Last Week for Personalized Golden Gate Bridge Light Show

Inspired by windows reflecting light across the bay, Solar Beacon is an interactive art exhibit set atop the twin towers of the Golden Gate Bridge.Computer controlled mirrors atop the towers can reflect a beam of light to almost anywhere in the Bay Area. Placed in celebration of the Golden Gate Bridge's 75th Anniversary, the installation is the product of collaboration between London based artist Liliane Lijn, Aeronautical Engineers from the Space Sciences Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley, and Golden Gate Bridge Engineers.To activate the beacon, visitors to the Solar Beacon website specify a time for their show, a location, and a height above ground level.  Computers at the Space Sciences Laboratory calculate the precise angle between the sun and the location, and send a control message to the top of the towers. 
The mirrors rotate on command, reflecting a pleasant and twinkling light, far brighter than any artificial spotlight. For a preview of the coverage area, you can visit a speical page. To learn more about signaling long distance using lights, read up on the Scouting project Operation On Target, which aims each year to send messages from the Mexican Border to the Canadian Border, using mirrors alone.
One advantage to lumens is that consumers can get a wider range of brightness. Instead of having to choose between a 100-watt or 75-watt lamp, bulbs using lumens run the gamut, offering a much finer brightness gradient.Energy savings from efficient lamps are also an advantage. An LED lamp is five times more energy efficient than an incandescent lamp.According to the DOE, the operating cost savings a consumer can achieve by switching to an energy efficient bulb is dramatic. For example, the operating cost per year for a 60-watt incandescent bulb is $4.80, a halogen incandescent bulb costs $3.50, a CFL bulb is $1.20 and an LED light is just $1.Beginning this year, on average, light bulbs sold in the U.S. will use 25% to 80% less energy as manufacturers begin flooding the market with new, compliant products.According to the DOE, upgrading 15 inefficient incandescent bulbs could save a homeowner about $50 per year. Since most of the bulbs also have longer life spans, the savings continue into the future. Nationwide, lighting accounts for about 10% of home electricity use. With new EISA standards, U.S. households in total could save nearly $6 billion in 2015.

Gadling Gear Review: Solar Chargers For Travel

Keeping all of our electronic gadgets charged while traveling can be a real challenge, particularly if you're visiting a remote part of the world where electricity is at a premium. But just as the gizmos we carry with us have gotten more sophisticated so have the options for keeping them powered. One of those options is taking a solar charger with us when we hit the road. A solar cell provides clean, efficient and, in theory, limitless power for our tech toys.Here are two distinctly different solar chargers aimed at very different types of travelers. Both are excellent for what China Outdoor Offers do, and while they each use light from the sun to create electricity, their similarity pretty much ends there.
The Classic2 is Solio's second-generation, travel solar charger, replacing their older Classic model, which was one of the earliest compact chargers on the market. The Classic2 improves on its predecessor in some key areas making it a much more efficient option to have in your pack when you travel. Those improvements include doubling the battery capacity and adding a full-size USB port integrated into the device. The previous version came with a number of special adapters, which were incredibly inconvenient to carry along on a trip. Since most devices, including smartphones and cameras, now charge via USB, this was an evolutionary, but very welcome, change.
The Classic2 features three small China Solar chargers for Iphone Offers, each embedded in its own arm. When collapsed the device is small, lightweight and compact. It weighs just 10.1 ounces and easily slips into a backpack, carry-on bag or luggage. When ready to collect energy from the sun, it opens up like a flower, exposing all three cells for maximum efficiency. The energy is then stored in a 3200-mAh internal battery, which in turn is used to charge our devices via the built-in USB port.Solio says that it should take 8-10 hours to charge the Classic2's internal battery from the sun, but in my testing it was definitely closer to the high side of that estimate, if not longer. Cloudy days and the amount of exposure to direct sunlight can impact that charging time dramatically. Fortunately, the internal battery can also be topped off from a wall socket or from a USB port on a computer. In both cases, it takes roughly six hours to charge the battery.The built-in USB port on this charger provides up to 1 Amp of power, which puts it on par with a typical wall charger. That means it can charge a smartphone or MP3 player in fairly short order. Solio claims charging an iPhone takes about 90 minutes, although again I found it took a bit longer.

New law means road lighting in Nova Scotia must be LED

Energy Minister Charlie Parker finalized amendments to the Energy-Efficient Appliances Regulations today, Sept. 12, that require all road and highway lighting in Nova Scotia must be converted to LED."With LED road lighting, Nova Scotia will save millions of dollars by using about half the energy of current lighting, and improve our air quality while reducing our carbon footprint," said Mr. Parker. "This only serves to strengthen Nova Scotia's position as a leader in combining fiscal and environmental responsibility."The regulations require Nova Scotia Power to complete its conversion by Dec. 31, 2019. Municipalities will have until Dec. 31, 2022, and now have one year to outline the conversion.The regulations are expected to save Nova Scotians about $5 million a year in energy costs alone after all the lights have been converted. Nova Scotia Power is proposing a new rate plan for streetlight customers which will not increase annual costs for seven years and offer a rate reduction if they use Nova Scotia Power-owned lights. Depending on maintenance, there could be additional savings. Municipalities that choose to own their own lights could also benefit from lower financing costs.
"Many of our municipalities have already switched over to LED roadway lights and are reporting operational savings," said Mr. Parker. "The province is also making low-cost financing available so more municipalities can take advantage of these savings sooner."The regulations were drafted by the Department of Energy after public consultations and meetings with the LED Working Group that includes Halifax Regional Municipality, Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities, Efficiency Nova Scotia and Nova Scotia Power.Nexxus Lighting (NEXS), a maker of LED replacement lamps based in Charlotte, NC, has announced that it will be receiving a $6 million investment from a private equity firm Aston Capital LLC. When the deal is finalized, the firm will own 73% of Nexxus' common stock. Robert LaPenta, chief executive officer (CEO) of Aston, will become Nexxus's new chairman.
The closing of Aston's investment is scheduled to be finalized by September 24, at which time Nexxus' current board members will resign.Aston has agreed to purchase 600,000 shares of convertible preferred stock at $10 per share. The preferred stock will be convertible into shares of the company's common stock at a conversion price of $0.13 per share. Upon conversion of the stock, Aston is expected to own about 73% of Nexxus' outstanding common stock. Aston will also initially have the right to appoint four members to its board, with the board not to exceed seven members.

A Saltwater LED Lantern Shines

Keeping track of the news concerning science and technology is always exciting because you'll never know what will catch your eye next. When something catches my eye, the knowledge that something interesting and/or helpful can already be done or be done in the near future is always a thrill.While all the news about high tech processes and engineering can be exciting, the idea of something simple doing interesting things catches my eye even more. As I have mentioned before, simple solutions to the world's problems are always interesting.It's a fact that there are areas in the world that do not have access to electricity. This is especially true in developing countries like our own Best Custom Solar bag. One of the things we probably take for granted while living in the city is access to the kind of electrical lighting that we have, something that these areas would love to have but do not. The answer might be a simple electric lantern that doesn't run on batteries but something a lot simpler.
The company Green House Co. Ltd. developed an LED lighting system called the GH-LED10WBW LED Lantern. The interesting part is that runs on nothing but water and salt. The saline water is placed inside a special mixing bag and acts like the electrolyte while a magnesium rod and a carbon rod act like the cathode (negative electrode) and anode (positive electrode), respectively, in this makeshift wet battery. According to instructions provided by the company, 350 cc of water should be mixed with 16 grams of salt. Perhaps the system could run on other saline liquids like actual seawater or even urine? Unfortunately, it's not clear whether either of those would actually work because I can think of instances where seawater or urine might be used instead of directed solution.
This setup generates 1.5 volts of direct current power to run the 10 LED white lights, producing 55 lumens of light that can run for 8 hours until the saline solution needs to be replaced. The magnesium rod can last for 120 hours before it gets consumed by the Best Custom Remote Controlled LED that happens to generate the electricity and needs to be replaced. If a lantern that runs on salt and water isn't good enough for you, this device also includes a USB port that you can use to charge or power devices you might need at 4.5 volts.I was thinking that this device could also come in handy when faced with natural calamities or other instances when power is not available and emergency lighting is needed. This device can not only help in providing emergency lighting in affected areas but can also be used to power or charge important devices like cell phones and others needed to coordinate relief or rescue operations. On a lighter note, I think this lantern could also be helpful to bring along on camping trips especially because it's both a light source and a charging station.

Baja Designs at the 2012 Sand Sport Super Show

At the 14thannual Sand Sports Super Show Baja Designs will be celebrating 20 years of innovation and racer proven off-road lights. Many of you have been hearing "buzz" about BDs new OnX LED light bars. These are the light bars that Baja Designs racers have been excitedly testing and they are all saying the same thing: "this LED light bar really gets out there and it's small enough to significantly reduce wind drag!". The SSSS is your chance to finally see them for yourself. Baja Designs will be releasing the OnX LED light bar and also the SII LED light to the public at 5:00 pm September 14 at the opening of the SSSS. Their new OnX LED Light Bar is the only light bar on the market that has the distance of an 8" HID with the smooth spread of an LED. The OnX will be sold in 8" increments ranging from 8" all the way to 51". If you're looking for the guaranteed farthest projecting LED light on the market, look no further. On the other hand, if you need a light that will fit in the smallest of spaces, then you should check out the new SII LED light. This 3"x1.75" light produces 1,800 lumens and will outshine any other 2, 3 or 4 LED auxiliary light on the market. Not only that, but its small size means it can be mounted virtually anywhere.
Come out and see BD at the Sand Sport Super Show September 14th-16th at the Costa Mesa Fairgrounds. The BD booth is located in the Parade of Products between buildings 10 & 12 – Just look for the beautiful Vildosola Racing Trophy Truck featuring the new OnX LED Light Bar. Now is the time to get yourself the best off-road lights available. BD lights are made right here in California and carry a lifetime warranty.
Emmily Sj?lander, environmental programme manager at Tesco, said that if the store proves effective at delivering promised energy savings, the company could deploy LEDs across its 2,700 UK stores and incorporate them into its new-build programme."We have recognised that through the use of LED light fittings we can dramatically reduce energy usage, particularly at Express stores due to their smaller size and lower ceiling height," she said."If this delivers the energy savings we have estimated, it is likely that we would replicate this lighting system at other stores."Tesco has a target of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 and has opened a string of flagship "Zero Carbon" stores in Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Powys, and Dublin to trial new energy efficient technology since 2009. Its latest Zero Carbon store opened in Cefn Mawr near Wrexham in March.

Solar energy innovations show California is generating success

Anyone watching the Republican Convention would think that entrepreneurship and innovation have been squashed and squandered by the Obama administration. Like most impressions coming out of political conventions, this one is also wrong and slanted toward making the president look bad.Setting aside the Solyndra loan guarantee that went south, the stimulus package launched in the first year of Barack Obama's presidency has gone a long way toward advancing various clean energy technologies and improving traditional ones.State energy officials marked a milestone of sorts in adding more solar power in the state. They hailed this achievement during a stakeholders' meeting this last week in Sacramento hosted by the state electric grid operator.
In the recent heat wave, California broke a record by generating more than 1,000 megawatts of Best Custom Solar bag, equaling two average-size natural gas-fired generation plants. State officials are calling it historic.Separately, there is a lot of solar not yet hooked up to the grid or existing in small rooftop installations on homes and businesses that isn't even counted in the state's milestones. (Rooftop solar has quadrupled in the city of Los Angeles in the past two years, for example.)So, the combination of California's emphasis for the past 10 years on developing more alternatives and federal stimulus package incentives have produced more private-sector jobs and megawatts as the result. It is true this power is not priced as low as traditional forms of electricity, but it makes sense for the long term if we as a society are going to seriously reduce carbon emissions that are choking the Earth's atmosphere. The added costs of over-reliance on Best Custom Remote Controlled LED are too much.
There are three large-scale solar plants now under construction in deserts of Southern California, totaling nearly another 1,000 megawatts. Each of them has been the recipient of the much-maligned Obama administration federal loan guarantees through the U.S. Department of Energy.A project near the California- Nevada border off the Interstate 15 highway leading to Las Vegas, BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah solar development, is a $2.2 billion undertaking that has attracted more than a half-billion dollars of private equity, a $1.6 billion DOE loan guarantee and passed the halfway point in its construction early in August.While the Obama administration stimulus has gotten criticized for increasing the federal deficit with few tangible results, Ivanpah has created more than 2,000 construction jobs, and promises to provide more than $400 million in local and state tax revenues and another $650million in wages and benefits over the 30-year expected life of the 370 megawatt power project.

Monorail-Riding Robots Could Continually Rearrange Solar Panels to Follow the Sun

Fleets of battery-powered robots could zip along monorails installed in solar arrays, tweaking individual panels' angles so they follow the sun across the sky. This could be cheaper than installing actuators on every solar panel so they track the sun, according to a new robotics startup. Robots can make everything easier!A company called QBotix aims to make solar panels more efficient and more affordable just based on their infrastructure, which is one of the technology's main challenges. Stationary solar arrays don't gather as much sun as possible because, well, the sun moves. They can instead be designed to follow the sun's path across the sky like sunflowers, harvesting light all day long as opposed to the few hours when the sun beats down at the right angle. But this is more expensive.Moving panels with the utmost efficiency requires moving them on two axes — tilting forward and sideways to follow the sun exactly. But it's difficult and expensive to install huge, heavy solar panels that can move on two axes. You need motors and controls, unless you want workers to nudge them all day long.
Qbotix says it can build a two-axis solar array for the price of a single-axis one, and improve energy capture from solar panels by 15 percent, all by using robots instead. The concept rests on a pair of autonomous robots called the Solbot R-200.The pair (one main robot and one backup) can maintain solar panels sufficient to generate 300 kilowatts of electricity. They would be mounted on simple monorails, which can be installed in any solar array, including on uneven surfaces or rolling hills. The robots would adjust each panel throughout the day to ensure it tracks the sun. One robot can adjust up to 200 panels every 40 minutes, which is how long it takes the sun to move 10 degrees across the sky. The other robot will recharge while its twin is working.The system also comes with software that can track plant performance, the company says. QBotix lined up funding this spring and says it already has its first customer, which will begin installation later this month. You can read more about the company here.
Chinese retaliation against European wines could be more politically feasible in Beijing. Tales of lavish spending on expensive wines by the wealthy and by government officials periodically surface on the Chinese Internet, and feed public anxiety about the wide gap between rich and poor. China exports over 90 percent of its solar panels. It has done so to tap into billions of dollars in subsidies from government agencies and other electricity users in the United States and Europe for homes and businesses to install solar panels. W.T.O. rules have discouraged Western countries from banning the use of their subsidies for the purchase of Chinese solar panels.

LED driver aimed at 100W incandescent bulb replacements

Power Integrations has unwrapped the DER-323, a reference design for an 18W, 88 percent-efficient, non-isolated A19 LED driver based on LNK460VG, a low-profile IC from the company's LinkSwitch-PL family. According to the company, the design is geared for a 100W incandescent bulb replacement and is optimized for low-line (90-135VAC) operation. The circuit is low-cost, requiring only a simple single-sided board and 25 components. No potting is necessary and the transformer is replaced by a low-cost inductor.DER-323 uses a simple buck-boost converter topology that fits easily inside the A19 bulb. The design is EN61000-3-2 (C) compliant and has a high power factor of over 0.98, easily satisfying commercial and consumer compliance requirements, stated the Best Custom Solar chargers for Iphone. Because LinkSwitch-PL ICs combine both PFC and CC converter functions in a single-stage topology, no electrolytic bulk capacitor is required, resulting in a very long operational life.
"The lighting industry typically asks for 80 percent efficiency for drivers targeting 60W A19 bulb replacements. To achieve viable LED-based replacements for 75W and 100W bulbs, much higher efficiency is needed in order to reduce the heat dissipated by the driver. The 88 percent efficiency of DER-323 satisfies this need and makes the thermal design of the bulb straightforward and inexpensive. DER-323 is also compact, reliable and easy to manufacture thanks to its low component count, single-stage architecture and use of a low-cost inductor rather than a transformer," noted Andrew Smith, product marketing manager at Power Integrations.
A ban on the usage of Best Custom Solar radio and charger in Europe that is to come into effect on Sept. 1 is expected to negatively affect the Turkish market because of the country's dependency on imports of the product.Tekfen, the one-time sole producer in the country, closed its bulb plant in 2002, replacing it with imports from China. Global players such as General Electric and Philips also closed their Turkey plants in the early 2000s.The ban is designed to protect the environment as Edison-style lightbulbs release carbon dioxide and are not considered to be energy efficient. As part of the measures, the production, sale and export of 100- and 75-watt lightbulbs will be prohibited. As a result of the ban, the price of energy-saving LED lightbulbs, the latest technology, is expected to go up in Turkey as the country, which has a $350 million-400 million lightbulb market, imports most of its lightbulbs.