Spotlight Archive
ASU Polytechnic students and Salt River Project (SRP) are collaborating on a solar "microgrid" project to make the power grid more dependable as more people begin to utilize home solar installations and other renewable energy power systems. The project could help utility companies like SRP better manage distributed energy systems and power concentrations. The project will also allow students the real world opportunity to understand such problems before entering the workforce.
Director of LightWorks Gary Dirks and CEO of Heliae Dan Simon penned op-ed on recently passed algae bills that will enable the building of large-scale algae farming operations that will benefit Arizona citizens through high-paying jobs, increased tax base, additional investment capital and sustainable use of agricultural lands for generations to come.
STEM after-school program for K-12 students in Kyrene school district in Arizona teaches diverse topics such as microbiology and genetics, bacteria and immune systems, electricity and energy, photosynthesis and nutrients, and earth’s geological processes. Students used their newfound knowledge to create artificial heart models, imagine how alien life forms would exist in different environments, design water filtration devices and use hydrogen fuel cells to power toy cars.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced the selections for three consortia that will make up the $125 million U.S.-India Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (JCERDC). These consortia will bring together experts from national laboratories, universities, and industry in both the U.S. and India to leverage their expertise and resources. ASU has been selected as part of the solar technology team. The center aims to unlock the huge potential of clean energy technologies that can reduce energy use, cut dependence on foreign oil, and accelerate the deployment of renewable energy sources.
Arizona State University is harnessing the power of the sun to turn its campuses into a solar laboratory. Through partnerships with utilities and private industry, ASU has created the largest single university solar system in the country. ASU is capturing solar energy from building rooftops, parking garages and lots, and from the PowerParasol, an innovative, 24-foot-high platform that spans more than five acres. By the end of 2012, ASU will generate 17 MW of solar power. ASU's leading solar program not only allows the utilization of Arizona's abundant natural resource within the Valley of the Sun, but also teaches students about their environmental impact and empowers them to change the world. Voting ends April 14, 2012.
A team of scientists from Arizona State University has moved us closer to understanding the evolutionary process of anoxygenic to oxygenic photosynthetic organisms in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled "Light-driven oxygen production from superoxide by manganese-binding bacterial reaction centers." These plants, algae, and cyanobacteria use a photosynthetic process to produce oxygen and "fuels." The team seeks to understand how anoxygenic, low energy using organisms could have evolved into oxygenic photosynthetic organisms. The suggestion is, there was an evolutionary movement in protein.
