News tagged with electric energy

Grid realities cancel out some of wind power's carbon savings

(Phys.org) -- Wind energy lowers carbon emissions, but adding turbines to the current grid system does not eliminate emissions proportionally, according to a report by researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory.

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created 8 hours ago | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

A way to reduce the Internet's energy drain

(Phys.org) -- Swiss researchers at EPFL have developed a device intended for monitoring and saving the energy consumed by large data centers. It was developed in collaboration with Credit Suisse, which has ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created May 28, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Sci-fi no longer, NREL engineers smart homes

Thanks to TV shows such as The Jetsons and Star Trek, many Americans grew up dreaming that homes of the future would be equipped with fantastic high-tech features. From automatic food dispensers to sliding do ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created May 28, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Savvy students' solution can cut costs of power bills

Consumers could save on power bills thanks to an energy saving solution devised by two savvy students at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies.

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created May 29, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Scotland passes turbine test to harness tidal power

(Phys.org) -- An underwater turbine being used for harnessing tidal power to generate electricity for homes and businesses has successfully completed its testing period in the island of Eday, one of Orkney’s ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created May 20, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (18) | comments 41 | with audio podcast report

Mechanical motion rectifier leads to better energy harvesting

(Phys.org) -- Mechanical energy is all around us, whether in the form of a vehicle's vibrations, ocean waves, or vibrating train tracks. However, much of this energy is irregular and oscillatory - for example, road bumps ...

Technology / Engineering

created Apr 25, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 26 | with audio podcast report

Rational design can improve hydrogen fuel cell efficiency

(PhysOrg.com) -- Hydrogen fuel cells, in which the chemical energy of hydrogen is converted into electricity, offer the potential for a wide variety of applications, especially in transportation and power ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Feb 29, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (12) | comments 0 | with audio podcast feature

Americans support national clean-energy standard: study

The average U.S. citizen is willing to pay 13 percent more for electricity in support of a national clean-energy standard (NCES), according to Yale and Harvard researchers in Nature Climate Change.

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created May 13, 2012 | popularity 3.2 / 5 (9) | comments 34 | with audio podcast

Rechargeable lithium-sulfur batteries get a boost from graphene

(PhysOrg.com) -- By wrapping tiny sulfur particles in graphene sheets, researchers from Stanford University have synthesized a promising cathode material for rechargeable lithium-sulfur batteries that could ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Jul 13, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (22) | comments 53 | with audio podcast feature

Energy harvesting skin generates power from air conditioners

(PhysOrg.com) -- Devices that harvest ambient energy from the surrounding environment have become popular since, for some applications, they eliminate the need for batteries that must constantly be replaced. ...

Technology / Engineering

created Apr 20, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 7 | with audio podcast feature

Folding light: Wrinkles and twists boost power from solar panels

Taking their cue from the humble leaf, researchers have used microscopic folds on the surface of photovoltaic material to significantly increase the power output of flexible, low-cost solar cells.

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Apr 27, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (15) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Satellite proposed to send solar power to Earth

(Phys.org) -- Artemis Innovation Management Solutions has been given some seed money by NASA to look deeper into a project the company first proposed last summer; namely, building a satellite that could collect ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 11, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (54) | comments 75 | with audio podcast report

Nanotrees harvest the sun's energy to turn water into hydrogen fuel

(PhysOrg.com) -- University of California, San Diego electrical engineers are building a forest of tiny nanowire trees in order to cleanly capture solar energy without using fossil fuels and harvest it for ...

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Mar 07, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (21) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Researchers find simple and cheap way to mass-produce graphene nanosheets

Mixing a little dry ice and a simple industrial process cheaply mass-produces high-quality graphene nanosheets, researchers in South Korea and Case Western Reserve University report.

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Mar 26, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (33) | comments 22 | with audio podcast

Graphene battery demonstrated to power an LED

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists in Hong Kong have reported, in ArXiv, their experiments to make a graphene battery that they say generates an electrical current by drawing on the ambient thermal energy in the sol ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Mar 16, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (25) | comments 24 | with audio podcast report