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Dusting furniture and windows of a home is certainly a task that requires time, and should be done periodically to maintain an adequate level of cleanliness.
Imagine, then, which means having to keep dust and dirt the objects that fill an area as large as 25 or 50 football fields. That is the problem faced by companies dealing with large arrays of solar panels. A team of scientists has developed a solution: self-cleaning solar panels based on technology developed for space missions to Mars.
The team of Malay K. Mazumder, University of Boston has adapted the above space. The result is a self-cleaning coating placed on the surface of solar cells, which could increase their efficiency in producing electricity from sunlight, and reduce maintenance costs for large arrays of solar panels.
This new technology, which can be used in photovoltaic systems both small and large, seems to be the only known automatic cleaning powder that requires no water or mechanical movement to fulfill its mission.
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With 100 MW and 2.5 km2 , the Shams 1 solar thermal power plant starting in 2012 under the burning sun of Masdar in Abu Dhabi emirate , will be the largest of its kind in the world .
Built for $ 600 million by the French Total (logistics industry) and the Spanish Abengoa Solar ( engineering) , the plant will capture solar rays by 768 parabolic mirrors redirected to pipes containing a heat transfer oil . The heated liquid and then exchange its heat in a heat exchanger with a second circuit containing steam under pressure. Which will turn a turbine connected to a generator . All the energy is not yet home solar to ensure the power of 100 MW , a burner fueled by natural gas will heat the steam and the deficit and offset of light in case of cloudy weather , or simply when the sun declines ( the plant will be closed at night , either from 20 hours in winter, 21 hrs ). The supply of electricity will be ensured Shams 1 to 20 % by gas, annual consumption of 15,120 tonnes of oil equivalent .
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China may have found an environmentally friendly way to save money while reducing congestion roads in town. Instead of spending millions to widen roads , the company Shenzhen Huashi future Parking Equipment Inc. has devised a new concept transportation together , the ” 3D Express Trainer “(Also called ” bus rapid three dimensions”)
This is a new kind of bus . From 4 to 4.5 m high with two levels: the boarding of passengers on the upper level while other vehicles are smaller than 2 m can pass underneath. It looks like a subway or a train Light rail spanning the road and allows Cars less than 2 feet high to move as in a tunnel below the top level is devoted to the transport of passengers.
Powered by electricity and the solar energy The bus can accelerate to 60 km / hour without blocking other vehicles . It is equipped with cameras that trigger alarms if the vehicles get too close wheels. In addition , its cost is estimated at around 500 million yuan or 10 % of the construction of a metro equivalent and designers believe it could reduce congestion 20-30 %.
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Two teams of U.S. researchers posed this week Nature how could rise by various deposition processes two curious formations of northern ice cap of Mars, something that puzzled scientists for 40 years. This is a series of depressions arranged in a spiral and a pit larger than the Grand Canyon, the Chasma Boreale. The study provides new evidence on climate change on the Red Planet.
The scientists took four decades trying to explain the “grinders” of spiral troughs that appear in the layered deposits of northern ice cap of Mars, and the forces responsible for the Chasma Boreale, a deep canyon that separates these deposits. This week two teams of researchers published in Nature possible models with data produced by two orbiting radars capable of mapping the depth of the layered deposits. So far there had been scrutinized under the surface.
The team consists of Isaac Smith and John Holt of the University of Texas (USA) conclude that the basis of the internal structure of the spiral depressions or pits are formed by a combination of material deposits in the strength of the wind and sun , who have been sculpting. After training and during the last 2.5 million years, it seems that these basins have moved toward the poles and won 600 meters in elevation.
For its part, the second group also led by John Holt, uses data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to show that the deposition processes in the long term, large scale are those who have produced the largest geomorphological anomaly layer Mars’ polar ice, the Chasma Boreale, rather than by catastrophic events, ice flow or erosion focused.
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Cool using sunlight: the idea, though it seems paradoxical, appears to be an original concept of energy: Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Freiburg are investigating the use of Solar energy – already used for air conditioning of buildings – to keep it cool perishable foods such as milk, wine or fruit.
They demonstrate the viability of this process in the Mediterranean on a business of viticulture in Tunisia and a dairy company in Morocco. Under the project MEDISCO (MEDiterranean food and agro Industry applications of Solar Cooling Technologies), solar installations for refrigeration of milk and wine have been installed in cooperation with universities, energy agencies and businesses in Europe. The project, supported by the European Commission, is coordinated by the Polytechnic of Milan.
“Our method applies in particular in countries benefiting from sunshine or in remote areas with no possibility of any conventional refrigeration, lack of water or energy resources.
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Evaluating the incoming solar energy on the planet, the output and the increase in ocean surface temperatures and up to 2000 meters deep, does not add up
About half of the surplus heat from the Earth forfeited in recent years to escape the current climatological monitoring tools on the planet: this is the conclusion of a study published Science in which two researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Kevin Trenberth and John Phoney have drawn an overall energy balance of inbound and outbound from our planet. With the gradual accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the satellites show in fact a growing imbalance between incoming solar energy into the atmosphere and the one issued by the earth’s surface, an imbalance that is causing the global warming in the long term.
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The entry of India into the solar age is done with the support of Germany. In the arid steppe of Rajasthan, near the town of Anta, 500 km south of New Delhi, the German public bank (KfW) supports the construction of the first solar thermal power plant of the subcontinent, with a capacity of 15 MW. This facility is part of the Indian government’s ambitious plan for the development of solar energy: it wants to install 20,000 MW in the next 12 years.
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A new study suggests that some single-celled plants rely for survival on a phenomenon from quantum physics that allows them to harness and convert solar energy with great efficiency.
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The study was conducted by an international team of Canadian researchers, Italians and Australians, including the biophysical Paul Curmi and Krystyna Wilk, University of New South Wales, Australia.
This study provides new insights into the process of photosynthesis used by algae and green plants to harness energy from the Sun discovered I could help the development of organic solar cells and other electronic devices that use light, such as lasers and screens.
The study results suggest that algae are, for practical purposes, very miniaturized quantum computers. These algae dominate how well the process of photosynthesis that can convert sunlight into electricity with an efficiency almost perfect.
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Urge soon begin large-scale research and testing various internationally coordinated field on the possibility of spreading particles in the planet’s atmosphere act as “canopy” to mitigate future impacts of climate change. They warn about Scientists at the University of Calgary, Canada, and universities Americans.
Cooperative Research and funded by governments on the control of solar radiation, a form of geoengineering, would reduce the risk of unilateral experiments by nations and help identify the lower-risk technologies. This is what supporting David Keith, University of Calgary, Edward Parson University of Michigan and Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon.
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U.S. Phoenix probe, which appeared on the surface of Mars traces of water ice, still signs of life. On its website it said NASA. Hope that the probe survived the Martian winter is almost zero.
Phoenix was designed to ensure that winter on the “red planet” survived. But if she still managed to suck in the sunlight, enough solar energy panels is programmed to send signals from the Mars Odyssey, the fourth planet around the solar system orbits.
According to NASA Mars Odyssey carried out in the last week of February sixty flights over the place is Phoenix, but did not record any signal. The same result was even thirty flights over the same place in January. Another attempt to capture the signal from the spacecraft to the Martian surface is a row in April.
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This is a new kind of bus . From 4 to 4.5 m high with two levels: the boarding of passengers on the upper level while other vehicles are smaller than 2 m can pass underneath. It looks like a subway or a train Light rail spanning the road and allows Cars less than 2 feet high to move as in a tunnel below the top level is devoted to the transport of passengers.