According to a press release from Sharp, while the new panels can be used in a conventional manner mounted on the roof they were designed primarily to be used as protective porch railings or as in-place window glass. The semi-transparent black panels are lacking the metal frame found on typical panels and instead are constructed mainly of laminated glass filled with photovoltaic cells. They are each 4.5 feet wide by 3.2 feet tall and only 0.37 inches thick, which is much thinner than standard panels found on the market today.

One downside? They have a maximum power output of only 95 watts with around 6.8 percent efficiency, which is far below the 20 percent efficiency being produced on today’s modern solar panels. However, while they may not be as efficient they are semi-transparent and thus can be integrated anywhere glass is used in building construction. Sharp hopes to eventually integrate the panels directly within building materials so that any available glass surface can be used as a power-generating solar panel.

In the meantime, if we could retrofit every high-rise building’s standard windows with this solar panel glass, buildings would each become its own power plant capable of generating at least a percentage of its energy needs. The new panels will be launched in Japan on October 1 but no word yet on price nor availability dates in the U.S. Let’s hope it sooner rather than later.

[via CNET]

Image Credit: Sharp Japan

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Yesterday, the government abruptly changed course, determining that it would not formally adopt that goal. The plan had drawn steep opposition from business groups and other communities who depend on local nuclear power plants for jobs and income. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s cabinet stated it would take the 2040 goal “into consideration” but would only offer its formal endorsement for a vague promise to open discussions with local governments and international communities to decide Japan’s energy future.

At a news conference following the announcement, Tadashi Okamura, chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the original goal “was not a viable option in the first place.”

While Japan has 54 nuclear reactors across the country, many have been shut down following the meltdowns at Fukushima. Now only two plants remain open.

Yet the government’s decision to essentially abandon its 2040 goal – a goal that many questioned in the first place as not specific enough, not ambitious enough, or too ambitious – has drawn plenty of criticism from skeptics. The promise to end dependence on nuclear energy was originally made in July 2011 by then Prime Minister Naoto Kan, but while Prime Minister Noda has said he wanted to reduce Japan’s nuclear energy capacity, he also made moves to restart the industry.

Many doubt whether the government can adequately regulate nuclear power production. Yukio Edano, minister of economy, trade and industry, said the government will help build “the highest-level regulations and disaster-preparedness plans in the world.”

While the world will have to wait and see if the Japanese government can live up to that high standard, countries everywhere should learn a lesson about the dangers of becoming too dependent on one form of energy – whatever form that is. Allowing nuclear energy to dominate its electricity supply has left the country’s entire economy vulnerable.

Main photo credit: Shutterstock

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Now, Reuters reports that two of nuclear’s biggest supporters, France and Japan, have essentially switched sides in the debate. In the wake of last year’s Fukushima disaster, Japan is phasing out its nuclear plants and increasing spending on renewable energy, while France plans to reduce its dependence on nuclear.

By the 2030s, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda says the island nation — which produced more than 10 percent of the world’s nuclear power in pre-Fukushima years — will be out of the nuclear industry. At the same time, it plans to triple the share of renewable resources so they contribute 30 percent of its energy needs.

French president Francois Hollande promises to cut the share of nuclear power in the country from a whopping 75 percent today to 50 percent by 2025. Hollande also called for a 40 percent cut in the European Union’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and a 60 percent cut by 2040.

Weighing in on the other side of the debate, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that it may be impossible to fill the gap left by nuclear power entirely with renewables and said the nations will inevitably end up using more fossil fuels. (Incidentally, the website of the journal Nature has an interesting set of charts showing IEA projections on fuel mix through 2035, as well as some other useful data.)

Luis Uriza of Bain & Co. told Reuters that natural gas is the most likely fuel to fill the void, which Japan already imports as a major energy source.

Germany, one of the most aggressive pursuers of alternative power, has backed away from nuclear since Fukushima, but it is still gets a large share of its power from fossil fuels.

Photo of nuclear power plant in Cattenom, France, courtesy of Stefan Kühn/Wikimedia

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A new energy law that took effect July 1 aims to phase out nuclear reactors and clean energy projects are now eligible for government subsidies through the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). According to data released by METI for the first month of the program, 81 commercial solar power projects with generation capacity of 1 megawatt or more, six wind projects totaling 122 megawatts, and a hydro power project totaling 0.2 megawatts were among those getting approval for government money.

Reuters is reporting that in total, Japan has approved more than 33,000 large and small-scale renewable energy projects for funding in the last 2 months, including the following:

• Softbank Corp will build 10 solar farms and a 48 megawatt wind farm by March 2015
• Toshiba will build solar plants with a capacity of 100 MW on the tsunami-hit coastline of Fukushima prefecture
• Maeda Corp will install solar panels at 5,000 7-11 convenience stores
• The city of Sapporo will install solar panels on the roofs of all 311 of its public schools
• Marubeni Corp and Wind Power Energy will both build wind farms off the coast with a capacity of 250 megawatts
• Orix Corp and West Holdings Corp will build and operate 250 solar farms capable of generating 500 megawatts of power

All projects approved for the government subsidies must sign contracts with utility companies by March 2013 to supply their power at set prices that will last until next March.

While a nuclear disaster on the scale of Fukushima is certainly enough to get an entire nation interested in pursuing renewable energy projects, let’s hope it doesn’t take the same in the U.S. to get our elected officials to jump on board with clean tech.

Image Credit: Joi/Flickr

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On an expedition sponsored by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, the vessel will continue drilling off Japan’s Shimokita Peninsula for three more weeks hoping to go as far as 7,220 feet below the seafloor. It set off in July.

But unlike the kind of drilling most of us are familiar with, the Chikyu and her passengers are not looking for oil or other natural resources ripe for exploitation.  The Agency explains that the purpose of the project is to understand carbon cycling, methane and natural gas below the sea floor.  These issues are “not only directly linked to issues of Japan’s energy resources but [are] also an important scientific area for understanding past global warming events, ecosystem changes, and for building a future sustainable low-carbon society.” Named the Deep Coalbed Biosphere expedition, Expedition 337, the work is being conducted within the framework of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, an international marine research program.

The excitement behind the discoveries was clear in statements made by scientist, Fumio Inagaki. “This scientific vessel has tremendous potentials to explore very deep realms that humans have never studied before. The deep samples are precious, and I am confident that our challenges will extend our systematic understanding of the nature of life and earth.”

Co-Chief scientist Kai-Uwe Hinrichs from the University of Bremen, Germany echoed those sentiments.  “I am very glad that I am here today and could witness this wonderful and important moment. Everybody on the ship worked really hard to make this happen. And, I am very pleased about the high quality of the core samples, which show only minimal drilling disturbance. This is very important for our research.”

I have to imagine that Inagaki and his colleagues have not seen James Cameron’s The Abyss – if they had they might have thought twice about whether to venture so deep into the unknown, especially without Ed Harris to protect them.

Featured Image via Shutterstock

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Over-hunting for its fur combined with habitat destruction from human development drove the river otter to near extinction by the 1930s. By the late ’70s the river otter was added to the “Red List of Threatened Mammals of Japan” as critically endangered. The last official sighting of a Japanese river otter was in 1979 along the banks of the Shinjo River in Susaki, Kochi Prefecture.

An adult river otter grew to about 110 centimeters (43 inches) in length, including a tail of up to 50 centimeters (20 inches), sporting a thick, lush coat of fur and short webbed feet. The typical diet for a Japanese river otter consisted mainly of fish, crab and shrimp, but they also dined on eels, sweet potatoes, watermelons and beetles.

Hope after extinction?

Official survey records from the Ministry of the Environment indicate the river otter disappeared from the northern island of Hokkaido in the 1950s and on the main island of Honshu in the 1960s. In the early 1990s research teams assembled in Kochi Prefecture, located in the southwestern part of the island of Shikoku, to see if they could find evidence of surviving otters. In March 1992 the researchers found hair and excrement that was determined to have come from an otter — perhaps the last official evidence of a surviving Japanese river otter.

But Yoshihiko Machida, professor emeritus at Kochi University, isn’t quite ready to sound the death knell for the Japanese river otter, citing reports of confirmed otter droppings found as late as 1999:

“I think it is possible that they still exist, and I want to continue my investigations,” he said in response to the declaration of the otter’s extinction.

Hope springs eternal.

Main image credit: SmileStudio/Shutterstock.com

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This dynamic between public and private is playing out right now in Japan, where the government announced a new incentive program for renewable energy providers in July. The program requires utilities to pay above-market rates for renewable energy (and pass along the extra cost to consumers as a surcharge). Now, as a result of the new money to be made in renewables, private companies are investing.

The latest announcement comes from West Holdings Corp., a Japanese home renovator. The company will spend $1.27 billion through its newly formed Japan Mega Solar Power Co., a subsidiary that will be developing 250 solar power plants. The plants, expected to generate 500 megawatts of energy, will be set up over the next five years.

Japan Mega Solar Power Co. has already attracted 12 outside investors, including a manufacturer of photovoltaic cells and a finance and leasing company, providing further evidence that many businesses and industry insiders see renewable energy as having real potential for high economic growth.

Main photo credit: Shutterstock

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Folks who endured Typhoon Bolaven’s wrath in Okinawa had to seek higher ground to avoid storm surges. Nearly 400,000 of the island’s inhabitants live less than 160 feet above sea level. Experts said the typhoon had a cloud field of 1,250 miles, which is 20 times larger than Okinawa’s length. It is the worst typhoon to hit the island since Typhoon Naha in 1956. Although Bolaven injured five people and left 66,500 households without power as of Monday afternoon, it did less damage than many feared before moving north into the East China Sea.

Although those in Okinawa may be breathing a sigh of relief, residents of Taiwan are bracing for another round. Typhoon Tembin, which drenched southern Taiwan last week before moving out to sea, appears to be circling back for another pass.

ABC News reports that Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau predicted that Tembin would make landfall early Tuesday in the same part of southern Taiwan where it dumped more than 500 millimeters (20 inches) of rain three days ago.

Record-breaking storms like these typhoons have become a common headline as we approach the climate change tipping point. Just recently, Revmodo reported on the fact that changing temperatures could be fueling even more savage hurricanes.

Photo credit: Roberto Verzo/Flickr

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That doesn’t mean there’s no demand for whale in Japan – quite the contrary. But the whale caught by the Institute for Cetacean Research is unwanted for a simple reason: it’s not fresh. Smaller coastal whaling programs in northern Japan sell fresh whale meat to communities with long-held whale-eating traditions, leaving the frozen meat to go to waste. Of course, that means the whales caught by the institute died in vain, a fact that likely won’t go over well with anti-whaling activists.

According to The Telegraph, the institute held auctions between November and March in a bid to unload the frozen meat of whales that it caught last summer, hoping to promote whale consumption and fill its own coffers. A spokesman for the institute blamed the disappointing results on food sellers who might fear backlash from anti-whaling organizations. But a report released by the Iruka and Kujira Action Network of Japan reveals that the Japanese public supports whaling missions, mostly out of outrage over the harassment of whalers.

The ICR is known for tense conflicts with the Sea Shepherd Society, the anti-whaling organization that has become notorious for taking bold and sometimes controversial action against whaling ships. The image above, captured by Australian customs agents, shows a mother whale and her calf being hauled into an ICR ship under the banner “Legal research under the ICRW,” the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.

A loophole in international law allows Japan to get away with whaling under the guise of “research.” Japanese officials argue that they need to trawl the seas for whales in order to prove their view that whales aren’t threatened, but are actually thriving. Hitting back at Western nations with charges of cultural insensitivity, the Japanese have defended whaling as an important part of their nation’s traditions.

Via Reddit

Main photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

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