#Bacterial raincoat discovery paves way to better crop protection Researchers have discovered how communities of beneficial bacteria form a waterproof coating on the roots of plants,
The interactive grid of 100 moving columns enables people to understand and interpret data at a glance.
hail Kurtz and NREL's Dirk Jordan have analyzed data from 50,000 solar energy systems installed between 2009 and 2013 and discovered that just 0. 1%of all PV systems reported being affected by damaged or underperforming modules per year,
and hookup delays, approximately 85%of all systems each year produced 90%or more of the electricity predicted,
and the typical system produces more electricity than predicted. Year to year comparisons suggest that the degradation ratehe gradual loss of energy productions in the historical range of 0. 5%%per year.
Consistent manufacturing The second leg of the stool in the push for assuring reliability is managing manufacturing quality.
and the electrical components needed to connect them to the grids performing as promised. Even if the modules are perfect,
"That's the equivalent of 10 nuclear plants or 10 coal fired power plants.""Assuring solar modules will last for decades The International PV Quality assurance Task force is developing a comprehensive set of standards that includes:
He noted that his bank faced decisions on advancing huge sums of money to two solar projects that had eleventh-hour problems with solar panel reliability.
and adjust the revenue projections based on the likelihood of lower overall energy output. But along the way
#Physicists tune Large hadron collider to find'sweet spot'in high-energy proton smasher As protons collide,
and supercharged LHC restarts at almost twice the energy and higher intensity than it was operating at previously,
They designed a pixel that can not only measure incident light but also convert the incident light into electric power.
although digital cameras and solar panels have different purposes-one measures light while the other converts light to power-both are constructed from essentially the same components.
The same photodiode is used also in solar panels to convert incident light to electric power. The photodiode in a camera pixel is used in the photoconductive mode
while in a solar cell it is used in the photovoltaic model. Nayar, working with research engineer Daniel Sims BS'14 and consultant Mikhail Fridberg of ADSP Consulting, used off-the-shelf components to fabricate an image sensor with 30x40 pixels.
and then to harvest energy and charge the sensor's power supplyhe image sensor continuously toggles between image capture and power harvesting modes.
When the camera is used not to capture images, it can be used to generate power for other devices,
Nayar notes that the image sensor could use a rechargeable battery and charge it via its harvesting capability:"
and used just a capacitor to store the harvested energy.""""A few different designs for image sensors that can harvest energy have been proposed in the past.
However, our prototype is the first demonstration of a fully self-powered video camera, "he continues."
and demonstrated simple and highly efficient synthesis of (R)- and (S)- rolipram by an eight-step continuous flow reaction using multiple column reactors containing the immobilized catalysts.
In this method excess energy and operational steps are needed and a significant amount of waste is generated.
-and (S)- rolipram without requiring the isolation or purification of intermediates, without excess amount of energy,
Thieves tapped an oil pipeline operated by state-run energy firm Pemex on Sunday, causing a spill that affected local rivers
includes aspects such as energy consumption, materials and social repercussions. It also allows scenarios to be simulated, enabling the effect of global warming on constructions to be identified.
design, orientation and energy consumption. Certain details regarding the technology have been published in the journal Advances in Engineering Software.
"Nowadays there are many IT solutions on the market that are capable of calculating energy consumption, but they don't take into account key construction
"Other possible uses would be for carrying out energy audits and designing scenarios to determine a building's optimal performance curve,
Germany and Canada have built a miniature particle accelerator that uses terahertz radiation instead of radio waves to create pulses of high-energy electrons.
Steep gradients The terahertz accelerator module increased the energy of electrons fired into it by 7 kev.
it is an important first step to obtaining relativistic energy electrons with terahertz waves.""More power needed The main barrier to faster accelerating gradients is the power of terahertz pulses that can be generated."
In particular, pulses that deliver around 20 mj of terahertz energy would be needed. In contrast, their prototype accelerator gets by on 10 J. More powerful sources are available,
and recently researchers in Switzerland and Russia have generated terahertz pulses with almost 1 mj of energy.
if Alice sets up a detector to measure the energy of the incoming photons, which sounds an alarm
if the energy is too great. To get around this measure, the team shone an infrared laser at Alice's photodetector for up to 30 s after disconnecting the fibre channel,
and create an enterprise tech powerhouse. The acquisition will help privately held Dell diversify away from a stagnant personal-computer market
and EMC creates an enterprise solutions powerhouse,""said Michael Dell, who will lead the combined company as chairman and chief executive.
Superfluids are thought to flow endlessly, without losing energy, similar to electrons in a superconductor. Observing the behavior of superfluids
and develop energy-efficient methods for transporting electricity. But superfluids are temperamental, and can disappear in a flash
the researchers unveil how one of a battery of chemical warfare agents used by the immune system to fight off infection can itself create DNA mutations that lead to cancer.
#Aluminum olk-and-Shellnanoparticle Boosts Capacity and Power of Lithium-ion Batteries One big problem faced by electrodes in rechargeable batteries,
degrading the battery performance over time. Now a team of researchers at MIT and Tsinghua University in China has found a novel way around that problem:
and provide a dramatic boost in the battery capacity and power. The new findings, which use aluminum as the key material for the lithium-ion battery negative electrode,
or anode, are reported in the journal Nature Communications, in a paper by MIT professor Ju Li and six others.
Most present lithium-ion batteries the most widely used form of rechargeable batteries use anodes made of graphite, a form of carbon.
Lithium metal, for example, can store about 10 times as much energy per gram, but is extremely dangerous,
Also, the liquid electrolyte in contact with aluminum will always decompose at the required charge/discharge voltages,
forming a skin called solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer, which would be ok if not for the repeated large volume expansion and shrinkage that cause SEI particles to shed.
As a result, previous attempts to develop an aluminum electrode for lithium-ion batteries had failed.
hat separates the aluminum from the liquid electrolytebetween the battery two electrodes. The shell does not expand
and the aluminum inside is protected from direct contact with the electrolyte. The team didn originally plan it that way,
says Li, the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor in Nuclear Science and Engineering, who has a joint appointment in MIT Department of Materials science and engineering. e came up with the method serendipitously,
For applications that require a high power-and energy density battery, he says, t probably the best anode material available.
There is much work in the battery field that uses omplicated synthesis with sophisticated facilities, Lou adds,
but such systems re unlikely to have impact for real batteries. Simple things make real impact in the battery field.
The research team included Sa Li, Yu Cheng Zhao, and Chang An Wang of Tsinghua University in Beijing and Junjie Niu,
This research outcome potentially allows for great flexibility in the design and optimization of electronic and optoelectronic devices like solar panels and telecommunication lasers.
All these properties combined make it a tremendous conductor of heat and electricity. A defectree layer is also impermeable to all atoms and molecules.
because a jump between two tightly-packed stones requires less energy. A band gap is much the same;
#Solid electrolyte Paves the Way for Rechargeable batteries with Almost Indefinite Lifetimes Engineers from MIT and Samsung have developed an approach for a solid electrolyte that could greatly improve both battery lifetime and safety,
while providing a significant boost in the amount of power stored in a given space.
or an electric car youl find that batteries take up most of the space inside. Indeed, the recent evolution of batteries has made it possible to pack ample power in small places.
But people still always want their devices to last even longer or go further on a charge,
so researchers work night and day to boost the power a given size battery can hold. Rare, but widely publicized, incidents of overheating or combustion in lithium-ion batteries have highlighted also the importance of safety in battery technology.
Now researchers at MIT and Samsung, and in California and Maryland, have developed a new approach to one of the three basic components of batteries, the electrolyte.
The new findings are based on the idea that a solid electrolyte, rather than the liquid used in today most common rechargeables,
could greatly improve both device lifetime and safety while providing a significant boost in the amount of power stored in a given space.
They describe a new approach to the development of solid-state electrolytes that could simultaneously address the greatest challenges associated with improving lithium-ion batteries,
The electrolyte in such batteries typically a liquid organic solvent whose function is to transport charged particles from one of a battery two electrodes to the other during charging
Others have attempted to find a solid replacement for the liquid electrolyte, but this group is the first to show that this can be done in a formulation that fully meets the needs of battery applications.
Solid-state electrolytes could be real game-changer, Ceder says, creating lmost a perfect battery, solving most of the remaining issuesin battery lifetime, safety, and cost.
Costs have already been coming down steadily, he says. But as for safety, replacing the electrolyte would be the key
Ceder adds: ll of the fires youe seen, with Boeing, Tesla, and others, they are all electrolyte fires.
The lithium itself is not flammable in the state it in in these batteries. With a solid electrolyte there no safety problem you could throw it against the wall,
drive a nail through it there nothing there to burn. he proposed solid electrolyte also holds other advantages,
he says: ith a solid-state electrolyte, there virtually no degradation reactions leftmeaning such batteries could last through undreds of thousands of cycles. he key to making this feasible,
Ceder says, was finding solid materials that could conduct ions fast enough to be useful in a battery. here was a view that solids cannot conduct fast enough,
he says. hat paradigm has been overthrown. he research team was able to analyze the factors that make for efficient ion conduction in solids,
and home in on compounds that showed the right characteristics. The initial findings focused on a class of materials known as superionic lithium-ion conductors
which are compounds of lithium, germanium, phosphorus, and sulfur, but the principles derived from this research could lead to even more effective materials,
the team says. The research that led to a workable solid-state electrolyte was part of an ongoing partnership with the Korean electronics company Samsung, through the Samsung Advanced Institute of technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Ceder says. That alliance also has led to important advances in the use of quantum dot materials to create highly efficient solar cells and sodium batteries,
he adds. This solid-state electrolyte has unexpected other side benefits: While conventional lithium-ion batteries do not perform well in extreme cold,
and need to be preheated at temperatures below roughly minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit, the solid electrolyte versions can still function at those frigid temperatures,
Ceder says. The solid-state electrolyte also allows for greater power density the amount of power that can be stored in a given amount of space.
Such batteries provide a 20 to 30 percent improvement in power density with a corresponding increase in how long a battery of a given size could power a phone, a computer,
or a car. The team also included MIT graduate student William Richards and postdoc Jae Chul Kim;
Shyue Ping Ong at the University of California at San diego; Yifei Mo at the University of Maryland;
and the Samsung Advanced Institute of technology focusing on the development of materials for clean energy. Publication: Yan Wang, et al.
Like a pair of whirling skaters, the black-hole duo generates tremendous amounts of energy that makes the core of the host galaxy outshine the glow of its population of billions of stars
the residual energyuantum noiseemained. his energy is part of the quantum description of natureou just can get it out,
Yu Horie was supported by the Department of energy Energy Frontier Research center program and a Japan Student Services Organization fellowship.
The other co-lead authors of the research are Bo Zhen of MIT and Yuichi Igarashi of Smart energy Research Laboratories, in Japan
The researchers calculated how the atomsinherent energies force hexagons to take on or lose atoms to neighboring rings,
director of Berkeley Lab Materials sciences Division and a world authority on metamaterials artificial nanostructures engineered with electromagnetic properties not found in nature. ur ultra-thin cloak now looks like a coat.
and is a member of the Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute at Berkeley (Kavli ENSI), is the corresponding author of a paper describing this research in Science.
The rules that govern these interactions in natural materials can be circumvented in metamaterials whose optical properties arise from their physical structure rather than their chemical composition.
For the past ten years, Zhang and his research group have been pushing the boundaries of how light interacts with metamaterials,
In the past, their metamaterial-based optical carpet cloaks were bulky and hard to scale up and entailed a phase difference between the cloaked region
and metamaterials offers tantalizing future prospects for technologies such as high resolution optical microscopes and superfast optical computers.
director of Berkeley Lab Materials sciences Division and a world authority on metamaterials artificial nanostructures engineered with electromagnetic properties not found in nature. ur ultra-thin cloak now looks like a coat.
and is a member of the Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute at Berkeley (Kavli ENSI), is the corresponding author of a paper describing this research in Science.
The rules that govern these interactions in natural materials can be circumvented in metamaterials whose optical properties arise from their physical structure rather than their chemical composition.
For the past ten years, Zhang and his research group have been pushing the boundaries of how light interacts with metamaterials,
In the past, their metamaterial-based optical carpet cloaks were bulky and hard to scale up and entailed a phase difference between the cloaked region
and metamaterials offers tantalizing future prospects for technologies such as high resolution optical microscopes and superfast optical computers.
thanks to the electron beam energy being kept below the radiation damage threshold of tungsten. Miao and his team showed that the atoms in the tip of the tungsten sample were arranged in nine layers, the sixth
This work was supported primarily by the U s. Department of energy Office of Basic energy Sciences (grant DE-FG02-13er46943 and contract DE-AC025CH11231
#Nanoscientists Improve the Stability of Perovskite Solar cells UCLA researchers have taken a step towards next-generation perovskite solar cells by using a metal oxide andwich.
The new design extends the cell effective life in air by more than 10 times, with only a marginal loss of efficiency converting sunlight to electricity.
UCLA professor Yang Yang, member of the California Nanosystems Institute, is renowned a world innovator of solar cell technology
whose team in recent years has developed next-generation solar cells constructed of perovskite, which has remarkable efficiency converting sunlight to electricity.
Despite this success the delicate nature of perovskite a very light, flexible, organic-inorganic hybrid material stalled further development toward its commercialized use.
This is a significant advance toward stabilizing perovskite solar cells. Their new cell construction extends the cell effective life in air by more than 10 times
with only a marginal loss of efficiency converting sunlight to electricity. The study was published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Postdoctoral scholar Jingbi You and graduate student Lei Meng from the Yang Lab were the lead authors on the paper. here has been much optimism about perovskite solar cell technology,
In less than two years, the Yang team has advanced perovskite solar cell efficiency from less than 1 percent to close to 20 percent. ut its short lifespan was a limiting factor we have been trying to improve on since developing perovskite cells with high efficiency.
Endowed Chair in Engineering at UCLA, said there are several factors that lead to quick deterioration in normally layered perovskite solar cells.
because electricity generated by the cell is extracted through them. Meng said that in this study the team replaced those organic layers with metal oxide layers that sandwich the perovskite layer,
The next step for the Yang team is to make the metal oxide layers more condensed for better efficiency and seal the solar cell for even longer life with no loss of efficiency.
#Researchers Use a Small Electric charge to Control the Bubbles of Boiling Water For the first time, scientists from MIT have found a way to control the boiling process.
The system could improve the efficiency of electric power generation and other processes. Boiling water, with its commotion of bubbles that rise from a surface as water comes to a boil,
is central to most electric power plants, heating and cooling systems, and desalination plants. Now, for the first time, researchers at MIT have found a way to control this process, literally with the flick of an electrical switch.
which could improve the efficiency of electric power generation and other processes, is described in a paper by Department of Mechanical engineering Professor Evelyn Wang, graduate student Jeremy Cho,
That could make it possible to make more efficient boilers for powerplants or other applications, since present designs require a substantial safety margin to avoid the possibility of hot spots that could seriously damage the equipment.
While most such power plants operate at a steady rate most of the time being able to control the heat transfer rates dynamically could improve their efficiency
he says. aving a boiler that can respond to quick changescould provide extra flexibility to the electric grid,
Power plant operators are rightly conservative about making changes, Cho says, since people depend on their output,
Oregon-based writer specializing in technology and energy. Follow@smartccouncil on Twitter. Related articlesercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion Research Vehicle World premiere (video) Mercedes-benz rolling out a lineup of city-friendly hybrid EVS c
#6 new signs the world is getting smarter about energy There no doubt that the energy world is changing fast.
It wasn long ago that the electrical grid was one-way delivering power to homes and businesses, not receiving power from them.
Today, the electrical grid is two-way. And renewable energy, which is subject to more fluctuations than more traditional sources,
and utilities to look at energy in new ways. Here are six new projects in communities that are getting smarter about energy.
Managing unprecedented network load Within the next decade the United kingdom is forecast to have more than 10 million homes with solar panels and more than 6 million with electric vehicles,
making the country energy network increasingly difficult to manage. Council Lead Partner Schneider Electric is participating in a trial project that will help with changing energy network patterns
while boosting local capacity. The project involves installing high-performance power electronic converters at individual homes and offices.
By doing this, utilities can increase the voltage sent over local networks to give customers more flexibility.
All the data in one placesmart meters and growing grids create a lot of data. Schneider Electric is also helping Spain Iberdrola keep better track of 11 million smart meters and advanced monitoring devices.
Through the project, the utility gains a single platform to remotely manage and analyze data from the meters.
Customers also get more timely information about their energy usage, which helps them conserve and better manage their utility bills.
and streamlining its management systems in a project with Council Lead Partner Alstom Grid. The project aims to improve reliability
while making the grid easier to manage. Once the upgrade is complete management staff will have only one main system to learn.
and an updated energy management system. All three are made by Alstom and will give the utility a single,
integrated platform to monitor and operate its electric grid. By having a single interface that consistent across transmission and distribution control rooms,
the utility expects to reduce operational costs by simplifying controls and enhancing situational awareness. Modernizing Latin america largest gridthe Brazilian utility Eletrobras--the largest power utility in Latin america--is working with Council Lead Partner Itron to modernize its grid.
It using Itron Openway Riva to combine two different communications technologies on the same network. Itron adaptive technology automatically routes data over the best communications system--radio frequency or power line carrier--at the time for the data and the requirements of the application.
This effort will improve outage detection, transformer load management, and allow for smart and remote metering,
remote disconnect and provide other efficiencies. Giving renewable energy generation a boostenel, a Council Lead Partner, is making a big investment to boost the amount of energy generated from renewable sources in emerging markets,
including Chile, Mexico and Brazil. It investing $9. 9 billion to add 7. 1 GW of new capacity,
coming close to doubling the amount of energy it currently generating. Enel says those three countries are set to be renewable energy hotspots
and its efforts not only provide more power, but also help them achieve their renewable energy goals. The new capacity will go online this decade.
Enel also has its sights set on South africa where more than 6 GW of renewable energy capacity will eventually be auctioned.
the transmission operator can balance different energy sources to maintain consistent power.#####Kevin Ebi is a staff writer and social media coordinator for the Council.
Get the Smart cities Readiness Guide Ready to upgrade your electrical grid? Get your free copy of the Smart cities Readiness Guide,
and best practices for reducing energy operating costs, reducing reliance on nonrenewable energy sources, lowering costs for citizens and improving reliability and resilience.
Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity without resistance and without dissipating energy. In ordinary materials, electrons repel each other,
but in superconductors the electrons form pairs known as Cooper pairs, which together flow through the material without resistance.
That energy gap is equal to the amount of energy needed to break Cooper pairs. The researchers who demonstrated last year the role phonons played in the superconductivity of graphite and calcium, Patrick Kirchmann and Shuolong Yang of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
#Graphene and Perovskite Lead to Inexpensive and Highly Efficient Solar cells Perovskite is the new buzzword in photovoltaics.
including photovoltaics. Now researchers at Hong kong Polytechnic University have combined these two materials to make a semitransparent solar cell capable of power conversion efficiencies around 12 percent, a significant improvement over the roughly 7-percent efficiency of traditional
semitransparent solar cells. The semitransparent design of these solar cells means that they can absorb light from both sides
and could allow them to be used as windows that serve the dual function of letting light into a building
and generating electricity. In the design of the Hong kong researcherssolar cell, the perovskite serves as active layer for harvesting the light,
and the graphene acts as the transparent electrode material. Graphene has long been pursued as a potential replacement for indium tin oxide (ITO) as a transparent electrode material for displays.
The researchers were able to improve the energy conversion capability of the solar cells by employing a multi-layer chemical vapor deposition process in
They claim that their solar cells cost less than US$. 06/watt, which they reckon is more than a 50 percent reduction in the costs of silicon solar cells.
They believe that the whole process is ripe for scaling up because the mechanical flexibility of the graphene enables the possibility of roll-to-roll processing o
#Graphene and Perovskite Lead to Inexpensive and Highly Efficient Solar cells Perovskite is the new buzzword in photovoltaics.
including photovoltaics. Now researchers at Hong kong Polytechnic University have combined these two materials to make a semitransparent solar cell capable of power conversion efficiencies around 12 percent, a significant improvement over the roughly 7-percent efficiency of traditional
semitransparent solar cells. The semitransparent design of these solar cells means that they can absorb light from both sides
and could allow them to be used as windows that serve the dual function of letting light into a building
and generating electricity. In the design of the Hong kong researcherssolar cell, the perovskite serves as active layer for harvesting the light,
and the graphene acts as the transparent electrode material. Graphene has long been pursued as a potential replacement for indium tin oxide (ITO) as a transparent electrode material for displays.
The researchers were able to improve the energy conversion capability of the solar cells by employing a multi-layer chemical vapor deposition process in
They claim that their solar cells cost less than US$. 06/watt, which they reckon is more than a 50 percent reduction in the costs of silicon solar cells.
They believe that the whole process is ripe for scaling up because the mechanical flexibility of the graphene enables the possibility of roll-to-roll processing i
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