Scientists have developed a method to turn plastic waste into clean hydrogen using solar power and acid from old car batteries.

The one-pot process transforms hard-to-recycle plastics into valuable industrial chemicals and clean fuel, potentially creating a circular upcycling system that tackles multiple problematic waste streams at once, the researchers say.

The world produced more than 440 million U.S. tons (400 million metric tons) of plastic waste in 2025, but less than 10% of this was actually recycled. The challenge lies in the sheer number of different plastics we use. Some, such as polypropylene and polyethylene, can be easily melted down and remolded, while others require specific chemical processes to break the polymer structure down into its individual chemical building blocks (known as monomers).

Condensation polymers like polyethylene terephthalate (PET, often used for packaging food and drinks), polyurethane (PU, which can be used in foam cushioning, bedding and insulation), and nylon fall into this latter category. A chemical reaction between two different monomer units releases water to form bonds between these fragments, creating a long alternating polymer chain. These bonds can later be broken by adding water back to the molecule, releasing the monomer building blocks and breaking down the plastic.

In the new study, researchers took this one step further — not just recovering the monomers but also upcycling the plastic waste into other valuable chemical products.

The team set its sights on hydrogen, a green fuel source and an important industrial feedstock, and developed a process to combine plastic depolymerization and hydrogen generation in a single reactor. While both steps have been studied individually before, no one has ever achieved them together. The researchers reported their findings in the journal Joule April 6.

The scientists began with the depolymerization step. Focusing on PET, they ground samples of plastic bottles into a fine powder and dissolved them in concentrated sulfuric acid. "We heat that up to 140°C [degree Celsius, or 284 degrees Fahrenheit] and that hydrolyses the plastic back into its monomers," study first author Kay Kwarteng, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, told Live Science. "For PET, that is ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid," which are both valuable industrial chemicals, he added.

However, rather than using fresh sulfuric acid from a bottle, the team saw an opportunity to harness another problematic waste stream. "Sulfuric acid is a component of car batteries, but when they are recycled, they only recover the lead component," Kwarteng said. "We could extract the battery acid and use that instead. It makes a strong argument for sustainability."

The terephthalic acid conveniently precipitates out of the reaction as it forms, leaving an acidic mixture rich in ethylene glycol.

However, the second step, which produces hydrogen from the ethylene glycol monomer, usually needs alkaline conditions to work. The sunlight-powered reaction breaks the ethylene glycol down into even smaller chemical products, but the researchers first had to design a new catalyst that would remain stable in the battery acid.

They settled on a molybdenum metal system and added it directly to the mixture. "Once we expose the catalyst to light, it oxidizes the ethylene glycol which generates electrons," Kwarteng said. "These electrons can convert protons," — present in the acid mixture — "to hydrogen, and they oxidize the ethylene glycol to acetic acid."

The hydrogen and acetic acid formed in this process are less valuable than the ethylene glycol monomer, but crucially the approach provides a sustainable entry point for other related chemistry, said Erwin Reisner, professor of energy and sustainability at the University of Cambridge. "Instead of making hydrogen, we can hydrogenate organics," he told Live Science. "It's exactly the same system, but instead of evolving hydrogen, we just add unsaturated organics and hydrogenate them directly."

Hydrogenation is an important industrial reaction that inserts hydrogen across a double bond, typically using hydrogen generated from fossil fuels. But in a follow-up study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition on Monday (May 4), the researchers demonstrated how their new process could be used to hydrogenate nitrogen-containing substrates into important pharmaceutical building blocks. "When we use plastics for this hydrogenation, we reduce the carbon footprint by half," Kwarteng said.

The team are now looking at tailoring the reaction design for the needs of industry and plan to test the process in a flow reactor — a system which continuously converts reactants to products, rather than producing hydrogen in batches.

The use of so many recycled reagents is impressive, Amit Kumar, a catalysis researcher at the University of St Andrews' School of Chemistry, told Live Science. But he noted that the photochemical step could prove challenging for industry. "I think it's super interesting that you can just use this plastic as a hydrogen source and science-wise it's very exciting that you can use visible light," he said. "The next step towards commercialization will be scaling up and demonstrating the process in flow."

Carbon dioxide emissions from China have flatlined or fallen for 21 months, meaning the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter may have reached a global turning point sooner than expected.

China's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions dropped by 1% in the last quarter of 2025 and likely by 0.3% over the whole year, keeping them just beneath the record highs reached in May 2024, according to a new analysis by the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for Carbon Brief. The nearly two-year flatline or fall is the longest on record not driven by an economic slowdown in the country, which emits over a third of global CO2.

If the trend holds, China's emissions could reach an all-time peak before 2030 — the country's official target date — or even sooner, marking a key win in the global effort to curb fossil fuel use and slow global warming. Yet whether the drop is sustained or demand will drive a rebound in emissions before the officially targeted peak remains an open question.

"CO2 emissions fell year-on-year in almost all major sectors in 2025, including transport (3%), power (1.5%) and building materials (7%)," Lauri Myllyvirta, lead author of the analysis and co-founder of CREA, wrote on Bluesky. "The key exception was the chemicals industry, where emissions grew 12%."

"The numbers imply that China's carbon intensity — its fossil-fuel emissions per unit of GDP — fell by only 12% during 2020-25, short of the 18% target," Myllyvirta added. "China now needs to cut carbon intensity by around 23% over the next five years in order to meet its Paris [Agreement] commitments."

Driving the trend are China's development of renewable energy technologies and electrified transport, alongside dropping demand for cement and steel. China is the world's largest producer of both commodities, accounting for around 48% and 54% of the global production of cement and steel, respectively, with each contributing roughly 15% to the country's total greenhouse gas emissions.

The plateau also occurred despite a growth in China's power consumption by 520 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2025, according to the CREA analysis. That's because clean energy production grew to match power consumption, with solar power output increasing by 43%, wind by 14% and nuclear 8% year over year, offering roughly 530 TWh of new power. Energy storage capacity also grew by a record 75 gigawatts (GW), outpacing the 55 GW growth in demand.

But whether this plateau holds, temporarily rebounds or dips into permanent decline will hinge on decisions made by the Chinese government in its next five-year plan in March.

CREA's analysis notes some ambiguity in the CCP's planning. An explainer for the upcoming plan refers to a "plateau" in coal consumption from 2027, suggesting that absolute reductions in emissions may have to wait until after 2030.

"Moreover, allowing coal consumption in the power sector to grow beyond the peak of overall coal use and emissions implies slowing down China's clean-energy boom," the CREA report says. So far, the boom has continued to exceed official targets by a wide margin." Clean energy technologies drove more than a third of China's economic growth in 2025.

China is complementing its clean energy investments with ecological engineering projects that include planting trees around the Taklamakan Desert, which has turned one of the world's largest and driest deserts into a carbon sink.

Meanwhile, today (Feb. 12), the Trump administration is set to revoke the 2009 "endangerment finding," which established a legal mechanism to regulate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. And on Wednesday (Feb. 11), Washington Coal Club gave Trump the "Undisputed Champion of Coal" award a day after he issued executive orders for the U.S. Department of Defense to buy coal-generated electricity.

Scientists in China have developed a new way of harvesting solar power by applying a translucent coating over a window to direct energy from ambient light to the edge of the glass — where it can be captured and stored.

With rising global energy demands, there is a need for new technologies that can incorporate energy capture into their architecture. The cost of solar installations has dramatically decreased since 2010, resulting in over four million installations in America. This trend is predicted to continue, but what if we could improve solar utilization by using the windows of buildings as well? That's what scientists aimed to address in a study published July 28 in the journal PhotoniX.

Solar power-generating windows are already available, which use amorphous silicon cells, gallium arsenide, organic photovoltaics or other methodologies to capture solar power. However, they are expensive and inefficient, capturing only up to 20% of the sunlight. Furthermore, the tinting effect of current solar windows causes light entering the room to be dimmed, which may be appreciated in the summer, but isn't as desirable during winter. Light distortion is also a challenge, especially if it masks a pleasant view.

Scientists from Nanjing University in China have instead developed a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) — a colorless liquid that can reflect light due to its helical structure. CLCs are typically used in thermometers and color displays.

Multiple layers of CLCs can be used to redirect light to create a colorless and unidirectional solar concentrator (CUSC). The CUSC can then direct light using CLCs to the edge of the glass, where the light energy is captured by integrated silicon-photovoltaic cells.

Engineers applied this coating through an intensive cleaning process, where they directed high-frequency sound-waves onto the glass to remove all impurities from it.

In tests, five CLC layers were applied to a 1 inch (2.5 centimeter) diameter glass. This CUSC prototype was able to power a 10mW fan outside in Nanjing, China, during the summer.

It is projected that this technology would be most effectively deployed in cities near the equator, which typically experience more sunshine throughout the year compared to cities closer to the poles. It is unclear what effect, if any, this new technology would have on the natural heating of rooms by sunlight.

The authors mention in the study the proliferation of super high-rise buildings. However, such architecture is limited to larger cities, and there are signs that high-rise buildings are becoming less popular. In 2021, China banned new buildings over 1,640 feet (500 meters) tall and now imposes restrictions on buildings over 820 feet (250 m) — with even stricter limits in force in smaller cities.

It is estimated that a typical 6.5 feet (2 m) wide window with CUSC could multiply the solar energy gathered by 50. However, further testing would be required to establish how performance scales up with windows typically fitted into modern homes, or the expansive panels found in commercial buildings. There are unanswered questions, such as how the CUSC will guard against rain, hail or snow, bird droppings (which are acidic) — and window cleaning. No mention is made in the study of any protective layer to shield the CUSC. Any such layer, if added, may of course create new challenges if it impedes energy capture.

Regardless, the CUSC is a significant step forward in solar energy capture for buildings and could form an important part of the global renewable energy market if the technology is further developed.

Self-lofting devices propelled by sunlight have been tested for the first time in near-vacuum conditions akin to those in Earth's upper atmosphere, paving the way for a revolution in atmospheric science.

The tiny, lightweight membranes — which are made of aluminum oxide and a layer of chromium — take advantage of a phenomenon known as photophoresis, which occurs when one side of a slice of thin material gets warmer than the other. As gas molecules bounce off the warmer side, they push the membrane upward. However, the effect is very weak and thus can be observed only in very low-pressure environments, such as those near the edge of space.

In the recent experiment, described in a paper published Aug. 13 in the journal Nature, the researchers made 0.4-inch-wide (1 centimeter) specks float in a vacuum chamber when exposed to light about 55% as intense as natural sunlight.

"That's a big result showing that this would actually work in the same conditions that you have in the upper atmosphere," said Ben Schafer, lead author of the paper and a researcher at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

"We are talking [about a] region of the atmosphere that is sometimes called the ignorosphere, because there is nothing that can fly there. Being able to send something out there would enable us to take a lot more precise data than we currently can," he told Space.com.

Related: Earth's elusive 'ignorosphere' could shed new light on auroras

The ignorosphere includes the mesosphere — the layer of Earth's atmosphere at altitudes between 30 and 53 miles (50 to 85 kilometers) — plus a section of the thermosphere up to an altitude of 100 miles (160 km). The ignorosphere is too high for aircraft to reach but too low for instruments on board low-Earth-orbit satellites to sample. Sensors placed on sounding rockets make occasional measurements of the region, but most of the processes taking place there are little understood.

The ignorosphere forms a boundary between Earth's gaseous shroud and outer space. When coronal mass ejections — vast expulsions of charged plasma from the sun — hit Earth, they deposit most of their energy in the ignorosphere. Auroral glows occur in the ignorosphere, and so do the energetic exchanges that lead to geomagnetic storms that can knock out power grids and throw satellites off their orbits. These unexplored altitudes are also where satellites burn up during their reentries and where the air pollution produced during their incineration accumulates.

"Getting accurate data from this region about winds, temperatures, pressures, etc. would really up the accuracy of existing global climate models," Schafer said. "It would fill that gap that we have."

Shafer and his colleague Angela Feldhaus spun out a company from Harvard SEAS called Rarefied Technologies. The aim of the startup is to conduct realistic atmospheric experiments with such devices in the hope of commercializing them.

To lift miniature sensors and antennae into the ignorosphere, the membranes would have to be somewhat bigger, around 2.4 inches (6 cm) wide. "It would be a disc that could loft about 10 milligrams [0.0004 ounce] into near space," Schafer said.

The devices would be released from a stratospheric balloon about 30 miles (50 km) above Earth. From there, they would self-propel to altitudes of up to 60 miles (100 km), where they would remain during the day. At night, the devices would sink down in the atmosphere, but if they were lightweight enough, wouldn't fall all the way back to Earth and would rise back up after sunrise, Schafer explained.

The researchers want to focus on improving the material and its structure to decrease its weight, which would make larger devices possible.

Building on earlier ideas

Photophoresis was discovered in the 19th century but remained mostly overlooked until recently. Advances in material science and nanofabrication technology in the past couple of decades finally made it possible to contemplate its practical applications.

Schafer and his colleagues got inspired by a theoretical paper by David Keith, then a professor of applied physics at SEAS and now at the University of Chicago. Keith proposed that reflective membranes powered by photophoresis could be used as a geoengineering intervention to reduce Earth's temperature if the world failed to contain climate change by reducing its carbon emissions.

Keith oversaw Schafer's work until 2023.

"This is the first time anyone has shown that you can build larger photophoretic structures and actually make them fly in the atmosphere," Keith said in a statement. "It opens up an entirely new class of device: one that's passive, sunlight-powered, and uniquely suited to explore our upper atmosphere."

Schafer thinks the technology could find many uses. It could help study Mars' thin atmosphere or even compete with SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband megaconstellations.

"If you were to put small communications packages on board of these things and lofted them into the mesosphere, you could actually rival data rates of low-Earth-orbit constellations," Schafer said.

He admitted that the devices would have to get quite a bit lighter and larger to host large-enough communication payloads and navigation units to maintain a stable position above fixed spots on Earth.

The burning of fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — propelled humanity into the industrial revolution, remaking civilization in its wake. Gasoline powers many of the cars we drive; coal and natural gas are central to global energy. But if aliens were building their own society, would they have to go down the same path as humanity, relying on fossil fuels to build their advanced civilization? Or could they find an alternative?

To build a modern civilization, aliens would likely need to use a source of energy that's just as abundant as fossil fuels, said Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiologist and author of "The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch" (Penguin Press, 2014). It would be hard for them to simply bypass the production of fossil fuels, he noted.

Dartnell drew a parallel with humans: In the 18th century, the world entered the industrial revolution by tapping into what appeared to be a limitless source of energy. Coal burned longer and produced more power than wood and charcoal.

"Prior to that, energy was the fundamental limitation on how much you could do," he said. "It would limit how much you could mine and move things around, what you could build, and what you could make."

The question of whether humans could have bypassed fossil fuels to reach alternative energy sources is "somewhat of a chicken-and-egg dilemma," Dartnell told Live Science. For instance, producing solar panels requires silicon, and extracting and refining this element demands a significant amount of energy.

Related: How do we turn oil into plastic?

The easiest way for intelligent aliens to create fuel would be to start by burning stuff, like humans did, until they can move to other sources of energy. They could perhaps harness the light of a star or of the kinetic energy of the wind. But wind energy on its own would not create the high temperatures needed for the smelting, forging and casting of metals, which would be needed for industrialization, Dartnell said.

Meanwhile, hydropower would only work if the planet had significant amounts of accessible liquid, which most planets we've found don't possess, added Seth Shostak, an astronomer and director of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute.

Could other planets have fossil fuels?

Scientists still haven't found a planet with abundant oxygen in its atmosphere, though trace amounts have been found on Mars, Venus and Jupiter's moon Europa. Oxygen is the key ingredient in burning fossil fuels because it enables combustion, which is what releases the energy stored in coal, oil and gas.

Fossil fuels are created from life — they're the transformed remains of plants and animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. Dartnell suggested that plate tectonics are a crucial part of the puzzle of how these life forms came to exist. "There's good reason to suspect that in order to have intelligent life on an Earth-like planet, you need to have plate tectonics to regulate the climate for long periods of time," he said.

A 2022 study by researchers at the University of Sydney reported how Earth's tectonic plates move carbon between the deep Earth and the surface, forming what they call a "carbon conveyor belt." This process is key to maintaining Earth's "Goldilocks" climate, making the planet habitable, according to the study. What's more, plate tectonics also results in continental drift and the creation of conditions that produce large amounts of coal, a fossil fuel, he added.

Put another way, plate tectonics can help pave the way for life and create conditions to help it become fossil fuels; it can also create ideal conditions for life that may become intelligent enough to harness those fuels.

"In a sense, you get a two-for-one," Dartnell said. "If you have a planet with active plate tectonics, that regulates the climate, which allows for the evolution of intelligent complex life."

Scientists have yet to find another planet with active plate tectonics. Nor have they found fossil fuels in space. What they have discovered, however, is evidence of fossil fuels' chemical building blocks: hydrogen and carbon. Approximately 75% of the universe's mass is composed of hydrogen, said Shostak. Additionally, scientists have found a field of liquid hydrocarbons on Saturn's moon Titan. Intelligent aliens could, hypothetically, attempt to burn these elements to produce energy.

A human point of view

Of course, aliens aren't necessarily bound by the same constraints as humans, and our imagination often limits us to thinking in terms of a human timeline. "It's hard for us to predict what the aliens might do," Shostak told Live Science. It's like asking Julius Caesar what he thought the Romans would be doing with oil in 2025, when they were only using small amounts of oil for lamps. "Julius would probably have some ideas, all based on Roman knowledge," he said. "He would completely miss the [mark]. You have to keep that in mind."

An intelligent alien civilization could be nothing like what we expect, Shostak added. While aliens would likely need an abundant energy source to advance their civilization, who's to say what form that energy would take? The answer could lie beyond human understanding.

Extraterrestrials quiz: Are you an alien expert, or has your brain been abducted?

Scientists have made a cheap and flexible solar cell that lasts nearly 10 times longer than others of its type, an advance that could one day help to revolutionize solar energy production.

Often referred to as the "holy grail" of solar power, perovskite cells offer a lightweight alternative to traditional silicon-based solar technology. Their flexible structure enables them to be applied to cars and phones in the form of a printable layer so they can charge on the go.

Sounds too good to be true? So far, you're right. Perovskites come with some major flaws. Notably, they degrade quickly due to chemical reactions with moisture in the air that make them leak iodine.

But now, a team of researchers has found a solution to this problem. By embedding nanoparticles within the perovskites, they produced a new cell that lasts for 1,530 hours, a near-tenfold increase on previous perovskite solar cell designs. The researchers published their findings Feb. 20 in the journal EES Solar.

"By addressing these common challenges we see with perovskite solar technology, our research blows the doors wide open for cheaper, more efficient and more widely accessible solar power," study co-author Imalka Jayawardena, an engineering researcher at the University of Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute in the U.K., said in a statement. "What we've achieved here is a critical step toward developing high-performance solar cells that can withstand real-world conditions — bringing us closer to their commercial use at a global scale."

Solar power surge

As the fastest-growing and cheapest form of renewable energy, solar power is key to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But the technology's growth is hampered by its reliance on silicon, a finite and non-renewable resource that, in its purest form, is costly to produce.

To get around this bottleneck, scientists have looked to develop perovskite alternatives — synthetic versions of naturally occurring calcium titanium oxide crystals that can be made at a fraction of the cost. But unlike pure silicon cells, which can last for decades, solar cells made from perovskite only last for 100 or so hours, drastically limiting their utility.

Related: Ultra-thin solar 'coating' can turn phone cases and EVs into mini power generators

In the new study, the scientists looked for a way to trap the iodine that leaks from perovskites. Their solution was to embed tiny nanoparticles of aluminum oxide within the cells as they were manufactured. This not only prevented the iodine from leaking but also created a more uniform and electrically conductive structure.

After testing these cells under extreme heat and humidity, the researchers found that the modified cells maintained a high performance for more than two months (1,530 hours), a significant improvement on the 160-hour lifespan of unenhanced perovskite cells.

The researchers plan to continue investigating their new technique to see if these gains can be built upon further.

"A decade ago, the idea of perovskite solar cells lasting this long under real-world conditions seemed out of reach," study lead author Hashini Perera, a researcher at the Advanced Technology Institute, said in the statement. "With these improvements, we're breaking new ground in stability and performance, bringing perovskite technology closer to becoming a mainstream energy solution."

LAS VEGAS — Engineers have showcased a prototype electric vehicle (EV) that can drive for up to 40 miles (64 kilometers) per day using just solar power.

The new solar-powered car, called the Aptera Launch Edition, also offers up to 400 miles (640 km) of range from a single charge via an electrical output, company representatives said in a statement. The production-ready EV was shown for the first time this month at CES 2025 in Las Vegas.

The aerodynamic car is built from a carbon fiber sheet molding compound (CF-SMC) — a composite material made from chopped carbon fibers and a thermosetting resin. The car's design also incorporates four solar panels placed on the hood, dash, roof and hatch.

Aptera representatives say the material reduces the complexity of building each vehicle, meaning the design needs one-tenth of the parts required for traditional designs, with just six key body components making up the chassis. This makes the vehicle lighter and more energy-efficient than conventional EVs, while offering a 50% reduction in aerodynamic resistance.

Related: Honda promises solid-state batteries that could double EV range to 620 miles by 2030

The vehicle also has an energy efficiency rating of 100 Watt-hours per mile (Wh/mile) — a measure used to determine the amount of energy used to drive 1 mile (1.6 km). By contrast, a Tesla Model S (released in 2022) consumes 194 Wh/mile in the city in mild weather and 288 Wh/mile on the highway in mild weather, according to the EV Database.

At a maximum range of 440 miles — including 40 miles using solar power and 400 miles using electricity — the Aptera EV may also overtake the current longest-range vehicles in production. The Mercedes-Benz EQS 450+ has a maximum range of 425 miles (684 km), according to the EV Database, followed by the Lucid Air Grand Touring at 410 miles (660 km).

Harnessing solar power in EVs is not unheard of, with Mercedes-Benz debuting a new type of solar paint in November 2024 that could power an EV for up to 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) per year in optimal lighting conditions.

It is unclear when Aptera plans to launch its new EV, but the company struck an agreement with the electronics company LG at CES 2025. LG will provide the company with cylindrical battery cells between this year and 2031 to support the ramp-up in manufacturing.

Chinese scientists have announced a plan to build an enormous, 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) wide solar power station in space that will beam continuous energy back to Earth via microwaves.

The project, which will see its components lofted to a geostationary orbit above Earth using super-heavy rockets, has been dubbed "another Three Gorges Dam project above the Earth."

The Three Gorges Dam, located in the middle of the Yangtze river in central China, is the world's largest hydropower project and generates 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. According to one NASA scientist, the dam is so large that, if completely filled, the mass of the water contained within would lengthen Earth's days by 0.06 microseconds.

The new project, according to lead scientist Long Lehao, the chief designer of China’s Long March rockets, would be "as significant as moving the Three Gorges Dam to a geostationary orbit 36,000km (22,370 miles) above the Earth."

"This is an incredible project to look forward to," Long added during a lecture in October hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), as reported by the South China Morning Post. "The energy collected in one year would be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth."

Despite recent advances in the cheapness and efficiency of solar power, the technology still faces some fundamental limitations — such as intermittent cloud cover and most of the atmosphere absorbing solar radiation before it hits the ground.

Related: NASA and Japan launch world's 1st wooden satellite into orbit. Here's why it could help solve a huge problem for our planet.

Scientists have proposed a number of Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) technologies which would continuously collect and transmit energy from sunlight in space, where it is 10 times more intense than at Earth's surface.

But building an appropriately giant array would take many launches, meaning that most proposals failed to get off the ground.

To overcome this challenge, Long and his team are working on the development of the Long March-9 (CZ-9) reusable heavy-lift rocket, which will have a lift capacity of at least 150 tons (136 metric tons).

Besides being used for satellites, the rocket will also be key to China's plans to reach the moon — where it wants to build an international lunar research base by 2035.

China isn't the only nation eyeing plans for solar satellite arrays. The U.S. companies Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, the European Space Agency, and Japan's JAXA space agency have also been investigating the technology, with the latter scheduling the launch of a small, proof-of-concept satellite this year to assess its feasibility.

A new type of solar paint could extend the range of electric vehicles (EVs) to thousands of miles.

Revealing the technology on Nov. 24, automaker Mercedes-Benz representatives said its new photovoltaic paint could power an EV for up to 7,456 miles (12,000 kilometers) per year in optimal lighting conditions.

The "nanoparticle" paint can be applied directly to the body of an EV, reducing dependence on external charging. It is also based on non-toxic and readily available raw materials, making it both environmentally friendly and cost-effective to produce, Mercedes-Benz representatives said in a statement.

The technology could be a game-changer for EVs, particularly in parts of the world that receive lots of sunlight. It would also overcome a key barrier facing current EVs: their comparatively limited range and reliance on charging infrastructure, which varies hugely worldwide.

Related: Future electric cars could go more than 600 miles on a single charge thanks to battery-boosting gel

Most current EVs use high-performance lithium-ion batteries which, while improving every day, are still hindered by long charging times and limited energy density.

Photovoltaic paint converts light energy into an electrical charge via a process known as the photovoltaic effect.

When photons (light particles) hit the paint, semiconductor nanoparticles known as quantum dots absorb the light energy and transfer it to electrons within the material. The movement of electrons creates an electric current, which is collected through tiny conductive layers embedded in the paint. This current can then be directed to the EV’s electrical system to either power its components immediately or charge its battery for later use.

Drivers in LA may never need to charge their EVs again

Mercedes-Benz's solar paint comprises a nanoparticle-based layer beneath the vehicle's topcoat that allows 94% of the sun’s energy to pass through to the photovoltaic coating underneath. The solar coating is sandwiched between the body panel and the visible layer of paint, meaning it doesn't affect the vehicle's appearance.

According to Mercedes-Benz representatives, one paint coating is a mere 5 microns (0.0005 centimeters) thick and weighs just 1.8 ounces (50 grams) per 10.8 square feet (1 square meter, meaning it can be applied to almost any part of the car’s surface akin to "a wafer-thin layer of paste."

Despite being extremely lightweight, the paint packs an energy efficiency of 20%, meaning one-fifth of sunlight energy that hits its surface is converted into usable power. This is comparable to the efficiency of common solar panels.

The automaker claimed that covering a 118-square-feet (11-square-meter) area — comparable to a mid-size SUV — with the paint generated enough electricity to cover most daily driving needs. For example, drivers in Stuttgart could cover 62% of their daily commute using solar energy alone, while those in sunny Los Angeles might generate enough energy to meet 100% of their driving needs, representatives said.

The photovoltaic system generates energy even when the vehicle is off, assuming there is sunlight. The automaker suggested that excess energy could be fed back into drivers’ homes via bidirectional charging.

Unfortunately, representatives from Mercedes-Benz didn't specify exactly when (or if) its paint tech would hit the road. Instead, they said their current focus was ensuring it could be applied "on all exterior vehicle surfaces — regardless of their shape and angle."

In a hall of mirrors, you can see yourself stretched, squashed and multiplied thanks to the reflective physics of mirrors. One mirror reflects onto another, which reflects onto another, and so on. It may seem as if it could go on an infinite number of times. But can mirrors facing each other really create infinite reflections?

In theory, yes — but the imperfections in mirrors make it effectively impossible, experts told Live Science. Mirror materials commonly used today, such as glass coated in thin layers of silver and aluminum, which absorb small amounts of light with each reflection. 

"If we had a perfect mirror, the reflections would be infinite," Rajesh Menon, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Utah, told Live Science in an email. "However, there is always a small loss at each reflection, primarily due to absorption. So, after many reflections, the light is completely absorbed, and hence reflections end." 

In this case, a perfect mirror doesn't necessarily refer to a mirror that reflects the most beautiful image but rather to a mirror that reflects 100% of light without absorbing any of it. 

Related: Can anything travel faster than the speed of light? 

When mirrors bounce light back and forth, they are participating in the law of reflection, Menon said. Under this physical law, light strikes and bounces off a smooth, reflective surface with an equal angle. This is why your reflection in a bathroom mirror looks realistic, whereas your image in a funhouse mirror is distorted. 

However, these reflections lose their clarity over time. "Every time the light hits the mirror, not all of it is reflected — only 90-98% gets reflected, and the rest is absorbed," Julie Bentley, a professor of optics at the University of Rochester, told Live Science in an email. As a result, these reflections get dimmer and dimmer as more light is absorbed, until there is not enough light to see a reflection, Bentley said. This is why, when you're waving at your reflection a hundred layers deep, you might notice that it's very difficult to see.

How many reflections are possible?

With very good mirrors — one that absorbs minimal light — you may be able to create "many thousands or tens of thousands of reflections," Menon said. 

Currently, no mirror material can reflect 100% of visible light. However, it can be done under very specific parameters for a single wavelength, or "color," of light, Menon said.

"This is typically achieved by canceling out transmitted light via a phenomenon called 'destructive interference,'" Menon said, referring to light that passes through a medium instead of being reflected or absorbed. 

If you picture a wavelength of light as a rope oscillating up and down, then this phenomenon occurs when two wavelengths are oscillating in exactly opposite ways. In other words, one "rope" has a peak where the other has a valley. As a result, both of their motions are canceled. This helps to maximize the amount of reflection.

And while typical mirrors may not be perfect reflectors, creating even thousands of reflections can be an important scientific tool, Bentley and Menon said. For example, these large numbers of reflections can be used to create lasers or to help solar panels absorb light.

"Light trapping in thin solar cells uses this phenomenon to allow the light to bounce around many times, so the probability of light being absorbed increases," Menon said. "We want the light to be absorbed in order to generate electricity!"

Wind and solar power has generated more electricity than coal for the first time ever in the U.S, according to new federal data.

Wind and solar sources produced a combined 252 terawatt-hours in the first five months of 2023, compared with coal's output of 249 TWh, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) seen by E&E News has revealed. This marks the very first time that renewable energy has outperformed coal without including hydroelectric power in the count.

The milestone is a consequence of the continuing decline of coal usage in the U.S., as coal facilities shut down and are replaced by renewable energy and natural gas energy sources. At its peak in 2007, coal accounted for 49.9% of the U.S.'s energy production.

Related: Climate change could trigger gigantic deadly tsunamis from Antarctica, new study warns

"Our official estimates from the Electric Power Monthly show that combined electricity generation from wind and solar exceeded generation from coal in January, February and March," Chris Higginbotham, a spokesperson for the EIA told E&E News. "Our real-time data, which is subject to revision, indicate that trend continued in April and May."

The news comes after a brief resurgence in coal demand last year, caused by the war in Ukraine and the rebounding of post-pandemic economies — both of which sent natural gas prices soaring. However, since then, a mild winter, a step-up in natural gas production and slowing global economic growth has driven down gas prices and subsequent demand for coal, according to the World Bank. 

The U.S. has shut down around 14 gigawatts of its coal capacity — roughly 7% of its coal fleet — since the start of 2022. Since April 2022, U.S. fossil fuel emissions have declined by 5.6%, according to the emissions tracker Carbon Monitor.

This change reflects a shift in focus of U.S. energy policy toward more carbon-neutral energy sources, which has led to the closing down of many coal plants across the nation.

"We expect that the United States will generate less electricity from coal this year than in any year this century," Joe DeCarolis, the EIA administrator, said in a forecast in May. "As electricity providers generate more electricity from renewable sources, we see electricity generated from coal decline over the next year and a half."

However, fossil fuels still dominate the U.S.'s power generation. Natural gas is still the largest source of power in the country, accounting for about 39% of US electricity in 2022. It is expected to fall to 38% this year and 37% in 2024.

Start your kids on a journey into the world of robotics with this 3-in-1 solar powered robot kit - the perfect educational toy for your curious little scientists.

Here at LiveScience, we naturally feel very strongly about introducing science to children at a young age. Sure, there are plenty of great apps they can learn with on their iPad or tablet, but there’s nothing better than hands-on learning, particularly when it comes to science. This mini solar robot kit, available from Currys for just £13.97, down from of £21.99, is the perfect way to introduce the idea of solar power to your children.

We’re not quite sure if this little bot’s face is cute or creepy, but we’ve got a bit of a soft spot for it anyway, and hopefully your kids will have too. Suitable for ages five and up, this kit from 4M contains everything you need to build a pocket-sized robot in one of three ways. You can put it on wheels, where the sun will power it to roll forwards; you can give it legs, allowing it to walk forward; or you can give it arms so it can climb along a clothes line.

If you’re thinking of buying the kit for younger children, parental supervision will definitely be required. Some of the parts of the robot are very small, and some screws and wiring are needed to be put in place for the solar panel to correctly operate. You’ll also need to have your own crosshead screwdriver, so bear that in mind before you buy.

Solar power is a fascinating thing, particularly for youngsters who can see a robot they’ve built with their own hands move “as if by magic”. This set provides a great place to start conversations about how solar power works, and the importance of renewable energy as a whole. Plus, you’ll get your own little robot buddy. Win-win.

Currys also has offers on more Green Science kits too. How about a half-price Eco-Tech Bulb Science Kit? Or a Hybrid Rover Robot with a saving of £8?

If you’re after more deals and ideas on science toys, check out our buying guide on the best robot kits for kids.

Solar panels crown rooftops and roadside signs, and help keep spacecraft powered. But how do solar panels work?

Simply put, a solar panel works by allowing photons, or particles of light, to knock electrons free from atoms, generating a flow of electricity, according to the University of Minnesota Duluth. Solar panels actually comprise many, smaller units called photovoltaic cells — this means they convert sunlight into electricity. Many cells linked together make up a solar panel.

Each photovoltaic cell is basically a sandwich made up of two slices of semi-conducting material. According to the Proceedings National Graduate Conference 2012, photovoltaic cells are usually made of silicon — the same stuff used in microelectronics.

To work, photovoltaic cells need to establish an electric field. Much like a magnetic field, which occurs due to opposite poles, an electric field occurs when opposite charges are separated. To get this field, manufacturers "dope" silicon with other materials, giving each slice of the sandwich a positive or negative electrical charge.

Specifically, they seed phosphorous into the top layer of silicon, according to the American Chemical Society, which adds extra electrons, with a negative charge, to that layer. Meanwhile, the bottom layer gets a dose of boron, which results in fewer electrons, or a positive charge. This all adds up to an electric field at the junction between the silicon layers. Then, when a photon of sunlight knocks an electron free, the electric field will push that electron out of the silicon junction.

A couple of other components of the cell turn these electrons into usable power. Metal conductive plates on the sides of the cell collect the electrons and transfer them to wires, according to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). At that point, the electrons can flow like any other source of electricity.

Researchers have produced ultrathin, flexible solar cells that are only 1.3 microns thick — about 1/100th the width of a human hair — and are 20 times lighter than a sheet of office paper. In fact, the cells are so light that they can sit on top of a soap bubble, and yet they produce energy with about as much efficiency as glass-based solar cells, scientists reported in a study published in 2016 in the journal Organic Electronics. Lighter, more flexible solar cells such as these could be integrated into architecture, aerospace technology, or even wearable electronics.  

There are other types of solar power technology — including solar thermal and concentrated solar power (CSP) — that operate in a different fashion than photovoltaic solar panels, but all harness the power of sunlight to either create electricity or to heat water or air.

Additional resources

To learn more about solar energy, you can watch this video by NASA. Additionally, you can read the article Top 6 Things You Didn’t Know About Solar Energy by America’s Energy Department.

Bibliography

“Solar Power: A Feasible Future”. Sustainability, University of Minnesota Duluth (2020). https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream

“A Review on Comparison between Traditional Silicon Solar Cells and Thin- Film CdTe Solar Cells”. Proceedings National Graduate Conference (2012). https://www.researchgate.net

“How Solar Cells Work”. The American Chemical Society. https://www.acs.org

“Solar Photovoltaic Cell Basics”. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/solar-photovoltaic-cell-basics

It sounds like science fiction: giant solar power stations floating in space that beam down enormous amounts of energy to Earth. And for a long time, the concept – first developed by the Russian scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, in the 1920s – was mainly an inspiration for writers.

A century later, however, scientists are making huge strides in turning the concept into reality. The European Space Agency has realised the potential of these efforts and is now looking to fund such projects, predicting that the first industrial resource we will get from space is “beamed power”.

Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, so there’s a lot at stake. From rising global temperatures to shifting weather patterns, the impacts of climate change are already being felt around the globe. Overcoming this challenge will require radical changes to how we generate and consume energy.

Renewable energy technologies have developed drastically in recent years, with improved efficiency and lower cost. But one major barrier to their uptake is the fact that they don’t provide a constant supply of energy. Wind and solar farms only produce energy when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining – but we need electricity around the clock, every day. Ultimately, we need a way to store energy on a large scale before we can make the switch to renewable sources.

Benefits of space

A possible way around this would be to generate solar energy in space. There are many advantages to this. A space-based solar power station could orbit to face the Sun 24 hours a day. The Earth’s atmosphere also absorbs and reflects some of the Sun’s light, so solar cells above the atmosphere will receive more sunlight and produce more energy.

But one of the key challenges to overcome is how to assemble, launch and deploy such large structures. A single solar power station may have to be as much as 10 kilometres squared in area – equivalent to 1,400 football pitches. Using lightweight materials will also be critical, as the biggest expense will be the cost of launching the station into space on a rocket.

One proposed solution is to develop a swarm of thousands of smaller satellites that will come together and configure to form a single, large solar generator. In 2017, researchers at the California Institute of Technology outlined designs for a modular power station, consisting of thousands of ultralight solar cell tiles. They also demonstrated a prototype tile weighing just 280 grams per square metre, similar to the weight of card.

Recently, developments in manufacturing, such as 3D printing, are also being looked at for this application. At the University of Liverpool, we are exploring new manufacturing techniques for printing ultralight solar cells on to solar sails. A solar sail is a foldable, lightweight and highly reflective membrane capable of harnessing the effect of the Sun’s radiation pressure to propel a spacecraft forward without fuel. We are exploring how to embed solar cells on solar sail structures to create large, fuel-free solar power stations.

These methods would enable us to construct the power stations in space. Indeed, it could one day be possible to manufacture and deploy units in space from the International Space Station or the future lunar gateway station that will orbit the Moon. Such devices could in fact help provide power on the Moon.

The possibilities don’t end there. While we are currently reliant on materials from Earth to build power stations, scientists are also considering using resources from space for manufacturing, such as materials found on the Moon.

Another major challenge will be getting the power transmitted back to Earth. The plan is to convert electricity from the solar cells into energy waves and use electromagnetic fields to transfer them down to an antenna on the Earth’s surface. The antenna would then convert the waves back into electricity. Researchers led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have already developed designs and demonstrated an orbiter system which should be able to do this.

There is still a lot of work to be done in this field, but the aim is that solar power stations in space will become a reality in the coming decades. Researchers in China have designed a system called Omega, which they aim to have operational by 2050. This system should be capable of supplying 2GW of power into Earth’s grid at peak performance, which is a huge amount. To produce that much power with solar panels on Earth, you would need more than six million of them.

Smaller solar power satellites, like those designed to power lunar rovers, could be operational even sooner.

Across the globe, the scientific community is committing time and effort to the development of solar power stations in space. Our hope is that they could one day be a vital tool in our fight against climate change.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook and Twitter. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Editor's note: The U.S. Space Force's next secret mission of a robotic X-37B space plane was delayed by bad weather. Another launch attempt will be made Sunday morning (May 17).

A secretive military space plane will soon test the idea of using microwave beams to send solar power to Earth from space. The U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane is expected to launch into orbit Saturday (May 16) with an experiment onboard that tests the possibility.

The Photovoltaic Radiofrequency Antenna Module Flight Experiment (PRAM-FX) represents the first orbital test of a sci-fi technology first envisioned in the 19th century — solar satellite power. Build a big solar array in orbit, the idea goes, and it could collect enough sunlight (unfiltered by atmospheric effects or clouds,) to generate a powerful beam of microwaves. A collection station on Earth would then convert that beam into useful power. Launch any satellite into a high enough orbit and it will receive a near-constant stream of sunlight, with only brief passes through the Earth's shadow. A whole constellation of solar arrays might offer uninterrupted 24/7 power.

"The idea got a lot of attention, and sort of came into its own in the late 60s, early 70s, when there became an imperative to explore energy sources other than fossil fuels ," when fossil fuel supplies became unstable and prices skyrocketed, said Paul Jaffe, a civilian electronics engineer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and leader of the NRL's beamed energy research.

Related: The X-37B space plane: 6 surprising facts

That research tapered off as fuel prices dropped, Jaffe said. But in 2007, the Department of Defense picked up the baton. A satellite beam is a much safer and more efficient way of getting power to an overseas military base than convoys of fuel trucks, he said. Those trucks, stuffed with combustible fuel, can be attacked and destroyed, risking the lives of their drivers and guards. But a microwave beam passes invisibly through the atmosphere unguarded. You can't shoot at it.

With time, the beams might also power military drones, like the ones now used for spying and killing overseas. Powered by a microwave beam, the drones could buzz endlessly overhead without ever having to land to refuel. (Even further down the road, of course, there might be civilian applications for the technology.)

So far, PRAM-FX can't do any of that. But it offers the NRL team a first chance to test a key component of a solar power satellite in the environment where it would eventually function.

The experimental device sandwiches its electronics between a solar array and a backplate, according to Chris DePuma, an electronics engineer at the NRL also working on the project. The solar array collects energy from the sun, converts it to a DC electric current, and then uses that current to power a 2.45 gigahertz microwave "that theoretically in the future would be transmitted out of an antenna pointed toward a receiver site," DePuma told Live Science.

For PRAM-FX's purposes though, the microwave energy lands on a coaxial cable that "dumps it off" into an instrument used to record data, DePuma said. The NRL researchers will compare that output to the energy taken in using the solar array to figure out the efficiency of their setup.

"This will inform the feasibility and the economics of something like solar power satellites," Jaffe told Live Science.

This isn't the first time these researchers have tested the equipment. Experiments in vacuum chambers on Earth, using lamps to mimic the effects of the orbital sun, have offered clues as to how PRAM-FX will operate. But there's nothing quite like being up there, the researchers said.

The secretive platform

PRAM-FX will be one of several research payloads aboard the X-37B when it launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday. That's unusual: In its previous five missions, the Air Force didn't mention X-37B carrying scientific payloads. In its cumulative seven years and 10 months in orbit, no details about the space plane's payloads or precise purpose were ever disclosed.

This time around though, a bit more information is on offer. According to a Space Force statement, the X-37B will carry a "service module" into space with the spaceplane's first payload of scientific experiments. It will deploy a satellite known as FalconSat-8 with some experiments aboard, while PRAM-FX and another experiment will remain attached to the X-37B.

(The X-37B belongs to the Air Force, but the Space Force is handling the launch. The Space Force is a nascent branch of the military, established in December 2019 by President Donald Trump and charged with handling space warfare.)

A key advantage of affixing PRAM-FX to the X-37B, Jaffe said, is that his team can take advantage of the X-37B's communications systems, propulsion, and other resources. That saves the NRL team the trouble and expense of building in all the machinery necessary for a free-floating satellite to operate. And the X-37B's orbit will offer lots of different sun angles at which to test the equipment, DePuma said.

Related: US Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane (infographic)

The uncrewed space plane operates a bit like a smaller, robotic Space Shuttle — launching atop an Atlas V rocket and staying in orbit for months on end. Its previous, fifth mission lasted 780 days before the machine glided back to Earth on Oct. 27, 2019.

NRL researchers considered other possibilities for getting PRAM-FX into space, including one of NASA's space station resupply missions, before landing on the X-37B.

"We did explore a number of different hosts as possibilities, and ultimately this offered the best combination of availability for flight and ability to integrate with — since our experiment isn't well suited to being its own satellite because of its [bulky] dimensions," Jaffe said.

This won't lead to a weapon, at least according to the Department of Defense scientists

If you've played the game SimCity, you might be familiar with a fictional scenario in which the beam from one such solar satellite gets diverted, setting fire to the surrounding area. It's also easy to imagine an orbital microwave beam being used as a weapon.

Related: The 22 weirdest military weapons

While it might not be technically impossible to engineer a disaster situation, Jaffe said, it's also not likely.

"Most people hear 'microwave' and picture that thing in their kitchen that cooks things," Jaffe said.

But microwave frequencies are also used in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth systems on your phone, he said, and they aren't inherently dangerous. And they aren't a terribly efficient way to set things on fire across great distances, because they have relatively low power densities.

"A way to think about power density is if you go out in the sun on a clear afternoon you're not going to burst into flames … but in that same sunlight that won't burst you into flames if you take a magnifying glass you can use it to set something on fire," Jaffe said. "Not because you're adding energy, but because you're concentrating the energy that falls on the magnifying glass such that it falls on a very small point."

That isn't a realistic scenario here, Jaffe said.

"For microwaves, it is very difficult to focus them in the same way that a magnifying glass focuses sunlight," Jaffe said. "That's why you need these really big antennas."

The bigger the antenna you have, the higher the power density you can create on Earth. But even huge antennas, more than a few miles long, would struggle to concentrate power to dangerous levels from the high orbits necessary. 

"A microwave-based solar satellite would be very difficult to weaponize, if it could even be done at all," Jaffe said.

Still, if a full constellation of solar power satellites ever do get built, he said, it will be key to design them so that they don't exceed limits on microwave power already set by radiation safety regulators to prevent cancers and fires.

In the near term, Jaffe said, this technology is being developed for the military. But down the road he said he hopes it will lead to a futuristic clean power source that could benefit everyone — and give the U.S. a new near-monopoly over a global energy supply. 

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Originally published on Live Science.

Scientists have published a detailed road map to move 139 countries to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, according to a recent study.

Energy experts at Stanford University reported that using wind, solar, geothermal and water (hydropower, tidal and wave) energy to electrify all economic sectors that need power to operate — including the electric grid itself, transportation, heating and cooling, industrial, and the agriculture, forestry and fishing industries — would significantly reduce energy consumption, decrease deaths from air pollution, create millions of jobs, stabilize energy prices and save trillions of dollars on health care and climate-related costs.

"We have individual plans for each of the 139 countries, and these represent more than 99 percent of all of the emissions worldwide," Mark Jacobson, director of Stanford University's Atmosphere and Energy program, told Live Science. [Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas]

The study looked at the world's energy needs, beginning with 2012 and projecting out to 2050. In 2012, the world used 12.105 terawatts (TW) of energy, which is equal to 12.105 trillion watts. By 2050, the world will need 20.604 TW if nothing changes and every country continues with the same approach it currently uses to meet energy demand, the researchers wrote in the study.

But if those same business sectors were to turn to renewable energy sources to electrify their all of their power requirements, the world would need just 11.804 TW to meet global power demands, according to the study. This is because electricity is more efficient than combustion, according to the researchers.

In a video explaining the main points of the study, Jacobson offered an example: In an electric car, he said, 80 to 82 percent of the electricity used goes toward moving the car; the rest is wasted as heat. In a gasoline-powered vehicle, on the other hand, only 17 to 20 percent of the energy in the fuel goes toward moving the car, and the rest is wasted as heat, he said.

Energy is also needed to mine, refine and transport fossil fuels. As such, switching to 100 percent renewable energy would eliminate these energy-intensive and environmentally destructive processes, the report authors said.

Road map for the future

In their study, Jacobson and his colleagues show how wind, water, geothermal and solar power can meet the worldwide demand for 11.804 TW of energy while avoiding the predicted global temperature increase of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels by 2050. The researchers outline how doing so would save the lives of 4 million to 7 million people who might have otherwise died from diseases caused by air pollution, save countries more than $20 trillion overall in health and climate costs, and produce a net increase of more than 24 million long-term jobs.

"It seems like a no-brainer to me," Jacobson told Live Science.

The study builds on previous work from Jacobson, who began his career as a research scientist trying to understand how air pollution affects the climate. He said that in the early years, he focused on the problems, but by around 1999, he started looking at solutions.

In 2009, Jacobson and Mark Delucchi, a research scientist at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, published a study in Scientific American that outlined a plan to power the world with 100 percent renewable energy.

In the ensuing years, Jacobson and Delucchi worked on follow-up studies that examined these issues at the state level, and the researchers have now expanded that research to 139 countries. Detailed energy data for the remaining 59 countries in the world did not exist and thus could not be included in the study, the scientists said.

The overall cost of transitioning to an infrastructure of 100 percent renewable energy — a plan that sees countries moving first to 80 percent renewable energy by 2030 — may, at first glance, seemcost-prohibitive, but Jacobson and his team have crunched those numbers, too.

Jacobson said that, when averaged over all countries, the cost of building renewable energy systems, including storage and transmission, is 8.9 centsper kilowatt-hour (kWh). In a world that doesn't transition and keeps the current fossil-fuel system, the cost is 9.8 cents/kWh.

And that doesn't include the cost to society.

Climate change's price

Fossil-fuel energy comes with health- and climate-related costs. The authors estimate that by 2050, countries will spend upwards of $28 trillion per year in costs for environmental, property, and human health issues related to global warming, includingfloods, real-estate destruction, agricultural loss, drought, wildfires, heat stress and stroke, air pollution, influenza, malaria, dengue fever, famine, ocean acidification and more. [5 Ways Climate Change Will Affect Your Health]

And if the world takes no action to address climate change and ice continues to melt at Earth's poles at the current pace, 7 percent of the world's coastlines will be underwater, Jacobson said.

Jacobson said the total societal cost of renewable energy — which includes the cost of health and climate issues, as well as the direct cost of energy for wind, water and solar power — is about one-fourth that of fossil fuels.

"In other worlds, you reduce the total cost to society by about 75 percent," he said. "The cost benefits of this are huge."

Several countries are already moving toward a renewable energy portfolio to meet 100 percent of their power demands for all business sectors, according to the study. The list includes Tajikistan (76.0 percent), Paraguay (58.9 percent), Norway (35.8 percent), Sweden (20.7 percent), Costa Rica (19.1 percent), Switzerland (19.0 percent), Georgia (18.7 percent), Montenegro (18.4 percent) and Iceland (17.3 percent).  

So far, the United States has just 4.2 percent of its total electricity generated by renewable sources. But the country has an advantage, according to the researchers. The study found that countries like the U.S., with more land per population size, would have the easiest time making the transition. Countries expected to have the most difficult time are those that are small, geographically, but have very large populations. Countries such as Singapore, Gibraltar and Hong Kong will have the biggest challenges transitioning to 100 renewable energy, according to Jacobson.

Still, there are ways to solve the problem, he said. These regions could turn to offshore wind energy, or they could exchange energy with a neighboring country, he added.

"With this information, we're giving confidence to countries that they can be self-sufficient," Jacobson said. "I'm hoping that different countries will commit to 100 percent renewable energy [by 2050] and 80 percent by 2030."

The study was published online Aug. 23 in the journal Joule.

Originally published on Live Science.

Solar power took a dip in the United States when the total eclipse swept across the country Monday (Aug. 21), as a new video shows.

As the solar eclipse moved from coast to coast, solar-energy generation dropped. The map shows the hottest zones — in dark orange — fading to nothingness as the moon covers the sun overhead, and then slowly coming back as the eclipse concludes.

The video was released by SolarEdge, a company that sells equipment that's designed to work with solar photovoltaic (PV) cells. It has 300,000 systems across the country.

"The solar eclipse reminded us all today of the importance of sunlight in our lives," SolarEdge said in a statement. "With solar energy now having greater significance for national power generation, we were able to track the path of the eclipse by monitoring energy production from PV systems."

While SolarEdge did not reveal exactly how much solar power was lost from its systems during the event, Mark Chediak, Naureen Malik and Brian Eckhouse reported at Bloomberg that across the country, about 12,000 megawatts of electricity come from solar power. The eclipse was billed as a major test of solar-power generation in the United States — a test that the country passed, they wrote.

In solar-heavy California, for example, the state reportedly used gas plants and hydropower generators, because these are systems that can be brought online quickly in the case of an outage. The state also urged users to conserve energy during the eclipse, to ease the burden on the grid.

The next major test of the grid will come in 2024, when a total solar eclipse crosses the United States through a swath that includes the population-heavy Eastern Seaboard. The affected states will include Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

A tech startup on a mission to make modern commercial and housing estates energy neutral has outfitted the headquarters of a Dutch bank with the world's first commercial, fully transparent solar-power-generating windows.

The windows have solar cells installed in the edges at a specific angle that allows the incoming solar light to be efficiently transformed into electricity.

"Large commercial estates consume a lot of energy," said Ferdinand Grapperhaus, co-founder and CEO of the startup, called Physee. "If you want to make these buildings energy neutral, you never have enough roof surface. Therefore, activating the buildings' facades will significantly contribute to making the buildings energy neutral." [Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas]

The windows could generate 8 to 10 watts of power, according to Grapperhaus.

"This enables the user to charge a phone per every square meter [11 square feet] two times a day," he told Live Science.

The first installation of Physee's PowerWindows was unveiled in June in Eindhoven, in the south of the Netherlands. The headquarters of Rabobank, the Netherlands' biggest bank, has been fitted with 323 square feet (30 square m) of the PowerWindows. The bank's employees will be able to plug their smartphones into the windows using USB ports to charge their batteries, according to Physee.

Other buildings in the Netherlands are already lined up to receive the innovative solar technology, which has won Physee a place on the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers 2017 list.

At the end of June, the headquarters of the Amsterdam-based charity the Postcode Lottery were fitted with the PowerWindows. After that, Physee will move forward with its first large-scale project: a 19,000-square-foot (1,800 square m) installation in a large, newly built residential complex in Amsterdam, the Bold tower.

"I believe that every new type of glass needs power," Grapperhaus said. "Either for the glass to be tinted electrically or heated or inside windows there are these solar blinds, which are electrical and can go up and down but also more and more you can see video glass."

Grapperhaus said that the cost of the wiring that brings power from the grid to such windows is considerable in large commercial estates, and investing in power-generating windows would therefore make commercial sense.

Physee is already working on the next-generation technology that would triple the efficiency of the PowerWindows. The surface of the second generation of PowerWindows will be coated with a special material that transforms oncoming visible light into near-infrared light, which is then transported toward the solar cells in the edges of the windows.

"It works similarly to a [glow-in-the-dark star]," Grapperhaus said. "The difference is that the glow star emits the green wavelength, but the coating on our windows emits light in near-infrared wavelength."

The coating is based on the rare-earth metal thulium. Grapperhaus, together with his friend Willem Kesteloo, discovered the ability of thulium to transform a broad spectrum of light into near-infrared light in 2014, during their studies at the Delft University of Technology.

"Over time, our efficiency will improve further due to the development of better solar cells but also because of the economies of scale," Grapperhaus said. "Right now, we are looking for iconic projects all over the world to show that a large glass building can be made energy neutral in an aesthetic way."

Physee was among 30 early stage technology pioneers highlighted for 2017 and selected by the World Economic Forum for their potential to change the world. The list, announced June 14, consisted of firms developing various technologies, including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity solutions and biotechnology.

Physee's presence on the list shows that the world is starting to take climate change seriously, Grapperhaus said.

"Ten years ago, sustainability was something that wasn't taken very seriously — not by venture capitalists, not by many governments and neither by large corporations," Grapperhaus said. "What I have seen over the last three years is that corporations are becoming more and more responsible, governments are becoming more and more supportive, and venture capitalists are becoming more and more interested" in sustainability.

Original article on Live Science.

From inefficient grids, shortfalls in policy, and even the occasional eclipse, solar-energy collection faces no shortage of hurdles. Scientists have discovered another stumbling block: air pollution. In certain parts of the globe, the accumulation of particulate matter on solar panels can curtail energy output by more than 25 percent, according to a new study. 

Published last week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, the study revealed that the regions most susceptible to this challenge also have the heaviest solar investments. These regions include China, India and the Arabian Peninsula.

"My colleagues in India were showing off some of their rooftop solar installations, and I was blown away by how dirty the panels were," Michael Bergin, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University and lead author of the study, said in a statement. "I thought the dirt had to affect their efficiencies, but there weren't any studies out there estimating the losses. So we put together a comprehensive model to do just that." [In Photos: The World's 10 Most Polluted Places]

Working with his counterparts at the Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar, Bergin measured the efficiency of the school's photovoltaic solar panels as they thickened with grime over several months.

The chemical analysis showed that 92 percent of the muck was natural dust. The remaining 8 percent? Pollutants from human activities, such as fossil-fuel and biomass combustion.  

Although this latter group contributed a smaller percentage of the overall grime on the solar panels, it can result in greater energy loss, Bergin said.

"The man-made particles are also small and sticky, making them much more difficult to clean off," he said. In addition, smaller particles block sunlight more efficiently than natural dust does, he added.

Although scrubbing the panels produced an immediate 50 percent uptick in energy gathering, Bergin warned against it.

"The more you clean them, the higher your risk of damaging them," he said.

In certain swaths of China, where pollution has a stranglehold, human-made particles can spell losses of tens of billions of dollars every year due to solar-energy-collection dips, Bergin said. (China currently snaps up about half of the world's new solar panels.)

"We always knew these pollutants were bad for human health and climate change, but now we've shown how bad they are for solar energy as well," Bergin added. "It's yet another reason for policymakers worldwide to adopt emissions controls."

Original article on Live Science. 

On the Tibetan Plateau in eastern China, 4 million solar panels silently soak up the sun as part of the Longyangxia Dam Solar Park. It’s the largest solar farm in the world, spreading over 10 square miles of the high desert landscape.

The complex sprung into existence in 2013 and has been rapidly expanding ever since. Satellite imagery curated by NASA’s Earth Observatory chronicles its growth from a cluster of panels to a sprawling solar farm that looks like a giant, angular thought bubble as of January 2017.

Unlike the world’s largest ball of twine, it’s more than just a roadside attraction. The installation currently has the capacity to generate 850 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power roughly 140,000 U.S. homes.

The Longyangxia Dam Solar Park is one piece of the massive renewable energy revolution taking place in China. The country invested $103 billion into renewables in 2015, the last year with data available. That helped the world set arenewable investment high water mark of $286 billion.

Related:

China to Plow $361 Billion into Renewable Fuel by 2020 Google Earth Shows 30 Years of Climate Change Renewable Energy Investments Set a Record in 2015

According to Greenpeace’s Energydesk, preliminary 2016 data show China installed the equivalent of one and a half soccer fields of solar panels every hour. That puts the country on track to meet its 2020 renewable goals sometime in 2018.

The renewables targets line up with China’s international climate commitments. The government previously announced it would lower the carbon intensity of its economy 40-45 percent below 2005 levels. Under the Paris Agreement, China has pledged to peak its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.

Looking ahead, the government announced in early January that it plans to spend $361 billion on renewable power generation from now through 2020. The influx of cash is expected to help China produce a total of 110 gigawatts of solar power and 210 gigawatts of wind power by 2020.

The increase in investment coincides with a 40 percent drop in the cost of installing utility-scale solar in China since 2010. Solar is expected to become even cheaper in the coming years, further creating more bang for China’s buck (or yuan as the case may be).

Despite the growth in capacity, China has struggled to balance demand and production. An economic slowdown has caused some solar and wind farms to sit idle or produce energy that can’t be used. Local governments and strong coal interests also present obstacles to China’s transition from the world’s biggest carbon polluter to an economy largely powered by clean energy.

China continues to see its emissions rise due largely to heavy coal use, which will increase the risks associated with climate change. The Longyangxia Dam Solar Park is a step toward ensuring China has the capacity to change that.

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Original article on Climate Central.

Facebook recently completed its first test flight of a solar-powered drone that is designed to beam down internet access to remote areas of the world.

The Aquila drone is being developed to broaden the scope of internet connectivity around the globe. "New technologies like Aquila have the potential to bring access, voice and opportunity to billions of people around the world, and do so faster and more cost-effectively than has ever been possible before," Jay Parikh, global head of engineering and infrastructure at Facebook, wrote in a blog post about the project.

When testing is finished, the autonomous aircraft will be able to circle a region measuring up to 60 miles (96.6 kilometers) in diameter, while using laser communications and millimeter wave systems (extremely high-frequency radio waves) to send connectivity down from an altitude of more than 60,000 feet (18,288 meters). [5 Surprising Ways Drones Could Be Used in the Future]

The huge unmanned airplane has a wingspan larger than a Boeing 737 airliner, but weighs hundreds of times less (about one-third of an electric car), according to Facebook, because of its carbon-fiber frame. In fact, half of Aquila's mass is made up of batteries, which enable the solar-powered plane to fly during the day and night.

"Aquila is designed to be hyper efficient, so it can fly for up to three months at a time," Parikh wrote. "The aircraft has the wingspan of an airliner, but at cruising speed it will consume only 5,000 watts — the same amount as three hair dryers, or a high-end microwave."

The recent test flight was the first for the full-scale drone, as previous tests used a one-fifth scale version of Aquila, according to the social media giant. Facebook said it plans to push Aquila to the limits in a lengthy series of tests over the coming months and years.

During the low-altitude test flight, Aquila flew for more than 90 minutes, which was three times longer than Facebook had planned. The flight's success included performance verifications of the drone's aerodynamics, batteries, control systems and crew training.

"In our next tests, we will fly Aquila faster, higher and longer, eventually taking it above 60,000 feet," Parikh wrote. "Each test will help us learn and move faster toward our goal."

There is still a long road ahead as the social media company continues to test its internet-delivery drone.

The current world record for solar-powered unmanned flight stands at two weeks, set by by defense technology company Qinetiq's Zephyr plane in 2010, according to the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI). To reach Aquila's goal of delivering internet connectivity for up to three months at a time, Facebook said it will require significant advancements in science and engineering.

"It will also require us to work closely with operators, governments and other partners to deploy these aircraft in the regions where they'll be most effective," Parikh said.

Original article on Live Science.

Electronics such as solar panels and flexible gadgets may someday be able to heal their "wounds," thanks to tiny, self-propelled nanoparticles that detect and repair damage.

Microscopic scratches in electrical circuits can interrupt the flow of electricity and seriously impact the performance of devices, but such scrapes are hard to detect and even harder to repair, researchers say.

Now, engineers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the University of Pittsburgh have designed so-called nanomotors that can autonomously detect and move toward these scratches before wedging themselves into the cracks. [Video: Watch the Nanomotors in Action as They Heal a Scratch]

Because the particles are made from gold and platinum, which conduct electricity, they bridge the gap — healing the wound — and complete the circuit again, according to the researchers. The nanomotors are applied in a liquid solution that also contains the hydrogen peroxide fuel that powers them.

Tiny particles found in the blood of mammals called platelets inspired the design of the system, said the scientists, who presented their research at the 251st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, on Sunday (March 13). These platelets clump together at the site of a wound to form clots that stem bleeding and help the wound heal.

To build the nanomotors, the researchers first created tiny gold spheres and coated one-half of each sphere with platinum, which acts as a catalyst to break down the fuel that propels them. [Top 10 Inventions that Changed the World]

Then, the gold hemispheres were specially modified to take advantage of the hydrophobic effect — the phenomenon that causes oil droplets to separate from water and merge together.

The cracks in electrical circuits are typically hydrophobic, so by making the particles hydrophobic too, the researchers were able to nudge the particles to naturally seek out scratches. The tiny particles are also drawn to other nanomotors, thus allowing them to form clusters that can bridge larger gaps in a circuit.

In the study presented at the meeting, and published last September, lead author Jinxing Li, a doctoral candidate in the UCSD Department of Nanoengineering, and his colleagues described how they had demonstrated that the system could repair a deliberately damaged circuit consisting of a gold electrode, a direct power source and a red LED, within 30 minutes.

According to Li, electronics' ability to self-heal could be particularly useful for solar panels, which are often placed in remote and hostile environments, as well as for future flexible electronics integrated into things like clothes that will experience a lot of mechanical stress.

"These are extremely small nanoscale particles for precision repairing, so they should save a lot of costs compared to using conventional soldering," Li told LiveScience. "The next step is to investigate how to integrate these nanomotors into electronic systems for on-demand activation."

Previous research into self-healing electronics generally has focused on creating self-healing materials that conduct electricity and can become integral parts of a circuit. For instance, Guihua Yu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas, and his team created a self-healing, conducting gel designed to act as a soft joint on circuit junctions, where breakages often occur.

"The nanomotors described in this study are more like a repairing tool outside the electronics," Yu told Live Science. "People can use the nanomotors to repair the cracks in circuits just like they use concrete to fix cracks on a wall."

But he said the need to create a designed chemical environment at the site of damage by adding fuel along with the nanomotors could make it challenging to  integrate the new technology in electronic s. A fully autonomous self-healing system would need to be able to sense when damage occurs and apply the nanomotors and fuel to the correct area.. "This poses a limitation in terms of how they can be applied to versatile electronic systems, and how they can be easily incorporated into circuits to do the self-healing work," Yu added.

The system relies primarily on materials traditionally used in electronics, and it does not matter how much time has passed since the damage to the circuit occurred, the UCSD researchers said.

The approach could also have applications outside electronics, Li said. In 2013, a group from Pennsylvania State University revealed a similar system that used the ion gradients caused by the minerals released when a bone breaks to power and direct drug-carrying nanoparticles to the site of the crack.

Li said their approach could be used for a similar purpose, and they have already demonstrated that they can power nanomotors using gastric acid, or even water, as fuel.

"The concept demonstrated here could have a profound impact on medicine delivery," Li said. "We would like to develop nanoscale medicine shuttles, which could swim and detect disease sites next. For example, we can modify nanomotors with antibodies on the surface and use them to swim and target tumors."

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

SAN FRANCISCO — The world's leaders should institute a carbon tax to mitigate the worst effects of climate change and help shift the global economy away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said.

The current lack of a carbon tax amounts to a hidden subsidy that incentivizes "bad behavior," Musk said here Tuesday (Dec. 15) at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

"It's kind of like if we had high taxes on fruits and vegetables and low taxes on cigarettes and alcohol," said Musk, the founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX. "That wouldn't make sense, but that's sort of what we have now with respect to energy, with very powerful forces trying to keep it that way." [Earth in the Balance: 7 Crucial Tipping Points]

At heart, prices are just a form of information that "tell people what to do, and what things should be favored over another thing. And so when the prices are wrong, then the wrong thing happens in the economy," he added. "Any sort of carbon tax would reduce the effective error in the system of prices in the economy."

Musk is working to reduce humanity's dependence on gas, oil and coal, which release heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere when burned. Musk co-founded and helms the electric-car company Tesla Motors, and he also co-founded and serves as chairman of SolarCity, the United States' largest solar-power provider.

Not surprisingly, Musk is bullish on solar, viewing it as the chief energy source of the post-fossil-fuels future.

"You could take basically a corner of Utah and Nevada and power the whole United States with solar power," Musk said. "So I think that's mostly how it will get solved."

And that future dependency on renewable energy — with solar in the lead, but also featuring hydropower, nuclear energy and other "green" sources — cannot come soon enough, Musk said.

Humanity will need to shift to a sustainable-energy economy at some point, because the world's accessible fossil fuels won't last forever, he noted.

"The question is just when [the shift occurs], and how many billions of tons of CO2 are in the atmosphere versus in the ground," Musk said. "Given that we know where we'll end up, which is a sustainable-energy economy, it seems like we should terminate this experiment as soon as possible."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Japanese paper art is typically used to create dainty folded cranes and paper snowflakes, but now, researchers are using it to inspire innovations in the energy world.

Scientists from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (UM) have used the ancient art of paper cutting, known as kirigami, to create a unique thin-film solar cell that can use a method of following the sun called optical tracking. These movements allow the cell to absorb more energy from the sun throughout the day.

The idea was initially hatched by Matt Shlian, one of the authors of the new study and a professor in the University of Michigan's School of Art and Design. Shlian had been experimenting with ways to incorporate kirigami and origami in the design for new technologies. [Top 10 Inventions That Changed the World]

"The problem of tracking the sun has been there for years and years," said study lead author Max Shtein, a professor in UM's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. "There are lots of ways that involve motors and gears. [This design is] meant to be lighter and more elegant."

The new kirigami-inspired solar cell uses a bending motion to change the angle of its surface. To achieve this, the structure is slowly stretched out using a small, motorized mechanism. Strategically placed cuts in the material make it possible for an object that is normally rigid to stretch and bend.

"If you begin to stretch things, you can deform things in this particular way," Shtein told Live Science.

The base of the solar cell has a fairly simple kirigami structure of lines cut into Kapton, a polyimide film that is flexible and remains stable across a wide range of temperatures (from minus 452 degrees Fahrenheit to 752 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 269 degrees Celsius to 400 degrees Celsius). The structure of the design put a series of short parallel cuts in the polyimide film that were slightly out of alignment so that the top of one cut would be several inches below the top of the other or several inches above them.

Kyusang Lee, a student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Aaron Lamoureux, a student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, collaborated on a way to construct the material. Their method cold-welds (fuses together without heat) the top of the metalized surface of the semiconductor to the metalized surface of the Kapton sheet, which acts as a backing for the photovoltaic cells. Both the Kapton sheet and the photovoltaic cell were cut into the simple kirigami pattern, because they both need to have the same base structure when they are stuck together with atomic bonds of the metal.

This type of design is less clunky and offers a more cost-effective way to do optical tracking than traditional solar panels that have to be attached to large motors to move the much heavier panels with the sun the researchers said. The kirigami-inspired solar cell can also increase energy generation by between 20 and 40 percent, they said.

"The idea is to spend less money and get as much energy as you would before," Shtein said, "or spend the same amount of money and get more energy."

The researchers are hopeful they will be able to market their newly designed solar cell in the near future, but this art-inspired innovation has the potential for a wide range of applications, the scientists said. Shtein added that he and his colleagues are looking into applications for these types of designs in filtering and electromagnetic devices, such as radio technology, and in acoustics tools, such as tuning devices.

The detailed findings of the study were published Sept. 8 in the journal Nature Communications.

Follow Elizabeth Newbern @liznewbern. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

A solar-powered plane able to fly in sunshine or darkness without using any fuel took off today (June 29) on a planned 120-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean, from Nagoya, Japan, to Kalaeola, Hawaii.

The Solar Impulse 2 took off from Nagoya Airfield at 3:03 a.m. local time in Japan (2:03 p.m. EDT on June 28). The flight, which is expected to take five days and five nights, is part of an ambitious attempt to circumnavigate the world using only solar power.

"This flight will be demanding and challenging particularly given its duration and the fact that no immediate landing is possible and will be a feat never accomplished before in the world of aviation," Solar Impulse officials said in a statement. [See more photos of the plane's round-the-world flight]

The round-the-world attempt began March 9 in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. On May 31, Solar Impulse 2 attempted to complete the seventh leg of its journey, from Nanjing, China, to Kalaeloa, but the flight was diverted to Nagoya because of bad weather. Last week, after spending weeks in Japan, the plane was again grounded due to poor weather conditions. But today's attempt went off without a hitch, Solar Impulse officials said, marking the start of the mission's longest leg.

"Now fully into the flight to Hawaii. Very strong emotions as I passed the point of no return: exploration starts here," pilot Andre Borschberg, who is also the CEO and co-founder of Solar Impulse, wrote in an update on Twitter. Borschberg included a photo of the Solar Impulse 2 soaring over a bed of fluffy clouds.

Bertrand Piccard, the chairman and founder of Solar Impulse and its other pilot, will support Borschberg from the Mission Control Centre in Monaco. Borschberg and Piccard have been alternating being at the controls of the single-seater plane.

Staying alert for such a long solo flight poses many challenges, but Borschberg plans to take 20-minute naps and meditate to keep his blood moving and his muscles relaxed. Piccard previously told Live Science that he uses self-hypnosis to keep focused during long flights. Piccard is expected to pilot the solar plane on the next leg of its journey, from Hawaii to Arizona.

The Solar Impulse 2 is powered by 17,000 photovoltaic cells on its wings, which drive propellers during the day and charge batteries that power the aircraft at night. After arriving in Hawaii, the plane will continue to Phoenix, with a stop planned in the middle of the U.S., before the pilots head to New York City. Following these stops in the U.S., the plane will fly to Europe, and eventually will return to Abu Dhabi to complete their round-the-world expedition. There will be 13 flights in total, if all continues as planned, according to Solar Impulse officials.

Elizabeth Goldbaum is on Twitter. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science

Last week, Tesla Motors announced an ambitious new product line: batteries to power homes or businesses.

The idea is that homes and businesses powered by solar panels could harvest and store energy during the day that could be used to run homes at night, or be used as a backup during a power outage.

"Our goal is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy," the company's founder, Elon Musk, said at a news conference April 30. [Creative Genius: The World's Greatest Minds]

Although the exact technology involved in the battery, called Powerwall, is a closely guarded secret, it probably isn't based on revolutionary concepts, said Jordi Cabana, a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who studies new battery materials.

"Just looking at the specs that they publicize, it doesn't look very different — in terms of the cost — to what they're putting in their cars," Cabana told Live Science.

Basic technology

Tesla's newly unveiled system includes the $3,500 Powerwall, a home-based battery pack that can store 10 kilowatt-hours of power. A hair dryer takes about 1 kW to run, while a stove takes several kW to run, so the new system could power a household for several hours, said Stephen Harris, a chemist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who studies lithium battery technology.

The company is also planning to unveil a business-based battery-storage system, called the Powerpack, though the price for that system has not been released yet. Tesla is already taking orders for its residential system, but the products won't ship until late summer, company representatives said at the news conference.

The boxes — which are about 33 inches (0.8 meters) wide, 51 inches (1.4 m) tall and 7 inches (17.8 centimeters) deep — are designed to be easy to install, and will connect to the Internet so that users can monitor their power usage.

The technology is probably the same or similar to that found in Tesla's Model S car, experts say. Although companies are secretive about their technology, most scientists think the Model S uses a particular type of lithium-ion battery in which one layer of the battery, called the cathode, is made of a blend of nickel, manganese and cobalt oxide (NMC).

Lithium ions are interspersed throughout this layer, and when the battery is charged, an electrical current drives the lithium ions out of the cathode, into a fluid filled with electrically conducting ions, and into another layer, called the anode, which is made up of stacks of graphite. When the power stored in the NMC battery is used, it causes the lithium ions to drift back down into the cathode, Paul Shearing, a chemical engineer at University College London, previously told Live Science.

Different battery makers may tinker with the geometry or the particular blend of ingredients, but most researchers think this basic chemistry underlies the Tesla Model S' battery pack, Cabana said.

Game changer?

The Powerwall can store less power than the typical Tesla Model S battery, based on the product specifications. In addition, cars are powered by direct current, whereas houses use alternating current, which means the new battery packs likely include some kind of converter, Cabana said.

But while the new technology may not be completely different from other battery packs, they could transform the market for home power storage.

The idea of storing power from solar panels isn't new, but most people typically had cheaper, smaller-capacity batteries that weren't meant to continuously power an entire home, Cabana said. And some companies have experimented with developing industrial-size batteries — essentially an entire building that is one giant battery, he said.

On the other hand, most people who use solar panels to help power their home simply sell their excess electricity back to the power grid during the day, Harris said.

And in the case of a power outage, natural-gas backup generators are typically a lot cheaper, though the gas itself costs extra money. So, from a purely economic standpoint, home-based batteries don't yet make sense, Harris said.

On the other hand, Tesla excels at design, marketing and packaging. And similar to companies like BMW, Tesla has carved out a niche with its cars as futuristic luxury vehicles with a certain cachet, Harris said.

But while cars have long been status symbols, "I don't know how many midlife-crisis men are going to try to impress the ladies by buying a Tesla battery," Harris said.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

Solar panels promise to lower your electricity bill by supplementing the energy you buy from the local power company. But choosing and installing solar panels can be an overwhelming task.

Solar cells, which are linked together in a panel, convert sunlight into electricity via photovoltaic materials, such as silicon. When sunlight hits these materials, the light's energy is absorbed, and that energy causes electrons within the material to escape from their position in the atom of silicon or other photovoltaic material. These released electrons are captured to produce an electric current.

As of the third quarter of 2014, more than 17,500 megawatts of cumulative solar electric capacity are operating in the United States, which is enough to power more than 3.5 million average American homes, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Residential solar panels were the fastest-growing category, with 58 percent growth during the quarter, the association reports.

How much you save by using solar panels depends on your local weather — they're a better deal in sunny Denver than dreary Seattle — and how much electricity costs in your area.

"There are many systems that make great economic sense today, and these are the types of systems that are being installed in large numbers," said Tommy Cleveland, a solar energy engineer at the North Carolina State University Solar Center. "They are primarily in locations with expensive electricity rates, making the energy produced by solar systems very valuable."

Editor's note: Looking for solar panels? For information to help you choose the one that’s right for you, use the questionnaire below to receive information from vendors for free:

If you make the leap, however, it pays to get the right kind of panels. Our sister site, Top Ten Reviews, conducts in-depth reviews of solar panel technology. Here are their top three recommendations for this green technology.

**********************

#1 Kyocera KD315GX-LPB

The Kyocera KD315GX-LPB solar panel gets top marks for its high solar efficiency, which is the amount of energy converted from sunlight per unit of surface area in the panel. At 16 percent, this solar panel is not the most efficient on the market, but it ranks high. (Silicon-based solar cells like this one usually operate at an efficiency of 18 percent or lower, according to the University of Pennsylvania.) The Kyocera KD315GX-LPB panels are also durable and come with a complete five-year warranty. The company guarantees that the panels' power output will remain at 80 percent of the minimum power promised by manufacturers for at least 20 years.

The panels meet industry standards for withstanding loads (it can hold up under 113 pounds per square foot of pressure from snow or ice on the roof) and can handle a beating by hailstones with a 1-inch diameter in winds of up to 51 mph.

Ease of use: As with any solar panel array, you'll need to check your local regulations and permitting requirements before installing. You can mount Kyocera solar panels yourself if you're handy enough and if your local laws allow it. Experts advise against doing so unless you really know what you're doing, however.

"It is best to get a professional installer to install them," Cleveland told Live Science. "There is serious danger working with electricity, so someone not properly trained to install a system can easily get hurt or killed."

A few notes on choosing an installer: The U.S. Department of Energy recommends approaching this step with care. Home owners should ask potential contractors about their level of experience installing both on-grid and off-grid photovoltaic systems. Most home owners will want on-grid installation, meaning your solar system is interconnected with the local power grid. Be sure the contractor you hire is licensed and certified, and that there are no legal complaints against them. Your state electrical board and the Better Business Bureau are good resources for finding this out.

The Kyocera panels are easy to maintain, requiring only occasional cleaning with water and mild detergent and an annual check of the connections and hardware.

Help and support: The company provides answers to frequently asked questions on its website and will respond to individual queries by phone and email. There is no online live chat option for support, a downside of this brand.

Cost: For a complete and up-to-date cost comparison, see Top Ten Reviews' comparison tool.

#2 Canadian Solar CS6X-305M

Founded in 2001, Canadian solar offers its panels in 50 countries around the globe. The company's Canadian Solar CS6X-305M model took second place in the Top Ten Reviews rankings for power, durability and visual appeal. The panels' shape is more rectangular than Kyocera's offering, which may appeal to some homeowners. The efficiency of these panels is rated at 15.9 percent, barely behind the No. 1 Kyocera model. The Canadian panels also meet industry standards for durability and are able to handle up to 113 pounds of snow per square foot. The warranty guarantees 95 percent output for one year, and 80 percent output for 25 years.

Ease of use: Though the installation of this model is not significantly different than that for other solar panels, the model is advertised as self-washing. That means that with a sufficient roof angle, rain will keep dirt and dust off the solar panel surface. However, owners may still need to take a sponge and soapy water to the panels on occasion if they get particularly dirty.

Help and support: Canada Solar offers support by phone and by email, and the company's website includes some information on frequently asked questions. There is no live chat or blog, making the company slightly harder to reach than competitors. Canada Solar offers a 10-year warranty on materials and workmanship.

Cost: For a complete and up-to-date cost comparison, see Top Ten Reviews' comparison tool.

#3 Grape Solar 390W

Grape Solar is a Eugene, Oregon-based company founded in 2009. It makes solar panels, largely manufactured in Asia but assembled in the United States. The Grape Solar 390W panel has an efficiency percentage of 15.21, a solid number, and can handle 50 pounds of snow per square foot. The warranty promises 90-percent power output for 10 years and 80-percent output for 25 years. Grape works with Costco and Home Depot and has a network of installers throughout the United States.

Ease of use: These solar panels can be cleaned with just water, no soap necessary. Top Ten Reviews rated Grape Solar's phone-based customer service as "first rate." You can also contact the company via email or get in touch with the its technical team through a customer hotline.

Cost: For a complete and up-to-date cost comparison, see Top Ten Reviews' comparison tool.

Editor's note: Looking for solar panels? For information to help you choose the one that’s right for you, use the questionnaire below to receive information from vendors for free:

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

In about a month, two Swiss pilots will attempt a record-setting flight around the world without using any fuel, and today (Jan. 20), they announced the route for their ambitious journey aboard their solar-powered plane, Solar Impulse 2. 

Pilots André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard will begin their slow-and-steady voyage from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in late February or early March.

They'll stop in Muscat, Oman; the Indian cities Ahmedabad and Varanasi; Mandalay, Myanmar; and the Chinese cities Chongqing and Nanjing, according to the official route. Next, they'll touch down in Hawaii, as well as three places in the continental United States: Phoenix, a to-be-determined location in the Midwest and New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Borschberg and Piccard will then cross the Atlantic and stop somewhere in southern Europe or northern Africa before returning to Abu Dhabi by late July or early August. [Images: Cross-Country Flight in a Solar-Powered Plane]

Borschberg and Piccard have been flying increasingly ambitious solar-powered missions to draw attention to the possibilities for clean energy. In the summer of 2013, the pilots made a record-setting, coast-to-coast journey across the United States, from California to New York, using their first ultralight aircraft, Solar Impulse. The plane, which had a cruising speed of about 53 mph (85 km/h), also completed a 26-hour overnight flight in 2010, and flew from Switzerland to Morocco in 2012.

Solar Impulse was the first aircraft capable of flying day and night without fuel. Its solar panels harvested energy from the sun, which could be stored in onboard batteries that allowed the plane to stay powered overnight.

The new carbon-fiber plane, Solar Impulse 2, is covered in 17,248 solar cells and has a wingspan that measures 236 feet (72 meters) across. It sports a larger cockpit than the first plane, though it can still only support one pilot at a time, which means Borschberg and Piccard will alternate flying duties for each leg.

The pilots unveiled Solar Impulse 2 in April 2014. On its debut flight in Switzerland in June 2014, the plane reached a maximum altitude of 5,500 feet (1,680 m) and flew at an average ground speed of 35 mph (55.6 km/h).

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

LAS VEGAS — Companies from around the globe are debuting technologies here at CES that aim to remedy today's most pressing environmental problems.

Some of the biggest names in tech announced that they're embracing more eco-friendly designs for their products. For instance, Samsung introduced a computer monitor made of 30 percent recycled plastic that runs on less energy when it's not in use than conventional monitors. Electronics company LG announced a whole line of "greener" home appliances that use less energy and water than the company's previous models, and Mercedes announced a new luxury vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

Lots of small companies are getting in on the action too, introducing products — from solar-charging stations to pollution sensors — that put the environment first. Here are some of the coolest green tech products being showcased at CES. [5 Ways Your Tech Will Go Green in 2015]

ecoATM

EcoATM is a stand-alone machine (it looks kind of like a RedBox or CoinStar machine) that allows users to exchange old electronics for cold, hard cash. While it's not exactly new (the first ecoATM launched in 2009), this product was a hit this year at CES, where onlookers crowded around to watch the machine assess the value of beloved smartphones.

The electronics that ecoATM reclaims can be mined for the valuable and rare metals they contain. By recycling your old devices, you can prevent toxic mining waste from being poured into the environment, according to the company. And by keeping electronics out of the garbage dump, you also prevent the toxic materials found inside these devices (things like mercury and cadmium) from leaking into the ground.

Of course, not all of the electronics that find their way into the ecoATM are actually taken apart and used for parts. Most of them are resold to new owners, a company spokesperson told Live Science. (Photo Credit: EcoATM)

Automatic

Automatic lets you harness the computing power of your car for the sake of fuel efficiency. This little device plugs into the diagnostic port of your vehicle, which is typically tucked between the dashboard and the brake pedal. Once plugged in, Automatic connects the car's computer system to your smartphone, relaying data about all of your car's subsystems — from the gas tank to the engine.

With this data at the ready, the device can tell you when there's something wrong with your car before it becomes a major issue, a company spokesperson told Live Science. It's like preventative health for your car, she said, letting you diagnose a problem before it starts eating away at your fuel efficiency or increasing your emissions. [Top 10 Emerging Environmental Technologies]

In addition to letting you know when there's something wrong with your car, Automatic also notifies you when there's something wrong with your driving. If you tend to accelerate too quickly, Automatic will inform you that this bad habit wastes gas. In fact, the company claims that the device can help you spend up to 33 percent less on fuel each year just by getting you to avoid a few gas-guzzling habits. (Photo Credit: Automatic)

Tzoa

Tzoa is a portable environmental sensor that tracks everything from air quality and ultraviolet radiation to humidity and temperature. You can place Tzoa on a side table and let it monitor the air in your living space, or you can clip it to your backpack and it'll measure UV exposure as you walk along the city streets.

The purpose of the device is to help put people in touch with their environment, according to Kevin Hart, Tzoa's co-founder. Users are encouraged to get outside and map air pollution in their communities. This data can then be shared with other Tzoa users via the company's app, Hart told Live Science.

"By crowdsourcing data on to public maps, we can locate chronic issues in our communities and take action against sources of harmful issues," Hart said. "Overall, we believe that awareness leads to advocacy, which leads to action — and that will perpetuate green technologies."

Tzoa users who want to get more involved in environmental advocacy can sign up for the company's ambassador program, an effort that promotes environmental stewardship in communities across the globe. (Photo Credit: Tzoa)

Misfit Shine

The fitness and lifestyle company Misfit announced a new product at CES: the Swarovski Shine. This fitness and sleep tracker was designed in collaboration with jewelry giant Swarovski and features a large blue-hued crystal embedded with sensors. Customers can buy a pendant necklace or wristband to store this attractive wearable, which has one surprisingly green feature: it's solar-powered.

Not all versions of the Shine run on sunlight, just the blue-colored wearable, which Misfit has dubbed an "energy harvesting crystal." The clear crystal version of the Shine can't absorb quite as much light as the blue version, which is why it needs a traditional battery. (Photo Credit: Misfit)

Solpro

Of course, the Misfit Shine isn't the only product at this year's CES that gets its power from the sun. Solar tech company Solpro unveiled its new solar-powered phone-charging device, the Helios Smart, this week, as well.

The device is a pocket-size rectangle that unfolds to reveal three solar panels. These panels can absorb enough sunlight in 90 minutes to charge a standard smartphone, according to the company. The Helios is ideal for those who are on the go and don't feel like hunting for a charging station, or those who are living off the grid (even if just on a camping trip). But Solpro CEO Bill Pike thinks the device is a good solution for everyday charging, as well.

"It won't be just for camping and emergencies," Pike told Live Science in an email. People want alternative, sustainable options for generating energy, he said. (Photo Credit: Solpro)

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science

Solar panels, electric cars, high-efficiency washing machines — these are the "green," or earth-friendly, technologies that you probably see every day. But there are also many lesser-known tech devices out there designed to reverse the negative effects of human activity on the environment. And in 2015, you can expect to see some of these under-the-radar technologies entering into the mainstream, according to experts.

The newest wave of green technologies is aimed at the average, environmentally conscious person, and features products and services that will give consumers greater control over the carbon footprints of these tech devices. From apps that let you know where you can buy the most sustainably grown vegetables to remote-control windows that shut out heat on demand, here are some green technologies that could take off in 2015.

Smart homes

Being green is easier when everything from your electric meter to your refrigerator is connected to the Internet. Connected appliances and meters — which collectively make up part of the so-called Internet of Things — allow people to keep track of how much energy they use in their homes or offices every day, so they can develop more efficient habits, reducing their energy bills in the process. [Top 10 Emerging Environmental Technologies]

Smart-home technologies aren't new, but they might finally find their niche in the new year, said Michael Nardi, president of GreenTech Consulting, an Indiana-based company that provides technology and clean-energy consulting to businesses. In 2015, both home and business owners will rely more heavily on Internet-connected products such as smart thermostats, Nardi told Live Science.

Smart thermostats "remember" the temperatures you prefer and can sense when you're not around and will automatically adjust the climate in your home to save energy. And because the devices are Wi-Fi-connected, they can be controlled remotely from a tablet or smartphone.

Smarter homeowners

Maximizing the energy efficiency of your home with smart technologies  is a worthwhile endeavor, but even with data about your energy use in hand, becoming more efficient might be easier said than done, said Mark Peters, the associate lab director at Argonne National Laboratory's energy and global security directorate. That's why Peters predicts that, as more people jump on the Internet of Things bandwagon, new technologies will also arise to make sense of the data collected from Internet-connected products.

"As you start to see more and more smart [products] online, you start to deal with an immense amount of data that has to be managed, and you have to empower the consumer to be able to take advantage of this data," Peters told Live Science. That means combining advanced computing with user-friendly interfaces, he added.

That's exactly what products like Lucid Design Group's new BuildingOS aim to do. This cloud-based application gives users the tools they need to analyze the efficiency of any building. Designed with offices in mind, not homes, BuildingOS provides a central hub where the data from all of a building's systems (e.g. water, electric, gas, solar power) can be processed and understood. If the experts are correct, you'll likely see many similar applications emerge for homeowners in the new year.

Green apps

A few years ago, eating local, organic produce or boycotting shampoos containing parabens might have been considered trendy. But in 2015, consumers with these eco-conscious habits will be part of the mainstream, not part of a passing fad, according to GreenTech's Nardi.

A slew of apps will gain popularity this year that will help "green" consumers make environmentally friendly decisions, Nardi predicted. For example, Think Dirty is an app you can use in the beauty aisle or cosmetics store to compare the ingredients in different products. Just scan a product's bar code to see whether any of its ingredients are known carcinogens, hormone disruptors or neurotoxins. 

Then there's Food Tripping, a GPS-based app that helps you find local juice bars, farmer's markets and healthy cafes when you're away from home. Nardi also mentioned iRecycle, an app that lets you know where you can properly dispose of just about any household item — from gas grills to old cell phone chargers.

Solar fuels

Not all of the green technologies due to take off in 2015 are based on computing power. Some of them run on an older power source: the sun.

Joule is a Massachusetts-based company that harvests the energy in sunlight to create fuels such as ethanol, diesel and gasoline. In the company's specially engineered photosynthesis process, nonpotable water is combined with microbes that produce particular fuels when exposed to sunlight and carbon dioxide.

Known as artificial photosynthesis, this method of creating fuels and chemicals could one day curb society's need for fossil fuels. It's also a process that demonstrates the many potential uses of solar energy, according to Peters.

"I think there's really exciting things going on in this area, especially on the science side, that will make progress in 2015," Peters said. However, it's going to take a while for this green technology to become commercialized, he added. So don't expect your gasoline to come from a solar energy plant anytime this year.

Solar gets serious

Harvesting sunlight to create fuels is a fairly new idea, but harvesting sunlight to create electricity isn't. But despite the fact that it's abundant and environmentally friendly, solar power has yet to take off in earnest in countries such as the United States. But all that might be about to change, according to Peters, who said that renewables might finally hit their stride in the new year.

"You're going to continue to see improvements in the materials and technologies that go into enabling solar and wind, but I think the most exciting thing that will happen in 2015 is how renewables will fit into the bigger system — how they integrate with [the existing power] system and how they're integrated with energy storage."

Peters and his colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory are currently looking past traditional energy-storage solutions (i.e., batteries) to options better suited for storing solar power and releasing it into the power grid. One of these options is the flow battery, in which anodes made from solid materials are replaced with liquid materials. Such batteries are relatively inexpensive. They're also long-lasting and safe, which make them good candidates for use with a large power grid.

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

A new world record is making the future of solar energy look pretty bright. Researchers in Australia recently developed a solar energy system that can convert more than 40 percent of the sunlight that hits it into electricity — the highest efficiency ever reported for a commercially available photovoltaic system.

The technology first achieved the record-breaking efficiency in outdoor tests in Sydney, Australia, and later at an outdoor test facility operated by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, the primary lab for renewable energy and energy efficiency research in the United States.

Martin Green, a professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and director of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics, led the research group that built the new energy system. This wasn't the first time Green and his team broke a world record for solar energy efficiency. [Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas]  

In May 2011, the UNSW team built a crystalline silicon solar cell with an efficiency of 19.3 percent, beating the previous efficiency record, set by silicon cells, of 18.9 percent. A month later, the researchers built a slightly better cell, which had an efficiency of 19.4 percent. More than two decades earlier, in 1989, Green and his colleagues created an entire photovoltaic system that could convert sunlight to electricity at an efficiency of more than 20 percent.

To double their previous efficiency record for photovoltaic systems, the UNSW team's recent efforts used commercially available solar cells, combining them with optical filters that trap wavelengths of light the average solar cell can't capture, according to a statement. This method, known generally as concentrator photovoltaics (CPV), is an emerging technology in the solar sector, one that is usually associated with high production costs and advanced applications, such as space exploration.

But Green and his colleagues built their super-efficient system with commercially available materials, rather than with special, laboratory-produced photovoltaic cells. This helped keep the cost of the system down.

Lab-produced solar cells have even higher efficiencies than the 40 percent achieved by Green and his team. Earlier this month, the German-based Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE announced that it had developed a solar cell that can convert 46 percent of the sunlight that hits it into electricity.

While the UNSW solar energy system is not quite that efficient, it will likely be cheaper to produce than the Fraunhofer system. This clean energy alternative can be used in conjunction with so-called power towers — tall structures covered in solar panels. Similar towers already exist at a Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) site in Newcastle, Australia. The CSIRO towers use mirrors to focus sunlight at two towers covered in solar panels. The panels convert light energy to heat, which in turn creates steam. This steam then powers a turbine, which generates electrical energy.

The UNSW researchers presented a paper on their 40-percent efficiency achievement at an Australian Photovoltaic Institute conference at UNSW on Dec. 8. The paper will be published in an upcoming edition of the journal Progress in Photovoltaics.

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Blu-ray discs could help make the solar cells used in solar panels more efficient, researchers say.

Solar cells rely on materials that convert photons of light into electricity. Prior research had revealed that if microscopic structures that are only nanometers (billionths of a meter) high are placed on the surface of solar cells, they can scatter light in ways that increase the cells' efficiency.

The best patterns of nanostructures to place on solar cells are quasi-random ones — patterns that are neither too orderly nor too random. Patterns that are too orderly only help concentrate single wavelengths of light, while patterns that are completely random concentrate the wavelengths seen in sunlight and inefficiently concentrate relatively useless wavelengths. [Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas]

"For solar cell applications, we want to enhance light absorption over the entire solar spectrum — wavelengths from about 350 nanometers to 2,300 nanometers," said study co-author Jiaxing Huang, a materials scientist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Very expensive fabrication techniques are usually needed to create quasi-random patterns suitable for solar cells, thus limiting their widespread application. Now, Huang and his colleagues have found that Blu-ray discs may help create such patterns far more inexpensively.

Blu-ray discs can hold more data than CDs or DVDs can. They encode data using microscopic pits only 25 to 30 nanometers deep and 75 nanometers long. These pits, and the islands between them, together represent the 0s and 1s of binary code that computers use to symbolize information.

The researchers used a Blu-ray of "Police Story 3: Supercop," starring Jackie Chan, to create a mold for a quasi-random surface texture that they placed on a solar cell. They found that this pattern boosted light absorption significantly — by 21.8 percent over the entire solar spectrum, more so than either a random pattern or no pattern.

"The big surprise is that the pattern worked so well," Huang told Live Science.

In tests of a wide range of movies and television shows, the researchers found that it didn't matter which video content was on the Blu-ray discs; they all worked equally well to enhance the light absorption in the solar cells. Instead, the secret lies in the algorithms used to encode data on Blu-rays, which turn data into quasi-random patterns that are "surprisingly well-suited for light-trapping over the solar spectrum," Huang said.

Because Blu-ray manufacturing is already suitable for mass production, this finding may provide a cost-effective way to improve solar cells, the researchers said. Although the researchers conducted their experiments on polymer solar cells, they said their calculations suggest that Blu-ray patterns also could work with other common types of solar cells.

The scientists detailed their findings online today (Nov. 25) in the journal Nature Communications.

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

To capture more energy from the sun, one company is putting solar panels where they've never gone before: in the street.

This week, the Dutch company SolaRoad officially opened the world's first solar roadway in a suburb outside of Amsterdam. The 230-foot (70 meters) stretch of energy-absorbing concrete and glass will be used as a bicycle path for commuters, according to the company.

The concrete that makes up the bike path is embedded with crystalline silicon, the same material found in conventional solar cells. Two layers of safety glass surround the cells, allowing sunlight to shine on the silicon while keeping the material from getting trampled. Electricity created by the solar cells — reportedly enough to power two to three homes for a full year — will be filtered into the local power grid, according to SolaRoad. [Top 10 Emerging Environmental Technologies]

But the bike path wasn't installed just to provide a few local residents with electricity. It's part of a wider effort by SolaRoad, as well as local government agencies in the Netherlands, to find new ways to incorporate green energy into the country's existing infrastructure.

For the next three years, SolaRoad's bike path will serve as a test bed, an opportunity for the company to improve its product before moving into the next stage of development. SolaRoad will collect data from the road itself, as well as feedback from those who cycle over it, to determine if solar-paneled concrete could one day cover municipal roads or highways, according to SolaRoad.

In the future, such roads may power more than just a few homes. Such "green" roadways could create electricity to power the streetlights that run alongside the road, as well as traffic signals and even electric cars, company officials said in a statement.

But there are a few problems with the idea of roads embedded with solar panels. For one, the recently installed bike path is prone to being covered with dirt and debris. This type of "pollution" affects the amount of light that shines through to the solar panels. But just how much this dirt and grime will affect energy production is one of many questions the company is hoping to answer during the test phase.

Other countries are also embracing the idea of incorporating solar power into existing infrastructure. While no other solar roadways have popped up yet, the city of London installed 4,400 solar panels along the roof of an existing bridge over the River Thames in January 2014. And in the United States, a company called Solar Roadways collected more than $2 million from a recent crowdfunding campaign supporting a project to develop solar panel-covered paving stones. These are similar to the materials used by SolaRoad in the Netherlands.

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science .

A new kind of solar cell could store electrical energy without any help from traditional batteries, according to a new study.

Researchers at Ohio State University, in Columbus, have developed what they're calling the world's first solar battery — a hybrid device that combines the energy-capturing abilities of a solar cell with the energy-storing capabilities of a battery.

The new cell could lower the cost of harvesting renewable energy from the sun by as much as 25 percent, according to the researchers. [Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas]

The key to the device's success is a mesh solar panel that allows both sunlight and air to enter the cell. This porous material represents a departure from the solid semiconductor materials typically used to make solar cells. Allowing both light and oxygen into the cell enables the chemical reactions that typically occur inside a battery to occur within the solar cell itself.

"The state of the art is to use a solar panel to capture the light, and then use a cheap battery to store the energy," lead researcher Yiying Wu, a professor of chemistry at Ohio State, said in a statement. "We’ve integrated both functions into one device. Any time you can do that, you reduce cost."

But this innovative device can do more than just lower the cost of renewable energy, Wu said. It can also help solve a problem that's been plaguing scientists for years: how to store energy from the sun without losing a lot of that energyin the process.

A loss of electricity naturally occurs within any solar cell when the electrons released by the cell's semiconductor materials travel outside the cell and into a battery. Only about 80 percent of the electrons produced by solar cells successfully complete this journey. But the new solar cell is designed to ensure that 100 percent of the electrons captured find their way into a battery, the researchers said.

This high efficiency is possible because the conversion of sunlight to electric current isn't happening inside the solar cell before being transferred to the battery. Since the battery is located inside the cell, electrons are not able to escape, the researchers said.

The hybrid solar cell-battery is made up of three electrodes, or materials that conduct electricity. The first electrode is the mesh solar panel (which is really a collection of solar cells), the second electrode is made of a thin sheet of porous carbon and the third electrode is a sheet of lithium metal. Between these three electrodes is an electrolyte that can shuttle charges back and forth.

When the battery is in use — a phase known as "discharge" — the lithium metal and porous carbon electrodes are connected to an external circuit. Lithium ions can then travel to the carbon electrode and form lithium peroxide. This chemical process drives an external electrical current, Wu told Live Science in an email.

To recharge the solar battery, light hits the mesh panel and generates electron-hole pairs, which can carry an electrical charge. One of the most important features of the device is that it uses added molecules, known as redox shuttle additives, to transfer these charges from the mesh solar panel to the lithium electrode, where they cause the lithium peroxide to decompose into oxygen and lithium ions.

The oxygen is released out of the cell, but the lithium ions, as well as electrical charges, are stored inside the battery in the lithium electrode, Wu said.

“Basically, it's a breathing battery,” he said. “It breathes in air when it discharges, and breathes out when it charges.”

The researchers are still experimenting with other ways to improve the design of their solar battery, a project that is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The study outlining the new battery was published in the Oct. 3 issue of the journal Nature Communications.

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Brilliant shades of blue and aqua coat the iridescent lips of giant clams, but these shiny cells aren't just for show, new research finds. The iridescent sheen directs beams of sunlight into the interior of the clam, providing light for algae housed inside.

In a symbiotic return, the algae use that sunlight to power photosynthesis, resulting in energy for the giant clam. "It ends up being a large part of the energy budget of the clams," said study researcher Alison Sweeney, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Essentially, the oversize mollusks, which can measure more than 4 feet (1.2 meters) long, have a natural solar energy system hiding in their shells.

Most iridescent cells — including those that impart a vivid blue to the morpho butterfly, the glittery colors of beetles and the shine of birds' feathers — are dead, much like fingernails and human hair. But the iridescent cells of squid and giant clams are alive. [Marine Marvels: Spectacular Photos of Sea Creatures]

So, the researchers wondered, "What on Earth is a giant clam doing with a living iridescent cell?" Sweeney said.

Giant clams have a dull outer shell, as well as a weighted shell hinge that helps them point their lips up toward the sunlight. Perhaps the iridescent cells, called iridocytes, play an optical function, the researchers reasoned.

The team traveled to Palau, an island east of the Philippines in the tropical Pacific Ocean, to gather information about the giant clams. "We put this into a computer model about how we think light propagates through the clams," Sweeney said. "[But] nobody actually believed it," she added, referring to how the light was reflected back into the shells of the clams.

So, they returned to Palau to take detailed measurements of light inside the clams — Tridacna derasa, T. maxima and T. crocea — with the help of a fiber-optic probe. The iridescent cells reflected a remarkable amount of light into the clam, more than the scientists had initially expected, Sweeney said. Clam tissue with iridocytes has about fivefold more particles of light, called photons, deep inside the tissue than clam tissue without iridocytes does, they found.

"We're very excited by our surprising discovery," said study researcher Dan Morse, a professor of biomolecular science and engineering, and director of the Marine Biotechnology Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"The brilliantly reflective cells of the giant clam actually redirect photons from sunlight deeper into the clam's tissue, gently and uniformly illuminating millions of symbiotic algae that live there, so they can provide nutrients to their animal host by photosynthesis," Morse wrote in an email to Live Science.

The algae's configuration is also efficient, the researchers found. If the algae were spread horizontally across the clam's tissue, only the top layers of algae would get light. The giant clam, however, doesn't have this obstacle. Instead, the algae are piled into vertical columns that allow the reflective cells to shine light along the sides of the columns — not just the algae on top.

The reflected light is also less intense than direct sunlight, so the algae don't get fried, Sweeney said.

The study is "very interesting," Euichi Hirose, a professor of invertebrate biology at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan, told Live Science in an email.

"Now, we know the giant-clam mantle has a more sophisticated function than we expected," said Hirose, who was not involved in the current study. "The colorful mantle reflects useless light for photosynthesis (green and yellow) and scatters useful light (red and blue) forward, and laterally, into deep tissue."

The giant clams' colorful and sparkly sheen may one day inspire new forms of clean technology, the researchers said. For instance, traditional solar cells work well in direct sunlight, but not when they get too hot. With the clam's design, a reflective sheen could help solar cells stay cool even when they're exposed to intense sunlight, Sweeney said.

The study was published yesterday (Sept. 30) in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

The first solar-powered flight around the world will take off from and touch down in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, officials announced today (Sept. 25).

In March 2015, pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg plan to make the round-the-world journey in the Solar Impulse 2, an aircraft that runs exclusively on power from the sun.

The announcement of the host city was made in New York City, at the United Arab Emirates reception during the United Nations General Assembly. [Video: Watch the Maiden Voyage of the Solar Impulse 2]

"We have chosen [Abu Dhabi] as being the best and most suitable departure point for the round-the-world tour, due to its climate, infrastructure and commitment to clean technologies," Borschberg, Solar Impulse co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.

Abu Dhabi's renewable energy company Masdar will partner with the city to host the Solar Impulse team beginning in January, when the crew will test the aircraft prior to its historic trip.

In 2013, Borschberg and Piccard flew their first solar-powered plane, the Solar Impulse, on five legs of a cross-country flight from California to New York. The aircraft was powered entirely by sunlight, and carried batteries that could be charged during the day, which enabled the pilots to fly the plane at night.

The Solar Impulse 2 (SI2) is a newer version of the original aircraft, with a wingspan that measures 236 feet (72 meters) — wider than a Boeing 747. The SI2 carries 17,000 solar cells, allowing it to fly almost indefinitely without fuel. The aircraft weighs just 5,070 pounds (2,300 kilograms), less than a Toyota Tundra pickup truck, according to company officials.

Borschberg and Piccard unveiled the new aircraft in April, and completed their first test flight in June. Their round-the-world trip next March is expected to include 25 days of flying over the course of four to five months. The pilots will live aboard the plane for five to six days at a time during some flights over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

The team is still working out details of the trip, but the company has revealed plans to stop over in Asia, the United States and Southern Europe or North Africa before returning to Abu Dhabi in July 2015.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitterand Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

NEW YORK — Addressing climate change is not only crucial for preserving the environment, it also makes good economic sense, some politicians and business leaders say.

Governments must set policies to curb carbon emissions, and companies should develop "green" technology and sustainable business practices, a panel of experts said here yesterday (Sept. 22) at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). Former president Bill Clinton founded CGI in 2005 to bring together global leaders to find and implement solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems.

"Climate change poses not just a massive risk to the environment, it's the single biggest risk to the global economy today," said Henry Paulson Jr., former U.S. Treasury secretary and the current chairman of The Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago. Paulson was one of the featured panelists. [6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change]

And action has to start with governments, said Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, another of the panelists. "There is no reason to think confronting climate challenge is not good economics," Thorning-Schmidt said. Green technology "is not only good for the climate, it's also good for jobs," she added.

Denmark has succeeded in tackling carbon dioxide emissions without sacrificing economic growth. This balance has been achieved, the prime minister said, by setting a target for sustainability, and creating a stable, long-term political framework. Once there's that framework, companies will start investing in green technology, she said.

One example of how this can work is the Swedish furniture giant IKEA, which is already taking steps to make its business greener. "We would like to grow business within the limits of the planet," said Peter Agnefjäll, president of IKEA, and a panelist.

IKEA has committed to sourcing its cotton responsibly. The company also plans to obtain 100 percent of its wood from better sources, and this week it announced that 100 percent of its plastic would be from recycled or renewable materials, Agnefjäll said.

The company's research shows that customers would like products to be produced in a sustainable way, but they're not prepared to compromise on appearance or cost, Agnefjäll said. Still, investing in greener practices is paying off, he said.

And it's not just businesses that stand to benefit from protecting the climate — citizens will see improvements in their daily lives when they can enjoy clean air and water, Thorning-Schmidt said.

But much of the political action needs to be at the city — not the national — level. After all, cities account for more than 70 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, experts say.

To address these concerns, the mayors of three major U.S. cities pledged a commitment yesterday to developing plans and programs to address climate change at the local level.

Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, Mayor Annise Parker of Houston and Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia announced their commitment to the newly launched Mayor's National Climate Change Action Agenda, a plan to curb emissions in cities and promote sustainability. The mayors are all members of President Obama's climate task force.

As part of the commitment, each city will develop specific goals for reducing greenhouse gases, design ways to measure these goals and come up with initiatives to implement them, Garcetti said in a news briefing yesterday.

The CGI meeting comes on the heels of the People's Climate March, a 300,000-person demonstration that flooded the streets of Manhattan Sunday (Sept. 21), in advance of the UN Climate Summit, which is taking place today at the United Nations headquarters.

"It really feels like a moment of action on climate change," Garcetti said, and "cities can indeed move the world forward."

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). UCS is a member of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition, which includes nearly 400 organizations and businesses. This article is adapted from a piece that appeared on the Huffington Post. Negin contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s latest report, which explores ways to cut carbon emissions, put the world on notice. Despite efforts in the United States, Europe and developing countries such as China to ramp up energy efficiency and renewable energy use, global carbon emissions have been increasing at a much faster clip than they were just a few decades ago. To avoid the worst of the worst, IPCC scientists say emissions will have to be reduced 40 percent to 70 percent from current levels by 2050, and they warn we only have a 15-year window to reverse course.

"We cannot afford to lose another decade," said Ottmar Edenhofer, a German economist who co-chaired the committee that wrote the report. "If we lose another decade, it becomes extremely costly to achieve climate stabilization."

As Edenhofer points out, the cost of doing nothing likely would dwarf whatever we might spend today to address climate change. That said, it makes the most sense to replace fossil fuels with the most cost-effective, safest, carbon-free and low-carbon options that can be deployed as quickly as possible.

For the biggest source of U.S. carbon pollution — electric utilities — the best solution is wind, solar and other renewable energy technologies, which, according to the new IPCC report, "have achieved a level of technical and economic maturity to enable deployment at a significant scale." In other words, renewables are now a lot cheaper and better than they were when the last IPCC report came out seven years ago.

Nuclear not economic

What about nuclear power? Although it now provides the most carbon-free electricity in the country, without a national carbon tax or cap-and-trade program, it's not economic — even with more than 50 years of generous federalsubsidies, as UCS outlined in "Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable without Subsidies."

Over the last decade, the estimated price tag for a new reactor has skyrocketed, jumping from $2 billion in 2002 to as high as $12 billion today. Wall Street won't finance a project unless Uncle Sam co-signs the loan, which leaves taxpayers on the hook if a project fails. So while Southern Company and its partners, with the help of an $8.3 billion federally guaranteed loan, are building two new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear plant site in Georgia, it's unlikely the industry will be able to muster more than two or three more new plants in the next decade. As recently as five years ago, utilities applied for licenses to build more than 25 new reactors.

At the same time the nuclear industry's hoped-for renaissance has fizzled, older reactors are shutting down. Four reactors closed last year because of prohibitively expensive safety upgrades or competition from cheaper energy sources, namely natural gas and wind. Economics will close a fifth reactor, Vermont Yankee, this fall, and the nation's largest nuclear plant operator, Exelon, said in February that unless market conditions improve, it will announce plant closings by the end of this year.

Wind, solar more affordable

Unlike new reactors, the cost of solar and wind has dropped dramatically. Solar panel prices have plummeted more than 75 percent since 2008, and the cost of generating electricity from wind turbines declined more than 40 percent over the past three years, sparking a construction boom. Last year, solar installations in the United States amounted to a record 5.1 gigawatts, boosting the national total to nearly 13 gigawatts — enough to power nearly 2.2 million typical American homes. And by the end of December, there were enough wind turbines across the country to power 15.5 million homes and cut annual electric-power sector carbon emissions by 4.4 percent.

Given solar and wind's exponential growth, experts see tremendous potential. The Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), for example, projects that wind and solar could produce 15 percent of U.S. electricity by 2020, 27 percent by 2030, and 50 percent by 2050.

Still, naysayers harp on the fact that wind and solar power are intermittent. The sun doesn't always shine, they say, and the wind doesn't always blow. That may be true, but it's not a deal-breaker. Studies by NREL and electricity grid operators in the United States and Europe conclude that larger contributions from solar and wind would not create significant technological problems or impose higher costs. [The Koch Brothers Are Still Trying to Break Wind (Op-Ed)]

"Meeting demand in the face of variability and uncertainty is old hat for grid operators," said Mike Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) who used to work at NREL. "They're already doing it with wind and solar here in the United States and in Europe.

"Besides, spreading wind and solar installations over a large enough area would help address the intermittency issue," he added. "The wind is always blowing somewhere, and if we increased the percentage of wind and solar to 30 percent — which we should be able to do within the next 15 years — the system's flexibility to manage supply and demand, along with a updated grid, should be able to integrate that power."

Renewables provide more resilience

Ramping up renewables not only would cut carbon emissions, it also would diversify the national electricity system and make it more resilient, according to a new UCS report, Power Failure. That system — which includes power plants, transmission lines and fuel delivery networks — was not designed to withstand all of today's extreme weather events, many of which have been linked to climate change.

Sea-level rise, for example, threatens nearly 100 coastal electricity facilities, including power plants and substations, the UCS report found. Water temperature and availability also pose major problems. Older coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants rely on a "once-through" cooling process that draws hundreds of millions, if not billions, of gallons of water daily from the closest water body. When that river, lake or ocean source gets too hot, which is happening with greater frequency, the plants have to cut back production or shut down temporarily. Likewise, droughts can substantially reduce water availability, while flooding from extreme rainfall can overwhelm a plant, as it did in June 2011 when a record-breaking Missouri River flood forced the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant near Omaha, Neb., to remain shut down after a scheduled refueling outage two months earlier.

Renewables don't suffer from the same limitations. Rooftop solar panels and wind turbines, for instance, rely on smaller, more distributed units, which make it less likely that extreme weather events would have the same dramatic impact. Moreover, renewables are less vulnerable to drought and heat because they don't require water.

Let's stop subsidizing fossil fuels

To get where we need to go, the federal government has to turn its outdated energy subsidy policy on its head. The oil and gas industry has been enjoying average annual subsidies and tax breaks of $4.86 billion, in today's dollars, since 1918, according to a 2011 analysis by DBL Investors, a venture capital firm. The nuclear industry, DBL found, benefited from an average of $3.5 billion a year in subsidies from 1947 to 1999.And coal, which has been getting federal and state subsidies since the early 1800s, currently receives at least $3.2 billion a year, according to a 2011 Harvard Medical School study.

Renewables, on the other hand, averaged only $370 million per year in subsidies between 1994 and 2009, according to DBL. The 2009 stimulus package did provide $21 billion for renewables, but that support barely began to balance the scales that still tilt toward fossil fuels. Just last December, for example, the U.S. Congress allowed a key wind-industry tax break to expire, but it continues to support massive subsidies for coal, oil and gas.

Americans represent less than 5 percent of the world's population, but we're responsible for 19 percent of the world's carbon emissions. Despite the fact that China surpassed us as the world's top carbon emitter in 2006, we're still the worst offenders per capita. So after subsidizing coal for more than 200 years and oil and gas for nearly 100 — which inadvertently got us into this mess — it's long past time to take fossil fuels off the dole and go all-out to promote renewables. Fifteen years is just around the corner.

Negin's most recent op-ed was "Memo to Congress: Protect Public Health, Not Toxic Chemicals."This article was adapted from "The Time for Wind and Solar Energy is Now," which first appeared on the Huffington Post. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

What goes up must come down. Using that kernel of gravitational wisdom, solar and wind energy systems could provide power even when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining.

The electric grid is best supplied with consistent energy that can be ramped up and down as demand rises and falls. Solar power and wind energy have long faced the challenge of inconsistency.  When the wind stops blowing and the sun sets, power from these sources must be stored. However, there hasn't been a very efficient way to do that.  

Now a company calling itself Advanced Rail Energy Storage (ARES) has a possible solution. Their system is simple: When solar and wind power plants produce excess energy, it powers specially designed train cars up an incline. A passive but massive rail car on top of a hill stores a significant quantity of potential energy with practically no waste. When power demands exceed what the renewable energy source is producing, the train cars are allowed to roll back down the hill, and that movement is converted back into electricity. The cars become, essentially, massive generators, which pass power through their rails and out to the utility grid.

ARES has built a small prototype in Tehachapi, Calif.  The company plans to construct a full-size system in Pahrump, Nev., that will extend 5 miles and use 32 train cars. Each car will mass about 300 tons.

Technologies to capture and store renewable energy sources aren't new. Utility companies commonly use large batteries, but they have a more expensive lifecycle than a comparable ARES system.

In another advantage, ARES systems produce no emissions. Many large battery banks, by contrast, contain harmful and corrosive materials like lead-acid and sodium-sulfur.

In another storage scheme, hydroelectric pumps move water into elevated reservoirs to store energy. But in water-scarce or very cold areas, these systems aren't feasible. Hydroelectric power is also slow to respond to demand, especially compared to ARES' nearly instantaneous response time.

The company claims their systems have a charge/discharge efficiency of 86 percent — much better than competing equipment — and can produce power for up to eight hours. Deploying the technology entails "around half the cost of other available storage technologies," said ARES CEO Jim Kelly.

London is going all in with sustainable energy. The world's largest solar-powered bridge — spanning the River Thames — was unveiled Wednesday (Jan. 22) in the British metropolis.

The roof of Blackfriars Bridge, a Victorian-era road and foot-traffic bridge in central London, was covered with 4,400 solar panels, as part of a five-year project to help cut emissions from the Blackfriars railway station on the bridge's northern bank, reported The Guardian. The solar panels are expected to provide up to half of the energy needed to power the busy railway station, said officials from First Capital Connect, which runs Blackfriars station.

"Electric trains are already the greenest form of public transport — this roof gives our passengers an even more sustainable journey," David Statham, managing director of First Capital Connect, told The Guardian. "The distinctive roof has also turned our station into an iconic landmark visible for miles along the River Thames."

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

This article was provided by AccuWeather.com.

With a new year beginning, installing solar panels is a great way to fulfill environmentally-friendly resolutions.

However, for those living in wintry climates, snow accumulation may pose a problem.

Joshua Pearce, associate professor at Michigan Tech University (MTU), said, "If snow is completely covering the panel, you are obviously only going to get the amount of energy out of the panel from the amount of light that is able to pass through the snow."

"Even having a relatively small amount of snow on top of a given panel can radically reduce the amount of energy output for your entire system," he said.

Due to these issues, research is currently being conducted whether solar technology is useful in wintry climates.

The projected losses could affect energy costs for all homeowners using solar power, but only significantly for ones that rely entirely on solar power and are not connected to the traditional electrical grid.

For the vast majority of homes and businesses that still remain "on-the-grid," the financial impacts are minimal but the energy losses still pose questions to enhance optimal usage.

Research being conducted in Michigan, Colorado and Washington by MTU and the engineering firm DNV GL is designed to test the energy output for solar panels with varying levels of snow coverage and other factors such as "racking" (the accumulation of snow at the bottom of a panel if the snow can't slide off naturally) and the angle the panels are tilted.

When the study is completed, Pearce is confident that, "Everyone, both [solar panel] designers, people that are funding systems and everyday homeowners [should] have the ability to look at your weather data for your area and predict, with very good assurance, what your snow losses or snow gains would be."

RELATED LINKS: Solar Panels Present New Dangers to Firefighters AccuWeather Winter Weather Center Skiing, Snowboarding: How Weather Affects Safety on the Slopes

The research is also examining the positive effects of a snowy climate on solar panels.

"When snow is on the ground and the panels are clean, the snowy surface basically acts as a mirror and you can get higher output," Pearce said. "In many cases, you end up with a small boost because of the reflection off the snow."

Pearce describes several methods they have used to increase the efficiency of panels with snow accumulations.

Solar panels are a cost-efficient form of alternative energy, with an overwhelming percentage of new systems being installed in tangent with the traditional electrical grid.

As long as a structure is connected to the power grid, electricity will not be interrupted when snow accumulation makes solar energy unattainable.

With continued research and installations, solar power remains a viable option for Americans hoping to utilize reusable energy.

Tips for Solar Power Users in Snowy Climates

Bounce a tennis ball off snow-covered panels.

Homeowners who have rooftop solar panels installed can surprisingly increase the energy output by bouncing a tennis ball off the snow-covered panels. The small divots created by the tennis ball help begin the snow shed process and allow sunlight to reach the modules and begin converting energy.

Install solar panels at the largest angle possible.

A higher angle lessens the accumulation of snow on top of the panel. "Everyone that is in a very snowy place, like in northern Michigan, should be aggressive in your tilting angle. So if you have a decision to make between something like 30 degrees or 40 degrees, it's better to go 40 degrees," Pearce said.

Don't set up panels in a way that allows snow to gather at the bottom.

Installing panels in a way that allows the snow to fall freely from the array greatly reduces the impact of snow. When snow slides off the panel at an angle and gathers at the bottom of the module, the losses can be significant. "In those cases, when you have a very low tilt angle and a dam [of snow], you can lose all of the solar energy associated with the winter," Pearce said.

Have questions, comments, or a story to share? Email Erin Cassidy at cassidye@accuweather.com. Follow us @breakingweather, or on Facebook and Google+.

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Flicking a light switch on and expecting illumination is such an ingrained idea for some people (at least those reading articles on the Internet) that it's easy to forget about the 1.3 billion people around the world without easy access to electricity.

Instead of electric lights, many of these people use lanterns that burn fuels such as kerosene to provide light at night. Toxic smoke, expensive petrochemical fuel, low illumination and the constant fire hazards make these lanterns poor alternatives to electric lighting. These problems can accumulate and become much larger issues for the economy, education and health care of an entire region by restricting what people can do at night.

Panasonic, the company known for plasma TVs and other high-end electronics, is putting its knowhow to the task of fixing this problem. As part of the company's 100th birthday celebration, Panasonic plans to give away 100,000 next-generation solar lanterns to people without access to dependable electric lighting.

International charitable organizations and governments will handle the distribution of the "100 Thousand Solar Lantern Project," which aims to give away all of the lanterns by the 100th anniversary of Panasonic's founding, in 2018.

This won't be the first time Panasonic has given people in need solar-powered lighting. Since 2006, the company has given away solar lanterns to developing nations. However, the latest generation of Panasonic's solar lanterns will provide brighter illumination with five LED bulbs and a USB port that can charge small electronics like a cellphone or radio.

Panasonic's bright idea will reduce fires caused by kerosene lanterns, cut down on consumption of fossil fuels and their attendant pollution, and bring light to thousands of homes in need. And that makes for a pretty good 100th birthday present.

Solar-powered vehicles are becoming more common today. Solar cells power cars, boats, airplanes and satellites in space. Solar racing is a growing sport with competitions around the world. Even some toys get their power from solar panels.

From the most basic toy solar racer to the most advanced solar-powered satellite, the foundational elements date back more than a century. The first dry cell battery was invented in 1895. Electrically powered cars debuted in 1900 and the solar panel was invented in 1941. With each of these developments, mankind made steady progress in harvesting the sun’s energy and converting it to power.

Harnessing solar energy

Solar-powered vehicles get the energy they need to move from the sun. Typically, the vehicles have a large solar panel mounted on top. The color of the panel is often black, as this assists with its ability to absorb sunlight. Black objects, as opposed to any other color, absorb the greatest amount of light that falls upon them. Usually, this means black objects simply get hotter in the sun, but with solar racers the energy is converted into electricity using solar cells. These panels are connected to the car’s electric battery for excess electrical storage and engine for fuel.

At its most basic level, a solar cell turns solar radiation into electricity. A typical silicon solar cell is made up of single or polycrystalline structures. The atomic makeup of silicon is altered to create P-type (atoms missing electrons) and N-type (atoms containing electrons) silicone crystals using phosphorus and boron to create interactive layers of materials that will react to sunlight.

When placed in the sun, photons from solar radiation strike the top layer of silicon and create an electron and a hole, prompting an imperceptible exchange of electrons switching between both P-type and N-type molecules. This steady exchange creates of current through which power is generated and voltage created. These solar panels are then connected to devices like batteries to store the electricity generated for use in a vehicle like solar racers.

The design of solar racers

Because a solar racer relies on sunlight-based power, most vehicles are designed with a broad surface for capturing the sun’s rays. The design is mainly necessary because of the inefficiencies of solar panels. In a perfect world, a solar panel could convert all of the light falling on the car into energy. However, even the best of today’s solar cells can only convert around one-quarter of the sun’s power into electricity.

The end result is a very low-horsepower vehicle with a typical motor output of about 2 to 8 horsepower. The typical consumer automobile retains an average of 100 to 150 horsepower in comparison, which means these vehicles must be designed as light as possible. The typical weight of a two-seated racer is around 400 pounds, allowing it to retain maximum speeds of nearly 90 miles per hour.

Solar racing as a sport

The sport of solar racing is quite popular in sunny regions, the most popular race being the World Solar Challenge in Australia. Vehicles powered by solar energy are designed for endurance races to cover the 3,000-kilometer race (1,864 miles) in the least amount of time.

Colleges and universities in the United States often build and race solar cars. While the races typically don’t cover such grand distances as the one in Australia, they still serve as excellent learning experiences and prove a popular competition among academic departments at institutes.

Other solar-powered devices

Many vehicles use solar energy beyond road-faring technology. For example, planes powered by solar panels continue to grow in popularity due to the capabilities they provide. The ideal outcome is to design a vehicle capable of maximizing solar energy conversion for virtually endless flights. By reaching altitudes of more than 80,000 feet (24,380 meters), more sunlight can be captured and converted for even greater electrical output. [Images: Cross-Country Flight in a Solar-Powered Plane]

NASA's Juno spacecraft, which is on its way to explore Jupiter, is the first solar-powered spacecraft to explore the outer solar system. It has three large solar arrays, each of which is the size of a tractor-trailer.

Solar racer toys

Even more popular are the use of solar-powered remote control toys like planes and cars. Rather than relying on wall-charged batteries, these devices have tiny solar panels installed on their surfaces to draw upon the energy of the sun and thus create a power source.

Solar racer toys employ the same principles of solar powering used for full-size cars. Across these devices are large, flat (sometimes curved) solar panels attached to a small battery. The cars operate much like any other remote control car, though their power source is dependent on the presence of a sun and thus suffers on cloudy days.

Most solar racer toys require some assembly and teach children how something as simple as sunlight can be used to power everyday devices. As the mankind continues to branch out, renewable energy becomes a more popular and important power source to consider due to its clean and frequent availability.

BUY a Micro Solar Racer >>>

Renewable energy production hit an all-time high in the United States in 2012, according to a recent annual energy report.

A combination of government incentives and technological innovations has helped solar and wind power grow in the United States in recent years, the report suggests. From 2011 to 2012, solar energy production increased by 49 percent and wind energy increased by 16 percent, according to a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory annual energy analysis published earlier this month.

"I attribute the steady growth to technological advancements as well as tax incentives and state mandates for renewable energy," said A.J. Simon, an energy analyst at LLNL, who wrote the report. "I would expect this to continue for a while."

Though the trend is notable, wind and solar energy combined still accounted for only about 2 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption in 2012. Denmark and Spain, in comparison, produced an average of about 30 percent of their energy from wind power last year. [Power of the Future: 10 Ways to Run the 21st Century]

Oil and natural gas accounted for the majority of energy consumption in the United States, and will likely continue to dominate given recent investments in hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," Simon said. Fracking is the forceful injection of water, sand and chemicals deep into shale rock that releases previously trapped oil and gas deposits. 

By opening up reservoirs of cheap and accessible fossil fuels, fracking could slow efforts to expand renewable energy, though this remains uncertain, according to Simon.

'Potential game-changer'

Still, those involved in solar and wind energy production in the United States remain confident that these alternative options will continue to grow despite advancements in fracking.

"The turbines are capturing more energy and [the wind industry] is managing to keep costs low," said Jason Cotrell, the manager of wind turbine technology and innovation with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Recent efforts to improve wind power have focused on making the turbines taller so that they reach stronger air currents higher above the ground. This would allow wind farms to expand to areas that have previously been unsuitable for turbines due to low ground-level wind speeds.

"That would be the potential game-changer, when every state in the U.S. could benefit from wind," Cotrell said.

Solar oversupply

Solar power has also benefitted from new innovations, but its recent success stems largely from a global oversupply of photovoltaic cells. The combined effects of the economic downturn in 2008 and overambitious renewable policies around the world resulted in an abundance of panels and a relatively small market, according to Tom Kimbis, vice president of Solar Energy Industries Association.

 At this point, Kimbis said, expanding the reach of solar energy depends more on the price of the panels than improving their efficiency.

"The efficiency of the panels is now good," Kimbis said. "The industry has been working to improve efficiency of solar cells for decades and it's easy to buy a solar module with a 20 percent or higher efficiency today. That's not really the issue right now. The issue that people care about is how much will it cost and will it work for them."

Costs depend largely on government tax incentives, which vary from state to state and from year to year. Cotrell and Kimbis both believe that current work in innovating solar and wind power will continue to reduce baseline prices and increase the prevalence of renewable energy in the United States.

Follow Laura Poppick on Twitter. Follow LiveScience on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

Touch Down!

A solar-powered airplane, Solar Impulse, that was set to complete an historic cross-country journey across the United States made a dramatic early landing late Saturday (July 6, 2013), when damage was observed on one of the aircraft's wings. Here the plane in Hangar 19 at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Wing Tear

Solar Impulse, shown here in Hangar 19, touched down JFK at 11:09 p.m. EDT on July 6, after fabric on the aircraft's left wing suffered an 8-foot-long (2.5 meters) tear, according to company officials.

Lengthy Flight

While flight controllers said neither the pilot nor the plane were in danger, the decision was made to land several hours early. Solar Impulse was originally scheduled to land at around 2 a.m. EDT on Sunday (July 7, 2013), after roughly 21 hours in air, and after flying over several iconic New York City landmarks.

Zero Fuel

Solar Impulse (shown here in Hangar 19 at JFK) is the first aircraft capable of flying day and night without fuel. The ultra-lightweight plane is powered entirely by solar panels and onboard batteries, which charge during the day to allow the plane to fly when the sun goes down.

Ultra-Lightweight

The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs the same as a small car, and its wings, which are covered with 12,000 solar cells, stretch roughly the same length as a 747 jetliner. The plane generates about the same power as a small scooter, according to company officials.

Solar Impulse Pilots

Solar Impulse co-founders and pilots Bertrand Piccard (left) and Andre Borschberg (right) stand in front of the Solar Impulse aircraft at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Clean Generation

Bertrand Piccard (left) and Andre Borschberg (right) hold a flag for their Clean Generation Initiative at JFK airport on July 8, 2013.

(ISNS) -- One hour's worth of global sunlight would be enough to power the world's energy requirements for an entire year. But even if humankind can someday harness solar power to meet global energy needs, there is another problem engineers will have to tackle: integrating solar power with existing electrical networks.

In a new review of existing research, published online in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, scientists warn that this latter challenge will not be easy be-cause solar cells – also known as photovoltaic, or PV, cells – have numerous negative impacts on current systems used to distribute electrical power.

For example, one potential problem is keeping power systems balanced as PV cells enter the existing network so that the total amount of electricity generated is always equal to the amount of electricity used by the network, explained study coauthor Mohamed ElNozahy, an electrical and computer engineer at Canada's University of Waterloo.

If these two factors – total power generation and total load – are not kept balanced at all times, "severe frequency and voltage problems would occur," ElNozahy said.

"Right now, we don't face this power balance problem, as conventional generators are controllable to a great extent."

Fickle sunlight

Solar power, on the other hand, is much more inconsistent. The amount of power generated by PV cells can change dramatically in response to unpredictable environmental factors such as cloud cover and temperature. Fast-moving clouds, for example, can reduce the electrical output of PV systems by up to 50 percent within a few seconds.

To compensate for solar power fluctuations, engineers currently incorporate fast but relatively expensive generators that perform frequency regulation services. These generators inject extra power into networks when fluctuations in PV output cause the generated electricity to dip below the desired frequency of 60 Hertz. 

The use of solar power cannot be increased without also increasing existing frequency regulation services, ElNozahy said. "This will increase the cost of solar electricity, which is already much higher than other sources," he said.

Some experts predict that without increasing the number of frequency regulation generators in use, solar power won't be able to supply more than 5 percent of our current power demands.

A "bilayer" solution

One possible remedy to this problem is being pursued by ElNozahy and Magdy Salama, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo and a co-author of the new paper.

Their solution involves developing a new "bilayer architecture" for the distribution of solar power that is composed of three basic components: an alternating current, or AC, layer, which covers the existing electrical grid, except for solar power; a direct current, or DC layer, that is dedicated to collecting solar electricity; and a “controlled inverter interface” that controls the power flow between the two layers.

The architecture will be challenging to adopt but "will ensure that solar electricity is completely decoupled from AC networks," ElNozahy explained.

As a result, power surges in the solar electricity, or DC, network will not affect the existing power grid.

Problems solved?

Willett Kempton, a professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment at the University of Delaware who was not involved in the study, acknowledged that many of the challenges to solar power implementation highlighted by the review paper are real, but notes that some of them already have solutions or are relatively simple to solve.

For example, another problem highlighted in the paper is "islanding," which refers to the condition in which a power generator continues to produce electricity even after the electric grid has been shut down. Islanding is very hazardous to utility workers attempting to restore power and to equipment. As a result, utility companies prohibit equipment that does not prevent islanding.

ElNozahy and Salama argue that while techniques exist to detect islanding in PV systems, many of them have "nondetection zones" – that is, certain voltage and power values that fail to trigger a timely response.  Furthermore, these techniques would drive up the overall cost of integrating solar and electrical networks.

Kempton disagreed. "This is a solved problem," he said. "I am working now with an inverter that is totally reliable in detecting islanding ... and has no nondetection zones."

Kempton is very optimistic about the future of renewable energy, including solar power. In a study published in the Journal of Power Sources, he and his team predicted that a combination of wind power, solar power, and improved batteries and fuel cells could fully power a large electrical grid 99.9 percent of the time by 2030 at costs comparable to today's electricity expenses.

ElNozahy notes that the challenges he highlights in the paper are not unique to solar power.

"Wind power suffers similar problems," he said. "However, solar power is highly dependent on atmospheric conditions and thus, these problems are more significant for solar."

Ker Than is a freelance writer based in Southern California.

Inside Science News Service is supported by the American Institute of Physics.

With not a drop of fuel, a solar-powered plane completed the first leg of its historic cross-country flight, a 19-hour trip from California to Arizona, touching down at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport on Saturday (May 4) at 4:30 a.m. EDT (1:30 a.m. PDT).

The solar-powered aircraft, named Solar Impulse, had taken off from Moffett Airfield near San Francisco, Calif., at 9:12 a.m. EDT (6:12 a.m. PDT) on Friday (May 3).

Solar Impulse is the first aircraft capable of flying day and night without using any fuel. The plane relies solely on its solar panels and onboard batteries for power. During today's flight, the aircraft is expected to reach a cruising altitude of 21,000 feet (6,400 meters). [Images: Cross-Country Flight in a Solar-Powered Plane]

Piloting the Impulse

Solar Impulse founders Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg will alternate piloting the single-seater plane over the five legs of the journey. Piccard was at the controls for today's takeoff from California. Piccard took the first leg of the flight.

For Piccard, being able to make the cross-country flight with zero fuel has been a decade-long dream.

"We want to promote the clean technologies that are so important for our world," Piccard told LiveScience from the cockpit of Solar Impulse, as the plane flew over Fresno, Calif., at an altitude of 12,000 feet (3,650 meters). "This is an exciting vision."

In mid-May, the ultra-lightweight plane will begin the second leg of its trip, taking off in Phoenix and landing in Dallas, Texas. Toward the end of May, Solar Impulse will depart for St. Louis, Mo.; the fourth leg will take the plane from St. Louis to Washington, D.C.; and the fifth and last leg will end in New York City in late June or early July.

Each leg of the Solar Impulse expedition will be streamed live, with a video feed that includes information on the airplane's position, altitude and speed, as well as camera views from inside the cockpit and from Solar Impulse's mission control center in Switzerland. [WATCH LIVE: Streaming Video of the Solar Impulse Flight]

Spreading the message

Solar Impulse's cross-country trip is part of an initiative called "Clean Generation," which aims to promote clean technology efforts around the world. The program already has several high-profile backers, including Hollywood director James Cameron, former Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, environmentalist and former U.S. Vice president Al Gore, and British entrepreneur Richard Branson.

The goal, however, is to increase support for the initiative throughout Solar Impulse's coast-to-coast flight. People can sign up on the Solar Impulse website to join the movement, and the names of all supporters are being carried on the plane as virtual passengers on a USB drive.

Piccard hopes to add more and more names to the list at each stopover city on Solar Impulse's cross-country trip.

"When we take off from Phoenix to Dallas, I hope we will have even more people," he said.

While Piccard said the technology is not advanced enough yet for commercial flights in the near future, Solar Impulse's cross-country jaunt demonstrates the enormous potential for using solar technology (and other renewable energy sources) in other aspects of our everyday lives, such as powering office buildings or homes.

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A special coating could dramatically improve the percentage of energy that can be harvested from solar cells by splitting photons in two, new research suggests.

For every photon (or particle of light) that hits a solar cell, the coating — called pentacene — doubles the number of electrons, and energy, that can be harvested, at least with high-energy blue or green wavelengths of light.

The findings were reported today (April 18) in the journal Science.

"We think it's an exciting direction for solar to improve its efficiency," said study co-author Marc Baldo, an electrical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Low efficiency

One of the barriers to the wider adoption of solar energy is its high cost. One of the best ways to make the technology more affordable is to increase how efficiently the solar cells harvest energy from the sun, Baldo said.

Light creates electricity in silicon solar cells when each photon dislodges a single electron in the silicon, leaving behind a "hole" — an effective positive charge — where it once was. An electric field across the silicon drives the electrons away from the holes into a conducting metal material, where they then flow as current.

But silicon solar cells only absorb photons from some parts of the visible light spectrum. Sunlight at shorter blue and green wavelengths converts into heat, effectively wasting that light, Baldo told LiveScience.

Double the power

Baldo and his colleagues wanted to see if they could use the wasted blue and green light. Since the 1960s, scientists had noticed that under a magnetic field, photons hitting a material called pentacene underwent a process called singlet fission, in which two electrons were produced for every photon — two instead of one.

To see whether that process could be harnessed in solar cells, the researchers first measured the electrons that were produced for each photon of light. They confirmed that pentacene seemed to be producing two electrons for every photon of light.

Next, they wanted to see whether pentacene coated on top of a silicon solar cell could harness more energy. They found that a test solar cell worked in just that way, increasing the amount of energy harvested from the blue and green spectrum.

But the pentacene coating only works on blue and green wavelengths of light, not the entire visible spectrum, so the efficiency would only go up about 6 percent, Baldo said.

"It doesn't do anything to red light or the infrared light, since we don't have enough energy to cut those photons in two," Baldo told LiveScience.

Boost in efficiency

The study is the first to show that the physical process that occurs in pentacene can actually be used to make energy, said Christopher Bardeen, a physical chemist at the University of California Riverside who was not involved in the study.

"It's a first step towards developing solar cells that could actually be significantly more efficient than today," Bardeen told LiveScience.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter @tiaghose. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Every two years, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon encourages competing collegiate teams to design energy-efficient homes that use solar energy.

Launched in 2002, the Solar Decathlon is both an educational and workforce-development program. The competition enlists nearly two dozen teams of students, from various academic backgrounds, who design sustainable homes from the ground up, engineering them with materials provided by major corporate sponsors.

The 2013 Decathlon will see the participation of the newly established Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies (QESST) Engineering Research Center, funded by the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy. Two QESST partners — Arizona State University and University of New Mexico — form the Decathlon team ASUNM.

Giving industry an edge

National Science Foundation's Engineering Research Centers program was developed in 1984 to give American industry a competitive edge in the global marketplace. The Engineering Research Centers combine education and research components with industry best practices to teach students engineering fundamentals, how to engineer systems and how to incorporate industry practices. The centers seek to create an environment of innovation and equip students with the tools necessary to advance technology.

QESST was born as an Engineering Research Center in 2011, in partnership with Arizona State University (the lead university), National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. It seeks to revolutionize the solar powered industry by meeting the growing demand for energy through advances in solar powered science, technology and education. Specifically, the interdisciplinary team is working towards developing more efficient solar powered technologies with improved performance and lower cost.

As with all Engineering Research Centers, QESST enlists the help of industry partners and analysts, academicians, economic and small business organizations, and venture capitalists — all of whom come together to innovate, promote research and commercialize the research output.

By creating more efficient solar technology and enabling production on a large scale, Engineering Research Centers aims to make solar energy the rule, instead of the exception. Participating in the 2013 Solar Decathlon is a unique opportunity for QESST to teach students the benefits of solar energy, as well as how to design efficient homes.

Designing for the Decathlon

"The Solar Decathlon has interested me since I began pursuing architecture as an undergrad at Colorado," said John Cribbs, a graduate student at Arizona State University and competitor in the Solar Decathlon. "This is the perfect opportunity to get my foot in the door and go through the process of designing and realizing my interests. The opportunity to be involved allows me to put every class I've taken as a college student into use and understand what it takes to design a truly beautiful and meaningful building."

The competition throws together a cross-disciplinary group of students to not only build a sustainable home, but also gain knowledge from team members with different backgrounds. Disciplines range from engineering to landscape architecture to behavioral science; everyone brings something unique to the table. As the students brainstorm the home's design, they anticipate potential problems and develop solutions on the spot.

"We started to understand better where systems need to go, where landscaping needs to be for micro-climate creation; we understood orientations, building skins, partition systems, foundation ideas, transportation issues — all of these things began to be shown in each of our schematic designs in different ways," Cribbs said.

The winning home will combine affordability with optimal energy production, will be aesthetically pleasing to consumers, and will maximize efficiency. To achieve those goals, teams must take into account the environmental conditions in their geographic locations, and design accordingly. According to Cribbs, the fact that Team ASUNM is based in the American Southwest lends some unique design opportunities.

"The climate provides for the blurring of indoor and outdoor spaces, year-round exterior spaces such as patios and grilling spaces, and unlimited solar power. The shortage of water in the desert is something that I believe we will be exploiting in our design. It will be important for our team to understand how every bit of water is used and recycled in our design, and how we can integrate efficient water systems," said Cribbs.

The consensus among those involved in the Solar Decathlon is that while solar energy may be a good solution to an energy crisis, research and innovation in the renewable field is essential. QESST and the Solar Decathlon empower students and researchers alike to work in partnership to advance interest in science and engineering and achieve that goal.

"The Solar Decathlon is harnessing the enthusiasm and competitive nature of students, and through this process we hope that future generations of engineers and architects view integrating solar energy into home design as the default option, rather than the exception," says Matthew Fraser, the executive director and sustainability director of QESST.

Editor's Note:The researchers depicted in Behind the Scenes articles have been supported by the National Science Foundation, the federal agency charged with funding basic research and education across all fields of science and engineering. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. See the Behind the Scenes Archive.