In a step closer to skyscrapers that serve as power sources, a team led by University of Michigan researchers has set a new efficiency record for color-neutral, transparent solar cells. The team achieved 8.1% efficiency and 43.3% transparency with an organic, or carbon-based, design rather than conventional silicon. While the cells have a slight green Read more about Transparent solar panels for windows hit record 8% efficiency[…]
The drop in battery prices is enabling battery integration with renewable systems in two contexts. In one, the battery serves as a short-term power reservoir to smooth over short-term fluctuations in the output of renewable power. In the other, the battery holds the power for when renewable power production stops, as solar power does at Read more about Solar+battery in one device sets new efficiency standard[…]
An international team of scientists from NUST MISIS, Russian Academy of Science and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf has found that instead of lithium (Li), sodium (Na) “stacked” in a special way can be used for battery production. Sodium batteries would be significantly cheaper and equivalently or even more capacious than existing lithium batteries. The results of Read more about Replacing lithium with sodium in batteries[…]
scientists in America and China have created a sodium-ion-based battery that can potentially perform at close to the levels of Li-ion, paving the way for a cheaper, commercially viable alternative to lithium. The key challenge in creating this battery is that sodium-ion cells tend to break down faster than their lithium-ion cousins. Sodium crystals collect Read more about Boffins step into the Li-ion’s den with sodium-ion battery that’s potentially as good as a lithium cousin[…]
Rice University researchers have created an efficient, low-cost device that splits water to produce hydrogen fuel. The platform developed by the Brown School of Engineering lab of Rice materials scientist Jun Lou integrates catalytic electrodes and perovskite solar cells that, when triggered by sunlight, produce electricity. The current flows to the catalysts that turn water Read more about ‘Artificial leaf’ concept inspires research into solar-powered fuel production[…]
A typical nuclear reactor uses only a small fraction of its fuel rod to produce power before the energy-generating reaction naturally terminates. What is left behind is an assortment of radioactive elements, including unused fuel, that are disposed of as nuclear waste in the United States. Although certain elements recycled from waste can be used Read more about Study reveals single-step strategy for recycling used nuclear fuel[…]
The solution, some propose, is to store energy chemically—in the form of hydrogen fuel—rather than electrically. This involves using devices called electrolyzers that make use of renewable energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. “Hydrogen is a very good carrier for this type of work,” says Wei Wang, who is the chief scientist Read more about Redox-Flow Cell Stores Renewable Energy as Hydrogen[…]
A rapid-charging and non-flammable battery developed in part by 2019 Nobel Prize winner John Goodenough has been licensed for development by the Canadian electric utility Hydro-Quebec. The utility says it hopes to have the technology ready for one or more commercial partners in two years. Hydro-Quebec, according to Karim Zaghib, general director of the utility’s Read more about Hydro-Quebec To Commercialize Glass Battery Co-Developed By John Goodenough[…]
Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a device that uses a natural protein to create electricity from moisture in the air, a new technology they say could have significant implications for the future of renewable energy, climate change and in the future of medicine. As reported today in Nature, the laboratories of Read more about Generating electricity ‘out of thin air’ using a protein and moisture in the air[…]
These guys have 6 years of battery data on a range of electric cars. Each model is different in terms of degradation, but it seems that over six years time you lose around 12% of your battery capacity. This means that if your car was able to drive, say 523 km (Tesla Model X), after Read more about Electric Vehicle Battery Degradation Graph with 6 years data[…]
This is the second day of the new decade, and the world’s largest floating wind farm is already doing its damn thing and generating electricity. Located off the coast of Portugal, the WindFloat Atlantic wind farm connected to the grid on New Year’s Eve. And this is only the first of the project’s three platforms. Read more about The World’s Largest Floating Wind Farm Is Here[…]
scientists at IBM Research have developed a new battery whose unique ingredients can be extracted from seawater instead of mining. The problems with the design of current battery technologies like lithium-ion are well known, we just tend to turn a blind eye when it means our smartphones can run for a full day without a Read more about IBM Research Created a New Battery That Outperforms Lithium-Ion, uses seawater instead of nickel and lithium[…]
Today’s Tesla Model 3’s lithium-ion battery pack has an estimated 168 Wh/kg. And important as this energy-per-weight ratio is for electric cars, it’s more important still for electric aircraft. Now comes Oxis Energy, of Abingdon, UK, with a battery based on lithium-sulfur chemistry that it says can greatly increase the ratio, and do so in a Read more about Lithium Sulfur Battery Project Aims To Double The Range Of Electric Airplanes – good to see another new type of battery apparently maturing, but is it as green as alu-air?[…]
A new lithium-ion battery design makes it possible for electric vehicle drivers to charge their cars and hit the road in as little as ten minutes, according to a new study. The quick charge gives drivers up to 200 miles per ten minute charge while maintaining 2,500 charging cycles, the researchers behind the study say. Read more about New Battery Design Can Charge an Electric Car in 10 Minutes[…]
Growing demand for SUVs was the second largest contributor to the increase in global CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2018, an analysis has found. In that period, SUVs doubled their global market share from 17% to 39% and their annual emissions rose to more than 700 megatonnes of CO2, more than the yearly total emissions Read more about SUVs second biggest cause of emissions rise, figures reveal – turns out they are 11% more lethal to driver in an accident too, so maybe just a matter of time before that problem is fixed[…]
In 1999, at the peak of Hydrogen fuel cell company start ups in California he left BAe to start his own fuel cell company. “My old boss at Rolls Royce pointed out that the Hydrogen needed to come from somewhere. So I looked at other technologies and found metal-air,”he says. Technically described as “(Al)/air” batteries, Read more about non toxic recyclable Aluminium Air battery with nine times more density than li-ion batteries finally entering production. Tech has been around since around 1999, Navy veteran refused to accept a ‘no’ to his battery invention[…]
Electric vehicles are everywhere now. It’s more than just Leafs, Teslas, and a wide variety of electric bikes. It’s also trains, busses, and in this case, gigantic dump trucks. This truck in particular is being put to work at a mine in Switzerland, and as a consequence of having an electric drivetrain is actually able Read more about Electric Dump Truck Produces More Energy Than It Uses[…]
In southern France, 35 nations are collaborating to build the world’s largest tokamak, a magnetic fusion device that has been designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy based on the same principle that powers our Sun and stars. The experimental campaign that will be carried out at ITER Read more about ITER is making a mini sun to power the earth[…]
Russia’s first floating nuclear power plant sailed Friday to its destination on the nation’s Arctic coast, a project that environmentalists have criticized as unsafe. The Akademik Lomonosov is a 140-meter (459-foot) long towed platform that carries two 35-megawatt nuclear reactors. On Friday, it set out from the Arctic port of Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula Read more about Russia’s floating nuclear plant sails to its destination[…]
Electricity output was curtailed at six reactors by 0840 GMT on Thursday, while two other reactors were offline, data showed. High water temperatures and sluggish flows limit the ability to use river water to cool reactors. In Germany, PreussenElektra, the nuclear unit of utility E.ON, said it would take its Grohnde reactor offline on Friday Read more about Hot weather cuts French, German nuclear power output by ~ 8%[…]
The ever-more-humble carbon nanotube may be just the device to make solar panels—and anything else that loses energy through heat—far more efficient. Rice University scientists are designing arrays of aligned single-wall carbon nanotubes to channel mid-infrared radiation (aka heat) and greatly raise the efficiency of solar energy systems. Gururaj Naik and Junichiro Kono of Rice’s Read more about Carbon nanotube device channels heat into light, could increase solar panel efficiency[…]
Spanish renewable energy giant and offshore wind energy leader Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy last week inaugurated operations of its electrothermal energy storage system which can store up to 130 megawatt-hours of electricity for a week in volcanic rock. […] The heat storage facility consists of around 1,000 tonnes of volcanic rock which is used as Read more about Siemens Gamesa Unveils World First Electrothermal Energy Storage System, stores electricity in volcanic rock[…]
This week the world’s first and only digital circuit breaker was certified for commercial use. The technology, invented by Atom Power, has been listed by Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the global standard for consumer safety. This new breaker makes power easier to manage and 3000 times faster than the fastest mechanical breaker, marking the most radical Read more about How the World’s First Digital Circuit Breaker Could Completely Change Our Powered World[…]
The obvious drawback of solar panels is that they require sunlight to generate electricity. Some have observed that for a device on Earth facing space, which has a frigid temperature, the chilling outflow of energy from the device can be harvested using the same kind of optoelectronic physics we have used to harness solar energy. Read more about Experimental device generates electricity from the coldness of the universe, good for night time[…]
A technology that removes carbon dioxide from the air has received significant backing from major fossil fuel companies.British Columbia-based Carbon Engineering has shown that it can extract CO2 in a cost-effective way.It has now been boosted by $68m in new investment from Chevron, Occidental and coal giant BHP. […] The quest for technology for carbon Read more about Carbon Engineering receives $68m from energy companies to turn CO2 from air into fuel[…]