Ford revealed its new Ford C-Max Solar Energi concept car at CES 2014: a car equipped with 300W of semi-flexible rooftop solar (Sunpower) that can run quasi-entirely on solar charging without need to draw energy from the electric grid.

The innovation in the system lies not only in the high-efficiency solar panels but also a unique charging station composed of solar concentrator and sun-tracking technology that allows to charge the car's battery in one day (as opposed to one week if the solar panels worked alone!).

The canopy structure contains Fresnal lenses to  concentrate the sun's energy on the panels, and moreover, the car is actually programmed to inch backward and forward to track the sun throughout the day!

For the moment, the C-Max Solar Energi remains a "concept car" (clocking in a mere 21 electric-only miles per charge), but hopefully the project will kick other car companies into gear for other exciting solar-powered transport innovations.

This place is just. awesome.
I recently bought a bike off Craigslist for an upcoming bike trip in the Netherlands. It was a great find but the bike definitely needed some tuning.

A friend had told me about the Velorution Bike Workshop, so I decided to check out the atelier located at the Maison de Velo, 37 boulevard Bourdon (the workshop entrance is at 6 rue Jacques Coeur).

In order to participate in the workshop, you must first become a member and pay 10EUR (or more as you like) for an annual subscription. You then have access to an enormous set of tools, spare parts, and most of all, really kind and knowledgeable people to help and give advice to fix up your bike.

Once I arrived at the workshop, I signed in and then they just let me loose. I felt lost for about 2 minutes - just the amount of time to run into Ingi, and Icelandic-French volunteer who warmly helped me get started with my repairs.

In a matter of an hour, with the help of Ingi and other volunteers, I managed to
1/ pump my tires
2/ cut off an old bike lock that was stuck to the bike (yep, learning how to steal bikes too now!)
3/ add a rack to the back of the bike to be able to attach bags (a rack which was available in their stock of parts)
4/ add a kickstand
5/ do an all-round check of the gears, breaks, pedals, and tires.

All this, while listening to good music and talking to interesting people. I'm inspired to go back and learn more and be part of this bike revolution - the velorution.

This workshop combines so many awesome principles - first, bicycles.  Let's face it, bicycles are genius engineering and - everyone should ride bikes.  They are fun, efficient, a great workout, and good for the environment.  Second, community.  The aspect of being with others and helping each other and exchanging is so powerful.  Third, fixing!  We are seeing a a new movement of fixit/DIY among engineers and artists that is inspiring.  Where are grandparents had little, and fixed what they had, my generation had a new relationship with objects: buy cheap, buy often, and dispose.  I'm terrible at sewing and I don't know how to fix anything!  But I want to "return" to the model of our grandparents.

Fixing creates an intimacy between you and your possessions, and not only is better for the environment, but improves the quality of your life.

Now, my main concern as I grow an affection for my new blue bike, is how do I deal with the fact that it might (high chances) get stolen.  This is another topic of discussion.

For now, get a bike, fix it, and ride on.

Hayward, CA-based ATDynamics recognized the potential to improve efficiency for the large truck fleet in the US, and developed the TrailerTail®, an aerodynamic tail system that can easily be installed on existing trucks and instantly improve fuel efficiency by reducing drag.

Aerodynamic drag, a restraining force that acts on a moving object, accounts for approximately 65% of fuel consumed by a tractor-trailer.

In other words, the conventional truck design is simply not aerodynamic.

As shown in the image, drag is derived from the front of the tractor, the gap between the tractor and the trailer, the underbody of the trailer, and the rear of the trailer.

ATDynamic's flagship product, the TailerTrail, reduces drag at the rear of the trailer by over 12%, leading to a 6.6% fuel-efficiency gain at 65 mpg, and 9-12% gain wehen combined with the Transtex skirt (for reducing underside drag).

A mere 6.6% improvement may not seem substantial, but when considering the design constraint to develop a technology for existing trucks (that require certain dimensions to carry standard containers) and the sheer numbers mentioned above, this 6.6% can lead to impressive results: savings of ~$2900 and ~7.4 metric tons of CO2 per year per truck, or considering the total fleet in the US of 2 million trucks, a potential saving of $6.6 billion and 14 million tons of CO2 per year in the US alone.

The TrailerTail, estimated to cost about $2200, will pay for itself within a year.  Moreover, the TrailerTail is cleverly designed to be easily installed in one hour, and if needed, the tail closes automatically or manually in less than 4 seconds.

ATDynamics' TrailerTail is commercialized and receiving positive feedback from its clients.  "The TrailerTail was the best investment in fuel economy I have ever made", Brett Tobin Trucking.  ATDynamics is also working with truck manufacturers to improve aerodynamics of future designs - a critical need for an industry which accounts for 26% of fuel used for transportation in the US.

Also, check out 17-year-old's Jonny Cohen's GreenShields project which similarly improves fuel efficiency by reducing drag, aimed specifically at school buses.

While the LeWeb 2012 conference takes place this week in Paris with the theme "Internet of Things", TBIdeas has launched its first crowdfunding campaign for the Loochi on Indiegogo.

The "Internet of Things" explores how objects are connected and communicate with each other - smart phones, smart cars, smart appliances.  Check out this fun animation on CNN that explains well how connected objects are and will continue to impact our lives.

And now comes Loochi, the connected lamp.

The Franco-American rockstar L-Team has been developing prototypes of Loochi for the past 6 months to arrive at the current design, with the following features:

• A 10-watt LED bulb (check out Switch Lighting and Digital Lumens to remind yourself of the efficient-awesomeness of LED lights) from LED Engin producing 510 Lumen (more than the amount of light produced by a 40W incandescent bulb).
• The base of the lamp, designed by Dr. Jurgen Kienhofer under a CC-BY-SA license,  is made of plastic with a chrome plating, and an aluminum-based heatsink to cool the LED.
• The Loochi is wirelessly connected via Blutooth® 4.0 - intentionally not WIFI - to avoid complex connection issues and facilitate the user experience.

 

Loochi has countless applications - waking you up gently, linking notifications to light signals, synchronizing Loochi with your music for a party, and more.

Also, Loochi is completely open-source, so you can program your own applications or design and 3-D print your own lamp shade.

If you are as excited about the Loochi as I am, help support the team by crowdfunding and even pre-ordering your Loochi NOW.  Orders go until January 6, 2013, and shipping is expected for March/April 2013.

I ordered mine last night and can not wait to smoochi my Loochi.

To put it briefly, over 1.5 billion people (over 20% of the world's population!) do not have access to electricity.  In many cases, these same people live in sun-abundant regions where as SunFunder describes, "there is a huge opportunity for solar to leapfrog the non-existent electricity grid system this decade" - and guess what, the solar technology to light up these off-grid communities exists.

The major issue however, is the shortage of financing to fund this "off-grid solar revolution" and the SunFunder solution was created to provide an online crowdfunding platform to connect interested individual investors (like you and me!) to lend money (as little as $25!) to fund off-grid solar projects around the world.

How does it work?

SunFunder builds strong partnerships with solar energy businesses and non-profits around the world, to assemble a portfolio of robust solar projects (eg. purchasing and selling solar light bulbs for a village of 500 people, building a solar micro-grid).

The individual investor browses the available projects, selects a specific project of interest, and invests.  Once the funding target is reached (this solar lighting project took 62 investors), SunFunder provides low-cost financing to the solar partner to fund the implementation of the project.

As the customers make payments to the solar partner, the partner makes repayments to SunFunder, and SunFunder repays its investors.

In addition to reimbursing its investors, SunFunder would like to pay interest to its investors, and now American legislation is moving in the right direction to facilitate that with the passing of the JOBS Act.  However, the laws are still complicated so in the meantime, SunFunder is providing additional value to its investors via its "Impact Points" program. Impact Points can be used to reinvest more solar projects, which will then be repaid with more Impact Points, growing your impact.

Created only at the beginning of 2012, SunFunder has already launched and fully-financed two solar projects, one in Zambia, one in the Philippines.

This is your chance to become a cleantech investor.  Check out SunFunder now!

Many interesting grid-scale storage technologies have cropped up in recent years including liquid batteries, compressed air storage, storage through electric vehicles, lithion ion - and the need is clear: if we want successful integration of intermittent renewables (ie. solar, wind) in grid infrastructure, energy storage is a key component -- as well as a major challenge, as we've already discussed.

Highview is commercializing the Cryo Energy System and the Cryo GenSet, systems based on inventor Peter Dearman's 50-year old idea to "store energy in cold".

The 'frozen air' energy process begins during off-peak hours, when electricity generated by renewables is used to cool air down to -310F, turning the air from gas to liquid.  The croygenic 'liquid air' is stored in a vacuum tank, and when electricity demand grows, the liquid air is warmed to ambient temperature, and the resulting increase in pressure drives a turbine for generating electricity.

Highview has built and successfully operated a pilot at the Slough Heat & Power station since 2010, and they expect to build commercial-scale projects in the upcoming year.

Highview admits that the current process is only about 25% efficient, but once systems are produced at scale, the conversion could be up to 70% efficient.

For other exciting energy storage technologies, see LightSail Energy, the Sadoway Battery, Better Place, and Watt Now's Energy Storage Page.

The Solar Decathlon is an international competition among universities from around the world to promote research in the development of efficient houses with a specific focus on the use of solar energy.  Each of the 20 selected teams is evaluated by a jury on the basis of 10 contents (hence "decathlon") and the team with the most points at the end will be the winner.  The event is taking place from September 17 - 28 during which the teams construct their designs on-site.

The Canopea concept is designed to combine the efficiency of urban design (public transport, shared and centralized systems) and the quality of private home living (proximity to nature, intimacy), by transposing sprawling individual houses into vertical "nanotowers" that allow people to live "together but separately".

I will report back after the event but in the meantime, here are some images to give you an idea of the Canopea concept.  Also, check out Inhabitat for some excellent updates on the Solar Decathlon.

The Boosted Board is a technical wonder: it has a top speed of 20 mph (kind of like a bike), 6-mile range before charging, and weighs only 12 lbs (thank you lithion ion batteries and brushless motors).

The board comes with a handheld remote to control throttle, braking, and display your battery gauge.

The Boosted Board is clean, convenient, and portable, boasting very pertinent advantages over other modes of transport (re. avoiding the bike theft phenomenon).

Despite the buzz, I’m not totally convinced the Boosted Board is a product for the masses as they are marketing it out to be - for safety reasons (the maternal instincts are kicking in), and practical reasons too.   The Boosted Board has quite a hefty pricetag at the moment at $1299.

Reminds me of the Segway -- great for doing tours around cities or for giggles at the Google complex, but didn’t quite hit the streets the way they planned.

Nonetheless, Boosted Boards is getting rave reviews from its beta users and if the vibe grows, Boosted could really revolutionize city transport.

If you're interested, you can invest in Boosted Boards on Kickstarter -- and be one of the first to ride the wave.

Check out this video for more information:

The Forty2, with a name that pays homage to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's Answer of the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, is a 2ft-by-3ft all-in-one unit that combines

• power generation: 180-200W solar panels,
• power storage: 350 watt-hour Lithium Ion battery, and
• power inversion: an inverter with 3 built-in AC outlets.

The Forty2 can be used for off-grid situations like camping, tailgating, and back-up power - large enough to run a small fridge, a HDTV, fans, laptops, multiple phones, a lot of LED lights, or some combination of the listed items.

More interestingly, the Forty2 could serve as a robust solution for portable electricity generation in developing countries in rural, unelectrified communities.

Integrated solar projects are already successfully addressing this market - like Mera Gao Power's solar microgrid, We Care Solar's solar suitcase, and ReadySet's Solar Kit.

However, the Forty2 offers a unique combination of ultra-portability and high power that could be particularly useful for certain applications.

At ~$500 per system, the Forty2 is too expensive / over-dimensioned for a single household's needs, but could be interesting for a community of houses, a small business, or especially appropriate in emergency, health, and aid situations.

As a startup, Peppermint is looking for investors to raise capital but also recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the beta production run of the first 250 units.  The campaign has already raised $73,011 on  (largely over the $25,000 goal) and still has 6 days to go.

Peppermint plans to sell the Forty2 domestically through their website and traditional retailers.  For developing countries, Peppermint plans to partner with NGOs for distribution.

Portable.  Powerful.  And pretty sleek.

Check out this video for more information.

San Diego-based Grace Digital is an audio electronics company that recently changed gears (pun intended) to develop the EcoXPower, a generator kit that easily attaches to the hub of the front wheel of a bicycle, designed to power both LED bicycle lights and a smartphone or GPS system.

A "hub dynamo" is a small electric generator that converts mechanical energy (pedal power) into electrical energy by rotating small magnets.  Think back to your electromagnetics course (or juts accept this phenomenon to be true): "a changing magnetic field creates a current".

Hub dynamos are not new to biking technology - how do you think the LED lights on a Velib are powered?

What sets EcoXPower apart is to provide a high-capacity system to power both lights and a smartphone - in a very user-friendly way.  The EcoXPoewr kit includes a hub dynamo, an ultra bright LED headlamp and two 2 rear LED lights, and a water-resistant touchscreen case which mounts to the bicycle's handlebars to hold the smartphone or GPS device.

The EcoXPower works with all iPhones, Android, Windows, Blackberry and MP3 USB devices and allows you while riding to easily glance at your mounted mobile device, as well as access an on/off switch on the handlebars to control the lights.

The system also contains a lithium-ion battery which will keep the lights on and the phone charging for up to 90 minutes, while you take a water or food break.

The EcoXPower is commercially available on the website for $99.99.

I'm not sure I find this device practical for city riding, but for those bicycle adventures that often entail little access to electricity, the EcoXPower could be a gamechanger.