#Artificial'plants'could fuel the future Imagine creating artificial plants that make gasoline and natural gas using only sunlight.
And imagine using those fuels to heat our homes or run our cars without adding any greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
By combining nanoscience and biology, researchers led by scientists at University of California, Berkeley, have taken a big step in that direction.
Peidong Yang, a professor of chemistry at Berkeley and co-director of the school's Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute, leads a team that has created an artificial leaf that produces methane, the primary component of natural gas
that yielded butanol, a component in gasoline, and a variety of biochemical building blocks. The research is a major advance toward synthetic photosynthesis,
however, synthetic photosynthesis seeks to produce liquid fuels that can be stored for months or years and distributed through existing energy infrastructure.
"Burning fossil fuels is putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than natural photosynthesis can take it out.
#Artificial'plants'could fuel the future The developer of a new technology that turns sunlight into liquid fuel,
Imagine creating artificial plants that make gasoline and natural gas using only sunlight. And imagine using those fuels to heat our homes
or run our cars without adding any greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. By combining nanoscience and biology, researchers led by scientists at University of California,
Berkeley, have taken a big step in that direction. Peidong Yang a professor of chemistry at Berkeley and co-director of the school's Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute, leads a team that has created an artificial leaf that produces methane,
the primary component of natural gas, using a combination of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria. The research, detailed in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in August, builds on a similar hybrid system, also recently devised by Yang and his colleagues,
that yielded butanol, a component in gasoline, and a variety of biochemical building blocks. The research is a major advance toward synthetic photosynthesis
however, synthetic photosynthesis seeks to produce liquid fuels that can be stored for months or years and distributed through existing energy infrastructure.
"Burning fossil fuels is putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than natural photosynthesis can take it out.
It is believed this new process will have significant environmental benefits by improving the yield of biodiesel in a sustainable way that doesn't require the use of additional fossil fuels
By 2020, the EU aims to have 10 per cent of the transport fuel of every EU country come from renewable sources such as biofuels.
Fuel suppliers are required also to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the EU fuel mix by 6 per cent by 2020 in comparison to 2010.
which is derived usually from fossil fuels. A waste product from this process is crude glycerol which is formed on a large scale
"Biodiesel manufacture is a growing part of the EU fuel pool, with statutory amounts being required to be added to diesel that is derived from fossil fuels."
"We've provided unprecedented chemistry that highlights the potential to manufacture biodiesel in a much more environmentally friendly,
and seriously improve the quality of life by reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels and encourage efficient use of resources."
'First anti-fraud system to use existing credit card readers From large-scale data breaches such as the 2013 Target case to local schemes that use skimming devices to steal data at the gas pump,
#Energy-efficient reaction drives biofuel conversion technology A new study from the Department of energy's Oak ridge National Laboratory explains the mechanism behind a technology that converts bio-based ethanol into hydrocarbon blend
-stocks for use as fossil fuel alternatives. Scientists have experimented for decades with a class of catalysts known as zeolites that transform alcohols such as ethanol into higher-grade hydrocarbons.
As ORNL researchers were developing a new type of zeolite-based conversion technology, they found the underlying reaction unfolds in a different manner than previously thought."
"For 40 years, everyone thought that these reactions must go first from ethanol to ethylene,
"It has been assumed that you must go from ethanol to ethylene, which is endothermic and requires energy.
"Our method of direct conversion of ethanol offers a pathway to produce suitable hydrocarbon blend-stock that may be blended at a refinery to yield fuels such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel or commodity chemicals,
With a few key changes, the researchers used a noninvasive ultrasonic technique originally developed to detect microscopic flaws in solid fuel rockets, such as space shuttle boosters,
#Saltwater lamp could replace dangerous kerosene lights The majority of inhabitants on the Philippines7000 islands do not have access to electricity.
Instead, they rely primarily on kerosene powered lamps to provide light sources at night, which are not only hazards and pollutants,
SALT IS the latest of a number of devices which could help lessen the reliance on kerosene power in disconnected regions.
in order to reduce fuel consumption. For most car designers this principally means body parts but the powertrain system,
and resistant to oil, gasoline and glycol in the cooling water. It must also demonstrate good adherence to the metal inserts
including biodegradable plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and even liquid fuels. Scientists with the U s. Department of energy (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have created a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that mimics
and oil industry in that we can produce chemicals and fuels in a totally renewable way, rather than extracting them from deep below the ground.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at its highest level in at least three million years, primarily as a result of the burning of fossil fuels.
Yet fossil fuels, especially coal, will remain a significant source of energy to meet human needs for the foreseeable future.
a fuel comparable to gasoline, 25-percent for amorphadiene, a precursor to the antimaleria drug artemisinin,
plastics and fuel products. he basic idea is that we want to accelerate evolution to make awesome amounts of valuable chemicals,
#afepay First anti-fraud system to use existing credit card readers From large-scale data breaches such as the 2013 Target case to local schemes that use skimming devices to steal data at the gas pump,
Finding new and more efficient solutions to energy harvesting, nanoporous membranes for water desalinization, solar thermal fuels and more.
Smith said that most of the revenue from sales of Madidrop initially will be fed back into the company to fuel production expansion.
Most atmospheric carbon dioxide is produced from fossil fuel combustion, a waste known as flue gas. But converting the carbon dioxide into a harmless compound requires a durable
"At speeds above about 5 miles per hour, the Model S gracefully shuts off its engineust like shifting a gasoline car into neutralhile still providing the driver full control over steering
or running air conditioning could be assisted by energy from fuel normally wasted as heat emissions One of the less well-known properties of graphene could enable the carbonaceous wonder-material to help combustion engine vehicles to make better use of the energy from their fuel by converting waste heat into electricity
Thermoelectric graphene composite, with graphene fragments ringed in the 2 m-scale image Internal combustion engines lose about 70 per cent of the energy from their fuel as heat,
which could improve the fuel economy of vehicles o
#Tilted nanomagnets open door for advances in computing The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
where fouling can create drag leading to increased fuel consumption n
#Electric compressor could double output of hydrogen fuel cells Fuel cells require a constant source of oxygen to sustain the chemical reaction that they use to release positively charged hydrogen ions.
Supplying the hydrogen at high pressure is not generally a problem, but the flow of air can be a limiting factor. ur proprietary high speed motor
harvesting the hydrogen to be used as clean fuel. Sun-capturing electrodes are designed to absorb as much of the solar spectrum as possible to maximise efficiency.
with the hydrogen siphoned off to be used as fuel. The researchers hope that their work on the new electrode may act as a building block for other scientists working in the same area. ur study will encourage researchers in the field to develop ways to improve multiple processes using a single treatment,
but will cut fuel usage and emissions as well. lot of emissions and fuel usage are caused by acceleration,
and our system will allow the cars to make a much more constant speed, he says,
such as those transporting people between hospitals, cutting NHS fuel costs and improving patient care. So far, 20 traffic lights are using the system in Newcastle city centre.
But the fossil fuel industry is far from abandoning its own interest in British waters as the energy giant BP has announced that it is to invest about £670m to extend the life of its North sea assets.
Last year, the Convention executive secretary, Christiana Figueres, said the world long-term goal was to reduce greenhouse gases to zero by 2100#a target she said would require leaving three-quarters of fossil fuels in the ground. e just can afford to burn them she said a
The company raised $5. 8 million back in October 2014 in order to fuel production c
#EU annual scorecard paints bleak picture of innovation efforts across Europe Whatever Europe plans to do to reboot its innovation economy,
In the same way that gas must be in the fuel tank in order to power the car's engine proteins need to be in a specific compartment to properly exercise their functions.
Androgens the male hormones that fuel prostate cancer increase the copper accumulation in the cancer cells.
#Unique catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells synthesized in ordinary kitchen microwave oven Swedish and Chinese researchers show how a unique nano-alloy composed of palladium nano-islands embedded in tungsten nanoparticles creates a new type of catalysts for highly efficient oxygen reduction the most important reaction in hydrogen fuel cells.
Their results are published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The world's rapidly growing demand for energy and the requirement of sustainable energy production calls for an urgent change in today's fossil fuel based energy system.
Research groups worldwide work intensively to develop novel advanced energy conversion and storage systems with high efficiency low cost and environmental compatibility.
Traditional fuel cells are limited however by the need of efficient catalysts to drive the chemical reactions involved in the fuel cell.
The anchoring keep the nanoparticles stable over long time by hindering them from fusing together in the fuel cell tests.
which is on par with the time needed to pump petrol for current cars added Prof Chen.
The liquid layer on the surface provides a barrier to everything from ice to crude oil and blood.
These grassland fields can also produce ample biomass for renewable fuels. Monica Turner UW-Madison professor of zoology and study lead author Peter Blank a postdoctoral researcher in her lab hope the findings help drive decisions that benefit both birds
and create biochar a highly porous charcoal said project principal investigator Karl Linden professor of environmental engineering.
Additionally the biochar can be burned as charcoal and provides energy comparable to that of commercial charcoal.
Linden is working closely with project co-investigators Professor R. Scott Summers of environmental engineering and Professor Alan Weimer chemical and biological engineering and a team of postdoctoral fellows professionals graduate students undergraduates
and human activities, such as leakage from natural gas systems and the raising of livestock.""Human activities such as agriculture, fossil fuel combustion, wastewater management and industrial processes are increasing the amount of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere.
The warming impact of methane and nitrous oxide is more than 20 and 300 times, respectively, greater compared to the most prevalent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide over a 100-year period.
and their bases are immersed in a solution of deionized water, ethanol, and a dissolved polymer.
the water-ethanol mixture streams upward, dragging chains of polymer with it. The water and ethanol quickly dissolve, leaving a tangle of polymer filaments opposite each emitter, on the electrode.
The researchers were able to pack 225 emitters, several millimeters long, on a square chip about 35 millimeters on a side.
and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carcinogenic compounds formed from incomplete combustion of fuels, from contaminated soil. The process is irreversible
greener way of getting natural gas out of the ground through hydraulic fracturing.##The investment falls under GE's Ecoimagination program, a cross-company business initiative that has used already $12 billion
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.#
and groundwater contamination have escalated with the advent of the natural gas boom in the U s. The huge amount of water used in fracking has become a particularly touchy subject in drought-ridden areas where some 55 percent of the wells fracked
but both companies are interested also in creating a cost-competitive product that is a better economic alternative than the petroleum-based isoprene,
the world's largest crude oil exporter, is launching an ambitious multi-billion-dollar plan aimed at creating an industry around its other abundant resource,
Half of that power will be generated using hydrocarbon fuel. With demand for electricity and fresh water increasing, Saudi arabia is seeking out other sources of power including solar, geothermal, wind and nuclear.
#Leaked EU documents rank biofuel emissions higher than crude oil European union politics website Euractive has gotten its hands on official EU data reporting that many biofuel crops release more carbon dioxide than crude oil,
And with ILUC added to the mix, it looks like some top biofuel crops are worse for the environment, in terms of carbon emissions, than crude oil.
The EU's default value for measuring carbon efficiency for oil from tar sands is 107g CO2 equivalent per megajoule of fuel (CO2/mj.
Meanwhile, crude oil's efficiency value is 87. 5g CO2/mj. Here are the data (g CO2/mj) from the EU documents,
Palm oil-105g Soybean-103g Rapeseed-95g Sunflower-86g Palm oil with methane capture-83g Wheat (process fuel not specified)- 64g Wheat (as process fuel natural gas used in CHP)- 47g
Corn (Maize)- 43g Sugar cane-36g Sugar beet-34g Wheat (straw as process fuel in CHP plants)- 35g 2g Ethanol (land-using)- 32g 2g Biodiesel (land-using)- 21g 2g Ethanol
or to govern the processing of crude oil in a refinery. Haidar group is one of a number of academic and corporate teams vying to create a closed-loop system for an artificial pancreas. ach patient is represented by a set of differential equations,
and petroleum-based plastic substrates that are used in electronicsnd are not biodgradablehe substrate for Ma
Although several options to store hydrogen as a fuel for cars have been investigated, a practical and affordable way to store
they simply extract hydrogen from diesel fuel on the go. The research group,"Fuel cell Based Power Generation (FCGEN),
The extraction of the hydrogen from the diesel fuel happens through autothermal reforming, a catalytic reaction in
which the diesel fuel is decomposed into hydrogen, steam, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. The CO is converted then to CO2
It didn escape their notice that the extraction of hydrogen from the diesel fuel releases CO2 directly into the atmosphere. ctually all carbon in the diesel is converted to CO2,
fuel consumption is 80 percent lower, and consequently, the produced amount of CO2 is decreased by 80 percent,
the investigators could boost upconversion up to a thousandfold by coating the nanocrystals with anthracene, a component of coal tar.
The Fueloyal Is A Smart Fuel Cap For Truckers Breaker breaker 10-4 good buddy.
This robotic fuel cap essentially keeps track of the fuel poured into your vehicle independently of the truck itself
and lets fleet owners ensure they no one is stealing the fuel poured into their 18-wheelers.
and fuel prices going up it important to control costs, said Hristov. The product is being built now
and prevents siphoning. ompany owners can install it on the fuel tank in less than a minute.
since the 2007 legislation targeting ethanol; and in May 2014, Congress blocked yet another energy-efficiency bill that could positively impact the environment,
The round was led by new investor Khosla Ventures with additional funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Fuel Capital, SV Angel and other unnamed investors.
A Quick History lesson The steam-powered Spinning jenny, followed by the petroleum-powered version, led the first Industrial revolution.
#Cheaper Sensors Will Fuel The Age Of Smart Everything For better or worse, we are about the enter the age of smart everything.
the tiny devices that fuel the Internet of things are getting smaller and cheaper all the time. As they do,
but gas and other fossil fuels have eclipsed it as a preferred energy source. The reasons for low adoption of the tech are varied
if our current abundance of crude oil keeps up) but it does hold the promise of a cheap clean and efficient source of energy.
The Devotec Micro Fuel Charger a key ring sized fuel cell cellphone charger added about 20-30 minutes of extra talk time
or to a consumer-centric app like Unmooch to split the cost of fuel with friends.
The app is designed to help drivers determine their actual income taking fuel costs and time spent waiting around into account.
but now with data from Automatic, drivers will have exact numbers on the fuel burning while waiting for another fare.
By making solar power cheaper than diesel fuel in many places, it could help bring clean power to some of the more than one billion people in the world without reliable electricity (see Billion People in the Dark.
a new natural gas plant. The technology originated in the lab of John Rogers, a professor of chemistry and materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois. Semprius has raised $45 million from investors including Siemens,
Such advances might eventually make solar power cheaper than fossil fuels, even without Semprius technology. But silicon-based solar power is not yet there,
Besides a small rise in the price of natural gas and slightly cheaper coal, the weather played the biggest role in in pushing up emissions,
and relatively small changes in fuel prices are enough to counteract the emissions reductions that have resulted from greater solar
and wind power capacity and increased use of cleaner-burning natural gas instead of coal. Compared with 2012,
In addition, the amount of electricity generated using natural gas dropped 10 percent between 2012 and 2013,
The price of natural gas rose from $3. 54 per million BTU in 2012 to $4. 49 in 2013
#Shape-Shifting Carbon Composites Could Save Fuel Airbus and researchers at MIT are developing shape-shifting materials that could make aircraft simpler and lighter potentially saving fuel.
Made of carbon fiber composites the materials shift between two or more shapes in response to changes in heat air pressure or other environmental factors.
#An Industrial-Size Generator That Runs on Waste Heat, Using No Fuel Power plants waste huge amounts of energy as heat about 40 to 80 percent of the total in the fuel they burn.
A new device could reduce that waste cutting fuel consumption and carbon emissions by as much as 3 percent and saving companies millions of dollars.
Matt Scullin the CEO of Alphabet Energy the startup that developed the new device says connecting it to the exhaust pipe of a 1000-kilowatt generator will yield enough electricity to save 52500 liters of diesel fuel a year for a reduction
The generator could save those companies millions in fuel Scullin says. There aren t many levers these companies can pull to reduce costs that much he adds.
Even improved thermoelectric materials however are unlikely to reduce fuel consumption by more than 5 or 10 percent.
#Why Coconuts Could Be the Hydrogen storage Material of the Future Hydrogen is a potential renewable fuel
The hope is that it could also be distributed using the same global network of liquid fuel transport that moves petrol around the planet.
Hydrogen gas has a poor energy density by volume compared to petrol. In fact, there is at least 60 percent more hydrogen in a liter of gasoline then there is in a liter of pure liquid hydrogen.
In other words hydrogen will always require bigger tanks. So finding ways to store more of it is a huge challenge.
Now Viney Dixit and buddies at the Hydrogen energy Center of Banaras Hindu University in India say they have discovered that carbonized coconut flesh is particularly good at this task.
which can be used as a fuel and is stored easily. Michael Graetzel, who directs the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne
and distribution infrastructure already used for natural gas and eventually turned back into electricity via combustion or fuel cells.
Germany isn t the only country investing in hydrogen energy storage. Canada is getting in on the action too with a major demonstration facility planned for Ontario.
and the hydrogen can be used to replace fossil fuels not only in electricity production but also in industry and transportation
When it opens next year it will have the capacity to produce 650000 kilograms of hydrogen a year the energy equivalent of 650000 gallons of gasoline.
Hydrogenics which has supplied electrolyzers for many of the biggest projects in Germany is designing a 40-megawatt system that will produce the equivalent of 4. 3 million gallons of gasoline a year.
Electrolysis remains more expensive than producing hydrogen from natural gas at least in the United states where natural gas is cheap.
That s a reality that businesses must embrace to attract the best employees and leverage their talents to fuel true innovation.
calling into question its lofty goals to use natural gas to help clean up its air and control the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2013 China became the third biggest user of natural gas behind the United states and Russia, consuming 166 billion cubic meters (bcm).
By 2019, the International Energy Agency expects China annual natural gas consumption to grow 90 percent, to 315 bcm.
420 bcm of natural gas annually by 2020, with hydrofracturing, or fracking, being used to get 60 to 80 bcm from shale.
Of the 117 bcm of natural gas that China produced in 2013, only 0. 2 bcm came from shale.
If China is going to meet its goals for using natural gas, it probably will have to rely more on imports.
and storing imported natural gas r
#Turning a Regular Smartphone Camera into a 3-D One Microsoft researchers say simple hardware changes
#Stacking Cells Could Make Solar as Cheap as Natural gas When experts talk about future solar cells they usually bring up exotic materials and physical phenomena.
or fracking, for oil and natural gas production (see atural Gas Changes the Energy Map. The technology may provide a way to deal with the increasing amounts of contaminated water the fossil fuel industry is generating as it pursues more and more difficult-to-reach deposits.
Many oil formations can produce as much as five barrels of contaminated water for every one barrel of oil.
Prakash Govindan, says the initial focus is on the booming petroleum and natural gas industry in the United states and elsewhere. ater issues have been a point of a lot of controversy for the industry,
and make fossil fuels expensive in comparison. High-efficiency solar cells would lower the cost of installation
a strategy he claims will make solar power ay cheaperthan power from fossil fuels. Solar City is one of the country largest and fastest-growing solar installers,
The weight savings could reduce fuel consumption by 10 percent, according to an auto industry consortium. As the company scales up production, one key question will be
and could therefore save trucking companies millions of dollars in fuel every year. The trucks were fitted with technology developed by a startup called Peloton Tech (elotonis The french word for platoon.
Joshua Switkes, CEO of Peloton Tech, says the fuel savings are 4. 5 percent for the front truck and 10 percent for the rear truck.
and streams vehicle data to a smartphone app to help users track their driving, their fuel economy,
or perhaps be better factories for useful molecules like fuels and drugs. Already the researchers have shown that inducing mutation in yeast using the designer sites led to some cells that grow more slowly,
*The Airbus a380 passenger jet has a carbon fibre reinforced plastic fuselage for a lower fuel consumption. The researchers claim the new technology would allow wings to fix themselves in mid-flight,
*The Airbus a380 passenger jet has a carbon fibre reinforced plastic fuselage for a lower fuel consumption. The researchers claim the new technology would allow wings to fix themselves in mid-flight,
or leakage of petroleum pipes going through fields or farms. The devices is developed by the Nagpur-based National Environmental engineering Research Institute (NEERI) of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) of the Department
As for power, the Blade is equipped with a 700-horsepower bi-fuel engine that can use both compressed natural gas or gasoline,
Initial tests reveal that BMARS delivers superior oxides of nitrogen (NOX) reduction on modern turbo-charged gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines compared to OEM catalysts,
rhodium (Rh) is the key PGM used to drive NOX conversion in gasoline three-way catalysts.
The auto industry's reliance on Rh has helped fuel significant price volatility in the past, with prices ranging from $890 to $10, 100 per troy ounce during the past 10 years.
and as OEMS move toward more fuel efficient turbo-charged GDI engines and hybrids. Benchmark testing of BMARS technology was conducted on a model year 2014 Buick vehicle with a 2. 0 liter engine
pyrrole, ferric chloride (Fecl3), ethanol and water--which makes it cheap enough and enables large-scale fabrication,
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011