Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) and graduate student John Laureto published a paper in Sustainability,
“Nuclear Insurance Subsidies Cost from Post-Fukushima Accounting.”
In Print
Joshua Pearce co-authored an article with alumni Aishwarya Mundada (ECE) and Emily Prehoda (SS), “U.S. Market for Solar Photovoltaic Plug-and-Play Systems,” in Renewable Energy.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2016.11.034
In the News
Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) was quoted in Coal Workers Find Work in Solar Power published in Solar Reviews.
TechCentury, an engineering and technology news web site published by the Engineering Society of Detroit, featured the new plug and play solar research of Joshua Pearce (MSE, ECE). Read the story.
Research by alumni Aishwarya Mundada (ECE) and Emily Prehoda (SS) and faculty member Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) was covered in Plug-and-play solar could be the next clean energy wave in the US-TreeHugger, US market for »plug and play« solar panels is about 57 GW, says a MTU study-Photon Science Daily and other online news sources.
MichiganAgConnection, MinnesotaAgConnection, IowaAgConnection and other publications around the country reported on Pearce’s plug and play solar research.
MITechNews.com published a story on Joshua Pearce’s (MSE, ECE) plug and play solar research.
An article on solar energy by Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) appeared in the Regulation section of the Harvard Business Review Wednesday.
Pearce was also quoted on investment in solar energy research by NASA paying off in an article, “Is NASA a Waste of Money?” in Machine Design.
Plug In for Renewable Energy
A new study shows a huge U.S. market for plug and play solar energy, with billions of dollars in retail sales and energy savings. So what’s holding up widespread use?
Support for solar energy is vast. According to a 2015 Gallup poll, 79 percent of Americans want the U.S. to put more emphasis on developing solar power. Most of the same people, unfortunately, can’t afford to install solar energy systems in their homes. Even after federal tax credits, installing solar panels to cover all of a family’s electricity needs can cost tens of thousands of dollars. For others, a home solar system isn’t a consideration because they rent, or move frequently.
But Michigan Tech’s’ Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) says he knows the solution: plug and play solar.
“Plug and play systems are affordable, easy to install and portable,” says Pearce. “The average American consumer can buy and install them with no training.”
In a study funded by the Conway Fellowship and published in Renewable Energy, Pearce and researchers Aishwarya Mundada and Emily Prehoda estimate that plug and play solar could provide 57 gigawatts of renewable energy — enough to power the cities of New York and Detroit — with potentially $14.3 to $71.7 billion in sales for retailers and $13 billion a year in cost savings for energy users.
Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) co-authored an article with PhD Candidate Yuenyong Nilsiam (ECE) titled “Open Source Database and Website to Provide Free and Open Access to Inactive U.S. Patents in the Public Domain” that was published in Inventions.
The results showed how the Free Inactive Patent Search enables users to search using plain language text to find public domain concepts and then provides a hyperlinked list of ideas that takes users to the USPTO database for the patent for more information.
In the News
Work by Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) and PhD student Yuenyong Nilsiam (ECE) on the free inactive patent search was covered by Science Daily, Phys.org, ECN and other online news sources.
MSE alumnus Ben Wittbrodt co-authored an article with Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) titled “3-D Printing Solar Photovoltaic Racking in Developing World.” It was published in the journal Energy for Sustainable Development.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2016.08.001
In Print
Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) co-authored “Experimental Characterization of Heat Transfer in an Additively Manufactured Polymer Heat Exchanger” in Applied Thermal Engineering.
Undergraduate Craig Ekstrum (MSE) co-authored a paper with Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) and a team from Madurai Kamaraj University: “Structural and optical characterization and efficacy of hydrothermal synthesized Cu and Ag doped zinc oxide nanoplate bactericides” in the journal “Materials Chemistry and Physics.”
Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) coauthored an article Cost-Effectiveness of Interventions for Alternate Food to Address Agricultural Catastrophes Globally, published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Science.
DOI: 10.1007/s13753-016-0097-2
With global cooperation (for example, sharing information and trading food), it was estimated that these alternate food solutions could feed everyone even without preparation.
For Coal Workers, The Solar Future Is Bright
Workers in the coal industry can get jobs in solar, and there are many ways to pay for their retraining. Those are the key findings of a study, “Retraining Investment for U.S. Transition from Coal to Solar Photovoltaic Employment,” recently published in the journal Energy Economics.
The study noted that while coal plants across the nation are shutting down, solar installations are increasing; eventually, many of the workers from coal will be able to transition to solar.
The study also looked at different ways to pay for the retraining of these workers.
“What we set out to do was figure out if it was feasible and how expensive would it be,” said Joshua M. Pearce, Ph.D., associate professor at Michigan Technical University and co-author of the study. “It is remarkably feasible, and on the expense side, it turned out to be trivial.”
Read more at Solar Industry, by Nora Caley.
In Print
Recent alum Chenlong Zhang (MSE/ECE) coauthored a paper with Durdu Guney (ECE) and Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE), “Plasmonic enhancement of amorphous silicon solar photovoltaic cells with hexagonal silver arrays made with nano sphere lithography,” that was featured in Materials Express.
In the News
Joshua Pearce is also quoted by the World Watch Institute in an article: CAN COAL MINERS BECOME SOLAR TECHNICIANS?
Pearce (MSE/ECE) is quoted in a story “For Former Coal Workers, Renewable Energy Means Renewed Job Market” published by the U.S Embassy and Consulates in South Africa.
How Green Is 3D Printing?
As a comparatively new technology that has not yet been fully integrated into the larger manufacturing supply chain, 3D printing represents an opportunity to do things differently.
Associate professor Joshua Pearce’s Open Sustainability Technology group at Michigan Technological University proposed a more extensive categorization system that allows 3D printer users to embed their own recycling codes onto 3D-printed parts. Parts made from ABS, for instance, might have an ABS recycling logo on them so that they can be recycled and reused to manufacture other ABS products.
I see us moving more towards a form of truly distributed manufacturing, where individuals fabricate custom products for themselves from free and open-source digital plans. —Joshua Pearce
Read more at Engineering.com, by Michael Molitch-Hou.
In the News
Research by André Laplume (SBE) and Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE)) was covered by Strategy+Business in an article “What Does the Rise of 3D Printing Mean for Global Companies?”
Construction Dive quoted Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) in an article on “How will 3-D printing technology disrupt conventional construction practices?
Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) is quoted by El Heraldo in La arquitectura se preparea para una ‘revolución industrial’ en 3D. El Heraldo is a leading newspaper in Colombia.
In Print
Recent PhD graduate Bas Wijnen (MSE) and undergraduates Emily Petersen (MSE) and Emily Hunt (MSE) co-authored with Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) a paper titled “Free and open-source automated 3-D microscope.” It was featured in The Journal of Microscopy.
The Washington Post published an article on why Samsung Note 7 batteries are exploding, quoting Michigan Tech Professor Stephen Hackney (MSE). The story also appeared in the Chicago Tribune.
Why those Samsung batteries exploded
Lithium ion batteries show up in all sorts of tech these days, from your phone and laptop to airplanes and electric vehicles. But a voluntary recall of about 2.5 million Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones after reports of battery explosions is raising new concerns about their safety.
The reason you can shove so much power into lithium ion batteries is that lithium basically “wants to react to almost anything” — which can lead to explosive results, Hackney said.
In the 10th anniversary issue of Europe’s Lab Times, Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) was quoted in discussion of open source hardware for science.
Opensource.com ran coverage of Pearce’s work on encouraging “Global citizens unite to improve open source appropriate technology.”