Solar Power Helps Pump Oil

      Built by GlassPoint Solar, a Fremont company that uses renewable power to squeeze oil from the ground, a new solar steam plant has been developed in the Middle East, specifically the Omani desert. GlassPoint Solar, raising approximately $32 million in venue capital, has a small pilot plant in Kern County that has been generating steam for two years. Known as the Oman plant, it is 27 times bigger than the relatively small pilot plant, producing a average of 50 tons of steam per day.
       "Oman doesn't have the massive oil reserves of some of its neighbors, and its production started declining more than 10 years ago," said John O'Donnell, GlassPoint's Vice President of Business Development. "Steam-flooding an old field can help boost production. Plus, Oman has heavy oil deposits that are hard to develop without steam." O'Donnell added, "most steam-flooding operations burn natural gas to generate the steam, but Oman doesn't have large gas reserves of its own. And the price of importing it is high, more than three times its current cost in the United States."
         GlassPoint's technology is a low-cost twist on the conventional display of solar power plants in the past. GlassPoint's mirrors are made from thin, lightweight and inexpensive aluminium sheets. A decent breeze could knock the mirrors out of alignment so GlassPoint has them inside of glass greenhouses. Most of the materials can be bought from shelves from many suppliers. "Solar will be, by far, the cheapest way of complying with the standard," O'Donnell said. "As that develops, obviously we'll be keenly interested. We're a California company."

GlassPoint Solar

13 yr old invents solar tree bringing him into the spotlight

A young boy named Aidan Dwyer invented a solar powered tree structure mimicking the patterns of leaves and had submitted his project to the Young Naturalist Awards, a national contest run by the American Museum of Natural History, and came out to be one of 12 winners. It had all started 2 years ago when he went hiking with his parents and gazed at the trees all around him wondering if the tree's could resemble a way to generate and improve solar energy. Using the Fibonacci sequence to simulate the patterns of leaves on a tree, he assembled a solar collector with solar panels arrayed like leaves and compared the output to traditional flat solar panels manufactured today and resulted with Aidan's solar structure to be more efficient. Like a superb scientist, Aidan is constantly seeking mistakes and uplifting his design to be flawless. Keep your eyes and ears open for updated news towards the development of his brilliant invention and ongoing success.

Pyongyang's solar powered street lamps

It has been reported in North Korea state TV that the capital city of North Korea, Pyongyang, started developing street lamps powered by solar energy. Since North Korea is a very isolated country in international trading, an associate professor from Kim Chaek University named Cho Hyon Ho, developed a solar panel and battery combination onto street lights. Although the technology used for the development isn't advanced compared to the production of solar panels from Japan and China, this can be summarized as a new approach for North Korea and their future endeavors.