Tag Archives: futurewatch
FUTUREWATCH: Cyborg Plants Harvesting Solar
Our star, the Sun, provides most of the energy on this planet. (Essentially, all the energy except for nuclear, comes directly or indirectly from it.) Our current methods of converting solar radiation into electricity (photovoltaics) are not very efficient in comparison with plants. Researchers at the University of Georgia looked to nature for inspiration, and [...]
Michael Jantzen’s Eco-Seed Sowing Machines
The Eco-Seed Sowing Machines are solar powered structures that contain a large amount of flower seeds. Whenever evidence of environmental degradation is observed, a signal is sent to the various structures, and a small amount of flower seeds are automatically released onto the earth below. Eco-Seed Sowing Machines are a symbolic public art response to [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Sensors Embedded in Roads
In many countries there are regulations in place to prevent trailer owners from overloading their vehicles. This leads to the need for periodic inspections. To weigh a large vehicle one obviously needs to stop it. After the inspection, when a vehicle accelerates to normal speed, it wastes a lot of fuel for no good reason. [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Energy in 2065
While many people expect the world to move largely to solar power in the next 50 years, most experts are doubtful of this possibility. While solar power will be an important component of the energy sector in the future, the future will be much more complex than most imagine. Today, with the help of the [...]
The Entangled Pavilion by Michael Jantzen
The Entangled Pavilion is one in a series of my design studies that explore new ways in which architecture can be reinvented in order to become more responsive to the people who use it. This is a design study for a new kind of interactive architecture. The structure consists of a large steel support frame [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Solar Panels That Dissolve in Water
As the solar industry has been growing, so has its hazardous waste because of chemicals that are integral to making solar panels. But researchers have discovered a process that could change all this – at end of life, solar panels could simply be dissolved in water! That’s because they have found a way to replace [...]
HiFlex Researchers Develop Flexible Organic Solar for Mobile
A technology developed by the HiFlex research project promises flexible, lightweight, on-the-go charging for mobile electronics and remote applications. New organic photovoltaic module (OPV) is relatively cheap and can effectively function under various light conditions. The project—a collaboration between ECN, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), TNO / Holst Centre, Technical University of Denmark [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Heliostats On Buildings
You never know when one technology can be used for something else. In this case, heliostats, those mirrors used in concentrating solar plants, might prove just as useful attached to buildings. They maximize solar efficiency by moving along with the sun and smaller versions could be used to heat buildings as well as increase daylighting inside. In [...]
MIT’s Artificial Leaf Converts Sunlight into Hydrogen
A group of MIT scientists has published a paper that provides in-depth investigation of a system for converting solar energy to hydrogen and of all parameters that could limit the efficiency of such system. The paper lays out a plan for further studies of this system and may point a way to the production of [...]