High Efficiency Solar cells _ Semprius

      The above solar panel by Semprius has an efficiency of about 43.9% the Semprius solar cells are multi junction solar cells ie four cells stacked one over the other each one absorbs the different band of light frequency. This is the reason why such a high efficiency of close to 50% has been achieved , however the four junction solar cells are expensive but semprius has got around this problem by concentrating the sunlight on the by as much as 1100 suns. Each cell is said to be as small as the tip of a pencil. This also reduces the the amount of cells needed by a factor of 1100.

           The combination of such high efficiency cells with high level of sunlight concentration will drive down the costs of solar electricity by a huge amount in the next few years ,as shown in the picture above the concentrator glasses are inexpensive certainly  cost much less than solar cells. So one can imagine even if these multijunction cells are even 20 times more expensive than conventional solar cells, the fact that the solar energy is concentrated by a factor of 1100 makes the cost of solar panel at least 30 to 40 times cheaper even if the price of the concentrator glass array ,tracker and the control system(that keeps it aligned with the direction of the sun)  is taken into account . 

          Hopefully in the near future such panels are on every terrace in countries with high sunshine like India. This would save usage of fossil fuel worth billions of dollars , also when electricity becomes so cheap use of electric cars ,electric motorcycles and electric scooters will increase thus oil and natural gas worth billions of dollars need not be imported and it would reduce pollution.

If every vehicle in India runs on electricity generated from the sun India will become rich. Every year the amount of money India spends on importing petroleum is $ 160 bn this bill would be reduced by a big amount . Again the amount of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases produced by the combustion of such fuels will reduce significantly thus lowering pollution.

The total electricity production in India last year was 1102 Tera Watt hours approximately Rs 500000 cr worth electricity. Using solar panels like these we can reduce the the need of coal and natural gas fired power stations thus saving the nation billions of dollars worth money.

In large parts of India especially rural and the semi urban areas the quality of electricity is either very bad or there is no electricity at all  in spite of having the perennial source of energy --sun almost 365 days every year , every year the world is blessed with trillions of dollars worth energy from the sun , only now we are learning to tap into this infinite source of energy in an economical fashion and looking into the future solar energy will be far more cheaper than fossil fuel powered energy. The fossil fuel powered energy was simply an intermediate stage ultimately man will use sun to get all the energy he needs .

         

        

Some Renewable Energy Innovations

The renewable energy technology world  today is blooming with new innovations , we have just come across two solar power innovations Rawlemon and Solar Roadways.

Rawlemon betaray is a large glass sphere which essentially collects the rays of sun falling on it and concentrates it on a solar cell by a factor of 500 suns thus generating electrical energy and heat energy also it is found to be 70% more efficient than conventional solar cells that are not concentrated. The beauty of rawlemon system is that it can generate electricity even in very cloudy conditions and even from moonlight. The real cost of solar energy comes from the PV modules now when solar energy is concentrated the amount of solar cells required comes down significantly saving on costs thus the cost of energy obtained from such solar systems is much lower. A betaray can be installed on rooftops or on walls.You can get more information about Rawlemon from the following link https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rawlemon-solar-devices

The next video doing round these days is of solar roadways , the inventors have designed intelligent microprocessor controlled solar cells that can replace roads. The solar cells will generate electricity and these panels have LED lamps that glows giving a better view of road to the driver. Also in cold countries they would prevent the roads from getting clogged in snow. Parks, parking alleys , tennis courts, basketball courts can have these panels on the surface. Since the panels are touch sensitive it would warn motorists of the obstacles ahead.

Next of course we have come across various modes of tidal energy whether it is pumping seawater to a height using ocean waves as in  in searaser or using underwater currents to generating electricity. Tidal energy is abundant on earth and is a promising future source of energy.

 Searaser uses the vertical displacement of ocean currents to make a pump move up and down thus pumping water now this water is collected in a reservoir that is located at a high altitude the collected water can be allowed to flow down and at a point where the stream acquires maximum energy one can place a turbine that would rotate and generate electricity.

When it comes to wind energy a new innovation has come from a MIT company named Alteros , they have come out with a system that has a helium shell that would take the wind turbine located in the centre to rise up to a height of 1000ft at that hight the wind speed is much more and much more consistent , it is called Buyont Air Turbine , a BAT can generate twice the energy of a tower mounted Wind Turbine. It is designed to withstand very high wind speed and in case of storm it can auto dock itself.

Traditional wind turbines can only be set up at places with consistent and high wind speeds not all places on earth have these characteristics, however with BAT its possible to generate electricity almost anywhere in the world.

      There are many more innovations researchers are working on lots of different ways to tap different motions in nature to generate electricity , the above are just few of the . The future of energy is definitely renewable and green. It makes sense to tap into unlimited sources of renewable energy than burn limited fossil fuel for energy requirements which generates CO2 and other gases which are even more harmful and have a bad effect on the environment.

Buoyant Air Turbine - BAT

       The above pics show the Alteros Buoyant Air Turbine that promises to provide cheaper wind power. It taps into winds at high altitudes where the wind speeds are much higher thus a BAT turbine would generate twice the power of a conventional turbine. 

         The setup consists of a shell , a turbine , teethers and a ground station. The shell is made up of high class durable plastic that is inflated with helium . This shell can also be used mount communication and camera equipment. 

       Within the shell you have the turbine which rotates with high speed winds and generates electricity. 

    Teethers connect the shell to winches on the portable ground station. 

       The benefit with this turbine is that it saves on costs of installation and transport by as much as 90%, it is twice as efficient as a traditional wind turbines. In places where there ground wind speeds are not good this turbine can also be used since at high altitudes of 1000 feet or more the wind speeds are good enough to generate electricity economically. Thus if such BAT s are installed in big numbers they can power the entire world and the great advantage is that it is totally green energy and renewable no need to burn any fossil fuel. 

        The BAT is designed to withstand windspeeds of 161 kmph +  . It requires no crew for day to day operation. The system can be monitored remotely and in case of extreme weather condition the system would autonomously dock.

     More information about Alteros BAT can be found at http://www.altaerosenergies.com

      Check out this video 

https://www.youtube.com/kldA4nWANA8

     

            

       

Searaiser

        I have mentioned about tidal energy lots of times in  my blog , there are different ways in which the energy from the ocean currents can be tapped into and one of the ways is this searaser technology .

     The following video demostrates this technology SEARASER VIDEO

             The diagram shown below shows how the setup work the searaser pump units that are fixed in sea the top portion moves up and down depending on the tide and this motion moves the piston attached to it which pumps the water through the pipes to the reservoir where the water is collected and then water is made to flow downstream thereby moving the turbine and creating electrical energy , its a pretty simple setup and ones the things are in place except the maintentce costs the electricity generated is free.

          

                There is absolutely no fuel costs involved since the tidal energy of the sea which is caused due to the gravitational effects of moon and sun is used , the tides are regular and will stay there forever unlike rivers which may go dry during summers in some places. 

       The energy thus generated is totally green and renewable does not cause any pollution at all. 

      India has over 7000 kms of sea cost , the tides in Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean are very high and this technology can be effectively tapped into to generate electricity. With such a long coastline many terawatts of electricity can be generated , this would totally eliminate the need to use coal , and imported crude oil for energy purpose also the energy will be very cheap around 30% cheaper than electricity from nuclear power plants. 

         Currently in India 85% of the crude oil has to be imported by investing in renewable technologies like this one the dependence on foreign oil will come down. Its better to have cars running on electricity generated from renewable energy than have them run on imported petrol. 

           Tidal energy will save the whole world not only billions of dollar but will reduce the CO2 and other SPM  emission into the atmoshphere which is responsible for global warming. 

         Investing in green and renewable energies like tidal energy , solar energy , wind energy will lead to cleaner , greener future of the world . 

         

       

                  

      

Flying without fossil fuel

This are the pictures of Solar Impulse 2 the plane that flies on solar power generated from the 17000 odd solar panels that are spread across its wings and body. The wingspan is 72 meters. The solar impulse 2 is set to circumnavigate the earth in  2015 .

       The earlier version Solar Impulse successfully flew across US east cost to west cost.  This would be a single seater plane. The beauty of this plane is it would not require any fossil fuel to fly all the energy will  be drawn from the sun and also a good part of the energy would be stored in the batteries to fly in the night .

          The entire plane is made from carbon fibre and it weighs around 2300 kgs which is equivalent to that of a family car.

Salora unmanned drone of Titan Aerospace

          Google recently acquired a company called Titan Aerospace that makes lightweight drones that are similar to this planes of course the drones are unmanned and this drones can be airborne for at least 5 years at a stretch thus acting as an atmospheric satellite. Google would use this drones in its ambitious loons project which aims to provide affordable Internet connectivity to places where people have no Internet access. 

        This drones and airplanes mark a new era of satellites and planes. Surely the solar drones can act as excellent low altitude surveillance , communication and mapping systems , they will be cheaper than space satellites.

        One can have thousands of this drones circling a particular area around the world to provide Internet access in those parts .

         An entire global communication network of this wireless drones can be made that would make Internet affordable and available across the globe to every person on earth.

           

    

Tidal Energy with Davidson Hill Venturi turbine.

A great source of energy largely untapped is is the energy from the ocean currents it is also called Tidal Energy. The tides in oceans are caused by the gravitational effects of the sun and moon. Tides follow a pattern and can be predicted years in advance unlike wind. Water is 832 times denser than air so a relatively small turbine can produce large amounts of electricity as compared to Wind Turbines. 

This is the diagram of the davidson hill venturi turbine , it makes use of the Venturi effect the flow of ocean current is in the smaller side of the turbine so at the other end where the area of the crossection is larger there  velocity of flow of water is reduced thus creating a low pressure area which leads to more current rushing towards that side via the turbine thus making the turbine rotate a very high amount of efficiency is achievable through the Davidson Hill Venturi turbine ,This video of Davidson Hill Turbine will explain more .

Tidal energy is a largely untapped but a very promising source of energy , and it would have very low maintenance costs. This link would shows that a DHV turbine with a 10 meter rotor will produce a few megwatts of electricity at moderate water speeds. 

      Fossil fuel and coal are  getting scarse and of course their combusiton leads to realese of green house gases which are resulting in global warming tapping into renewable sources of energy like tidal energy can produce many terawatts of energy without producing any pollution no loss of limited natural resource. 

We can do away with coal and gas based power plants at least in areas of earth that are within a distance of 1000 kms from the ocean.

       Talking in context of India we have one of the longest coastlines in the world, the power of the sea currents across Arabian Sea, Indian ocean and Bay of Bengal can be tapped into and power can be generated for entire south, east and western parts of India.

      

        

      

Some exiting innovations

      Science and Technology has changed human lives in a big way and it is going to change it further , one can now safely say that in the next 3 years solar energy and grid electricity costs would be same , so one is sure that we have a much greener future, man will move back to nature something that he has destroyed in the process of development. 

                      Here in this blog I will talk about a few recent videos and innovations that I have come across on the Internet that will have great impact. Go throughout the  link A 50cent sturdy fold able and printable microscope . If you have seen this video you will be surprised to know that the microscope that is used in schools and collages and in laboratories have not changed for decades it costs over $ 1000 and are difficult to carry around and maintain whereas here you have a microscope made out of paper that's sturdy , easy to carry and costs over 2000 times less than a traditional microscope.  As Manu Prakash said in this video this microscope adds a new paradigm to microscopy and that is use and throw microscopy. Its absolutely unbelievable that one can use a microscope that too a projection microscope for a mere 50 cents so everyone on this planet can very easily afford this microscope.

        Now go through the following exiting video to see how one can do computing in a totally different way sixth sense technology where computers will work on the gestures of the user taking them for input and output a really very exiting video about the possible ways we would be using computers and phone in the future rather than sitting like machine in front of another machine.

         Here in this blog I had mentioned about high speed cameras but recently I came across  a video that shows a technology that can have a trillion frames per second video. Its so fast that once you play the video in normal speed of 32 frames a second you can actually see light move , this is called Femtophotography . If you see this video you will find how you can see light pass through an empty Coke bottle.