Energy & Green Tech news

Engineering

Plastic waste yields jet fuel through new process costing as little as $1 per kilogram

Aviation is one of the sectors that contributes most to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change on Earth. One proposed strategy for mitigating or counterbalancing the effects of these emissions is to substitute existing ...

Energy & Green Tech

Carbon capture gets more flexible: New electrochemical method could lower energy use

Carbon capture is an important climate change mitigation strategy, but it faces technological barriers and can be energy-intensive and expensive. To help make necessary advances in this area, a team of MIT researchers, with ...

Energy & Green Tech

Standalone 'leaf' produces liquid fuel from sun, water and CO₂ with record efficiency

A Yale-led research team has developed the first standalone device that produces the liquid fuel methanol using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide as the ingredients. The artificial "leaf," like its namesake in nature, ...

Energy & Green Tech

Stronger security measures are needed as the energy retail sector faces escalating cyber threats

A doctoral dissertation by Mikko Suorsa, to be defended at the University of Vaasa, Finland, reveals that the energy retail sector is an essential yet vulnerable part of the energy industry's value chain and of critical infrastructure. ...

Engineering

Dust-prone desert of the Southwest may be ideal for solar energy

Solar energy developers eyeing parts of southern New Mexico may have less to worry about than expected when it comes to dust. A new study led by University of Texas at El Paso researchers concludes that photovoltaic panels ...

Business

Offshore wind could potentially cover 11% of North Sea by 2050

New research has mapped a plausible scenario for how offshore wind could reshape the North Sea by 2050, showing that if all current political commitments were built, around 11% of the basin would fall within wind farm boundaries.

Energy & Green Tech

An AI-driven roadmap for future permanent magnet design

Researchers at Ames National Laboratory are advancing the discovery of materials for rare-earth-free permanent magnets by combining fundamental physics with artificial intelligence. The work contributes to the U.S. Department ...

Engineering

Supercharging the grid: How to free up 20% more power

Implementing effective monitoring measures could yield much more energy from the cable network—all without digging a single new trench. Just a dream scenario? No, it is entirely possible, say researchers.

Engineering

Carbon ratios in concrete can improve carbon accounting

For the first time, researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo, have found out how to determine how much carbon dioxide (CO2) from either natural or anthropogenic sources can be absorbed by special concrete ...

Engineering

Why your building is often too hot, or cold—and the simple fix

In many cases, heating can be significantly improved simply by adjusting existing controls to account for sunlight, ventilation and how many people are inside, according to researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Reusable cups made easy: What consumers really want

A new study from Taiwan combines consumer behavior research and life cycle assessment to design reusable cup systems that people are more willing to use. The findings show that convenience and incentives strongly shape participation, ...

Energy & Green Tech

Turbo-charging battery research with AI: An ambitious vision

Scientists envision batteries will play a central role in improving the security and cost-effectiveness of America's energy systems. But achieving this requires solving numerous technical challenges, such as designing high-performance ...

Business

Faster renewable shift could save EU billions, analysis shows

Recurring geopolitical tensions and energy import limitations have raised energy prices across the European Union (EU), exposing a gap in energy supplies and vulnerabilities in energy security. With energy prices showing ...

Engineering

Your future home might be framed with printed plastic

The plastic bottle you just tossed in the recycling bin could provide structural support for your future house. MIT engineers are using recycled plastic to 3D print construction-grade beams, trusses, and other structural ...

Energy & Green Tech

Neptunium study yields plutonium insights for space exploration

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory are breathing new life into the scientific understanding of neptunium, a unique, radioactive, metallic element—and a key precursor for production of ...

Energy & Green Tech

Oxygen-modified graphene filters boost natural gas purification

As we shift toward more sustainable fuels, natural gas and biogas, which mainly contain methane (CH4), have become important sources of energy and raw materials for chemical production. However, these gases also contain impurities ...

Engineering

Mechanical engineers' wood-based material could cut energy costs

University of Texas at Dallas researchers and their collaborators have developed and patented a wood-based material that can store and discharge heat to help make building temperatures more comfortable without using electricity. ...

Energy & Green Tech

The data center surge has a hidden source of carbon emissions

Data centers siphon huge amounts of energy to power artificial intelligence. But their environmental footprint starts to balloon even before the first server switches on due to the immense amount of carbon-intensive concrete ...

Engineering

Taking the heat out of industrial chemical separations

The modern world runs on chemicals and fuels that require a huge amount of energy to produce: Industrial chemical separation accounts for 10% to 15% of the world's total energy consumption. That's because most separations ...