Tomorrow's Clean Tech News Today: Solar Power In A Jungle Gym

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Tuesday December 02, 2025 · 6:26 AM PST

2025/12/02 · 06:26

Image of Jungle Gym like 3D Structure for Solar Power Generation 2 — A new "jungle gym" structure deploys thin, flexible solar cells to generate clean kilowatts while avoiding the use of forested land and other valuable spaces.

With its sprawling, wide open spaces and energy-sucking communities, the US is tailor-made to support a thriving domestic solar industry. Other nations are not so lucky. Take Japan, for example.

Japan is an island 25 times smaller than the US by land mass, raising the temperature of deforestation and other land use issues to a fever pitch. So, what’s a solar developer to do?

The Japanese R&D firm Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd. is among the innovators coming up with solutions. The firm is exploring the idea of a space-saving ”jungle gym” structure to squeeze more solar power out of far less space than the typical utility-scale solar farm.

Instead of conventional, rigid silicon solar cells, GSA proposes using organic solar cells. For those of you new to the topic, “organic” in this context does not mean all-natural or free of synthesized chemicals. It simply refers to thin films of photovoltaic material based on carbon.

Though not as efficient in converting sunlight to electricity as their silicon cousins, organic solar cells are flexible, and they can be fabricated in transparent or semi-transparent forms. That gives them a much wider range of application than conventional silicon solar cells, which must be arrayed in flat panels at an angle optimal to the direction of sunlight.

GSA proposes to wrap organic solar cells around a compact structure made of transparent pillars and struts, much like a jungle gym. “The array can expand both horizontally and vertically; if both the cells and supports were fully transparent, it could theoretically extend to any height,” GSA explains.

“This approach would eliminate the need for vast planar installations and the deforestation associated with them,” the firm added in a press statement.

GSA aims to begin proof-of-concept testing next year. That’s going to be a complicated exercise of simulation. GSA lists solar irradiation intensity at different times of day, weather conditions, and seasons; light absorption by curved cell surfaces; power generation under varying conditions; and how electrical output is affected by different interconnection methods and circuit configurations among the variables to be studied.

If all goes according to plan, the jungle gym layout could be applied to dual-use (aka agrivoltaic) farming among other applications where land use issues run deep and space is at a premium. If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread.

Xi To Trump: Hey Dummy, You Can Be Authoritarian And Love Clean Power, Too

JerseyDem25

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Monday December 01, 2025 · 6:23 AM PST

2025/12/01 · 06:23

New C&I ESS solution PowerKeeper Series Debuts at Sungrow Summit — While US President Donald Trump is busy cutting US clean tech industries off at the knees, China is poised to capture a huge slice of the global market (energy storage display courtesy of Sungrow).

Oh the irony, it burns. The President of the Greatest Nation on Earth is alternately redecorating the White House (or what remains of it), committing war crimes, and dismantling various domestic clean energy industries, while leaving a great, gaping hole in global leadership for Chinese President Xi Jinping to fill.

In case that’s news to anyone, the state-controlled news organization China Daily is happy to remind everyone that China rules, Trump drools. In a wide-release press statement earlier today, China Daily underscored the country’s “determination to pursue a green transition” even though “some nations are backsliding on their commitments.”

“Some nations!” Who do you supposed that means?

The rest of the statement reads like an Opposite Day list of Trump’s energy policies, waxing forth on China’s plans for expanding its domestic wind and solar capacity to 3,600 gigawatts (that’s GW, not MW) by 2035 while leveraging its muscular manufacturing sector to collaborate on electric vehicles, solar power, and other green technologies with other nations around the world.

Adding insult to injury, China also plans to take a lead role in the all-important area of setting global decarbonization standards. Translation: US manufacturers trying to sell goods overseas will have a tough time competing if they can’t meet that bar.

These ambitious plans are taking place against the backdrop of a government widely acknowledged as repressive, authoritarian, and murderous when convenient. Oh wait, that’s the current state of the US government. So confusing!

Still, it’s not to late for the US to regain its footing in the global landscape. Word on the street is the neurotic, malevolently incompetent Commander-in-Chief of the US military is already losing his touch, and the transition from one political cycle to another is like bankruptcy, which happens gradually until it happens suddenly as the saying goes.

The groundwork is already laid for a fresh wave of renewable energy activity in the US. Check out the latest news from the SUN Day Campaign, where you can find a reader-friendly summary of data compiled by the US Energy Information Agency.

On the research side, the University of Illinois is hot on the trail of a new cost-effective process for extracting lithium from spent batteries, potentially leading to a more sustainable EV supply chain.

If you’ve spotted some interesting clean tech news of note here in the US, drop a note in the thread.

Tomorrow's Clean Tech News Today: From Textile Waste To Sustainable Cement

JerseyDem25

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday November 30, 2025 · 6:30 PM PST

2025/11/30 · 18:30

Just when you thought you’ve seen everything there is to see about upcycling, recycling, and otherwise managing the mountain of waste generated by modern society, on November 30 DrFlora post a great article about upcycling men’s cotton shirts to make spectacular quilts. Take a look, they are fabulous!

As for the collars, cuffs, and other scraps left behind, the cotton recycling industry is adopting DNA tracking and other next-generation systems that help shepherd more cotton textiles into the circular economy of the sparkling green future. The challenge is what to do with the torrent of synthetic and blended textiles that enters the waste stream every day.

Researchers at Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania are among those tackling the challenge. “Recycling synthetic clothing is particularly difficult due to the additives used in production, which complicate sorting and processing. Microplastics are also released during washing or treatment,” they explain.

“Because most garments consist of fibre blends, incineration and landfilling remain the most common disposal methods – yet direct incineration increases CO₂ emissions and environmental pollution,” they add.

The researchers initially proposed re-using polyester fiber from discarded clothing as a cement additive. They demonstrated that that cement composed of just 1.5% of textile-derived polyester fibers is 15–20% stronger than conventional cement. The polyester-infused cement also outperformed its conventional counterparts on freeze–thaw resistance.

More recently, the KTU team also developed an alternative method aimed at recycling blended textiles without going through expensive separation steps. Instead, they used the ash from incinerated textiles as a cement additive. Since the composition of textiles varies widely, so does the nature of the ash, but generally the researchers demonstrated that textile ash can replace a fairly significant proportion of conventional cement materials, at up to 7.5%, while improving the compressive strength of the material by 16%.

Back when the US Environmental Protection Agency was tasked with protecting the environment, a group of EPA staffers got together and assembled a fact sheet on textile re-purposing and recycling. You can see it here, until it evaporates.

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