Build-It-Solar Blog: Low Energy and Unusual Ways to Keep Cool

Build-It-Solar Blog: Low Energy and Unusual Ways to Keep Cool: "Here are some low energy, low carbon, cheap, off the beaten path ways to keep cool in this hot summer... The Sleep Genie: This is an idea..."

Arduino Your Environment: Two DS18B20 Temp Sensors on LCD Display!

Arduino Your Environment: Two DS18B20 Temp Sensors on LCD Display!

Temperature sensors using the Dallas One Wire tech, useful info for the tinkerer in me!

Feds silence scientist over salmon study

Feds silence scientist over salmon study

VANCOUVER — Top bureaucrats in Ottawa have muzzled a leading fisheries scientist whose discovery could help explain why salmon stocks have been crashing off Canada's West Coast, according to documents obtained by Postmedia News.

The documents show the Privy Council Office, which supports the Prime Minister's Office, stopped Kristi Miller from talking about one of the most significant discoveries to come out of a federal fisheries lab in years.

Science, one of the world's top research journals, published Miller's findings in January. The journal considered the work so significant it notified "over 7,400" journalists worldwide about Miller's "Suffering Salmon" study.

Science told Miller to "please feel free to speak with journalists." It advised reporters to contact Diane Lake, a media officer with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Vancouver, "to set up interviews with Dr. Miller."

Miller heads a $6-million salmon-genetics project at the federal Pacific Biological Station on Vancouver Island.

The documents show major media outlets were soon lining up to speak with Miller, but the Privy Council Office said no to the interviews.

The Privy Council Office also nixed a Fisheries Department news release about Miller's study, saying the release "was not very good, focused on salmon dying and not on the new science aspect," according to documents obtained by Postmedia News under the Access to Information Act.

Miller is still not allowed to speak publicly about her discovery, and the Privy Council Office and Fisheries Department defend the way she has been silenced.

But observers say it is indefensible and more evidence of the way the government is undermining its scientists.

"There is no question in my mind it's muzzling," said Jeffrey Hutchings, a senior fisheries scientist at Halifax's Dalhousie University.

"When the lead author of a paper in Science is not permitted to speak about her work, that is suppression," he said. "There is simply no ifs, ands or buts about that."

The Harper government has tightened the leash on federal scientists, whose work is financed by taxpayers and is often of significant public interest — be it about fish stocks, air pollution or food safety.

In one high-profile case reported by Postmedia News last year, Natural Resources Canada scientist Scott Dallimore had to wait for "pre-clearance" from political staff in the minister's office in Ottawa to speak about a study on a colossal flood that swept across northern Canada at the end of the last ice age.

Researchers, who used to be free to discuss their science, are now required to follow a process that includes "media lines" approved by communications officers, strategists and ministerial staff in Ottawa. They vet media requests, demand reporters' questions in advance and decide when and if researchers can give interviews.

Environment Canada now even has media officers in Ottawa tape-recording the interviews scientists are allowed to give.

Yet transparency as well as open communication and discussion are essential to science, Hutchings said, and Ottawa's excessive control over communication is "really poisoning the science environment within government."

"An iron curtain has been draped over communication of science in the last five to six years," he said.

The Privy Council Office and the Fisheries Department said Miller has not been permitted to discuss her work because of the Cohen Commission, a judicial inquiry created by the prime minister to look into declines of the famed Fraser River sockeye salmon. She is expected to appear before the commission in late August.

The Privy Council Office has "management responsibility" for the commission and decided Miller should not give media interviews about her study because of the ongoing inquiry, said PCO spokesman Raymond Rivet.

"Fisheries and Oceans Canada is conscious of the requirement to ensure that our conduct does not influence, and is not perceived to be attempting to influence, the evidence or course of the inquiry," department spokeswoman Melanie Carkner, said in a written statement.

Hutchings doesn't buy it, saying he finds it "inconceivable that the Cohen Commission would have viewed the communication of brand new scientific information as somehow interfering with its proceedings."

To Hutchings, the muzzling of Miller is "all about control — controlling the message and controlling communication."

The government released 762 pages of documents relating to the Miller study to Postmedia News. Many passages and pages were blacked out before they were released.

The documents give a glimpse of the way media strategists, communication specialists and officials control and script what government scientists say — or, in Miller's case, do not say —about their research.

The documents show the Fisheries Department wanted to publicize Miller's study, which raises the spectre of a mysterious virus killing huge numbers of Fraser River salmon before they reach their spawning grounds.

In November, two months before Miller's findings were published in Science, Fisheries Department communications staff started preparing "media lines."

The lines said Miller's findings "demonstrate unequivocally that salmon are entering the river in a compromised state and that survivorship can be predicted based on gene expression more than 200 kilometres before salmon reach the river."

Miller's team has not yet identified a culprit, but her Science study said one possibility was a virus associated with leukemia, which can be transmitted from fish to fish.

Reporters from Postmedia News, CBC and many other media, including Time Magazine, asked to speak with Miller after receiving the Jan. 9 notice from Science.

The documents show DFO communications staff firing off a series of "URGENT" emails as they tried to get clearance from Ottawa for Miller's "media lines" and the OK for her to speak with reporters.

They eventually got approval from DFO's deputy minister and the federal fisheries minister's office but then had to go "to PCO for sign off," the documents say.

"You need to write a note for hot-button approval," Rhonda Walker-Sisttie, director of DFO public affairs and strategic communications in Ottawa, told the Vancouver communications branch by email, advising them to use the "PCO template for media requests."

As the reporters' deadlines loomed, Terence Davis, DFO's Pacific regional director of communications, implored Ottawa to clear Miller to talk.

"If we are unable to set up a technical briefing or interviews for later today, the opportunity for DFO to gain the profile we would like for Kristi's work may be lost or very much diluted," Davis said in one email.

"We are pushing hard," Walker-Sisttie assured the Vancouver communications office.

Then, weeks after the department learned Miller's findings were to be published in Science and several days after 7,400 journalists were notified about the study, the PCO decided not to let Miller talk about her findings and their significance.

"PCO has decided that we can only respond in writing," Walker-Sisttie reported from Ottawa. Another explained: "Kristi was not approved to provide interviews."

The reporters, who the documents show were baffled and miffed by DFO's inability to get Miller on the phone or on camera for interviews, filed stories based on her highly technical Science report and interviews with some of Miller's colleagues at the University of B.C.

Miller is still not allowed to speak about the Science report, which she wrote in a Nov. 12 memo "reflects only a fraction of what we know."

But Miller will finally be able to discuss her work in late August, when she is scheduled to testify at the Cohen Commission.

Hutchings said government communication strategists are likely now busy telling Miller: "Here is what you can say. Here is what you can't say. Here is what we want you to stick to. Don't talkabout this."

"I'd be amazed if she is not receiving such quote, unquote 'advice,' " said Hutchings.

mmunro@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/margaretmunro

Read more: http://www.canada.com/technology/Feds+silence+scientist+over+salmon+study/5162633/story.html#ixzz1TLT27nAj

more info on thin film technology;

Hi Eric,  you did better research in your articles about CIGS before (or was it Micheal Kannelos?) Johanna was never using a coevaporation process, its a sequential process - depositing metal precursors by sputtering followed by a more or less rapid processing step in Selenium and/or Sulfur atmosphere - like Solar Frontier, Avancis, Stion, Centrotherm and Sulfurcell, because all have the same origin ARCO! By the way, Johanna was bought by Bosch and is now called Bosch CISTech, Sulfurcell was renamed to Soltecture and started CIGSe-module manufacturing using a coevaporation process. The other companies using coevaporation are Global Solar, Ascent, Solarion, Solyndra, Würth and Solibro. These companies are using processes simliar to the 3-stage co-evaporation process developed by NREL, which leads to world record efficiencies (20.3% by ZSW). Coming to some exotic processes and companies: Nanosolar - sequential process, but instead of sputtering the precursors are prepared by applying an ink (similar to ISET); Solopower - sequential process, but instead of sputtering the precursors are prepared by electrodeposition (similar to CIS Solartechnik, Odersun or NEXCIS); Miasole - reactive sputtering, simliar to coevaporation but insterad of thermal evaporation the metals are sputtered (companies using a simliar approach: AQT, XsunX).

Thin Film Solar: The Market That Isn't : Greentech Media

Thin Film Solar: The Market That Isn't : Greentech Media

SAN FRANCISCO --- Reporting from Intersolarand the SEMI Fab Manufacturer's Forum with a focus on thin film technology and markets.

The question asked at this forum were:

• What are the common issues faced by thin film manufacturers?
• And what will it take for the thin film industry to grow?

Thin film solar panels account for roughly 20 percent of the solar market and First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) makes up about half of the thin film market total. First Solar has a two-gigawatt capacity this year and an announced capacity of three gigawatts for next year.

Here are the 2010 thin film rankings:

But what really makes a market? Is it a common set of materials and processes and tools?

If that's the definition -- then there really isn't a PV thin film market according to a (very interesting) presentation by Dr. David Eaglesham, the CTO of First Solar.

Eaglesham made the point that even within the CdTe (cadmium telluride) materials systems, there's no standard process. First Solar uses a Vapor Transport Deposition (VTD) process, while Abound Solar and PrimeStar/GE use a Close Space Sublimation (CSS) process for their CdTe manufacturing. Solexant employs semiconducting nanoparticles in an ink.

And within the CIGS materials system, you'd be hard-pressed to find a pair of vendors using the exact same processing technologies. In the words of Frank Yang, Senior Director, Business Development at Stion -- "Saying CIGS is like saying cake." There are lots of different cake recipes.

Co-evaporation is used by Johanna, Solibro, and Wurth. Nanosolar uses a printing technique. SoloPower uses a process akin to electroplating while Avancis, Stion, and Solar Frontier use a sputtering technique. And each of those players has their own unique spin. Some firms work with cells like AQT, while others create a monolithic module like ISET or Stion.

Helfried Weinzerl, Manager Business Development, Solar PV, at CH2M Hill observed that CIGS could stand for Challenging Industrial and Global Standardization.

In a technology still in rapid growth mode, vendors, especially leading vendors, are going to stubbornly reject efforts to standardize. It's just not in their best interest to standardize -- at least not yet.

Ben Bierman, Executive VP, Operations & Engineering at Solyndra noted that the unique nature of their cylindrical solar product meant that they had to create their own in-situ test equipment. Until an outside vendor arrives with a better solution, Solyndra has no reason to join in a standardization effort, according to Bierman.

Bettina Weiss of SEMI noted that standards will eventually reach thin-film PV just as they have reached crystalline silicon.

Thin film solar technology boasts a superior carbon footprint compared to energy-intensive crystalline silicon solar modules. Eaglesham said that thin film can claim the shortest EPBT (energy payback time) by a large measure -- First Solar's EPBT is 0.8 years (EPBT includes manufacturing and installation).

It's not enough to base a common market on, but it's a shared thin film attribute -- 


and it's a start.


frpm the comments

more info on thin film technology;

Hi Eric,  you did better research in your articles about CIGS before (or was it Micheal Kannelos?) Johanna was never using a coevaporation process, its a sequential process - depositing metal precursors by sputtering followed by a more or less rapid processing step in Selenium and/or Sulfur atmosphere - like Solar Frontier, Avancis, Stion, Centrotherm and Sulfurcell, because all have the same origin ARCO! By the way, Johanna was bought by Bosch and is now called Bosch CISTech, Sulfurcell was renamed to Soltecture and started CIGSe-module manufacturing using a coevaporation process. The other companies using coevaporation are Global Solar, Ascent, Solarion, Solyndra, Würth and Solibro. These companies are using processes simliar to the 3-stage co-evaporation process developed by NREL, which leads to world record efficiencies (20.3% by ZSW). Coming to some exotic processes and companies: Nanosolar - sequential process, but instead of sputtering the precursors are prepared by applying an ink (similar to ISET); Solopower - sequential process, but instead of sputtering the precursors are prepared by electrodeposition (similar to CIS Solartechnik, Odersun or NEXCIS); Miasole - reactive sputtering, simliar to coevaporation but insterad of thermal evaporation the metals are sputtered (companies using a simliar approach: AQT, XsunX).

Why Bill Gates Wants to Reinvent the Toilet - Yahoo! News - StumbleUpon

Why Bill Gates Wants to Reinvent the Toilet -
Why Bill Gates Wants to Reinvent the Toilet
Time.com – Wed, Jul 13, 2011


This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global-news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in Die Welt.

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft who has morphed into the world's best-known philanthropist, wants to reinvent the toilet.

This next big idea for the good of mankind will now also be getting help from German taxpayers after Development Minister Dirk Niebel earmarked $10 million for a joint project with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Over the next five years, this project aims to provide 800,000 people in Kenya with access to sanitation facilities and ensure clean drinking water for 200,000.

The goal is to find "innovative solutions" for sanitation in poor urban areas. Gates says it's time to move on from the era of the classic toilet. He points out that, despite all the recent achievements, 40% of the world's population, or some 2.5 billion people, still lives without proper means of flushing away excrement. But just giving them Western-style toilets isn't possible because of the world's limited water resources. (See pictures of the global initiatives of Gates' foundation.)

The matter is urgent: the lack of sanitary installations and hygienic waste removal furthers the spread of disease. UNICEF estimates that 1.1 billion people worldwide don't have access to any kind of toilet or ways of eliminating waste. That, in turn, fouls drinking water and can cause diarrhea, which spreads quickly.

According to UNICEF, at least 1.2 million children under the age of 5 die of diarrhea every year; the main cause is contact with human feces. At the end of June, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon - together with UNICEF - approved a five-year sustainable sanitation plan under which the number of people who have no access to toilets would be halved by 2015. (See the top 10 famous toilets.)

Ban emphasized that sanitary installations not only play a decisive role in reducing world poverty, but they are crucial for sustainable development and for making it possible to achieve Millennium Development Goals.

Dutch engineer Frank Rijsberman agrees. He heads the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene department at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and he is presently working on two projects. With one project, the foundation supports the construction of pit latrines in rural areas and slums without sanitation facilities. With the other, it supports research projects, giving grants to scientists who come up with new ideas for using human excrement. He says there have been experiments to turn excrement into a kind of microwave that can be used as a source of energy.

He says there are biological bacteria that could turn waste into compost; he talks about the possibility of toilets actually turning urine into drinking water. Human waste could be a real gold mine, Rijsberman jokes. In view of the world's limited water resources, both the Gates Foundation and German Development Policy support various projects for dry toilets that do not use water to flush and that separate excrement from urine in order to dry it.

Another method put forward by the Gates Foundation in South Africa is using the urine of 400,000 people to make nitrogenous fertilizer in powder form. A similar albeit high-tech variation is currently being tested by the Society for International Cooperation in Eschborn, Germany. Germany and the Gates Foundation's projects are complementary, says the German Ministry for Development. The importance of this research is not always easy to explain, says Rijsberman, because anything having to do with human waste provokes a "yuck factor." (See Bill Gates in his younger years.)

Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of those concerned are far from convinced that it's a good idea to use toilets in the first place. "We have a lot of work ahead us," says Rijsberman, who knows he can count on his boss's full support.

And the billionaire himself seizes every opportunity to lobby for the end of the traditional Western toilet. In April, Gates met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Christian Wulff in Berlin. In a press conference he told journalists that they didn't talk politics, but discussed the idea of the "ultimate toilet."

Aeolus

Aeolus: "Horns Rev 1 wake effects. Photographer Christian Steiness. The above photograph shows the turbulence field behind the Horns Rev 1 offshore wind turbines. Unique meteorological conditions on 12 February 2008 at 1300 hours resulted in the wind turbines creating condensation (i.e. clouds) of the very humid air, thus making it possible to see the turbulence pattern behind the wind turbines."