Lifeboat Foundation

There are many ways to generate electricity—batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams, to name a few examples… and now, there’s rust.

New research conducted by scientists at Caltech and Northwestern University shows that thin films of rust—iron oxide—can generate electricity when saltwater flows over them. These films represent an entirely new way of generating electricity and could be used to develop new forms of sustainable power production.

Interactions between metal compounds and saltwater often generate electricity, but this is usually the result of a chemical reaction in which one or more compounds are converted to new compounds. Reactions like these are what is at work inside batteries.

A solar distillation device can purify brine from reverse osmosis plants with over 10 percent salinity, as well as water taken directly from the Red Sea. The technology offers double the freshwater production rate of existing salt-rejection solar stills.

Inspired by the floating solar still in “The Life of Pi” movie, KAUST professor Qiaoqiang Gan has developed several nanomaterials and thermal isolation processes to enhance the evaporation of brackish water into pure steam. In 2016 he launched a startup, Sunny Clean Water, that produces low-cost inflatable stills capable of generating 10–20 liters of fresh water per day.

Continue reading “Salt-rejecting microchannels help make seawater drinkable using the power of the sun” »

A new solar cell breakthrough, an energy vault comes to Northern California, and Bill Gates talks about the U.S. bringing the grid into the 21st century.

UCLA invents enhanced perovskite solar cells, PG&E partners with Energy Vault on a storage project, and Bill Gates talks about power lines.

After solar power, it’s time we tried snow power.

Researchers from the Japanese city of Aomori have begun to study methods to create electricity from snow to provide a sustainable energy supply and meet any power shortages.

Continue reading “A city in Japan is trying to generate electricity from snow” »

Future smartphones, sensors, solar panels and wind turbines will contain electronics in which graphullerene is present.

Plants are often thought of as sources of food, oxygen, and decoration, but not as a source of electricity. However, scientists have discovered that by harnessing the natural transport of electrons within plant cells, it is possible to generate electricity as part of a green, biological solar cell. In a recent study published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, researchers for the first time used a succulent plant to create a living “bio-solar cell” that runs on photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis is how plants and some microorganisms use sunlight to synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water.

The Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) began in 2011 when Donald Bren — philanthropist, chairman of the Irvine Company, and a lifetime member of the Caltech Board of Trustees — and Caltech’s then-president Jean-Lou Chameau came together to discuss the potential for a space-based solar power research project. By 2013, Bren and his wife (Caltech trustee Brigitte Bren) began funding the project through the Donald Bren Foundation, which will eventually exceed $100 million. As Bren said in a recent Caltech press release:

“For many years, I’ve dreamed about how space-based solar power could solve some of humanity’s most urgent challenges. Today, I’m thrilled to be supporting Caltech’s brilliant scientists as they race to make that dream a reality.”

Continue reading “This bold new mission will try beaming solar power down from space” »

Year 2022 face_with_colon_three

The UK government is supporting projects to put solar panels in space and beam energy back to Earth.

Green jobs go beyond solar panel installation and wind turbine maintenance. They’re found in fields from design to economics and in many types of management.