Solar-hydrogen house combines new, old

University tests potential tools to deal with energy, climate problems

TALLAHASSEE, Florida - The elevated floor, tall ceilings, steeply pitched roof and broad overhangs are borrowed from the traditional "cracker house" that relied on shade and air movement for relief from Florida's sultry subtropical climate.

A pair of magnolia trees, dark red siding, ceiling fans, bamboo flooring and rustic wooden beams salvaged from a Georgia barn add to the inviting atmosphere of the little house in the middle of Florida State University's brick-and-mortar campus.

It may look like an out-of-place throwback, but the $575,000 Off-Grid, Zero Emissions Building — OGZEB — has a futuristic purpose. Its mission is to test potential solutions to the world's energy and climate change problems by combining old tricks with cutting-edge technology, including a unique solar-hydrogen experiment.

"What we're trying to do is create the building of tomorrow with a lot of the feel of today," said project manager Justin Kramer. "If nobody wanted to live in it, what's the point?"

Like a 19th century cracker house, there are no power lines.

Solar panels on the roof are one of the few hints the two-bedroom home is not a relic of the past. Solar panels have been popping up on rooftops around the United States this year, in part because of an expanded federal subsidy that pays for 30 percent of the cost. States, including Florida, offer additional tax credits and incentives that further drive down the cost.

With Florida State's off-grid house, part of the electrical energy they produce is used to turn water into hydrogen for power when the sun isn't shining.

Students, VIPs among residents
Dedicated in August, OGZEB has a couple small offices, but most of the interior, including an expansive living-dining-kitchen area, is strictly residential. Graduate students, staffers and VIPs will take turns living there to give old and emerging technologies alike a real world tryout.

"If it's not being lived in and used, we're not getting good data," Kramer said.

Similar experiments are being done elsewhere, but what sets Florida State's effort apart from most is the building's reliance on hydrogen for power at night and on cloudy or rainy days.

Hydrogen is a potential low-cost alternative to batteries because storage tanks for the lighter-than-air gas are comparatively simple and cheap.

"It's a viable concept that they are demonstrating," said Yogi Goswami, co-director of the Clean Energy Research Center at the University of South Florida. "For hydrogen the problem is the cost of production. It's usually high. If they are going to reduce that cost, that's moving in the right direction."

Phil Coale / AP Justin Kramer, project director for the Florida State University zero emission house, shows off some features.

Florida State scientists think they have a solution, Kramer said. They've developed a way to use relatively cheap and common metals to replace platinum, a critical but rare and high-priced element that makes hydrogen from water electrolysis devices expensive.

Perfecting that technology is going to take more time and money so the house is starting with an off-the-shelf version that uses traditional platinum electrodes, Kramer said.

To make a sufficient amount of hydrogen, the house needs a hefty array of photovoltaic solar panels. They produce 6.9 kilowatts of power compared to 1 or 2 kilowatts for a typical off-grid house of its size — 1,064 square feet, Kramer said.

Another innovative feature is how the hydrogen is used. Besides a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity, the gas is burned in the kitchen range and other appliances may follow.

"It's more efficient to combust hydrogen," Kramer said.

It also burns cleanly, emitting only water vapor and heat.

The problem is conventional appliances are designed for heavier natural gas and propane. They must be modified to safely burn hydrogen.

In a joint effort with the Viking Range Corp., Florida State researchers are transforming the house's kitchen stove. One step was to narrow the range-top jets because hydrogen packs more punch than natural gas.

It burns straight up instead of radiating so "you can actually hold your hand to the side of the flame for extended periods of time," Kramer said.

That also means hydrogen won't work in the radiant-heat oven. It's going to be converted to a convection oven that uses fans to circulate the heat.

Gas-burning refrigerators that once were fairly common have become rare for household use, but most recreational vehicles still have small propane versions. The house now has an electric refrigerator, but Kramer said the goal is to replace it with one powered by hydrogen, solar-heated water or both.

Protective wall for hydrogen
Key hydrogen components are housed under the building in a concrete block and steel blast room.

"We've all seen the Hindenburg," Kramer said. "Goodness, that has brought all kinds of fun to my life as a hydrogen researcher."

Hydrogen, though, is relatively safe compared to natural gas as long as you aren't riding in an airship filled with it, Kramer said. Being so light, it diffuses rapidly instead of building up to catch fire like natural gas. Also, breathing it in won't suffocate you — it will just change your voice like inhaling helium.

"You would just talk in a high, annoying pitch," Kramer said.

Hydrogen power may be the ultimate goal, but it could take decades to perfect. In the meantime, the house is being used to demonstrate other technologies that can be applied right now or in just a few years. That includes the cracker house techniques that fell out of use with the arrival of air conditioning.

There are no plans to heat the home with hydrogen although that may be a good option for colder climates, Kramer said. Instead, it uses an electric and geothermal system that's very efficient in Tallahassee's mild climate. Researchers, though, may try to integrate the solar hot water and heating-air conditioning systems.

Besides photovoltaic panels producing electricity, the roof has a solar hot water array, an older but efficient technology. It's also oversized, heating enough water to 133 degrees Fahrenheit to fill a 300-gallon tank beneath the house. That's more than enough for bathing and dish washing. The excess will be used to test future applications such as the heating-air conditioning system and refrigerator.

Simple light shelves under the upper windows reflect incoming sunshine and spread it evenly to avoid hot spots. Other energy-saving technologies include a reflective roof, dual-flush toilets and recycled material such as the wooden beams and trim, aluminum siding and ash in the concrete pilings.

The house is bolted together with large, double sheets of oriented strand board sandwiched around foam insulation. That eliminates the need for most studs, which transfer outdoor heat into a house, Kramer said.

"This house is designed to be torn apart and put back together as new technologies are developed," Kramer said. "We want to look at today and tomorrow at the same time."

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Ocean Energy Developments

By David Appleyard

Interest in wave and tidal energy systems is gathering pace as a huge number devices move from the drawing board, through prototype and testing phases and on to commercial developments.

Like many of the current crop of ‘cutting edge’ renewable energy technologies, the concept of extracting energy from waves and tides is not a new one. Indeed, it is well over 100 years since the first tidal wheel was built and the 240 MW La Rance tidal barrage project in Brittany, France, has been operating for well over 40 years. What has changed over the intervening years is the level of urgency with which such projects are now being addressed and the technical achievements by some manufacturers which are making tidal and wave energy a reality.

Blessed with one of the longest coastlines of any country in Europe, large tidal ranges and strong winds, it is perhaps obvious that as the home of one of the largest marine energy resources, the United Kingdom should also sport by far the largest concentration of marine power companies in the world. However, while the UK has taken a lead, it is far from alone. According to the IEA-OES, also known as the Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy Systems which functions within a framework created by the International Energy Agency (IEA), by the end of 2008, more than 25 countries were involved in ocean renewable energy technology development activities. With the deployment of multi-unit wave technology in Portugal, and the commencement of construction of a 260 MW tidal power plant in South Korea standing out as noteworthy.

However, although government support from a few countries has to some extent enabled the ongoing commercialization of ocean energy technologies, a lack of targeted national priorities and policies remains a major barrier. Certainly, the stakes are potentially high.

For example, some analysis suggests that the accessible resource in waters around the UK, taking into account constraints on available sites for a wide variety of reasons, could be as much as 700 TWh per year. Similarly, it has been estimated that the North American marine energy resource could realistically supply some 10% of US electricity demand.

Policy and Government Support

Government engagement with marine technology has been something of a mixed bag. In the UK, for example, support has been relatively high when compared with other sectors. However, Denmark, for instance, ended its wave energy development programme in 2002, leaving the country without a dedicated policy.

Resource assessment is a key step in building marine energy capacity and in one of the more significant developments for the UK industry over the past year, a study to determine the potential for marine energy in English and Welsh waters was announced by the government in April 2009. The new scoping study will look at wave, tidal-stream and tidal range technologies along the English and Welsh coastline. (See caption and credit information for image by clicking on it in the image gallery at the end of this article.)

The devolved Scottish government, meanwhile, is further along, having already produced a preliminary Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for marine energy in Scotland. And, in September 2008, the Crown Estate outlined the application and consent procedure for wave and tidal energy projects in the Pentland Firth, in Scotland, which contains some of the best locations for wave energy in the world. The Firth is the first UK marine power site to be opened up for commercial-scale development, with the aim of developing an installed capacity of more than 700 MW by 2020. The process of granting options for lease over areas of seabed in the Pentland Firth and surrounding area is due to be concluded in the summer of 2009, with deployed as early as 2010 or 2011.

Announcing the decision for England and Wales, the minister for sustainable development and energy innovation, Lord Hunt, said: ‘The marine energy sector has reached a pivotal stage with more and more devices ready to go into the water.’

However, even in the UK the support available has faced criticism. For example, in 2009, the first companies are expected to qualify to receive funding under the Marine Renewables Deployment Fund, which provides £50 million (US$75 million) to support wave and tidal stream technologies in the UK. This sounds positive, but the industry is concerned that the support is only available to companies which have been operating a full-scale prototype for at least three months, a measure which has been criticized given that devices have only recently entered the water. Parliamentary questions found that the entire budget for the Wave and Tidal-stream Energy Demonstration Scheme has remained unspent since it was announced in 2004. Nonetheless, it does set a premium of £100/MWh for electricity produced from marine energy, and this is on top of the retail price of electricity and the Renewables Obligation (RO), which requires utility groups to source a growing proportion of their electricity from renewables. The main support scheme for renewable electricity projects in the UK, the RO is to be revised upwards for marine energy when the government introduces banding for emerging technologies which require more support, such as marine and offshore wind.

In a move first mooted in 2007, ocean energy systems are due to receive 2 ROCs for each MWh produced, double the current level.

Perhaps at least as significant for the industry’s long-term development, in December 2008, the government published a new Marine and Coastal Access Bill, designed to give greater confidence and economic benefits for marine developers through simplification of the legislative framework, and balance the interests of conservation, renewable energy and other marine interests. Through the legislation, the government intends to set up a new Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to oversee the majority of marine planning applications and the bill will also create a strategic marine planning system.

Elsewhere in Europe, in Portugal for example - which boasts the world’s first commercial marine energy installation - a feed-in tariff for wave energy was established in 2007 mandating a euro260/MWh price for the first 20 MW installed. While in the US, members of both houses of Congress are calling on the Department of Energy (DOE) to allocate $250 million of the $2.5 billion in stimulus funding for renewable energy research and development to the emerging marine renewable energy industry.

And, in a 2009 Earth Day speech President Barack Obama announced that the Department of the Interior has now finalized a long-awaited framework for renewable energy production on the US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The framework establishes a programme to grant leases, easements and rights-of-way for orderly, safe and environmentally responsible renewable energy development activities, such as the siting and construction of wave farms on the OCS. Alongside growing interest in the UK, USA, and Portugal, countries such as Canada, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and other nations are also expressing support for ocean energy development.

Wave Energy Generators

Though still at an early stage of development, the marine energy sector has already seen a number of technologies progressed to the point of commercial installation. The rapid emergence of new machines, continuous development of more established ones, and the wealth of on-going R&D leaves no real consensus over which designs will ultimately emerge to produce electricity from the ocean most efficiently and cheaply, and yet which remain sufficiently robust to survive the rigours of a life at sea. Indeed, a large number of competing, sometimes unexpected, designs for producing wave and tidal power all but swamp the horizon.

Oscillating water column (OWC) is one technology that is being explored by a number of companies.

For instance, Orecon’s wave to energy buoy is based on a multi-resonant chamber (MRC) oscillating water column and a HydroAir bi-directional air impulse turbine supplied by Dresser-Rand Company Ltd, the two have also signed a memorandum of understanding to optimise the design for the device. Orecon has also signed an agreement with Portuguese developer Eneólica to establish a Joint Venture company to build and deploy Orecon’s first full-scale 1.5-MW MRC buoy in a grid-connected installation. Once the first unit is commissioned, two further MRCs will be added, increasing output to 4.5 MW and making it the world’s largest operating wave farm to date. The partners say they intend to develop further sites in Portugal over the next 10 years.

Another OWC design that is subject to advanced testing and planning is the Danish development Wave Dragon. A prototype project was installed in Nissum Bredning as early as 2003 and Wave Dragon plans to deploy a 7-MW Wave Dragon off the coast of Milford Haven in Wales in the spring of 2010. The company also plans to install 10 machines in Portugal between 2011 and 2012 and an additional 10 machines in an array off Wales in 2013. OWC-type machines of various designs and to varying degrees of success have also been built in Australia, Scotland, Norway, Japan, India, and Portugal.

One of the most commercially advanced offshore wave power devices is the Pelamis machine (see image, above), a 750 kW, snake-like machine developed by Edinburgh-based Pelamis Wave Power (PWP). Following a period of testing at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, the world’s first commercial wave energy installation, a 2.25-MW development in Portuguese waters has been developed with energy company Enersis. The three machines, near Póvoa do Varzim some 5 km offshore, are known as the Aguçadoura wave farm.

Another example comes from New Jersey, USA-based Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) and its PowerBuoy. It is due to install one of 150 kW devices at EMEC, while in the longer term it intends to develop a 5-MW wave farm, consisting of buoys arranged in a grid, planned as part of the UK’s Wave Hub project. The device, which uses waves to move the buoy up and down converts the resultant mechanical stroking via a power take-off to drive an electrical generator, is expected to be ready for deployment and grid connection in 2009. In the past year OPT says it has reached two major manufacturing milestones in the development of its flagship PB150 PowerBuoy device with projects at locations including Reedsport in Oregon, Victoria, Australia and in the UK.

The design is similar in concept to that of Wavebob Ltd of Ireland, which has signed a co-operation agreement with Vattenfall AB for the possible development of a 250-MW demonstration project using its Wavebob device.

Another device that uses the linear motion of waves to generate energy is Trident Energy’s machine. This machine is solidly anchored, rather than self-reacting using inertial forces like OPT and Wavebob, and floats are used to drive linear generators. Trident Energy is currently in the final stages of preparing for a year-long deployment of a fully functional test rig in the North Sea off England’s east coast. The test rig will generate about 20 kW from eight full scale linear generators.

Other designs of wave energy devices include the Archimedes Wave Swing developed by Scotland’s AWS Ocean Energy, Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation’s WaveGen and Isle of Man-based Renewable Energy Holdings plc (REH) with its CETO device.

The CETO uses a submerged piston to deliver high pressure water to shore which is then used in conventional hydro technology. Test deployment of a full-scale CETO III unit is due for completion in 2009, with commercial rollout anticipated shortly thereafter.

In April 2009 Aquamarine Power announced that it is to commence installation of its 350-kW Oyster wave energy machine at EMEC in the summer of 2009 and with Airtricity, the renewable energy division of Scottish and Southern Energy, a deal is place to develop sites capable of hosting 1 GW of marine energy by 2020. The device consists of an oscillating flap, which, as with the CETO design, pumps high pressure water through an on-shore turbine to generate electricity. (See image, left.)

Many novel wave devices, such as the Green Ocean Energy Ltd Wave Treader machine, which attaches to offshore wind farm monopiles and shares infrastructure, or the rubbery submarine-like tube that is the Anaconda from Checkmate Seaenergy Ltd are at far earlier stages of development than other designs. Nonetheless, they represent interesting avenues for the development of commercial wave energy.

Tidal Current Energy

As with wave energy, there are a variety of competing devices which generate electricity from tidal currents. These can broadly be divided into those that operate in shallow shoreline water and those that work in deep fast-moving tidal channels. Most of the devices approaching commercialization are in this second category.

One of the most commercially advanced of the tidal companies is Marine Current Turbines (MCT). The company has installed its new SeaGen device, a two-rotor machine capable of generating 1.2-MW, in Stangford Narrows in Northern Ireland. In July 2008, having briefly exported power the grid, it became one of the world’s first commercial-scale tidal turbines installed and operating.

MCT intends to deploy a series of SeaGen devices in projects off Anglesey and on the Canadian seaboard within the next few years, and has already secured backing of npower Renewables to execute plans for a 10.5 MW-tidal farm scheme in an area of 25 metre-deep open sea known as the Skerries, off the north-west coast of Anglesey. Subject to successful planning consent and financing, the tidal farm could begin commercial operations as early as 2011 or 2012. It has also agreed a partnership with Canada’s Minas Basin Pulp and Power Company Ltd for a demonstration project in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia.

The company followed this up by applying for a lease from the Crown Estate to deploy up to 50 MW of its machines in the Pentland Firth. Subject to financing and securing the necessary approvals, the company says it expects to install up to 50 MW by 2015.

In another tidal turbine development, utility group Scottish Power has teamed up with Hammerfast Strøm of Norway to install a 1-MW full-scale prototype tidal turbine in Scotland, with a view to eventually developing tidal farms of 100 MW or more. Manufacture of the prototype began in 2008, with installation during 2009. Using the device Scottish Power also plans to install three tidal energy farms off Scotland and Northern Ireland with a total capacity of up to 60 MW, which could be operational by 2011, the company says. The facility will use the Lànstrøm tidal turbine, developed by Hammerfest Strøm AS.

Meanwhile, Irish company Open Hydro has been testing their 250 kW open centred, rim generator device, at EMEC in the Orkneys since September 2008. And, in April 2009, the company awarded a contract to Cherubini Metal Works of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, for the supply of a subsea base to support the installation of its first tidal turbine in Canadian waters. The unit is scheduled for deployment this autumn in the Minas Passage of the Bay of Fundy and the project is being developed in partnership with Nova Scotia Power and with support from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC). Work is expected to complete in August 2009. Open Hydro has also partnered with EDF in plans to install four to 10 of their turbines off the coast of Brittany and the company has also announced that it has secured a contract to develop a pilot project for Snohomish County Public Utility District, a public utility in Washington State, USA. The contract to develop a tidal project in the Admiralty Inlet region of the Puget Sound involves the installation of up to three turbines. Installation is expected to begin as early as 2011.

Elsewhere in the USA, a number of marine current energy trials are underway, for example Verdant Power has tested six of its 35-kW turbines in New York’s East River, but it is only in the last year that the first commercial hydrokinetic turbine has been installed. Hydro Green Energy LLC completed the installation of one of two surface-suspended turbines at what it claims is the United States’ first-ever commercial hydrokinetic power project, near the City of Hastings in Minnesota, in late 2008.

Another tidal stream turbine comes from Lunar Energy. The company has forged an alliance with EON to develop an 8 MW project off the Welsh coast using 1-MW horizontal-axis systems developed by Rotech Tidal Tubines (RTT). The development follows Lunar Energy’s March 2008 agreement with Korean Midland Power Co (KOMIPO), to supply a giant 300-turbine field in the Wando Hoenggan Water Way off the South Korean coast. The field is expected to supply electricity by 2015.

In the southern hemisphere, in March 2009 Singapore’s Atlantis Resources Corp signed a co-operation agreement with Norwegian utility group Statkraft to develop tidal current electricity generation projects in Europe using its 400-kW Nereus II and 500-kW Solon turbines. In December 2008, Atlantis signed the world’s largest tidal energy generation agreement with Hong Kong-based CLP Group, increasing Atlantis’ electricity-generating project pipeline to 800 MW. The commercial launch of a 2-MW Solon turbine is expected soon.

A Creative Explosion

One key characteristic of the marine energy sector which makes it all but impossible to pick a winning technology is the burst of creativity that has seen a wealth of novel designs emerge.

As with wave energy devices, a number of novel designs have emerged which seek to generate energy from tidal currents. One such device is under development by Australia’s BioPower Systems. The so-called bioSTREAM is based on the highly efficient propulsion of Thunniform-mode swimming species, such as shark, tuna, and mackerel and the machine mimics the shape and motion characteristics of these species, but is a fixed device in a moving stream. In this configuration the propulsion mechanism is reversed, and the energy in the passing flow is used to drive the device motion against the resisting torque of an electrical generator. Systems are being developed for 250 kW, 500 kW, and 1 MW capacities to match conditions in various locations.

Meanwhile, World Energy Research and Blue Energy Canada have signed a joint agreement under which World Energy Research would finance the development of Blue Energy Canada’s first 200 MW commercial tidal power project at a cost of roughly $500 million using a novel vertical-axis hydro turbine.

There are also other types of ocean energy that have yet to be explored to any great extent and which include technologies such as those which exploit an osmotic gradient or so-called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) systems, which rely on a thermal gradient. It may be hard to pick a technology winner, but the vast quantities of energy potentially available suggests that a winner will indeed emerge.

David Appleyard is associate editor of Renewable Energy World.

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Sidebar: Tidal Barrage Development

The precise predictability of the tides and the vast quantities of energy potentially available has prompted continued interest in tidal barrage technologies.

Although only a very few tidal barrage projects of any size are currently operating, alongside La Rance is the 18 MW Annapolis Royal Tidal plant in Canada’s Bay of Fundy which has been operating since 1984, a number of smaller schemes do exist. In China, for example, the IEA reports that there are at least seven tidal barrage plants with a capacity of 5 MW or more.

In addition, plans for more tidal barrage development are well underway. In South Korea, the Sihwa Tidal Power Plant project would generate 260 MW, making it the largest such project in the world. The approximately $250 million project is already under construction and will consist of 10 turbines and is expected to be completed in 2009. South Korea has also announced plans for other tidal barrage schemes, including the 520 MW Garolim Bay development. This installation is expected to be completed some time in 2014.

Other countries blessed with large tidal ranges and suitable geography include the USA, India, Mexico and Canada.

In the UK, the Severn Estuary with its 14-metre tidal range has been the site of proposed tidal barrage schemes for well over 100 years and with a potential generating capacity estimated at more than 8 GW, some 5% of current UK requirements.

Subject to an on-going two-year feasibility study led by consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff, significant environmental, not to say engineering and financial, challenges remain.

So far, a public consultation has arrived at a proposed shortlist of five schemes from 10 original proposals, which includes a mixture of barrages and tidal lagoon schemes.

Elsewhere in the UK, feasibility studies have considered tidal barrage schemes in the Eastern Irish Sea, the northwest of England - including the Solway Firth, and the estuary of the River Mersey, among other locations.

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Bellingham farm using solar panels to save on energy costs

By Angel Roy, Daily News staff

Bob Galipeau has never been a sun-worshiper, but since installing solar panels on his barn he is singing a different tune: "Let the Sunshine In."

Galipeau and his wife, Donna, owners of Trolley Crossing Farm, chose to cover one side of their barn's 40-foot by 60-foot roof with solar panels after attending the Franklin Area Climate Team meeting Dec. 10.

The project was finished Aug. 31 and took two weeks to complete, Bob Galipeau said.

"We are trying to be as green as we can," he said.

Donna Galipeau sells vegetables, lamb and cut flowers at farmers markets, as well as at their farm and through community supported agriculture which allows people to pay an annual fee to get products from the farm regularly. Bob Galipeau is a maintenance analyst for General Electric Aviation.

"At our farm, everything we use is chemical free - I think everything is in-line now," Bob Galipeau said.

Before attending the climate team meeting, the Galipeaus had contemplated putting up a windmill as a new energy source at the farm.

The environmental group instead introduced them to rebates associated with solar panels, Donna Galipeau said.

"The panels are better than wind power," she said. "Windmills are not suitable for our particular location."

Their property, however, proved to be perfect for solar panels as one side of the barn has southern exposure.

"We located the panels where we could get the most sun exposure," Donna Galipeau said of why the panels are only on one side of the roof.

Seventy six 205-watt solar panels will reduce energy costs on the farm's electric sheep fence, irrigation pump, greenhouse ventilation system and coolers that are used to store vegetables, Bob Galipeau said.

The system is also linked to a Web site so the Galipeaus can access up-to-date information on how much energy they are producing daily and over their lifetime, Bob Galipeau said.

This fall, they hope to install used solar panels on their greenhouse to power grow lights, bed heaters and hot water.

The solar barn project cost $112,000 and they are estimated to break even in two to seven years, Bob Galipeau said.

He estimated the farm will save about $2,000-$3,000 in its first year with the panels.

"As energy prices go up, the savings will get bigger," he said.

He is unsure how much they will receive in rebates and tax credits but will know by the end of the year.

"The financial payback is very good," he said.

Tara Mason, owner of Second Generation Energy in Hopedale, said most solar customers pay between $20,000 to $40,000, depending on size of the system, before the incentives.

Mason said incentives could pay for three-quarters of the system's cost.

"For commercial (properties) it is really good right now, the payback period for something could be as little as five years," Mason said.

Mason said that a federal tax grant for solar projects pays an estimated 30 percent of the cost.

"There are unprecedented amounts of money available through incentives, grants and tax credits," Mason said. "It is all about getting off the dependence on non-renewable sources."

Mason said she has solar panels on her house and has been happy with it.

"The solar panels produce enough or more than enough to cover electric bills and put energy back into the grid which acts as a bank for us," Mason said. "We have a negative balance and get credit for that electricity."

Mason said the savings depend on the efficiency of the home and how much electricity is used.

"If you are conscious about it and can get your usage down to make your home energy efficient, then you can actually bank power in the grid," Mason said.

The Galipeaus have applied for the federal tax grant as well as money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative which Bob Galipeau said adds pennies onto all Massachusetts electric bills to help finance the rebate.

"There is a big push from the USDA to create several programs allowing alternative energy production to come in with money from federal stimulus packages," Bob Galipeau said.

A contractor conducted an energy feasibility study during a site evaluation to determine the project's eligibility for the USDA's environment incentives grant, Bob Galipeau said.

"As time progresses we will invest in more efficient compressors and more energy-efficient equipment," he said. "There will be more funding for that also."

The solar panel purchase process, Mason said, is very easy.

"We definitely recommend people do their homework and get educated on the process, the costs involved and for them to start looking at it as an investment," Mason said.

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Signs Of Ideal Surfing Conditions Spotted In Ocean Of Solar Wind

Researchers at the University of Warwick have found what could be the signal of ideal wave “surfing” conditions for individual particles within the massive turbulent ocean of the solar wind. The discovery could give a new insight into just how energy is dissipated in solar system sized plasmas such as the solar wind and could provide significant clues to scientists developing fusion power which relies on plasmas.

The research, led by Khurom Kiyanai and Professor Sandra Chapman in the University of Warwick’s Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, looked at data from the Cluster spacecraft quartet to obtain a comparatively “quiet” slice of the solar wind as it progressed over an hour travelling covering roughly 2,340,000 Kilometres.

In space, on these large scales, and quiet conditions, nature provides an almost perfect experiment to study turbulence which could not be done on Earth in a laboratory. This plasma energy does eventually dissipate. One obvious way of understanding how such energetic plasma could dissipate this energy would be if the particles within the plasma collided with each other. However the solar wind is an example of a “Collisionless Plasma”. The individual particles within that flow are still separated by massive distances so cannot directly interact with each other. They typically collide only once or twice with anything on their journey from the Sun to the Earth.

The University of Warwick Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics led team drilled down into the data on this 2,340,000 Kilometres zooming down to see how the turbulence works on these different length scales which might provide some clue as to how the plasma was able to dissipate energy.

When the researchers were able to make observations all the way down to about I kilometre they could resolve the behaviour of individual particles within the total 2,340,000 kilometres slice of solar wind. These regions, which held just one particle of the plasma, were themselves almost a kilometre in size. The researchers were surprised to see a new kind of turbulence on these small scales.

At this particular scale they saw that the levels of turbulence switched from being multifractal to single fractal pattern. This single fractal pattern turbulence appears just right to create and sustain waves that can interact with the individual particles in the solar wind. University of Warwick astrophysicist Khurom Kiyani said: “The particles in this “collisionless plasma” may too spread out to collide with each other but this could indicate that they can, and do, interact with waves and surfing these ideal waves is what allows them to dissipate their energy.”

University of Warwick astrophysicist Professor Sandra Chapman said “We have been able to drill down through a vast ocean of data covering well over two million kilometres to get an insight in to what is happening in an area about the size of a beach, and on all length scales in between. We believe we are seeing waves on that beach that are providing the ideal surfing conditions to allow plasma particles to exchange energy without collisions.”

Professor Sandra Chapman also said “These results are not just an interesting piece of astrophysics as the work has been led by a ‘Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics’ the results have also immediately come to the attention of our colleagues working to increase the stability of plasmas involved in the generation of fusion energy. Turbulence is a big problem in keeping the hot plasma confined long enough for burning to take place to generate fusion power.“

The research entitled Global Scale-Invariant Dissipation in Collisionless Plasma Turbulence has just been published in Physical Review Letters and was conducted by Khurom Kiyani, and Professor Sandra Chapman of the University of Warwick in the UK; Yu.V. Khotyaintsev of Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala, Sweden; M.W. Dunlop, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, United Kingdom; and F. Sahraoui of 4NASA Goddard Space Flight Center US and the Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas, CNRS-Ecole Polytechnique, France.

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Carbon Nanotubes Could Make Efficient Solar Cells

By Anne Ju

Using a carbon nanotube instead of traditional silicon, Cornell researchers have created the basic elements of a solar cell that hopefully will lead to much more efficient ways of converting light to electricity than now used in calculators and on rooftops.

The researchers fabricated, tested and measured a simple solar cell called a photodiode, formed from an individual carbon nanotube. Reported online Sept. 11 in the journal Science, the researchers -- led by Paul McEuen, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Physics, and Jiwoong Park, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology -- describe how their device converts light to electricity in an extremely efficient process that multiplies the amount of electrical current that flows. This process could prove important for next-generation high efficiency solar cells, the researchers say.

"We are not only looking at a new material, but we actually put it into an application -- a true solar cell device," said first author Nathan Gabor, a graduate student in McEuen's lab.

The researchers used a single-walled carbon nanotube, which is essentially a rolled-up sheet of graphene, to create their solar cell. About the size of a DNA molecule, the nanotube was wired between two electrical contacts and close to two electrical gates, one negatively and one positively charged. Their work was inspired in part by previous research in which scientists created a diode, which is a simple transistor that allows current to flow in only one direction, using a single-walled nanotube. The Cornell team wanted to see what would happen if they built something similar, but this time shined light on it.

Shining lasers of different colors onto different areas of the nanotube, they found that higher levels of photon energy had a multiplying effect on how much electrical current was produced.

Further study revealed that the narrow, cylindrical structure of the carbon nanotube caused the electrons to be neatly squeezed through one by one. The electrons moving through the nanotube became excited and created new electrons that continued to flow. The nanotube, they discovered, may be a nearly ideal photovoltaic cell because it allowed electrons to create more electrons by utilizing the spare energy from the light.

This is unlike today's solar cells, in which extra energy is lost in the form of heat, and the cells require constant external cooling.

Though they have made a device, scaling it up to be inexpensive and reliable would be a serious challenge for engineers, Gabor said.

"What we've observed is that the physics is there," he said.

The research was supported by Cornell's Center for Nanoscale Systems and the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility, both National Science Foundation facilities, as well as the Microelectronics Advanced Research Corporation Focused Research Center on Materials, Structures and Devices. Research collaborators also included Zhaohui Zhong, of the University of Michigan, and Ken Bosnick, of the National Institute for Nanotechnology at University of Alberta.

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Carbon Nanotubes Could Make Efficient Solar Cells

Using a carbon nanotube instead of traditional silicon, Cornell researchers have created the basic elements of a solar cell that hopefully will lead to much more efficient ways of converting light to electricity than now used in calculators and on rooftops.

The researchers fabricated, tested and measured a simple solar cell called a photodiode, formed from an individual carbon nanotube. Reported online Sept. 11 in the journal Science, the researchers -- led by Paul McEuen, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Physics, and Jiwoong Park, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology -- describe how their device converts light to electricity in an extremely efficient process that multiplies the amount of electrical current that flows. This process could prove important for next-generation high efficiency solar cells, the researchers say.

"We are not only looking at a new material, but we actually put it into an application -- a true solar cell device," said first author Nathan Gabor, a graduate student in McEuen's lab.

The researchers used a single-walled carbon nanotube, which is essentially a rolled-up sheet of graphene, to create their solar cell. About the size of a DNA molecule, the nanotube was wired between two electrical contacts and close to two electrical gates, one negatively and one positively charged. Their work was inspired in part by previous research in which scientists created a diode, which is a simple transistor that allows current to flow in only one direction, using a single-walled nanotube. The Cornell team wanted to see what would happen if they built something similar, but this time shined light on it.

Shining lasers of different colors onto different areas of the nanotube, they found that higher levels of photon energy had a multiplying effect on how much electrical current was produced.

Further study revealed that the narrow, cylindrical structure of the carbon nanotube caused the electrons to be neatly squeezed through one by one. The electrons moving through the nanotube became excited and created new electrons that continued to flow. The nanotube, they discovered, may be a nearly ideal photovoltaic cell because it allowed electrons to create more electrons by utilizing the spare energy from the light.

This is unlike today's solar cells, in which extra energy is lost in the form of heat, and the cells require constant external cooling.

Though they have made a device, scaling it up to be inexpensive and reliable would be a serious challenge for engineers, Gabor said.

"What we've observed is that the physics is there," he said.

The research was supported by Cornell's Center for Nanoscale Systems and the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility, both National Science Foundation facilities, as well as the Microelectronics Advanced Research Corporation Focused Research Center on Materials, Structures and Devices. Research collaborators also included Zhaohui Zhong, of the University of Michigan, and Ken Bosnick, of the National Institute for Nanotechnology at University of Alberta.

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How to better reuse and recycle old electronics

By Dan Shapley

How much is a ton of old recycled phones worth? $15,000, thanks to the silver, gold, palladium and copper used in each phone. (That's about $2.50 in precious metals per phone.)

The value of e-waste was the topic at the world's first-ever e-waste academy, where a more urgent questions were like these: How does Peru manage to refurbish more than 85% of the old computers it imports, while the rate is 20% in Nigeria, Pakistan, and Ghana? How can China police its estimated 2 million "backyard" e-waste recyclers, so that they aren't incinerating old devices to recover precious metals, releasing toxic pollution in the process? How can discarded electronics from North America, Europe and Japan benefit schools and small businesses in Africa, Asia, and South America?

The goal of the organizer, Solving the E-Waste Problem (which goes by the acronym StEP), is to boost recycling and reuse rates, while protecting third world countries from the hazards that can accompany both e-waste recycling and dumping.

The conclusion: "Processes and policies governing the reuse and recycling of electronic products need to be standardized worldwide to stem and reverse the growing problem of illegal and harmful e-waste processing practices in developing countries."

"Millions of old devices in North America and Europe could easily double their typical three or four year 'first life' by being put to use in classrooms and small business offices across Africa, South America and Asia," says Ramzy Kahhat of Arizona State University, who advocates a return deposit on electronics similar to that used on carbonated beverage containers in many states, so that devices are recycled promptly while they're still most useful to a new user. "An old Pentium II computer with an open-source operating system like Linux can run faster than some of the latest new models on store shelves."

If you're ready to recycle an old cell phone, laptop, iPhone, digital camera, or other electronic device and want to harvest some cash in exchange for the precious metals or years of life it embodies, one option is NextWorth, which will pay you for your old phone (or at least cover the cost of shipping it, if the company deems the item has no value). The trade-in value of devices ranges as high as $340, and averages $25 or $30.

Other options include Dyscern, a 2009 Heart of Green award winner, and these four charity cell phone recyclers.

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