Solar Energy // Current

cakemusic.com | SOLAR

http://www.cakemusic.com/solar.html CAKE is very pleased to announce that we have... more

Mike_Johnston
added this
1 day ago
|
0 comments

Major Advance In Organic Solar Cells

Professor Guillermo Bazan and a team of postgraduate researchers at UC Santa... more

Simon_Ruymaekers
added this
2 days ago
|
0 comments

Residential Solar Power as a Green Energy Solution

The importance of going green with residential solar power is talked about all the time. But is it really affordable to have solar power for residential use? For those that still think it is expensive to install a solar power system in your house probably are not aware of the current trends by the governments to help its citizens to use clean energy to combat global warming. Entrepreneurs and innovative companies have also come up with Do-It-Yourself solar products that enable any motivated green energy enthusiast to build their own systems from scratch let alone reduce their power bills. Some people pour dust on these DIY products claiming that they are fraudulent and scams. For people to view these as mere opinions instead they take these personal outbursts as gospel!

Residential Solar Power DIY Products

This is an attempt to show how you can benefit from DIY residential solar power products apart from building a solar panel from scratch for under $200 as some products may claim. This is not to say you can’t build a solar panel from scratch under $200, maybe you can depending on where you live, but the important point to focus on is what other knowledge can you gain. For one, if you are a completely new to the idea of using solar power for homes you will be fully catered for since such products are designed with beginners in mind. You will learn the basics of solar energy, components needed for a complete residential solar system, wiring plans. Some products come with video guides for easy step by step instructions. You can also learn about tax credits and rebates and whether they are applicable to your area. This is valuable information that you can have for pennies on the dollar.

Do It Yourself Residential Solar Power

Apart from commercially available systems, a homeowner can purchase a Do-It-Yourself residential solar power product to learn the basics before making a huge investment on their property. Learning little things like how to calculate power consumption, how to be more energy efficient, design and build a system can go a long way. A residential solar system can be a simple addition to an existing or new home and does not necessarily need to be costly as some homeowners are led to believe. One can start with a very small system and build it slowly until it meets all the energy requirements in the home. A lot of DIY residential solar power products can be good start since they are affordable and guide one where and how to build their systems. Using DIY products this way is better rather than concentrating on what the sales pitch said. What the sales pitch said, like building a diy solar panel for under $100, may not be attainable everywhere due to factors like availability of materials, price of the materials as this may vary from location to location, etc.

For a free video on residential solar power visit our site at http://www.gogreenresources.org/solar-energy-video to learn how solar energy works.The importance of going green with residential solar power is talked about all the... more

gogreenresources
added this
16 days ago
|
0 comments

Solar lantern lights up rural India's dark nights

This is great news. "For more than 100 Indian villages cut off from grid... more

lookatmypix
added this
28 days ago
|
4 comments

A home that generates more power than it uses, for less than $450K

It ain't flashy, but it's realistic. You don't have to be rich to build this house.... more

ISU_CoE
added this
1 month ago
|
1 comment

First ever black hole created on Earth, good for solar energy

No, CERN hasn't started slamming protons into each other at the Large Hadron Collider early. And no, a top secret warp drive hasn't been test-driven in Earth orbit (not that we know of anyway). In reality, an electromagnetic black hole has been fabricated in the laboratory for the first time.

Before you start getting concerned that the planet will soon be swallowed up by a rampaging singularity, the black hole in question isn't the gravitational behemoth you might find after a supernova or in the center of the Milky Way. This particular table-top black hole mimics the curvature of space-time, creating a fabricated event horizon that swallows electromagnetic radiation at microwave wavelengths.

The best thing is that this experiment isn't just for curiosity-sake, it has a practical application that could revolutionize future solar panel design, making the production of solar energy a lot more efficient than it is currently.

According to previous theoretical studies, mimicking the curvature of space-time around an analog black hole should be possible, guiding electromagnetic radiation around a cylindrical structure "consisting of a central core surrounded by a shell of concentric rings" (as explained by the New Scientist article). The theory is that a material of increasing permittivity (a characteristic of the medium electromagnetic radiation travels through, influencing the electrical component of the photons) could be used between the outer and inner surface of the cylinder. If the transition is smooth enough, and the permittivity eventually matches that of the cylinder core, the photons should be absorbed by the core, rather than reflected.

Although the physics sounds complicated (and I think I'd have to see the apparatus up-close to fully appreciate what is going on), the result is astonishing. What's more, theory has just been turned into a working model by Tie Jun Cui and Qiang Cheng at the Southeast University in Nanjing, China. This is the world's first working black hole.

By designing a printed circuit board with an intricate pattern of "meta-materials" (i.e. a man-made material that can alter the characteristics of the passage of electromagnetic radiation), a steady permittivity gradient was created, ensuring the photons' absorption by the core. The physicists used microwaves, not optical light, in this set-up as the wavelength of microwaves is easier to manage (the wavelength of microwaves in the electromagnetic spectrum is longer than optical light, so larger scale meta-material patterns could be made).

"When the incident electromagnetic wave hits the device, the wave will be trapped and guided in the shell region towards the core of the black hole, and will then be absorbed by the core," says Cui. "The wave will not come out from the black hole."

However, the microwave energy has to go somewhere (this black hole is still bound by physical laws), and in Cui and Cheng's black hole, microwave energy is converted into heat.

This sounds like fun, but how can this technique be used in solar panels? Although optical light can't be manipulated so easily, Cui is confident that by the end of this year that he will be able to manufacture an optical black hole. If this can be done, then it isn't such a stretch of the imagination to think that a meta-material surface could replace traditional photovoltaic cells to literally suck sunlight into an array of tiny black holes printed in a circuit board.

Image: The experimental results of the black hole when the microwave beam is pointed at different angles from the central core (or "event horizon"). Credit: Qiang Cheng and Tie Jun Cui.

Publication: An electromagnetic black hole made of metamaterials, arXiv:0910.2159v1 [physics.optics], via New Scientist.No, CERN hasn't started slamming protons into each other at the Large Hadron Collider... more