The Google Worldwide Science Fair...

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Welcome to the Google Science Fair! Google is looking for the brightest young scientists from around the world to submit interesting, creative projects that are relevant to the world today.
Who can enter?

The competition is open to students aged 13 to 18 from around the world working on their own or in a team of two or three. For more details, visit the Science Fair Rules page.
How to enter

If you don't already have one, create a Google Account. You will need a Google Account to complete the sign up form.
Complete the Google Science Fair sign up form. After you submit the form, you will see an important link on the confirmation page. This link will create the Google project submission site where you will post your science fair project details. Signed up but can’t find the link? Click here to create your Google project submission site.

Plan your science project, conduct your experiment, and write up your results.
Complete all of the sections of your Google project submission site (see sample project submission site).

Create either a two-minute video or 20-slide presentation giving an overview of your project and embed it on the Summary page of your project submission. A video or presentation is required to enter.

When your project site is done, make sure to submit it via this form by 4 April 2011.

Detailed instructions and tips for building your project submission can be found in the Resources section of this website.

Please note: Entries and supporting documentation must be submitted in English. Google Translate is a free tool that may be useful for students who don't speak English as a first language.

http;//ecospree.com

www.google.com/events/sciencefair/how.html

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Google close to getting renewable energy less than the cost of coal...

Google Close To Getting Renewable Energy For Less Than Coal...

Google's (GOOG) green energy czar tells Reuters it's closing in on paying the same price for energy from renewable sources as it would if that energy came from coal.

It's not guaranteed that the company can achieve 'grid parity' but, Bill Weihl, the Green Energy Czar tells the newswire "It is even odds, more or less, I would say...In, you know, three years, we could have multiple megawatts of plants out there."

This is all well and good, but keep in mind, with alternative energy, "grid parity in three years," is a popular refrain.

Google gets energy from all sorts of renewable sources, including wind, solar and geothermal. Its focus is on solar thermal energy, which uses concentrated mirrors to generate heat which turns turbines to generate energy (see here for further explanation.)

Reuters: "We are looking at ways of cheaply getting to much higher temperatures and also making the heliostats, the fields of mirrors that have to track the sun, reflect the sun, keep it focused on the target we are trying to heat up -- make those much, much cheaper. And I think we've made some really interesting progress in the last six to nine months," he said.

Weihl cautioned that the odds of missing the goal were still large, and he said that once the new ideas had been tried, it would cost substantial amounts to deploy them at utility scale.

Once the test project is done, "We'll see whether we or us in combination with other people are prepared to fund much much bigger facilities, or if we want to get a few more years experience before we really start to scale it up," he said.

Of course, there's no word on how the goats figure into the whole picture.


Acknowledgements: Reuters