#Connecticut Becomes 1st State To end Chronic Homelessness Among Vets Connecticut officials announced Thursday they had become the first state in the nation to provide housing for every one of its chronically homeless veterans.
Key to the state coordinated effort are the Connecticut Department of Housing and the Connecticut Coalition To end Homelessness (CCEH)
along with other nonprofits and volunteers who hit the streets to identify homeless vets. his means that all known chronically homeless veterans are housed
and any veteran who newly enters homelessness will be rapidly put on the path to permanent housing,
On the federal level, significant increases in funding for permanent housing vouchers and additional funding targeted to provide rapid rehousing to veterans,
The State department of Housing has invested also at least $3 million in rental subsidies and special services for Connecticut homeless veteransa key distinction hailed by the U s. Veterans Affairs Secretary,
#Designer Air Purifier Converts Smog Into Jewelry As it Cleans A Dutch artist is turning smog into jewelry using the world largest portable air purifier.
Daan Roosegaarde first got the idea for the device while visiting smog-filled Beijing. Inspiration struck when he realized that air pollution is largely CO2,
which is made up of tiny little particles of carbonnd if you put a lot of carbon under enough pressure,
it turns into diamonds. Turning smog into diamonds would require too much energy, but the designer, who has created also solar bike paths in The netherlands,
and glow in the dark roads, had another idea. He envisioned a mog Free Towerthat would operate using the same air purifying technology hospitals do.
His large, portable tower would clean the air while simultaneously leaving behind tiny black carbon particles that could be recycled into jewelry.
After collecting $127, 000 to build it through a Kickstarter fundraising page that offered rings and cufflinks as rewards for donations,
Roosegaarde switched the machine on for the first time in Rotterdam on September 4. solar tulip Aora Solar website As onlookers breathed in bubbles of the fresh,
clean air wafting into the town square, the Smog Free Tower was cranking out the bits of carbon that would be compressed into tiny cubes.
Each of those cubes, less than one half-inch squared, is the equivalent of 1, 000 cubic meters of air cleansed of smog by the white machine.
The little black bundles, framed by stainless steel, were promised to anyone who donated#50 or more.
Rings or cufflinks are going to anyone who donated#250 or more. Roosegaarde wants to take the tower to some of the most polluted cities in the world,
including Paris, Mumbai, and Beijing a
#New Discovery: How We Might Starve Tumors by Cutting off Food supply In their hunger to find ways to cure cancer,
scientists may have found a method to starve tumors to death. Cancer cells must find nutrients to grow.
Now, researchers at Oxford university in the UK have discovered the method used by cells to locate those food supplies.
They identified a protein called PAT4 as the main tool cancer cells use to find nutrients in blood,
and their research suggests it may be possible to starve tumors by targeting it. e found that aggressive cancer cells manufacture more PAT4,
Goberdhan team created an antibody that let them see levels of PAT4 in human tissues.
They found that cancers with low PAT4 levels grew more slowly while patients that showed higher levels had more trouble fighting tumors and a higher chance of remission.
They also discovered that if doctors can reduce the PAT4 levels, it will slow tumor growth.
Now that theye identified a mechanism that allows tumors to grow the researchers believe they can find a way to use it as part of a combination treatment that will lead to a higher survival rate for patients.
They believe it can be incorporated into other, traditional cancer treatments to fight the disease more effectively.
The research, published today in the science journal Oncogene, was funded by Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust and the Biotechnology and Biological sciences Research Council h
#Solar Tracking: A Key Technology for Unlocking the Full Potential of Utility-Scale PV Quotes for large solar photovoltaic projects in sunny parts of the United states are coming in at an astounding 4. 5 to 5. 5
cents per kilowatt-hour. These projects enjoy economies-of-scale advantages compared to smaller or rooftop-type photovoltaic projects.
There is, however, one other very important technology advantage: since the utility-size systems are ground-mounted,
trackers can be used to allow the panels to follow the sun throughout daylight hours. The advantages of trackers are dramatic,
often leading to the lowest levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) in projects. Not only is increased annual production,
Key considerations include the total annual electricity production and the amount of electricity produced during hours
when electricity demand is at its highest. PV Watts is a useful tool for examining the tradeoffs involved.
The software predicts the power produced from a PV system under various configurations. If a sunny location like Albuquerque, New mexico is selected,
the software indicates a single-axis tracker would produce about 20 percent more energy compared to the same size (Wdc) optimally oriented/tilted fixed PV system.
But the story is deeper than that. A tracking system will also produce more energy
when a utility most wants it --when electric demands are at their peak. Take for example, the following hourly simulation of power production on a July day in Albuquerque.
Recouping that added investment, however, will be location-dependent. Generally speaking, single-axis trackers produce about 20 percent more energy compared to fixed-mount systems just about anywhere in the U s. However,
the amount of annual energy produced in a cloudy location like Seattle is only about 60 percent of a sunny area like Albuquerque,
which will greatly impact the economic analysis. One hurdle for trackers is outdated an perception of added maintenance requirements or lack of reliability.
which has a database of all customer-installed solar projects, illustrating the dramatic drop in the installed cost of solar.
Dollars per AC Watt Quarterly Average in California Source: Go Solar California Since 2007, the installed price for smaller PV systems (under 0. 5 megawatts) has dropped from around $10 per watt AC to around $5.
The cost for medium-size systems (0. 5 to 1 megawatts) is about 60 percent of the cost of smaller systems, around $3 per watt AC today.
with a forecast of 12 gigawatts of PV installed in 2016 as companies rush to take advantage of expiring tax credits.
With the help from better tracking technologies, hopefully solar will continue its downward trajectory in costs to offset the reduction in the federal Investment Tax credit.
trackers, and inverters, it appears utility-scale solar is here to stay and is positioned to be a very competitive source of electricity going forward.
Tags: array technologies, solar tracker s
#Innovus Power: A Generator That Plays Well With Renewable energy Marc Hoffman, CEO of startup Innovus Power, believes that the synchronous generator, the workhorse of the power grid for the past century,
needs a makeover for the green-powered future. Sure, power turbines that run at a fixed speed--60 hertz,
or cycles per second, in the U s.--have served the grid well to date. But the rise of wind and solar power,
which rises and falls with the weather, and uses inverters to turn direct current into grid-ready alternating current, presents them with a serious set of challenges.
These include low efficiency when theye forced to ramp up and down to match fluctuations in renewable energy,
Hoffman said during a presentation at last month Grid Edge Live conference in San diego. For microgrids that run diesel generators to back up renewable energy,
For the grid at large, it could place strict limitations on how much renewable energy can be integrated before the need arises for excessive amounts of fossil fuel-fired power plants
or expensive batteries, to back it up. Innovus Power variable speed genset could solve those problems in one neat package,
Developed over a decade of work in the marine engine and off-grid power space, the 600-kilowatt units combine a high-efficiency engine from Rolls royce-owned manufacturer MTU, a permanent magnet
and a AC-DC-AC power converter from wind turbine maker Northern Power systems. e start by taking a generator
Hoffman said during his Grid Edge Live presentation. The unit engine has more flexibility than a traditional fixed-speed generator
is a system that should cost less and work better than diesel-backed generators or lots of battery storage for the microgrid market,
solution to integrating an ever-growing share of renewables on their grids. ou may look at our platform on the surface and say,
consistent advances in power electronics have allowed the kind of combination system that Innovus is building to start to approach commercial viability,
but the company couldn make the business work due to the relatively small market opportunity. Innovus has raised between $40 million and $50 million from three unnamed investors,
Hoffman said. They include two individuals he knew from his years working at General electric and aircraft engine maker Allied Signal,
as well as a third angel investor. The company's executive team includes CTO Mark Preston a veteran of Vestas, United technologies,
and Northern Power systems. It also includes Mark Levy, the VP of sales and business development,
who previously held similar positions at aerospace giant Northrop grumman and inverter maker Advanced Energy. Innovus is looking to maintain high fuel efficiency
and the constant delivery of clean and stable power while running at varying speeds. That allows the Innovus generator to run at lower than 30 percent capacity,
being able to detect load changes in a way that far more advanced than the way a synchronous generator would operate,
whether theye inverter-based renewable energy or battery storage systems, or traditional spinning generators. With the benefit of the Northern Power Systemspower converter
I have positive contribution to my grid. At the same time, am balancing out the unevenness of my renewables
which has build a 1-megawatt wind farm and backup diesel generator array for the Aleutian island town of Sand Point,
According to an analysis using modeling tools from microgrid consulting firm Homer Energy, Innovus should be able to allow that wind capacity to be used for both electricity
and additional uses like heating (notated as"dump power"on the chart below), while saving about 450,000 liters of fuel per year--a significant cost reduction for an island that must import all its fuel.
In Australia, off-grid project development company EMC is looking at using the Innovus system to back up truck stops,
mining operations and other remote locations where grid electricity is either very costly or simply unavailable.
Unlike remote islands, diesel costs in mainland Australia are low enough to make a renewables-plus-batteries microgrid uneconomical
director at EMC. here a lot of work happening off the grid in Australia, most of it diesel-fired, he said.
Mining companies pay roughly 70 cents per liter of diesel fuel, but often have to oversize their fixed-speed generator fleets to meet rare peaks in demand,
which leaves much of that fleet sitting idle most of the time. Bringing in solar and wind power could offset those costs,
but not without a certain amount of energy storage in the form of expensive lithium-ion batteries. he Innovus genset is going to allow us to achieve a very high renewable penetration without a very large battery,
the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of a Western Australian microgrid system using an Innovus genset comes to 25 cents per kilowatt-hour,
he said. ecause they have a DC bus in their genset, you could connect PV arrays and batteries on the DC bus. That, in turn,
ould allow you to eliminate all those inverters, and just use the inverter that comes with the Innovus generator,
because it the same size as the system anyway. That a pretty attractive technology pathway and R&d pathway.
Hoffman noted that this capability to link multiple DC generation sources into a single Innovus DC bus could lend an additional level of simplification to microgrid operators seeking the flexibility to grow with the times.
The call isn just coming from off-grid realms, he added. e have one very large utility in Asia that now very interested in running some pilot systems,
said Ally. hat theye concerned about is load defection--industrial and commercial customers seeing rising costs,
One might argue that combining batteries with green power is a more environmentally friendly alternative,
But pure battery systems still have a hard time penciling out in all but the most expensive fossil fuel markets.
Even if batteries get to the point where the round trip is more cost-effective than burning fossil fuel, hat greatfor Innovus,
or a fuel cell, or some dispatchable power source beyond your storage. t
#Solarcity Has a New Plan to Make Distributed Energy an Integral Part of the Grid Solarcity has an idea for how to help California utilities tap their own customers as an integral part of their billion-dollar distribution grid plans:
put them first in line. The plan is called a istribution loading ordera variation of the state longstanding loading order that puts renewables and efficiency ahead of fossil fuel-fired power for large-scale power procurements and transmission planning.
In a white paper this week, Solarcity wrote that the structure could be a key lever for customer-owned distributed energy resources (DERS) to compete for billions of dollars of distribution grid projects being planned by the state big three utilities.
grid-responsive customers and their aggregated value first, before paying for new wires, poles and transformers upgrades.
It would also put existing DERS in front of utility contracts and procurements for distributed energy, like Southern California Edison groundbreaking local capacity requirement (LCR) contracts last year. ur idea is to start with what there,
and send the signals on what to do, said Ryan Hanley, Solarcity senior director of grid engineering solutions,
in an interview. fter you find out what you can do with your pricing signals, then you do an RFP.
It a simple concept, but with radical implications for how utilities identify, plan and procure for their distribution grid needs.
It also comes at a time when California is suddenly wide open to innovative grid-DER integration concepts.
Under a California Public Utilities Commission decision last year, the state big investor-owned utilities are already turning in distribution resource plans (DRPS.
These lay out where their grid circuits could be helped or hurt by distributed energy resources, and set goals for figuring out just how they can best be valued as grid assets.
But last week integrated demand side resource proposed decision from Commissioner Mike Florio takes the DRP process to the next level,
authorizing new markets, programs or tariff structures that can actually start paying DERS for that value--or,
in fairness, withhold payment if theye going to be a grid burden. Florio proposal calls for policies that allow rooftop solar energy storage, plug-in vehicles
energy efficiency, demand response, and any other kind of demand-side resource to compare its costs and benefits to any other, in any combination,
without being trapped by programs or incentive structures for single technologies. California is rife with projects of this sort,
but theye either pilot-scale, as with PG&E distributed demand response programs, or being conducted under closely-held utility terms,
as with Southern California Edison LCR contracts. Meanwhile, customer incentives are split up into energy efficiency programs, self-generation incentive program credits, energy storage mandates, demand response payments,
and the potential to play a role in the state grid markets. In this kind of fractured
and overlapping economic landscape, customers don have much chance of banding together to compete on utility contracts,
senior policy and regulatory attorney for the Center for Sustainable energy. xisting incentives and value streams don provide the right signals to adopt complementary solutions that provide synergistic value to the grid,
That goes for how California greenhouse gas reduction goals align with various programs as well, she noted.
One of the challenges in making customers a part of grid planning is that it's difficult to know what theye going to do.
Energy prices are a blunt instrument when it comes to forcing behavior change. Even automated and aggregated DERS lack the always-on communications
and control between grid operators and, say, utility-scale solar and wind farms. Still there are methods to determine the effective load carrying capacity of distributed renewables at scale,
or predict the response of lots of household batteries and smart thermostats to rising and falling prices.
Solarcity proposes building some headroom into how the distribution loading order calculates the capacity of customer-owned DER,
versus its vailabilityfor those must-have grid moments, o probabilistically discount the different types of distribution products."
or build itself, to stand in as last-resort grid resources, as this chart shows: As for how companies like Solarcity will go about proving their DERS can do
what they say they can, mart inverters will be on every new installation going forward, Hanley said,
which will allow monitoring and control of solar, storage and EV chargers at homes and businesses.
California utilities have made it pretty clear that they want to have direct access to whatever DERS they take on as grid investments,
whether to actively dispatch it for grid needs or to monitor it for compliance with its chosen task.
At the same time, theye starting to experiment with tariffs for behind-the-meter batteries smart thermostats and plug-in EVS to help defer distribution grid investments Ted Ko, policy director at behind-the-meter battery startup Stem,
noted at a Thursday CPUC workshop that his company is installing 85 megawatts of storage under its Southern California Edison contract,
While individual customers might make unwise investment decisions, ou won have ratepayers as a whole bearing the burden of that.
Of course, because utilities earn a regulated rate of return on capital expenditures like distribution system upgrades, that not necessarily something theye happy about.
Solarcity CTO Peter Rive suggested at Thursday meeting that utilities be allowed to earn returns on distributed energy resources as-a-service. ou could meet that load growth with standalone solar.
it could be solar with a little battery. In either case, it much cheaper than a transformer upgrade.
In other words, Hanley said, e think we can run a business off of that. Solarcity is already selling Tesla behind-the-meter batteries with its solar systems,
and has been testing their ability to work in concert as an aggregated grid resource. But f there were time-of-use tariffs,
we could put in batteries every day, and use them to shift load, he said. Connected water heaters and smart thermostats could be added too,
said Hanley. ou could be like us, and do it all for customers, or if youe a hardware provider, you can supply the technology to adapt to these prices.
It great for Nest too--they can control their thermostats and adjust as needed. e
#How texting tools boost adherence rates In what is being hailed as a first step toward effective self-care,
a mobile health medication inquiry system (MIS) has been proven to not only reduce errors but also bolster adherence.
The MIS platform, delivered as a text or personal digital assistant (PDA) message, prompted patients to input the information contained on one of three different sample prescription pill bottles sent to each patient.
Indeed, the so-called"patient-centered medication safeguard"could be a valuable tool for providers who deal with the millions of patients who take multiple medications each day to manage conditions such as high blood pressure, asthma, COPD, heart disease and diabetes.
A study conducted by the Duke university School of medicine and University of Maryland School of medicine, in fact, found few errors in the use of MIS among patients with chronic kidney disease checking the safety of their medications."
"The results of the study were published in the July 28 edition of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, with an accompanying editorial from Bryan Becker, MD, of the University of Chicago."
or instant message may be the patient engagement tool that doctors need to help people with chronic conditions take care of themselves at home.
creatures like mussels and barnacles stay cemented on rocks in the splash zone as well as on the pillars of piers
In the hunt for synthetic adhesives suitable for high ph solutions, a team of researchers from the University of California, Santa barbara (UCSB), examined a microbial substance with high binding capabilities called cyclic
they tested these compounds for their adhesion to a mica surface submerged in a saline solution.
and the catechol comes down and hydrogen bonds to the mica surface.""They created a synthetic version of CTC that offers similar adherence strengths
and works in saline solutions with ph levels between 3. 3 to 7. 5."There's real need in a lot of environments,
including medicine, to be able to have glues that would work in an aqueous environment,
"Butler says. Current synthetic materials don adhere well in solutions with higher ph values.""So now we have the basis of
or copper nanoparticles that kill bacteria found in contaminated water. Each page could filter 99%of bacteria
. even in highly contaminated water sources where raw sewage has been dumped. Sisters collecting untreated water from a dam.
a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie mellon University, tells IFLSCIENCE. Dankovich trialed the Drinkable Book in South africa, Ghana and Bangladesh and quickly realized the importance of finding a design that is culturally relevant to the communities who are need in of clean drinking water. ne of the assumptions
There still a lot of work to be done before that happens Dankovich added. The Drinkable Book not only purifies drinking water,
#Our osetta Stonegene Could Unlock The Secrets Of Schizophrenia Schizophrenia affects around 1%of the global population
and can cause paranoia, hallucinations and a breakdown in patients'thought processes, with a huge impact on their ability to carry out everyday tasks.
Around 50%of people who suffer with the condition attempt suicide. There are currently relatively few treatments for the condition
However, genetics may hold the key to developing more effective treatments. My colleagues and I recently discovered that one specific gene may allow us to decode the function of all genes involved in the disease.
This osetta Stonegene has revealed a period early in the brain development when treatments may be most effective in preventing schizophrenia manifesting in the first place.
Mental health conditions are among the most challenging medical problems we face as scientists, partly because of the complexity of the biology underlying thought processes
and partly because studying a living brain is very difficult. However, recent studies have begun to make some headway in understanding the biology of mental health conditions by looking at the gene mutations carried by people diagnosed with such problems.
Origins Of Genetic disease Gene mutations are present in all the cells in the body and can be examined by taking a blood sample.
We now know that many of the genes involved in mental health conditions carry instructions for creating the proteins in the brain synapses.
These are the connections between neurons that allow them to communicate with one another. But despite knowing about hundreds of mutations associated with schizophrenia,
we are relatively in the dark about what they all do. Many different mutations can give rise to the same apparent condition.
On the other hand, no single gene mutation necessarily gives rise to a discernible mental health problem. One gene we do have some certainty about is known as isrupted in schizophrenia gene 1 (DISC1.
It relates to a protein that, when mutated, can give rise to a number of mental health conditions including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major clinical depression and autism.
While schizophrenia may be inherited, the probability of inheritance from a mutation carried by one parent alone is relatively low.
In contrast, DISC1 mutations are highly penetrant, meaning that carrying the mutation is highly likely to give rise to the characteristic problem.
This makes DISC1 a very useful experimental tool, because if a laboratory animal such as a mouse carries the mutation,
it is highly likely to exhibit the functional problem and to give rise to offspring with the same problem.
Studying DISC1 solves two problems at once: we do need not to look at human neurons because we can use mice
instead and we only need a single mutation rather than the several gene mutations that normally give rise to the condition.
In our studies on DISC1 mice, we have found that the gene has an important function during an early period of brain development.
If you impair the function of DISC1 for just two days during the second week after birth,
the animal grows up with a lack of brain plasticity (the ability to change neural pathways over time) in the synapses that were trying to form at the time.
Targeting Schizophrenia Vulnerable Period Different parts of the brain may mature at different times but most cortical areas go through a similar sequence of development.
So how can studying DISC1 help us decode what is going wrong with other genes in schizophrenia?
or at least many of the genes identified as risk factors in schizophrenia. DISC1 mutations have also been linked to autism
and Asperger syndrome, suggesting that the developmental effects of DISC1 could also be important for understanding these mental health conditions.
The interaction between gene mutations and brain development may have made it difficult to understand how the long list of risk factors can cause problems in the adult brain.
Now we know when to study the function of other risk factors and what the outcome is for adult function.
what the other genes involved in schizophrenia are doing (or doing wrong) during development to give rise to the debilitating condition of schizophrenia o
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