Energy & Green Tech news

Energy & Green Tech

Breaking down the battery problem: Cheaper, more efficient cathodes could cut costs

Consider the humble rechargeable battery: Many people start their day by unplugging their phone from a charger to check the weather or commute to work, or throw on their favorite podcast. They'll end the day by plugging in ...

Energy & Green Tech

Carbon nanotube fiber 'textile' heaters could help industry electrify high-temperature gas heating

A cross-disciplinary team at Rice University has developed a new type of electric heating element—one that looks less like a traditional metal coil and more like a high-performance thread. In a study published in Small, ...

Engineering

Zeolite 'thermal batteries' could cut data center cooling power up to 86%

Data centers—the warehouse-sized buildings that store photos, stream movies and train artificial intelligence—are voracious consumers of electricity. A surprisingly large share of that power never reaches a microchip. ...

Energy & Green Tech

Cheaper EV batteries? How a fabrication tweak makes sulfur work in solid-state cells

Spurred by EVs and electrified aviation, global demand for lithium-ion batteries is expected to more than double its 2023 levels by 2030, far outstripping demand, according to S&P Global Insights. New batteries must be powerful, ...

Business

Power outages cost US electricity customers billions

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have provided the first comprehensive analysis of the specific costs of power outages to local customers across the nation. It found that the average ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Canadians toss electronics at a concerning rate

The first survey of Canadian consumers regarding their purchase and disposal of electronics reveals that 64% of people replace their items for reasons other than the device breaking down or being obsolete. This behavior points ...

Energy & Green Tech

AI tool predicts building emissions from simple text descriptions

Researchers at the University of Bath have developed the first artificial intelligence (AI) tool that predicts the carbon footprint of buildings from simple text descriptions, giving architects real-time feedback on sustainability ...

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 ...

Energy & Green Tech

Hydrogen-powered ground vehicles offer a route to cleaner airports

Hydrogen-powered vehicles used on ground operations could help slash carbon emissions and support airports to reach net-zero targets, new research suggests. The Newcastle University research shows that key airport stakeholders ...