Energy & Green Tech news

Energy & Green Tech

Researchers create artificial plants that purify indoor air, generate electricity

On average, Americans spend about 90% of their time indoors, and the air we breathe at work, school or home affects our overall health and well-being.

Energy & Green Tech

Newly developed material can suppress thermal runaway in batteries

A team of engineers and materials scientists at LG Chem, Korea's largest chemical company, has developed a material that they claim could greatly reduce the risk of thermal runaway and resulting fires in batteries. In their ...

Energy & Green Tech

UK announces £22bn for carbon capture projects

The UK government on Friday announced investment of nearly £22 billion ($28.8 billion) in projects to capture and store carbon emissions created by industry and energy production.

Business

Green subsidies may have hidden costs, experts warn

Government subsidies for business practices and processes should be approached with caution, even when they seem to be environmentally friendly, writes a group of scientists and economists in this week's Policy Forum in the ...

Engineering

New technique streamlines early-stage battery development

From current on-road vehicles to future electrified aircraft, the safety and reliability of energy storage systems is critical across battery applications. Before entering the market, all battery systems undergo thorough ...

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

Nuclear power is set to get a lot safer (and cheaper) – here's why

High-profile disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima have given nuclear power a bad name. Despite 60 years of nuclear generation without major accidents in many countries including Britain and France, many people have serious ...

Energy & Green Tech

Americans use more clean energy in 2016

Americans used more renewable energy in 2016 compared to the previous year, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Overall, energy consumption was nearly flat.

Energy & Green Tech

Getting from greenhouse gas to microbial biomass

Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) are emitted into our atmosphere as waste products of current energy production activities. But imagine turning this waste carbon into biomass - a reliable, economical, ...

Energy & Green Tech

Bio-inspired energy storage: A new light for solar power

Inspired by an American fern, researchers have developed a groundbreaking prototype that could be the answer to the storage challenge still holding solar back as a total energy solution.

Energy & Green Tech

Safer batteries made with wood

Inspired by the structure of wood, engineers at the University of Maryland have used modified wood as a unique architecture for the negative electrode of a lithium (Li) metal battery, seeking to prevent some of the key factors ...

Energy & Green Tech

'Virtual batteries' could lead to cheaper, cleaner power

In the power grid, supply and demand need to match exactly. If consumers demand more power than producers can supply, or if producers provide more power than consumers need, the result can be rolling blackouts.

Energy & Green Tech

Efficiency of silicon solar cells climbs past 26 percent

(Tech Xplore)—A team of researchers working at Kaneka Corporation has broken the record for silicon-based solar cell efficiency by producing a cell that was tested to be 26.3-percent efficient—an increase of 0.7 percent ...

Energy & Green Tech

Getting rid of the last bits of sulfur in fuel

Scientists led by a team at Caltech have developed a new method for potentially removing nearly all sulfur compounds from gas and diesel fuel.

Energy & Green Tech

Solar panels get a facelift with custom designs

Residential solar power is on a sharp rise in the United States as photovoltaic systems become cheaper and more powerful for homeowners. A 2012 study by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) predicts that solar could reach ...