Renewable Energy

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Harnessing solar energy can be as simple as tuning the optical and electronic properties of metal oxides at the atomic level by making an artificial crystal or super-lattice ‘sandwich.’ "Metal oxides can be tailored to meet all sorts of needs, which is good news for technological applications, specifically in energy generation and flat screen displays,” said Louis Piper, assistant professor of physics at Binghamton University.
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Making use of the force generated by magnetic repulsion, Georgia Tech researchers have developed a new technique for measuring the adhesion strength between thin films of materials used in microelectronic devices, photovoltaic cells, and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).
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Projects funded through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative (BRDI) — a joint program through the USDA and the DOE — will help develop economically and environmentally sustainable sources of renewable biomass. The White House has announced up to $35 million over three years to support research and development in advanced biofuels, bioenergy, and high-value biobased products.
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A team of MIT researchers is building cubes or towers that extend solar cells upward in three-dimensional configurations. The results from the structures they’ve tested show power output ranging from double to more than 20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area.
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Nearly two-thirds of the oil we use comes from wells drilled using polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) bits, originally developed 30 years ago to lower the cost of geothermal drilling. Sandia National Laboratories and the U.S. Navy recently brought the technology full circle, showing how geothermal drillers might use it.
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University of California, San Diego electrical engineers are building a forest of tiny nanowire trees in order to cleanly capture solar energy and harvest it for hydrogen fuel generation. Nanowires, which are made from abundant natural materials like silicon and zinc oxide, offer a cheap way to deliver hydrogen fuel on a mass scale.
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Offshore wind is an enormous potential resource for the United States - with strong, consistent winds located in the Atlantic, Pacific, the Great Lakes, and the Gulf of Mexico. As part of a planned six-year $180 million initiative, an initial $20 million will be available from the DOE this year as the first step in supporting up to four innovative offshore wind energy installations across the U.S.
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Graphene has been touted as the next silicon, but it is too conductive to be used in computer chips. A University of Manchester team led by Nobel laureates Professor Andre Geim and Professor Konstantin Novoselov has literally opened a third dimension in graphene research.
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Sandia National Laboratory researchers have developed a family of liquid salt electrolytes - known as MetILs - that could lead to better batteries and well as devices that can help incorporate large-scale intermittent renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, into the nation’s electric grid.
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Through the DOE's SunShot Incubator program, over $12 million in funding is available to accelerate innovation in solar energy and manufacturing - supporting advancements in hardware, reductions in soft costs, and the development of pilot manufacturing and production projects.
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Researchers at University of Georgia's Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory have mapped the genomes of two originator cells of Miscanthus x giganteus - a large perennial grass with promise as a source of ethanol and bioenergy.
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An online tool developed by MIT researchers called “Impurities to Efficiency” - or I2E - allows companies or researchers exploring alternative manufacturing strategies to plug in descriptions of their planned materials and processing steps. After about one minute of simulation, I2E gives an indication of exactly how efficient the resulting solar cell would be in converting sunlight to electricity.
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Electrically conductive meshes made of metal nanowires promise exceptional electrical throughput, low cost, and easy processing in applications like video displays, LEDs, and thin-film solar cells. However, in processing, these meshes must be heated or pressed to unite the crisscross pattern of nanowires that form the mesh - damaging them in the process.
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