Energy

Organic solar cells that can be produced easily and inexpensively are the perfect solution to future 'personalized' power generation.   Major obstacles remain, such as coaxing these carbon-based materials to reliably form the proper structure at the nanoscale level - tinier than 2-millionths of an inch - and be efficient in converting light to electricity,  transforming at least 10 percent of the sunlight that they absorb into usable electricity. A research team headed by David Ginger, a University of Washington associate professor of chemistry, has found a way to make images of…

Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and is an insulating gas.  Hydrogen is also the simplest of the elements: it contains one proton and one electron.  But at high pressures hydrogen may turn into a superconductor and scientists at the Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C.,  say they have discovered a hydrogen-based compound that could be helpful in the search for metallic and superconducting forms of hydrogen. Because hydrogen is so light, quantum theory says that it will have a significant energy even when it is cooled to very low temperatures. This is why…

Abandoned mine shafts could be used to provide geothermal energy to local towns, say two engineers from the University of Oviedo in the journal Renewable Energy. They say the method they have developed makes it possible to estimate the amount of heat that a tunnel could potentially provide. Rafael Rodríguez, from the Oviedo Higher Technical School of Mining Engineering and colleague María Belarmina Díaz have developed a "semi-empirical" method (part mathematical and part experimental) to calculate the amount of heat that could be produced by a mine tunnel that is due to be abandoned, based on…

We know how oil and natural gas deposits were created; living organisms died, were compressed, and heated under heavy layers of sediments in the Earth's crust. Scientists have debated for years whether some of these hydrocarbons could also have been created deeper in the Earth and formed without organic matter.  Now scientists say they have found that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons can be synthesized under the pressure-temperature conditions of the upper mantle; the layer of Earth under the crust and on top of the core. Methane (CH4) is the main constituent of natural gas, while ethane…

Less stable materials may not sound like a great thing for your car but they may be the solution to producing a clean-running hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. More on that in just a minute. First, let's talk about where things are in clean energy. If you've read this site for more than five minutes you know I believe it's better to spend money researching legitimate clean energy rather than porkbarrelling environmental activism darlings like ethanol, wind energy, solar panels and CFL bulbs. Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles can not only be an important part of the solution to America's energy crisis,…

Everyone is concerned about dwindling fossil fuel resources and current levels of petroleum consumption but pressure to shift to more sustainable energy sources has led to lobbyists and bigger government programs, not a better environment. The best approach may be suited to regional conditions - some areas may use solar, some wind or geothermal, some nuclear.   There won't be a knockout technology that is a good fit  for everyone.   What wind, solar, and geothermal power need to be useful to the masses is conversion into appropriate forms for distributing electricity. Electric…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4984727/Vampire-... http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=1803 http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/3502/jim1537.52/0_2805a_2b9e39ea_orig http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.2569 Not only are we not cheap, we are downright prohibitive. http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9027953&contentId=... Energy quiz Question 1 of 10 An average petrol car driven 10000 miles a year uses over 1500 litres of petrol. How much energy does this equate to?  A) 140 kWh/yearB) 1,400 kWh/yearC) 14,000 kWh/year …

Scientists in Nevada are reporting development of a new and environmentally friendly process for chicken parts that are a lot better for you than Chicken Nuggets - namely, producing biodiesel fuel from 'chicken feather' meal, the 11 billion pounds of poultry industry waste that accumulate annually in the United States alone. In the study Mano Misra, Susanta Mohapatra, Narasimharao Kondamudi, and Jason Strull used chicken feather meal, which consists of processed chicken feathers, blood, and innards that have been processed at high temperatures with steam. Currently this feather meal is used…

'Sun power for soldiers' sounds like aging hipsters have taken over the military, right?   No, this is still manly; a special "conductive ink" that can be used to make printed organic photovoltaic solar cell panels on very thin, flexible surfaces using ink-jet printing. The research was done by scientists at the Air Force Research Laboratory Materials and Manufacturing Directorate (AFRL/RX), with Plextronics, Inc., and the Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center, both located in the City of Champions, Pittsburgh, PA. The ready-to-use, technology captures sunlight and stores…

Americans used more solar, nuclear, biomass and wind energy in 2008 than they did in 2007, according to energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and less coal and petroleum during the same time frame. Natural gas consumption and geothermal energy use remained the same. The estimated U.S. energy use in 2008 equaled 99.2 quadrillion BTUs ("quads"), down from 101.5 quadrillion BTUs in 2007.   A BTU, or British Thermal Unit, is a unit of measurement for energy, and is equivalent to about 1.055 kilojoules. Energy use in the industrial and transportation…