Forget the Iron Curtain--we'll all be living behind solar curtains if Konarka Technologies has its way. The organic solar cell company has teamed up with Arch Aluminum and Glass to test out so-called "solar curtains," or walls of ...READ»
The world's first solar-sail-powered spacecraft, Cosmos 1, met its demise in 2005 when it fell into the ocean before ever reaching orbit. But dreams of solar sails propelling spaceships haven't died, and Carl Sagan's Planetary ...READ»
Access to on-demand lighting is a given for many of us, but some developing countries don't have the proper electrical grid set up to allow even a basic light bulb to turn on. Solar power is a popular way to address this problem, a ...READ»
Leave it to the kids to produce the best green homes. We recently profiled Penn State's Natural Fusion house, an entrant in this week's Solar Decathlon, but our favorite design on display at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. is ...READ»
Chances are, you know if your neighbor has solar panels on their roof--the shiny black photovoltaic panels are a dead giveaway. But Dow Chemical is making rooftop solar power covert with its solar shingles, expected to be released ...READ»
1366 Technologies, a startup spun-out of MIT that aims to raise solar panel efficiency without increasing cost, announced this week that it has developed a manufacturing process to produce multicrystalline solar panels with an 18% ...READ»
Why use lawnmowers when farm animals can get the job done just as easily? We already know that Bayer Health rents sheep to graze grass on its Richmond, California campus, and Google made news a few months ago with its campus-grazing ...READ»
Ever wonder how much space we would need to use to power the entire world with solar energy or offshore wind power? So did the good people at the Land Art Generator, who created two infographics that show the amount of surface area ...READ»
What do you think of when you hear the phrase "solar power"? Chances are, you don't picture a Chevron oil field. Yet that's exactly where BrightSource Energy wants to put a 29-megawatt solar thermal plant by the end of 2010. As oil ...READ»
U.S. solar supremacy got a bump today when eSolar, a Google-funded startup that makes Lego-like modular solar panels, turned on the first solar power tower in the country. The five-megawatt Sierra SunTower, located in Lancaster, ...READ»
Dumpsters are usually low-tech affairs--stick the trash in, close the lid, end of story. Not so with the Solar Energy Enclosed Dumpster System (SEEDS) designed by Ray Saluccio of EarthSure. SEEDS endeavors to solve two problems at ...READ»
By far the most dangerous part of the wind turbine installation process is transportation. Moving 50-yard turbine blade from factories to farms backs up traffic, cuts up roads, and makes accidents deadly. The solution might be a ...READ»
The army has slowly taken advantage of advances in renewable energy with algae-derived jet fuel, trash-powered electricity generators, and now solar-powered aerial drones. The Air Force has spent $450,000 on a project researching the ...READ»
It's been a week of shakeups for the renewable energy industry. First T. Boone Pickens dropped his wind power plan, and now the Milan Trade Fair Group has announced plans to build the world's biggest rooftop photovoltaic plant, ...READ»
Wondering where the next big solar developments in the U.S. will be located? The Bureau of Land Management released six maps this week that show the best solar prospects in the states most suited for solar power: Utah, ...READ»
We might still be anxiously awaiting the arrival of solar-powered cell phones in the U.S., but Japan already has at least one on sale as of June 4. Sharp makes some lofty claims about the performance potential of the ...READ»
Another reason to move to Italy: Solar power is expected to be cost-competitive there by next year, according to a report from the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) and A.T. Kearney. The European solar industry does ...READ»
Samsung first announced the impending arrival of the Blue Earth, the first solar-powered touchscreen phone, this past February. CNET Asia had the enviable opportunity to check out the Blue Earth in person at CommunicAsia. The ...READ»
Brando's new USB Solar Charging 4-Port Hub is the Swiss army knife of USB chargers. The device contains six cell phone connectors, and can be used as a traditional USB hub or as a solar-powered gadget charger. The hub is ultra-light ...READ»
Samsung has announced the impending release of its first solar-powered cell phone, hot on the heels of Sony's GreenHeart C901 and Naite phones made from recycled CD cases and water bottles. But while consumers in the U.S. will be ...READ»
Solar-powered cell phone prototypes and rumors abound, but Nokia has a battery-less alternative power source for our cell phones lined up: radio waves. The company told MIT's Technology Review that it is working on technology ...READ»
There's already a glut of solar-powered electronics chargers on the market, but battery behemoth Energizer is expanding its Energi to Go line of power packs with ten new models scheduled to be released in July--including two new ...READ»
Alfresco umbrellas shield us from the sun's rays, so why don't they also absorb rays so we can power our electronics off the grid? That's the thinking behind the Powerbrella, a solar-powered umbrella in development from SkyShades and ...READ»
First Sharp announced the development of the world's first waterproof solar-powered cell phone, and now the company has done the world one better by developing the thinnest solar module for mobile devices ever. The LROCGO2 Solar ...READ»
If you're going to buy a satellite dish, why not get one that can heat water and cool your home? That's the thinking behind Transoptic's 2-in-1 device, which consists of a honeycomb-like layer of hexagonal mirrors or a ...READ»
