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solar power


NASCAR to build huge solar plant at Pocono raceway

The only green typically associated with NASCAR is the cubic dollars spent every year by fans on tickets and merchandise and what the automakers spend to support their teams. On the technology side, this is a series that still uses carburetors and only recently switched to unleaded gas. However, NASCAR has decided to take a tentative step into the future. Over the past weekend while NASCAR was running at Pocono Speedway in Pennsylvania, officials held a ground breaking ceremony for what is expected to be the largest solar power facility ... Read more →

Toyota to build new Prius in Eco-Factory in Japan Sam Abuelsamid

While the argument about whether a Hummer H2 is actually more environmentally friendly than a Toyota Prius has long since been debunked (even if it keeps popping up its ugly head), it does raise a ...

Why don't we use solar to power our electric cars? Jeremy Korzeniewski

For years, we've been watching as solar-powered race cars travel at relatively high rates of speed for hours on end – as long as the sun happens to be shining, of course. In fact, the World ...

Police in Ohio go solar [w/VIDEO] Jeremy Korzeniewski

The Ohio State Highway Patrol says it was able to save roughly $1 million in fuel costs in 2008 (reportedly a 16.4-percent savings) by increasing stationary patrol time. Sitting stationary does ...

Meet a MINI E that will only use solar power Sebastian Blanco

The all-electric MINI Es are starting to be delivered, and AutoblogGreen reader David VM. will do something a little extra with his new ride: power it completely by solar power. David has ...

Lamborghini adds solar power to factory, vows to cut range CO2 35% by 2015 5 months ago on Autoblog Green

In the grand scheme of things, the facilities and products of Lamborghini don't really amount to a hill of beans. After all, the company only has one main factory that produces a few thousand cars a year. While those cars are high-powered and consume a lot of fuel per mile driven, Lamborghini ...

Kyocera offers details on solar cells used by 2010 Prius 5 months ago on Autoblog Green

Want to know more about the solar moonroof option that's available on the latest third-generation Toyota Prius for 2010? Read on. According to Tech-On from Nikkei newspaper in Japan, the actual polycrystalline Si cells used by the automaker are supplied by Kyocera and are arranged in six columns ...

Seat Brisa and Duna concepts point the way to solar power 6 months ago on Autoblog Green

At this point, vehicles covered in solar panels aren't yet able to offer a viable alternative to the fossil fuel-powered cars and trucks that we currently rely on. There's hope that this fact will someday change, but that date's still a way off in the future. Regardless, we can still have some ...

It's Friday: Home-built solar trike boggles the mind 7 months ago on Autoblog Green

Solar technology, while promising, doesn't quite seem ready to power our vehicles. Large solar installations that constantly collect the sun's rays and store them for later use may be an excellent option to power electric vehicles, but even the best photovoltaic cells in the world are not yet ...

Toyota developing solar-powered car for the road 10 months ago on Autoblog Green

Don't get too excited yet, but reports are coming out of Japan that say Toyota is developing a solar-powered car. First of all an electric car that draws electricity solely from the sun is still quite a few years off. The first stage is a car that gets some power directly from vehicle mounted solar ...

UK Petrol Retailers Association suggests solar-powered EV stations 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

We'd imagine that the UK Petrol Retailers Association would have a vested interest in making the business model of the tried-and-true gas station survive. So, we aren't all that surprised to read about the group's suggestion that future gas stations should carry solar roofs that feed power into ...

Elon Musk on PHEV's, battery technology and solar cells 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria recently got some face-to-face time with Elon Musk, who, as you surely know by now, is one of the "product architects" at Tesla Motors. There were plenty of interesting quotes to come from the interview, but a few truly stood out from the rest. For instance, Musk slams ...

Solar power heats up. Government freezes projects. 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

With the cost of fuels and the environmental toll of traditional carbon-based sources of electricity generation quickly climbing, solar power in America has become so popular that the government has placed a moratorium on the building of any such projects on Western public land. The Bureau of Land ...

VIDEO: Nanosolar makes a one gigawatt printing press 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

With so many auto-makers throwing their hats into the electric car ring, cleanly producing electricity cheaply becomes even more important. While the oft-touted nuclear solution seems to be getting a lot more expensive, solar is set to get a lot cheaper. Days after IBM announced it is moving into ...

Thule to install solar cells on roof of U.S. headquarters 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

Thule, self proclaimed "experts in maximizing a vehicle's roof space," have decided to maximize their own roof space, so to speak, by installing a 318-kilowatt (kW) DC solar photovoltaic (PV) system at their Seymour, CT U.S. headquarters. Consisting of two separate arrays with a total of 1,876 solar ...

Nelson Kruschandl shows how to make a solar car on the cheap 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

Wanna build a solar car? Good new for you, then! Nelson Kruschandl has set up a website where he gives you the ins and outs of solar car construction. Sure, there's plenty of power available from the sun, the tricky part is harnessing enough of it to get anywhere. Therefore, lightweight parts and ...

Mitsubishi boosts output of solar cells 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

We've written before about Honda's production of solar cells, but did you know that Mitsubishi actually ranks as the world's sixth-largest manufacturer of PV cells? Currently, Mitsubishi Electric cranks out about 120 megawatts worth of solar cells a year, although they have the capacity for 150 ...

Durham University developing light-absorbing materials for sustainable solar cells 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

According to professor Ken Durose, Director of the Durham Centre for Renewable Energy, "One of the main issues in solar energy is the cost of materials and we recognise that the cost of solar cells is slowing down their uptake. If solar panels were cheap enough so you could buy a system off the ...

Powering your electric car from your home with wind power? 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

We are big proponents of the electric car, and for good reason. The majority of Americans could use one for their daily commute without making any concessions at all, even if they don't know it. There are some stumbling blocks for sure, public perception being one of them. Available charging ...

Governor Kulongoski of Oregon to sign biofuels bill 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

Now here's some forward thinking. Instead of taking the route many states have and focusing on the immediate and obvious problem of fuel efficiency, Ted Kulongoski (my condolences on your name, man), Governor of Oregon, is taking productive action and signing the Biofuel Bill, as it hath been ...

A solar car built for Mars 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

Solar power has long been that main staple for power generation in space. It's easy to see why, as no other systems are necessary and the suns rays are readily available. Plus, there is none of earth's atmosphere to get in the way... Anyway, solar power makes great sense in space, and it will see ...

Using colored dyes instead of silicon for solar cells 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

Again, as we pointed out in a previous posting, solar power is likely the most environmentally source of power available, but there are problems associated with it. Currently, solar cells are not cheap enough, nor are they powerful enough to replace much of our existing power generation methods. The ...

How about a garage covered in wind turbines with solar windows? 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

We ran a story a little while ago that talked about a thin-film solar covering that is transparent and can be applied to windows. I thought that perhaps it was possible to use them on the large automotive sunroofs that are popular these days to charge the normal 12-volt battery of the vehicle. But, ...

Could the windows of your car charge the battery? 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

This article does not specifically mention what types of glass this will work with, or whether there is any restrictions at all, but it is an interesting thought that the windows of your car could provide electricity to power the battery or batteries of your vehicle. This would help at least one ...

Portugal wants 45% renewable electricity output and 10% of all fuels to be biofuels 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

Here is some shocking news: The Government plans to make nearly half of the electricity consumed using wind, wave and solar power! Oh wait... that's the government of Portugal. Well, still, it is great news. The old goal was 39 percent in 3 years, it was recently upped to 45 percent by Prime ...

RoseStreet Labs and Sumitomo Chemical Announce JV for Full-Spectrum Solar Cells 3 years ago on Autoblog Green

Sumitomo Chemical of Japan and RoseStreet labs are establishing a joint venture to develop and manufacture full spectrum photovoltaic solar cells. The intent is create cells that convert more of the available energy in sunlight into electricity. The joint-venture company, RSL Energy, Inc., will ...


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