What about renewable energy? What's the latest on that?

Anyone keeping up with the advances in wind, water, and solar power? Please post updates and discussion on this topic here, especially announcements regarding tax breaks and government actions on the subject.

This is my favorite as far as innovation, a little Pompano Beach FL company called Cyclone Power Technology. Take a look at the link, because they also have come up with a waste-heat exchange engine and the site links to videos and news releases about their innovation. Raytheon has signed a contract with them for research and the military is poking around.

Green Revolution Engine

Cyclone’s Green Revolution Engine represents true “thinking outside the box.” This is because it is not a new variation of the internal combustion engine, but rather, a highly advanced External Combustion Engine.

Unlike IC engines, the Cyclone engine uses an external combustion chamber to heat a separate working fluid, de-ionized water, which expands to create mechanical energy by moving pistons or a turbine.

Since the combustion is external to the mechanism, the Cyclone engine can run on any fuel… liquid or gaseous. Ethanol, diesel, gasoline, biomass … anything from municipal trash and agricultural waste to traditional fossil fuels can power the Green Revolution Engine – individually, or in combination. Initial tests of the engine used fuels derived from orange peels, palm oil, cottonseed oil, and chicken fat … none of which are impacted by cartels, hostile governments or dwindling reserves.
Whereas almost anything can go into a Green Revolution Engine, almost nothing comes out. It is exceptionally environment-friendly because the combustion is continuous and more easily regulated for temperature, oxidizers and fuel amount. Lower combustion temperatures and pressures create less toxic and exotic exhaust gases.

The engine’s uniquely configured combustion chamber creates a rotating flow that facilitates complete air and fuel mixing, and complete combustion, so there are virtually no emissions. Less heat is also released. Exhausted gases run through a heat exchanger before leaving the engine, lowering the temperature at release to about 350 degrees … hundreds of degrees lower than internal-combustion exhaust.

Versatile and clean, the Green Revolution Engine also travels without an “entourage” of costly, complicated components. It needs no catalytic converter … no radiator … no transmission … no oil pump (and no oil … the engine is water-lubricated). Eliminating these subsystems reduces cost… engine size and weight… and energy loss. And it increases efficiency and reliability.

Small wonder “revolution” is part of its name …

http://www.cyclonepower.com/cyclone_engine.html

Awesome!

I found this article on renewable fuels. I noticed in the article how Obama is putting another $786.5 million into this effort. While that's all good, it makes me laugh at the big deal he was making about finding the $100 million to cut out of the budget! Should I start growing corn? What kind of corn? Will I be taxed for each ear of corn? I am supportive of renewable fuels. Glad to save the planet.

EPA proposes renewable fuels rules as part of Obama biofuels push


Nick Snow
Washington Editor

WASHINGTON, DC, May 7 -- The US Environmental Protection Agency issued proposed new renewable fuels regulations for 2010 and beyond on May 5 as part of a broader Obama administration initiative.

US President Barack Obama also issued a directive forming a biofuels interagency working group to be chaired by Sec. of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Energy Sec. Steven Chu, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. The president also announced that another $786.5 million from the recently enacted federal recovery and reinvestment act will be available for biofuels research and development and for biofuel refineries.

The new renewable fuels regulations were outlined in a proposed rulemaking notice on the Renewable Fuel Standard. They outline EPA's strategy for increasing the supply of renewable fuels as mandated by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. EPA would establish four renewable fuels categories (cellulosic biofuels, biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuels, and total renewable fuel).

The proposal would require 36 billion gal of renewable fuels be produced annually, 16 billion gal of which would have to be cellulosic biofuels and 1 billion gal of which would have to be biomass-based diesel. At the most, 15 billion gal of the renewable fuel mandate could be met by corn-based ethanol and other conventional biofuels.

http://www.pennenergy.com/index/articles/display/361550/s-articles/s-oil-gas-journal/s-general-interest/s-epa-proposes-renewable-fuels-rules-as-part-of-obama-biofuels-push.html

Forget the corn, lyniebell. Use your computer printer to turn out solar cells! Found this article a while back:

April 3, 2008 Using FUJIFILM’s cartridge-based Dimatix Materials Printer (DMP), Konarka Technologies has demonstrated the world's-first fabrication of highly efficient solar cells using of inkjet printing technology.

Inkjet technology operates by propelling variably-sized droplets of liquid or molten material onto almost any medium. Inkjets are the most common type of computer printer for the general consumer; however the technology has wider applications in the industrial arena. Inkjet printers are also used in the production of many microscopic items and to form conductive traces for circuits, color filters in LCD and plasma displays and now - photovoltaic solar cells.

The DMP used for the demonstration is a turnkey, bench-top materials deposition system that uses FUJIFILM’s inkjet technology and Shaped Piezo Silicon MEMS fabrication processes in depositing picoliter-sized droplets of functional fluids on all types of surfaces. By employing single-use cartridges that researchers can fill with their own fluid materials, the DMP system minimizes waste of expensive fluid materials, thereby eliminating the cost and complexity associated with traditional product development and prototyping. The DMP is suitable for prototyping and low-volume manufacturing, and the technology is scalable from research and development to production.

The results of the demonstration were published in the journal Advanced Materials (Volume 19, Issue 22, Pages 3973-3978), highlighting the use of the technology as a fabrication tool for the controlled deposition of photovoltaic material.

Konarka (which has also developed and is commercializing Power Plastic, a material that converts light to energy) says the demonstration confirms that organic solar cells can be processed with printing technologies with little or no loss compared to “clean room” semiconductor technologies such as spin coating - a process used to apply uniform thin film solar cells to flat base materials. The inkjet technology also had the advantage of being compatible with various base materials and does not require additional patterning.

While the demonstration was the "first-known" according to the Konarka's release, the attractive notion of printable solar cells is not entirely new. Last year researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology announced the development of an inexpensive solar cell, using a carbon nanotubes complex that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets, and could one day lead to the creation of solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers.


http://www.gizmag.com/solar-cells-created-with-inkjet-technology/9094/

It's his solo solar dream
By Ileana Morales, Times Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, May 12, 2009


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TAMPA — It's a glimmer of gold and black topping out at 75 mph.

No stops for gas. Just food, rest and friends. But it's a looker.

In Alaska, someone called police about the UFO on the road. Motorists turn around to snap pictures.

Power of One, a solar-powered car trekking across North America on three wheels, stopped Tuesday at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Creator and driver Marcelo da Luz told his story to students and faculty members before continuing a tour to extend his world record for distance traveled in a solar car.

For this odyssey, da Luz quit his 10-year job as an Air Canada flight attendant. He ran up his credit cards and took a couple of mortgages out on his house to come up with $100,000-plus to pay for the materials that went into the car.

He said it had to be done.

"The pain of not following the dream became unbearable," da Luz said. "I had to do something about it."

Da Luz wants to inspire people. He wants people to realize that a car like his can handle even a 450-mile stretch of gravel across the Arctic Circle.

The trip started 11 months ago in Buffalo, N.Y. He hoped to make it to Miami Tuesday, followed by Key West, and a return home to Canada.

In Alaska, he picked up an intern, who follows behind in a van and trailer, carrying a sign that warns, "Caution: Solar car ahead." The intern, Netherlands college student Michael Feith, crafts a business plan for the solar car project's future.

Da Luz drives on his back, toes pointed forward, his face peeking out through the window of a hump on the roof. He steers with handlebars that look like they belong on a motorcycle.

The car has no rearview mirror. Instead, a camera behind him transmits to a tiny screen mounted on his sunglasses.

He drives at least six hours a day in good weather. Bleak skies stranded him for 30 days in Vancouver.

Lack of sunshine was no problem in Tampa on Tuesday morning.

Da Luz tilted the solar panels to the sun, keeping an eye on the crowd and asking the curious to step aside.

Their bodies blocked the rays.

Da Luz needs as much sun as possible to generate the car's 900 watts. A toaster can use more than 1,000 watts.

Power of One, for all its efficiency, lacks an air conditioner or heater. In freezing temperatures, he wraps himself in a sleeping bag. In Florida, he sweats.

The car seats only one.

That's a problem. Da Luz, 40, hopes for a family.

He's looking forward to developing a bigger, better car, as practical as this one is efficient.

Power of One is still a test.

Da Luz said, "You can't call your boss in the morning and say, 'Well, there is no sunshine.' "

Ileana Morales can be reached at (813) 226-3403 or imorales@sptimes.com.




Solar car facts

Top speed: 75 miles per hour.

Acceleration: 0 to 50 mph in 6 seconds.

Power source: 893 mono-crystalline solar cells.

Power storage: 26 lithium ion batteries.

Distance: 300 miles on a sunny day; 130 miles at night with a full battery charge.

Length: 16 feet.

Width: 6 feet.

Height: 3 feet.

Weight: 470 pounds.

Ground clearance: 1.3 feet.

On the Web: www.xof1.com.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/science/article1000309.ece