A further feature is that the cars are capable of 360° steering, making parking a dream.

Because the cars are part of a single, computerized network, their placement can be coordinated to reduce traffic congestion or make transportation options available at peak times and places. Rental charges could fluctuate to encourage alternate routes. Commuters could keep track of where and when cars and parking spaces are available in real time, using cellphones or other hand-held devices to track the cheapest or the most convenient car, spot, or route.

Ryan Chin, one of team working on this project, said: “When you think of this, you shouldn’t think of a car. You should think of it as a new personal and sustainable mobility system and service. This is a clean and green machine.”

MIT has submitted a proposal to a government in Asia that is interested in building a network of these cars in one of their cities. The CityCar was part of the plan submitted by MIT that also recently won the 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge.

With claims that the 11 million fridges sold annually in the US could be made 50% more efficient, the judges of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Clean Energy Prize obviously saw the potential in such technology. Such that they awarded the students first prize, which came with a cheque for $200,000. That will now no doubt help them as they launch a start-up company, Husk Insulation, to commercialise their product.

Husk Insulation will manufacture a special type of high-performance insulation called a vacuum insulated panel (VIP). VIPs take advantage of the insulating effects of a vacuum to produce significantly higher R-values (the standard for measuring thermal insulative effectiveness) than conventional insulation. VIPs are rigid panels comprised of a core material and a foil laminate membrane. The vacuum inside a VIP greatly reduces the conduction and convection of heat. While the R-values of conventional insulation are generally 4-8 per inch, VIPs have R-values between 30-50 per inch.

Although VIPs have been around for more than 20 years, they have not taken off in the mass market because they are generally not cost competitive with conventional insulation. Typical core materials (precipitated silica, superfine fibreglass, etc.) are simply too expensive even though products using VIPs need far less insulation material by volume.

Husk uses a proven & proprietary process to convert rice husk ash (RHA) into the core material for our vacuum panels. RHA is the by-product of agriculture and energy production and millions of tons of RHA are land filled annually. As a result, Husk expects to dramatically reduce the cost of VIPs, making them cost competitive in the mass market.

The founders of Husk Insulation figure it will take them about 18 months to bring the rice husk insulation to the fridge market. For which they calculate $425,000 USD will be required. Once they’ve captured the refrigeration industry, they have their sights set on the housing and transportation markets.

Original article: Warren McLaren. 14 May 2009. Treehugger. Read more…

An alternative now being tested is called the luminescent solar concentrator (LSC). Instead of focusing the sun’s rays on a cell, as a solar tracker does, an LSC first traps them, wherever they have come from, and then delivers them to the cell using what is known as a waveguide. No moving parts are involved. A group of MIT researchers using this technology believe it could boost a solar panel’s efficiency by up to 50 percent and formed a company, Covalent Solar, to develop the technology.

The team has spent two years identifying organic dyes, painted onto glass or plastic that can effectively concentrate the sun’s light onto solar cells, enabling them to produce more electricity from fewer cells. The dyes basically reflect the light (technically, it’s actually absorbed and then sent back out), so that some of it is trapped inside the plane of glass. With the help of a scientific principal called “internal refraction”, which is the same principal that keeps light trapped in optical fibers, the light bounces to the edges of the glass, which have been equipped with strips of solar cells that convert it into electricity.

Integrated into solar panels available today, the technology could potentially boost the amount of light the panels convert into electricity by as much as 50 percent so consumers would get more electricity for their money.

The company hopes the technology could be used for both rooftop systems and for large solar farms and even one day could be integrated into windows, where a greyish tint would let in 20 percent to 30 percent of the outside light, while simultaneously directing the light toward solar cells around the window’s edges. Covalent Solar expects to bring its first product to market in three years.

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Their investments are the latest rounds of funding under Google.org’s Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative, launched in 2007. But Google.org is going beyond cash investments and plans to push for a boost in funding for federal research and development, the streamlining of the siting, leasing and permitting process, the extension of tax credits, and the formation of a national renewable portfolio standard.

Enhanced geothermal doesn’t need the naturally occurring pockets of steam and hot water used in traditional geothermal. Instead, it replicates those conditions by fracturing hot rock and injecting water.

According to a 2007 report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on enhanced geothermal, just 2 percent of the heat below the continental U.S. at between 3 and 10 kilometers — depths within the range of current drilling technology — would be enough to supply more than 2,500 times the country’s total annual energy use.

In September 2008 Tata Power bought 10% in the Australian enhanced geothermal systems firm Geodynamics Geodynamics has geothermal exploration interests in three Australian states including a license for exploring 2,000 square kilometers in the Cooper Basin in South Australia. Tata Power said the Cooper Basin contains the hottest granites on earth, estimated to provide a thermal resource equivalent of 50 billion barrels of oil.

Original article: David Ehrlich. Cleantech Group. 19 August 19 2008. Read more…