Despite their hefty price tag, smartphones have an average consumer lifetime of about three years. The lithium ion batteries that power them, however, can last for about five years—meaning that just about every discarded ...
Energy & Green Tech
Apr 19, 2016
3
1397
The Rocky Mountains certainly aren't known for their mild winters. But in contrast to the upper Midwest, which seems to exist in a perpetually frozen state from November through March, the plains just east of the Rockies ...
Energy & Green Tech
May 12, 2015
40
46
How did fuzzy logic help a group of researchers in Tunisia and Algeria create an ideal photovoltaic system that obeys the supply-and-demand principle and its delicate balance?
Energy & Green Tech
Feb 24, 2015
0
35
As wind farms grow in importance across the globe as sources of clean, renewable energy, one key consideration in their construction is their physical design—spacing and orienting individual turbines to maximize their efficiency ...
Energy & Green Tech
Apr 1, 2014
0
0
Through a process known as thermionic conversion, heat energy—such as light from the sun or heat from burned fossil fuels—can be converted into electricity with very high efficiency. Because of its promise, researchers ...
Energy & Green Tech
Dec 3, 2013
12
1
A trio of researchers at North Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota have turned to computer modeling to help decide which of two competing materials should get its day in the sun as the nanoscale energy-harvesting ...
Nanophysics
Oct 1, 2013
0
0
In the long sprint to find new sources of clean, low-cost power, slow and steady might win the race—the slow-moving water of currents and tides, that is. Just as wind turbines tap into the energy of flowing air to generate ...
Energy & Green Tech
Sep 17, 2013
5
0
What happens to renewable energy programs in a country that gets whacked by a full-scale debt crisis, like the one that struck Greece beginning in 2009—do the programs whither and die in the winds of austerity? And how ...
Energy & Green Tech
Aug 14, 2013
2
0
Incorporating wind power into existing power grids is challenging because fluctuating wind speed and direction means turbines generate power inconsistently. Coupled with customers' varying power demand, many wind-farm managers ...
Energy & Green Tech
Mar 25, 2013
8
0
Chemical batteries power many different mobile electronic devices, but repeated charging and discharging cycles can wear them out. An alternative energy storage device called an ultracapacitor can be recharged hundreds of ...
General Physics
Jul 19, 2012
3
0
