Energy

On July 15th, the world’s first SolarKiosk was officially opened near Lake Langano, Ethiopia. The portable solar shop was designed in Germany by Graft architects and provides an “autonomous business unit” that sells energy, products, tools and services. With approximately 1.5 billion people around the globe who remain without access to a stable source of light, the SolarKiosk is intended to provide a safe and affordable solution for inhabitants in off-the-grid areas.  Read More

The problem with depending on one source of power in the drive toward the battery-free operation of small biomedical devices, remote sensors and out-of-the-way gauges is that if the source is intermittent, not strong enough or runs out altogether, the device can stop working. A small MIT research team has developed a low-power chip design capable of simultaneously drawing power from photovoltaic, thermoelectric, and piezoelectric energy sources. The design also features novel dual-path architecture that allows it to run from either onboard energy storage or direct from its multiple power sources.  Read More

As manufacturers of smartphones and mobile devices strive to make their products increasingly portable, they repeatedly come up against the constraints of existing battery technology. However, Xiaodong Li, a professor at the University of South Carolina (USC) believes that we will soon be able to employ the clothes we wear to help overcome such challenges and to this end, Li has transformed T-shirt material into an energy storage medium which could one day be used to power portable devices.  Read More

Storing solar energy for the periods of time when the sun isn’t shining is key to improving solar technology. The energy produced can be stored in batteries or used to produce fuel that can act as storage. Solar fuel processes are generally modeled on photosynthesis, the natural process whereby plants convert sunlight into chemical energy in the form of biomass and release oxygen into the atmosphere. Current options are expensive, but a group or researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison claim they have found a faster, cheaper method to find electrocatalysts that improve the water oxidation process in the search for solar energy storage.  Read More

While there are plenty of ways to make carbon-based products from CO₂, these methods usually require a lot of energy because the CO₂ molecules are so stable. If the energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels, then the net result will be more CO₂ entering the atmosphere. Now a material scientist at Michigan Technological University has discovered a chemical reaction that not only soaks up CO₂, but also produces useful chemicals along with significant amounts of energy.  Read More

Honda has unveiled a demonstration house in Saitama, Japan, to showcase and test its new Honda Smart Home System (HSHS). Featuring a line-up of innovative energy production, management and conservation solutions, the company hopes HSHS will free homeowners from the constraints of on-grid living somewhat, give them a leg up on self-sufficiency when disaster strikes and help reduce carbon dioxide emissions both at home and on the road by networking electric vehicles into the mix.  Read More

We're used to seeing solar arrays in desert locations, but this initiative is looking to a new frontier for solar energy - the rooftops of Los Angeles. The recent approval of a Feed-in-Tarriff (FiT) rooftop solar program known as CLEAN LA Solar by the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power opens up over 12,000 acres of potential rooftop space for solar development.  Read More

While solar power harnesses energy produced by the Sun, fusion power seeks to harness the very process used by the Sun to generate a practically limitless supply of clean electricity. Despite decades of research and numerous breakthroughs, “net-gain” nuclear fusion is yet to appear. One of the hurdles is the so-called density, or Greenwald, limit that sees the plasmas within experimental fusion reactors (called tokamaks) spiraling apart and disrupting the fusion process. Now scientists have come up with a new theory as to why this occurs that, if proven, could provide a way to clear the density limit hurdle.  Read More

In the beginning, there was the thermonuclear bomb - mankind had harnessed the energy of the Sun. Confident predictions abounded that fusion reactors would be providing power "too cheap to meter" within ten years. Sixty years later many observers are beginning to wonder if billions of dollars of effort has been lost in digging out dry wells. Now a new simulation study carried out at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, suggests that magnetized inertial fusion (MIF) experiments could be retrofitted to existing pulsed-power facilities to obtain fusion break-even.  Read More