BCIL's blog

The Solar Thermal Industry is looking confidently toward the future following a strong performance in 2008, when the European market grew by 60%. This, despite the difficult economic condition around the world, according to new numbers relesed by the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF).

eSolar this week unveiled its 5-megawatt Sierra SunTower solar power plant. The full-scale power plant produces electricity for Southern California Edison (SCE). eSolar says its technology resolves many of the problems that have held back large scale solar in the past including cost, speed of deployment and proximity to existing transmission lines.

SolarCraft announced today that it has completed installation of a solar pool heating system at the United States Coast Guard Training Center in Petaluma, CA. The new solar powered water heating system helps maintain an average water temperature of 80 degrees for the 200,000 galloon training pool. It will save the Coast Guard thousands of dollars and eliminate hundreds of tons of harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

At noon on the equator our sun gives us one kilowatt of free energy per square meter! This gift from space is ultimately the basis of all of our power sources except nuclear and geothermal. Wind, hydro, biomass and all fossil fuels ultimately derive from solar energy. All of these economical sources of energy benefit from concentration and storage of the sun's energy.

Americans have been given a respite from the constant dribble of bad news. And so have the country's entrepreneurs. As the nation's gross domestic product is stabilizing, investment in start-ups is considerably picking up.

Finally, a pesticide that can rid your house of all those pesky children and animals. Oh no wait, scratch that. It’s SAFE for children and animals. That packaging had me confused.

EcoSMART claims to be the only 100% safe insecticide that is proven to work.

The Challenge

This is an unusual use for solar power, but it actually does make some sense. It's a solar powered hanging basket rotator. Using the power of the sun, it'll spin your basket for you so that your plants get their fair share of daylight. But, do evenly exposed hanging plants justify the use of solar cells and electronics?

Red Ferret pointed out this random solar gadget. From Basket Rotator's website:

It’s good enough for Kourtney and Khloe…Kardashian, that is. Is it good enough for you?

With brand new eco-spas opening there, maybe Miami is.

Long thought of as the playground of the rich, famous, and scantily clad, Miami is ushering in a new era. Sure the beaches are still lined with 5-star resorts, pricey restaurants, and beaches full of thongs and speedos, but the city is also now host to a small bevy of eco spas and resorts.

By year 2050, the global population is expected to reach 9 billion, 80 percent of which is projected to live in cities. Currently, most local supermarkets rely on stocking practices that, when applied to dense populations, add unnecessary costs to the average city household’s food budget. Transported from locations often hundreds or thousands of miles away, fruits and vegetables incur transportation, storage, and handling costs that amount to 70 percent of the goods’ final retail price.

ROUND ROCK, TX — Dell, which has long had a goal to be the world's greenest technology company, has made some significant improvements in environmental performance for fiscal year 2009, according to its newly released CSR report.

At the top-most level, Dell has managed to reduce its greenhouse gas intensity -- the number of metric tons of GHGs emitted per million dollars of revenue -- by nearly 7 percent, down to 6.65 tons per million dollars from 7.12 from fiscal year 2008.

WASHINGTON , DC — Ramping up efforts to ensure that green buildings deliver on their promise, the U.S. Green Building Council rolled out a sweeping initiative this week to amass data on all LEED-certified structures and use the information to help close any gaps between expected and actual performance.

Outside Lands has given attendees a one-stop shop for all things green, from food to recycling to renewable energy to volunteerism. The festival has carved out a corner dubbed "Eco Lands" and it seems to be having an impact.

It usually happens this way, simply because "green" is still something to be pointed out, rather than fully integrated. But despite that somewhat frustrating fact, Eco Lands really is a well done hotspot for giving attendees an eco-friendly oasis in what is mostly a mainstream outdoor music fest.

Grazing sheep are a practical means of controlling weeds and grasses that otherwise would block the sun from ground-level solar arrays. The practice, begun in Europe, may well become a world standard, and has already spread to America (see below for example).

The requisite fence around the solar farm perimeter not only 'keeps the sheeps,' it fences out peeps who might otherwise steal the sheeps...and panels. So, it's something insurance companies have come to insist upon.

How to keep the wolves at bay, though?

Eco Factor: Sustainable treehouses generate solar electricity.

Do treehouses always have to be constructed by nailing a room into place, thereby jeopardizing the life of the tree? Heinz Legler has a different thinking, the designers have unveiled their latest treehouses, dubbed V-Houses, which do offer the same adventure as a treehouse does but without actually constructing the house on a tree.

Eco Factor: Electronic Ink displays powered by solar energy.

Korean manufacturer Neoluxiim has developed a new range of solar-powered E-ink displays that support rotating display images and text. The new displays are self-contained units with everything from the power generator, the program that run the displays and the unit itself is packed into a single unit.

Eco Factor: Solar-powered miniature robots for military surveillance.

Eco Factor: New data center strives to cut emissions by 20%.

Hitachi Data Systems have powered up a new data center, which is being claimed to be one of the most robust and green data centers in the world. The new center breaks ground in Yokohama, Japan and is designed to cut carbon emissions by as much as 20%, by making use of energy saving and energy efficient systems.

Dubbed Leav, the shelters come with roof-mounted solar panels that provide the shelter with as much electricity as it needs. Coupled with solar thermal panel to provide hot water for kitchen and bathroom the shelters ensure that your camping vacation isn’t a threat to the ecosystem. To give more autonomy to the campers, the shelters are equipped with dry toilets, which save a lot of precious water.

Greening your garden is not just about having the lushest lawn or the most vibrant rosebushes in the neighborhood. Instead, it's about creating a garden you can enjoy today while keeping an eye on sustainability. It's using water efficiently, protecting the quality of air and water supplies, and replacing harsh chemicals with natural, healthy alternatives.

ABC News Australia reports that planned modifications to a proposed green energy solar tower (also known as a solar chimney) in north-western Victoria might mean the tower will no longer be the world's tallest man-made structure.

The tower - to be built north of Mildura - was to have been one kilometre high, producing enough green energy to power up to 200,000 households.

Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) scientists have demonstrated an ability to precisely grow skyscraper like "towers" composed of carbon nanotubes atop photovoltaic cells to extract more power from the sun.

The nanometer-scale scale towers, which would be coated by the special p-type and n-type semiconductor (p/n) junction materials used to generate electrical current, would increase the surface area available to produce electricity.

The United States House of Representatives has passed an Energy Bill requiring utility companies to produce 15 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020.

The Bill passed in the House on a 241-172 vote, despite strong opposition from electric utility companies and the White House, which has threatened to veto the measure. Twenty six Republicans voted in favor and nine Democrats opposed the bill.

As the famous singer once said, I believe the children are our future; and while we at GreenBiz.com spend most of our time covering the actions of business and the grown-ups who run them, we are always keeping our eyes out for signs of sustainability from the up-and-comers.

There is plenty of promising news coming out of universities, as we found at the beginning of this year with our State of Green Business report. But a recent survey of young adults in Britain gives us pause.

NASA has planted its flag on planet Earth (for a change) with the groundbreaking of their “Sustainability Base” this week. The new endeavor is located on their Ames campus in Moffett Field, CA just outside of Silicon Valley and has specs that are pushing green building to new limits. In order to deliver in true sustainable style, NASA recruited Inhabitat favorite, William McDonough + Partners, to take on the 50,000-square foot collaborative support facility.

So you eat certified-free-range poultry in your Platinum LEED home and you wash the dishes in your Energy Star compliant dishwasher. Fine. But is that a sustainable sweater you’re wearing? If a new organization called Labeling Ecologically Approved Fabrics (LEAF) gets its way, you might someday be able to prove it.