Dr. Wayne Campbell.
(Credit: Image courtesy of Massey University)

Solar cell technology developed by New Zealand's Massey University’s Nanomaterials Research Centre will enable New Zealanders to generate electricity from sunlight at a 10th of the cost of current silicon-based photo-electric solar cells.

The synthetic dyes are made from simple organic compounds closely related to those found in nature. The green dye is synthetic chlorophyll derived from the light-harvesting pigment plants use for photosynthesis.  READ MORE »

Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. "The process is simple," said lead researcher and author Somenath Mitra, PhD, professor and acting chair of NJIT's Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. "Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations."

Via: Reality Sandwich at http://www.realitysandwich.com/here_comes_sun -- Above Excerpted from Science Daily at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070719011151.html  READ MORE »

With the help of over fifty of the world's most prominent thinkers and activists, including reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, physicist Stephen Hawking, and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, “The 11th Hour” documents the grave problems facing the planet's life systems. Global warming, deforestation, mass species extinction, and depletion of the oceans' habitats are all addressed.

However, the most powerful element of “The 11th Hour” is not a portrait of a planet in crisis, but an offering of hope and solutions. The film ends with a call for restorative action through reshaping human activity.

“The 11th Hour” is opening on August 17th in New York and Los Angeles. On the 24th it opens in other cities, and in the following weeks across the country. It would be great if you could go see it and bring a friend. You can go to www.11thhouraction.com to get more information on the movie and when it will play near you.

We need the message of this movie to hit as far and wide as possible.The hope is us. Let's begin. Thank You, Leonardo DiCaprio LeonardoDiCaprio@11thhouraction.com

Please take a look at the trailer here: http://www.11thhouraction.com/trailer  READ MORE »

DESIGN REVOLUTION TO SOLVE WORLD'S MOST PRESSING PROBLEMS LAUNCHED

"If success or failure of the planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do ... How would I be? What would I do?" — R. Buckminster Fuller

JULY 12th, 2007, NEW YORK CITY — On the occasion of the 112th birthday of one of the 20th century's most prescient futurists and global thinkers, The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) announces the launch of the first annual BUCKMINSTER FULLER CHALLENGE. http://challenge.bfi.org

Established to catalyze the vanguard of a global design revolution, the Challenge will award a single $100,000 prize annually to support the development and implementation of a solution with significant potential to solve the world's most pressing problems in the shortest possible time while enhancing the Earth's ecological integrity.  READ MORE »

Professor David Faiman and his collegues at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev are convinced that the feasibility of realizing concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems on a very large (state-wide) scale is imminent. They outline the economic feasibility of an approach using existing proven technology in a paper referenced below. Their economic financing model developed by D. Raviv was based on technology developed by Amonix Inc.

But Faiman has developed what he considers a breakthrough technology that utilizes a 400 square meter (4,300 sq ft) solar concentrating dish capable of achieving 1000 suns (concentration the intesity of the suns energy by a factor of 1000). The dish is lined with 216 triangular mirrors and is supported by a geodesic structure that rotates and tilts according to the position of the sun.

The dish focuses the 1000 X light on a single 10cm x 10cm PV panel and according to latest test results can produce more than 1.5 kW at 15 % effeciency under field operating conditions without visible signs of damage or degradation.

The big improvement comes not with power conversion effeciency but with power out put per square centimeter. In this case were talking about a power generation increase hundreds of times greater due to the effeciency of the concentrating dish. This ultimately translates to the ability to build a large power plant utiliizing less land for the giant dishes and far fewer of the expensive PV panels.  READ MORE »

The Bio DaVersity Code is an animated parody of the The Da Vinci Code. It is part of an on-line awareness campaign to alert people that we must sustain all life in order to sustain human life.

If current trends continue, half of all species of plants and animals living today may be extinct in less than 100 years. Unless halted, this catastrophic loss of biodiversity will radically alter our children's prospects for health and safety.

By all measures, its an issue which has already reached crisis proportions but has yet to reach a tipping point of public concern like global warming.
Help Create the Tipping Point! Check it out and pass it on!

-- www. daversitycode.com