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With the ST30's compact size, about the size of an average mobile phone, it's a purse or pocket digicam. The ST30 features a unique design finished with a high quality metal body and whatever the color of your party outfit, the ST30 has a color to match it. It has Smart Auto focus, an internal battery charging system, a 28mm lens and 3x power optical zoom.

This 10.1-megapixel digital camera features image stabilization system, face detection, red-eye fix and blink detection.

Samsung ST30 spec sheet:

Image Sensor: 1/3″ CCD 10 Megapixel

Zoom: Still Image mode : 1.0X ~ 5.0X Play mode : 1.0X ~ 13.5X (depends on image size) Still Image mode: - Super resolution: 1.0X~1.5X after optical Zoom - Extra Zoom: Crop Zoom 1.0X~2.0X (Extra Zoom) - Digital Zoom: 1.0X ~ 4.0X: Optical Zoom (X18) --> Super Resolution (X1.5) --> Extra Zoom (X2) or Digital Zoom (X4)

Play mode : 1.0X ~ 12.5X (depends on image size)

Lens: 28mm Wide 3x Zoom Lens

Image Stabilization: DIS Digital Image Stabilization

Dimensions: 82.0×51.9×16.9mm

Additional features

• Smart Auto • Perfect Portrait System • (Face Detection, Blink Detection, Smile Shot, Beauty Shot, Self Portrait) • Smart Album • Function Description • Photo Style Selector

Solar water heater installation and construction are inseparable . Especially in the tall buildings of the city , to promote solar water heater , it must develop the standards and architecture combine , so as to ensure the construction of the beautiful , ensure the installation quality, improve fitness . Regrettably, however , so far, China has not yet a

complete combination of solar energy and building standards , while only some local standards. For example, in Dalian, for the installation of homemade solar water heaters , Dalian building energy management official said , the city's Construction Committee has released a file , the past is to ask the following 6 levels of residential and residential building construction in time to install solar uniform Water heater, recently, they are developing related standards , prepared to the requirements to install solar water heater up to 12 layers . In Jinan, asked county planning area for more than new construction, renovation , expansion and below 12 floors of residential buildings and public buildings concentrated supply of hot water solar thermal systems must be applied , and for integration with building design and construction ; to encourage more than 12 stories Application of high-rise residential installation of solar thermal systems . Government buildings and government investment in building construction should take the lead in using solar thermal systems; on the conditions of existing residential buildings , buildings without affecting the quality and safety should be encouraged to install meet the technical specifications and product standards of solar thermal System . Insiders pointed out that , in principle, if the solar system, the introduction of construction , it www.cnlampholder.com/ have a certain standard so that all the designers, all of the real estate developers and construction industry all through the standardization system can , in the beginning can For building integration to consider , as every household security windows , installed a small elevator to the same high-level nature . But the current situation, the best way is to keep them in the implementation of norms, the establishment of demonstration projects , to project Cu standards perfected in the demonstration , in turn, regulate construction , so as to promote the integration of solar energy and building healthy development .

Purdue University is weighing a proposal to join private companies in developing a wind farm that would generate revenue for the school and feed into student and faculty research projects.

School officials want to erect 30 wind turbines on about 1,600 acres of school land in northern Tippecanoe County under a partnership that would also give them access to another 30 turbines on nearby land.

The 100 megawatts of electricity the 60 turbines would generate would not be used to power campus buildings, but would instead be sold to a utility. Purdue, however, would get land lease payments for the turbines on its land, said Ken Sandel, Purdue director of physical and capital planning.

Sandel and other officials briefed a Purdue board of trustees committee about the proposal Wednesday in advance of an expected vote by the full board on the idea Feb. 4.

But the Journal & Courier reports that the trustees were hesitant to fully back the plan until they saw a financial impact analysis and understood how ongoing university research that could be affected by the wind farm. Others asked for details on how much cost and revenue the school would see from the proposed Purdue Energy Park.

"There needs to be some strong discussion about this," said trustee Mamon Powers. "I'd like to see some kind of finance modeling to see what kind of cost will come to Purdue."

Sandel said the project would be a joint effort among Purdue, the Purdue Research Foundation, General Electric and Performance Services, an Indianapolis-based engineering and construction company.

He said the focus would be opening up new research and teaching areas, such as wind energy technology, turbine load management, environmental, agricultural, the social impacts of turbines and more.

Sandel said that plans for a Purdue wind farm go back to 2005, when a meteorological tower was installed at the site about 10 miles north of the West Lafayette campus on mostly agricultural land that encompasses the Purdue Animal Sciences Research and Education Center.

Trustee Michael Berghoff, the committee's chairman, said the project's potential research payoffs would mesh well with Purdue's engineering expertise.

"The research description and benefits that would come out of something like this fit perfectly with the whole Purdue mission," he said. "This is something concrete and specific. You talk about turbine design — that is a classic Purdue topic."

The Purdue Energy Park would encompass Performance Park, a 30-turbine wind energy farm being developed on more than 2,400 acres of private land by Performance Services, and would be the county's first wind farm.

Performance Services would be the design-builder of both parks and is in negotiations with a major financial investor for the commercial venture, Purdue officials said.

Scott Zigmond, the vice president of sales and marketing for Performance Services, said the company is in discussions over which utility company would purchase the power.

Purdue says that the school would receive at least $300,000 per year, or $10,000 per turbine, from the land leases on the turbines located on Purdue-owned land.

Jay Akridge, dean of the College of Agriculture, said some of that money would go to the Animal Sciences Research and Education Center to make up for lost crop production and or increased operating costs. About 20 acres of land would be needed for turbines and access roads at the center.

Converting a home to solar power can seem wildly expensive, but new financing makes it possible to generate most of the electricity your household uses at low or no cost.

Solar companies across the country are increasingly offering home owners the option of leasing a rooftop solar array, and installers say orders are soaring from customers looking to avoid the $12,000-plus cost.

Just as you can lease a car without putting any money down, homeowners in a growing number of states can lease solar arrays for monthly payments equal to the electricity portion of their utility bill — with no down payment.

Just as with the car, you won't own a leased solar array when the lease ends, but there's a key difference: Most solar leasing companies will perform all maintenance and repairs, and they'll remove the system when the lease ends if you don't want to buy it.

Going solar by leasing probably won't save you big money on electricity, but if you're interested in making the switch for environmental or other reasons, here's how leasing works.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE: You have to own a single-family home. Leases are widely available in California, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and other states and becoming increasingly available.

"A lot of people are interested in savings," says Jonathan Bass, spokesman for SolarCity, which is credited with pioneering the leasing trend in 2008. "Especially when you get outside of the Denver, Boulder, San Francisco and Portland areas, people are less environmentally motivated and more financially motivated."

WHY THE COMPANIES DO IT: As the owners of the panels that they or their agents install, solar leasing companies receive the 30 percent federal homeowner tax credit plus any state or local incentives the homeowner qualifies for. They pay for permitting and cope with pesky local rules and inspections.

HOW THE NUMBERS PAN OUT: Instead of generating the electricity you use from one moment to the next, a leased solar array feeds into the regional power grid and homeowners are credited on their monthly electric bill.

In some states, like California, the less power your household uses (after deducting for what you generate), the lower rate you pay so it makes financial sense not to generate every last kilowatt you use but to buy some power at the lowest rates.

So leasing companies recommend installing the smallest system that will bring the biggest benefit. With Sungevity Development LLC, an Oakland, Calif., leasing company that contracts with other companies for installation, leasing a 2.8 kW system in town will cost about $67 a month and be guaranteed to generate enough power to wipe out most of an $80 average monthly electricity bill, leaving the homeowner roughly breaking even with an estimated monthly electricity bill of $12. Buying the same system through Sungevity would cost about $16,000 after incentives.

Larger systems are more common, especially in areas where homeowners use more electricity or there is less sunshine.

WHAT ABOUT BUYING? It may be a better deal to buy solar panels and pay up front, if you're going to be in your house a long while and can afford it, says Molly Sterkel, who supervises solar initiatives for the California Public Utilities Commision, the state's utility regulator.

But most homeowners probably can't afford it. Sterkel says that's why new residential leases more than doubled in California in 2009, compared with 2008, when SolarCity Inc. started leasing there.

Leases help make solar make "economic sense," as well as environmental sense, says Bass, the SolarCity spokesman. His company has installed about 10,000 residential solar systems, including about 7,000 that it leases to homeowners.

WHO'S LOOKING OUT FOR CONSUMERS: The downside of that rapid growth — especially during an economic downturn when governments are cutting back on monitoring — can be shoddy work or even fraud, says Gaurav Naik, a principal with GeoGenix in Rumson, N.J., who says calls to his solar installation company's business are skyrocketing.

"So it is a huge concern, how we are going to police this," Naik says of his lightly regulated industry.

But both he and California's Sterkel say leasing companies seem to be bringing the benefits they promise to everyone involved. And Sterkel points out that leasing and installation companies are covered by state contracting laws.

TO LEARN MORE: Sungevity, SolarCity and numerous other companies offer online calculators where you can determine, based on your current electricty consumption, what size system you'll need. And they'll offer a variety of quotes and price comparisons.

If you're concerned about pitfalls, check with your state's utility regulators for rules covering solar installation and financing. And check with business groups that represent the industry, such as the California Solar Energy Industries Association, which offers a helpful checklist for anyone considering a solar lease, at http://calseia.org/residential-leases-and-power-purchase-agreements.html.

WHEN IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK: There are states where residential solar leases can't work because utility companies don't credit home owners for generating power. And there are still lots of states where leasing remains rare.

But Bass says SolarCity plans to double the number of states where it operates by the end of 2011, including some on the East Coast.

The solar boiler Abengoa Solar will build in Gila Bend, Arizona, won't rely on fancy photovoltaic panels. No, it uses pretty much the same trick your evil ass used on bugs and leaves way back when: focusing sunlight to create high heat. In this case, mirrors focus the sun's rays into tanks of heat-transfer oil, heating it to about 400°C, boiling water for a steam turbine.

The appeal of the system is its low cost and high scalability. MIT's Technology Review says that, according to one expert, "solar thermal power will become cost competitive with other forms of power generation decades before photovoltaics will." And even though solar thermal costs more than wind power (around 15 cents per kilowatt versus wind's 8 cents per kilowatt), solar thermal energy, trapped in the form of heat, is much more easy to save up. Energy can be generated even when the sun isn't shining—in the case of Abengoa's Arizona plant, part of the heat doesn't directly boil water but is transferred to molten salt tanks, where it can be stored to power the turbine for up to six sunless hours.

The plant goes operational in 2011, and will generate 280 megawatts, enough to provide energy for 70,000 homes, customers of the Arizona Public Service in Phoenix.

Researchers have unveiled a prototype reactor which mimics plant life, turning the Sun’s energy to make hydrocarbon fuel. Developed by a team of scientists from the United States and Switzerland, The solar device uses the Sun’s rays and the metal ceria, or cerium oxide, to break down water or carbon dioxide into energy which can be stored and transported. Harnessing the power of the sun has been but a pipe dream as conventional solar panels must use the power they generate in situ. With the ceria fueled reactor, this issue is solved. The scientists, which include Caltech professor Sossina M. Haile and Swiss Institute of Energy Technology professor Aldo Steinfeld, wanted to figure out a way to harness the sun efficiently, without incredibly rare materials. They decided on ceria, a relatively abundant “rare-earth” metal with very special properties. The reactor takes advantage of ceria's ability to "exhale" oxygen from its crystalline framework at very high temperatures and then "inhale" oxygen back in at lower temperatures.

What is special about the material is that it doesn't release all of the oxygen. That helps to leave the framework of the material intact as oxygen leaves," Haile explains. "When we cool it back down, the material's thermodynamically preferred state is to pull oxygen back into the structure." Conceptually, the device has boundless potential with its ability to break down water into hydrogen fuel and oxygen or carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen, key ingredients for the fuel cell component methanol. Because they are broken down thermochemically, the resulting fuel is easy to transport. But the prototype is still in its infant stages and extremely inefficient, harnessing only 0.7% to 0.8% of the solar energy it absorbs with most lost through heat or re-radiation. The researchers are confident they can reach levels of around 20% which would make the device commercially viable.

The U.S. Energy Department said on Thursday it awarded a $967 million loan guarantee to an NRG Energy (NRG.N: Quote) subsidiary to help pay for the world's biggest solar power plant using photovoltaic panels.

The loan guarantee will support the construction of the 290-megawatt Agua Caliente Solar generating facility in Yuma County, Arizona that will use thin solar panels.

The facility will help the Obama administration meets its goal to double the amount of U.S. electricity generated from renewable energy sources like solar and wind power.

"Solar projects like this are helping the U.S. to compete globally for the clean energy jobs of today and the future," said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

"Together, we will create hundreds of jobs and reduce the nation's fossil fuel dependence and carbon intensity," said Tom Doyle, president of NRG Solar.

Pacific Gas & Electric Company will purchase power generated at the solar plant and deliver it to its customers in California. The plant is expected to be built by 2014. (Reporting by Tom Doggett; Editing by Marguerita Choy)