#Nanoparticles and UV LIGHT Clean up Environmental Pollutants A new study from MIT shows how nanoparticles can clean up environmental pollutants,
pave roads with solar panels that could eventually provide power for street lights and traffic controls, and maybe even homes and electric vehicles.
What the engineers came up with was a system of prefabricated concrete covered by solar panels
and provide electricity for the grid or street lights. The netherlands is not a top producer of solar power,
Renewable energy now accounts for a little less than 9%of electricity used in the country. The project developers believe about 20%of the country roads would be suitable for solar panel installations.
A somewhat different approach in the U s. Idaho-based Solar Roadways has been working on a similar goal paving roads and other surfaces with solar panels.
And the company has plenty of supporters. Solar Roadways secured an $850, 000 Federal Highway Administration grant for a pilot project
Just as the smart grid is the new reality for the energy industry, smart water networks are the new face of the water utility industry.
In the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco city in Tianjin, China, Itron deployed one network that runs three meters--water, electricity and gas.
Council Lead Partner Itron, meanwhile, completed installation of smart water, heat and gas meters and communication modules as well as its fixed network for Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco city in Tianjin, China.
"We are talking about 600 million people who do not have 24-hour access to electricity.
Oregon-based writer specializing in technology and energy
#Argentine greenhouse robot brings automation to the masses BUENOS AIRES--The new Trakür agricultural robot does not have the brains, firepower or complexity of one of the Transformers,
not including battery), the robot is built entirely from off-the-shelf parts. The robot's operator watches the Trakür's progress through a cheap security camera mounted on its hood, for example."
and the country's National Atomic energy commission (CNEA, in Spanish) is pushing forward with the design of a small, low-cost atomic energy reactor called CAREM.
and renters implement energy efficiency in their shared property with templates and a step-by-step guide to help cut out the paperwork.
biotechs race to develop acute radiation drugs Since the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power station,
#Where GE is putting its latest $10b investment GE announced it will invest another $10 billion into its green energy R&d program with an aim of boosting the output of its wind turbines (while cutting costs), increasing power plant efficiency and perhaps,
natural, renewable energy and power plants. On the natural gas front an area that many environmentalists would argue is not a green energy source GE will work on developing alternative technologies to replace water in the hydraulic fracturing process.#
#Hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, is a technique drillers use to reach vast tracts of previously untouchable gas trapped in shale.
a technology that replaces the oil-based feedstock for part of the synthetic rubber-making process with renewable biomass.
healthcare, clean energy, public safety, and workforce development, including advanced manufacturing. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is investing a new round of $20 million toward this effort,
energy industry leaders, and technology industry executives on Monday in Washington. Led by the Secretary of energy Steven Chu and federal CTO Aneesh Chopra,
Enabling Our Secure Energy Future. This report, along with the rest of the White house's smart grid materials and its presentation on Monday, are packed with details on the current challenges
Enable consumers to have easy access to their own energy usage and better ways to control and self-regulate it
in order to save money and energy. Smart meters are key. New energy: Prepare the'smart grid'to better handle new forms of power--wind, solar, geothermal, etc.
--that are going to be an increasingly larger proportion of the pie. Two big obstacles that the U s. has to overcome:
and federal agreement on energy and grid standards so that utilities don't have to guess when they are dealing with different jurisdictions to upgrade the grid.
who said that energy companies were ready to invest in upgrading the infrastructure. This doesn't take government money,
and convince citizens of the benefits of self-managing their own energy use. It's no wonder that small countries like Ireland
and totalitarian governments like China are moving a lot faster that the U s. in modernizing their energy infrastructure.
America cannot build a 21st century economy with a 20th century electricity system. By working with states, industry leaders,
national electricity system that will create jobs, reduce energy use, and expand renewable energy production. For more details on the U s. smart grid plans, read:
Administration Announces Grid Modernization Initiatives to Foster a Clean energy Economy and Spur Innovation Fact sheet:
The President's Plan for a 21st Century Electric grid A Policy Framework for the 21st Century Grid:
Enabling Our Secure Energy Future Author's note: Enthusiasm may be the best thing the U s. has going for it in facing the two major obstacles to the smart grid.
The participants in the event--from officials in various agencies to business leaders in energy and technology to a couple high school students who've pioneered smart meters in their school--all spoke with the enthusiasm you don't typically see at government events.
Based on line chatter, these were mostly government officials and leaders from the energy industry. Once I got in,
and they want to pour all their energy into fewer products. For Google, RSS was small beans.
#Why is Apple working on wind turbine technology? Filing a patent for a new energy storage and generation system,
it seems Apple may be looking at new ways to add clean energy to its manufacturing processes.
and Trademark Office in June 2011 details an alternative wind turbine design that generates electricity from converting heat energy instead of rotational energy made possible by the movement of blades.
which then converts this type of power into electricity through powering machinery or sending it to generators.
Described as the on-demand generation of electricity from stored wind energy, the patent application details a mechanism in
which rotational energy created by the turbine is used to generate heat, which is stored then in low heat capacity fluid.
This energy is transferred then into a working fluid which creates steam, which replaces electricity in order to power mechanisms or generators.
As the energy is being stored, heat can be transferred selectively whenever there is a lull in wind activity,
keeping machinery going and reducing reliance on backup power systems. Apple describes the benefits of the system within the patent application,
where the firm says such designs could reduce costs related to wind variation: The variable nature of wind may interfere with on-demand generation of electricity from wind energy.
For example, fluctuations in wind speed may hamper the adequate production of electricity from wind power during periods of peak demand,
or conversely, may produce excess electrical power during periods of low demand. In turn, such variability may limit the ability to incorporate large amounts of wind power into a grid system.
How might this kind of technology relate to ipad and iphone maker Apple? The patent application is not a huge indicator,
but as the firm is using clean energy in North carolina--where it plans to build a 20-megawatt solar farm covering 100 acres--it may be that the company is keen to add additional,
and Apple powering their data centers with solar panels and wind farms to retailers turning to rooftop solar and biogas to power their big box stores and distribution centers,
the number of U s. companies generating their own energy on-site is soaring. According to Wall street journal, since 2006 the number of electricity-generating units at commercial and industrial locations has quadrupled from about 10,000 to 40,000.
The strong growth can be explained partly by the falling prices of solar panels. Take Walmart for example:
Since 2007, when the first solar arrays went up on its store roofs in California, the installed costs of Wal-mart Stores Inc. s solar systems have dropped from $6
or $8 per watt of capacity to about $3. 50 per watt, said David Ozment, the company s senior director of energy management.
He said he expects the retailer to be paying as little for solar power as utility power in less than three years,
opening the floodgates to solar expansion. Even though on-site electricity generation accounts for about 5 percent of U s. electricity production
a trend towards a more distributed electricity grid is challenging the current business model for utilities. And as prices continue to fall for solar panels
and other energy sources it looks like utilities will be forced to innovate e
#Why no one can be a'passive consumer'in today's API economy Increasingly, innovative businesses are being built around application programming interfaces (APIS)
--which provide pre-built cloud resources for the underlying forms and functions for new businesses and concepts.
But an increasing amount of that crude is staying in the country where it's used run to desalination and power plants.
estimates the country's peak electricity demand will hit 121,000 megawatts in the next two decades.
With demand for electricity and fresh water increasing, Saudi arabia is seeking out other sources of power including solar, geothermal, wind and nuclear.
The government plans to install about 16 GW of solar photovoltaic power plants. Another 25 GW of capacity would come from concentrated solar plants,
which use thousands of mirrors to concentrate the sun onto heating liquid, which creates steam that turn power turbines.
geothermal and waste-to-energy plants will meet baseload demand up to night and the CSP with storage will meet the maximum demand difference between PV and baseload technologies.
The estimated $109 billion plan isn't just about building solar power plants. Instead, the government wants to build a solar industry, according to al-Sulaiman's presentation.
or seek out other established solar panel makers to establish factories there. Photo: Flickr user zigbphotography, CC 2. 0 Related:
Cables sent three years ago from the U s. embassy in Beijing express concern that China aggressive nuclear power expansion leans heavily on the country own PR-1000design
when the tsunami knocked out backup diesel generators and reactors overheated.""As the CPR-1000 increases market share, China is assuring that rather than building a fleet of state-of-the-art reactors,
they will be burdened with technology that by the end of its lifetime will be 100 years old,
"says one cable dated 7 august 2008. hina is vastly increasing the aggregate risk of its nuclear power fleet.
and that 20 of 22 nuclear plants under construction in 2009 used the design. Contrary to the tone of the cables
some nuclear experts believe that China will play a leading role in the future of nuclear power by develoiping
and deploying modern technologies as it constructs as many as 100 nuclear reactors over the next 20 years nearly a quarter of the total of all reactors in the world today.
It is currently building four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, which deploy passive cooling (the Pstands for dvanced passive.
including molten salt reactors, thorium, fast neutron reactors, pebble bed reactors and fusion. Some of these could be potentially safer and more effective than conventional designs e
Growflex is a machine-to-machine network solution that includes battery -or solar-powered sensors that are distributed in a greenhouse or field.
It grows on its own so energy costs are one 10th of the costs to create foam.
so it requires much more energy and creates more waste. We re using waste materials and using the entire organism.
It s a New york state Energy Research and development Authority-funded program. We re also doing building materials as well--replacing foam insulation.
Its current biofuel roadmap demands that at least 5. 75%of all energy sold on the market of any member country be biofuel
the bike path will also provide energy to the town. Collective-Evolution notes that the solar panels embedded in the concrete bike path are not as efficient as panels installed on homes
because they cannot be adjusted to the position of the sun. Of course, the solar panels on the smart highway cover about 75 yards of roadway which is slightly more than you can fit on a roof.
The netherlands TNO research institute also gave the road a nonadhesive finish and built it at a slight tilt
and will be able to produce enough energy to power three homes. The smart highway, officially called Solaroad by TNO, is just the beginning of Netherland solar transition.
combined with an electrolyte could cause the liquid metal to spread or to contract, depending on
extremely sensitive seismic sensors that detect energy waves, along with GPS sensors to detect permanent ground movement due to the motion of the geological fault that triggers the earthquake.
energy to power sensors and electronics integrated into smart clothing. Smart fabrics, which incorporate different types of sensors into garments,
although relatively small, use a solid battery which is less than ideal both from an aesthetic and functional perspective.
At the time these fibers were said to obtain the highest volumetric energy density reported for carbon-based microscale supercapacitors (6. 3 microwatt-hours per cubic millimeter,
which is comparable to a 4-volt-500-microampere-hour battery). However carbon nanotubes are still expensive not to mention the fact that there is still some debate about their possible toxicity.
Trying to create a textile that can store energy without the use of exotic, expensive materials,
using an area of about 3000 cm2 (about the size of the center back panel of a shirt) it is possible to store the equivalent energy of a 4 cm2,
V coin cell battery. In order to reach this energy density, the Drexel team used a technique called natural fiber welding or NFW.
This technique was invented chemistry professor Paul C. Trulove research team at the U s. Naval academy and Hugh C. Delong of the Air force Office of Scientific research.
but they all had attached solid battery packs to the shirt, rather than incorporating an energy storing fabric.
Her ultimate goal is to produce an energy storage device that can seamlessly power these kinds of technologies
including diverse types of knitted sensors and low energy communication devices o
#Molecular electronics Takes Large Stride Forward Molecular electronics has promised long a day when individual molecules would serve as the basic building blocks for electronics.
and has low RF energy loss, "he adds. The cellulose nanofibril (CNF) aperhey used is about 200 micrometers thick.
Nanofibril films may be used in photovoltaic cells and also in displays because they have better light-transmission properties than glass,
#Graphene Heating system Dramatically Reduces Home energy Costs Breakthroughs in energy generation using nanomaterialsike their enabling of better supercapacitors
But it is unheralded in the area of energy savings that nanomaterials are perhaps making the biggest inroads.
A startup in the UK called Xefro is bridging this divide between energy generation and energy savings through its development of a heating system that the company claims marks the first time that the onder materialgraphene has been used as a heating element.
Depending on the kind of heating system currently used in a home the company estimates that this graphene-based heating system can reduce energy costs by anywhere from 25 to 70 percent.
Xefro uses graphene-based ink that can be printed on a variety of materials and into just about any configuration.
and leverages graphene large surface area so that energy isn wasted in heating up the heater itself. he innovation is all about getting useable heat where it is needed,
in an e-mail interview with IEEE Spectrum. hile it is true that electrical resistive heating is almost 100-percent efficient in converting electricity into heat,
placing the heating element inside a metal box that reflects back most of the infrared energy,
and ensure that most of the heat is emitted out into the room rather than simply heating up the wall behind the heater. hile graphene does offer some attractive properties for reducing wasted energy,
says Harper. he energy savings come when the heaters are deployed as a system throughout a building. The heaters are linked with the control system via Wi-fi,
#Graphene coating Could Save Millions in Power plant Energy costs Earlier this week, we covered a company, Xefro,
producing energy savings over traditional systems. Now research out of MIT is showing that coating power plant condensers with graphene could make them more energy efficient.
In research published in the journal Nano Letters, the MIT team addressed one of the basic elements of steam-generated electricity:
heat transfer in water condensation. In a steam-powered power plant, water is heated up to create steam that turns a turbine.
The turning of the turbine produces electricity. In this process, the steam is condensed back into water
and the whole process begins again. The MIT team looked at these condensers and found that by layering their surfaces with graphene they can improve the rate of heat transfer by a factor of four.
so that an overall power plant efficiency could be improved by as much as 2 to 3 percent based on figures from the Electric power Research Institute."
"That translates into millions of dollars per power plant per year, "said Daniel Preston, one of the MIT authors of the paper, in a press release.
#Graphene Shines in World's Thinnest Light bulb Back in April, we covered news that graphene was going to make a commercial breakout of sorts as a coating in an LED light bulb to reduce its energy consumption
what is essentially the world's thinnest light bulb, says Hone, a professor at Columbia Engineering,
#Chemical Battery Can Recharge Itself With Light Batteries, by definition, convert chemical energy into electricity. Once youe sucked them dry,
you have to reverse the process to convert electricity into chemical energy, and for that, you need a source of electricity.
It not like it hard to do this, but it is certainly a minor annoyance that could do with a fix.
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Pune, India, have skipped the annoying step by developing a battery that charges directly from light.
Wee not talking about a battery with a solar panel on it: it a hoto batterywhere the anode itself is made of titanium nitride and ambient light.
Under artificial light, this prototype battery has a capacity of 77.8 mah/g. Itl quite happily power a small fan or LED light for about 30 seconds,
and then if you give it a break for 30 seconds while shining a light on it,
Over 100 cycles, the battery retained a bit over 70 percent of its discharge capacity, which at least suggests some potential for longevity and usefulness.
this battery design offers other benefits, including sustainable and economical anode material which will not be consumed as a part of the discharge reactions,
and safety concerns commonly encountered in the state of the art anode materials in aqueous rechargeable batteries. ccording to a press release from the American Chemical Society,
he researchers say their design is a promising first step toward a more sustainable and safer battery technology.
but getting your hopes up for a light-powered battery in your cell phone might be premature by a decade or so.
#Wind turbines Power Liquid-air Energy storage One startup energy company is looking to reinvent not only wind energy, but also energy storage.
Keuka Energy recently launched a 125-kilowatt prototype vessel that uses its novel floating wind turbine design paired with liquid-air energy storage to create a steady source of electricity.
The Florida-based company claims that its wind turbine design allows for larger turbines that could produce far more electricity.
The world largest single offshore wind turbine is currently about 6 megawatts; Keuka says its full-size turbines could produce at least double that amount.
electricity liquefies air to nearly-200°C and then stores it at low pressure. When the energy is needed,
the liquid air is pumped to a high level of pressure and heated to a gas state. The gas then drives a turbine.
Although it is an attractive energy storage technology because of its long duration, liquid-air energy storage requires a significant amount of electricity to make the liquid air,
limiting its usage by utilities. Keuka claims that because its design substantially reduced the cost by supplying the power directly from the turbines to the liquefaction equipment.
The company also says its wind turbine design is more cost effective thanks to elimination of the gear box and the use of lightweight aluminum blades that cost less than 10 percent the price of traditional composite blades.
a U k. startup that makes utility-scale liquid-air energy storage systems. Another similar technology that has gained more traction is compressed-air energy storage
which does not have the energy density of liquid air, but so far has proven more cost effective.
Other startups are also looking offshore for cheap energy storage. Bright Energy is developing a system that would use offshore renewable energy to store compressed air in vessels in the ocean.
Canadian startup Hydrostor also has a design to store compressed air underwater. If Keuka 125-kilowatt prototype is successful,
The cost of the electricity to power these behemoths has played also a role in slowing the speed of supercomputer development. an somebody make a computer that has higher performance?
#Diesel-Powered Fuel cell Produces Clean electricity Although several options to store hydrogen as a fuel for cars have been investigated,
The research group,"Fuel cell Based Power Generation (FCGEN), "which includes researchers from Volvo Technology (Sweden), Johnson-Matthey (United kingdom), Modelon AB (Sweden), Powercell AB (Sweden), Jo ef Stefan Institute (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Forschungszentrum
diesel-fueled fuel cell system that has operated flawlessly for 10,000 hours. The extraction of the hydrogen from the diesel fuel happens through autothermal reforming, a catalytic reaction in
In addition to lowering CO2 EMISSION, the units produce little noise, making them suitable as mobile electricity generators in places, like field hospitals,
#Nanowires Boost Hydrogen Production from Sunlight Tenfold Using the energy of the sun to split water into hydrogen
and oxygen gives you access to a completely carbon-free energy source for transportation. But so far, the efficiency of the process has been a bit disappointing,
even when using systems called solar fuel cells solar cells immersed in the water it splitting. Now researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology in The netherlands and the Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) report in the 17 july issue of Nature Communications that they have improved tenfold the hydrogen producing capacity of a solar fuel cell.
Gap is also able to extract oxygen from the watero you then actually have a fuel cell in
#Porous Silicon Battery electrodes from Reeds Natural structures in reed leaves could find use in advanced lithium-ion batteries,
which could lead to a more sustainable way to create sophisticated energy storage devices, scientists in China and Germany say.
Silicon-based materials can theoretically store more than 10 times charge than the carbon-based materials most commonly used in the anodes of commercial lithium-ion batteries,
The constant swelling and shrinking as the battery charges and discharges causes the anode to crack.
But synthesizing these structures is commonly a complex, energy-intensive, and costly process. Now scientists have developed 3-D porous silicon-based anode materials using the kind of reed leaves that are abundant in temperate wetlands.
While LED-based lighting produces up to about 150 lumens per watt of electricity, lasers could produce more than 400 lumens per watt,
whether they can excite these lasers with electricity instead of with light pulses. They detailed their findings online 27 july in the journal Nature Nanotechnology N
such as high power consumption and the need for more space on a chip. To date, to be able read the spin of the electrons,
#Solar cells Could Capture Infrared Rays for More Power Nanocrystals and organic materials convert low energy photons into visible light that a solar cell can capture.
Cadmium selenide nanocrystals with one kind of organic coating left produced violet light, while cadmium selenide nanocrystals with another type of organic coating right produced green.
Solar cell efficiencies could increase by 30 percent or more with new hybrid materials that make use of the infrared portion of the solar spectrum,
solar infrared rays normally passes right through the photovoltaic materials that make up today's solar cells.
The energy from every two infrared rays they capture is combined or pconvertedinto a higher energy photon that is readily absorbed by photovoltaic cells,
generating electricity from light that would normally be wasted. The hybrid materials are combinations of inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals,
which capture the infrared photons, and organic molecules, which help combine the energy from these photons together into an upconverted photon.
In experiments lead selenide nanocrystals captured near-infrared photons, and the organic compound rubrene emitted visible yellow-orange photons.
high-energy photon has potential applications in biological imaging, high-density data storage, and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDS) L
Earlier this year, Hack Reactor launched the online version of its immersive curriculum, Remote Beta, a web-based ALP.
and the President of the United states. Against this backdrop, the market forces are so strong and clear that they have reshaped Codecademy, Hack Reactor,
#Lessons From ESOS Energy Legislation In The UK The U k. recently announced compliance guidelines for the government new Energy savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS), a mandatory energy assessment and energy saving identification
scheme in response to the requirement or all Member States of the European union to implement Article 8 of the Energy efficiency Directive.
The objective of ESOS is to reduce energy consumption, help address climate change, increase energy security and improve the competitiveness of U k. businesses.
and administered by the Environment Agency intended to trim excessive energy use as a means to cut carbon
while mitigating organizational energy waste. In short but not-so-simple terms, qualifying businesses are required to a) measure total energy consumption, accounting for 90 percent of usage across all buildings, transport and industrial activities;
b) conduct energy audits to identify cost-effective, energy-efficient recommendations; c) ensure that the ESOS assessment has been conducted
or reviewed by a board-level director and approved by a lead assessor; and d) report compliance to the Environment Agency by December 5, 2015.
certain caveats exists there is no obligation to implement these energy saving measures internally identified in the audit,
Though the legislation notable feature appears spineless by failing to require businesses make any of these recommended changes to save energy,
participants must demonstrate an authentic and rigorous attempt to examine opportunities for reducing energy use and have reviewed these findings at the board level.
The Challenge to Measure and the Burden of proof While companies may find motivation for implementing the recommended energy saving measures of the audit solely for financial benefit,
the ESOS directive is as much about enforcement as it is about the need for companies to understand power consumption.
Uncovering pockets of energy waste requires appointing personnel familiar with the scheme; the only other option is to outsource,
the vast majority of businesses lack the technology to accurately track such energy consumption. Measuring the energy consumption of a Macbook Air compared to that of a Dell Desktop PC,
for example, will prove to be difficult. While some organizations already have the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) in place
allows companies to reference the power consumption of each device, along with the actual power usage when on and off.
taking into consideration that the U s. wastes an approximate $2. 8 billion in PC energy every year, the U k. may need to take a more effective approach to energy security.
Recognizing the additional administrative pressure placed on energy managers with ESOS which will have many similarities to existing U k. policies the government is proposing that enterprises be allowed to utilize data from other schemes,
such as the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy efficiency Scheme. Of the 7, 000-plus businesses required to participate, as many as 6,
based on a conservative prediction that only 6 percent of potential energy-saving opportunities identified will be implemented. However, real benefits for businesses are likely to be two
Although energy efficiency in the U s. has been a buzzword for years, when it comes down to it,
According to the American Council for an Energy-efficient Economy, even China and India have fared better on the list than the U s as American energy regulations for power conservation have been particularly scarce in recent years.
Although the Obama administration and the now Republican-dominant Congress continue to be at odds over legislation that not only addresses energy efficiency
Ideally, a partnership between U s. government and industry is essential for an energy policy to have a significant impact on the future of businesses and the environment.
The state-by-state approach indicates great strides in U s. energy efficiency and environmental stewardship, but at what cost to businesses?
As the U s. continues to rank among the top three energy consumers in the world,
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