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Category: sustainability – Page 272

Nestled in deep woods in Jefferson, Kim and Rusty Fenn live off the grid in a home they built themselves out of wood from their property. They have two solar-power systems on their roof, one to generate electricity and one to heat their water.

They have all the appliances any home would want, and the solar power provides all their needs. They heat with a heat pump and a wood stove.

Kim, the creative one of the couple, had a pile of chicken grain bags, and decided to make a bag out of one. She then made a bunch for Christmas presents for friends and family. They were such a hit, that the couple decided to make them commercially.

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— Energy Info

Media Contact: Jennifer Kalez

SALEM – A public partnership with the Oregon Department of Energy, Oregon Department of Land Conservation & Development, Oregon State University’s Institute for Natural Resources, and the U.S. Department of Defense has published new educational materials that will help local governments, Tribes, communities, policymakers, agencies, energy developers, and other stakeholders access important information and considerations for potential renewable energy in Oregon.

The Oregon Renewable Energy Siting Assessment (ORESA) project was funded through a $1.1 million U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) grant, with the goal of providing baseline data to support important conversations around potential energy and transmission development in the state.

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German energy firm RWE is to invest in a pilot project centered around the deployment of floating solar technology in the North Sea, as part of a wider collaboration focused on the development of “floating solar parks.”

Set to be installed in waters off Ostend, Belgium, the pilot, called Merganser, will have a capacity of 0.5 megawatt peak, or MWp. In a statement earlier this week, RWE said Merganser would be Dutch-Norwegian firm SolarDuck’s first offshore pilot.

RWE said Merganser would provide both itself and SolarDuck with “important first-hand experience in one of the most challenging offshore environments in the world.”

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Silicon is one of the most abundant elements on Earth, and in its pure form the material has become the foundation of much of modern technology, from solar cells to computer chips. But silicon’s properties as a semiconductor are far from ideal.

For one thing, although silicon lets electrons whizz through its structure easily, it is much less accommodating to “holes”—electrons’ positively charged counterparts—and harnessing both is important for some kinds of chips. What’s more, silicon is not very good at conducting heat, which is why overheating issues and expensive cooling systems are common in computers.

Now, a team of researchers at MIT, the University of Houston, and other institutions has carried out experiments showing that a material known as cubic arsenide overcomes both of these limitations. It provides to both electrons and holes, and has excellent thermal conductivity. It is, the researchers say, the best semiconductor material ever found, and maybe the best possible one.

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Carbon labelling gives consumers a weapon to fight climate change at the cash register.

What’s Involved with Carbon Labelling

Today, nutritional and content labelling can be found on packaged foods. The Government recently announced plans to enhance those labels. Why, because of concerns that Canadians need to learn more about what they eat so that they can make healthier choices.

Carbon labelling would serve a similar purpose by allowing Canadians to make healthier choices about carbon emissions. A carbon label would let consumers understand the environmental impact of items they purchase and consume. The label would contain the total carbon footprint of the product.

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