Oct

29

A Ten Fold Increase In Wind Energy From the Same Land Area

October 29, 2010 | 13 Comments

John O. Dabiri at the California Institute of Technology’s Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories & Bioengineering makes the assertion that an order of magnitude increase in the energy harvest can be made with wind turbine density increases and wind turbine design.  The full paper is available at arXiv.org > physics > arXiv:10103656. (Direct pdf download link here.) [...]

Oct

28

Small Is Good In the Viscous Zone

October 28, 2010 | 4 Comments

Duke Pratt School of Engineering scientists with colleagues at the University of Cambridge presented theoretical and experimental evidence of a viscous state for nanoparticles near their melting point in a ACS Nano published paper. The state exists over a temperature range scaling inversely with the catalyst size, resulting in enhanced self-diffusion and fluidity across the [...]

Oct

27

Results of Battery Dissection At Death

October 27, 2010 | 5 Comments

That’s a morbid headline, but that’s what Ohio State University researchers are reporting at the AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition, that took place last week at the Albuquerque Convention Center in New Mexico.  The lab’s results suggest that the irreversible changes inside a dead battery start at the nanoscale.  An ongoing experiment at OSU [...]

Oct

26

A Mini Hydro Electric Power Generator

October 26, 2010 | 18 Comments

Researchers at Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have developed a small-scale hydroelectric power plant that solves a number of problems.  The construction is so simple, and thereby cost-efficient, that the power generation system is capable of operating profitably in connection with even modest dam heights.  The system is concealed in a shaft, minimizing the impact on [...]

Oct

25

An Incredible 72% Solar Conversion Efficiency

October 25, 2010 | 12 Comments

ZenithSolar has broken records with its 3rd generation combined heat and power (CHP) solar energy generator, Z20 series, that combines heat and power systems to yield an incredible 72% solar conversion efficiency. According to Ezri Tarazi at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design and Head of Tarazi Studio, the generator has reached record levels [...]

Oct

22

A Fast Enzyme From Norway for the Toughest Biomass

October 22, 2010 | 8 Comments

Norwegian scientists are reporting promising findings in the journal Science this month that they explain a new enzyme that can crack the simple idea but very hard to do breakdown of chitin biomass into the simpler sugars needed for making things like ethanol or methane. Ethanol and methane are alternative energy fuels that can be [...]

Oct

21

A Breakthrough for Lithium-Ion Battery Building

October 21, 2010 | 2 Comments

A team of Rice University and Lockheed Martin scientists has discovered a way to use simple silicon to radically increase the capacity of lithium-ion batteries. Watch this one, Rice University in Houston is famed for the ‘buckyball’ discovery now 25 years on for nanotechnology development and Lockheed Martin is deep into lots of high tech [...]

Oct

20

A Battery’s Shape Matters A Lot

October 20, 2010 | 6 Comments

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory  (PNNL) redesign of sodium-nickel chloride batteries (a molten salt battery very similar to Sodium-sulfur battery or NaS) promises to overcome some of the obstacles long associated with very large rechargeable batteries. Replacing their typical cylindrical shape with a flat disc design allows the battery to [...]

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