Everywhere online and on TV there are news about the cyclone in Burma, the earthquake in China and many other natural disasters that cause thousands of deaths every year and leave behind even more refugees. How can we solve this problem? How can we help all those people?

Andrew Leinonen seems to have it all figured out. He especially designed an airship concept covered in solar panels that can be used in rescue operations. It can be flown into a disaster area to provide all the needed power to the rescue effort.

Considering the size of this thing (20 m long), it can produce up to 125 kWh per day which is more than enough to power 25 shallow water pumps and provide clean water for some 12,000 people. Or it could keep 400 medical refrigerators on.

In order to do all these, the solar airship must be anchored and needs its own power box. Another important aspect of this flying rescuer is that it can fly autonomously to simplify the operations. Though it’s just a concept design, it sure seems useful except when rescue operations are being deterred by storms and bad weather.

via EcoGeek

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A new survey by two Californian college researchers proved that companies in the solar power business will need more and more workers.

The attractive domain of turning the sun light into energy is very active in California where 16,500 to 17,500 people are employed to work for such companies. The study estimated 5,000 more jobs next year and most of these will be in the Bay Area.

Though there are open jobs for designers and salespeople, the biggest increase will be for people to install rooftop solar arrays. The technology is advanced enough, this being the reason why there will be a migration from lab jobs to field jobs. “You don’t need a Ph.D. or a B.A. to get into this industry. It’s an opportunity to rebuild the working-class jobs that have been lost,” said John Carrese, co-author of the survey.

Salaries for this kind of jobs will probably start from $31,200 a year for an entry-level installer, up to $83,000 a year for an experienced solar designer or engineer and the best candidates will be students from Californian colleges, said Carrese.

This may be the next boom in the economy, because it’s not rocket science to start such a business and you don’t need a Ph. D or a B.A., just intuition.

Solar power seems to be the future or at least this is what a South Korean village teaches us.  Donggwang is getting all its power directly from the sun and is totally energy independent with clean technology.

Today, Donggwang is a solar town because in 2004 the government subsidized the installation of solar panels on all of the 40 buildings in the village, paying 70% of the total cost. More than that, the local government is helping the community of the Jeju-du Island, to install a large wind farm. This is a long term plan that will raise the wind power generation up to 500 megawatts by 2020, in order to replace 20 percent of conventionally generated electricity.

Choo Chan Lee is a Seoul native that now lives in Donggwang. When asked by Gavin Hudson what he thinks about the environment he said :

“Yeah, the environment is a very important issue. In Jeju we don’t have many factories, so the air is very nice. Very nice environment. The motto is a clean city - clean island. They’re trying to do this solar and then the windmills. My favorite part of living in Jeju is the fresh air. The clean air.”

I think this is just the start and more and more cities will learn something from such a good example.

The efficiency of a solar panel is given by the percentage of the sun’s light that is being turned into electricity. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) innovated a new thin film solar panel that just broke the world’s efficiency record, reaching 19.9-percent.

“The copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cell recently reached 19.9 percent efficiency in testing at the lab, setting a new world record.” Treehugger noted.

Traditional silicon based solar panels may have a hard time when these multicrystalline silicon-based solar cells are going to be produced.

Hayword, California based, OptiSolar are trying their best to build the world’s largest solar photovoltaic farm (550-megawatt) 100 miles north of Los Angeles in San Luis Obispo County.

The company will produce clean and competitively priced electricity using low profile solar panels that will be placed on ballast on the ground. Thanks to the thin-film photovoltaic technology OptiSolar doesn’t need large structures that turbine-based systems require and will not result in noise pollution.

They are going to start construction in 2010 after completing the local approval process. When the solar photovoltaic farm will be ready it should be able to power up to 190,000 homes and would be a step forward to securing at least 20-percent of the State’s electricity from renewable energy sources by 2010.

Press release (pdf link)

A new technology patented by a new Turkish company, Solitem Group and Germans from MAN Ferrostaal should offer high efficiency solar thermal cooling systems. Yes you’re reading it right, these two companies claim they can cool your house by harnessing the heat of the sun. They tested their systems in several Southern Europe and used roof-top and ground systems, and it works.

The technology is based on 1.8-meter wide parabolic trough collectors made entirely out of aluminum, that are able to “boil” water up to 180 - 250 degrees Celsius and then through a two-stage absorption chiller, it turns heat into six degrees Celsius cold water. That water is then used to cooling the air or as steam for industrial processes. Also, the fact that they are made of aluminum this is a cheap light-weight solution that offers high stability.

“The secret lies in complex software that regulates the energy flows in the system and delivers a constant stream of water cooled to about six degrees, the perfect temperature for conventional air conditioning units,” said Solitem’s managing director Dr Ahmet Lokurlu.

The new solar thermal cooling system is a highly efficient alternative to air conditioning systems, that won’t take the usual course of cooling a house : fossil fuels into electricity and electricity into cooling.

MAN Ferrostal owns 20.1 percent stake in Solitem and will help them with sales and installation resources. They plan to bring this project across the Middle East, Africa, the US, Australia and the Mediterranean.

Source

I am a big fan of solar cells and using them for a greener home, but we all know that investments to get solar energy are usually spicy and not everyone can afford. There is a solution though. Konarka Technologies, a company that builds low cost sources of renewable power affordable and universally available thinks we can print our own solar cells using an inkjet printer.

Konarka has built a printable solar panel film and with the help of a common inkjet printer they can produce build thin photovoltaic solar cells. The technology is innovative as it uses solar cell material as ink and Konarka’s light-activated Power Plastic® that is flexible, lightweight, lower in cost and much more versatile in application than traditional silicon-based solar cells, as paper.

“This essential breakthrough in the field of printed solar cells positions Konarka as an emerging leader in printed photovoltaics.”

Using such technology is only feasible to large productions of solar cells but as it evolves we can expect to see all kinds of solar cells from as small as a window or laptop to as big as car’s roof.

Press release via Inhabitat