Cruising the Cloud Tops of Venus With a Solar Powered Airplane: related news

Cruising the Cloud Tops of Venus With a Solar-Powered Airplane

With all the orbital missions at the various planets in our solar system, scientists have been able to glean an amazing amount of data to help us understand our neighboring worlds. But imagine a mission that could fly lower than orbital altitudes – actually flying in the atmosphere of another planet and closer to the surface – and imagine how much more detailed the data could be. This type of mission would be especially helpful on Venus, where the intense heat and crushing air pressure at the surface basically precludes the success of any type of lander mission. So, last year, when NASA formed a Science and Technology Definition Team (STDT) to study the concept of a flagship mission to Venus, waiting in the wings was Dr. Geoffrey Landis.

Carmanah Partners With ENCOM to Offer Wireless Control of Solar-Powered Traffic Beacons

VICTORIA, BC--(MARKET WIRE)--Jul 15, 2008 -- Carmanah Technologies Corporation (Toronto:CMH.TO - News) (Other OTC:CMHXF.PK - News) (Frankfurt:QCX.F - News) -- Solar technology provider, Carmanah Technologies Corporation, has partnered with ENCOM Wireless Data Solutions Inc. to add a wireless interface capability to its line of stand-alone solar-powered traffic beacons. According to Richard Chesson, Carmanah Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, this arrangement represents the next step in the evolution of Carmanah's solar powered LED (light emitting diode) lighting technology for traffic applications.

Carmanah Partners With ENCOM to Offer Wireless Control of Solar-Powered Traffic Beacons

Vancouver, BC, July 16, 2008--(T-Net)--Carmanah Technologies Corporation, has partnered with ENCOM Wireless Data Solutions Inc. to add a wireless interface capability to its line of stand-alone solar-powered traffic beacons. According to Richard Chesson, Carmanah Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, this arrangement represents the next step in the evolution of Carmanah's solar powered LED (light emitting diode) lighting technology for traffic applications.

First Solar (FSLR): Encourage profit taking/shorting here - FBR

FBR is out with a negative call on First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) and SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR) after Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA), an industry association bridging the solar and utility industries, announced yesterday theresults of its survey of utility companies (titled:"Utility Solar Electricity Market Survey"). Summary: (a) projected PV installations of ~2 GW, on aggregate, over the next three to five years in solar portfolio, versus >3 GW for CSPs across the U.S. utilities; (b) possible paradigm shift, with utilities owning the plants and PV suppliers becoming only turn-key provider (if ITC is given to utilities instead of third parties).

Our Solar System: An Island of Calm in a Violent Universe (and it's special, too)

We humans like to think we're special, but astronomically speaking we've been shot down quite severely and humbly put in our place. We're not at the center of our solar system, nowhere near the center of our galaxy and certainly not at the center of the universe. But now comes great news for the human psyche from scientists trying to explain solar system formation. As far as solar systems go, we have thought ours was just average and that all solar systems were like ours. But in looking at the 300 plus extrasolar planets that have been discovered and the systems they are in, none so far are anything like our home solar system. In fact, say scientists at Northwestern University, we may be special after all. In a study using computer simulations (this is the week for computer simulations, see here and here), researchers ran more than a hund

Researchers Improve Solar Cell Performance

Vegematic writes "Researchers at MIT have improved solar collectors using dyes. They just increased their performance results by a factor of 4. These paint-on materials can increase the power obtained from existing solar cells by a factor of over 40 without needing to track the sun. 'By collecting light over their full surface and concentrating it at their edges, these devices reduce the required area of solar cells and consequently, the cost of solar power. Stacking multiple concentrators allows the optimization of solar cells at each wavelength, increasing the overall power output.' There is also a shorter FAQ available."

Floating Cities On Venus

Geoffrey.landis writes "Some of you may have heard me talk about colonizing Venus. Well, for those who haven't, Universe Today is running story about floating cities on Venus. It's a reasonable alternative for space colonies — after all, the atmosphere of Venus (at about 50 km) is the most Earth-like environment in the solar system (other than Earth, of course). '50 km above the surface, Venus has air pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0C-50C range, a quite comfortable environment for humans. Humans wouldn't require pressurized suits when outside, but it wouldn't quite be a shirtsleeves environment. We'd need air to breathe and protection from the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.'"

LDK Solar gets 440 MW solar wafer contract

Chinese solar product maker LDK Solar Co. Ltd. said Friday it will supply about 440 megawatts of solar wafers to South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., the world's largest shipbuilder.

Draining iPhone 3G battery? Get a solar-powered case for charging it on the go!

Now that the brouhaha over the iPhone 3G has calmed down, users have now to deal with the problem of low battery life so typical of a device packed with Apps and with 3G connectivity. We have earlier dealt with ways and means of increasing the battery life of the iPhone 3G. For those of you for whom the tips to expand the iPhone 3G battery life appears unexciting, they are left with no other option other than recharging the battery as frequently as possible. To make the recharging process easier you could try the Solar Powered cases for the iPhone 3G. The inbuilt 1500mAh case battery can provide one full charge to the iPhone, the case battery in turn being recharged through the solar panel mounted on the front of the case or in case of non-availability of sunlight via mini USB.

LDK Solar Awards $220M Contract to Applied Materials for Precision Wafering Systems to Support Production Expansion

LDK Solar Co., Ltd, a leading manufacturer of solar wafers, awarded a US$220 million contract to Applied Materials, Inc. to provide precision wafering systems to support its next phase of production expansion. The systems are scheduled to begin shipping to LDK Solar's facility in Xinyu, PRC, in early 2009, and will support LDK Solar's previously announced plans to expand to 3.2GW annualized wafer capacity in 2010.

Solar Power Hits Home

There were limits to how green Bruce Letvin was willing to go. For years, the 53-year-old anatomy professor had wanted to install solar panels on his Manhattan Beach, Calif., home. But the up-front installation costs always outweighed the benefits for the environment and his conscience. This spring, however, he managed to work out green financing with the help of solar company SunPower. After determining that his electricity bills and roof exposure were large enough to make him a good candidate for its solar panels, the company, based in San Jose, Calif., helped him find a 15-year loan for the $64,500 system. Yes, his $550 loan payment is more than the $300 or so he used to spend each month on electricity bills--so far, he has generated enough solar power that he doesn't need to take any juice from the grid--but after he pays off the loan

QinetiQ claims solar plane broke unmanned flight record

QinetiQ's Zephyr solar-powered, high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle taking off in Arizona. The ultra-lightweight plane built from carbon fiber and powered using paper-thin solar panels broke the world record for longest-lasting unmanned flight, its manufacturer claims.

World's Largest Solar Plants Planned In California

Pickens writes "Two photovoltaic solar power plants will be built in San Luis Obispo County in California, covering 12.5 square miles, that together will generate about 800 megawatts of power, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale. 'If you're going to make a difference, you've got to do it big,' said Randy Goldstein, the chief executive of OptiSolar. OptiSolar will employ enough of its amorphous silicon thin-film solar panels at its Topaz Solar Farm project to generate 550 MW. Meanwhile, SunPower will install mechanical tracking for its more expensive 250 MW-worth of crystalline silicon photovoltaics at High Plains Ranch II in a bid to boost their efficiency by 30 percent from following the sun across the sky.

BeaconEquity: Trade Alerts on Solar Technology Stocks: BSRC, ESLR, FSLR, SPWR, WWAT, LDK

Today's Trade Alerts include: BioSolar Inc. (OTCBB: BSRC), Evergreen Solar Inc. (Nasdaq: ESLR), First Solar Inc. (Nasdaq: FSLR), SunPower Corp. (Nasdaq: SPWR), WorldWater & Solar Technologies Corp. (OTCBB: WWAT) and LKD Solar Co. Ltd. (NYSE: LDK).

First Oort Cloud Object May Have Been Discovered

SpuriousLogic alerts us to the discovery of what may be the first object ever discovered from the inner edge of the Oort cloud. 2006 SQ372 was found on images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Its discoverers theorize that this comet-like object and the planetoid Sedna, first spotted in 2003, might be Oort denizens. Sedna is in a stable orbit but 2006 SQ372 has been perturbed by the gravity of Uranus and/or Neptune, simulations suggest, so its orbital history is unknowable. 2006 SQ372 will travel out to 1,600 AU on this orbit, making it the most distant solar-system object yet found. The Oort cloud is believed to extend ten times that far, or about a quarter of a light-year. "Theoretical models of the formation of the Oort Cloud predict that it should also host a massive inner part, but comets from this region never make it near Earth.

'Impressionist' Spacecraft to View Solar System's Invisible Frontier

(PhysOrg.com) -- At the edge of our solar system in December 2004, the Voyager 1 spacecraft encountered something never before experienced during its then 26-year cruise through the solar system — an invisible shock formed as the solar wind piles up against the gas in interstellar space. This boundary, called the termination shock, marks the beginning of our solar system's final frontier, a vast expanse of turbulent gas and twisting magnetic fields.

The Ideal, Non-Proprietary Cloud

jg21 writes "As previously discussed on Slashdot, the new tendency to speak of 'The Cloud' or 'Cloud Computing' often seems to generate more heat than light, but one familiar industry fault line is becoming clear — those who believe clouds can be proprietary vs. those who believe they should be free. One CEO who sides with open clouds in order that companies can pick and choose from vendors depending on precisely what they need has written a detailed article in which he outlines how, in his opinion, Platform-as-a-Service should work. He identifies nine features of 'an ideal PaaS cloud' including the requirement that 'Developers should be able to interact with the cloud computer, to do business with it, without having to get on the phone with a sales person, or submit a help ticket.

Multiple Experts Try Defining "Cloud Computing"

jg21 writes "Even though IBM's Irving Wladawsky Berger reports a leading analyst as having said recently that 'There is a clear consensus that there is no real consensus on what cloud computing is,' here are no fewer than twenty attempts at a definition of the infrastructural paradigm shift that is sweeping across the Enterprise IT world — some of them really quite good. From the article: 'Cloud computing is...the user-friendly version of grid computing.' (Trevor Doerksen) and 'Cloud computing really is accessing resources and services needed to perform functions with dynamically changing needs. An application or service developer requests access from the cloud rather than a specific endpoint or named resource.' (Kevin Hartig)"

If Life Exists on Venus, Could it be Blown to Earth?

We've heard about the possibility of extraterrestrial life arriving on Earth from another planet, asteroid or comet, but the mode of transport usually includes a chunk of rock falling through the atmosphere as a meteorite. But there could be another form of interplanetary transportation. What if there are microbial forms of alien life floating in the upper atmosphere of Venus (the planet's clouds contain compounds that could indicate presence of micro organisms)? Could they make the trip to Earth? Apparently it is possible, if Earth and Venus are correctly aligned, the solar wind may carry microbes from the upstream Venus to downstream Earth in a matter of days…

Cloud Cities On Venus?

It's not easy to find comfortable places to stay elsewhere in the solar system. However, Geoffrey Landis, a scientist at NASA's Glenn Research Center, suggests that Venus might be a good place to look.

Chinese solar cell maker JA Solar to get new COO

Chinese solar cell maker JA Solar Holdings Co. Ltd. said Thursday that Elmer Hsu will replace Kang Sun as chief operating officer on Aug. 1.

Cloud Computing - Yahoo, HP & Intel Embark on Joint Cloud Research

Yahoo, HP and Intel are going to do cloud research together using a global, multi-data center, open source Cloud Computing Test

New solar concentrators could replace solar panels

BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhuanet) -- A new compact method utilizing solar concentrators to generate electricity could make solar panels that contain expensive photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity a thing of the past.

New solar concentrators could replace solar panels

BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhuanet) -- A new compact method utilizing solar concentrators to generate electricity could make solar panels that contain expensive photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity a thing of the past.

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