Converting Solar Energy to Electricity

Here is a brief and straightforward explanation of how the sun's energy can be converted into electricity using photovoltaic panels:



(If the video does not play or display properly above, click here to view it on YouTube.)

Hawaii Sunshine: Not just for tanning

See that solar water heater in the photo at right? We have one just like it on the roof of our present house, which was built in 1997. In all that time, we have never run out of hot water. There have been times -- such as after a spell of three rainy days in a row -- when we had to turn the hot water on all the way when we showered instead of diluting it with cold as we usually do, but those instances have been few.

Hawaii, where I happen to live, is a sunny place. Everyone knows that. So I have wondered forever why more of my neighbors don't install solar water heaters in their homes. Now that energy costs are greater than ever before, it is even more of a head scratcher that so many people in Hawaii still rely on electricity to heat water for their homes, especially since Hawaii currently has the highest electricity costs in the United States.

That situation soon will change, at least for newly constructed homes. On June 26, 2008, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle signed into law a bill that requires all new homes built after January 1, 2010, to be equipped with solar or other energy efficient hot water systems. Hawaii is the first state in the nation to pass such a law.

“This solar power legislation is another important step in our long-term plan for energy independence in Hawai‘i,” said Governor Lingle. “In addition to solar, it is critical that we continue to develop innovative energy solutions that capitalize on our natural renewable resource advantages in order to achieve our goal of having 70 percent clean energy in Hawai‘i by 2030.”

Here on the Big Island, another step was taken recently toward that clean energy goal at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) facility in Kailua-Kona, where ground was broken for a "solar power farm." The facility, near the Kona International Airport at Keahole, will be run by Hawaii-based solar power and technology company Sopogy. The solar farm will not use traditional photovoltaic panels but will instead use new concentrated solar power technology, according to an article about the project in West Hawaii Today.

"If it performs like it's performed in tests, we will be able to cut the cost of energy for people in Kona by half," said Sopogy President and CEO Darren Kimura. "As planned, it's the largest solar project in Hawaii. If we're successful, we could cover from here (NELHA) to the airport with solar panels and power Kona."

The new facility will use a technology, called MicroCSP, which was developed in Hawaii for local conditions. The technology already has been tested successfully at some Hawaii hotels.

Mr. Kimura explained that, while Hawaii gets lots of sunlight, its proximity to the ocean -- and the resulting humidity -- increases cloud cover, which limits the effectiveness of the traditional photovoltaic panels that need direct sunlight. Unlike photovoltaic panels, the MicroCSP collectors concentrate thermal energy, which is present even when there is no direct sunlight.

Traditional photovoltaic panels, which are made mostly of glass, are fragile and can break when storms or strong winds pass over them. Sopogy's MicroCSP collectors are less fragile, and are designed to flip over at night to prevent damage from wind and rain. Another feature of the MicroCSP collectors is their energy storage capability, which will enable them to provide consistent energy that will not fluctuate.

Sopogy hopes to have the new solar farm operational by the end of this year. Dare I say -- this is a bright development for Kona.

[Photo Source]

UPDATE Aug. 4, 2008: This article has been included in the 12th Carnival of Aloha, a blog carnival hosted at Homespun Honolulu. Please click on over there to see more articles about life in Hawaii.

Dramatic Video of Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano

Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii put on quite a show on the Fourth of July, some of which is recorded on this Associated Press video. The video depicts lava from the east rift zone of Kilauea entering the Pacific Ocean. As soon as the lava hits the water, it creates a huge steam plume.

Next, the video shows bursts of lava shooting skyward and then splashing back down to the surface. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory website explains that these are lava bubble bursts, caused by water seeping into the lava tube system through cracks. The water quickly flashes into steam, which expels lava into the air.

Near the end of the video there is a brief sequence that shows lava flowing through and igniting an area of vegetation.



(If the video does not play or display properly above, click here to view it on YouTube.)

Blogging the Vog: SO2 Monitoring on the Big Island

Hawaii's National Guard has joined the fray in coping with emissions from Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. Honolulu's KHON 2 News reports that State and Federal agencies -- including the Guard -- have set up new monitoring systems to track concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2) in the ambient air at a number of locations around the Big Island. SO2 is considered to be potentially the most hazardous of the numerous gases emitted by Kilauea Volcano.

According to KHON 2 News, the monitoring equipment deployed to monitor SO2 on the Big Island is the same as that used to monitor for "weapons of mass destruction" -- presumably that used to detect evidence of chemical warfare agents. What a thought! -- yet what an appropriate and welcome peacetime use for such equipment.

KHON 2 News quoted Lt. Colonel Trey Johnson, Hawaii National Guard, who said, "In this particular case Kilauea was producing sulphur dioxide levels that were of concern, and that exceeded the county's ability to respond to it effectively."

Hawaii County Fire Chief Darryl Oliveira added, "We had none of that in place prior to April. And again thanks to all the partnership we had with all the agencies, mainly the 93rd, we were able to put that together so now we have some form of monitoring system in place that can be used as a tool."

In recent months, Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii has been emitting unusually high levels of gases, smoke, and ash, leading to unprecedented amounts of vog (volcano smog). At times the vog has been heavy enough to be visible throughout the island chain, even in communities on Kauai, the island farthest from the active volcano. Communities on the Big Island have been affected most, and most often, due to their proximity to the source of the emissions that create the vog.

---

About the Illustration: The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) produces mapped 24-hour composite images of SO2 emissions from Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano. The one shown above maps the SO2 cloud for June 20, 2008. Click on the image above to view the four most recent NOAA SO2 maps for Kilauea.

Click here for information and links to more resources about vog in Hawaii.

Evolution of the Human Eye

Have a look at this brief but very interesting video from the National Center for Science Education about how the human eye evolved:



(If the video does not play or display properly above, click here to view it on YouTube.)

Tip of the hat to Brad Cavanagh at canspice.org, where I first spotted the video.

Finding Charles Darwin's Papers Online

When I was in graduate school, studying emotion and the biological basis of behavior, I had a wise professor who insisted that serious students should learn not just current theory and research, but also should understand their intellectual heritage. That is, students should have an understanding of whose thinking influenced that of their teachers, and whose thinking influenced their teachers' teachers, and so on.

As a student, I was tasked with tracing this intellectual heritage by investigating whose work the current theorists I was studying had cited and built upon, and then whose work those people had cited and built upon, and so forth. It was a bit like performing a genealogical study, except that instead of tracing a family tree composed of kinfolk, I was tracing who was related to whom in an intellectual sense. This task entailed not just identifying who were the influential thinkers in 'my' lineage, but also reading their major works in their original form. The idea was to read what the important theorists had to say in their own words, instead of relying on derivative descriptions, summaries, or reviews by those who followed.

This was a very enlightening exercise, and I would recommend it to graduate students in any discipline. In my case, it seemed that all paths ultimately led back to Charles Darwin. In my field, Darwin's works, and particularly On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), were the foundation upon which all successive theories of emotion and behavioral biology were built. I read these seminal works in their original form, albeit as reprints owned by my university's library. In the process, I became interested not just in Darwin's theories, per se, but also in the life course of this man and his thinking.

I have just learned that Darwin's papers -- manuscripts, publications, notes, drawings -- were made freely available online last week. The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online claims to be "the largest publication of Darwin's papers in history." Here is a brief descriptive excerpt from the press release that announced the new online collection:

For decades available only to scholars at Cambridge University Library, the private papers of Charles Darwin, one of the most influential scientists in history, can now be seen by anyone online and free of charge. This is the largest ever publication of Darwin papers and manuscripts, totalling about 20,000 items in nearly 90,000 electronic images.

This vast and varied collection of papers includes the first draft of his theory of evolution, notes from the voyage of the Beagle and Emma Darwin's recipe book.

I'm much more interested in having a look at Charles Darwin's notes from the voyage of the Beagle than his wife's recipe book, but the point is that these documents, in Darwin's own hand, have not been available on line until now. In addition to the publications, notes, and manuscripts, the website also claims to have "the largest Darwin bibliography and manuscript catalogue ever published."

This website will rank as one of the top treasures of the internet, I am sure. The only problem I see, after where to begin, is finding the time to pore through the thousands of items offered.

[Photo Source]

Living with Hawaii's Active Volcano: Introduction

This is the first in a series of articles about living near Kilauea, Hawaii's most active volcano. Kilauea has entered a particularly vigorous eruptive phase that already is affecting the health and well-being of some nearby residents;it has the potential to disrupt thousands of lives in the near future.

I live on the Big Island of Hawaii, the southernmost and easternmost of all the Hawaiian islands. Geologically, the Big Island is comprised of five volcanoes melded together. The volcanoes dominate the landscape here. Historically they have determined or influenced everything from the island's various microclimates and weather, to the fertility of the island's soil.

I live on the western slope of one of those five volcanoes, Kohala, which is extinct. Another volcano on this island, Mauna Kea, last erupted thousands of years ago. It is considered to be 'dormant.' In other words, although it is quiet now, Mauna Kea is believed to be still capable of erupting again.

There are three active volcanoes on the island: Hualalai, Mauna Loa, and Kilauea. Hualalai last erupted more than 200 years ago, but geoscientists say that this volcano is likely to erupt again some time in the next 100 years. Mauna Loa has erupted 33 times since the mid-nineteenth century. It last erupted in 1984, and is monitored daily for signs that another eruption is about to commence.

That's Mauna Loa in the picture at right. I took the photo in January of 2006. You can see that it has some snow on its summit. Both Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea are snowcapped every winter, usually from some time in late November until some time in March.

Then there is Kilauea. Described by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) as "perhaps the world's most active volcano," Kilauea has been erupting continuously since January of 1983. The USGS also tells us that "it will surely continue to erupt through the rest of human history."

Lava oozes with little interruption from Kilauea's multiple vents, and flows for many miles down the slopes of the volcano to the ocean. Occasionally more dramatic events, called 'fountaining', cause jets of lava from fissures to shoot hundreds of feet into the air, a truly spectacular sight.

Kilauea is the centerpiece of the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and the park itself is considered a 'must see' for visitors to the Big Island. In addition to viewing areas from which visitors can see the current lava flows, the park has many hiking trails. One of those, called Devastation Trail, is pictured at left. The trail runs through an area that was a forest -- until it was devastated by falling cinder during a 1959 eruption from a vent known as Kilauea lki.

For those of us who live here, the volcanoes are much more than a tourist attraction -- especially Kilauea. This volcano currently is emitting more than lava, and it is those emissions that are most worrying to island residents.

Kilauea emits steam, ash, and a mixture of gases, some of which are potentially toxic. The volume of emissions, and the concentration of toxic gases has increased dramatically in recent weeks, a situation that has serious public health implications. Parts of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park have had to be closed to visitors, and high levels of sulfur dioxide and volcanic ash have been detected in the air of residential communities downwind of the eruption.

Kilauea's emissions are creating a health hazard in a much wider area as well. Although the situation in other communities still is less urgent than in areas directly downwind of the volcano, conditions could worsen with just a shift in wind direction, we are told.

In the next post, I will elaborate on the nature of the health risks from Kilauea's emissions, some of which I face myself, and I will explain why concern about the world's most active volcano is growing to new levels among Hawaii's residents.

---

For more information about these volcanoes, visit the Hawaiian Volcanoes page on the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory website, run by the U.S. Geological Survey.