Federal research dollars help South Dakota State University scientists build a first-of-its-kind microscope that could help develop better solar cells to convert sunlight to electricity.
Sandia National Laboratories scientists have developed tiny glitter-sized photovoltaic cells that could revolutionize the way solar energy is collected and used.
Sandia National Laboratories will use $4.2 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to modify and enhance its existing Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory (BATLab), with the goal of developing low-cost batteries for electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
If you've seen an Internet ad for capacitor-type power factor correction devices, you might be led to believe that using one can save you money on your residential electricity bill. A new NIST report explains why the devices actually provide no savings by discussing the underlying physics.
PNAS study by USC geobiologists documents new behavior of metal-metabolizing bacteria, with implications for design of microbial fuel cells.
A Soon-to-be graduate of Western Illinois University is one of lead researchers in market research project to foster new Russian market possibilities for Illinois ethanol producers. Ethanol co-product DDGS (distiller's dried grains with solubles) can provide high-protein feed product for Russian livestock.
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has licensed two patents to Genesis Electronics, covering a compact power source that produces electricity from solar energy.
Titanium dioxide can be converted into a material that absorbs sunlight and greatly increase the efficiency of solar energy cells. Coated particle fuel fabricated at ORNL, in cooperation with INL, General Atomics, and the Babcock & Wilcox Company, has set a world record for advanced high temperature gas-cooled reactor fuel. Electronic devices of the future may benefit from a fundamental discovery that allows researchers to customize the electronic properties of complex materials.
A new, stimulus-funded research center at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory could help strengthen the very ‘fiber’ of America’s automotive and energy industries.
The world's first permanent disposal site for spent nuclear fuel is being built on Finland's western shore.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory has announced plans to conduct a series of deep energy retrofit research projects with the potential to improve the energy efficiency in selected homes by as much as 30 to 50 percent.
Will a 15-year-old power plant that has survived bombings, embargoes, and blockades ever fulfill its mission to bring electricity to Palestine?
Last year, the United States overtook Germany to become the largest producer of wind energy in the world. This capped a five year expansion of U.S. wind power during which capacity increased by about a third every year.
A recent study concluded that 50 million U.S. acres of cropland and pasture could be used for the production of perennial grasses, such as switchgrass, for biofuel feedstock. Economically viable production of a perennial grass monoculture from which substantial quantities of biomass are removed annually is expected to require nitrogen fertilizer.
In recent years, scientists have decoded the DNA of humans and a menagerie of creatures but none with genes as complex as a stalk of corn, the latest genome to be unraveled. A team of scientists led by The Genome Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published the completed corn genome in the Nov. 20 journal Science, an accomplishment that will speed efforts to develop better crop varieties to meet the world’s growing demands for food, livestock feed and fuel.
A new center at the University of Michigan College of Engineering will enable fundamental research on low-temperature plasmas---ionized gases with vast potential for practical technological advancements in fields such as energy, lighting, microelectronics and medicine.
Zeljka Pokrajcic, an engineer for WorleyParsons – Mineral and Metals Division, in Melbourne and doctoral candidate was selected by The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) as the first recipient of the Vittorio de Nora Prize for Environmental Improvements in Metallurgical Industries.
New report highlights campus leaders and their amazing projects to reduce energy consumption and forge the way to more sustainable future.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s recently appointed advisor, Arun Majumdar, will make his first major appearance as the keynote speaker at the 2009 New York Advanced Energy Conference. Majumdar will deliver his remarks at the Hyatt Wind Watch in Hauppauge, New York, on Wednesday, November 18 at 11:30 am.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced plans to fund research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Engineering on technologies that would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the capture and permanent safe storage, or sequestration, of carbon dioxide (CO2). The project is in collaboration with Southern Company, the parent company of Alabama Power.
New scientific discoveries are moving society toward the era of “personalized solar energy,” in which the focus of electricity production shifts from huge central generating stations to individuals in their own homes and communities. That's the topic of a report by an international expert on solar energy scheduled for the November 2 issue of ACS’ Inorganic Chemistry...
Scientists in Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth’s oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional process described in science textbooks. Their study is scheduled for Nov./Dec. issue of ACS’ Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly publication. Anurag Sharma and colleagues note that the traditional process…
1) Fuel economy ratings for the new 2010 model year automobiles are posted at www.fueleconomy.gov, which ORNL maintains for the U.S. DOE and the U.S. EPA; 2) A team led by ORNL’s Nina Balke has moved closer to developing more rugged memory and logic devices; 3) Heavy trucks are less heavy but just as safe and rugged because of steel rail frames; 4) A new approach to crunching massive volumes of data uses neural networks like an artificial brain.
Australian scientists are achieving the world's best production rates of oil from algae grown in open saline ponds, taking them a step closer to creating commercial quantities of clean biofuel for the future.
Furman University has received a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy that will allow the university to install an environmentally friendly geothermal heat pump system in a student housing complex. It is estimated the new system iwill save the university more than $2 million in energy costs over the next 20 years and substantially reduce its carbon footprint.
Experts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Center (LRC) estimate that about half of the approximately 13 million streetlights in America have the opportunity to significantly reduce energy consumption by as much as 50 percent, translating to an annual savings of 1 billion kWh, and a reduction in power plant CO2 emissions of 546,000 tons per year.
Converting sunlight to electricity might no longer mean large panels of photovoltaic cells atop flat surfaces like roofs.
Sandia researchers and others at the University of New Mexico (UNM), the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), Novozymes and North Carolina State University’s Center for Integrated Fungal Research (NCSU-CIFR) have received a DNA sequencing award from the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (JGI) to study microbial genes in arid grasslands. The research combines interests in fundamental microbial ecology with DOE goals to exploit microbes in the production of biofuels.
Technion scientists have created an environmentally friendly silicon-oxygen battery capable of supplying non-stop power for 1000s of hours. Used like batteries already in use today, they would be lightweight, have an unlimited shelf life, and have a high tolerance for both humid and extremely dry conditions.
For questions about what a modern “smart” grid would look like or how it would function, please consider the research expertise of Alan Mantooth, professor of electrical engineering and executive director of the National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission (NCREPT) at the University of Arkansas.
Learn more about the Energy Institute’s programs and meet its leadership, including faculty co-directors Catherine Wolfram and Severin Borenstein. The event is free and open to the public.
Hydrogen fuel, with steam as its only byproduct, would be the ultimate clean, green fuel. But it has failed to deliver on this promise due to one enormous stumbling block: storage capacity. Now UMass Amherst chemical engineers propose a computational model showing carbon nanotubes offer a solution.
Scientists take an important step in converting methane gas to a liquid, giving the potential of making it more useful as a fuel and as a source for making other chemicals.
The United States should create a high-level independent council to analyze and communicate critical issues to energy policymakers and the public, a group of 27 leaders in academia, government, and the private sector recommends in a new report.
A University of Michigan survey released today shows widespread consumer interest in buying plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). But the cost of the cars is much more influential than environmental and other non-economic factors as a predictor of purchase probabilities.
A simplified model cell not only sheds light on the way certain real cells generate electric voltages, but also acts as a tiny battery that could offer a practical alternative to conventional solid-state energy-generating devices.
Sandia National Laboratories, with help from The Boeing Company, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and others, is leading an effort to develop a commercially viable, fuel cell-powered mobile lighting system.
Recognizing the vital role business will play in responding to energy and climate change challenges, the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, is launching a new energy institute. The new Energy Institute at Haas will address both the rising need for research and the growing student interest in the markets, policy, and technology for sustainable energy.
New York’s premiere event to feature the future of modern energy solutions.
Many trends start in California and then spread eastward across the US. When it comes to energy efficiency and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, California is taking the lead in retrofitting existing buildings to reduce energy use and emissions.
An attribute of the Virginia Tech entry in the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is an advanced shutter that slides along the north and south façades, providing insulation and protection from direct sunlight while allowing for indirect, natural lighting, views to the exterior, and privacy to those inside.
Virginia Tech will develop a public Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse web portal that encourages use of electricity in an environmentally responsible way. IEEE and the EnerNex Corporation will assist with content, which includes demonstration projects, use cases, standards, legislation, policy and regulation, lessons learned, best practices, and R&D topics.
Project converts dairy wastes to energy, other products.
NIST has developed a free, online collection of data on the properties of gas hydrates, naturally occurring crystalline materials that are a potential energy resource and also may affect the Earth's climate.
Small bits of metal may play a new role in solar power. Researchers are experimenting with polymer semiconductors that absorb the sun’s energy and generate electricity. The goal: lighter, cheaper, and more-flexible solar cells.
Iowa State University researchers are working to understand how a catalyst allows certain plants and algae to create simple hydrocarbons that could be a new source of liquid fuels. The project is supported by a four-year, $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation's Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation.
A new ceramic material described in this week’s issue of the journal Science could help expand the applications for solid oxide fuel cells – devices that generate electricity directly from a wide range of liquid or gaseous fuels without the need to separate hydrogen.
Worldwide, thousands of workers die every year from mining accidents, and instantaneous coal outbursts in underground mines are among the major killers. But although scientists have been investigating coal outbursts for more than 150 years, the precise mechanism is still unknown.
An unintended consequence of crop-based biofuels may be the loss of wildlife habitat, particularly that of the birds that call this country's grasslands home.
A newly signed law makes Delaware the first entity in the world to reward owners of electric cars with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology for plugging in.
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