Scientists at Rice University, the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) have completed a detailed analysis of more than 4 million zeolite absorbent minerals. The team determined that new materials could help electricity producers slash as much as 30 percent of the “parasitic energy” costs […]

Here’s the at home test, push a plastic cup that’s upside down into water.  Gravity working on the mass of the displaced water is trying to push the cup back up, that’s buoyancy.  Simple enough, and there is a wealth of places to do this, wells, ponds, lakes, standpipes, water heaters, anywhere that gravity can […]

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and the Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame have tied quantum physics and chemistry of photosynthesis in biology. Using ultrafast spectroscopy to see what happens at the subatomic level during the very first stage of photosynthesis, two branches of science that […]

Scientists from Wageningen University in the Netherlands have concluded that it is possible to develop plants that produce even more food and fuel by reducing the level of pigments. Its been known for well over half a century that the energy conversion efficiency of incident photons to chemical energy by leaves is wavelength dependent.  This […]

New Life for a Good Old Solar Cell Idea The Grätzel solar cell uses a molecular dye sensitized to absorb sunlight and convert it to electricity.  It’s a good concept that simply won’t last, they typically won’t last more than 18 months, making them commercially unviable. Researchers have been looking for alternatives for two decades. […]

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