Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have just done a batch of research that they hope will help turn the world's roads into cheap collectors of solar power.

They started with the assumption that asphalt gets frakking hot when the sun shines on it, and then started making some serious leaps.

First, they decided to figure out what part of the asphalt gets hottest, which turns out to be about two centimeters below the surface. Then they tried to figure out how to make it even hotter. The painted an anti-reflective coating to their test blocks, and then added highly thermally conductive quartzite to the mix.

The result is blacktop that gets even hotter and stays hotter for longer than regular asphalt. Of course, this left them with the problem of how to get the energy out of the road. By laying down a series of flexible and highly conductive copper pipes before pouring the asphalt they were able to pump water through the asphalt, picking up the heat, for use in power generation.

However, project leaders hoped to replace the copper pipes with a "highly efficient heat exchanger." Whether or not that would be water based, or exchange heat some other way, we don't know.

The system has several large advantages over traditional photovoltaic power.

1. It's really cheap
2. They don't need to find extra land
3. It's invisible to the average person
4. Blacktop stays hot, and could produce power for hours after the sun goes down
5. There are roads and parking lots everywhere power is needed.

There are already a examples of similar technology in use around the world, but modifying the chemistry of the asphalt specifically to make it a good solar collector is a new move.

Via WPI.edu

TechForward is an innovative company whose buyback plans help to green up the consumer electronics industry by ensuring buyers that they’re going to get something back for their gadgets down the road. Last week EcoGeek spoke with founders Jade Van Doren and Marc Lebovitz to find out more.

There are a lot of electronics buy back programs out there. However, TechForward does something unique. They guarantee a certain price that someone will get for their gadget when they’re ready to upgrade to something new. So the guesswork on what you might get for something is gone – a consumer can know exactly what it will be worth to them upon resell. When someone buys, say, a laptop, they can go to TechForward’s website for a guaranteed buy back. Based on the device model and when the consumer plans on selling it back, TechForward lets them know what amount they’ll get for it. TechForward even provides the packaging to send in the device. When someone sells their product to TechForward, the company either resells or recycles it.

Programs like these go a long way to extend the lives of electronics, keeping them in the loop and out of landfills for as long as possible. Also, it puts a proactive spin on what happens to a device at the end of its life with the original consumer, ensuring that there is a plan for the device. So instead of someone deciding they want to upgrade and either tossing, or setting aside a gadget until it is obsolete, or going through a resell process that they may not get the amount they’d hoped, consumers can go through TechForward and have a clear plan of what will happen, when, how, and for how much, giving the device a longer lease on life. TechForward uses a complex model that factors in what’s going on in the market for various devices and models of electronics, and the model spits out the value of the device up to two years into the future. They can then determine the amount the consumer will get for the device, and they try to return as much value to the consumer as possible. If the device is too run down to resell when it is shipped back to TechForward, they ensure it is recycled.

Additionally, TechForward’s program combines two of consumers’ biggest concerns – money and green thinking. Consumers can be sure that they have something of value while also feeling a little better that they aren’t being wasteful. Van Doren points out that the model sets up essentially a reward system for being green. Programs like these remind consumers of the impact their devices have at the end of their lifecycles and promotes planning ahead. According to Lebovitz, the majority of people who use the program do return their devices, and the majority of devices bought back by TechForward are able to be resold.

TechForward has grown rapidly in the three years since its launch, and is working to partner with large retailers so consumers are better aware and able to utilize TechForward’s services at the point of sale.

So next time you buy an electronic device that you know you’ll be upgrading within two years, remember TechForward's plan - you can be green, get some green, and have a plan for your cool toy before you even break it out of the box.

The latest trend in the green movement – other than EVs – seems to be greenhousing communities. Considering everyone needs a place to live, this is a perfect focus for injecting green technology into daily living. Arvada, Colorado is all over this concept, going farther than solar roofing, or LEED certification goals. They’re setting up a community that will completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

Called Geos, the 25-acre area will have 250 homes from smaller 850 square feet to mansion-sized 3,500+ square feet placed in four neighborhoods. While that’s a whole lot of houses, they’ll be keeping a whopping 40% of the area as green space.

Using active and passive solar energy for daytime heating and electricity, the homes will be placed and constructed to maximize sun exposure, with rooftops housing PV panels. Excess power is stored in the grid. For un-sunny days, winter heating, and summer cooling, geothermal energy will be used.

Each home will be hooked up to a very cool energy monitoring system (not sure what model…) so the homeowner can keep an eye, and leash, on energy consumption.

The community is breaking ground this fall, and homes will be flying up – the first will be available during Spring of 2009. My only question now is how green they’ll be in terms of building process and materials...hopefully, very.

Via Inhabitat

Next month, attendees of the MIT Emerging Technologies conference may see a prototype of a very cool refrigeration system. Promethean Power Systems is working on a solar-powered refrigerator for use in rural areas where electricity is scarce or unreliable, so perishables like dairy and medicines can be safely stored.

The invention sounds pretty neat – solar panels on the roof of the refrigeration shed will gather the energy needed to convert electricity into cold air via thermoelectric modules. Should the project be a success, and commercialization possible, this could be a huge relief for rural areas.

One may be wondering how on earth a poor area could get an expensive machine such as this. Promethean Power is eyeballing businesses like food distributors and processors in India that want a better method than diesel generators to keep their products cooled. This will enable them to further save money by reducing the transportation costs involved in collecting products from farmers several times a day – they can make the trips just once.

However, the big challenge still is getting a highly efficient, affordable product put together, and one that will stay cold when the sun isn’t around to generate the energy needed for cooling. Promethean Power will be hunting for funding after the prototype is completed.

Via cnet

One of the big issues with wind power is how to make it reliable. We can put farms in areas notorious for windiness, but even if we do this, how do we know how much electricity we’ll be able to get from it each day? How on earth can we plan ahead to use something that is iconic for being unreliable and shifting?

Researchers in Germany are developing a new software that can predict the electrical output from wind farms. The software, called Previento, can potentially give German grids a way to plan out how much non-wind-based electricity will be needed to cover times when wind is really more of a breeze, which will help keep users happy and costs down. With 7.2% of the country’s electricity coming from wind, the predictability factor of peaks and troughs in wind power is a big deal.

The software pulls together information from a variety of weater models from different sources, combines them with topographical information about local terrains that affect a farm’s output and a wind farm’s particulars (which, I assume, takes into account the types of turbines being used along with other factors) and makes a final calculation that can be relied upon up to four days in advance, and with a time resolution of up to 15 minutes for any German – or European, for that matter – location.

One thing that sets this software apart from some others is that it also provides the margin of error, which is an important little figure to throw in to planning. The system can predict as far as 10 days in advance, but with much less reliability than the 4 day calculations.

Should the software prove as awesome as it seems to be, it could be a big boon for Germany and anyone working on wind power improvements.

Via RenewableEnergyWorld, photo via benleto

A cool new leg of a cool nonprofit is helping cities reduce their emissions across the board by linking cities’ emissions data to its effect on climate change. In all, 21 cities are starting out reporting their emissions data to the Carbon Disclosure Project, including some biggies like New York, Las Vegas, and New Orleans. They will describe their major sources of greenhouse gas emissions to the project, which compiles the info and publishes reports.

The project isn’t a see-how-much-these-cities-suck type of effort, but rather a look-at-where-we-are effort that gets people talking about what has become the c-word…Change. The cities are voluntarily supplying their info so that they can make changes. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m in California, but as I watch the Olympics (non-stop since they started) I’ve noticed that every single commercial break includes at least two renewable energy commercials. Renewable energy and “Going Green” are trendy. And to see cities heading in to projects like this show that it is actually moving beyond trendy and niche-y, into serious analysis, accountability, and action. And that is needed.

"Over 70% of total global emissions are generated from cities, and if you don't measure these emissions, you cannot manage them," said Paul Dickinson, CEO of Carbon Disclosure Project, in a statement.

The project has been collecting corporate emissions info since 2003, and moving on to cities is a great expansion. The results of this city info collection will be published in January, and will help us see what’s going on in cities, and start up dialogues about what can be changed now and in the future.

The other cities participating in the Carbon Disclosure Project are Albany, NY; Albuquerque, NM; Anchorage, AR.; Arlington, VA.; Burlington, VT.; Denver, CO; Dubuque, IA; Edina and St. Paul, MN; Fairfield, IA; Haverford, PA; North Little Rock, AR.; Pacific Grove and Rohnert Park, CA; Park City, UT; Portland, OR.; Washougal, WA.; and West Palm Beach, FL.

Via Cnet

I'm almost surprised I haven't seen this yet. Really, though, there's not much to talk about. If this ever makes it's way into the real world, it'll be simply as a novelty. A novelty that, frankly, says something we'd like to hear more of:

"HA! Remember those stupid incandescent light thingies...those things were HILARIOUS!"

Via TreeHugger and One of those Ridiculous, High-Powered, Artsy Designers.