Wrapping Solar Cells around an Optical Fiber
One way to boost the performance of any solar cell is to increase the surface area available to incoming light. So a group of researchers at Georgia Tech has made dye-sensitized solar cells with a much higher effective surface area by wrapping the cells around optical fibers.
Solar cells have reached a 20% conversion efficiency. Good, but room for improvement. Looking at the problem from a the perspective of exposed surface area researchers realized they could improve efficiency if more of the solar cell was exposed to light. The new design may make it possible to string solar cells like wiring in the walls of a building.
The Quest for Environmental Justice in the South
EPA Region 4 includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The region is dotted with poor, Black and Latino communities who live and work in the midst of hazardous waste and industrial pollution. The Obama administration is looking to appoint a permanent administrator for the area, and community activists are looking for accountability.
At a meeting in Atlanta with acting administrator A. Stanley Meiburg, the Associated Press reports, environmental justice advocates—representing 36 organizations, ranging from the Sierra Club to the Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association—expressed frustration with a federal bureaucracy that has allowed ecological assaults to fester:
They argued that EPA officials have been bullied into overlooking environmental transgressions….
Another legacy of the Bush-Cheney era EPA in which enforcement of environmental regulation was either ignored or enforced at a snail’s pace.
