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Technology Review: Cheaper Solar Concentrators

2009-05-04T08:54:00.001-07:00

Skyline Solar, a startup that today announced its existence to the world, has developed a cheaper way to harvest energy from the sun. The company's solar panels concentrate sunlight onto a small area, reducing the amount of expensive semiconductor material needed to generate electricity.

The technology will bring the cost of solar power in line with the average cost of electricity, at least in sunny areas, says Ben Eiref, Skyline Solar's director of product management. Currently, solar power can be far more expensive than electricity from conventional sources; many governments have resorted to subsidies to increase its use.

Skyline Solar has raised $24.6 million to date and has been awarded $3 million by the Department of Energy to speed up production. It has also installed a pilot power plant that can produce 24 kilowatts of electricity, and has started production of its solar panels with the goal of selling them later this year. They are designed for commercial installations in the 1-to-10-megawatt range, such as on food-processing and water-treatment facilities at the edges of cities or in rural areas.

The startup isn't the first company to attempt to reduce costs by concentrating sunlight onto smaller solar cells. But Skyline Solar says that it can better compete with other energy sources by combining two technologies that can be produced in high volume using existing equipment and that have been demonstrated in the field for decades: conventional silicon solar cells and reflective parabolic troughs, which are used now in solar thermal plants. In these thermal plants, the long, curved troughs concentrate light on tubes, heating up a fluid inside them that, in turn, is used to drive power-generating turbines. Skyline Solar has replaced those tubes with narrow solar panels, adding a heat sink to keep them from getting too hot. The troughs concentrate the light by about a factor of 10, increasing the power output of the panels by about the same amount as conventional solar panels without concentrators. (To compensate for the increased power output, the company has incorporated larger electrical contacts into the panels.)

via technologyreview.com

Another step in the right direction to reduce our dependence on carbon based fuels and slow down the effects of global warming.

If you would like to produce your own electricity and make your own contribution to reducing carbon emissions, why not build your own solar power panel.

Posted via web from martyn's posterous

Social Bookmarking on Steroids

2009-03-27T09:22:00.001-07:00

Posted via web from martyn's posterous

Can your social bookmarks do this?

What is tagfoot?

We like to say, tagfoot is a no-nonsense social bookmarking, wishlisting, and tagging hangout where we find it, tag it, rate it, share it and talk about it.

But really, tagfoot is different things to different people. To some, tagfoot is a way to amass a giant music library. To others, tagfoot represents the ultimate research tool in providing a means to store, organize, and access web site bookmarks from any computer. To others, a great way to keep track of gift ideas. And, yet to others, a way to promote their own self interest in the form of backlinks to their blogs or product pages.

In the end, what tagfoot is, is entirely up to you.

All tagfoot content is contributed and controlled by the tagfoot user community (HINT: that's you).

Why does tagfoot rock so hard?

Share everything and anything - on your terms. Everything you add to tagfoot has a privacy setting. And we mean EVERYTHING.

From bookmarks to videos, to the friends you add and the comments you post - if you like the idea of social networking, but want to be able to control just how much you share with whom and when, you've come to the right place.

Why sign up?

access
easily manage and access all of your bookmarks from any computer
share
quickly share anything you find on the web with your friends
private
share what you want, when you want, with whom you want
free
100% free - all the time (unless of course you'd like to pay us)
earn
yep - you read that right - bookmarking pays dividends (really)

Just click on the link - Join Tagfoot Now and take your social bookmarking to a completely new level.

Save Electricity - Save the Planet

2009-03-26T14:38:00.001-07:00

I am sure everyone would like to save on electricity costs. Not only is saving electricity beneficial to the finances, it can also help to reduce carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases. If you would some advice to help reduce your the amount of electricity you use to light your home or office, have a look at my latest Squidoo lens, Save Electricity Used For Lighting. It won't save the world from global warming, but I hope it will show how vrtually every household can make a small contribution to solving the problem.

Posted via web from martyn's posterous

Get 19,530 new twitter followers in 30 days?

2009-02-11T12:23:00.001-08:00

I just found this site that shows you a way of getting 1000's of new followers on twitter, I just started using it myself and its starting to work already.

http://tweetergetter.com/mlineker

Posted via web from martyn's posterous

New Year Resolution?

2008-12-18T14:12:00.001-08:00

I know Christmas is not out of the way yet, but some of you may be considering your new year resolutions already. If your resolutions include anything to do with getting fit or losing weight, you should have a quick look at my latest Squidoo Lens: Body Solid EXM1500S - the best buy home gym available today!

Posted via email from martyn's posterous

Backlinks for Squidoo Lenses

2008-11-19T10:13:00.001-08:00

Email your Squidoo Lens details to your posterous blog for quickly indexed back links. My current most popular lens is Best RSS Feeds - why not give it the once over?

Posted by email from martyn's posterous

Trying Out A New Widget

2008-09-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

I have decided to try out a new widget on this blog, provided by WidgetEasy. It is basically an RSS Feed presented in a nice scrolling box, as you can probably see above this posting. Of course, I could have used the Blogger RSS module, but this looks a neater I think.

You can choose any feed you like, your own or somebody else's. I have chosen my Squidoo Lensmaster Feed, but I may decide to vary this in the future, possibly getting more creative and merging feeds together from a number of sites. If you would like to know more about the benefits of utilising RSS Feeds, have a look at Seven of the Best Uses for RSS Feeds on Squidoo.

30DC Update: Best Hair Removal

2008-08-14T04:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I am very impressed with the results so far. The Best Hair Removal Blog has been up for less than 24 hours and it has already been ranked by Google at no. 5 in the US, 38 in the UK, 12 in Ireland, 24 in Canada and 19 in Australia. It will be interesting to look at Analytics tomorrow to see if these rankings generate any traffic.

It is also interesting to note that the Digg has been ranked too, no. 19 in the US, 46 in the UK, 22 in Ireland, 40 in Canada and 29 in Australia.

No doubt Google will be re-ranking regularly and these results will go up and down like a yo-yo, or even disappear altogether for a while. Still, I am very impressed with this and I have not even submitted to any RSS directories yet.

30 Day Challenge 2008

2008-08-14T03:28:00.000-07:00

Since returning from holiday I have beavering away trying to catch up with the lessons on 30 Day Challenge, provided by Ed Dale and Dan Raine. I have chosen a niche topic and created the WordPress Blog Best Hair Removal, which is hosted on the WordPressDirect platform. I have also created the Squidoo Lens Best Hair Removal Products and applied a little social love to both sites. Hopefully I will see some SEO results in a day or two.

I now need to create a HubPage, add more articles to the blog and continue with the social bookmarking. Plus, complete the new tasks that arrive every day from the 30 Day Challenge team. August always used to be a quiet time, work wise. Ed and Dan have certainly changed that!

New Squidoo Lens: Harry Potter Online

2008-07-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

The Harry Potter bandwagon has started rolling again, so I have decided to increase my virtual real estate by creating Harry Potter Online. The movie "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" is currently in post production and will be released a few weeks before Christmas.

Interest is bound to increase around the time of the film's release and, with a bit of luck, Harry Potter Online will be nicely placed to get some decent traffic by that time.

Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince

2008-07-30T03:30:00.000-07:00

Due to the interest generated by the movie trailer release of Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince, I decided to give my lens Harry Potter Magic Wands a bit of a make over. I have added the video trailer and a brief review of the book, with a link to Amazon for further information and book purchase.

The film is due to be released around the beginning of December, so if you would like to know more about it, have a look at Harry Potter Magic Wands.

Niche Testing Update 1: Orchid Care

2008-07-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

I have submitted Caring For Orchids to StumbleUpon and a couple of other sites now. I will continue to Social Bookmark, but in a very gradual way. I believe that submission to many bookmarking sites at the same time is likely to do more harm than good, so maybe 3 or 4 bookmarks every couple of days will suffice. My StumbleUpon blog has been submitted to a number of RSS Feed directories, further backlinks should be automatically created by this tactic.

Caring For Orchids is definitely indexed by Google, but does not appear within the first few pages of search results and has not received any traffic yet. Interestingly, my previous post, Testing A New Niche: Orchid Care, has also been indexed, which is an unexpected bonus.

I have a number of other blogs in the Gardening Market Sector, so I will now link them all to Caring For Orchids to see if this will improve search engine rankings.

Testing A New Niche: Orchid Care

2008-07-24T06:42:00.000-07:00

I have decided to try out a different niche marketing technique that I have been considering for a little while. I undertook some keyword research in the home gardening market and came up with a few keyword phrases that looked interesting, especially when I discovered that there are at least three Clickbank products relating to this niche. My normal procedure to follow this research would be to create content pages on sites such as Squidoo, Hubpages and Blogger, with affiliate links strategically placed throughout the articles. However this can be a very time consuming exercise, so it is time for a slightly different approach. As a first test I have created a simple review page on Tripod - Caring For Orchids.

To keep the process simple I am utilizing the CBtopsites Clickbank Mall for the review page. CBtopsites provides all the code required for redirecting to the relevant page, so creation of the Caring For Orchids review on Tripod only took a few minutes.

The next step will be to add Caring For Orchids to a few Social Bookmarking sites to see if it can generate traffic and get ranked in the search engines. I will then search for further free hosting sites that might be suitable for employing this tactic.

Watch out for more posts about this simple experiment over the coming weeks.

Squidtop Rocks

2008-07-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

I have discovered this great site called Squidtop. It is a terrific place for Squidoo fans to create a blog and publicize their lenses. I have created my own called: Lynx on Squidoo. Hope you like it!

New Squidoo Lens Created July 5th 2008

2008-07-05T04:14:00.000-07:00

My latest Squidoo Lens, Seven of the best uses for RSS Feeds has now been published. I hope you will find the information it contains useful.

Squidoo Lens Update July 4th 2008

2008-07-04T06:39:00.000-07:00

For anyone who might be interested, I have just refreshed all of my Squidoo Lenses. They can be found at Squidoo Lenses by Lynx92 if you would like to see them.

Some of you will already know that Squidoo is a great place to publish information about your interests and business. Everything is free, which is great, but even better is the fact that Squidoo will share with you the revenue earned from adverts they place on your Lens.

A list of all of my Squidoo Lenses can be found at Martyn's Web Sites Links, together with a number of my other sites.

Martyn's Gardening Blogs

2008-06-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

The Culture Of Vegetable Gardening

Garden Pests

Landscape Gardening

Making A Garden

The Home Vegetable Garden

The Genesis Of Soil

The Cultivation Of Vegetables

Planting Seeds

Fighting Plant Pests

How To Grow Tomatoes

Growing Strawberries

Martyn's Web Sites & Links

2008-04-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

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How To Grow Your Own Tomatoes
Live Cricket Scores
Making Money From Home
The CBtopSites Clickbank Search Engine
The Books Of John Le Carre
Grow Your Own Strawberries
Chatsworth House & Estate
Harry Potter Magic Wands
Retail Computer System Solutions
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Get Paid To Click
Free Photo Sharing - That Pays!
The Barcode Master
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Books And Comics
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How To Grow Your Own Tomatoes
Live Cricket Scores
Making Money From Home
The CBtopSites Clickbank Search Engine
The Books Of John Le Carre
Grow Your Own Strawberries
Chatsworth House & Estate
Harry Potter Magic Wands
Retail Computer System Solutions
Internet Marketing And SEO Information
Get Paid To Click
Free Photo Sharing - That Pays!
The Barcode Master
Martyn's Books And Comics Showcase
Books And Comics
Buy A Digital Camera

HubPages

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