Solar Power
”Tesla Motors Founder to Lease No-Money-Down SolarCity Solar Panels
Solar Balloons, Too Good To Be True Adopted
When most of us think balloons, we think, "I never should have had children." But these solar balloons are a lot more promising than their carnival counterparts. Constructed of photovoltaic fabric, the soft tank is filled with helium and tethered by power wire above a home, saving space on the ground while optimizing sun exposure. But it's not just the physical footprint that makes the technology so appealing. It's the price per watt.
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Sola Unagi: A Solar Generator to Charge Your Stuff, Suckas
Yo! You may not know it but I'm a caring kinda guy. I worry about the environment: my fist's gonna see you later if you don't too. So you guys should check out the Sola Unagi generator, made by Fuji Technologies. Weighs just 22 pounds, and even you weaklings could carry that. It's got two solar cells, and the rechargeable battery will run your laptop for up to six hours, and a mini fridge for four. Hell, you can even charge 20 cellphones at the same time if you like. It's designed to help people in developing countries, but using it here will cut down on your power use. $1,360 each. [Red Ferret]Scientist's New Solar Panel Tech: Paint Your Home For Power
Forget old-news solar-power shingles: a team from Swansea in the UK have found a way of creating solar "panel" paint. A by-product of their research into degrading paint on steel surfaces, their invention is applied in layers to steel cladding, and converts a gentle 5% of inbound solar energy to electricity. Sounds like not much, until you multiply it up over the surface area of a building. More »The Pedal Boat Gets a Solar Powered Boost
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Husqvarna's Autonomous Solar Powered Lawnmower: Never Mow Again
That neighbor of yours thinks he is so badass with his top-of-the-line riding mower. With the Husqvarna's new autonomous lawn mower, you can sip a beer on your porch and tell your neighbor to suck it while he toils away on his yard. And the best part is that the mower is a solar/electric hybrid—so it will mow your lawn whisper quiet with nearly zero emissions.
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energy
280-Megawatt Solar Boiler Uses Magnifying-Glass Bug-Killer Technique
The solar power plant Abengoa Solar will build in Gila Bend, Arizona, won't rely on fancy photovoltaic panels. No, it uses pretty much the same trick your evil ass used on bugs and leaves way back when: focusing sunlight to create high heat. In this case, mirrors focus the sun's rays into tanks of heat-transfer oil, heating it to about 400°C, boiling water for a steam turbine. More »
usb survival kit
Survival Kit Charges Your Gear with Solar-Powered Naffness
The designers of this naff gadget followed an interesting recipe: take one 3800mAh rechargeable battery, a solar cell, digital watch, analog thermometer, compass and LED torch light and jam them haphazardly into the nearest scratchy plastic box. Add in 12 connectors for mobile phones and USB gadgets, and serve up for around $33. Yuckity-yuck yuck. Ok, we know: we'll be laughing on the other side of our faces when this actually saves someone's life. [Technabob]
green energy
World's Largest Solar Farm Opens: A Billion Trees Probably Died to Build It
A solar farm has opened in Spain that consists of 120,000 solar panels over 100 hectares (247 acres). It also has a peak capacity of 20 megawatts and it can power up to 20,000 homes—making it the world's largest solar farm to date. The farm is expected to generate an estimated annual income of $28 million and reduce CO2 emissions by about 42,000 tons a year. More »Orbiting Solar Panels to Shoot Energy to Earth in the Form of Laser Beams
fire lighter
Solar Lighter: A Greener Way to Smoke
Like some kind of tiny parabolic burning mirror that would make Archimedes proud, this solar lighter captures the sun's rays and focuses them to a central spot that can reach 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Result: an economic, fossil-fuel-free way to light your smelly cigarettes. If that's not ironic enough, today is World Cancer Day! Let's just call it a "survival tool" instead, and say it's just an environmentally graceful way to, uh, start forest fires. [Shiny Shiny]
vapor or solid?
Solar-Powered Laptop-Charging MediaStreet eMotion Media Player Allegedly Shipping (and Cheap)
It looks like a concept—in fact, the only pictures we have of it are fancy 3D renderings doctored up in Photoshop. But according to the press release (after the jump), MediaStreet's 1GB eMotion solar-powered portable media player is already shipping for $169. That's a lot for a typical 1-gig audio-video player, but when you consider that this device can, according to claims, provide power for "most portable devices such as mobile phones, MP3/MP4 players, laptops, digital cameras" and presumably itself, it's chump change. In addition, the unit claims to offer Nintendo and Game Boy emulation via SD card so even when you're in the sun you can act like you're indoors. We'll get to the bottom of this, hopefully getting a review sample in, but in the meantime, have a closer look and feel free to stretch your skeptic muscles. More »Sun Table Brings Solar Power To Laptops, TVs
green tech
Cheap, Solar-Power-Everywhere Nanosolar PowerSheets Go On Sale, Really Are Cheap
Unlike a lot of other energy-crisis solving tech that bursts into vapor at the last minute, the award-winning and groundbreaking Nanosolar PowerSheets are actually on sale today. They're super cheap, ultra-adaptable solar panels that can be printed on the side of pretty much anything, promising solar power anywhere you want it. At today's launch, they still slide under coal's $2.1-a-watt energy cost, though they're not mass produced at the scale needed to bring it to the 30-cents-a-watt level they're aiming for yet. But if they prove themselves on the field, the clamoring demand would quickly materialize for that kind of output. [NYT]Solar City Teams Up With Tesla for Solar-Powered Sports Car Driving
One of the problems we can see with the Tesla Roadster is that you still have to suck up pollution-causing power to run the thing, even though it doesn't directly pollute the air with noxious internal combustion engine fumes. Now Solar City has teamed up with Tesla to provide solar panels that you install on the roof of your house, and then those panels feed power to the outlet for the Tesla Roadster. So now you can go from 0-60 in 4 seconds, guilt- and gasoline-free.
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vicarious living
Effortless Kayaking, Motorized by the Sun's Rays
If you're too lazy to paddle your own kayak, the solar-powered SPK-1 outrigger can harness the energy of the sun to get you on your way. Three big solar panels on this kayak-mounted attachment feed power to a silent-running electric trolling motor with 36 pounds of thrust. On the next page, take a look at a detailed diagram of the SPK-1. More »
al gore is ecstatic






