Tag: energy
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System Being Tested to Move Old E-Car Battery Power to Grid
Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, General Motors, and ABB Group in Cary, North Carolina are testing an operational platform to harness the electricity in spent electric vehicle batteries for the power grid. The project is funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, although the amount of the funding…
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Non-Battery Power Supply for Aircraft Sensors Flight Tested
Engineers from Vienna University of Technology in Austria and the commercial aircraft manufacturer EADS are collaborating on a new type of power supply for sensors to monitor a fuselage’s structural integrity. The team reports the first successful flight tests of the devices on an Airbus aircraft. These energy harvesting modules, as they’re called, are the…
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Gallium Arsenide Nanowires Boost Solar Cell Efficiency
University and industrial researchers in Switzerland and Denmark developed a new type of solar cell that in lab tests captures more light and generates more power than traditional silicon cells. The team from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland, Neils Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen, and the Danish spin-off company SunFlake A/S…
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Enzyme Cocktail Generates High Volume Hydrogen from Biomass
Bioengineers at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, with colleagues from elsewhere in the U.S. and Mexico, developed a process to inexpensively extract large volumes of hydrogen fuel from any type of plant matter. The team led by biological systems engineering professor Y.H. Percival Zhang, published its findings online in a recent issue of the journal Angewandte…
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Study: Solar Panel Industry Now a Net Energy Producer
The global photovoltaic industry has reached a point where solar panels are now likely generating more energy than needed to produce the panels, concludes a new study by Stanford University’s Global Climate and Energy Project. The findings of postdoctoral fellow Michael Dale and project director Sally Benson appear in the 2 April issue of the…
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Material Developed to Reflect Sun’s Heat, Cool Buildings
Engineers at Stanford University in California developed a new type of cooling material based on nanotechnology that radiates sunlight back into space. The team led by Stanford engineering professor Shanhui Fan published its findings earlier this month in the journal Nano Letters (paid subscription required). Fan, with doctoral candidates Eden Rephaeli and Aaswath Raman, engineered…
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Graphene/Vanadium Oxide Ribbons Boost Battery Storage
Ultra-thin ribbons made of vanadium oxide coated with graphene can provide a superior material for lithium-ion battery cathodes, according to new research at Rice University in Houston. The team led by Rice materials scientist P. M. Ajayan published its findings online in a recent issue of the journal Nano Letters (paid subscription required). Graphene is…
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NSF Funding Organic Crystals Research for Electronics
A physics professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina received a $400,000 National Science Foundation grant for research on the physical structure and electronic properties of organic semiconductor crystals. The five-year award to Wake Forest’s Oana Jurchescu was made under NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program. Organic semiconductors are hydrocarbon substances like…
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ARPA-E to Fund Vehicle Metals, Bio Gas Conversion Research
The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) in the U.S. Department of Energy is making $40 million available for two new research programs involving transportation. Half of the $40 million will go for research to make lighter metals in cars and trucks more feasible, while the remaining $20 million will support biological conversion of…
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Tests Show Many Laser Pointers Giving Off Excessive Power
In tests by researchers at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland, many laser pointers on the market, including most pointers with a green beam, emitted more power than allowed by federal regulations. The team led by Joshua Hadler, NIST’s laser safety officer, reported on the tests today at the International Laser…