Philip Cullom. e are in very challenging times where we really do have to think in pretty innovative ways to look at how we create energy,
how we value energy and how we consume it. We need to challenge the results of the assumptions that are the result of the last six decades of constant access to cheap unlimited amounts of fuel.
#Israeli startup Storedot charges smartphone batteries to full in 30 seconds Storedot It possible that youl be able to plug the smartphone in
according to a report by the Wall street journal. An Israeli startup by the name of Storedot revealed the technology at Microsoft Think Next Conference using standard smartphone batteries,
Fast battery chargers already exist, but theye expensive, unwieldy things for special batteries. Storedot, however, claims that its technology will only cost around twice as much as traditional chargers.
Batteries traditionally charge quickly during the first 80 percent of the charge, but slow to a trickle for the last 20 percent
so as not to overload the battery. Storedot has apparently found a way around this limitation,
and that itl even work with existing technology. Unfortunately, production won even begin until sometime in 2016.
#Altaeros Energies floating wind turbine churns out electricity and Wi-fi This floating turbine, developed by Altaeros Energies could someday travel to every remote corner of the globe.
There, they could deliver electricity and Internet connectivity to people and villages living off-the-grid.
Video) Think of these floating turbines as the wind farms of the future and you won be that far off.
and deployed, these floating power plants can generate twice the output of a ground-based turbine.
The tethers that keep the turbine anchored in place also send that energy ground-ward. While in the air, the turbines can also serve as Wi-fi, cell service hubs,
you instantly get data coverage, electricity and local weather data, even if your previous system involved a sun dial and carrier pigeons.
Such initiatives must impact numerous areas, from the provision of transport, energy, and healthcare services, to the state of public safety and government services.
These are used to reduce energy and water consumption and pollution. Dubai, United arab emirates Although in the early stages yet, Dubai announced plans last year to turn itself into a smart city.
and enhance building energy efficiency. Glasgow aims to open up data to demonstrate how providing integrated health, transport,
energy and public safety services can improve both the local economy and the quality of life for the city citizens.
#Wireless electricity is here In the house of the future, wire-free energy transfer could be as easy as wireless internet.
When Katie Hall saw a light-bulb glowing in the middle of a room with no wires attached she was shocked.
wee not actually putting electricity in the air. What wee doing is putting a magnetic field in the air. It works like this:
Hall assures that the magnetic fields used to transfer energy are erfectly safein fact, they are the same kind of fields used in Wi-fi routers.
In the house of the future, wire-free energy transfer could be as easy as wireless internet.
and TVS by attaching resonator coils to batteries and an electric car refueller is reportedly in the works.
which have so far been held back by limited battery lives. he idea of eliminating cables would allow us to redesign things in ways that we haven yet thought of,
AA-sized wirelessly rechargeable batteries. For Hall, the applications are endless: always say kids will say:
#Tesla s plans for world s largest battery factory will be a game changer Tesla motors, the electric car maker, hasn blazed just its own trail
the battery. This week Tesla revealed more details about its plans to build a massive the largest of its kind in the world battery factory in the U s. that will produce enough lithium-ion batteries by 2020 to outfit 500,000 electric cars.
While Tesla only released a few details of the plan, the company said that by 2020 the battery cell output of the factory would be 35 gigawatt hours per year,
and battery pack output would be 50 gigawatt hours per year. Let put these production numbers in perspective.
As Tesla has said itself its cars are constrained by global battery production, and it would need to use all of the batteries produced for electric cars in 2013
(and then some) to make those 500,000 per year by 2020. According to Navigant Research analyst Sam Jaffe, Tesla already used half of all the batteries made for electric cars in the world in 2013 for its Model S car (22,477 cars sold.
In terms of global lithium ion and advanced battery production beyond just for electric cars Tesla so-called igafactoryis still massive;
it jaw-dropping actually. According to Navigant figures, battery factories in the world produced close to 27 gigawatt hours of advanced batteries (the vast majority of these,
over 90 percent, are lithium-ion batteries) in 2012. The bulk of those batteries 23 gigawatt hours were for consumer electronics,
like our laptops and cell phones. Given Tesla production goals outline above, the planned factory would more than double the current entire world lithium ion battery production.
Of course, global lithium ion battery production would also ramp up outside of Tesla as well as more gadgets and cell phones are sold
and more devices get connected. And now if you look beyond just batteries, Tesla factory could be the largest factory of any kind,
anywhere in the world in terms of inputs in and outputs out, said Jaffe, though he notes that such a thing is pretty hard to measure.
The country that made the most advanced batteries in 2012 was produced China, which about 13 gigawatt hours of batteries.
Chinese batteries traditionally have been the cheapest in the world, but theye also been of lower quality compared to those made in Japan, Korea and the U s. However, battery expert and founder and CEO of battery startup GELI,
Ryan Wartena, told me that he seen the quality of Chinese batteries go up substantially over the past year.
Chinese battery giants also have been trying to boost production as well, and Chinese lithium battery manufacturer Thunder Sky Group had been looking to build a battery factory in Russia working with Russian state run agency RUSNANO this would have been the largest lithium ion battery factory in the world (I not sure of the current
status of this factory). The second largest producer of batteries in the world in 2012 was Japan, with about 7 gigawatt hours.
South korea follows with about 2 gigawatt hours. The U s. had about 1. 2 gigawatt hours
and that following the attempts of Obama stimulus package to boost battery production in the U s. through companies like A123 Systems and LG Chem.
So as you can see, Tesla plans to generate 35 and 50 gigawatt hours per year in cells and packs, just in the U s,
. all of a sudden tilts the world lithium ion battery production in favor of the U s.,which has never been much of a battery manufacturing powerhouse.
No doubt, all of the states in the running including Arizona, Nevada, Texas and New mexico will be vying for those 6, 500 jobs.
Tesla factory will also be a competitive threat to Chinese battery production dominance and will help lower the overall price of lithium ion batteries globally. ust the threat of (Tesla CEO) Elon musk building this huge factory will lower prices,
says Wartena, as the companies will be willing to lower their margins to compete. Like Tesla has done with many of its strategies
it taking a novel approach to working with partners to build the battery factory. Tesla is selling debt (convertible senior notes) to the tune of between $1. 6 billion to $1. 8 billion to fund part of the battery factory,
but Tesla said its partners will likely poney up the extra $2 billion to $3 billion (though,
it could be even higher). Panasonic is Tesla chief battery supplier, but in recent months Tesla has also beentalking with Samsung SDI for batteries.
Traditionally auto makers have multiple suppliers for core components so that they can get the best price and use the other suppliers as leverage.
It should be noted that Tesla hasn confirmed that Panasonic is the battery supplier partner for the planned factory.
Musk even told Bloomberg that the Panasonic deal wasn done 100 percent. Essentially Tesla is keeping its options open for other suppliers to come in
and it using an unusual way of working with Panasonic. Navigant Jaffe called the method unique combination of carrot and stick.
Tesla said that it intends to use some of the battery output for stationary energy storage, which means batteries used for buildings, the grid and even homes.
As wee reported before, Tesla and solar financier and installer Solarcity (Musk other energy company) have been quietly selling small volumes of Tesla batteries as energy storage paired with Solarcity solar projects.
If Tesla is able to reduce the cost of lithium ion batteries by a third with its new factory,
it could make energy grid storage much more economical. Batteries for the grid at current prices are largely too expensive for most projects.
There a handful of companies that are trying to innovate around using batteries for grid storage
but if Tesla could get the battery price low enough it can potentially disrupt grid storage, too.
Lower-cost lithium-ion batteries could make clean energy much more viable. Pairing battery farms with wind and solar panel farms would enable clean power to store energy
when the wind stops blowing and the sun goes down. The end goal for Tesla is that cheap batteries could help Tesla deliver its $35, 000 third generation electric car.
It might not be able to get to that price with battery cost reductions alone, but it gets Tesla a whole lot closer t
#Autonomous drones flock like birds Autonomous drone flock The first drones that can fly as a coordinated flock has been created by Hungarian researchers.#
#The team watched as the ten autonomous robots took to the air in a field outside Budapest,
zipping through the open sky, flying in formation or even following a leader, all without any central control.
Video)##The aircraft, called quadcopters because they have four rotors, navigate using signals from Global positioning system (GPS RECEIVERS,
he makes an analogy with the energy industry. We re still burning wood. There s coal fired power plants. Those didn t go away,
from the filament in a light bulb to the silicon in a computer chip. Whether we 3d print them
which involves adding a new algorithm on top of his PETOT (parallel total energy) code, originally developed by Wang
, the predicted energies and velocities of an atom passing through a layer of material are the same for both models,
With 16gb of GDDR5 memory and maximum power consumption of 235 watts AMD Firepro S9150 server GPUS provide massive compute performance
Many scientists have assumed that bottom feeders get most of their energy from tiny particles of organic matter that settle on the seafloor.
instead that at least half or more of all the fish living on the seafloor might get their energy from animals that migrate each day between the surface and deep water like jellyfish cephalopods and small fish.
which are natural tracers of the flow of energy through ecosystems Trueman explained. From an animal's isotope levels scientists can partially reconstruct its diet and place in the food web.
Even so as fishing energy and mining operations move into deeper waters Trueman said researchers will need to understand how bottom feeders which may play an important
because they can move through more than a kilometer of soil with the energy of an AA battery."
After long focusing on fuel economy and energy production environmentalists and scientists are now promoting a diet of more plants and less meat to slow climate change but why?
which requires extensive water energy and chemical use as well as energy for transporting that feed live animals and animal products.
The total process for bringing such vast quantities of meat egg and dairy products to our plates comes at a substantial cost to the environment.
#German bank and EU offers funding to Chile mining power plant State owned German bank Kfw has said it is to advance a#100 million loan ($123 million),
to help provide funding for Chile first solar-thermal power plant which will supply electricity to the mining industry.
the funding represents around 10%of the total investment that is estimated to be required for the power plant project.
The plant is set to be built by Abengoa SA (ABG) a Spanish company that offers global renewable energy solutions. his project will help prove the economic operation of concentrated solar power technology in the Earth sunbelt,
German Environment minister Barbara Hendricks said. ecause it can store energy, this technology is suited also for basic electricity supply and therefore highly innovative.
Furthermore, the European commission will provide a further#15 million euros, to be given to Kfw through its Latin american Investment programme.
The project is hoped to ease strain on Chile energy sector and improve efficiencies in the country mining industry;
at present it is estimated that mines operated in the country contributed to around a third of the nation total power consumption.
Chile lacks extensive fossil-fuels to support such ongoing energy consumption by industry that is necessary for its economy
#Imergy Power systems develops high-performance flow batteries Imergy Power systems has achieved a milestone in energy storage by developing a process for producing high-performance flow batteries with recycled vanadium from mining slag oil field sludge fly ash and other forms of environmental waste.
The achievement will have a number of significant impacts on the growing energy storage industry. Other manufacturers of vanadium flow batteries build their devices with virgin vanadium extracted from mining.
It must then be processed to a 99%plus level of purity. Through an extensive R&d program, Imergy has developed a way to produce flow batteries with vanadium at a 98%purity level that can be harvested from environmental waste sites.
By extracting vanadium from slag Imergy will lower the cost of obtaining and processing vanadiumhe principal active ingredient in many flow battery electrolytesy 40%relative to competitors.
As a result of this technology and other developments, Imergy will be able to lower the cost of its flow batteries from $500 a kilowatt hour, already an industry benchmark, to under $300 per kilowatt hour.
Imergy flow batteries from low-grade vanadium will also be capable of storing more energy per kilogram than conventional vanadium flow batteries by more than twice, giving cell phone operators, solar power plant developers, microgrid owners
and other customers more flexibility and capacity for managing outages curbing peak power or reducing demand charges.
Wee taking industrial sludge and turning it into a source of clean energy said Bill Watkins, CEO of Imergy Power systems. t the same time,
wee lowering the cost and increasing the performance of energy storage, which is going to expand the market. a
Devon Energy first applied the CYPHER service in the Grasslands Area of the Northern Barnett Shale.
It opens unique possibilities for 3d imaging and exact modeling of geological materials in oil and gas exploration, composite materials, fuel cells and electronic assemblies.
The center is working on something like Big data for smart batteries turning these mysterious devices into information centers that according to doctoral student Mohammad Rezvani can tell their users
The University of Cincinnati's smart battery team with the Twike. Photo: Jim Motavalli) The big drawback of the Twike is the price around $27000 for the base model
and battery assist) that can reach 52 mph and cruise up to 300 miles on a charge.
It's also possible to extend the range by adding extra e-bike type li-ion battery packs.
(or solar panels) are less. That said I loved it the first time I saw one at the Vancouver World's Fair around 1987.
The smart battery research at the University of Cincinnati is interesting. According to Jay Lee the IMS director the cells in a battery pack typically degrade
(and charge) at different rates and that throws off the efficiency and longevity. If every part of the pack can be monitored with the kind of Big data equipment that now hugely in vogue one bad apple won spoil the whole bunch
Another use for the Smart Battery Watchdog Agent Dr. Lee said is to plot the optimal route to where youe going based on your past driving behavior the availability of charging stations along the way and other factors.
and perform complex tasks using very little energy. Researchers for the computer hardware giant have developed a postage-stamp-size chip,
Greater energy efficiency means you could compute things directly on your phone instead of relying on cloud computing,
Robotic bug springs to life The latest advancement in robotics may not look like much just a few small batteries attached to a flat sheet of paper
and then batteries are lifted off the ground, onto the back of what now looks like a small robotic bug.
which are connected to the batteries carried on the bug's back, the researchers said. Also on the robot's back is programmed a microprocessor
plants are the powerhouses that produce all of the sustenance On earth. This process also produces the oxygen that we breath,
And since all they require is a steady supply of electricity, laser weapons may also be more reliable than conventional weapons.
#Transparent solar windows generate energy without obstructing the view Imagine being able to generate solar energy on the surface of every window
"Luminescent solar concentrators generate electricity by concentrating radiation most often, non-ionizing solar radiation. They convert it by luminescence
is guided to the edge of a clear plastic panel where it is converted then to electricity using thin strips of photovoltaic solar cells.
Even better the filtration system uses just 2. 5 kilowatts (2500 watts) of electricity per hour so it's energy-efficient too.
and is powered battery. The user can select among six different grips. The arm's development would not have been possible without a host of technological advances
7 Clever Technologies Inspired By nature DNA alphabet The field of synthetic biology involves tinkering with DNA to create organisms capable of novel functions in medicine, energy and other areas.
Graphene is also an incredibly efficient conductor of heat and electricity. All of these qualities make it valuable for use in electronics and a variety of other applications,
"Those applications could include better solar cells,"smart"coatings, new kinds of computers and all kinds of other devices or components.
#Honda Smart Home produces more energy than it uses Wouldn it be great if your house produced more energy than it consumed?
Does that mean negative utility bills? Indeed it does, because solar panels can return power to the grid
and make your meter spin backwards. Japanese companies are fascinated with net-zero energy buildings, usually incorporating transportation as part of the mix.
Panasonic Eco Ideas House, with solar, a fuel cell, battery backup and a plug-in Toyota prius, has stood long next to a company headquarters in Tokyo,
and the company is also developing a green-themed housing development. In Japan, Toyota is invested also heavily in green communities.
A 9. 5-kilowatt solar array, backed up by a 10-kilowatt-hour lithium battery and a 10-kilowatt DC car charger.
The solar will generate more than enough energy to heat the house, supply the appliances, and power a Honda Fit electric car.
Michael Koenig, Honda Smart Home project leader, said that converting DC to AC wastes energy,
The Home energy management System (HEMS) optimizes the house microgrid, so that the Fit can charge during the low-demand nighttime,
A geothermal system with eight, 20-foot deep boreholes uses a heat pump to heat and cool the home floors
essentially creating"living materials"that can be integrated into everyday objects and devices, from solar panels to adjustable furniture,
such as with energy technology. Improved batteries and solar cells could be produced, and biofilms with enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of cellulose could be used for the conversion of agricultural waste into biofuels.
The possibilities are endless furniture could even be built out of these"living materials.""Devices constructed from these materials could adjust to their environments in ways that traditional nonliving materials cannot."
when organisms absorb high-energy short wavelength light (such as ultraviolet light) then re-emit that light at a longer wavelength.
In the case of robotic muscles electrical energy not temperature change would drive the contraction of fibers.
and close heavy windows in a building in response to the air temperature without motors or electricity which the researchers demonstrated.
a large machine/small waste treatment plant developed by Janicki Bioenergy (an offshoot of Sedro-Woolley-based Janicki Industries)
but electricity used to power the machine itself. Any leftover electricity generated through the process is fed back into the power grid.
The small amount of solid waste that comes out on the other end is no longer poop
000 people and, from that, produce 86,000 liters of clean water on a daily basis while also generating a net 250 kilowatts of electricity.
The researchers read the hologram using the microscope to measure the energy state of a single electron wave function.
They teased out the individual pages by scanning the hologram for electrons at different energy levels.
In encoding the'S',the researchers were concentrating the electron density at certain points and energy levels.
"You would change the energy level and you would have a different set of a wiring,
"Really, the options that are available are salvage logging of the wood for biomass or long-lived wood products to keep the carbon from the atmosphere,
The models suggested that there are between 0. 8 billion tonnes and 2 billion tonnes of fish biomass in the oceans.
The resulting films conduct electricity better than any other sample of graphene produced in the past. Until recently
His team is also looking at using the graphene electrodes in photovoltaic cells. Easing the pain
India wants to increase the proportion of its electricity generated from nuclear sources from 2. 8%to 25%by 2050.
or more new reactors to join the 17 existing ones and the 6 that are under construction.
The Nuclear power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) in Mumbai expects this month to finalize a total of US$15 billion in contracts with France's Areva group
but are due this month to visit India and scout out possible locations for reactors.
The NPCIL has readied four sites one for each vendor each capable of accepting eight to ten imported reactors.
On 5 december, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed a deal in New delhi that paves the way for four more 1-gigawatt reactors over the next decade,
says Ravi Bhushan Grover, director of strategic planning in India's Department of Atomic energy (DAE) and a key negotiator of the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Within India, DAE employees are concerned that an influx of proposed new reactors could lead to quality standards being compromised.
The country's Atomic energy Regulatory Board will have to inspect and clear several new reactors of different designs as they are approved."
"Our primary concern is over safety, "says A. Sathasivam, president of the National Federation of Atomic energy Employees.
Om Pal Singh, the board's secretary, says the problem is simply a lack of manpower.
and Padmanabha Krishnagopala Iyengar, former DAE secretary, claim that Indian nuclear scientists are giving up prematurely on their thorium research programme in exchange for a few uranium reactors from abroad.
its thorium research programme focuses on turning the material into fissile uranium-233 for use as reactor fuel.
Fast breeder reactors, of the type under construction in Kalpakkam, would breed uranium-233 in thorium blankets surrounding a plutonium core.
laboratory chemicals or low energy light bulbs that contain mercury.""I don't think these areas where mercury still has important uses will be the first to go,
and previously in North america if coal is replaced by oil and natural gas as an energy source, and if particulate filters in cars and factories become more common o
I wanted to found a prize to reflect the new challenges faced by humanity#such as climate change, energy shortages, emerging diseases, clashes of cultures and ideas,
they push and pull the charged gas in the corona, giving it the energy that heats it up.
#South korea makes billion-dollar bet on fusion power South korea has embarked on the development of a preliminary concept design for a fusion power demonstration reactor in collaboration with the US Department of energy's Princeton Plasma physics Laboratory (PPPL) in New jersey.
the##15-billion (US$20-billion) experimental reactor being built in Cadarache, France, under the auspices of an international collaboration.
K-DEMO is intended to be the next step toward commercial reactors and would be the first plant to actually contribute power to an electric grid."
K-DEMO will serve as prototype for the development of commercial fusion reactors. According to the PPPL, it will generate"some 1 billion watts of power for several weeks on end,
a research fellow at NFRI and a former chairman of the ITER Management Advisory Committee, says that Korea is need desperately in of the energy that fusion could provide."
"Korea has a lack of energy resources, he says.#"#"The population density is high and the country consumes so much energy,
Lee adds, we have a different perspective on fusion energy compared to the United states. ITER has experienced repeated delays
to generate competitive energy, says Thomas Cochran, a consultant for the Natural resources Defense Council in WASHINGTON DC.
500#C. Varanasi says that hydrophobic ceramics could improve the efficiency of energy generation. As steam passes through the turbines of a thermal power station
water condenses onto the blades and forms droplets many micrometres across. The rotating blades lose energy as they smash into these droplets, accounting for up to 30%of the inefficiency of the turbine,
he says. A hydrophobic coating made of tough ceramic would prevent films of water forming on the blades,
Varanasi is now working with energy and technology companies partnered with the MIT Energy Initiative,
which co-funded his work, to test the ceramics in real-world applications a
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