Saturday, November 9, 2013

A Smarter Way to use Sunlight

Innovative solar technology may lead to an interior lighting revolution

A pair of University of Cincinnati researchers has seen the light -- a bright, powerful light -- and it just might change the future of how building interiors are brightened.

With SmartLight off (top) and on (bottom).
In fact, that light comes directly from the sun. And with the help of tiny, electrofluidic cells and a series of open-air "ducts," sunlight can naturally illuminate windowless work spaces deep inside office buildings and excess energy can be harnessed, stored and directed to other applications.

This new technology is called SmartLight, and it's the result of an interdisciplinary research collaboration between UC's Anton Harfmann and Jason Heikenfeld. Their research paper "Smart Light -- Enhancing Fenestration to Improve Solar Distribution in Buildings" was recently presented at Italy's CasaClima international energy forum.

"The SmartLight technology would be groundbreaking. It would be game changing," says Harfmann, an associate professor in UC's School of Architecture and Interior Design. "This would change the equation for energy. It would change the way buildings are designed and renovated. It would change the way we would use energy and deal with the reality of the sun. It has all sorts of benefits and implications that I don't think we've even begun to touch."

Major improvements with minimal adjustments

There's a simple question SmartLight addresses: Is there a smarter way to use sunlight? Every day the sun's rays hit Earth with more than enough energy to meet many of society's energy demands, but existing technologies designed to harness that energy, such as photovoltaic cells, aren't very efficient. A typical photovoltaic array loses most of the sun's energy when it gets converted into electricity. But with SmartLight, Harfmann says the sunlight channeled through the system stays, and is used, in its original form. This method is far more efficient than converting light into electricity then back into light and would be far more sustainable than generating electric light by burning fossil fuels or releasing nuclear energy.

The technology could be applied to any building -- big or small, old or new, residential or commercial. But Harfmann and Heikenfeld believe it will have the greatest impact on large commercial buildings. The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration shows that 21 percent of commercial sector electricity consumption went toward lighting in 2011. Harfmann calls the energy demand for lighting in big, commercial buildings "the major energy hog," and he says energy needed to occupy buildings accounts for close to 50 percent of the total energy consumed by humans.

SmartLight could help shift that energy imbalance. It works like this: A narrow grid of electrofluidic cells which is self-powered by embedded photovoltaics is applied near the top of a window. Each tiny cell -- only a few millimeters wide -- contains fluid with optical properties as good or better than glass. The surface tension of the fluid can be rapidly manipulated into shapes such as lenses or prisms through minimal electrical stimulation -- about 10,000 to 100,000 times less power than what's needed to light a traditional incandescent bulb. In this way, sunlight passing through the cell can be controlled.

Sunlight from the outside (right) directed to inside and stored (left).

The grid might direct some light to reflect off the ceiling to provide ambient room lighting. Other light might get focused toward special fixtures for task lighting. Yet another portion of light might be transmitted across the empty, uppermost spaces in a room to an existing or newly installed transom window fitted with its own electrofluidic grid. From there, the process could be repeated to enable sunlight to reach the deepest, most "light-locked" areas of any building. And it's all done without needing to install new wiring, ducts, tubes or cables.

"You're using space that's entirely available already. Even if I want to retrofit to existing architecture, I've got the space and the ability to do so," says Heikenfeld, professor of electrical engineering and computer systems and creator of the Smart Light's electrofluidic cells. "And you don't need something mechanical and bulky, like a motor whirring in the corner of your office steering the light. It just looks like a piece of glass that all of a sudden switches."

Smart Approach Allows Dynamic Response

As for switching, Harfmann envisions a workplace where physical light switches join other anachronistic office equipment like mouse pads or bulky CRT monitors. Plans call for SmartLight to be controlled wirelessly via a mobile software application. So instead of manually flipping a switch on a wall, a user would indicate their lighting preferences through an app on their mobile device, and SmartLight would regulate the room's brightness accordingly. SmartLight could even use geolocation data from the app to respond when a user enters or leaves a room or when they change seats within the room by manipulating Wi-Fi-enabled light fixtures.

"SmartLight would be controlled wirelessly. There would be no wires to run. You wouldn't have light switches in the room. You wouldn't have electricity routed in the walls," Harfmann says. "You would walk into a room and lights would switch on because your smartphone knows where you are and is communicating with the SmartLight system."

But what happens at night or on cloudy days? That's where SmartLight's energy storage ability comes in. On a typical sunny day, sunlight strikes a facade at a rate that's often hundreds of times greater than what is needed to light the entire building. SmartLight can funnel surplus light into a centralized harvesting- and energy-storing hub within the building. The stored energy could then be used to beam electrical lighting back through the building when natural light levels are low. The SmartLight's grid is so responsive -- each cell can switch by the second -- it can react dynamically to varying light levels throughout the day, meaning office lighting levels would remain constant during bright mornings spent catching up on email, stormy lunch hours spent eating at your desk, and late nights spent reviewing the budget.

With such potential for energy storage, a building's electrical network also could tap into the centralized hub and use the stockpiled energy to power other needs, such as heating and cooling. And if centralized collection of surplus sunlight isn't possible inside some existing structures, the light could even be sent straight through a building to a neighboring collection facility.


The above story is based on materials provided by University of Cincinnati. The original article was written by Tom Robinette.
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Friday, October 18, 2013

Solar Power on the Rise


Philadelphia’s Temple University To Host 63kW Solar Plant (via Clean Technica)
Temple University’s Edberg-Olson Hall will soon be home to a 63 kilowatt solar array on its south-facing roof, the school’s website reports. The plant will be built, owned, and maintained by Philadelphia-based Community Energy Inc. The power that…

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Monday, October 7, 2013

Preventing Beach Erosion

  
Introducing a new question and answer column at Home Science called EarthTalk.

Dear EarthTalk: What are some steps we can all take to prevent beach erosion?  --Kyle Phillips, via e-mail.

Beach erosion is a huge issue for coastal areas in the U.S. and elsewhere. According to the non-profit American Shore & Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA), all beaches endure storms and other natural disturbances that cause them to lose sand, but the causes of beach erosion are not always the same. “On the West Coast, beaches are sand-starved when river dams block the flow of sand,” the group reports. That contrasts with Eastern beaches, they say, which often lack sand because inlets or navigation projects interrupt the movement of sand along the shore. “Things as disparate as storm-driven waves or a simple change in an offshore sandbar may cause one coastal area to lose sand while another gains.”

“Ultimately, a beach erodes because the supply of sand to the beach can not keep up with the loss of sand to the sea,” says Ken Rubin, Assistant Professor of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Hawaii. “Most sand is transported from inland via rivers and streams. The damming of most waterways in the U.S. has thus prevented a major supply of sand from getting to our beaches.”

Soil Science at North Carolina State, via Flickr
He adds that beach erosion can be exaggerated during periods of rapid sea level rise, such as that which we are expected to experience soon as a result of global warming melting the polar ice caps. “When the encroaching sea comes against people’s property, the tendency is for people to try and stop the encroaching sea,” Rubin reports. “They armor the shoreline with seawalls, revetments, jetties, etc. [which] have a negative effect on beaches because once sea water reaches them, it ‘bounces’ off them with more energy than a wave washing back off a normal sand beach.” The result is that more sand is carried off shore, promoting additional beach loss. And the increased severity and frequency of storms due to climate change only serves to further stir up the remaining sand at many beaches.

Unfortunately, beyond keeping our carbon footprints in check, there isn’t much that individuals can do to prevent beach erosion. Building bulkheads in front of individual homes, or along entire beachfronts, may provide some short-term relief from beach erosion, but as often as not these actions can cause worse problems in the long run. And land use regulations that require homes and buildings to be built with a big buffer zone to the beach can go a long way toward protecting personal property and home values in coastal areas, but they won’t help prevent beach erosion.

According to ASBPA, physically adding sand to beaches to replace losses is really the best fix: “Coastal scientists have years of experience with beach restoration projects and have learned that adding sand in the right quantities, properly engineered and maintained, can make a beach last forever.”

Of course the best solution to any problem, including beach erosion, is to address the causes, not the symptoms. Concerted global efforts to curb the emissions that are driving climate change and the elimination of dams along inland waterways are both urgently needed lest we want to keep spending millions of dollars on remediation projects that just have to be repeated over and over again in what is essentially a losing battle.


Contacts: ASBPA, www.asbpa.org; Ken Rubin, www.soest.hawaii.edu/krubin.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

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Hidden River

A new green space along Philly's Schuylkill River brings calm to the stress of city life.

On a bike commute across Philadelphia the other day I came across a wonderful new park along the Schuylkill River, which is said to be part of an extensive placemaking project named Schuylkill Banks. The river was named the Schuylkill by Dutch explorer Arendt Crossen, the name translates to Hidden River in Crossen’s native language. Although it remains unclear why he chose this name, it has clearly remained a hidden river for many Philadelphians, including me.

The new park, located in the Greys Ferry area, is part of a city initiative to make green spaces along Philly's waterways, which the website visitphilly.com describes as "part of the Schuylkill River Trail, a 23-mile link from Philadelphia to Valley Forge National Historical Park, and part of the nationally designated Schuylkill River National Heritage Area. Plans call for a continuous trail following the river, which starts in the headwaters of Schuylkill County and winds 130 miles down to its confluence with the Delaware River, at the southern tip of the city of Philadelphia." More


The above article was originally posted in our sister blog, Designer In Exile.

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Saturday, September 28, 2013

Plastic Bag Waste Used to Make Materials for Nanotechnology

Types of Carbon Nanotubes
Types of Carbon Nanotubes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
University of Adelaide researchers have developed a process for turning waste plastic bags into a high-tech nanomaterial.

The innovative nanotechnology uses non-biodegradable plastic grocery bags to make 'carbon nanotube membranes' ‒ highly sophisticated and expensive materials with a variety of potential advanced applications including filtration, sensing, energy storage and a range of biomedical innovations.

"Non-biodegradable plastic bags are a serious menace to natural ecosystems and present a problem in terms of disposal," says Professor Dusan Losic, ARC Future Fellow and Research Professor of Nanotechnology in the University's School of Chemical Engineering.

"Transforming these waste materials through 'nanotechnological recycling' provides a potential solution for minimising environmental pollution at the same time as producing high-added value products."

Carbon nanotubes are tiny cylinders of carbon atoms, one nanometre in diameter (1/10,000 the diameter of a human hair). They are the strongest and stiffest materials yet discovered - hundreds of times stronger than steel but six times lighter - and their unique mechanical, electrical, thermal and transport properties present exciting opportunities for research and development. They are already used in a variety of industries including in electronics, sports equipment, long-lasting batteries, sensing devices and wind turbines.

The University of Adelaide's Nanotech Research Group has 'grown' the carbon nanotubes onto nanoporous alumina membranes. They used pieces of grocery plastic bags which were vaporised in a furnace to produce carbon layers that line the pores in the membrane to make the tiny cylinders (the carbon nanotubes). The idea was conceived and carried out by PhD student Tariq Altalhi.

"Initially we used ethanol to produce the carbon nanotubes," says Professor Losic. "But my student had the idea that any carbon source should be useable."

The huge potential market for carbon nanotubes hinges on industry's ability to produce large quantities more cheaply and uniformly. Current synthesis methods usually involve complex processes and equipment, and most companies on the market measure production output in only several grams per day.

"In our laboratory, we've developed a new and simplified method of fabrication with controllable dimensions and shapes, and using a waste product as the carbon source," says Professor Losic.

The process is also catalyst and solvent free, which means the plastic waste can be used without generating poisonous compounds.

This research has been published online ahead of print in the journal Carbon.

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The above story is based on materials provided by University of Adelaide.

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Thursday, September 26, 2013

Energy Department Launches Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines Project

Via energy.gov.

Energy-Efficient Windows: Technologies for the Future The Energy Department today announced the Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines project to improve the quality and consistency of commercial building workforce training and certification programs for five key energy-related jobs: Energy Auditor, Commissioning Professional, Building/Stationary Engineer, Facility Manager, and Energy Manager. These voluntary workforce guidelines will support the Better Buildings Initiative goal of making commercial buildings 20 percent more energy efficient over the next 10 years, while helping businesses and communities save money by saving energy and creating new clean energy jobs across the country.

Improving the energy and operational performance of commercial buildings requires highly-skilled and qualified workers, particularly as building technologies become more advanced. The Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines will support the development of high-quality training and certification programs built upon a clear set of industry-developed guidelines—to the benefit of workers, employers, building owners, and policymakers.

The Energy Department has enlisted the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) to convene industry subject matter experts to develop the Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines. NIBS will establish a Commercial Workforce Credentialing Council (CWCC) comprised of private and public sector industry stakeholders to support this effort moving forward.

The guidelines will include an industry-validated Job Task Analysis (JTA) for each occupation, certification schemes (blueprints), and learning objectives. The Energy Department and the General Services Administration will recognize assessment-based certificate and competency-based certification programs that successfully implement the guidelines and achieve third-party accreditation.


To learn more about the Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines project, please visit buildings.energy.gov/workforce. Sign up here for the project webinar scheduled for October 17th.

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Friday, September 20, 2013

Low Costs and Big Scale: A New Era for Solar


English: solar PV - Second largest Array in UK
English: solar PV - Second largest Array in UK (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Solar’s high price tag once limited its use to those willing or required to pay more for cleaner power — but that’s quickly changing. A dramatic drop in panel prices means we are now in a new era of solar: one in which solar technology costs are no longer the major barrier to scale.

Last week we were joined by researchers from our national labs – NREL and LBNL – for a webinar on that very subject. The new briefing they presented, “Photovoltaic System Pricing Trends: Historical, Recent, and Near-Term Projections (2013),” draws on several ongoing research activities at the two labs, including:

    LBNL’s annual Tracking the Sun report series
    NREL’s bottom-up PV cost modeling
    NREL’s synthesis of PV market data and projections

Their combined work is intended to help us all gain a better understanding of recent price reductions and what comes next on the path to low-cost PV. Watch for yourself:



Solar PV Pricing Trends Research from U.S. National Labs 9-11-13 10.01 AM from Vote Solar on Vimeo.


Essentially, we’ve seen a 6-7% average annual reduction in the pre-incentive price of installed solar since 1998. Looking back, that decline was largely due to a significant reduction in global module prices over the past few years. Looking forward, more price reductions are expected! However, module prices are expected to stabilize, and so those continued declines are likely to come from reductions in non-module “soft” costs like permitting, cost of capital and customer acquisition.

Our briefing with the National Labs was followed quickly by the release of another welcome report on solar progress: the latest U.S. Solar Market Insight from GTM Research and SEIA. The report showed that as of Q2 2013, the U.S. has installed a 9.4 gigawatts of solar capacity — enough to power more than 1.5 million  American homes. Let’s remind ourselves that in 2007, we celebrated the fact that we had 500 megawatts of installed solar capacity. Now, less than 6 years later, we have nearly TWENTY TIMES that much. All this goes to show that low costs + market access = scale. And with good policy and business innovation, we are well on our way to solving that equation.

In this new era of low PV prices, our work at Vote Solar has shifted toward policies that specifically target remaining “soft” costs, continue to broaden market participation, and ensure that we’re preparing our grid to take full advantage of a new energy landscape that involves lots more solar.



Article above based on materials from Vote Solar.
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Saturday, September 7, 2013

New LEDs light the way to a Brighter Future

blue light-emitting diode
Light-emitting diode (Photo: teraminato)
LED light bulbs can be brighter and more energy efficient than ever, thanks to a high performance LED driver newly developed by researchers from the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering.

The new driver powers LED light bulbs with an innovative approach called multi-level PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation), which delivers remarkable improvements in terms of light quality and energy efficiency, when compared to pulse width modulation and linear driver approaches currently used in LED products.

By traditional method of pulse width modulation, LEDs are fed pulsed current instead of steady DC. The drive current is turned ON and OFF at a rate faster than being perceptible by human eyes. Powering LEDs in pulses makes their light output easily controllable.

The research team, formed by Dr Lai Yuk Ming, Dr Loo Ka Hong and Prof. Michael Tse, gives the PWM method a new twist. The pulsed operation is redesigned in a way to maximize light output while minimizing wasted energy in the form of heat. The result is higher lumen per watt. Dr Loo Ka Hong said they achieved additional energy saving by up to 15%.

Single LED module consisting of 32x32 LED pixels

When used in a large scale application, it can save a lot of energy. The LED billboard on One Times Square in New York is a good example. The math goes like this: The giant display uses 12 million bulbs and 250 KW of power. If the billboard is on for 16 hours a day, the energy bill comes to US$18,000 a month. A 12% drop in energy consumption means US$2,160 in energy savings. That’s something to roll your eyes at.

Furthermore, it has lowered cooling requirements and needs smaller size heat sink compared to conventional methods. That means LED systems can be made smaller. With excellent dimming capability, the new MPWM driver allows manufacturers to create fully dimmable LEDs, which can be dimmed down to 0 watt of power. These superior qualities pave way for brighter, smarter and more versatile LED lighting solutions.

The world is switching to LEDs for huge environmental benefits. If all the traditional light bulbs in the world were replaced with energy-saving ones, lighting energy use could be cut by 40%, according to Worldwatch Institute [1]. The Energy Saving Trust has similar projections [2], which said the resultant carbon saving would be the equivalent of taking 70,000 cars off the road.


Council House in Perth, Western Australia, lit...
Council House in Perth, Western Australia, lit up by LED lights installed on the window frames. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As the greenest alternative to incandescent lamps, LEDs are a popular choice of lighting but they are not perfect. Consumers are looking for a brighter and more natural glow matching up to incandescent light bulbs. The demand for brightness is even more pronounced in high power applications such as automobile headlights and architectural lightings. LED research worldwide is looking to build a perfect substitute to incandescent. It is exciting to have advanced LED lighting with a simple solution such as MPWM that brings about significant energy saving.

Obviously, the novel technology allows a better product to be made. High illuminating performance combined with good thermal protection allowed manufacturers to create compact lighting solutions with a very high lumen output. And the additional cost is little because all of these qualities could be achieved with the use of low cost ICs. This could be music to the ear for LED manufacturers.

This innovative applied technology has already aroused the attention of the international market. Recently it has won a Gold Award at the 41st International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva in April of 2013

Story based on materials provided by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, via ResearchSEA.
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Thursday, August 15, 2013

Rain Check

A pioneering outreach program empowers homeowner take on a city's stormwater troubles one house at a time.
 
Philadelphia, like most cities rests upon a vast network of underground pipes. In particular, our city has two types of sewer systems - combined and separate sewer systems - which, in total, measure 3,000 miles in length.

In areas with combined sewers, a single pipe carries both stormwater from streets, houses, and businesses as well as waste water from houses and businesses to a water treatment plant. In areas with separate sewers, one pipe carries stormwater to the city's streams while another carries wastewater to a water treatment plant.

When it rains and the amount of combined stormwater and wastewater exceeds the sewer system's capacity, the mixed stormwater and wastewater is discharged into the city's streams before it is treated - an unfortunate, but common scenario.

In the separate sewer system, stormwater is not routed to a treatment plant and is discharged directly to a stream. Pollutants picked with stormwater flow along the city's impervious surfaces and are discharged into the streams, an occurrence known as stormwater runoff.

Impervious surfaces like driveways, sidewalks, and streets prevent stormwater runoff from naturally soaking into the ground. Stormwater can pick up debris, chemicals, dirt, and other pollutants and flow into a storm sewer system or directly to a lake, stream, river, wetland, or coastal water. Anything that enters a storm sewer system is discharged untreated into the waterbodies we use for swimming, fishing and providing drinking water.

Green stormwater infrastructure includes a range of vegetation and soil systems that intercept stormwater, infiltrate a portion of it into the ground, evaporate a portion of it into the air, and in some cases release a portion of it slowly back into the sewer system.

Impervious surfaces, such as roadways and buildings, are characteristic of urbanized landscapes. As land development increases, it leads to replacement of pervious areas with impervious surfaces, causing an increase in stormwater runoff volume and combined sewer overflow episodes. In turn, this affects Philadelphia's watersheds by impairing water quality and degrading stream habitats. The Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) has established goals to protect and enhance local watersheds by managing stormwater runoff with innovative green infrastructure, maximizing economic, social, and environmental benefits for the city.

Rain Check is a program from PWD that helps residents manage stormwater and beautify their homes. Participation in Rain Check is one way Philadelphia residents can help improve local water quality and beautify their homes at the same time. Rain Check provides stormwater tools at a reduced cost to Philadelphia residents who live in the combined sewer area. These tools are landscape improvements that can beautify your home and will improve the water quality of our rivers and streams.

More on the program from the Philly Watersheds webpage:

Integrating green stormwater infrastructure into a highly developed area such as Philadelphia requires a decentralized and creative approach to planning and design. Various tools can be implemented to accomplish this, including stormwater planters, rain gardens and green roofs. All of these tools help to reduce runoff volume and filter pollutants by intercepting stormwater runoff before it enters the City's combined sewer system.

We're continuously exploring innovative ways to implement green infrastructure tools. Through our eight Land-Based Green programs, we will achieve our goals of reducing localized flooding, reducing combined sewer overflows, and improving water quality while also improving the quality of life of residents.

Contaminated water bodies are only one of many interrelated problems affected by stormwater. Stormwater volumes that exceed the sewer system's capacity can cause backups and result in street and basement flooding. Waterways and wetlands are degraded by pollutants in stormwater as natural habitats are destroyed, and biodiversity suffers. Impaired streams do not support healthy aquatic communities, do not meet uses designated by the State, do not serve as amenities to the community, and occasionally cause property damage due to flooding. When our waterways are not as healthy as they can be, we lose out on water-related recreation opportunities.

Impervious cover exacerbates the problem of stormwater when runoff flows directly into the nearest storm drain without being mitigated. If untreated before entering our waterways (including the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers, which we use as sources of drinking water), this contaminated water can have a detrimental effect on water quality.

The more impervious surfaces there are in the city, the more polluted stormwater enters the sewer system, increasing the total volume of water the city's infrastructure network must handle.The Philadelphia Water Department believes that every homeowner can make a difference in transforming Philadelphia into a green city with clean water. Rain Check gives homeowners an opportunity to reduce pollution that would otherwise end up in our creeks and rivers. For homeowners who participate in the Rain Check pilot program, PWD will help them choose a landscaping tool to manage stormwater runoff and help pay for the cost of installing the tool.

Rain Check is now in its second year as a pilot program. As part of the broader Green City, Clean Waters initiative, the services seek to help ease stormwater problems while also helping green the city. It has created awareness and shed light on such issues that were typically out of sight and mind from community stakeholders. It has also created a workforce of stormwater management specialists, which consists of a hybrid of landscape architects, environmentalists, and structural engineers in a leading-edge field for urban sustainabilty--D.A. DeMers