3D solar cells!!

Newswise | 3D Solar Cells Boost Efficiency, Reduce Size and Weight

Unique three-dimensional solar cells that capture nearly all of the
light that strikes them could boost the efficiency of photovoltaic (PV)
systems while reducing their size, weight and mechanical complexity.

technorati tags:solar, cell, 3d

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Sketchup Log Cabin 30 x 40

Here is a design I did in Sketchup rather quickly to describe a building that ight be going up in the next few months.  It was quick and dirty, but i think you can get the point.

Erik

technorati tags:log, home, cass, lake

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Rammed Earth "WOW”

A Brilliantly Constructed Building Captures the Essence of the Mystical Desert Landscape and the Culture of the First Nations People of the Okanagan Region.

canadianarchitect.com – Canadian Architect – 4/8/2007

technorati tags:rammed, earth, construction

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Flying Wind Generators

Technology monitor | Flying wind farms | Economist.com

Power generation: If people object to wind farms cluttering up the countryside, one answer might be to put them in the air

Sky Wind Power

IF IT ever seems windy where you live, be thankful you do not live
10km up in the air. At that height, the jet-stream winds blow stronger
and more constantly than ground level winds, carrying up to a hundred
times more energy.

So, just as oil companies are drilling deeper and in more remote
locations in search of new reserves, pioneer wind-power engineers are
looking higher in the sky for new sources of energy. Conventional
turbines will not take them there—the highest to date is just over 200
metres tall. So they are trying to invent a whole new technology for
harvesting wind: electricity generators that fly.

technorati tags:wind, power

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Flexible Batteries That Never Need to Be Recharged

Flexible Batteries That Never Need to Be Recharged

European
researchers have built prototypes that combine plastic solar cells with
ultrathin, flexible batteries. But don’t throw away your battery
recharger just yet.

By Tyler Hamilton

Technology Review: Flexible Batteries That Never Need to Be Recharged

technorati tags:flexable, batteries, solar, cell

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Auto parts that defy be-leaf

Auto parts that defy be-leaf

An entrepreneur from Espanola, Ont. — located about 70 kilometres
west of Sudbury — says he’s found a way to produce car bodies from one
of Canada’s greatest untapped renewable resources: maple leaves.

“Year
after year, I’d rake up tonnes and tonnes of maple leaves and just
place them in a compost pile,” says Frederic Acer, a biochemist who
also happens to love automobiles. “I kept thinking that there had to be
some way of using the complex chemicals formed in maple leaves to
produce a product more useful than a mountain of mulch.”

Acer
says he was inspired by an old calendar he found in a machine shed
depicting a 1948 woody wagon. “If they could build an esthetically
pleasing auto body out of wood, why not try to do the same with
leaves?” says Acer. “Maple leaves are abundant, they’re Canadian,
they’re renewable and that’s an environmental triple play in my books.
They just fall to the ground after the tree is finished with them.”

technorati tags:maple, leaves, space, age, bakelite

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