Solar-Powered Electric BlueCar soon in Europe

Another exciting news concerning electric vehicles coming this time from Europe. Italian car designer Pininfarina and French battery manufacturer Bolloré have officially announced that they will release in 2010 a fully-electric, partially solar-powered car in Europe, named BlueCar. Previously unveiled at last years Geneva Show, the BlueCar is a fully-electric car that comes equipped with solar panels on the rooftop. The solar panels on the vehicle’s roof provides some power to the vehicle’s systems.

The four-seat, five-door hatchback vehicle is 3.65 meters long, 1.72 meters wide and 1.6 meters high. The 50kW electric motor and the LMP (Lithium Metal Polymer) batteries + a device for energy storage (supercapacitor) give the BlueCar a range of 250 km (155 miles) per charge. With modest demands the battery is able to run the car at a top speed of 80kph and provides enough thrust to enable the car reach 60kph in less than 6.5 seconds. If need be, the batteries can be fast-charged for five minutes, giving the car enough power to run 25km.

The two companies claim that to recharge the BlueCar, you should simply plug it into a traditional power socket at home or a public power outlet. It takes about six hours to recharge the car’s battery from a standard power socket, and only two hours on the future public fast-charging outlets.

The car will go into production in Italy at Pininfarina starting in 2010. Production on an industrial scale will take place between 2011 and 2017, with 60,000 of the vehicles expected to be produced by 2015.

Sources: Inhabitat » Solar Powered Blue Car Hitting the Streets in 2010, Eco Cars: Sun harvesting electric Bluecar gets real in France and Italy Bluecar by Pininfarina

Update 2020: Hanergy partners with Bollore Group to build solar electric vehicles

Hanergy Thin-film Power Group

Read also the post: 5 Partially Solar-Powered Cars You Can Buy | Solar Energy - Green Lifestyle for You

Solar-Powered Electrical Plug-in Station Unveiled in Chicago

Last month Carbon Day Automotive announced the unveiling of the first solar-powered electric vehicle charging station in Chicago. Located and operational at the City of Chicago Department of Fleet Maintenance, it will be used on a daily basis to fuel the city’s electric vehicles with clean and renewable power from the sun.

Carbon Day Automotive’s Solar Plug-In Station(TM), built by Carbon Day Construction, was designed by the world renowned firm of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. Wanxiang America Corporation manufactured the solar panels that form a tree-like canopy built by Residential Steel.

Carbon Day Automotive envisions thousands of charging stations in key locations throughout Chicago and tens of thousands nationally by the year 2011. The construction of this infrastructure is one more step to reducing America's dependence on foreign oil.

“Without these stations, it would be like driving around in traditional cars without the availability of gas stations,” said Scott Emalfarb, CEO of Carbon Day. “The day of true plug-in electric vehicles will be here sooner than most people realize and the world needs to be ready to accommodate them. Carbon Day will build them and they will come.”

Carbon Day Automotive is a division of Carbon Day, an energy solutions organization dedicated to increasing environmental awareness. For more information you can visit the Carbon Day website, www.carbonday.com.

Sources: Gas2.org & Jetson Green

Racing Car Made of Vegetables and Powered by Chocolate

This news is not related to solar energy but it is an interesting piece of green news and I think it deserves to write a post about it.

The WorldFirst team, a team of UK designers from the Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre at the University of Warwick, Britain, have created aninnovative racing car made entirely of vegetables and powered by chocolate. The car, named the WorldFirst F3, uses plant-oil based lubricants and a bio-diesel engine that can run on a mixture of chocolate and vegetable oil.

Chocolate-Powered Race Car Made Out of Vegetables

The futuristic eco car, with a top speed of 145 mph, has a body made of potatoes, a steering wheel made of carrots, and a seat made of soybeans. Car parts are produced by mixing vegetable fibres with resins and the oils in the chocolate are refined to produce fuel. It has also an emission destroying catalyst that purifies the air as you drive on.

At the moment, the engine fails to meet current regulations because of its unusual fuel. However, the WorldFirst team, hope that official racing rules will be changed so that the car can compete in championship races next season.

The WorldFirst F3 is the first Formula 3 racing car designed and made entirely from sustainable and renewable materials.The team, from World First Racing, hope that environmentally-friendly technology used in their car will be adopted by Formula 1 teams such as McLaren and world champions Ferrari.

A team spokesman said: "We hope the Formula 1 teams will see that an environmentally friendly car is not necessarily a slow car. We expect our new materials to be used by the Formula 1 cars of the future."

Sources: Inhabitat & Greener Design

Solar Pool Covers/Blankets

Solar pool accessories such as solar covers or blankets can help you maintain the temperature in your outdoor swimming pool comfortable, extend your swimming pool season, and save money. Solar swimming pool covers made of heavy-duty polyethylene material are specifically designed to capture the sun’s free heat, transmit it to the pool water and prevents night time heat loss.

A solar pool cover is the least expensive kind of swimming pool cover. For about $75 - $150, it can raise water temperature anywhere from 10-15 degrees F, by absorbing sunlight during the day and retaining the heat at night. A solar pool cover can reduce heating costs by up to 75%.

The new generation of solar swimming pool covers let the sun’s rays to pass through to warm the water. They resemble giant colored sheets with tiny air pockets or “bubbles”. The absorbent coloring increases solar heating, while the tiny 'bubbles' magnify the sun. It is most popular to get clear or blue pool covers, but there are also black, silver and gold.

Solar swimming pool covers are classified by the thickness of the plastic they are made from. The thickness is measured in microns. The bigger the micron count the longer the cover will last.

Solar cover float freely on top of a pool without tie-down or anchor to hold it in place. You can remove a solar cover just by pull it off and store it. However, folding a giant wet blanket by yourself can be a difficult task, especially if you have a very large swimming pool, so a helper or the aid of a solar pool cover reel makes the task much easier. Solar covers are usually folded and stored or rolled-up on a large reel and wheeled out of the way.

Solar pool covers/blankets have some other benefits as well:

• they prevent water from evaporation from the pool
• reduce the amount of expensive chemicals consumed by 35 to 60 percent
• they can also help to keep the water clean and reduce cleaning time

But is important to keep in mind that although any cover will reduce some of the debris that enters a pool, solar pool covers are not specifically designed for cleanliness, nor to be used as safety covers, and access to the pool must be restricted for young children and animals. And they should be completely removed before swimming because the solar covers clings to the surface and could trap a swimmer under water.

Solar pool cover/blanket are the most practical and economical way to save on your swimming pool heating costs. They might actually be thought of passive solar heating for your pool and can be used on their own as well as in addition to a pool heating system. Solar pool covers work equally as well on both above ground and in-ground swimming pools.

Solar Pool Heater
VORTEX 4x12 Panels
Standard System Kit

Types of Solar Pool Collectors

Solar pool collectors are available on the market in many different types to accommodate the many different varieties of pools and conditions. Generally, there are two main solar pool collector types - unglazed collectors and collectors with a glass covering (glazing). The type you need depends on the climate in your region. Unglazed solar collectors operate only when temperatures are above freezing and they are highly cost effective for outdoor pool heating. They are generally made of thermoplastic rubber (types of solar pool collectors called flexible rubber mat) or polypropylene plastic treated with an ultraviolet (UV) light inhibitor to extend the life of the panels. Currently, the solar industry is widely using black polypropylene plastic collectors. These solar panels may be either rigid or have individual pipes running lengthwise. Individual collectors are normally 4'x8', 4'x10', or 4'x12'.

Glazed solar collectors are similar to domestic hot water heating systems but they are not normally used to heat swimming pools. Glazed collector systems are generally made of copper tubing on an aluminum plate with a sheet of glass covering to prevent heat loss but it increases their cost. They can be two to three times more expensive per panel than unglazed solar panels. In addition to high costs, high levels of chlorine, or having a salt-water pool, can be extremely corrosive to the copper piping inside glazed panels. But if you plan to use your solar pool collectors in colder climates, or they need to operate all year-round even in sub-zero temperatures, you will probably need glazed collectors.

Before you purchase and install a solar pool heating system you need to determine the size of the collectors. Basically, you should take into consideration the following factors:

• your pool’s location and size
• average regional temperatures
• desired pool temperature
• all year-round uses or uses restricted to a part of the year
• the system’s type, model and efficiency

Solar Pool Heater
VORTEX 4x12 Panels
Standard System Kit