Collaborate Disseminate
There are plenty of reasons to install solar panels on one’s home. Reducing electric bills, reducing carbon footprint, or simply being in a location without electric service are all fairly …read more Continue reading Off-Grid EV Charging
Solar panels are a special kind of magic — turning light into useful electrical energy. However, they don’t work nearly as well when they’re covered in dust, dirt, and grime. …read more Continue reading Self-Cleaning Tech Could Help Solar Panels Keep Efficiency Up
It’s an old saying with an apocryphal origin: “May you live in interesting times“. We Brits are certainly living in interesting times at the moment, as a perfect storm of …read more Continue reading Being Green, It’s A Rich Man’s Game
[Mark Havran] is on a mission to complete a solo trip around the world on his bicycle. For such a long and arduous trip, unsupported by anything other than what …read more Continue reading DIY Solar Ebike Goes Around the World, We Hope
Heavy rainfall in Northern Europe last month caused disastrous flooding in several countries. [Daniel Jedecke] was on assignment in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany during the floods and saw …read more Continue reading Solar Fueled Emergency Power Pack
The good news about using solar power to explore space is there are no clouds to block your sunlight. Some dust and debris, yes, but nowhere near what we have …read more Continue reading NASA’s Lucy Stretches Its Wings Ahead of Trojan Trek
Everybody loves solar power, right? It’s nice, clean, renewable energy that’s available pretty much everywhere the sun shines. If only the panels weren’t so expensive. Even better, solar is now the cheapest form of electricity for companies to build, according to the International Energy Agency. But solar isn’t all apples …read more
Flying on the power of the sun is definitely not a new idea, but it usually involves a battery between the solar panels and the propulsion system. [ukanduit] decided to lose the battery completely and control the speed of the motor with the output of the solar panels. This leads …read more
Continue reading Tacking Against The Sun: Flying A Batteryless Solar RC Plane Is Almost Like Sailing
Rare earth metals are used in solar panels and wind turbines—as well as electric cars and consumer electronics. We don’t recycle them, and there’s not enough to meet growing demand. Continue reading We Don’t Mine Enough Rare Earth Metals to Replace Fossil Fuels With Renewable Energy
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