#Researchers develop new process that raises prospects of 3d printed bone grafts 3d printing could help mend broken bones.
and energy and improve crop yield. It takes advantage of the vertical space of city buildings rather than turning over wide expanses of land to agriculture and uses advanced greenhouse technology:
The cost of growing Vertical farming s biggest limitation is energy consumption. Considerable energy is required to power a closed, indoor greenhouse facility s artificial lighting, heating and cooling
and hydroponic or aeroponic growing systems. The amount of energy required per unit of product is an important factor for ensuring
not only that the farm is sustainable, but that it is economically viable. Recently, more and more studies have focused on pairing solar panels
and wind turbines with greenhouses to provide self-generated renewable electricity on-site. But the single technology that will be key to making vertical farms possible is lighting.
New LED light technology is the key that makes it possible to build vertically integrated farms.
and reduces transmission losses. They re also physically small, have a long service life, lower power consumption, generate less heat,
and can produce light of varying intensity. Because it produces less heat, the light can be moved closer to the plants.
This increases efficiency, not just in terms of energy use but by allowing layers of growing plants to be packed more densely, making more efficient use of space.
#Imprint Energy is developing flexible, printed batteries for wearable devices Ultrathin zinc-polymer battery. Imprint Energy is developing flexible,
rechargeable batteries that can be printed cheaply on commonly used industrial screen printers. The California startup has been testing its ultrathin zinc-polymer batteries in wrist-worn devices
and hopes to sell them to manufacturers of wearable electronics, medical devices, smart labels, and environmental sensors.
The company s approach is meant to make the batteries safe for on-body applications, while their small size and flexibility will allow for product designs that would have been impossible with bulkier lithium-based batteries.
Even in small formats the batteries can deliver enough current for low-power wireless communications sensors, distinguishing them from other types of thin batteries.
The company recently secured $6 million in funding from Phoenix Venture Partners, as well as AME Cloud Ventures, the venture fund of Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang, to further develop its proprietary chemistry and finance the batteries commercial launch.
Previous investors have included CIA-backed venture firm In-Q-Tel and Dow chemical. The batteries are based on research that company cofounder Christine Ho began as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley,
where she collaborated with a researcher in Japan to produce microscopic zinc batteries using a 3-D printer.
The batteries that power most laptops and smartphones contain lithium which is highly reactive and has to be protected in ways that add size and bulk.
While zinc is more stable, the water-based electrolytes in conventional zinc batteries cause zinc to form dendrites,
branch-like structures that can grow from one electrode to the other, shorting the battery.
Ho developed a solid polymer electrolyte that avoids this problem, and also provides greater stability,
and greater capacity for recharging. Brooks Kincaid, the company s cofounder and president, says the batteries combine the best features of thin-film lithium batteries and printed batteries.
Such thin-film batteries tend to be rechargeable but they contain the reactive element, have limited capacity,
and are expensive to manufacture. Printed batteries are nonrechargeable, but they are cheap to make, typically use zinc,
and offer higher capacity. Working with zinc has afforded the company manufacturing advantages. Because of zinc s environmental stability, the company did need not the protective equipment required to make oxygen-sensitive lithium batteries.
When we talk about the things that constrain us in terms of the development of new products, there s really two that
I lose the most sleep over these days. One is batteries and one is displays, says Steven Holmes, vice president of the New Devices Group and general manager of the Smart Device Innovation team at Intel.
Despite demand for flexible batteries, Ho says no standard has been developed for measuring their flexibility, frustrating customers who want to compare chemistries.
So the company built its own test rig and began benchmarking its batteries against commercial batteries that claimed to be flexible.
Existing batteries failed catastrophically after fewer than 1, 000 bending cycles, she says, while Imprint s batteries remained stable.
Imprint has also been in talks about the use of its batteries in clothes andweird parts of your body like your eye
Ho says. The company also recently began working on a project funded by the U s. military to make batteries for sensors that would monitor the health status of soldiers.
Other potential applications include powering smart labels with sensors for tracking food and packages. Via Technology Review Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorat t
#Mcor Technologies improves their paper-based, full-color 3d printer Mcor Iris 3d printer Most people think 3d printing involves a machine that either extrudes molten plastic, in a way similar to how a hot glue gun works,
or think of one of the larger industrial level 3d printers manufactured by 3d systems or Stratasys.
The list includes 1, 669 megawatts of standalone battery storage, 44 megawatts of other standalone storage,
255 megawatts of batteries combined with generation projects, and a 90-megawatt project combining solar and batteries.
They are all seeking interconnection under the initiative scluster 7 window, which closed on April 30, 2014.
and discharges electricity, unlike traditional generation resources that only produce power, she said. That may sound like a simple problem to solve,
when lots of distributed solar generation pushes midday energy use way down, then fades away just as a steep rise in evening energy usage sets in.
How many hours of continuous ramp should these flexible resources provide? And should smaller-scale storage be aggregated into larger blocks for multi-hour availability?
It uses electric charge to separate semiconducting nanotubes useful for transistors from those that conduct electricity like metals
where it is used as a source of energy. This means an imbalance in blood sugar not only starves blood vessels
and organs of energy but also keeps the blood saturated with glucose, which can cause tissue damage and sometimes lead to coma or even death.
and it wastes massive amounts of energy in the process. An app called Comfy is trying to put temperature control back in the hands of employees.
Of course, it s not just tech companies with the problemfor the last 50 years or so, it s been common for office buildings to use central temperature controls, partly as an attempt at energy efficiency.
Though the new app might seem at first like it would use more energy, since any employee can trigger it to work at will,
we re saving an enormous amount of energy. As someone uses the app, they can also see what preferences their coworkers have.
This is a bold move by HP. The ability to process large amounts of data with little energy consumption plus nonvolatile memory could be a game changer on the hardware side.
and take over the server world just for the energy savings alone. Pricing will be the adoption issue for consumer mobile devices.
#Electric car travels over 1, 100 miles without a recharge on a new aluminum-air battery Together the Israeli company, Phinergy,
#The Phinergy aluminum-air battery at 100 kilograms (220 pounds) weight contained enough on board energy to allow the vehicle to travel up to 3, 000 kilometers (over 1, 860 miles.
Compare that to the best, current lithium-ion batteries in the Tesla Model S sedan.
and the on board battery weighs 5 times as much. How does an aluminum-air battery work?
They use an air-electrode capable of breathing ambient air and extracting the oxygen from it.
Compare this to traditional batteries which store and release oxygen from chemicals contained in a liquied or solid cathode.
An air battery doesn need t to replace or recharge its cathode. And an air battery is far lighter.
The combination means significantly more power for a longer period of time. Phinergy batteries use a porous electrode with a large surface area that captures the oxygen from ambient air.
The electrode also contains a silver-based catalyst that doesn t let CO2 interact with it.
This unique and proprietary catalyst solves a common problem in air-battery technology carbonization caused by CO2 permeating the electrode.
To make the aluminum-air battery even more economical they are produced in areas where electrical energy capacity
In the case of the demonstration EV this week, the battery was forged at the Alcoa smelter in Baie-Comeau,
Aluminum-air batteries do break down over time. As they drain the metal turns into aluminum hydroxide.
When spent the entire battery can be recycled to forge new aluminum-air batteries. For the air-battery operator it will mean swapping out the old battery for a new one every few months.
This could be done at service centres which would keep an inventory of these batteries in supply.
Tesla#demonstrated its plans#for charging and swap out service centres back in July of last year.
In the Tesla demo the battery was swapped out in 90 seconds. So this notion of a quick battery replacement service that is as fast as refilling a conventional gas
or diesel tank seems very doable. In the case of the test car demonstrated at the#Canadian International Aluminum Conference#on Wednesday in Montreal,
it was outfitted with both an aluminum-air and lithium-ion battery system. The notion behind this was that the EV could run on its lithium-ion charge
but when used for longer trips the aluminum-air battery would kick in. To feed the chemical reaction from the aluminum-air battery drivers using a test car like this would add tap water every month
or two to feed the chemical reaction. Phinergy is also experimenting with other metal-air technologies.
They have developed a zinc-air battery that has some advantages over aluminum. Zinc-air is extremely durable.
A battery can last thousands of hours without chemical deterioration. The company hopes to see metal-air batteries made with aluminum
and zinc become the primary storage devices for transportation, for backing up renewable power sites, for electronic devices and for industry and defense.
or do not properly respond to the hormone in order to move the body main energy sourcelucosento cells.
Weighing about 15 pounds, Mr. He ulti-functional suitcaseis powered by a lithium battery and can reportedly go as fast as 12 miles per hour.
Users can then keep track of their daily energy levels, ideally taking a break when their MEME notes their tiredness,
and runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and offers about 8 hours of continuous use.
There will be an optional attery headbandavailable for purchase that will extend battery life to about 16 hours It is anticipated to be compatible with Mac, Windows, ios,
and dropped and it loses its energy more rapidly. This new technology is mechanical giving engineers the capability of creating a wave that could last for miles.
In the human arm of the research, the scientists gave a whole battery of cognitive tests to over 700 people with and without the gene variant.
#Germany generates 74%of power needs from renewable energy Germany impressive streak of renewable energy milestones continues, with renewable energy generation surging to a record portion nearly 75 percent of the country overall electricity demand
electricity prices actually dipped into the negative for much of the afternoon, according to Renewables International. In the first quarter of 2014, renewable energy sources met a record 27 percent of the country electricity demand,
thanks to additional installations and favorable weather. enewable generators produced 40.2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity,
up from 35.7 billion kilowatt-hours in the same period last year, Bloomberg reported. Much of the country renewable energy growth has occurred in the past decade and,
as a point of comparison, Germany 27 percent is double the approximately 13 percent of U s. electricity supply powered by renewables as of November 2013.
or energy transformation, which aims to power the country almost entirely on renewable sources by 2050. nce again,
it was demonstrated that a modern electricity system such as the German one can already accept large penetration rates of variable but predictable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar PV power,
via email. n fact there are no technical and economic obstacles to go first to 20 percent of annual electricity demand penetration rate from a combination of those two technologies,
and energy efficiency measures and some progressive storage solutions at a modest level. To reach the lofty goal of 80 percent renewables by 2050,
the price of commercial solar power is now equal to retail electricity rates. And wind power reached record output levels last year producing a massive 25.2 GW
and accounting for 39 percent of the electricity supply on a single day in December The unprecedented growth of solar PV in particular has been fueled in large part by policies that incentivize clean energy.
which pays renewable energy producers a set amount for the electricity they produce under long-term contracts,
the government instead proposed A v self-consumption chargeon new photovoltaic systems, something Germany Solar Industry Association recently announced it plans to challenge in court.
Along with cutting out fossil fuel-generated energy to a large extent, the transition to renewables includes completely phasing out nuclear power.
These goals are only achievable in combination with greatly reduced energy demand. Instead, coal imports are increasing
in order to meet the country baseload power demands. And retail electricity rates are high and rising, putting pressure on lower income individuals in particular.
But many of the criticisms are largely overblown according to Amory Lovins of the Rocky mountain Institute.
The modest uptick in coal fired generation was substituting for pricier natural gas, not representative of a return to coal as it often mischaracterized.
and energy demand shrank, Germany largest utility chose not to renew two long-term contracts for coal fired power.
And while much is made of rising industrial electricity prices, Lovins points out that in fact, iant German firms enjoy Germany low and falling wholesale electricity prices,
getting the benefit of renewablesnear-zero operating cost but exempted from paying for them. And as for the impact on the consumer
he FIT surcharge raised householdsretail price of electricity seven percent but renewables lowered big industrieswholesale price 18 percent.
and start sending householdstotal electricity prices back down. What more, n Germany you have the option of earning back your payments,
Energiewende rooted in the acknowledgement that a fossil fuel-based energy system is not sustainable is remarkable for its scope and its widespread support,
a Berlin-based energy expert and journalist, told Voice of america earlier this year. he last time when an energy supply was changed was the industrial revolution;
this is something that has never been done before. r
#Japanese startup unveils a long-lasting and safer dual-carbon battery A young Japanese startup called Power Japan Plus,
or PJP, has a new type of battery under development that lasts longer, is safer,
charges faster and is less expensive than a standard lithium ion battery. The year-old company uses carbon for both the anode
and the cathode portion of the battery and hopes to start producing it later this year.
A battery is made up of an anode on one side and a cathode on the other, with an electrolyte in between.
In a lithium ion battery lithium ions travel from the anode to the cathode through the electrolyte, creating a chemical reaction that allows electrons to be harvested along the way.
While lithium ion batteries are the dominant batteries these days for laptops, cell phones and early electric cars,
they have some shortfalls. For example, the batteries degrade pretty quickly over time (which explains why your laptop battery dies every couple of years),
and they can catch on fire under extreme impact. Theye also relatively expensive if you need a bunch of them to power an electric car,
which is why Tesla cars are only really attainable by the wealthy right now. An all-carbon battery A battery that uses carbon for both the anode and the cathode could be safer than a lithium ion battery
because it removes the highly flammable lithium oxide. While battery fires have been rare for electric car companies, Tesla,
GM and others have seen all a handful of cars with punctured batteries catch on fire, and have faced PR hiccups as a result.
Thermal runaway intense, long-lasting fires caused by lithium oxide catching on fire has long been the Achillesheel of lithium ion batteries.
A carbon battery also doesn degrade as quickly as a lithium ion battery over time. While a standard lithium ion battery with a two-year lifetime could have around 500 cycles of charging and discharging
Power Japan Plusdual-carbon battery could last for 3, 000 cycles, the company executives told me in a phone call.
They also say that because of the carbon chemistry, their battery can charge 20 times faster than a standard lithium ion battery.
Because the battery only uses carbon for its main active material, it could cost less than standard lithium ion batteries,
though executives declined to name its price. Lithium ion batteries have continued to drop in price and Tesla says it reducing the cost by 30 percent with its planned battery factory.
Finally, an all-carbon battery could be recycled more easily at the end of life than a lithium ion battery because it doesn contain rare earth materials and metals.
Activated carbon can come from a variety of low cost, easily-available sources. The idea for a dual carbon battery has been under development by Japanese researchers since the 1970s.
Around six or seven years ago, scientists at Kyushu University started working on nanotechnology and material breakthroughs in the laboratory of applied chemistry professor Tatsumi Ishihara that could raise the capacity (how much electric charge can be delivered at a certain voltage) of those early dual carbon batteries.
Now Power Japan Plus co-founded by Japanese tech entrepreneurs Dou Kani (the CEO and president) and Hiroaki Nishina (the COO) is looking to commercialize the research done at Kyushu.
While neither Kani or Nishina has a long background with battery chemistry (they hail from the telecom
and software sectors theye brought on Japanese battery cathode expert Kaname Takeya, who developed the cathode tech used today in the Toyota prius
and the Tesla Model S. Takeya splits his time between San francisco and Japan and is the company CTO and CEO of its U s. operations.
He just finished a project for Argonne National Labs, and previously also worked on some battery startups including Quallion and Enerdel.
Other companies are looking at ways to engineer carbon to make batteries better. Energ2 is one of those startups,
and the company has developed carbon materials for a variety of battery applications. Because Power Japan Plusinnovation is in the development of the carbon material
the company is also looking into a side business of selling its carbon to third parties.
Early stage While the tech has been under development for several years, the founders incorporated just a year ago,
and now employ only eight people. To date theye been bootstrapping the company, but are hoping to raise funding to help them begin moving into early production later this year.
could prove to be difficult for an early stage battery manufacturer, given all of the battery startups that have struggled over the years.
It a difficult market because scaling up battery production can take a long time and potentially, a lot of money.
But big corporations that are interested in ultimately owning or licensing advanced battery tech might still be interested in providing early funding.
Power Japan Plus says it is less capital-intensive than other battery companies because its battery can be manufactured on existing battery production lines.
Because the batteries don use rare materials and have only one active material, execs say the supply chain is extremely simple,
which also reduces costs. Additionally, executives told me that while they want to do some early pilot line production themselves,
they know they need a large manufacturing partner if they want to scale up production to offer batteries to electric cars.
Power Japan Plus intends to first launch batteries for the medical device and satellite industries, which are focused hyper on safety.
Later down the road, they could try to tackle electric cars. An electric car with a battery pack of dual-carbon batteries could charge much faster and last much longer on the road, giving it a higher resale value.
Currently the team is supplying batteries for a Go-cart in a transportation proof-of-concept partnership.
In the immediate future, electric cars at least from dominant players Tesla and Nissan are betting on lithium ion chemistry for batteries.
But farther down the line, other types of chemistries will need to be investigated to provide power for the next generation of electric cars h
When Tesla suddenly ran into a very public problem with its batteries, it installed Semantria in minutes
#The next Great Space Race Space-Based Power stations Futurist Thomas Frey: Earth appetite for power continues to grow.
Since the 1960s, power consumption has quadrupled around the globe, with many countries opting to build large oil
an in depth review concluded the most viable long-term strategy was to focus on spaced-based power systems.
For this reason, the Japan aerospace exploration agency (JAXA) recently announced its 25-year plan to build the world first 1-gigawatt power plant in space.
What most people don realize is that solar panels in space are 10 times more efficient than those on earth
Many other countries won be comfortable with Japan having the world only expertise in building space-based power stations.
The island itself will be glistening from the massive net studded with billions of tiny rectifying antennas designed to convert microwave energy into DC power Next to the antennas is a large substation that sends vast amounts of power through an underwater cable to Tokyo,
Space-based power stations have been the subject of research and a common theme among the sci-fi authors for decades.
This is about the same output as a typical nuclear power plant. Every year of technological advancement brings a drop in the cost of building it.
2-MW satellite experiment 2028 200-MW demonstration power station COMMERCIAL PHASE (2031040) 2031 1-GW full-scale power station 2037 Commercial space-based
most will imagine a space-based solar array powering our energy hungry businesses on earth, but that only part of the equation.
Mastering Six Critical Disciplines The JAXA power station is estimated to weigh more than 10,000 metric tons and when fully deployed, stretch several miles across.
To construct and operate an electricity-generating satellite, JAXA will have to demonstrate mastery of six critical disciplines:
The reason for converting energy to microwaves is because it impervious to weather condition and water in the upper atmosphere.
The two mirrors will be untethered from the solar panels and the separate transmission unit, requiring a far more advanced navigating system to keep them properly aligned.
Creating the first space-based power system will be no exception. With U s. influence eroding across Europe and Asia,
a space-based power station has the potential to reinvigorate NASA and give a needed dose of excitement to the thousands of space companies that support it.
Scientists are predicting that the HCPVT could provide sustainable energy and fresh water to communities all around the world.
Current solar technologies on the market today are too expensive and slow to produce, require Rare earth minerals and lack the efficiency to make such massive installations practical.
which is attached to a tracking system that determines the best angle based on the position of the sun. Such system can be applied profitably in sunny regions where sustainable energy,
This in turn means the cost of the energy itself could be as low as 10 cents per kilowatt hour (KWH.
and Australia with the possibility of moving into further markets such as tourism where energy supply is scarce or low r
produce energy, provide food, and maintain and enhance human health and our environment. Scientifically viable in 2013;
Cree has announced just the release of a new type of tube light designed to tackle one of the biggest energy hogs in Corporate America:
Except, however, that the new Cree uses LED rather than inert gas which allows it to turn on instantly (regardless of how cold the weather is) without flickering as well as operate at a 30 percent energy savings over the traditional method.
However, these bulbs are rated DLC compliant (the business version of the Energy star program) which means that installing them could earn you a hefty rebate (anywhere from $5-15 per lamp) off your company monthly utility bill in addition to the inherent energy savings v
and other components needed for tiny lithium-ion batteries. Other projects include printed sensors fabricated on plastic patches that athletes could one day wear to detect concussions and measure violent impacts.
Comparatively, Google acquisitions and exclusive deals with third parties provide it with everything from the rich trove of geospatial data that powers Google maps to the energy use
while fossil fuel-or battery-powered unmanned aircraft are expensive to run and possess a shorter range.
Solar s influence Titan Aerospace caught Google s attention thanks to its innovative dragonfly-shaped drones that are powered by its wing-mounted solar panels
and onboard battery storage that allows the planes to fly at night. The drones are huge aircraft the smaller model,
whether the solar technology is advanced currently enough to deliver the kind of long-range reliability that Google will require.
At night you are not collecting energy from the sun and it takes a lot of power to broadcast internet signals.
Also since lithium-ion battery costs have dropped, electric car prices have dropped also, meaning that there are now several electric cars with price tags around $30, 000.
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