Tag: direct

Getting Solar From Your Windows

  • Marc Baldo, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science (left) and Shalom Goffri, postdoc in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics (right) hold examples of organic solar concentrators. (Photo by Donna Coveney at MIT, courtesy of NSF)

Some researchers say they’ve found a way to make every window

in a building gather solar energy. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Some researchers say they’ve found a way to make every window

in a building gather solar energy. Lester Graham reports:

MIT engineers say they can coat plastic or glass to redirect sunlight to the edges of a
window – to solar cells.

Instead of using a whole panel of expensive solar cells, the cells could just be aligned
just along the edges. The system could be used for solar panels, or could be used as
windows on tall glass paneled buildings.

Marc Baldo is the team leader at MIT.

“We think that this is a very practical and simple technology. It just relies on simple
coating processes. We have to develop techniques to, you know, manufacture and
integrate solar cells on the edges. But we’re optimistic that this might be useful within,
sort of, two to three year time frame.”

The researchers outlined their findings in the journal, Science. They say the focused
light at the edges really increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Hunter Contracts Disease From Deer

  • Humans can contract bovine tuberculosis. In most cases, people get bovine TB from drinking unpasteurized milk. A spokesman from the Michigan Department of Community Health says contracting bovine TB from deer is rare. (Photo by Kia Abell)

In a rare event, a Michigan hunter has been diagnosed with bovine tuberculosis. Health officials are using the case to call for greater vigilance among hunters and farmers who could be exposed to the disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports:

Transcript

In a rare event, a Michigan hunter has been diagnosed with bovine tuberculosis. Health officials are using the case to call for greater vigilance among hunters and farmers who could be exposed to the disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:


The northern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula has been under quarantine since bovine TB was found in wild deer in 1994. It was later found in some of the area’s cow herds. The strain of bovine TB in Michigan is unique to that state, and this is only the second time it has been found in a human. The hunter caught the disease when he cut his hand while dressing an infected deer. T.J. Bucholz is a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Community Health. He says humans are vulnerable to bovine TB, but this case is unusual.


“This does occur, most often in people that consume unpasteurized milk, people can also be infected when you’re in close contact with live animals. This particular hunter’s direct contamination through a wound, so it’s a fairly rare occurrence.”


Other states in the Great Lakes are currently considered bovine TB-free. The disease was found in 1991 in captive elk herds in Wisconsin, but those herds have since been destroyed.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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Streamside Forests Play Role in Pollution Cleanup

Scientists have known for years that streamside forests help stop certain pollutants from entering the waterway. But new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that those forests have added benefits. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports:

Transcript

Scientists have known for years that streamside forests help stop
certain pollutants from entering the waterway. But new research
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
shows that those forests have added benefits. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports:


Steams that flow through forests tend to be wider and slower than those
that flow through meadows or urban areas. Scientists say that creates
an environment that can actually help clean up a polluted waterway.


Bernard Sweeney is the director of the Stroud Water Research Center in
Pennsylvania. He says their research points to a direct relationship
between woods and water.


“You put a forest along a small stream, it creates a more natural and
wider stream channel; that in turn provides more habitat, more
available ecosystem which in turn enables a stream to do more work for
us like processing nitrogen and organic matter.”


Sweeney says government programs that offer incentives to create
natural streamside buffers should do more to specifically encourage
reforestation. He says grass buffers don’t have the same cleansing
effect on waterways.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris Lehman.

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