Renewable Energy

Leaves – the kind that grow on trees – create energy from sunlight and water through the process of photosynthesis. For over a decade, scientists have been kicking around the idea of creating an "artificial leaf." Such a device would use sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, which could then be stored in a fuel cell and used to create electricity. A functioning artificial leaf has been created before, but was impractical due to the fact that it was made from expensive materials, and was highly unstable. Now, however, scientists are reporting that they have created a cost-effective, stable artificial leaf. Read More

Balancing demand for energy with timely production is a juggling act that is particularly relevant to renewable sources such as wind and solar. Because the wind isn't always blowing and the sun isn't always shining, the energy produced by these systems needs to be stored efficiently so it can be used when it's needed. While some scientists are looking into storing such energy by converting it to natural gas, Britain's Highview Power Storage has its own approach, which is already in use in a pilot project. In a nutshell, the company is storing excess energy as liquid air. Read More

General Electric (GE) has already chosen a dozen new partners to accelerate and commercialize technologies to help build the next generation power grid, as part of Phase I of its ecomagination challenge. Idaho's Solar Roadways project received the highest number of community votes in that round, and looks to be doing well in the current phase. As the hopefuls in the "Powering Your Home" phase go before the judges, we take a quick look at some of the entries that have caught our attention. Read More

Although HP and others are breaking new ground in notebook battery life, there are times when you might find yourself away from the grid for a bit longer than your laptop battery can last. A mobile energy storage unit like Yill, from Germany's Younicos, is said to be capable of autonomously meeting the power needs of a computer workstation for between two and three days on a single charge of its own quick-charge batteries. Deployment of the drum-like power houses throughout an office could even help save energy bills. Read More

Torque vectoring is a relatively new technology that has been employed in automobile differentials, most commonly all-wheel-drive vehicles, that allows the amount of power sent to each wheel to be varied. Scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have now adapted this technology to wind turbines, to eliminate the need for converting the alternating current produced by the turbines into direct current and back again before it is fed into the grid. Read More

One of the biggest problems with the move towards a hydrogen economy is currently the production of hydrogen fuel takes a lot of energy, which generally comes from burning fossil fuels. For hydrogen vehicles to make sense, cleaner more efficient hydrogen production methods will need to be developed. One promising approach takes its lead from the natural processes of photosynthesis in order to convert sunlight into hydrogen fuel. The latest breakthrough in this quest comes from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) where scientists have taken an important step towards understanding the design principles that promote self-assembly in natural photosynthetic systems. Read More

The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is a competition that challenges entrants to think outside the box to create functional yet beautiful renewable energy generation facilities. First prize has just been awarded to such a submission, but this one thinks outside the pyramid. The Lunar Cubit concept design consists of nine pyramids made from solar panels in a configuration modeled on the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Giza. The pyramids would not only be capable of providing electricity to 250 homes, but are also designed to serve as a lunar calendar. Read More

Here at Gizmag we cover a seemingly endless stream of renewable energy technologies designed to wean us off our reliance on fossil fuels and improve the health of the planet. As important as such developments are, for these technologies to have an impact they must of course be implemented – and on a large scale. What has been sorely lacking is a plan to accomplish such a Herculean feat. Now researchers from the University of California-Davis and Stanford University have published a study that details one scenario to completely convert the world to clean, renewable energy sources – and they say it could be done in 20 to 40 years using technology available today at costs comparable to fossil fuel-based energy. Read More

An ambitious project that aims to turn arid desert land into a green oasis took a step closer to becoming reality last week when an agreement was signed on the rights to develop a pilot system in Jordan. The Sahara Forest Project’s (SFP) first facility will be located on a 2,000,000 square meter plot of land in Aqaba, a coastal town in the south of Jordan where it will be a test bed for the use of a combination of technologies designed to enable the production of fresh water, food and renewable energy in hot, arid regions. Read More