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Pharox Solar Kit Red 30% off now featured on Fab.
Fab.com
Compact, energy efficient and eminently cute, the Pharox Solar Kit includes a solar panel, a stylish spherical LED lamp with a built-in USB port and charger. With battery level and charge mode indicators, the light provides 45 hours of light on the lowest level, with three light intensity levels. Use the kit to power up your mobile phone or an MP3 player, or add the Pharox Solar to your disaster preparedness kit, take it camping or use it as a bedroom reading light. With Pharox lighting, you can enjoy clean energy and beautiful light wherever you go.
Squirt Water Clock Smoke Gray 35% off now featured on Fab.
Fab.com
Squirt resembles a drop of water as it splats to the ground. Fitting…because this slick clock by the geniuses at Bedol is powered by water! Just fill Squirt with ordinary tap water and you’re set for perfect timekeeping for six months or more before you need to refresh.
Its almost weekly that you can read an article about a solar array being installed on land that was once a farm. My comments:
Probably one of the things I may disagree with is the use of farmland for solarpower. We are trading food production for energy production, as if the alternative is actually worth it. Its not. That 100 acres that aren’t going to be producing a food crop contribute to the increase in food prices, and don’t necessarily decrease overall energy consumption. The difference between Commercial solar and residential solar is that homeowners are educated in how to reduce their energy consumption, building a solar farm does not reduce energy consumption by the consumer in any way. Its actually supplementing the current energy production, while we caution that non-renewables will ONE day be depleted. They will, and so will our water resources, and land to produce food.
Just as solar power is adapting to the current economic crisis, farmer leasing their land and earning a profit instead of loosing on the commodity market, farming is taking a different route. Vertical Farming or Green Roof or Walls But can we really expect to supply all our food needs in and around our urban footprint? Of course not, and I may be a overboard, but the loss farmland has occurred already, in the previous real estate gold rush. Farm land was sold to develop housing developments that fueled the bubble. Yeah, yeah, that was then, this is now - the beginning.
Probably one of the things I may disagree with is the use of farmland for solarpower. We are trading food production for energy production, as if the alternative is actually worth it. Its not. That 100 acres that aren’t going to be producing a food crop contribute to the increase in food prices, and don’t necessarily decrease overall energy consumption. The difference between Commercial solar and residential solar is that homeowners are educated in how to reduce their energy consumption, building a solar farm does not reduce energy consumption by the consumer in any way. Its actually supplementing the current energy production, while we caution that non-renewables will ONE day be depleted. They will, and so will our water resources, and land to produce food.
With nations around the world vying for clean energy leadership, India has taken a bold step toward becoming a leader in solar development. In only two years under India’s ambitious national solar policies, prices for solar energy in India have dropped dramatically, approaching the price of…
Transparent solar panels could replace your windows.
German startup company Heliatek are testing their flexible, transparent solar panels which could one day be built into houses to act as power-generating windows.
The panels are only able to convert around 8% of available energy into electricity, compared with around 12-17% for traditional solar panels, but the company claims that they are able to make up for that by providing better performance in low light and high heat to provide almost the same energy production overall.
The technology works by depositing a layer of organic molecules on polyester films, in a similar way to how OLED displays are produced.
The company recently started making a small amount of panels on a “proof of concept” production line, and say that within four to five years the cost should come down to around 40 to 50 cents per watt, which will make them competitively priced compared to conventional solar panels. The new technology would also work out cheaper to install in new houses, as opposed to having to install windows as well as conventional solar panels on the roof.
Recycling bricks
