Solar Roadways

If all of our roads were solar panels, we would be able to create a lot of energy and that is the concept idea of Scott Brusaw, the founder of Solar Roadways. The system consists of three superimposed layers that would contain a revised electric grid and a network of fiber optic cables. As of this moment, their website seems to be down, but there is a Myspace page here.

A Caltech solar energy estimated that covering 1.7% of the US land surface with 10% efficient solar energy can supply our current energy demands. The country’s interstate highways system incidentally covers about 1.7% of the nation’s land surface. Here are some details of his idea.

1. Homes and businesses powered with solar energy
2. Roads are snow and ice free
3. Road lines are lit for easier night driving
4. Road lines can be instantly customized
5. No more wildlife on roads
6. No more dead zones for cell phones
7. Cable TV signals are distributed by the road
8. No more ugly telephone/utility poles and wires
9. Reduced drunk driving, crime, and terrorism
10. No more Global Warming

The fundamental idea sounds great but it sounds too good to be true and will need a ton of support by huge corporations, politicians and the goverment. I don’t really see it ever happening because construction on roads is already troubling enough to traffic and already costs tons of money. Completely redoing the roads sounds like a traffic nightmare times ten. Instead of making the roads be solar panels, it seems a lot easier to build solar panels alongside roads. We have so much land that does not get used and putting solar panels on the land to create solar farms sounds a lot more feasible and doable.

via Treehugger

Add comment August 21st, 2007 Alex

Fiber Optic Lighting

There is a new type of fiber optics light (EFO) by Energy Focus that allows one 70 watt EFO lamp to deliver the power of eight 50 watt halogen lamps. The company was awarded a 2007 DarpaTech Small Business Innovation Research Award for excellence. After looking at the gallery, I recall seeing these Fiber optic lights at several places already. They are probably still very costly and are meant for commercial use since they look very cool and have a high premium. The technology may have a future in consumer use as more R&D is spent on lowering the cost and marketing it to general consumers. These are the details taken from the Energy Focus website.

• Saves up to 80% on energy consumption
• Saves on maintenance – one lamp to change for eight fixtures
• Can save one watt of HVAC in every three watts of lighting saved because there is no heat in the light
• $12.7 million in government R&D support to date assures continuous improvement in this state-of-the-art technologyAt retail, EFO downlights provide excellent “power alley” merchandise spotlighting without heat and help reduce watts per square foot without reducing light

• Silent, compact, and fanless illuminator with easy lamp change feature
• Flexible, optically pure, and high quality fiber – the only continuously extruded large core fiber in the world
• Large core fiber fixtures satisfy a variety of installation needs
• No heat, UV or IR emitted from the light fixture.

via Crave

Add comment August 20th, 2007 Alex

Carbon Emissions from Burning Man

Here is a nice chart I found on Valleywag that was from CoolingMan that I cant seem to find on the site. They also discussed the carbon emissions that Burning Man produces. Burning Man creates 27,000 tons of carbon dioxide in the air. Not surprisingly 87% of the emissions comes from the travel to the actual event. Any big event will have people travelling to it and cause emissions from planes and cars and there really isn’t anything we can do to change that. For example, the Live Earth event promoted by Al Gore was an event that brought artists and celebrities to 9 different locations to perform for the sake of promoting a stop to global warming.  All the people who went to the concert needed to drive and fly there so the event technically created more carbon dioxide in the air but the cause will hopefully make a difference in creating less carbon emissions. The good thing about the Burning Man event is that they are doing something about it and that they are aware of their carbon footprint and I think that is something that all organizations and corporations need to do. It is important for everyone to be aware of the issues.

Add comment August 17th, 2007 Alex

Green Man

I am not sure how many people are actually fans of this blog, but I have not been posting as many posts recently because I have busy with other things. One of those was confirming my late interest in going to Burning Man. I am finally confirmed to go with four other people in an RV and it will be my first time at Burning Man. It should be a pretty fun and exciting trip. What sparked my interest was the fact that this year’s theme was “The Green Man.” “Our theme concerns humanity’s relationship to nature. Do we, as conscious beings, exist outside of nature’s sway, or does its force impel us and inform the central root of who and what we are?” Previous Burning Man events have always been relatively environmentally conscious as it takes place in a desert and the goal is to not leave any traces behind. Every year, tens of thousands of people go to Black Rock City in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada for this week of self-expression and exploration of art. At the end of the week, everything gets burned. All the art exhibits, galleries, and whatever interesting creations were built. Burning things is not exactly environmentally friendly, but it is sort of a good way to get rid of it to not leave anything behind that could possibly cause more damage? They are however going to be calculating the carbon footprint  created from the creating and burning of everything at the event. The organization will plan to offset the carbon footprint by sponsoring offsets. There is also plenty of carbon footprint created from everyone who drives their cars and RV to the event and they encourage people to help measure their own footprint at http://www.coolingman.org/.

This year should have plenty of artistic inventive creations that I am very excited to check out. I will make sure to take plenty of pictures to cover some of the more interesting creations. The impression of Burning Man from one of my friends is that it is pretty much a bunch of people all on drugs with naked guys running around. I will have to experience the Burning Man myself and hopefully prove her wrong.

http://burningman.com/

Add comment August 16th, 2007 Alex

Senator Boxer pushing for action against Global Warming

US Senator Barbara Boxer met with members of the Silicon Valley’s growing “green tech” industry to discuss the action against global warming. Senator Boxer says that the government needs to take action to spur innovation and to create jobs. Democrats have been pushing for action on global warming but have had setbacks in opposition from the White House and even in their own party. Those against limiting greenhouse gas emissions argue that the costs used to fight global warming could hurt the economy but Boxer and other supporters say that doing nothing could end up costing even more. The Green Tech boom is already starting to make noise as clean energy companies are starting to pop up and create more jobs. Having government support will help speed up the surge and promote more investments into the technology. “Bill Unger, partner emeritus at the Mayfield Fund venture capital firm, said investment in U.S. green tech companies during the next three years could total $14 billion to $19 billion and create 500,000 jobs.” Boxer also presented Sun Microsystems with an award for being a “conservative champion” company in saving power use.

via SFGate

Add comment August 15th, 2007 Alex