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1. BRING THE HEAT
Though touted as a font of clean
energy, solar cells actually take a
lot of power to produce, particularly
because the process requires that sili-
con, an essential ingredient, be heated
to upward of 1,830 degrees F. That’s why
researchers at the National Renewable Energy Labora-
tory have developed a light-based optical furnace that
uses about half the energy of a conventional furnace
while also being easier to control. As a bonus, it’s
more effective at removing impurities from the silicon
—increasing the energy efficiency of not only themanu-
facturing process, but the finished product as well.
2. ROAD TESTING
Apparently not content with cycling’s
current level of eco-friendliness,
Dutch company TNO is using bike
paths in the town of Krommenie
in northern Holland to test glass-
covered, solar cell–embedded concrete
panels—a.k.a. SolaRoad—which gener-
ate 50 kilowatt-hours of electricity per square meter.
But that’s just the beginning: Ultimately, TNO has
designs on all of Holland’s 85,000 miles of road.
3. BRUSH JOB
Forget JacksonPollock—researchers at the
University of NotreDame have come up
with a way to make paint
really
ener-
getic. When mixed into a paste and
spread onto a conductive material,
semiconducting nanoparticles—
dubbed “quantum dots”—produce
electricity, which could be used to, say, power home
appliances. While the resulting solar paint, called “Sun-
Believable,” isn’t nearly as efficient as a solar panel, it’s
not a bad start. (Besides, some artists don’t get discov-
ered until later in their careers.)
4. FLOWER POWER
Researchers at MIT and Germany’s
RWTH Aachen University have
shown they can boost the efficiency
of the field of mirrors that surrounds
and directs heat to the 300-foot-plus
central tower at concentrated solar
plants, or CSPs, by arranging the mirrors in the same
spiral pattern as the florets in the head of a sunflower.
Comparedwith the standard concentric-circle arrange-
ment, this pattern not only reduces the amount of
real estate needed for each CSP, but also increases
the plant’s heat-collecting efficiency—which is a beauti-
ful thing indeed.
5. STRAIGHT TO THE TOP
If you’re going to cover your roof with
solar panels, whybotherwith shingles
and
cumbersome arrays of photo-
voltaic cells? Dow Solar, a division of
Dow Chemical, made its Powerhouse
solar shingles available in very limited quantities in 2010,
but recently expanded its Michigan plant to bring them
to themassmarket.What promises tomake solar power
significantly more accessible to homeowners—since a
Powerhouse shingle can be installed about as easily as
a regular one—began covering roofs in Colorado at the
end of last year.
—SAM POLCER
their environmentalist adversaries can
finally agree on. “I see this as a win,”
he says. The technology hasn’t been
licensed for sale yet, but governments
in the U.S. and the U.K. are considering
it.
—JOE KEOHANE
PRISM uses liquid sodium as a coolant instead of
water, which allows the neutrons that drive fission to
achieve higher levels of energy, in turn allowing the
reactor to run on heavier fuels, like nuclear waste
THE SOLUTION:
MAKE THE WHOLE PROCESS LEANER, MEANER ANDMORE EFFICIENT.
ENERGY
THE PROBLEM
SOLAR POWER IS A NO BRAINER,
BUT SOLAR PANELS ARE A MAJOR HASSLE.