It's Friday again and my showcase blog is "Eco Geek: technology for the environment--home". Eco Geek monitors the current explosion in technology designed to mitigate our impact on the environment. They report on clean technology, and provide good analysis and criticism, which I appreciate. Topics include robotic farms, organic LEDs, hybrid cars, "clean coal" (an oxymoron I particularly enjoyed reading about), tidal power and their latest post being affordable solar power. Here's a little of what they say (you should check the blog for more):
"Silicon is pretty expensive these days, and traditional solar panels need a lot of it to convert light to energy. But two of the great opportunities for expansion in solar is using less silicon, by concentrating light on smaller panels, and increasing efficiency by tilting panels to follow the sun...roof-mounted units called the 'heliotube' concentrates the sun's rays onto a very thin strip of silicon solar panels at the base of the tube...These panels use 88% less photovoltaic material, but are almost as efficient per square foot as traditional solar panels." Eco Geek discusses some of the flaws and solutions in the works.
"Silicon is pretty expensive these days, and traditional solar panels need a lot of it to convert light to energy. But two of the great opportunities for expansion in solar is using less silicon, by concentrating light on smaller panels, and increasing efficiency by tilting panels to follow the sun...roof-mounted units called the 'heliotube' concentrates the sun's rays onto a very thin strip of silicon solar panels at the base of the tube...These panels use 88% less photovoltaic material, but are almost as efficient per square foot as traditional solar panels." Eco Geek discusses some of the flaws and solutions in the works.
As a home owner thinking of converting our house into solar power, I was particularly interested in this post. We'll be doing a lot of research before we make our final decisions but that's where it starts.
