Energy & Green Tech news

Engineering

New research unlocks potential of electrochemical separation for water treatment and resource extraction

A team of Vanderbilt researchers has developed novel technology called electrochemical ion pumping (EIP) that could revolutionize the treatment of water and resource extraction.

Engineering

Engineers develop solar-powered lithium extraction from brine

A team of engineers at Nanjing University, working with a pair of colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley, has developed a new way to extract lithium from briny water.

Energy & Green Tech

Where leading countries stand in the transition to renewable heating, road transport and electricity

The sluggish rate of progress made in the energy transition is putting the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 at risk. On the positive side, with early warning indicators guiding timely and targeted ...

Business

High costs slow widespread use of heat pumps in UK, study shows

The high cost of installing heat pumps for home heating could slow down people widely adopting the technology and leave government targets missed, research suggests. There has been a little to no reduction in the average ...

Engineering

Soda production process eliminates CO₂ emissions

Fraunhofer researchers and their partners have developed an innovative and eco-friendly method of producing soda, essential for a wide range of industries, in the Green Soda project. The process is based on bipolar electrodialysis ...

Energy & Green Tech

China drives record growth in renewable energy jobs: report

A record 2.5 million jobs were created in the renewable energy sector in 2023, most of them in China, the International Renewable Energy Agency and International Labor Organization said on Tuesday.

Engineering

New cooling system works on gravity instead of electricity

Its abundance of sunlight and heavy investment in solar cell technology has positioned Saudi Arabia well in its transition to becoming a leading exporter of renewable energy. Indeed, solar energy currently makes up more than ...

Energy & Green Tech

Getting to zero emissions: A call for unified energy planning

As competition between gas and electric utilities heats up due to clean energy-promoting policies that emphasize replacing gas with electricity, state regulators need to overhaul their approach to regulation, argue scholars ...

Energy & Green Tech

Researcher wants to ensure AI doesn't ruin the environment

Artificial intelligence (AI) has changed the world as we know it. It's been used for everything from health-care monitoring to writing speeches. But the technology's impact on the environment is becoming a serious concern.

Energy & Green Tech

Britain's last coal-fired power station closes

The UK's last coal-fired power station will officially close its doors on Monday, making Britain the first G7 country to end its reliance on the fossil fuel to produce electricity.

Energy & Green Tech

Nepal dam-building spree powers electric vehicle boom

Taxi driver Surendra Parajuli's decision to buy an electric cab would have been unthinkable a decade ago, when chronic power cuts left Nepalis unable to light their homes at night.

Energy & Green Tech

How a surface treatment improves the inside of a solar cell

Physicists from the University of Luxembourg with European experts have succeeded in explaining the recent efficiency improvements in thin film solar cells. The work of the whole consortium has been published in the prestigious ...

Energy & Green Tech

What if half of Switzerland's rooftops produced electricity?

Researchers at EPFL are assessing Switzerland's solar power potential. Their results show that photovoltaic panels could be installed on more than half of the country's 9.6 million rooftops. The resulting power would meet ...

Energy & Green Tech

Smart water heating could help in South Africa's energy crisis

South Africa's energy crisis has many dimensions, from political and economic to technical and environmental. Recently, the country's power utility, Eskom, has been generating only about 60% of its capacity and has had to ...

Engineering

Anti-solar cells: A photovoltaic cell that works at night

What if solar cells worked at night? That's no joke, according to Jeremy Munday, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Davis. In fact, a specially designed photovoltaic cell could generate ...

Energy & Green Tech

Wearable health tech gets efficiency upgrade

North Carolina State University engineers have demonstrated a flexible device that harvests the heat energy from the human body to monitor health. The device surpasses all other flexible harvesters that use body heat as the ...

Energy & Green Tech

Self-learning heat­ing control system saves energy

Can buildings learn to save all by themselves? Empa researchers think so. In their experiments, they fed a new self-learning heating control system with temperature data from the previous year and the current weather forecast. ...

Energy & Green Tech

Instant hydrogen production for powering fuel cells

Since the Industrial Revolution, the environmental impacts of energy have posed a concern. Recently, this has driven researchers to search for viable options for clean and renewable energy sources.

Energy & Green Tech

For cheaper solar cells, thinner really is better

Costs of solar panels have plummeted over the last several years, leading to rates of solar installations far greater than most analysts had expected. But with most of the potential areas for cost savings already pushed to ...

Engineering

Researchers advance solar material production

A Washington State University team has developed a more efficient, safer, and cost-effective way to produce cadmium telluride (CdTe) material for solar cells or other applications, a discovery that could advance the solar ...

Energy & Green Tech

Stability assessment and reporting for perovskite photovoltaics

Improving the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells, which is crucial for the use of this pioneering technology—this is the topic of a paper published in the journal Nature Energy by an international research team, ...

Energy & Green Tech

Saving water when the sun shines

Deserts and other sun-drenched regions are the ideal location for concentrated solar power plants, but where sunlight is abundant, water tends to be scarce and dust covers everything. The EU-funded project MinWaterCSP develops ...