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Crops and Solar Energy
Farmers in Japan can now generate solar electricity while growing crops on the same farmland. In April, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) approved the installation of PV systems on existing crop-producing farmland. Previously solar generation on farmland, productive or idle, was prohibited under the Agricultural Land Act. This co-existence or double-generation is…
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The Two Types of Solar Energy, Photovoltaic and Thermal
Like water and air, the Sun is one of the Earth’s life support systems, providing heat and light. Solar energy, which is renewable, widely available and clean, provides enough energy to meet the world’s annual consumption needs every 50 minutes. The challenge is to collect a share – however small – of this heat and…
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History: The Politics of Water
New Mexico has the longest continuously traceable history of human water use in the United States. Although we probably will never understand the specific origins of irrigation and flood-control practices in North America, we do know that the organized manipulation of water resources in New Mexico spans back to at least 800 A.D. and the…
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Wind Power Plants
When the wind, a natural form of energy, is capable of creating electricity or a mechanical force, this is wind power. Find out how wind farms work, those devices that are capable of turning the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy and supplying increasing numbers of homes with clean, renewable energy. To learn more…
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Renewable Biofuels
…Our current levels of consumption, resource usage and seemingly ever increasing pollution calls for drastic changes. One of the areas of highest hopes for curbing some of these earth damaging areas is biofuels. This special type of fuel is derived from biomass, so it has been helping to lessen our dangerous overdependence on petroleum based fuels…
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New Mexico’s “Fracking” Legacy
As the natural gas boom has spread to the eastern United States, the term “fracking” has become common in news reports coming out of Pennsylvania and New York. But fracking has been a part of New Mexico’s history for decades…Read More.
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Solar Energy Basics
Solar is the Latin word for sun—a powerful source of energy that can be used to heat, cool, and light our homes and businesses…Read More.
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Algae Biofuel
…algae fuels are an alternative to commonly known biofuel sources, such as corn and sugarcane. Several companies and government agencies are funding efforts to reduce capital and operating costs and make algae fuel production commercially viable…Read More.
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Power Grids
For power to be useful in a home or business, it comes off the transmission grid and is stepped-down to the distribution grid. This may happen in several phases. The place where the conversion from “transmission” to “distribution” occurs is in a power substation. A power substation typically does two or three things…Read More.
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Hack the Grid
The following manifesto is adapted from Andrea Polli’s forthcoming book ‘Hack the Grid’ (Carnegie Museum of Art, December 2017). In the book, these ideas are expanded upon with a series of case studies of energy aware public artworks. Hack the Grid
