Alcatraz Island is going solar. Known best as the most famous prison in the United States, Alcatraz is also home to the oldest lighthouse on the West Coast, and what was once a beacon for ships entering the Bay Area will now serve as a beacon for solar energy.

The National Park Service announced in the first week of March that Alcatraz will be equipped with 1,000 solar photovoltaic panels, to be installed on the main prison and laundry building. The panels will provide between 40 and 60 percent of the prison’s electricity needs and eliminate the need for two diesel generators that currently cost $700,000 annually to operate.

The solar system will be installed this spring using money drawn from the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package. The projected cost of the solar power system has not been released.

Alcatraz began as a military prison in 1861, was taken over by the Bureau of Prisons in 1934, and became home to some of America’s most notorious criminals, including Al Capone. In late 1969, a group of Native American activists occupied the prison for 19 months and nine days, winning several key victories for Native rights, including the rescinding by President Nixon of the Indian termination policy designed to end federal recognition of native tribes. Alcatraz is now a popular tourist attraction and home to some unique flora and fauna.

Via San Jose Mercury News and Wikipedia

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

More »

America’s FIRST Solar City

There are moments when history is made. When necessity, inspiration, creativity and determination come together to change the world as we know it. When individual and collective willpower embrace. Women suffragettes finally won the right to vote in 1920. Ghandi fought nonviolently for freedom, and won it, in India. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus in 1955. In 2007, Berkeley, California became an instant leader in the renewable energy movement with the approval of a revolutionary clean energy financing program.

FIRST

Berkeley has a long history as a cradle of social activism, and while its game-changing solar play is relatively new, its effect is already being felt around California, the United States and the world. The story of Berkeley’s Financing Initiative for Solar and Renewable Energy (FIRST) begins in the mayor’s office. There, a staffer named Cisco DeVries had an idea. You might say an LED light bulb went on in his head. The city had already laid a foundation on which neighborhoods could come together to vote self-imposed taxes to pay for utility and telephone wires to be run underground. DeVries took that idea and ran with it, only with clean energy in mind.

Before long, a pilot program was in the works. This program allowed homeowners to avoid the high up-front costs of home solar power by borrowing cash from the city of Berkeley, and repaying it with interest through a voluntary property tax increase over 20 years. In this way, homeowners avoided immediate costs while the city gained revenue to pay for the financing and program administration. Moreover, the loan is tied to the property, not the individual, so the home can be sold without worrying about losing the value of the system before payback in energy savings is reached.

To say that Berkeley FIRST hasn’t changed the face and mood of the clean energy movement would be a gross miscalculation. A slew of other cities, including nearby Oakland, have adopted their own version of the program and the federal government is working on Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs directly spun from FIRST and designed to guide cities across the country through the process of adopting a Berkeley-esque financing scheme.

Applications for Berkeley’s pilot program were “sold out” in just nine minutes — easily as fast as any Led Zeppelin or Pearl Jam concert. Following the successes of, and lessons learned from, the Berkeley FIRST pilot, city officials are now working with the state and Alameda County to expand the program statewide (California FIRST), and expand it to include energy efficiency improvements much like the federal PACE programs.

Berkeley residents interested in solar power should make a point to stop by the interactive solar map the city set up. It contains a map of all 626 solar systems (including solar thermal) and 2.9 megawatts of solar power installed within city limits so far. You can also enter an address to find out the solar potential of your home, cost of a solar system on that home and energy savings you can expect as a result. Plug these numbers into Berkeley’s online calculator to learn how to finance the system, how much cash you’ll save and how long it will take for the system to pay for itself through those savings.

Climate Action Plan

Berkeley’s dynamic move toward energy independence is not limited to just one solar pilot program, however epic that program might be. Residents of Berkeley have never been keen on complacency, and the environmental ambitions of the city are arguably unrivaled among other large cities.

In November 2006, a whopping 81 percent of Berkeley voters said yes to a goal of reducing citywide greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.  In June 2009 Council adopted a Climate Action Plan, adopting the 2050 goal and an 2020 interim goal of a 33% reduction. Those goals will be achieved not only through solar and renewable energy, but also waste reduction, building initiatives and transportation, among other specific steps. Not to mention the collective will of residents to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Anyone who wants to know exactly how Berkeley plans to meet those goals or what’s already been done will be happy with the incredible amount of disclosure and community outreach being exercised by city departments and the citizenry. You can find just about everything you’ll want to know, especially if you live in Berkeley, through an interactive website that guides visitors through the city’s seven-tiered plan to make Berkeley as green as green can be… and then greener some more.

Resources: Berkeley FIRST, Berkeley Climate Action Plan, Berkeley Solar Map, PACE, & Berkeley Climate Action Community Forum

More »

Alternative energy can be a boon for third world countries. Normally governments have to invest vast sums of money in developing infrastructures for a long period of time in underdeveloped areas. If we consider the example of cell phones, they have bypassed the usual wires, poles, roads, telephone exchange infrastructures. People residing in remote [...]
Posted in: Future Energy, Industry, Solar Power

Does “traveling” through time save energy? Is that lost hour of spring sleep really worth it? Where are the savings in Daylight Saving Time and would the Western world be better off dropping the whole thing and moving on with its life?

A (Very) Brief History of DST

In 1784, after noticing how many residents slept through sunny summer mornings, Benjamin Franklin published an anonymous, satirical letter to Parisians suggesting they get up two hours earlier to conserve candles. Franklin did not suggest they adopt Daylight Saving Time (DST), although often mistakenly credited as doing so, but he did foreshadow a primary controversy that has followed DST around since its 1895  conception by New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson (who enjoyed the extra daylight to scour for insects) – does DST actually save energy?

Even after Hudson and then Brit William Willet fought for DST, it took until World War I for Europe and the United States to temporarily adopt the shift. Then it went in and out of favor – slowly gaining widespread usage in Europe and North America (most of Asia and Africa still do not observe it) – throughout the 20th Century, usually finding its way onto legislative arenas during wartime or energy crises.

Except for a handful of adjustments, DST as we know it in America has been around since the 1960s, when Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which did not force all states to adopt DST, but merely said that if adopted it must be done uniformly. At that time, it was thought DST would save energy on incandescent lighting, then the primary use of electricity, although now things are more complicated due to widespread heating and cooling.

How DST Works

Daylight Saving Time makes summer days longer, as well as a portion of spring and fall days. As it stands right now, Standard Time “springs forward” at 2:00am on the second Sunday of March, creating darker mornings and brighter evenings until, on the first Sunday in November, it “falls back” into Standard Time. The idea is that people will be happier and more active thanks to more after-work daylight hours to spend outdoors. It’s also believed to conserve energy because the sun is out later and homes are naturally warmer and well-lit until closer to the average person’s bedtime. Obviously, darker, potentially colder mornings would increase the need for light and heat before work, but the belief is that lower energy usage at night outweighs increased usage in the morning. Thus, energy and money is saved.

Well, the thing about that is…who the hell knows? No one can seem to agree whether DST saves or costs both energy and money, or whether it is simply obsolete.

Most of the world’s population does not adhere to DST. According to the California Energy Commission, some 70 countries worldwide embrace it and, while that may seem like a lot, note that most of Africa and Asia do not. So DST is definitely in the minority in terms of global population. In the United States, most of Arizona and all of Hawaii do not oblige the time change. Much of Indiana did not until the latest DST adjustment by the Bush administration, but more on that in a moment.

The recreation, retail, sports and tourism industries have historically supported DST because more time for consumers to be out and about means more money for these sectors. Farmers and the entertainment industry tend to oppose it because a farmer’s schedule is dependent on sunlight, and longer days cut into prime-time revenues for entertainment outlets. But none of that is here or there in terms of energy.

The Energy Crisis

Since the 60s, many studies have been conducted to determine if DST actually saves energy. These studies are in a perpetual state of conflict. For example, during the energy crisis of the 1970s, a study by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which holds jurisdiction over DST, found in 1975 that longer evening daylight hours might reduce electricity consumption in the country by one percent in March and April. Yet a review of that study in 1976 by the National Bureau of Standards found no significant savings.

That trend repeats throughout recent history, all the way up to our most recent decade. In yet another effort to conserve energy, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 signed into law by George W. Bush included another extension of DST. It moved the time change to three weeks earlier in the spring  and one week later in the fall. The change went into effect in March of 2007.

It was then that the entire state of Indiana decided to adopt DST. Because several counties had already been observing DST, it gave Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant of the University of Santa Barbara a unique opportunity to study firsthand the effects of DST on energy consumption. Their study, released in 2008, found that electricity usage actually increased in Indiana following the switch, a fact primarily contributed to an increased need for air conditioning on hot summer days and an increase in heating on darker mornings in the spring and fall.

At that point, it seemed like the jury might be in on DST — that contrary to popular belief, it actually hurt energy efficiency and cost homeowners and the state more money than sticking to standard time year-round. But of course, the Indiana case study is not without criticism, which boils down to the assertion that Indiana cannot represent the entirety of the USA. A handful of studies in California have found either that DST saves a small amount of energy or has little or no effect on energy at all, but certainly doesn’t cost the state energy.

And that tends to be how the debate over DST goes. The US has so many different climates that the effect of changing time to suit schedules in summer time (what DST is called in Europe) varies. Up to this point, no comprehensive nationwide study is complete, although apparently the federal government is in the process of doing just that.

So is DST Worth it or Not?

My extremely strong opinion on the matter? It depends. The fact is that percentage-wise, there seems to be little effect, although a difference of one percent in any state, especially energy-hungry California, can equal a heck of a lot of saved GHG emissions and cost savings. Of course, nobody can say for sure if any energy is actually saved.

Here’s the conundrum. Yes, in a state like Indiana, DST might actually cost energy, but in another state or region it might have a significant impact. The problem is that we live in an interconnected world, so it does nobody any good to have everybody running on a different clock. Time zones alone present enough problems in that respect.

So energy-wise, I opine that DST is essentially pointless, an opinion I’ll stick to until I see the results of a broader study (which will no doubt have to be inordinately complex and probably befuddling to most of us). Most of the world’s population does not observe it in any way and we live in an ever more globalized society.

Now there are other effects of DST beyond energy — traffic accidents, crime, health, economy, et al. — each as contentious as the rest. Wikipedia has a good survey of information on those factors, their own respective controversies and plenty of links to other resources if you’re interested.

But for now, the only reason I can see to hold on to the DST model is convenience and luxury. Even in standard time, few of us actually rise with the sun in summertime. Most peoples’ routines have been structured around the nine-to-five workday, so even if the sun rose at 5 a.m., the majority would probably sleep until it’s time to get ready for work. So, just as Benjamin Franklin, George Vernon Hudson and William Willet suggested at least a century ago, having that extra hour of daylight to frolic, relax, take a walk or just get outside under the bright summer sun…well…who, if it’s not costing us valuable energy, is going to complain about that? Not me.

And hey, maybe someday over the rainbow, solar power and renewable energy will provide the majority of our electricity and all this will be a moot point. Unless you’re a farmer or a major media outlet.

Links:

Wikipedia: Daylight Saving Time

Wikipedia: Time in the United States

California Energy Commission

Wall Street Journal

More »

Whenever we think of solar energy, we assume that it is just simple sunlight, ignoring the fact that visible light is just part of the complete electromagnetic spectrum.

It is important to keep in mind that electromagnetic radiation is not monochromatic, it’s made up of a wide range of different wavelengths, and therefore different energy levels.

It is possible to separate light into different wavelengths, which can be seen in the form of a rainbow. And as the light that falls on our solar cell has multiple photons carrying different ranges of energies, some of these photons don’t have enough energy to alter an electron-hole pair.

This means that they’ll simply pass through the cell as if it were transparent. However, other photons may have too much energy. Only a specific amount of energy, which can be measured in electron volts (eV), and is about 1.1 eV for crystalline silicon, is needed to loosen up an electron. This is called the band gap energy of a material.

In case the photon has more energy than the required amount, then this extra energy is lost. Thus if the photon has less energy, or has too much energy, in both the cases energy will be lost. These losses can account for about 70 percent of the radiation energy incident on our cell.

Question arises that why can’t we use a material that has a really low band gap, so we can use more photons? But this is not possible as unfortunately, our band gap also decides the strength (voltage) of our electric field, and if it’s too low, then whatever we make up in extra current through absorbing more photons, we will loose by having a small voltage.

Balancing both these effects, the optimal band gap can be found around 1.4 eV for a cell made from a single material.

However, these aren’t the only losses that we face. The electrons have to flow from one side of the cell to the other through an external circuit. The bottom can be made with a metal which allows good conduction, but if the top is completely covered, then photons can’t get through the opaque conductor and we lose all of our current.

Also, as silicon is a semiconductor, its internal resistance is fairly high, leading to high losses. To minimize these losses, cells are typically covered by a metallic contact grid that shortens the distance that electrons have to travel while covering only a small part of the cell surface. Even after this, some of the photons are blocked by the grid.

Technorati Tags: Energy,Solar,Cell,radiation,voltage,cells,electromagnetic,photons,electron,silicon,photon,electrons

People who liked this Post also read

• Anatomy of a Solar Cell
• Function of Photovoltaic Cells
• Advantages Of Installing Home Solar Power Panels
• How Silicon Makes A Solar Cell?
• Structure of A Solar Cell
• Some Considerations Before Going Solar
• Solar Towers- Get Power In the Dark
• What Are Solar Power Plants?
• Seeking The Consultant’s Services For Renewable Energy Projects
• The Photovoltaic Cell

The researchers of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have uncovered a new phenomenon of carbon nanotubes. They found that carbon nanotubes discharge powerful waves of electricity under certain circumstances. MIT team named it as thermopower waves. They are pinning their hope on thermopower waves to produce electricity to be utilized in small electrical [...]
Posted in: Batteries, Future Energy, Inventions