solar power

Leave it to Japanese designers to turn technology into something both stylish and functional -- and then keep it all to themselves. The SolarFold and SolarFan portable solar chargers unfold into surface-area-utilizing solar collectors when needed, supplying enough power to make a three-minute iPhone call after just ten minutes in the sun.

If you fall into the niche category of eco-conscious boating enthusiast with a desire to circumnavigate the globe on a 100-feet-long catamaran, your long wait is finally over. PlanetSolar – the dream of skipper Roaphael Domjan since 2004 and under construction since 2008 – was unveiled yesterday in Germany.

While IBM is primarily known for its information technology products, the company has recently begun expanding into the alternative energy market. So far, that change has mainly taken the form of a new ad campaign. But IBM is now backing those words up with action, by unveiling a groundbreaking solar cell, 40 percent more efficient than any similar cells.

Scientistsu, engineers, and doctors yearn for tiny sensors to record a vast array of events in the world's many hard-to-reach places. And so far, the tradeoff between battery life and size has prevented sensors from becoming small enough to fit unobtrusively in the human body, or inside very small machines. Now, University of Michigan researchers seem to have solved that puzzle by creating a chip that draws energy through solar power, heat, or movement.

If sustainability is key to the new energy economy, a team of University of Pennsylvania researchers has just taken a big step toward the future by developing the first photovoltaic circuit that powers itself. The circuits could eventually be packed into touchscreens and other consumer devices that would run without a battery or any other source of power, as long as they have a beam of sunlight to harvest.

President Obama made it clear in his State of the Union Address last week that he fears the American economy is on the brink of missing out on a green tech boom that could propel us out of our current financial mess and into the coming century, and it appears his concern is well-placed. China leapfrogged Denmark, Germany, Spain and the U.S. to become the world's largest maker of wind turbines last year, and 2010 is shaping up to be another banner year.

When it comes to energy efficiency, there’s still no substitute for millions upon millions of years of evolution. Scientists at UC Berkeley have found a way to hack common tobacco plants to grow synthetic photovoltaic and photochemical cells that can be extracted, dissolved in solution and sprayed onto a glass or plastic substrate to create solar panels. That’s the idea, anyhow.

Today's solar power plants work either through photovoltaics or heated steam. If Enviromission gets its way, tomorrow's plants will combine wind and solar, with acre-sized mirrors and multi-thousand-foot-tall chimneys generating turbine-spinning gusts. The technology's called solar updraft, and a $750 million, 200-megawatt project may just bring Enviromission's future into the present.

Bringing power storage to the people, Panasonic will bring a home-use lithium-ion storage cell to market in fiscal 2011, making it possible for homes to store a week's worth of electricity for later use. Panasonic -- along with the recently acquired Sanyo -- have already test-manufactured such a battery, which could allow for more widespread deployment of eco-friendly but inconsistent modes of power generation.

Suburban rave-goers, women of Jersey Shore, and Elton John, take note: your lives just got a little bit greener. The sartorial risk-takers over at Sandia National Labs have created glitter-sized photovoltaic cells that could revolutionize solar energy collection the way Liberace revolutionized the dress code for concert pianists.

China, constantly straddling the line between super-polluter and clean tech pioneer, has unveiled what for the time being is the world’s largest solar-powered office building . The fan-like roof of the 800,000 square-foot facility located in Dezhou in Shangdong Province was cleverly designed to resemble an ancient sun dial, though rather than ticking off the passing hours, the building houses exhibition centers, research facilities, meeting and convention spaces and a hotel, all of which are powered by the hundreds of solar panels adorning its roof.

In a world first, a Monash University-led international research team has developed an innovative way to boost the output of the next generation of solar cells. Scientists at Monash University, in collaboration with colleagues from the universities of Wollongong and Ulm in Germany, have produced tandem dye-sensitised solar cells with a three-fold increase in energy conversion efficiency compared with previously reported tandem dye-sensitised solar cells.

Considering the massive carbon emissions that come from burning jet fuel, air travel is in serious need of a green makeover. To that end, the folks over at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, have been working on a solar-powered plane since 2003. Now, after six years of testing, they have finally managed to get the plane off the ground.

Even as some of the world moves into a future of unimaginably complex technology, many communities still lack the basic electrical infrastructure needed to power even simply electric devices like light bulbs. Unwilling to wait for the wiring to catch up to the demand, Danish researcher Frederik Krebs has created an LED lamp embedded within a flexible, printable solar panel that could replace the kerosene lamps still used around the developing world.

The bright future of green living has been on display for the past two weeks at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., during the Department of Energy's 2009 Solar Decathlon. The biennial contest, which wraps up this weekend, brings hundreds of university students from around the world to a temporary solar village for two weeks, where spectators can walk through student-designed houses and marvel at the latest green tech.

These solar homes have it all, including things that aren't commercially available yet -- like self-activating curled-metal shades; walls made of plants, both living and recycled; and roofs that tilt at the sun, making them efficient sun-catchers from Phoenix to Fargo. Worried about efficiency while you're away? How about an iPhone app that controls your entire house?