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 ...

Hardware

New methodology enables design of cloud servers for lower carbon

Reducing carbon emissions is crucial to curbing the effects of climate change, but usually gas-powered vehicles and manufacturers are the most conspicuous culprits. However, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ...

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

China investing heavily in two types of solar power

(Tech Xplore)—China has made it known to the world that it plans to move from coal-fired powered plants to those based on renewable resources as quickly as possible—the smog from coal plants and the huge amount of greenhouse ...

Energy & Green Tech

Crystalline fault lines provide pathway for solar cell current

A team of scientists studying solar cells made from cadmium telluride, a promising alternative to silicon, has discovered that microscopic "fault lines" within and between crystals of the material act as conductive pathways ...

Energy & Green Tech

Fluorescent ruby red roofs stay as cool as white

Elementary school science teaches us that in the sun, dark colors get hot while white stays cool. Now new research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found an exception: scientists have determined ...

Energy & Green Tech

Several thousand suns in a laboratory

Eighteen light sources arranged in a half-sphere can mimic the equivalent of several thousand times the sun's radiation received on earth, with unparalleled power and precision. This system, developed by an EPFL laboratory, ...

Energy & Green Tech

First flight of a solar-powered, piloted helicopter

A University of Maryland student team has once again achieved new aviation heights, this time by successfully lifting a helicopter and passenger through the sole use of solar power.

Energy & Green Tech

Calculating the financial risks of renewable energy

For investors, deciding whether to invest money into renewable-energy projects can be difficult. The issue is volatility: Wind-powered energy production, for instance, changes annually—and even weekly or daily—which creates ...

Energy & Green Tech

Tech startup bets on slow water to power our future

It's a perfect summer afternoon on the Saint Clair River, on the Canadian border just north of Detroit. Pleasure boats skim across the bright blue water as picnickers watch from the grassy bank. They don't notice the fat ...

Energy & Green Tech

New fabric uses sun and wind to power devices

Fabrics that can generate electricity from physical movement have been in the works for a few years. Now researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have taken the next step, developing a fabric that can simultaneously ...

Energy & Green Tech

Massive wind harvesting project to go up in Iowa

(Tech Xplore)—MidAmerican Energy has announced that the State of Iowa's Utility Board has approved plans for installation of its 2 GW Wind XI project, the largest ever undertaken in the U.S.. The project will involve installing ...

Energy & Green Tech

In batteries, a metal reveals its dual personality

Battery researchers have been focusing on lithium metal electrodes as leading contenders for improving the amount of energy that batteries can store without increasing their weight. But lithium in this metallic form has a ...