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Recent Solar News

World Solar Challenge Results Are In

Last weekend, the World Solar Challenge kicked off in Darwin, Australia. The race consisted of 38 entries of solar-powered vehicles. All in all, the participants would race 1,900 miles between Darwin, Australia and Adelaide, Australia. The...

Australia's World Solar Challenge Begins

Since 1987, the World Solar Challenge has been held in Australia every two years. The race is between solar-powered vehicles from around the world. The newest edition of this race began this Saturday. In addition to the usual race, there will...

Company To Build World's Largest Solar Field

The First Solar company based in Tempe, Arizona currently makes the most solar cells of any other company. In addition to that feat, the company may also soon close a deal to build the largest solar field in the world. First Solar recently...

Drastic Drop In Solar Panel Prices

Solar panel prices are rapidly decreasing in price, causing many consumers to purchase panels that were once thought to be too expensive. Since mid-2008, solar panel costs have decreased by forty percent. The cause of the decrease is due to...

Solar Powered Trash Compactors Growing In...

Solar powered trash compactors are becoming popular, especially in major cities. The compactor, called a BigBelly, is made by the BigBelly Solar company based in Needham, Massachusetts. Major cities, varying between Boston, Vancouver,...

Solar Power Facility Locations Being Studied By...

Interior Secretary of the United States Ken Salazar announced this week that hundreds of miles of public land will be studied for solar power facilities. 1,000 square miles of public land will be explored to determine locations for the solar...

Sahara Solar Project Could Make Germany Masters...

Cars are Germany’s principal employment generator. Come 2050, it could be the solar industry. Germany's Wuppertal Institute for Climate for Greenpeace and the Club of Rome says that if the right political push is given from now onwards, more...

American Solar Industry To Grow Due To Utility...

Barclays Capital, a global investment bank, recently announced their estimations for the American solar industry. According to Barclays, the solar energy industry is expected to see a great deal of growth in the next few years even with the...

Europe Considering Solar Farms In Africa

A German company, Munich Re, is trying to get support behind a project entitled Desertec. The company would like to build solar farms in North Africa and use the energy in Europe. The farms themselves would be in countries such as Tunisia,...

Solar Plane With Potential 36-Hour Flight...

Bertrand Piccard, one of the people behind the first non-stop flight in a balloon around the world, has founded yet another ambitious project. The project is to create a solar airplane, with the potential to make a non-stop 36 hour flight. The...

Alternative Energy Gets a Hand With a Microbe...

The hero of this story is a one of a kind microbe called Methanobacterium palustre . This microbe discovered recently has the unique ability to synthesize methane from electric current. You might wonder that the reverse would have better for...

Top 7 Alternative Energies That Will Save the...

There is no doubt that alternative energy has the potential to replace some of the more inefficient energy producers such as coal plants, nuclear energy and oil, but which alternatives will have the most influence? Utilizing the following forms...

First Of Its Kind Solar Power Plant Opens in...

This week a new solar power factory opened in New Mexico owned by the Schott Solar company. The factory is considered unique as it will produce photovoltaic panels and thermal receivers for solar power plants. This is the first factory in the...

How to Make a Solar Powered Car

Building a solar powered car is a lofty goal. If you don’t know much about cars or solar energy, you will definitely need some experts to guide you through the process. However, as long as you have the time, desire and money to take on this...

MIT Students Build Advanced Solar Car

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students have built an advanced solar powdered car which they are calling “Eleanor”. The students are entering the car in the World Solar Challenge in Australia later this year. This will be the...

Packing A Charge

Let’s admit it - we are pretty obsessed with electronics in recent years. From cellphones to laptops, Blackberry devices to mp3 players, a single person can juggle lots of attention-grabbing equipment. But they all require some power source and...

Alternative Energy - Things you didn't know

As our energy needs rise, as our supplies of fossil fuels run out and as the state of our planet become more precarious, we increasingly need to look at alternative energy sources to meet our requirements and to allow our modern lifestyles....

New Solar Technology Doubles Use of Sunlight

New technology could, within the year, lower the price of solar energy below that of conventional energy. Developed by the U.S. Department of Energy, the "disruptive" technology" uses sunlight twice as efficiently as any previous technology....

Sun power gets cheaper

Last month, a Spanish company opened a solar power plant in the Nevada desert that produces more power than any other solar installation in the country. But this 47-mile array is special for another reason: Instead of capturing the sun's light,...

The sun is not to blame for global warming

It’s global warming, it’s climate change, it’s our fault, no it’s volcanoes… wait, actually it’s the sun! Or maybe not. The arguments about climate change have been raging for years. Some say that the warming is a natural...

Thin-Film Photovoltaic Sheets: Solar Panels for...

Solar panels that come as ink, and can be printed onto foil using printing-press technology, seem a little far-fetched- or maybe too good to be true. Believe it, though: the technology, called thin-film photovoltaic (PV), was actually invented...

Advances in Solar Power

From toys to MP3 players, the world of solar power has expanded well beyond its early beginnings in the solar power shower—a bladder bag attached to a gravity fed hose designed to allow clean loving campers a chance to get a (warmish) shower...

Solar Towers' the Answer to Energy Needs?

With rapidly rising oil prices and advances in solar technology, solar power generators are becoming an increasingly desirable option for nations’ energy needs, and Spain is showing the rest of the world how to make the most of it. Earlier...

First Solar Powered Billboard in US Unveiled

Billboards are not the most obvious environmental hazard, but with millions of billboards across the US, many of them lit up at night, they contribute a significant sum of carbon emissions – and of course add to the mountains of landfill after...

How Solar Panels Are Made

Have you wondered how they make solar panels? This video gives us a rough idea. First, photovoltaic cells made of silicone with conducting grooves across their surfaces get wires carefully soldered on to them. Each cell then gets a bath,...

Build an Eco-House on the Cheap

If you thought building a house powered entirely by renewable sources would be expensive, then think again, as now you can build one for less than $200. There is a catch of course – as the house will only be a few inches high. The model...

Here Comes the Sun Panel

A major roadblock to environmentally-friendly home improvement projects is the elevated cost. While you might envision a solar paneled roof on your home, the $30,000 price tag may have you reeling. After the initial sticker shock, maintenance...

Solar Panels Everywhere

As energy prices soar, the world is seeking out new ways of bring electricity to the public. And solar power is a big contributor to these new ideas. Solar power has taken off in the ideas worldwide to utilize the sun as much as possible. From...

Solar Panel Toxins

Solar panels are just one of many alternative energy sources being used to help lower the world’s dependency on petroleum products, even through incorporation into everyday products and automobiles . But solar panels can have a dark side,...

Solar Life

Want Solar? Go to Sam’s Club

Buying Solar power just got easier for Southern California Residences, who will now be able to make purchases from their local Sam’s Club. The wholesale division of Wal-Mart Stores, Sam’s Club, announced in August that there soon will be...

Barbecue Green

Hey, barbecue fans! It’s the first day of summer. If you don’t have the grill out yet, you’re late. Keeping the oven off in the sweltering heat will help keep your kitchen cool, but make sure you’re barbecue is green, too. This...

Greener Backpacking

Backpacking can be a unique and wonderful experience, whether it is done in a natural or urban setting. Unfortunately it can sometimes be difficult to maintain an environmentally friendly attitude while backpacking. Convenience often takes the...

Personal, Portable Solar Panels

Solar panels that fit in your pocket are ideal for today’s world, when most people carry at least two different electronic devices on them at all times. Soleitec, a Korean company, is manufacturing a few versions of a foldable, portable set of...

Cooking By The Power Of The Sun

Unless you live under a rock on Mars, with your fingers in your ears and your eyes shut, you know that oil is at a record high. Reaching $140 a barrel recently, it seems like the days of cheap oil are over. As a result, everything from natural...

Questions about Solar Power

Burning Rubbish

Has anyone considered the impact of wind farms on the wind patterns and the weather in an ecosystem?

Solar Power Information

How Does Solar Power Work?

Who doesn't like a bit of sun in their lives...and gradually we are getting it into our homes too. All thanks to solar power. From the beginning of time itself the sun has been one of the reasons for life itself. A plant synthesizes for itself...

Spray-On Solar-Power Cells Are True Breakthrough

Scientists have invented a plastic solar cell that can turn the sun's power into electrical energy, even on a cloudy day. The plastic material uses nanotechnology and contains the first solar cells able to harness the...

Sustainable Living: Where Do We Start?

Every day, approximately five produce delivery trucks roll through the alleyway past my home. They're bringing tomatoes from California, bananas from Ecuador, apples, mushrooms, and carrots from the U.S. I live in Ontario, Canada,...

How To Build A Green House

Five years ago, my family purchased a ranch house in the country. There were no houses across the road, and at night, visibility beyond our front porch was zero. We were thrilled, having moved from the second-busiest street in our town, and...

Living Off the Grid - Anyone Can Do It

If you did not possess any historical knowledge, you might think that the environmental movement began in the last few decades. In truth, previous generations pioneered the recycling movement during the scrimp and save era, the pre-cycling...

Living Off-Grid: All the Cool People Are Doing It

We know it’s possible to live off-grid, or to produce your own energy and feed it back into the grid, but is anyone actually doing it? It turns out there’s a growing number of self-sustaining homes, which in turn sustain companies like...

A house 100% off the grid... is it possible?

Image a world where at home you use your own energy, where you are totally off the grid... it's more doable then you might think. There are a couple of ways you can accomplish this... and the best thing about it is, most of...

Going Green? Where is my Green!!!

Some environmental government initiatives are well known; bottle deposit and refund programs are immediately visible to the consumer, are comprehensive, and their motivation is clear. Other incentives are priced in at the register,...

Switching on the Green Christmas Lights

Cities around the world have started switching on their Christmas lights, but the spike in energy use may be a little less this year thanks to the use of LED lights. LED lights use around 90% less energy than incandescent lights, are...

Starting With Solar

Most of us cannot feasibly afford to install a full solar power system into our homes. Energy Refuge suggests starting small. One solar panel and a sealed battery would hold about 400 watts of electricity. You will also need a charge control,...

Install a Solar Panel

The best way to reduce your fossil fuel-derived energy consumption is to switch the energy source. Homeowners across the world are making the switch to solar panels with results that are silencing naysayers and surprising the solar panel owners...

Do-it-yourself Solar Heating

Energy is a limited resource; at least in the forms we are now using to produce it. Gas, petroleum, oil, and coal are very expensive, quickly running out, and costly to the environment. We need to look at alternative sources of energy to heat...

Solar Decathlon: A New Kind of House

Good ideas for energy efficiency come up all the time in this day and age. And a newer event is sparking the imagination of students to go beyond what we have today and invent new ways to conserve energy in houses for tomorrow. Solar...

Turning Window Panes into Solar Gains

Let’s call them 'organic solar collectors' , for want of a better word. But it is exactly what this new development in glass technology does. We get it directly and indirectly everyday, but solar power in actuality is very expensive. Now,...

Eco House Kits

Green house kits cross the threshold from building your own eco-friendly home to simply cleaning the home you have. Here are some of the best “Go Green” kits on the market for your own already-established home, in hopes that one small kit...

Solar Shingles

Serving dual purpose, photovoltaic roof shingles ensures protection from the elements while providing electricity to the building. While not necessary new in concept, the first ones came out as early as 2004, more vendors have come on...

Quick Fix Versus Long-term Solutions

We really do live in a fascinating time. Future generations could look at this era in the same way we do at the period between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, or the Enlightened Era and the Industrial Revolution. It is conceivable to think...

Google Going Solar

In the largest solar panel system ever constructed in the US, Google Inc. is planning to incorporate 9,212 solar panels to power 30% of their Mountain View, California operations. EI Solutions, part of Energy Innovations Inc., will install these...

GAP to go Solar Powered

It wasn't too long ago that clothing brand Gap Inc faced naked protesters and country wide boycotts over their questionable treatment of factory workers across the world, and although the boycotts didn't manage to shut the company down, it...

World’s first solar electric bus unveiled in...

Bright red double decker buses have long been one of the iconic images of London, but with the days of the diesel dinosaurs at an end, it is solar and hydrogen fuel cell buses that could be the icons of the future. Hydrogen and electric hybrid...

GM Launch Solar Car, Win Green Award

GM's hybrid concept car, the Chevy Volt, is already gracing TV screens as part of the company's 'From gas friendly to gas free' campaign, but now GM have launched another eco-friendly concept vehicle, the Cadillac Provoq Fuel Cell E-flex. Aside...

The Greenification of Walmart

A company long vilified for its business practices and low prices is starting to concentrate on their environmental impact. Walmart has a couple green projects started and underway at some of their locations. Some of the featured changes they...

New Restaurant Aims to be London’s Greenest

Waterhouse, a new restaurant on the banks of the Regent’s canal in London, has opened this month, claiming to be the city’s most eco-friendly restaurant. The menu at the Waterhouse makes use of organic, seasonal ingredients – but it...

Solar Sea

A new environmentally friendly energy source may be found in the world's oceans. Marine bacteria DNA contains 'proteorhodopsin', a light capturing pigment which is similar to the pigment in the human retina which enables us to see colors....

Rebuilding Green In New Orleans

For many residents of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward who saw their homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, the future of their neighborhood is still uncertain. But if people like New York-based ecological architects Matthew Berman and Andrew...

B.C. to be Energy Self-Sufficient

By the year 2025, the Province of British Columbia could create enough energy to be completely energy self-sufficient while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions to before year 2000 levels. This energy would be from renewable resources alone and...

Outdoor Solar Lighting

Since the beginning of time, the Sun has been provided us with the light needed to nourish the life-force of our planet. As mankind advanced, along with our technology, we have learned how to harness solar power to provide us with light and...

Carbon-Free City In the Desert

Masdar. A carbon- and waste-free city, in the middle of the desert of the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Now, it hasn’t been built yet, but the plans sound almost too good to be true. Finally, someone has decided to take a leap and use all of the...

Spain’s Solar Energy Tower: A New Solar Power

As a kid, did you ever try using a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays and fry an unsuspecting ant? Don’t answer that. But on a small scale, that trick is a good example of how much energy there is available to be harvested from the...

Helios: A Solar-Powered Glider

Inspired by the £50 000 Kremer prize for human-powered flight, Paul MacCready began a long career of aircraft innovation. The “Gossamer Condor,” designed and tested by MacCready and his three sons, was light enough to be powered by one...

British Castle Installs Solar Panels

Dunster castle in Somerset in the UK, has been protecting Britain from the threat of invading armies for nearly 2000 years – and now, with rising sea levels posing the main threat to Britain, the castle owners have installed solar panels, so...

World's Largest Solar Plant to be in Arizona

A Spanish solar power company has signed a contract with the state of Arizona, this month, to build, own and operate what would be the largest solar power plant in the world if operating today. The plant, scheduled to go into operation by...

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