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Archive for the ‘energy’ category: Page 186

Oct 2, 2020

Huge Machine Captures Energy From Ocean Waves

Posted by in category: energy

Turbulent Past

Several companies and teams of scientists have tried to make wave energy a reality in the past, but as Greentech notes, many of their projects fell apart or ran out of money. But with renewed interest — and funding — in the industry, more companies are starting to test out their devices.

“We’re in that valley of death, climbing out of there at the moment,” naval architect Christopher Ridgewell, CEO of AW-Energy, a Finnish company working on a wave energy device called the WaveRoller, told Greentech.

Oct 1, 2020

Saudi Arabia Sends Blue Ammonia to Japan in World-First Shipment

Posted by in category: energy

The world’s first shipment of blue ammonia is on its way from Saudi Arabia to Japan, where it will be used in power stations to produce electricity without carbon emissions.

Saudi Aramco, which made the announcement Sunday, produced the fuel, which it does by converting hydrocarbons into hydrogen and then ammonia, and capturing the carbon dioxide byproduct. Japan will receive 40 tons of blue ammonia in the first shipment, Aramco said.

Oct 1, 2020

Lab turns trash into valuable graphene in a flash

Posted by in categories: energy, materials

World hunger is a persistent problem despite all of humanity’s progress in recent years. However, I believe that we have a real shot at defeating world hunge…


Scientists are using high-energy pulses of electricity to turn any source of carbon into turbostratic graphene in an instant. The process promises environmental benefits by turning waste into valuable graphene that can then strengthen concrete and other composite materials.

Sep 29, 2020

Why disordered light-harvesting systems produce ordered outcomes

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, nanotechnology, physics

Scientists typically prefer to work with ordered systems. However, a diverse team of physicists and biophysicists from the University of Groningen found that individual light-harvesting nanotubes with disordered molecular structures still transport light energy in the same way. By combining spectroscopy, molecular dynamics simulations and theoretical physics, they discovered how disorder at the molecular level is effectively averaged out at the microscopic scale. The results were published on 28 September in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The double-walled light-harvesting nanotubes self-assemble from molecular building blocks. They are inspired by the multi-walled tubular antenna network of photosynthetic bacteria found in nature. The nanotubes absorb and transport light energy, although it was not entirely clear how. “The nanotubes have similar sizes but they are all different at the with the molecules arranged in a disordered way,” explains Maxim Pshenichnikov, Professor of Ultrafast Spectroscopy at the University of Groningen.

Sep 29, 2020

Nissan’s Re-Leaf prototype is a mobile power supply for disaster response

Posted by in category: energy

Nissan’s all-electric Re-Leaf is an EV designed to provide a mobile power supply during disaster recovery.

Sep 28, 2020

NASA wants ideas for keeping Moon missions powered in the dark

Posted by in categories: energy, space

NASA is crowdsourcing ideas for energy systems that would keep Moon missions powered, even in the dark.

Sep 26, 2020

HyImpulse hybrid rocket motor roars to life for the first time

Posted by in categories: energy, space

HyImpulse completed the first hot-fire test of the company’s 16,800-pounds-force hybrid rocket motor on Sept. 15. Credit: HyImpulse.


VALLETTA, Malta — Launch startup HyImpulse successfully tested its 16,800-pounds-force hybrid rocket motor this month at German space agency DLR’s Lampoldshausen facility.

Headquartered in Neuenstadt am Kocher, Germany, HyImpulse is developing its three-stage SL1 launch vehicle designed to carry payloads of up to 500 kilogram to Sun-synchronous orbit. The light-lift launch vehicle will be powered by twelve 16,800-pounds-force hybrid rocket motors — eight on its first stage, and four on its second stage — plus four smaller but otherwise identical engines powering its third stage.

Continue reading “HyImpulse hybrid rocket motor roars to life for the first time” »

Sep 25, 2020

DARPA: Research advances for near-zero-power sensors

Posted by in categories: electronics, energy

DARPA’s near-zero-power sensors have extended battery lifetimes from four weeks to up to four years, but more work needs to be done.

Sep 23, 2020

Saving Carpathia, The Vast Wilderness in the Heart of Europe

Posted by in categories: business, energy, government, policy, sustainability

Karen Potter, Director of Sustainability Hub and ideaXme sustainability ambassador interviews Christoph Promberger, M.Sc., Executive Director Foundation Conservation Carpathia (FCC). https://www.carpathia.org

Karen Potter comments:

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Sep 22, 2020

Physicists Just Discovered a Brand New Type of Superconductor

Posted by in categories: energy, physics

Scientists have long theorised that there are other types of superconductor out there waiting to be discovered, and it turns out they were right: new research has identified a g-wave superconductor for the first time, a major development in this area of physics.

Superconductors are materials that offer no electrical resistance, so electricity can pass through them with close to 100 percent efficiency.

That sounds great when you think about the potential of super-efficient power grids that don’t lose energy to heat. But there’s a catch. Materials that are able to act in this way usually need to be cooled to ultra-low temperatures before the actual superconductivity starts happening.