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Archive for the ‘energy’ category: Page 117

May 4, 2021

LUMILOR — Electric Paint That Lights Up at The Flip of a Switch

Posted by in category: energy

LumiLor is an electroluminescent coating system which allows anything coated with it to function as a light. Electroluminescence simply means that an object is capable of emitting light when an electrical current passes through it.

The lifespan of LumiLor is dependent on how much power is applied and the native LumiLor color used. More power equals brighter light but a shorter half life.

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May 4, 2021

Meet Manta, a sea-cleaning sailboat that feeds on plastic waste

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

Excellent! Technology is available to make real change. Support efforts to clean the seas and use renewable energy sources.


Tired of hitting these floating objects during his races and seeing heavenly places turn into landfills, a French ocean adventurer Yvan Bourgnon decided to fight against this global scourge. He and his team have designed Manta, a giant, plastic-eating catamaran powered by renewable energy. The sea vessel literally scoops up plastic garbage and converts it into fuel to help power the boat.

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May 3, 2021

New Metal-Air Battery Design Offers a Potential Boost to Electric Vehicles

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability, transportation

Billy Hurley, Digital Editorial Manager.

Metal-air batteries are light, compact power sources with a high energy density, but they have had a major limitation: They corrode.

A new design from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology uses oil to reduce the corrosion and extend the shelf life of single-use metal-air batteries.

May 1, 2021

World’s largest compressed air grid “batteries” will store up to 10GWh

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

California is set to be home to two new compressed-air energy storage facilities – each claiming the crown for the world’s largest non-hydro energy storage system. Developed by Hydrostor, the facilities will have an output of 500 MW and be capable of storing 4 GWh of energy.

As the world shifts towards renewable energy, grid-scale storage is becoming ever more crucial. Getting carbon emissions to net-zero will require a patchwork of technologies to smooth out unpredictable and inconvenient generation curves, with pumped hydro, huge lithium-ion batteries, tanks full of molten salt or silicon, thermal bricks, or heavy blocks stacked up in towers or suspended in mineshafts all in the mix.

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Apr 30, 2021

These strange salt ‘creatures’ could help unclog power plant pipes

Posted by in category: energy

Modifying the surface of power plant pipes to make it easier to prevent the build up of salt.


Behold the salt monsters. These twisted mineral crystals—formed from the buildup of slightly salty water in power plant pipes—come in many shapes and sizes. But the tiny monsters are a big problem: Each year, they cost the world’s power plants at least $100 billion, as workers have to purge the pipes and scrub them from filters.

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Apr 29, 2021

Jetoptera VTOL aircraft design features “bladeless fans on steroids”

Posted by in categories: energy, transportation

Seattle-based company Jetoptera says its air-accelerating Fluidic Propulsive System, which works a lot like a Dyson “bladeless” fan, produces thrust for half the fuel of a small turbojet while being the “most silent propulsion system in the skies.”

Apr 28, 2021

Material scientists find new angle toward better heat transfer

Posted by in categories: energy, materials

UCLA materials scientists have developed a class of optical material that controls how heat radiation is directed from an object. Similar to the way overlapping blinds direct the angle of visible light coming through a window, the breakthrough involves utilizing a special class of materials that manipulates how thermal radiation travels through such materials.

Recently published in Science, the advance could be used to improve the efficiency of energy-conversion systems and enable more effective sensing and detection technologies.

“Our goal was to show that we could effectively beam thermal —the all objects emanate as —over broad wavelengths to the same direction,” said study leader Aaswath Raman, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. “This advance offers new capabilities for a range of technologies that depend on the ability to control the flows of heat in the form of thermal radiation. This includes imaging and sensing applications that rely on thermal sources or detecting them, as well as energy applications such as , waste heat recovery and radiative cooling, where restricting the directionality of heat flow can improve performance. ”.

Apr 27, 2021

Saudi Arabia’s Shift To Renewables Could Save It $200 Billion

Posted by in categories: economics, energy, finance

Saudi Arabia could save some $200 billion over the next ten years by switching from crude oil to natural gas and renewables for electricity production, Reuters reports, citing the Kingdom’s Finance Minister.

“Instead of buying fuel from the international markets at $60 and then selling it at $6 for Saudi utilities, or using some of our quota in OPEC to sell at $6, we’re going to actually displace at least 1 million barrels a day of oil equivalent in the next 10 years and replace it with gas and renewables,” Mohammed al-Jadaan said.

OPEC’s largest oil producer and world’s largest exporter of crude is on a desperate quest to reduce its dependence on oil revenues by diversifying its economy away from the flagship export stock. Earlier this year, Crown Prince Mohammed, who appears to be the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, announced yet another investment program with a view to this diversification that he said would “unlock new local investments valued at SAR 5 Trillion through the end of 2030.”

Apr 27, 2021

Energy-saving gas turbines from the 3D printer

Posted by in categories: energy, materials

3D printing has opened up a completely new range of possibilities. One example is the production of novel turbine buckets. However, the 3D printing process often induces internal stress in the components, which can, in the worst case, lead to cracks. Now a research team has succeeded in using neutrons from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) research neutron source for non-destructive detection of this internal stress—a key achievement for the improvement of the production processes.

Gas turbine buckets have to withstand extreme conditions: Under and at high temperatures they are exposed to tremendous centrifugal forces. In order to further maximize energy yields, the buckets have to hold up to temperatures which are actually higher than the melting point of the material. This is made possible using hollow turbine buckets which are air-cooled from the inside.

These turbine buckets can be made using , an additive manufacturing technology: Here, the starter material in powder form is built up layer by layer by selective melting with a laser. Following the example of avian bones, intricate lattice structures inside the hollow turbine buckets provide the part with the necessary stability.

Apr 25, 2021

Geothermal Energy Could Provide All the Energy the World Will Ever Need

Posted by in category: energy

Circa 2010


Norway — There is a solution for the world’s insatiable energy needs. It is CO2-free and safe. And it’s located right under our feet.

Ever since Jules Verne wrote in 1864 about a trip to the Earth’s interior, people have dreamed of bringing up heat from the centre of the planet. So far we have only scratched the surface, but researchers are now beginning to work down into the depths.

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