By Industry And Sector.
Are there low-hanging fruit opportunities to cut CO2 emissions while recognizing the necessity of continuing to use fossil fuels?
The lightweight, supercapacitor-battery hybrid composite material provides power and is as strong as steel.
At the time climate change was only beginning to be talked about in the scientific community as well as behind the scenes among researchers working for fossil fuel companies.
Climate change fit the EPA’s mandate. And unlike an oil or chemical spill, no reputable scientist would see climate change as equivalent to “the crisis of the day.” But this phrase appears in Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion justifying the decision in West Virginia v. EPA to deny the Agency its power to regulate carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants which based on the mandated powers described above is its purview (see points 3, 4, and 5).
China’s dependence on foreign suppliers of computer chips could undermine the country’s transition to electric vehicles, tech traders and researchers say.
The shortage of chips, or semiconductors, is more acute in China than elsewhere and could hit the nation’s EV momentum, according to CATARC, the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, because its fledgling domestic chipmaking industry is unlikely to be in a position to cope with demand within the next two to three years, it says.
With delivery delays of up to a year, that means carmakers in China are occasionally being forced to pay expensive premiums to chip brokers in cities like Shenzhen, where there is a “grey market” trade in semiconductors.
Now, an international team of researchers has developed a tower that uses solar energy to produce a synthetic alternative to fossil-derived fuels like kerosene and diesel. The fuel production system uses water, carbon dioxide (CO2), and sunlight to produce aviation fuel. The team has implemented the system in the field, and the design could help the aviation industry become carbon neutral.
The solar-made kerosene is fully compatible with the existing aviation infrastructure for fuel storage, distribution, and end use in jet engines. It can also be blended with fossil-derived kerosene, says Aldo Steinfeld, a professor from ETH Zurich and the corresponding author of the paper.
The solar fuel production plant consists of 169 sun-tracking reflective panels that redirect and concentrate solar radiation into a solar reactor mounted on top of a tower. The concentrated solar energy then drives oxidation-reduction (redox) reaction cycles in the solar reactor, which contains a reticulated porous ceramic structure made of ceria. The ceria – which is not consumed but can be used over and over – convert water and CO2 injected into the reactor into syngas, a tailored mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Subsequently, syngas is sent into a gas-to-liquid converter, where it is finally processed into liquid hydrocarbon fuels that include kerosene and diesel.
Wireless charging roads equipped with energy storage systems are promising electric vehicle solutions by virtue of their strong advantages in time saving and reduced pressure on the existing power infrastructure, according to a paper by Cornell researchers published this month in Applied Energy.
The electric vehicle (EV) industry has experienced remarkable expansion and technical development during the last decade. It is estimated that EVs will comprise 48%, 42% and 27% of light-duty vehicle sales in China, Europe and the United States, respectively, by 2030, according to co-authors H. Oliver Gao, the Howard Simpson Professor of Engineering, and Jie Shi, a former Cornell systems postdoctoral researcher.
Integration of wireless charging roads into the existing electricity market and efficient management of the corresponding energy storage system are crucial for successful implementation of the wireless charging road systems.
A scientific article just published by four Brazilian and two American scientists reports gains in electric and thermal energy obtained when brewer’s spent grain (barley bagasse), an abundant waste produced by the beer industry, is treated with ultrasound before undergoing anaerobic digestion, a microbiological process involving consumption of organic matter and production of methane.
Pre-treatment generated biogas with 56% methane, 27% more than the proportion obtained without use of ultrasound. After purification in methane, the biogas can be used as vehicle fuel with a very low carbon footprint compared to conventional fossil fuels. Moreover, in cogenerators, the methane can be burned off by the brewery to produce electricity and heat. The final waste can be used as biofertilizer instead of mineral fertilizer. The methodology is described in detail in the article, which is published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.
The innovative process was developed at the Laboratory of Bioengineering and Treatment of Water and Waste (Biotar) in the State University of Campinas’s School of Food Engineering (FEA-UNICAMP). The research group lead, T nia Forster-Carneiro, is principal investigator for a project supported by FAPESP.
Photovoltaics will play a key role in the future energy supply. Conventional solar cells based, for instance, on silicon, a well-known semiconductor material, are already highly developed and in widespread use. However, their production is complex because it requires a high vacuum with high temperatures. It can take up to five years for the energy used for production to be offset by operation.
This is where solar cells based on organic semiconductors can make a difference, as they can be printed in an energy-and cost-saving way. However, there are limitations to the energy conversion that need to be examined in more detail. A research team led by the Professorship of Optics and Photonics of Condensed Matter at Chemnitz University of Technology has investigated which main factors are decisive for the power limitation of organic solar cells.
The lead author of the study is Christopher Wöpke, research associate at the Professorship of Optics and Photonics of Condensed Matter at Chemnitz University of Technology. He was joined in the study by scientists from the universities of Bayreuth, Bern (CH), Durham (UK), Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Advanced Light Source Berkeley Lab (U.S.). Among other things, the team found that transport resistance in particular severely limits the performance of organic solar cells.
