Rainwater Harvesting System Capable of Capturing over 20,000 Gallons of Water

Jerry Block, a retired anesthesiologist, located in Monte Sereno, California, has developed in his backyard a rainwater harvesting system, capable of holding and collecting up to 20,000 gallons of rainwater each year.

Check out the details here at GreenOptmistic.com

13 Great Solar Concepts Inspired By Plants (Slideshow)

Solar cells are a form of biomimicry of plants in that they convert sunlight into energy. The plant world offers up a vast array of shapes, sizes, colors, and styles from which designers can create their cool, crazy and creatively mimicked solar powered concepts. Check out some of the amazing solar power creations inspired by their flora counterparts here at TreeHugger

Teenager Invents Cheap Solar Panel From Human Hair

"Renoise writes "Milan Karki, 18, who comes from a village in rural Nepal, believes he has found the solution to the developing world's energy needs. A solar panel made from human hair. The hair replaces silicon, a pricey component typically used in solar panels, and means the panels can be produced at a low cost for those with no access to power. The solar panel, which produces 9 volts (18 watts) of energy, costs around $38 US (£23) to make from raw materials. Gentlemen, start your beards. The future of hair farming is here!"

Read more at Slashdot

Biologically Inspired Ocean Power Systems

Here's an excerpt from the website of BioPower Systems:

"BioPower Systems is commercialising ocean power conversion technologies. Through application of biomimicry, we have adopted nature’s mechanisms for survival and energy conversion in the marine environment and have applied these in the development of our proprietary wave and tidal power systems.
Our technologies inherit benefits developed during 3.8 Billion years of evolutionary optimization in nature’s ocean [...]"

Thanks to TechnologyGraduate blog for sharing this.

Make sure you read the details about bioSTREAM and bioWAVE technologies here and here. They are pretty cool.

A Step Closer to Solar Power in Space

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and IHI Corporation are undertaking an ambitious project of $ 21bn. They are aspiring to design and develop a Space-based solar farm that would generate 1GW of power. This will require an area of four square kilometer consisting of rows of solar panels. This space solar farm will be housed 36,000km

Source: A Step Closer to Solar Power in Space