Ring out the old year in fun fashion at a family-friendly New Year’s Eve party at the Theodore
Wirth Winter Recreation Area. The Wirth Winter Recreation Area is a perfect location for a
number of winter outdoor activities, including snowboarding, cross-country skiing and tubing
for kids and adults alike.

With plenty of snow and cold temperatures, the Wirth Winter Recreation Area is the perfect
place for outdoor winter fun. Free desserts, coffee, hot chocolate and cider will be available
at the Fireplace Room at Wirth Chalet, located at 1301 Theodore Wirth Parkway.

Read more HERE.

This is THE solar project in South Eastern Australia. The massive tube will stand higher than
the Eiffel Tower and be surrounded by a wide skirt of glasshouse type structures. Heat from the
sun will be trapped on the underside of this skirt and its only way of escape would be up the
tower — past turbines which generated the power. Initially the plan was for a 1000m high
tower to create up to 200MW of electricity. But later the project was scaled back to 50MW
from 400 meters of tower. It will be ready in 2012.

Nanoparticle “inks” may soon replace the conventional solar panel systems we see on rooftops
and empty fields. University of Texas engineers hope to cut costs to 1/10th of the current manufacturing process for solar cells. The current solar cell production procedure makes it difficult
for the industry to break past the competition (fossil fuels). But with the efforts and advancements
in nanotechnology, the photovoltaic industry may soon enough find itself in the forefront of world energy production.

© University of Texas at Austin.
Read more on www.sciencedaily.com

The eastern state of Brandenburg, Germany, has something to offer the world in terms of solar
energy production. Lieberose, once a military training ground, is now home to the world’s largest
solar power project, consisting of 560,000 solar modules. As a result of the project, the area has
now been cleaned up without draining local financial resources.

By the end of the year, the project will be completely online, running off 700,000 solar modules
and producing an estimated 53 megawatts of electricity (enough to power 15,000 households.)
This may be a modest amount of energy compared to the 700 megawatts that a coal-fired plant produces, but the lack of emissions from the solar project outperform the end product compared
to its competition.

In Jülich, near Cologne, Germany’s first solar-thermal project went online.
It can generate 1.5 megawatts of power.
© Ddp.

The world’s second largest solar energy project near Cottbus, in the eastern state
of Brandenburg.
© Dpa.
Read more on this subject on www.spiegel.de

The verdict is in, the world’s first printable batteries have been invented by a team of German scientists. The new batteries are less than one millimeter thick, can be produced in large
quantities at a fraction of conventional battery costs and weighs less than one gram. Applications range from integration into bank cards to items with a limited life span, such as greeting cards.

Production of the batteries is similar to silk-screen printing methods used for t-shirts and posters.
The battery, developed by a research team at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic
Nano Systems (ENAS) in Chemnitz, Germany, contains no mercury; thus making it environmentally friendly. Each battery produces 1.5 volts, which is the normal range for conventional batteries.
Higher voltages can be reached by simply placing more batteries on top of each other, therefore increasing their application capabilities.

“Our goal is to be able to mass produce the batteries at a price of single digit cent range each,”
group manager at ENAS Dr. Andreas Willert says. The batteries are printed using a silk-screen
printing method similar to that used for t-shirts and posters. A kind of rubber lip presses the
printing paste through a screen onto the substrate. A template covers the areas that are not
to be printed on. Through this process it is possible to apply comparatively large quantities of
printing paste, and the individual layers are slightly thicker than a hair. Therefore, the battery is suitable for applications which have a limited life span or a limited power requirement,
for instance greeting cards. The researchers have already produced the batteries on
a laboratory scale. At the end of this year, the first products could possibly be finished.

© Picture-Alliance/Dpa.
Learn more on www.germany.info