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Queen’s University Applied Sustainability Research Group located in Kingston, Canada comes out with two studies that claim solar power in southeastern Ontario can be created in abundance. The natural question is how much abundance? The answer is mind-boggling. Southeastern Ontario has the potential to produce almost as much power as all the nuclear reactors in the United States! Queen’s mechanical engineering professor Joshua Pearce is the first person to find out the astounding possibilities of the region’s solar energy potential. He says, “The number is enormous. Solar can no longer be laughed off as something that can only power your cottage.”
Ontario Solar Power could match US Nuclear Power
Queen’s University Applied Sustainability Research Group located in Kingston, Canada comes out with two studies that claim solar power in southeastern Ontario can be created in abundance. The natural question is how much abundance? The answer is mind-boggling. Southeastern Ontario has the potential to produce almost as much power as all the nuclear reactors in the United States! Queen’s mechanical engineering professor Joshua Pearce is the first person to find out the astounding possibilities of the region’s solar energy potential. He says, “The number is enormous. Solar can no longer be laughed off as something that can only power your cottage.”
Carbon-based Solar Cells
Solar panels need silicon for absorption of light. Silicon doesn’t come cheap.This cost-factor is preventing people from using solar energy on a large scale. Scientists utilize another substance i.e. ruthenium for solar cells. Rutheniumcan is cheaper than silicon but ruthenium is a rare metal on Earth. It is as rare as platinum. Naturally it can’t be available for mass production. Compared to silicon, carbon is cheap and abundant. The graphene, another form of carbon, is capable of absorbing a wide range of light frequencies.
NASA’s Puffin: The Personal Electric Air Vehicle
Mark Moore, an aerospace engineer, is the person who dreamed about the Puffin. Puffin is a single seated electric powered airplane. Moore conceptualized the idea of electric aircraft for his doctoral degree. Operating it from your house is as simple as taking out your car from the garage. You can launch this aircraft from your own home because of vertical take-off and landing. Mark Moore is trying to combine the best feature of a plane and a helicopter into a hybrid known as the Puffin. The Puffin is not some abstract reality that is not going to take a concrete shape.
MIT Working on More Powerful, Lightweight Batteries
A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is working on lithium-air batteries that could help in generating more powerful, lightweight batteries than available currently. Yang Shao-Horn is an MIT associate professor of mechanical engineering. According to him many research groups are trying to improve on lithium-air batteries. But they have difference of opinions about the types of electrode materials to be used. It has to be noted that electrode materials are responsible for electrochemical reactions happening inside these batteries.
Sunlight to Electricity with Solid-State Photovoltaics
Conventional solid-state solar cells are suffering from the problem of the bandgap voltage limitation. Scientists are trying to capture more and more of sunlight and convert it into electricity. If scientists are able to increase the efficiency of the conversion rate that will put solar energy into fossil fuel league minus its undesirable effects. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have found a mechanism to deal with the problem of bandgap voltage limitation. In the language of solid state physics, a bandgap is also known as an energy gap. It is the amount of energy needed to release an outer shell electron from its orbit to become a mobile charge holder. This electron can move freely within the solid material. In conductor materials, the two bands often overlap, so they may not exhibit a huge bandgap.
Ontario Solar Power could match US Nuclear Power
April 21st, 2010 
Chris Carbon-based Solar Cells
April 21st, 2010 Chris Solar panels need silicon for absorption of light. Silicon doesn’t come cheap.This cost-factor is preventing people from using solar energy on a large scale. Scientists utilize another substance i.e. ruthenium for solar cells. Rutheniumcan is cheaper than silicon but ruthenium is a rare metal on Earth. It is as rare as platinum. Naturally it can’t be available for mass production. Compared to silicon, carbon is cheap and abundant. The graphene, another form of carbon, is capable of absorbing a wide range of light frequencies.
NASA’s Puffin: The Personal Electric Air Vehicle
April 16th, 2010 Chris Mark Moore, an aerospace engineer, is the person who dreamed about the Puffin. Puffin is a single seated electric powered airplane. Moore conceptualized the idea of electric aircraft for his doctoral degree. Operating it from your house is as simple as taking out your car from the garage. You can launch this aircraft from your own home because of vertical take-off and landing. Mark Moore is trying to combine the best feature of a plane and a helicopter into a hybrid known as the Puffin. The Puffin is not some abstract reality that is not going to take a concrete shape.
MIT Working on More Powerful, Lightweight Batteries
April 13th, 2010 Chris A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is working on lithium-air batteries that could help in generating more powerful, lightweight batteries than available currently. Yang Shao-Horn is an MIT associate professor of mechanical engineering. According to him many research groups are trying to improve on lithium-air batteries. But they have difference of opinions about the types of electrode materials to be used. It has to be noted that electrode materials are responsible for electrochemical reactions happening inside these batteries.
Sunlight to Electricity with Solid-State Photovoltaics
April 12th, 2010 Chris Conventional solid-state solar cells are suffering from the problem of the bandgap voltage limitation. Scientists are trying to capture more and more of sunlight and convert it into electricity. If scientists are able to increase the efficiency of the conversion rate that will put solar energy into fossil fuel league minus its undesirable effects. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have found a mechanism to deal with the problem of bandgap voltage limitation. In the language of solid state physics, a bandgap is also known as an energy gap. It is the amount of energy needed to release an outer shell electron from its orbit to become a mobile charge holder. This electron can move freely within the solid material. In conductor materials, the two bands often overlap, so they may not exhibit a huge bandgap.
