GreenEnergy

Scientists have found a way to make the manufacture of crystalline silicon materials faster and more affordable.

Obsidian Flow At Newberry Volcano Joshua Schreiner An ambitious experiment is underway to harness the heat of a volcano in central Oregon. The process is green, efficient... and causes earthquakes. In October, at the Deschutes National Forest in central Oregon, a team of scientists and engineers began pumping 11 million gallons of water underground, right near the caldera of the famed Newberry Volcano. The Northwest weather was a cool 50 degrees most days, about the same temperature as the water the engineers drove, up to 375 gallons a minute, 10,000 feet into the ground. There, deep in the earth's crust, the temperature reaches more than 600 degrees. That's what the engineers were pumping for: If everything goes according to plan, a company called AltaRock Energy will suck the super-heated water from underground and use it to spin turbines and juice the area with renewable power. Over the next two months, the engineers would keep pumping the water, as the weather started to turn....

Scientists have designed a new type of nanostructured-carbon-based catalyst that could pave the way for reliable, economical next-generation batteries and alkaline fuel cells, providing for practical use of wind- and solar-powered electricity, as well as enhanced hybrid electric vehicles.

A new version of solar cells could open the door to research on a new class of solar energy devices. The photovoltaic devices are based on block copolymers, self-assembling organic materials that arrange themselves into distinct layers. They easily outperform other cells with polymer compounds as active elements.

The impact of the Chernobyl nuclear accident has been seriously overestimated, while unfounded statements presented as scientific facts have been used to strangle the nuclear industry, according to Russian researchers. New research suggests that the health effects of food contamination in particular have been distorted in anti-industry propaganda.

Wind energy capacity is growing rapidly in the cold climates of the world. According to the latest forecasts, between 45 and 50 gigawatts of wind energy will be built in cold climates by 2017, which would mean an increase of as much as 72 per cent since the end of 2012 and investments amounting to approximately EUR 75 billion.

Taming The Desert When completed in 2025, Masdar City will pack 40,000 inhabitants into two square miles of carbon-neutral buildings. Courtesy Foster + Partners Why would a petro-state erect a solar-powered eco-metropolis in the middle of the Arabian desert? To change the world. At first glance, Masdar City appears a mirage. From a distance it looks like a single multicolored building, standing lonely on the horizon. Part of the illusion is due to the city's strange setting: next to Abu Dhabi airport, just across the highway from the Arabian Gulf, in a deeply inhospitable stretch of desert. Between it and downtown Abu Dhabi lie 20 miles of the most wasteful urban development I've ever seen-a featureless plain studded with ostentatious walled houses the size of the Supreme Court and crisscrossed by empty six-lane boulevards. But the illusion is also a matter of density. Masdar City, an $18-billion experiment, will hold 40,000 residents in only two square miles. As the world's most...

A four-part series on the clean technologies that will set us free brightcove.createExperiences(); Our series follows editor-in-chief Jacob Ward on a trip across the country and around the world to see firsthand the ideas that could usher in a new era of true energy independence for the United States. First up: a solar cell in every bolt of fabric. Read about these ideas, and more, in the June issue.-Eds

Researchers have created the first fully integrated artificial photosynthesis nanosystem. While "artificial leaf" is the popular term for such a system, the key to this success was an "artificial forest."

Using a powerful combination of microanalytic techniques that simultaneously image photoelectric current and chemical reaction rates across a surface on a micrometer scale, researchers have shed new light on what may become a cost-effective way to generate hydrogen gas directly from water and sunlight.

Energy: Water Teaser Nick Kaloterakis Editor-in-Chief Jacob Ward on how the Kardashev Scale is an elegant way of describing our dreams In the early 1960s, a Soviet astrophysicist, Nikolai Kardashev, was contemplating mysterious radio signals coming from a recently discovered quasar and theorized that they might be evidence of extraterrestrial beings. In 1964, Kardashev debuted a system for categorizing alien civilizations. Kardashev didn't make it a question of weaponry or space travel. Instead, he measured these hypothetical civilizations by their command of energy. His scale has three categories. A Type 1 civilization uses merely all the energy on its planet. A Type 2 civilization uses all the energy in its star. A Type 3 civilization, the most advanced, uses as much energy as is in its own galaxy. Never mind whether judging aliens means one is nuts. (And in his defense, Kardashev is head of the Astro Space Center at the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of...

Engineers have designed and tested a concept for concrete towers to replace the steel towers used for wind turbines. The concrete towers could be a practical way to raise turbine towers from today's 80 meters to the better winds at 100 meters or higher.

A group of scientists aims to store electricity at the bottom of the sea. The energy will be stored with the help of high water pressure.

A truss design devised to help workers process space shuttles continues to find new uses as a space shuttle engineer-turned-entrepreneur adapts it to everything from a solar-powered electric generator to a mobile cellphone tower.

The sun provides the most abundant source of energy on the planet. However, only a tiny fraction of the solar radiation on Earth is converted into useful energy.

What government forecasts suggest about U.S. energy independence Since long before the rise in big data, the U.S. Energy Information Administration has tracked the country's energy consumption and production [thick lines]. The size of the gap between the two reflects how close the country is to energy independence. The EIA also projects energy production and usage into the future to help guide industry regulations and policy decisions. A computer program-which took the EIA nearly two decades to build and requires 35 analysts to run-generates its predictions [thin lines] based on current energy laws and regulations. While it's impossible to predict influential events such as wars and recessions, the general trend suggests that since 2005-when the energy deficit [red] peaked-the U.S. is making more of its own energy and using less overall. "We as a society are valuing energy independence more," said Steven Wade, an economist for the EIA.

Water Energy Engineers designed TidGen, which is 98-feet wide and 31-feet tall, for tidal bodies, such as bays, between 60 and 150 feet deep. • A permanent-magnet generator mounted between the four turbines produces up to 150 kw. • The TidGen's helical turbines have teardrop-shaped foils and rotate in a single direction, regardless of the flow of the current. • A power-and-data cable connects an array of up to a couple of dozen TidGen units to an onshore substation. Nick Kaloterakis How water could be harnessed for roughly a third of U.S. annual electricity usage The Bottom Feeder Water is 800 times denser than air, and building a gen­erator able to withstand the tremendous force it generates has hampered the development of next-gen hydropower. If engineers can harness its energy, water holds great potential: about 1,420 terawatt-hours per year, or roughly a third of U.S. annual electricity usage. Tame the Tide Tidal currents are among the most predictable energy sources on Earth....

Global Landscapes Fathom Information Design The importance of global landscapes Worldwide renewable energy production reached 66.83 quadrillion BTUs in 2010. The countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development-which keeps detailed records for its 34 members [see map]-produced 16.50 quadrillion BTUs that year. Which technology works in which country is often a matter of topography.

Solar Power Pole with Spin Cells Graham Murdoch Reinventing the array could usher in a new age for solar. The solar market has been on fire. In the U.S., it's grown by 600 percent over the past five years, culminating in 3,313 installed megawatts in 2012. This past March, seven solar projects added the only new utility power of any kind to the U.S. grid. But solar energy isn't quite cost-competitive yet. Bridging the final gap requires breakthroughs that increase efficiency while cutting costs. The Dramatic Reimagining Conical Solar Panels Even for photovoltaic (PV) panels, there's such a thing as too much sun-when cells overheat, they become less efficient. V3Solar solved that problem with Spin Cell, a conical array that floats on magnets. An outer cone made of specialized lenses concentrates bands of sunlight on an inner cone covered with PV cells. The cells capture light energy but spin away before thermal energy can transfer. This constant cooling means V3Solar can use cheaper,...

Researchers have quantified the significant value that concentrating solar power plants can add to an electric grid.

Scientists have developed an algae removal and treatment system that turns this underused residue into a renewable source of energy: biomass. The process involves several stages of washing, drying and compacting without leaving the beach. The system is cheaper, more efficient and more environmentally friendly than the procedure commonly followed now.

Researchers have been able to improve the efficiency of solar cells by coating the cell surface with extremely small nanoscale structures. The new technology has been shown to nearly eliminate the reflection losses of solar radiation.

Researchers have designed a low-cost, long-life battery that could enable solar and wind energy to become major suppliers to the electrical grid.

Smart electronics are taking the world by storm. From techno-textiles to transparent electronic displays, the world of intelligent technology is growing fast and a revolutionary new device has just been added to its ranks. Researchers have developed a new photoelectric device that is both flexible and transparent.

New research details how solar-powered proteins can be used to filter antibiotics and other harmful compounds from rivers and lakes at a significantly higher rate than present treatment standards.

It may be possible soon to charge cell phones, change the tint on windows, or power small toys with peel-and-stick versions of solar cells, thanks to new research.

A new system reduces carbon emissions and fuel usage at natural gas power plants by 20 percent by injecting solar energy into natural gas.

Researchers have produced a prototype of a self-cooling thermoelectric device that achieves “free” cooling of over 30ºC in devices that give off heat. It is a piece of equipment that acts as a traditional cooler but which consumes no electricity because it obtains the energy it needs to function from the very heat that has to be dissipated.

Scientists have fabricated peel-and-stick thin film solar cells (TFSCs). The Si wafer is clean and reusable. Moreover, as the peeled-off TFSCs from the Si wafer are thin, light-weight, and flexible, it can be attached onto any form or shape of surface like a sticker.

The search for ways to use megatons of carbon dioxide that may be removed from industrial smokestacks during efforts to curb global warming has led to a process for converting that major greenhouse gas back into the fuel that released it in the first place.