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Funding Opportunity: Develop Advanced Biomass Supply Chain Technologies
Posted in Alternative Fuels, Biomass, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Energy Harvesting, Energy, News on Thursday, January 31 2013
The Department of Energy has announced about $6 million in funding for projects that will develop and demonstrate supply chain technologies to deliver commercial-scale lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks to biorefineries across the country.
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Can Cobalt-Graphene Beat Out Platinum As Catalyst in Hydrogen Fuel Cells?
Posted in Alternative Fuels, Materials, Energy, News on Thursday, October 18 2012
Platinum works well as a catalyst in hydrogen fuel cells, but it is expensive and degrades over time. Brown University chemist Shouheng Sun and his students have developed a new material — a graphene sheet covered by cobalt and cobalt-oxide nanoparticles — that can catalyze the oxygen reduction reaction nearly as well as platinum does and is substantially more durable.
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'Nanoflowers' for Energy Storage and Solar Cells
Posted in Batteries, Materials, Energy Storage, Solar Power, Renewable Energy, Nanotechnology, News on Thursday, October 11 2012
North Carolina State University researchers have created flower-like structures out of germanium sulfide (GeS) – a semiconductor material – that have extremely thin petals with an enormous surface area. The GeS flowers hold promise for next-generation energy storage devices and solar cells.
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Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Test System
Posted in Batteries, Power Supplies, Electronics, Power Management, Energy Efficiency, Test & Measurement, Transportation, Products on Tuesday, September 11 2012
SAKOR Technologies, Inc. (Okemos, MI) designed and installed a complete turnkey Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Test System for UQM Technologies, Inc. (Longmont, CO), a manufacturer of high-efficiency electric propulsion systems. UQM will use the system to test inverters and traction motors for use in hybrid and electric vehicles for the automotive, commercial truck, bus, and military markets.
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Harnessing the Power of Spinach
Posted in Electronics, Solar Power, Renewable Energy, Energy Harvesting, News on Friday, September 07 2012
Vanderbilt University researches have developed a way to combine Photosystem 1 (PS1), the photosynthetic protein that converts light into electrochemical energy in spinach with silicon (the material used in solar cells), in a fashion that produces substantially more electrical current than has been reported by previous biohybrid solar cells.
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Starting Point for Overcoming Barrier to Fusion Power
Posted in Power Management, Energy, News on Thursday, August 23 2012
The accuracy of a new model for predicting the size of a key barrier to fusion power, which was developed by physicist Robert Goldston of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has been confirmed. Goldston’s model predicts the width of what physicists call the “scrape-off layer” in tokamaks, the most widely used fusion facilities.
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Promoting Virtual Power Plants for Efficient Renewable Energy Production
Posted in Smart Grid, Software, Mathematical/Scientific Software, Solar Power, Wind Power, Renewable Energy, News on Tuesday, August 21 2012
Researchers from the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton have devised a novel method for forming virtual power plants (VPPs) to provide renewable energy production in the UK. Small and distributed energy resources (DERs), such as wind farms and solar panels, have been appearing in greater numbers in the electricity supply network (Grid).
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Advancement in Highly Conductive, Transparent Thin Film
Posted in Solar Power, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, News on Thursday, August 09 2012
Thin, conductive films are useful in displays and solar cells. A new solution-based chemistry developed at Brown University for making indium tin oxide films could allow engineers to employ a much simpler and cheaper manufacturing process.
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The Future of Iron-Air Batteries
Posted in Batteries, Energy Storage, Solar Power, Energy Efficiency, News on Thursday, August 02 2012
A University of Southern California research team has developed a cheap, rechargeable battery that could be used to store energy at solar power plants for a rainy day. The air-breathing battery uses the chemical energy generated by the oxidation of iron plates that are exposed to the oxygen in the air — a process similar to rusting.
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Record Efficiency for Next-Generation Solar Cells
Posted in Solar Power, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Semiconductors & ICs, Nanotechnology, News on Tuesday, July 31 2012
Researchers from the University of Toronto (U of T) and King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) have made a breakthrough in the development of colloidal quantum dot (CQD) films. The researchers created a solar cell out of inexpensive materials that was certified at a world-record 7.0% efficiency.
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New Tech for Grid-Level Electrical Energy Storage
Posted in Batteries, Energy Storage, Solar Power, Wind Power, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Energy, News on Wednesday, July 11 2012
Electrical energy storage is the obstacle preventing more widespread use of renewable energy sources. Due to the unpredictable nature of wind and solar energy, the ability to store this energy when it is produced is essential for turning these resources into reliable sources of energy. The current U.S. energy grid system is used predominantly for distributing energy and allows little flexibility for storage of excess or a rapid dispersal on short notice. Drexel University researchers believe they have a solution.
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Solar Nanowire Template Permits Flexible Energy Absorption
Posted in Materials, Solar Power, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Nanotechnology, News on Monday, July 09 2012
Researchers creating electricity through photovoltaics want to convert as many of the sun’s wavelengths as possible to achieve maximum efficiency. For this reason, they see indium gallium nitride as a valuable future material for photovoltaic systems. Changing the concentration of indium allows researchers to tune the material’s response so it collects solar energy from a variety of wavelengths.
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Carbon Nanotubes Help Energize Fuel Cells and Metal-Air Batteries
Posted in Batteries, Alternative Fuels, Energy Storage, News on Monday, June 25 2012
Fuel cells, which use chemicals to create electricity, hold promise in a variety of areas but the high price of platinum catalysts used inside the cells has provided a roadblock. One promising low-cost alternative to platinum is the carbon nanotube – an excellent conductor of electricity. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes riddled with defects and impurities on the outside could eventually replace some of the platinum catalysts used in fuel cells and metal-air batteries, according to Stanford University scientists.
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A Better Understanding of High-Temperature Superconductors
Posted in Power Management, Lasers & Laser Systems, Energy Storage, Energy, News on Friday, June 22 2012
Superconductivity, in which electric current flows without resistance, promises huge energy savings – from low-voltage electric grids with no transmission losses, super-efficient motors and generators, and myriad other schemes. But such everyday applications still lie in the future, because conventional superconductivity in metals can’t do the job.
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Organic Photovoltaics - Forecasts for the Next Decade
Posted in Electronics & Computers, Solar Power, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Energy Harvesting, Automotive, Features on Wednesday, June 20 2012
Today there are multiple devices available for harnessing solar energy. Each device offers a different set of characteristics. Wafer-based devices consist of mono or polycrystalline and are the most mature technology due to the experience borrowed from the microelectronics industry.
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Low-Platinum Electrocatalysts for Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles
Posted in Alternative Fuels, Transportation, Automotive, News on Wednesday, June 13 2012
Tune in for a live webcast from the U.S. Department of Energy on June 19th, from 12-1 p.m. EDT. Electrocatalysts developed by Brookhaven National Laboratory's (BNL) scientists use less costly platinum and increase the effectiveness of fuel cells for use in electric vehicles.
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Coaxial Nanocable Could Aid in Energy Storage
Posted in Batteries, Electronic Components, Energy Storage, Energy Efficiency, News on Friday, June 08 2012
Researchers at Rice University have created a coaxial cable that is about a thousand times smaller than a human hair and has higher capacitance than previously reported microcapacitors. The nanocable was produced with techniques pioneered in the burgeoning graphene research field and could be used to build next-generation energy-storage systems.
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Underwater Solar Cells?
Posted in Electronics, Power Management, Sensors, Solar Power, Renewable Energy, Energy Harvesting, News on Thursday, June 07 2012
Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Electronics Science and Technology Division, have developed high-band-gap solar cells capable of producing sufficient power to operate electronic sensor systems at water depths of 9 meters.
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Detecting Contaminants in Water
Posted in Environmental Monitoring, Metals, Sensors, Detectors, Semiconductors & ICs, News on Wednesday, June 06 2012
Many organic contaminants in the air and in drinking water need to be detected at very low-level concentrations. Research published by the laboratory of Prashant V. Kamat, the John A. Zahm Professor of Science at the University of Notre Dame, could be beneficial in detecting those contaminants.
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New Materials May Cut Energy Costs for Carbon Capture
Posted in Remediation Technologies, Greenhouse Gases, Materials, Energy Efficiency, Energy, News on Thursday, May 31 2012
A study of over four million absorbent minerals has determined that industrial minerals called zeolites could help electricity producers slash as much as 30 percent of the parasitic energy costs associated with removing carbon dioxide from power plant emissions. The research was done by scientists at Rice University, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Electric Power Research Institute.
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Generating Electricity From Viruses?
Posted in Power Management, Displays/Monitors/HMIs, Energy Harvesting, Energy, Nanotechnology, News on Monday, May 14 2012
Berkeley Lab scientists have developed a way to generate power using harmless viruses that convert mechanical energy into electricity. Their generator is the first to produce electricity by harnessing the piezoelectric properties of a biological material.
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Sensor System Spurs Biofuel Production
Posted in Sensors, Biomass, Renewable Energy, News on Friday, May 11 2012
University of California, Berkeley researchers have developed a genetic sensor that enables bacteria to adjust their gene expression in response to varying levels of key intermediates for making biodiesel. As a result, the microbes produced three times as much fuel. The sensor-regulator system could eventually make advanced biofuels cheaper.
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Technology Awarded for Improving Submarine Air Quality
Posted in Remediation Technologies, Greenhouse Gases, Materials, Nanotechnology, News on Monday, May 07 2012
Creators of a nanotech-based system that captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere within a submarine while providing a more environmentally friendly removal process have won the Federal Laboratory Consortium Interagency Partnership Award for 2012. The technology — Self Assembled Monolayers on Mesoporous Supports, or SAMMS — is destined for incorporation into future submarines.
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Copper-Gold Nanoparticles Efficiently Convert Carbon Dioxide
Posted in Remediation Technologies, Greenhouse Gases, Materials, Metals, Energy Efficiency, Nanotechnology, News on Thursday, May 03 2012
Copper is one of the few metals that can turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon fuels with relatively little energy, but it is temperamental and easily oxidized. MIT researchers have engineered nanoparticles of copper mixed with gold - which is resistant to corrosion and oxidation - making the copper much more stable. They coated electrodes with the hybrid nanoparticles and found that much less energy was needed for conversion.
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Boosting Nanowires for Better Batteries and Solar Cells
Posted in Batteries, Alternative Fuels, Energy Storage, Solar Power, Renewable Energy, Nanotechnology, News on Tuesday, May 01 2012
Stanford University engineers have found a novel method for "decorating" nanowires with chains of tiny particles to increase their electrical and catalytic performance. The technique is simpler and faster than earlier methods and could lead to better lithium-ion batteries, more efficient thin-film solar cells, and improved catalysts that yield new synthetic fuels.
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