+ solar powered water sourcing

Water is essential to all the living communities on the planet. When looking for answers to challenges such as obtaining fresh water for the ever growing demand world wide, it makes sense to examine a range of possibilities. Consider how things work in nature. The hydrologic cycle is largely powered by solar radiation. The combination of knowledge and appropriate technology can offer some solutions that can help meet this basic human need.

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The WaterPyramid combines state of the art technology, capacity building and local entrepreneurship in order to achieve a long lasting (financial) sustainable situation.

+ Nanosolar Powersheets

Popular Science named Nanosolar Powersheets the Innovation of the Year for 2007. Nanosolar is revolutionizing the solar industry by making solar panels as thin sheets instead of the traditional bulky solar panels.

"The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with printing-press-style machines that set down a layer of solar-absorbing nano-ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil, so the panels can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute."

Up to this point most solar panels have been made out of silicon which require mounting on glass plates, making the panels thick, fragile, inefficient to manufacture and hard to install. Nanosolar's Powersheets do not use silicon and can be thinly printed, decreasing their cost, and increasing the number of possibilities when it comes to installation.

"You can picture roof shingles with solar cells built inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air."

For more information and an explanation of how the Powersheets work, visit the Popular Science Best of What's New website or Nanosolar's website.

+ Sharp Solar Systems

Sharp is one of the largest manufactures of solar cells. They have put together a short video that illustrates their vision of the future, where solar electricity is not only powering businesses but also large-scale utilities, neighborhoods, billboards, streetlights and portable electronics.

+ Solar Panels in Orbit

A solar powered satellite or SPS is a concept which places a satellite in high orbit around earth which collects solar energy via solar panels, and then using microwave power transmission the satellite would beam that energy to a large antenna placed on earth. Both Wikipedia and Space.com give some interesting information regarding solar powered satellites.

Collecting solar energy in space has many benefits, most importantly the amount of sunlight is unaffected by day/night, weather, and season. In space, the sun is always shinning. While many draw backs exist, including cost, environmental and health concerns about beaming electricity from space to earth, and feasibility. This is still a promising means of better utilizing the sun’s energy.

While a lot of research is being done internationally to lower the cost of a SPS, I believe this concept will never see practical implementation due to a cheaper and easier achieved sustainable source of energy arising. But concepts such as these should be explored, and hopefully can lead to the emergence of other and possibly better concepts dealing with sustainable energy creation.