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Archive for the ‘energy’ category: Page 88

Jun 3, 2023

Revamping Energy Recovery: New Way To Efficiently Convert Waste Heat Into Electricity

Posted by in categories: energy, materials

A team from NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a novel device using gallium nitride nanopillars on silicon that significantly improves the conversion of heat into electricity. This could potentially recover large amounts of wasted heat energy, benefiting industries and power grids.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have fabricated a novel device that could dramatically boost the conversion of heat into electricity. If perfected, the technology could help recoup some of the heat energy that is wasted in the U.S. at a rate of about $100 billion each year.

Continue reading “Revamping Energy Recovery: New Way To Efficiently Convert Waste Heat Into Electricity” »

Jun 3, 2023

Webb telescope just stared into the heart of a fascinating galaxy

Posted by in categories: energy, space

The James Webb Space Telescope is so powerful that it can vividly see stars in a galaxy 17 million light-years away.

Astronomers pointed the most advanced space observatory ever built at the galaxy NGC 5,068, peering deep into its starry core. The greater goal is to better grasp how stars, like our energy-providing sun, form and evolve in galaxies. Crucially, Webb views a type of light that’s invisible to the naked eye, called infrared light. These long infrared light waves pierce through thick clouds of cosmic dust and gas, allowing us unprecedented views into galactic hearts.

“With its ability to peer through the gas and dust enshrouding newborn stars, Webb is the perfect telescope to explore the processes governing star formation,” the European Space Agency, which collaborates on the telescope with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, wrote. Solar systems born enveloped in cosmic dust simply can’t be seen with visible light telescopes like Hubble, the space agency said.

Jun 1, 2023

The world is finally spending more on solar than oil production

Posted by in category: energy

The International Energy Agency just released its annual investment report. Here’s where the money is going.

Money makes the world go round.

The International Energy Agency just published its annual report on global investment in energy, where it tallies up all that cash. The world saw about $2.8 trillion of investments in energy in 2022, with about $1.7 trillion of that going into clean energy.

May 30, 2023

World’s First “Battery Tanker” Slated For 2026 Sea Trials

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

“For instance, in Japan, a battery tanker can carry power from regions with high renewable energy supply potential, such as Kyushu and Hokkaido, to high-demand areas of Honshu or for inter-island power transmission,” the company explained.

While electric propulsion vessels might be the future to decarbonize the shipping industry, there appears to be a need to haul stored renewable power to other grids worldwide via a new tanker class.

May 29, 2023

Storing hydrogen in coal may help power clean energy economy

Posted by in categories: economics, energy, engineering, transportation

The quest to develop hydrogen as a clean energy source that could curb our dependence on fossil fuels may lead to an unexpected place—coal. A team of Penn State scientists found that coal may represent a potential way to store hydrogen gas, much like batteries store energy for future use, addressing a major hurdle in developing a clean energy supply chain.

“We found that can be this geological hydrogen battery,” said Shimin Liu, associate professor of energy and mineral engineering at Penn State. “You could inject and store the hydrogen energy and have it there when you need to use it.”

Hydrogen is a clean burning fuel and shows promise for use in the most energy intensive sectors of our economy—transportation, electricity generation and manufacturing. But much work remains to build a and make it an affordable and reliable energy source, the scientists said.

May 29, 2023

New Russia-Linked CosmicEnergy ICS Malware Could Disrupt Electric Grids

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, energy

Mandiant has analyzed a new Russia-linked ICS malware named CosmicEnergy that is designed to cause electric power disruption.

May 28, 2023

Technology Reveals Who We Are, Not The Future

Posted by in categories: energy, military

The 1st atomic bomb was nicknamed “gadget.”

Does this say something about who we are? Or does it say something about the nature of technology and the power to do good or evil?

Today we live in a universe of ever-more-powerful gadgets and humanity has never wielded more technological power because we live in the most scientifically advanced century in the history of our civilization. The paradox, however, is that ours is also the most dangerous century not only for countless other species going extinct but also for our own existence.

May 28, 2023

Plants perform quantum mechanics feats that scientists can only do at ultra-cold temperatures

Posted by in categories: energy, quantum physics

Plants pass energy along paths similar to those of a Bose-Einstein condensate, showing quantum properties at macroscopic scales.

May 28, 2023

Researchers develop calcium metal battery with long cycle life

Posted by in categories: energy, materials

As potential alternatives to lithium-ion batteries, rechargeable calcium (Ca) metal batteries offer advantageous features such as high energy density, cost-effectiveness, and natural elemental abundance. Its properties are also thought to help accelerate ion transport and diffusion in electrolytes and cathode materials, giving it an edge over other lithium-ion battery alternatives such as magnesium and zinc.

However, many challenges impede the development of practical Ca metal batteries. The challenges include the lack of an efficient electrolyte and the absence of cathode materials with sufficient Ca2+ storage capabilities.

Now, Tohoku University researchers have developed a prototype calcium metal rechargeable battery capable of 500 cycles of repeated charge-discharge – the benchmark for practical use.

May 27, 2023

Fractons as information storage: Not yet tangible, but close

Posted by in categories: energy, mathematics, quantum physics

Excitations in solids can also be represented mathematically as quasiparticles; for example, lattice vibrations that increase with temperature can be well described as phonons. Mathematically, also quasiparticles can be described that have never been observed in a material before. If such “theoretical” quasiparticles have interesting talents, then it is worth taking a closer look. Take fractons, for example.

Fractons are fractions of spin excitations and are not allowed to possess kinetic energy. As a consequence, they are completely stationary and immobile. This makes fractons new candidates for perfectly secure information storage. Especially since they can be moved under special conditions, namely piggyback on another quasiparticle.

“Fractons have emerged from a mathematical extension of quantum electrodynamics, in which electric fields are treated not as vectors but as tensors—completely detached from real materials,” explains Prof. Dr. Johannes Reuther, at the Freie Universität Berlin and at HZB.

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