Colorado native Stephen Katsaros wants his bulb to brighten up places without electricity. (Leah Millis, The Denver Post)

As soon as he saw the first molds of the bulb coming out of the factory, Katsaros, 37, quit the legal firm where he worked as a patent agent and devoted himself full-time to Nokero.

His plan is to target countries such as India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan, where hundreds of millions rely on expensive, carbon-spewing gas lamps but income is high enough to afford a $15 lamp. Demand is higher in places such as Ethiopia, but the population is too poor to afford the lamp, Katsaros says.

“This is not a charity,” he says. “We are using capitalism as a method to improve people’s lives.”

The Nokero made a few waves in the tech blogosphere when it was unveiled a little over a month ago. A big part of the pitch is helping people quit burning kerosene for light, according to a post by SmartPlanet’s Andrew Nusca:

Nokero says no kerosene means saved money that would be used on fuel — five percent of total income, aqccording to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — and that its light bulb “can pay for itself within months.”

An employee works on equipment at Abound Solar's Longmont production facility. Courtesy photo | Abound Solar

President Barack Obama has recently announced a federal loan guarantee to Abound Solar, a Loveland-based company that has a manufacturing facility in Longmont.

The company, which employs 360 people in Colorado and manufactures thin film solar panels, will nearly double its employee base in the state, Abound Solar spokesman Mark Chen said.

He said it’s not yet clear exactly how the new jobs will break down between Abound Solar’s Longmont production facility, its headquarters in Loveland and its research lab in Fort Collins.

But he said Longmont would most likely be the biggest beneficiary since the bulk of production is done in the city. The company will be able to add two production lines to the one it already has in Longmont as a result of the loan guarantee, Chen said.

The White House said the project marks the first time this new manufacturing technology for Cadmium-Telluride panels will be deployed commercially anywhere in the world.

It will produce photovoltaic panels using an innovative process in which thin films of Cadmium-Telluride are deposited onto the glass panels, according to the White House. The technology reduces overall product costs.

Abound Solar is a member of PV Cycle, an organization dedicated to creating “truly sustainable energy solutions that take into consideration the environmental impacts of all stages of the product life cycle, from raw material sourcing through end-of-life collection and recycling.”

Learn more about the Abound Solar expansion in Longmont and the federal loan guarantee at the Camera.

-Hannah Gentry

The stone wall on the South Facade absorbs heat during the day, lowering the heat gain on the interior of the house. At night as the air cools the heat is given back into the surrounding air, warming the house naturally | photo and caption: flickr user Jeremy Levine

Taking advantage of the sun doesn’t mean you need costly solar panels. Passive solar is the heating and cooling of a building naturally by means of efficient site placement and energy efficient materials. Strategic positioning of a building in relation to the sun can be enough to heat your home and seriously cut your costs. Here in Boulder, we get a lot of sun, and you’re either fighting it or you’re working with it. Architects in Boulder know the value of passive solar:

If you’re building from scratch, siting a building correctly can save 20 to 30 percent in energy costs, says Joseph Vigil, formerly of VaST Architecture and currently creating a new firm, Workshop8.

Southern facing windows are the key to passive solar design, Vigil says.

“In the winter months when the sun angle is very low, it’s easy to get direct sunlight through the windows,” he says. “Then if it has a slight overhang in the warmer months, the overhang protects the south-facing glass from the sun’s rays. You don’t get a heat gain.

Colorado with its 300 days of sun a year is particularly well suited to passive solar design.

Architect Kelly Lerner told Mother Earth News more about the passive solar basics:

Kelly Lerner, architect and author of Natural Remodeling for the Not-So-Green House, says there are four things to consider when designing or remodeling a building to most effectively utilize solar energy: south-facing glass (glazing), shading, insulation and thermal mass.

“In most North American climates, the right amount of south-facing glass is 7 to 12 percent of the floor area of the building — a lot less than you might think if you’ve seen solar home designs from the ’70s,” she says. “In the ’70s, we really used too much glass with too little thermal mass, so instead of passive solar heat, we had something more like ‘passive-aggressive’ solar heat, creating buildings that were too hot during the day and too cool at night. Too much glazing can be a detriment on cold winter nights, allowing heat to escape.”

-Hannah Gentry

Solar cooker baking zucchini bread | flickr user davidsilver

A solar cooker is a  simple way to use and understand a resource Boulder has in abundance: sunlight.  Simple cookers require such basic household items as Elmer’s glue, cardboard, aluminum foil and a glass jar, and can be assembled in as little as two to three hours.

The Boulder company Willow Way, run by Zia Parker, offers a solar oven construction class taught by Jeff Graef.

“One thing that’s good about it is it’s a slow cooker,” Graef said. “You basically don’t have to watch it. You can throw in the food, go out and do some errands, come back and it will be cooked.”

“You can cook a pretty good variety of things, but things that take a long time to cook are more challenging,” he said. “The easiest things to cook are fruits and vegetables.

While a solar cooker might not be able to produce enough heat to cook everything on the dinner table, it could be a fun and energy efficient way to gain more understanding of the power of the sun.

Read more about how to make a solar cooker at the Camera.

-Mikaila Altenbern

Xcel Energy's Ponnequin Wind Farm

Are you powered with 100 percent wind? (Are you sure?)

If you get your wind power through Xcel Energy in Colorado by subscribing to the company’s popular Windsource program, you’re getting mostly wind, but you’re also getting some of your electricity from hydroelectric (about 7 percent), solar (about 2 percent) and biomass (about 1 percent).

This, of course, doesn’t bother many renewable energy supporters, but it does beg the question: should Xcel change that program’s name? Tireless Xcel watchdog Leslie Glustrom thinks they should — not just because the program is more than wind, but also because the program’s past missteps may have tarnished the brand. (Glustrom has filed a request with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission asking that the name be reconsidered.)

Xcel launched Windsource in 1997 (after Boulder activists begged, and arm-twisted, and organized to get a renewable energy options). So Xcel built a wind farm and started selling subscriptions. The program was so popular, that it was soon sold out…. but Xcel just kept on selling. Eventually, once the Public Utilities Commission found out about the oversold subscriptions, Xcel was forced to reorganize. To make up for the lack of turbines, the company added solar, hydro and biomass to its portfolio. But the word was out, and between fall of 2008 and fall of 2009, Windsource lost 10 percent of its residential subscribers.

Read more about the retooled Windsource program — and about whether the price for Windsource is too hight — at DailyCamera.com.

NREL's robot analyzes thin-film solar technology | photo by Pat Corkery, via NREL

Thin-film solar technology is potentially lighter and more portable than your average solar panel. It’s frequently described as something you can “print” onto building materials or, as in the video I’ve embedded here, as a “label” — peel the backing off and stick it to something. (But, unlike Lisa Frank stickers, it absorbs light, rather than blinding passersby with it.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s been around for a long time, but it’s a challenge to make thin-film solar efficient.

That’s why NREL has built a robot that can not only build thin-film solar but also analyze it:

Here, a robot working with silicon can build a semi-conductor on a six-inch-square plate of glass, plastic or flexible metal in about 35 minutes–then go on to test and analyze it for flaws just as quickly, analyzing glitches and measuring light absorption–at the same time it prepares another six plates.

NREL’s thin-film solar robot can also be used by solar companies to test their own stuff:

Solar companies will be able to hook their own tools to the central robot and discover how their newest formulas compare. A vacuum transport tool can take the sample plates to the different, yet compatible, bays to see how an unusual process might bolster the power of a cell.

Solar companies know how to make solar cells in a dozen different ways — as shingles, as windows, as fanny packs, as attachments to space vehicles — but they constantly are searching for ways to lower costs and gain efficiency.

I also really enjoyed this description from NREL’s site:

It pivots and dishes like a point guard, sifts like a master chef, analyzes like a forensics expert and does it all while maintaining a vacuum seal on the entire process.

Chauncey Billups, Hosea Rosenberg and, uh, a forensics expert — all in one!

The Denver Post reports that three next-gen Colorado solar-film companies are moving forward despite an economy that might not be ready for their products yet.

Boulder County-relevant notes from the Post’s story on Colorado thin-film solar companies (though we’ve added the links):

“Our factory is operating 24-7 now and we should reach our target production of 65 megawatts by the end of the year,” said Mark Chen, marketing director at Longmont-based Abound Solar Inc.

…

Abound Solar was chosen by Chevron Technology Ventures as one of seven thin-film technologies to be evaluated in a commercial-scale three-year test. Chevron bought a 190-kilowatt array for the 740-kilowatt test site in Bakersfield, Calif.

Related reading:

People throw money at thin film solar [WIRED, 2009]
A piece on thin-film solar being hard to produce, but a tech to watch [Industrial Physicist, 2003]

Maria Downing and Nick Tamm are trying to get solar panels for the awning for their mobile home in Boulder.

A couple of mobile home owners in Boulder (who actually live in a super-retrofitted 1958 trailer that doesn’t look anything like a trailer at all) have gotten shut down by Xcel Energy in their quest to power their mini-house with solar.

Apparently, solar can only be put on permanent structures, and mobile homes, by definition, aren’t permanent. On the surface, that doesn’t sound unreasonable, but for Maria Downing and Nick Tamm, the issue is that their mobile home is their permanent home. And they don’t plan on moving.

(Also, their neighborhood is zoned only for mobile homes, and they have a 99-year lease on their land, so there’s no reason to think they’ll be forced to leave anytime soon to make way for some other, glitzier development.)

Downing and Tamm are frustrated about their own situation — but they’re also frustrated about the larger implications. Is solar only for the rich, who may be the people who are least at risk for rising utility bills? What about lower-income folks in Boulder who’s money is going, in part, to subsidize the solar panels put on wealthier people’s homes?

Read more about the solar mobile home shutout at DailyCamera.com.

From the Post’s quickie on the Denver tour of solar homes:

In conjunction with the tour, the first Green Jobs and Career Resources Fair is from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the First Universalist Church. The Denver tour is part of the American Solar Energy Society’s annual observance. Boulder, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Estes Park, Grand Junction, Glenwood Springs, Alamosa, Delta, Durango, Walden and Westcliffe also have tours or events planned.

Movement Climbing and Fitness gym in Boulder | Photo by MovementBoulder.com

Boulder’s latest climbing gym — which just upped the number of places local hardmen (and hardwomen) can pull down on plastic holds to 3 — was awarded one of 12 companies to get money in the first round of federal renewable energy grants from the stimulus act.

Movement Climbing and Fitness got $157, 809 to offset the cost of their solar system, which provides 80 percent of the gym’s energy.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which passed in February, allows companies to get a cash grant for up to 30 percent of the cost of installing renewable energy, instead of getting a tax credit for the same amount.

The grant to the climbing gym, which opened in late July, was the smallest of the 12. The largest, $114 million, went to a wind farm in Texas.

Read more about the Movement gym at DailyCamera.com. or learn more about the grants from the U.S. Treasury Department.

New Belgium beers | flickr user kapital

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — New Belgium Brewery is planning its first solar panel at its Fort Collins bottling plant, and the brewer decided to go big.

The brewer says it will install a 200-kilowatt solar panel on the roof of its 50,000-square-foot packaging hall. When complete in November, the $1 million solar installation will be one of the biggest in Colorado.

New Belgium says the solar installation will provide up to 13 percent of the brewery’s electricity.