Energy

If you've shaken your head at MTBE or ethanol, you know we do a poor job of projecting the real effect of energy sector alternatives accurately.  Advocates are happy to make up numbers but that doesn't work as well after four years of government-funded alternative energy optimism. Advocates are lately trumpeting solar and wind power again. Unlike fossil or nuclear energy, which are basically always on, solar and wind need to be stored if we don't want to retreat to the 19th century. That means a need for batteries. Because batteries cause acid rain, and we spent a lot of time trying to…

Though staunchly opposed to nuclear power in some respects, like the controversial decision to scuttle the Yucca Mountain project, the Obama administration said in 2012 that it was "jumpstarting" the nuclear industry. The Fukushima incident of 2011, caused by an earthquake, had led international political leaders motivated by sound-bite energy policy to declare nuclear power finished. The newest Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists special issue, published by the anti-nuclear activists behind the Doomsday Clock, turns its attention to the United States and wonders if nuclear science is dead in…

Sometimes painful things end up being good; we recognize that.   But does it work in economics?  

Activists love wind power the way they once loved ethanol and natural gas - it is good until scientists show them it is not.  Claims that there is no upper bound for wind power, that it is scalable because gusts and breezes don't seem likely to "run out" on a global scale, are not based on reality.  And neither are claims that the generating capacity of large-scale wind farms is unlimited.  A paper on mesoscale atmospheric modeling in Environmental Research Letters instead found that each wind turbine creates behind it a "wind shadow" in which the air has been slowed down…

Researchers with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), one of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) labs, say that the United States can double its energy productivity by 2030 — and do so in ways that bolster the nation's economy. Unveiling their recommendations at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.,  NREL Director Dan Arvizu and a blue-ribbon panel of 20 energy experts drove that message home, declaring that the United States and other members of the Alliance to Save Energy (ASE) Commission on National Energy Efficiency Policy said that doubling energy productivity…

Scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have created a 'solar sponge' which captures and then releases carbon dioxide using the power of sunlight. The 'sponge' which is made from a new smart material called a MOF - metal organic framework - that adsorbs carbon dioxide, but when exposed to sunlight, instantaneously releases it. This capture-and-release method known as  dynamic photo-switching is extremely energy efficient and only requires UV light to trigger the release of CO2 after it has been captured from the mixture of exhaust gases.…

In the ongoing quest to optimize alternative energy sources like biofuels, researchers are looking more to plants that grow in the wild, such as switchgrass. But domesticating wildgrowing plants has a downside - it could make them more susceptible to any number of plant viruses. "Most wild plants are perennials, while most of our agriculture crops are annuals,"  Michigan State University plant biologist Carolyn Malmstrom said in her statement regarding her talk at the AAAS meeting in Boston. "Sometimes when you mix the properties of the two, unexpected things can happen." For example,…

The sun has terrific energy potential but harnessing its electricity with silicon solar cells is too expensive; at times 10 times the price of coal energy it is fine for wealthier people but unrealistic in developing nations, where CO2 emissions are rising the fastest. Organic solar cells may be a better solution. These  polymer solar cells use organic materials to absorb light and convert it into electricity but current designs have poor electrical properties. Instead of attempting to increase efficiency by altering the thickness of the solar cell's polymer layer, a tactic that has…

Decentralization is the greatest challenge facing energy companies in Germany - directing energy efficiently has become more important than how much to produce.  "Distribution System Operators (DSO) and energy companies are working feverishly on various new models and technologies to ensure the right amounts of energy get to the right places at the right times, as well as attempting to pre-empt looming new questions," said Tobias Rothacher, Senior Manager of Renewable Energies and Resources at Germany Trade&Invest. Electric cars of the future will present a whole host of new…

We love our modern gadgets, so we sometimes forget we still have an energy problem our Founding Fathers faced - and it impacts everything from the usability of solar power to the uptake of electric cars also. That old problem is energy storage (and release).  For as much as activists rant about a darn efficient combustion engine, batteries - including the acid rain they bring - don't get a mention any more.  They have moved on to protesting fracking, wind power, and every other form of generating energy. Acid rain worries due to energy storage is very 1980s. If they care about the…