy Without the Blades?

What if we could harness wind energy without the fields of enormous blade turbines that have come to be associated with modern wind farms. It would certainly help eliminate the “spinning blades of death” that many birds have to deal with, as well. Levant Power of Cambridge, MA turned to nature for an inspired alternative:

The proposed design calls for 1,203 ““stalks,” each 180-feet high with concrete bases that are between about 33- and 66-feet wide. The carbon-fiber stalks, reinforced with resin, are about a foot wide at the base tapering to about 2 inches at the top. Each stalk will contain alternating layers of electrodes and ceramic discs made from piezoelectric material, which generates a current when put under pressure. In the case of the stalks, the discs will compress as they sway in the wind, creating a charge.

Not to mention that I wouldn’t mind having one of these near my house at night … just beautiful. If this doesn’t work, then all we have to turn to is purple turbines.

(via DiscoveryNews)

unexpectedtech:

Kirk Sorensen Thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel

wired:

[via @wired instagram]: ‘No flux capacitor, but it is electric.’

Sweet ride.

unexpectedtech:

How do you heat and cool 47 buildings and 25,000 people without using any fuel, and only minimal electricity?

By digging. Or more specifically: by installing an elaborate underground geothermal energy system that can both heat water during the winter, and cool it in the summer.

Geothermal electricity production may still be in its infancy in the U.S. But Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana, is showing how geothermal technology can provide at large scale, and deliver big financial and carbon savings. Although the project, which spreads across 731 acres, will initially cost $70 to 75 million, it will cut the college’s bills by $2 million a year, and halve its CO2 output. The project is already 50 percent finished, with full completion expected in 2013. Assuming the cost of electricity remains the same, it will be paid off around 2050.

Ford unveils Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid, alongside gas and regular hybrid variants

It might not be a full EV like last year’s Focus Electric, but that doesn’t mean you should count the 2013 Fusion out. All-new and packed to the gills with gadgetry like lane departure warning and adaptive cruise control, it’s notable for being offered in gasoline, hybrid and plug-in hybrid variants. Efficiency for the mid-sized sedan ranges from 26MPG city and 37MPG highway in the gasoline burner all the way to 47MPG city and 44MPG highway for the lithium-ion toting hybrids. And for the Fusion Energi plug-in, it’ll rock an estimated 100MPGe — 7MPGe better than the Volt and 13MPGe better than the Prius plug-in, despite being larger than either. It’ll also roam electrically for 20 miles before firing up its engine, and like the Prius equivalent it’ll accelerate all the way up to 62MPH on battery power alone.

On the infotainment side you’re looking at the latest, more-simple version of MyFord Touch, naturally paired with SYNC. And just like the Focus Electric or C-MAX Energi, charging, heating and cooling can all be controlled remotely with MyFord Mobile. No word on price, but Ford says it’ll show up in stateside showrooms, later this year. As for curious Europeans in the crowd, Ford says much of the design carries over to next year’s Mondeo. We’ll get our drive-on hands-on shortly, but PR and a gallery await after the break.

Engadget

thisistheverge:

Electric cars may have gotten a bit of a black eye recently, but that’s not deterring Volkswagen from unveiling its electric “E-bugster” at the North American International Auto show, which kicks off tomorrow. (via Volkswagen electric ‘E-bugster’ concept car to be unveiled this week | The Verge)

What Is Google Up To With Ford’s First Electric Focus?

Ford’s electric Focus was first announced this time last year — and now it’s slowly going in to production. But Google has its hands on some of the first vehicles to roll off the line. Just what are they doing with them?

There seem to be two options. One’s very exciting. One’s rather dull.

With any luck, this might be a tie-in with Google’s research into driverless cars. Google has been working on that project for years, but a recent expose of Google’s ultra-secret X-Lab suggested that the search giant was keen to put the cars into production. It could be that Google is attempting to do that in collaboration with Ford.

Of course, they could just be updating the fleet of cars they use to create Street View. Maybe their previous green solution — a Street View bicycle, kitted out with camera equipment — is just too slow? [Autoblog]

gizmodo

This Boring Warehouse Is Actually the World’s Biggest Battery

There aren’t enough letters in the alphabet to classify this monstrous battery China’s built. D x 1,000? Not even close. With arrays larger than a football field it can store a whopping 36 megawatt hours of power.

Apparently China is gung-ho on embracing renewable energy sources, and to really take advantage of solar arrays and wind farms you need to be able to store up power when there’s an abundance, for times when there isn’t. So electric car maker BYD and the State Grid Corporation of China built the massive battery as part of a larger energy project in the country’s Hebei Province that’s capable of generating 140 megawatts of renewable energy. And they’re both part of an even larger initiative to create a more reliable smart power grid for the entire country.

According to Popular Science’s calculations, 36 megawatt hours is enough juice to power somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 homes for an hour. Or, give you a full day of talk time on your iPhone 4S. That’s right, I went there. 

gizmodo

poptech:

The money is on the table. It’s just on the wrong plates. Purchase and finance of solar power for 1.2 billion people would cost about $10 billion a year over a decade. The 11 countries with the largest number of households without electricity spent $80 billion each year subsidizing fossil fuel — only 17 percent of which benefits the poor. In 2010, the World Bank spent $8 billion on coal-fired power plants, few of which provided meaningful energy access to the poor. The UN’s Clean Development Mechanism is proposing to give $4 billion a year to anything-but-clean coal-plants. So there is already far more capital in the system than is needed.

Even five years ago the business models did not exist to enable the poor to afford solar. Solar was much more expensive. The only alternative to buying a solar system with cash was a bank or micro-credit loan for which most of the poor could not qualify.

But the combination of dirt-cheap solar, the cell-phone revolution, and mobile phone banking has changed everything. There are almost 600 million cell-phone customers without electricity — using their phones very little, still spending $10 billion to charge them in town. There are hundreds of thousands of rural, off-grid cell towers powered by diesel — at a price of about $0.70/kilowatt hour. All over the world cell-phone towers are being converted from diesel to hybrid renewable power sources. So cell phone companies have a powerful motivation to get renewable power into rural areas, to get electricity to their customers, and to charge for electricity through their mobile phone payment systems.

At least three commercial models have been launched in the last several months. India’s Simpa Networks — in partnership with SELCO in India and DT-Power in Ghana, India and Kenya — are testing models in which solar distributors can allow customers to pay for electricity through mobile banking “pay as you go” plans. Zimbabwe’s Econet Power has launched an even more intriguing model, in which it provides its cell-phone customers with solar power as a customer benefit, charging them only $1 week to use a home solar system provided by Econet, with the bills tied to the customer’s cell phone account.

Paul Needham’s (PopTech 2010 Social Innovation Fellow) organization, Simpa Networks, makes solar energy available to the poor. By using a pay-as-you-go pricing structure modeled after mobile phone cards, Simpa gives its customers ownership of the electricity. Once the initial cost of the equipment is paid off, the device belongs to the customer and their electricity is free.

unexpectedtech:

Hot damn.

Lexus, a company with a design ethos perhaps best described as visual Valium, is rolling into the Detroit auto show with a drop-dead gorgeous sports coupe. Not just any sports coupe, mind you, but a hybridsports coupe. An exciting hybrid sports coupe.

Exciting? Lexus? Yes.

The sexy LF-LC 2+2 concept, designed at Toyota’s Calty design studio in SoCal, is an attempt to remake Lexus as a sportier, more stylish brand. Whether that will work is anyone’s guess, but the LF-LC is jaw-dropping.

This being a sneak peek before the auto show, Lexus of course didn’t say anything of significance. It did mention the car being “a design exercise” for its new “L-Finesse” design theme, so even if the LF-LC never appears in showrooms, it will influence more sedate vehicles in the Lexus lineup.

Although Toyota wasn’t saying much, Road & Track got the inside scoop. Kevin Hunter, president of Calty Design Research, said his team was given a blank sheet of paper told to design a car with avant-garde beauty, originality, driving joy and unequaled technology. Toyota boss Akio Toyoda specifically instructed Hunter to make sure the car had the “wow” factor.

He succeeded. This car is a stunner.

Map shows when solar will be cheaper than grid electricity in North American areas

Existing grid-supplied electricity is becoming more expensive. Electricity from solar panels is getting cheaper. Here’s an animated map of North America that shows when the rising-grid-cost and falling-solar-cost curves will intersect for different metropolitan areas.

We used the following assumptions in the construction of this animated map:

The cost of solar in 2011 is $4.00 per Watt installed.

Grid electricity price is the average residential retail rate reported by PVWatts for the core city of the metropolitan area.

The cost of solar decreases by 7% per year.

The grid electricity price increases by 2% per year.

According to John Farrell who created the animated map, San Diego will be the first solar grid parity city, in 2013.

http://energyselfreliantstates.org/content/mapping-solar-grid-parity

Boing Boing