Thursday, April 21, 2011

GE GOES SOLAR

GE GOES SOLAR.
by Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News

General Electric is particularly good at NOT paying corporate income taxes. They got considerable flak in the mainstream media for that.

General Electric relies heavily on its financial dealings to make money. Yet it has been particularly good about financing renewable energy projects.

Think what you want about the company, but they’ve been a star in green energy.

They grabbed the wind turbine division of Enron Wind out of a bankruptcy courtroom and turned it into a global wind turbine powerhouse.

They’ve supported the commercialization of electrically-driven cars by a commitment to purchase 25,000 of them for fleet use.

Now they’ve positioned themselves to go big time with solar energy.

The giant global conglomerate has announced it will build a 400 megawatt annual production capacity thin-film solar manufacturing plant in the U.S. This largest solar manufacturing plant in the U.S. will employ 400. GE will announce the plant site, or sites shortly. Multiple locations are possible, sharing the wealth among communities as it were.

Victor Abate, vice president of GE’s renewable energy business said in a press release,” “Our plan to open a U.S. solar manufacturing facility further demonstrates our confidence in this technology and is just the first phase in a global, multi-gigawatt roadmap. We’re not only excited by the efficiency milestone, but also by the speed at which our team was able to achieve it and the innovation runway for future improvements in this technology.”


The thin-film solar technology to be manufactured will be PrimeStar Solar’s cadmium-telluride (CdTe) non-silicon variety similar to that produced by First Solar. GE has held a major equity stake in PrimeStar since 2008.

CdTe is considered one of the most affordable solar technologies on the market and is expect to get even more so with greater commercialization.

GE also announced that it’s CdTe technology has also reached new heights for efficiency. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has certified a panel built at PrimeStar’s 30-megawatt manufacturing line in Arvada, Colorado as reaching 12.8 percent aperture efficiency. This panel surpasses all previously published records for CdTe thin film.

GE says that a 1 percent increase in efficiency is equal to an approximate 10 percent decrease in system cost.

Already the company has racked up more than 100 megawatts in thin film solar orders. Major purchasers are NextEra Energy that will buy 60 MW’s worth and Invenergy which will buy 20 MW’s worth for a project in the company’s home state of Illinois

Friday, January 14, 2011

Human Powered Workout Gym Concept

Read this article, I was just thinking of a similar idea to bring to gyms. As I worked out today I told myself; "push through the pain, more energy.. more energy" I was in the bike cycle and all of the sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks. WAIT A Minute, everyone is working out where is all this energy going? I read in previous articles that one can harness energy from people walking!!!! imagine people running, lifting, zumba classes, spinning classes!!! and the amount of gyms out there oh man it's insane..
Gyms can totally harness their own energy and even sell back some if they had the right equipment or device to harness it with. Anyway here is a good concept other like minded individuals thought as well

Human Powered Workout Gym Concept
News » Energy | Biofuels | Environment | Hydrogen | Solar | Transportation | Wind
September 8th, 2009 - 24 Comments
When we look closely at human history we can easily conclude that locomotion is one of the most primordial needs. But our current lifestyle does not allow us with much of the movements. We need to move more often. But it is also true that we live in fitness conscious times. Going to a gymnasium and working out has become a health statement. But till now many of us have not delved deep into what happens in a gymnasium and how can we utilize events happening in gym for better purposes. If we look carefully every member of a gym in a particular time slot is performing some controlled and repetitive motion be it lifting weight or running on a treadmill or doing crunches. What can we do with all these motions?


Architect Mitchell Joachim, along with Douglas Joachim, a personal trainer, envisioned an idea that might redefine the perception of a gymnasium. When people exercise all the energy created by motion is wasted and it disappears into nothingness. If we can channelize all this kinetic energy into something meaningful we can have a floating River Gym, a kind of soft floating micro-island. It will utilize all the energy made by gym goers and convert it into usable electric energy stored in on-board batteries. This ground-breaking gym will not only endow us with a stimulating view to look upon, but will also provide increased transportation as well as a unique way to purify water while working out.

“Our concept encapsulates a new typology for the contemporary urban gym. It is intended to challenge our innate proprioceptive and multi-planer locomotive abilities while synchronously altering the surroundings. The River Gym will fulfill one of the major contemporary fitness goals of ‘functional training’,” Mitchell and Douglas Joachim elaborate.

When you go to a regular gym all you can enjoy is the sweaty images of you and fellow gym goers or a TV set or some music tracks going in loops. But here in River Gym you can observe the waves playing on the sea bed or some sea creatures taking into account what is happening in the river capsule. Why you have to subject yourself to same good old TV or music? While exercising, you can volunteer to transport some passengers to their destination too. That will combine exercising with some altruism.

This River Gym will offer all the facility a usual gym offers such as lockers, a reception desk and health food kiosks. All this would be housed in multiple points at the edges of each river body. Mitchell and Douglas put forth their views, “By continuing to provide vital health amenities, the River Gym can leave the realm of the glass box and become a useful multi-planar kinetic space.”

It is stated that they are dealing with concepts to harvest wasted human energy but utilizing a knee brace that captures energy from walking and uses it to produce electricity, or a system capable of channeling kinetic energy into electric power is awesome. These necessary devices are being developed by the Idaho based company Motion 2 Energy

Monday, November 8, 2010

Chevy Electric car

http://www.chevrolet.com/volt/?seo=goo_|_2009_Chevy_X-Div_|_Electric_Vehicle_Segment_|_Electric_Car_HV_|_electric_car