Collaborate Disseminate
A prerequisite for photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies to work efficiently is as direct an exposure to the electromagnetic radiation from the sun as possible. Since dust …read more Continue reading Giving Solar Power’s Mortal Enemies a Dusting Without Wasting Water
When featuring cool hacks repurposing one thing for something else, we prefer to focus on what we could get our hands on and replicate for ourselves. Not this one, though, as nobody else has the misfortune of being responsible for 2,000 square kilometers (772 square miles) of radioactive contaminated land like the government of Ukraine. Trying to make the best of what they have, they’ve just launched a pilot program working to put up solar power farms inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
This is sure to invite some jokes in the comments section, but the idea has merit. Thirty years …read more
Continue reading Solar Power For Chernobyl’s Second Generation of Electricity
In The Martian we saw what kind of hacking was needed to stay alive for a relatively short while on Mars, but what if you were trying to live there permanently? Mars’ hostile environment would affect your house, your transportation, even how you communicate. So here’s a fun thought experiment about how you’d live on Mars as part of a larger community.
Radiation on Mars comes from the solar energy particles (SEP) and galactic cosmic radiation (GCR). Mars One, the organization planning one-way trips to Mars talks about covering their habitats in several meters of regolith, …read more
Continue reading Living on Mars: the Stuff You Never Thought About