Cleantech news you might have missed: 20 Feb. 2009

What’s new this week in the cleantech world? Following are some top stories you might have missed:

• The cost for installing photovoltaic (PV) systems has declined steadily over the past decade, dropping an average of 3.5 percent a year, according to a new study from the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “This suggests that state and local PV deployment programs — which likely have a greater impact on nonmodule costs than on module prices — have been at least somewhat successful in spurring cost reductions,” the study’s authors write;
• Physicists at Rutgers University say a crystal made from bismuth, iron and oxygen shows unusual electronic properties that could be harnessed to improve the efficiency of solar cells and make better computer chips. Unlike traditional semiconductors, the crystal acts as a reversible diode — “essentially an electronic turnstile that lets current flow in one direction under certain conditions and in the opposite direction under different conditions”;
• Researchers at Germany’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have developed a device that lets people use their fingers as a remote control. The iPoint3D, a recognition device that can be suspended above a user or installed in a table, lets people control a 3D display by pointing or moving their hands, rather than having to touch anything;
• Colorado-based ION Engineering says it’s successfully used ionic liquids — molten salts — in its carbon-capture and emissions-control technology. ““Using new solutions based around ionic liquid technology, we’ve developed the most economical way for the global energy industry to remove CO2 and other contaminants from fossil fuel power plant emissions and raw natural gas,” said Alfred “Buz” Brown, ION’s CEO;
• New US Energy Secretary Steven Chu has announced a “sweeping reorganisation” of how his agency will disperse direct loans, loan guarantees and other funds as part of President Barack Obama’s recently enacted economic recovery plan. “These changes will bring a new urgency to investments that will put Americans back to work, reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and improve the environment,” Chu said. “We need to start this work in a matter of months, not years — while insisting on the highest standard of accountability.”