Solar-Thermal Flat Panels Generate Electricity

Two technologies have dominated efforts to harness the power of the sun's energy. Photovoltaics convert sunlight into electric current, while solar-thermal power generation uses sunlight to heat water and produce thermal energy. Photovoltaic cells have been deployed widely as flat panels, while solar-thermal power generation employs sunlight-absorbing surfaces feasible in residential and large-scale industrial settings.

Because of limited material properties, solar-thermal devices have so far failed to economically generate enough electric power. The team has introduced two innovations — a better light-absorbing surface through enhanced nanostructured thermoelectric materials, which was then placed within an energy-trapping, vacuum-sealed flat panel. Combined, both measures added enhanced electricity-generating capacity to solar-thermal power technology, as reported by Zhifeng Ren, a Boston College professor of physics and a co-author of the study. The team is comprised of Gang Chen, MIT's Soderberg professor of power engineering; Boston College and MIT graduate students; and researchers at GMZ Energy, a Massachusetts clean energy research company founded by Ren and Chen.


Ren claims that their team has developed a flat panel that is a hybrid capable of generating hot water and electricity in the same system," he said. "The ability to generate electricity by improving existing technology at minimal cost makes this type of power generation self-sustaining from a cost standpoint." 

Their technology involves using nanotechnology engineering methods. The researchers combined high-performance thermoelectric materials and spectrally selective solar absorbers in a vacuum-sealed chamber to boost conversion efficiency.

The findings open up a promising new approach that has the potential to achieve cost-effective conversion of solar energy into electricity, an advance that should affect the rapidly expanding residential and industrial clean energy markets, claims Ren who further comments, "Existing solar-thermal technologies do a good job generating hot water. For the new product, this will produce both hot water and electricity," he said. "Because of the new ability to generate valuable electricity, the system promises to give users a quicker payback on their investment. This new technology can shorten the payback time by one-third." 

Solar-Thermal Flat Panels Generate Electricity

Innovation Towards Sustainable Materials-Just what the Doctor ordered: meet the People, the Global Movers.

Big names, concerned scietists, engineers and business executives meet to work on what many consider to be millenium class issues- To Be Treated Fittingly on WWI & II rememberance, Amnesty Day 11-11 1945.   


Big meeting - constructive thinking for serious future planning  anticipated and expected from such a panel of experienced, highly professional specialist in their respective fields.


In all 10 sub-themes will be treated in this expert's approach to Sustainable Materials, Innovation.


1:Setting the Global Scene are: Start 10 Nov. 2010.

• Ian Christmas (Director General, World Steel Association)

• Per Sandberg (Director, International Projects, WBCSD)

• Peter Bonfield (Chief Executive, Building Research Establishment)

2:Materials Sourcing, Processing Technologies, Extractive Industries

• John Groom (Safety and Sustainable Development Adviser, Anglo American)

• Craig White (Wood Technology, White Design)

• Sevket Durucan (Professor of Mining and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College)

• James Anderson (Director of Sustainability, AMEC)

3:Construction and the Built Environment contributions from:

• Hank Dittmar (Chief Executive, Prince's Foundation, Built Environment)

• Beulah Keane (Project Manager, Marks and Spencer, Plan A; Sustainable Construction

• Jamie Smith (Skanska)

• Javed Sethi (Marketing Manager, Lafarge Cement UK)

4:ResourcEfficiency and Environmental Technologies


• Carolyn Roberts (Director, Environmental Sustainability KTN)

• Richard Swannell (Director, WRAP)

• Theo Lehner (Manager, Business Development, Bolidien)

• Edward Way (Chairman, Green Power Limited

5:Assessment Tools and Information Management

• Mike Ashby (Director, Granta Design)

• Rana Pant (European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment, European Commission)

• Norman Swindells (Managing Director, Ferroday Ltd)

• Angela Druckman (Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Mitigation,

Surrey University)

Guest Speaker: Tom Heap (Presenter, Costing the Earth, BBC Radio 4

Thursday 11th of  November

6: Setting the Forward Strategy

• Head of Climate Change, Tata Group
7: Product Design, Packaging and the Consumer

• Martin Charter (Director, Centre for Sustainable Design)

• Tony Taylor (Sustainability and Packaging Manager, Unilever UK)

• Stuart Patrick (Chairman, The Polymer Society, The Institute of Materials, Minerals

and Mining)

8: Transport and Infrastructure.

• Robin Haycock (Transport Energy Consultant, Arup)

• George Coates (Project Director, WorldAutoSteel)

• Geoff Scamans (Chief Scientific Officer, Innoval Limited)

• Pat Winfield (Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Head of Sustainable Vehicle

Engineering Centre, Oxford Brookes University)

9: Energy and Climate Change.

• Rosemary Albinson (Technology and Transport Strategy Advisor, BP Castrol)

• Markys Cain (Knowledge Leader, Functional Materials Team, NPL)

• Rod Martin (Chairman, British Composites Society, IOM3 and Chief Execuitve, MERL)

10: Sustainable Manufacturing and Processes

• Mike Gregory, CBE (Head of Manufacturing and Management Division, Institute for

Manufacturing, University of Cambridge)

• Pascal Payet-Gaspard (Secretary General, International Stainless Steel Forum

Closing Address

• Roland Clift, CBE (Distinguished Professor of Environmental Technology, Surrey

University)

 
More information...? 
cf.  Institute of  Materials Minerals and Mining, IOM3, the global network for the full materials cycle

Intelligence and food to spur Innovations and Innovators

I returned with pleasure to Dave MacKay's blog where almost all his posts are highly pertinent for all, either those wishing to map their professional activity or simply wishing to gen-up on current Climate Change, GW-global warming and energy issues, hopefully all of us. In his post pre-review of the book Challenged by Carbon by Brian Lovell, the blog reader's attention is drawn to the fact that "55 million years ago, an enormous global warming event, raising the temperature of the water at the bottom of the ocean by more than 4 degrees C within roughly 10,000 years occurred". I did a rapid Google search and invite readers to do the same.

There is a short history of the big oil companies attitudes from "believing what the rocks say" and they say there is a problem and the business as usual approach and "as a backdrop the war in Iraq

"Yes, some oil companies greened up their public facades in 2003, but have they reverted to business as usual behind the scenes? But what about the rest of the oil industry?"

Quoting MacKay's selection from Lovell since this cannot be over-echoed I believe: "In the second half of the book, Lovell indicates how he hopes the drama will unfold: "government intervention is essential" in relation to the transition to the low-carbon economy; "concerted action" is required from all oil companies; oil companies [and the coal mining and power gen lobby] should turn their remarkable technical skills to a new waste management business: capturing and storing carbon[dioxide CO2], especially carbon [CO2] from coal power stations.

MacKay's figures: "key numbers for carbon capture. A standard unit of carbon capture and storage is "the Sleipner""

1. Norway's implementation of a carbon-emission tax of $55 per tonne of CO2 (which can be compared to today's EU market price of 14.10 euros per tonne),

2. StatoilHydro is storing 1 Mt CO2 per year in the Utsira saline aquifer under the North Sea.

3. A 1-GW coal power station, running all the time, produces roughly 7 Mt CO2 per year. So every 1-GW power station would require roughly 7 Sleipners.

4. The cost to the consumer for electricity from that source might be in the ballpark of an extra 4p per kWh of electricity (similar to the present subsidy for wind power in the UK).

5. The scale of the waste to be stored is worth mentioning. The volume of 7 Mt CO2 (the approximate annual waste from 1 GW coal power station), after it's been compressed to the same density as water, is three times the volume of the great pyramid at Giza.

Read via his site:
Prof. Dave MacKay FRS's book free (food) online
and Blog

in reference to Bryan Novell"s Book : Challenged by Carbon:The Oil Industry and Climate Change (Paperback)
"

"A 1-GW coal power station, running all the time, produces roughly 7 Mt CO2 per year. So every 1-GW power station would require roughly 7 Sleipners, and the cost to the consumer for electricity from that source might be in the ballpark of an extra 4p per kWh of electricity (similar to the present subsidy for wind power in the UK). The scale of the waste to be stored is worth mentioning. The volume of 7 Mt CO2 (the approximate annual waste from 1 GW coal power station), after it's been compressed to the same density as water, is three times the volume of the great pyramid at Giza."
- Sustainable Energy - without the hot air (view on Google Sidewiki)

Definition of Sustainable Development Recalled for Memory_One Powerful Approach to bring Focus to the near universal nature of Materials Science...

Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future. The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Environmental Sustainability Summarised:

Source:

Wikipedia. One point entry,but many references and links...

LCA Analysis, Introduction Environment and Sustainability Tool

In my previous post I listed 7 tips from a 1 week course outline which finishes today " Materials Sustainability and The Environment - A Materials for Industry Short Course.

Tip N° 3 refers to the use of life cycle assessment (LCA ) principles as a basis for environmental auditing, to calculate an “index of merit” for waste management options.

It goes without saying that these concepts and software assisted tools will be an increasingly indispensable part of any serious materials scientist and engineer. Indeed this approach is one of the themes which I planned to develop within my still very young, new, management methods and foresight blog "This-Above-All" cf. link on side bar menu. LCA is of course very much a materials management issue. It spans the whole "cradle to grave" cycle and "resuscitation-recycle" "cradle to grace?"

For those of you unable to attend the course there is an excellent, clear introduction to the subject -LCA on the European Union JRC Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability.

We shall have amply reasons to return to this topic, it's industrial partners as well as the toolboxes developed and to be developed.