Energy & Green Tech
(Tech Xplore)—A team of researchers working at the National University of Singapore has developed a new hybrid redox flow battery (RFB) that they claim has ten times the energy density as conventional RFBs. In their paper ...
Energy & Green Tech
The now-familiar sight of traditional propeller wind turbines could be replaced in the future with wind farms containing more compact and efficient vertical turbines. New research from Oxford Brookes University has found ...
Apr 27, 2021
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Electronics & Semiconductors
In recent years, researchers worldwide have been trying to develop solar cells and other technologies that can produce electrical energy from renewable sources, as these could reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and thus ...
Energy & Green Tech
A future powered by sustainable energy sources could save the world from devastating climate change and reduce energy bills. But renewable energy has an intermittency problem—the sun provides no power at night, while winds ...
Feb 3, 2022
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Energy & Green Tech
A novel technique called Underground Gravity Energy Storage turns decommissioned mines into long-term energy storage solutions, thereby supporting the sustainable energy transition.
Jan 12, 2023
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Energy & Green Tech
Australia is poised to construct one of the world's largest batteries, using Tesla's technology for lithium-ion batteries. The football-field sized battery will provide up to 300 megawatts of power output and 450 megawatts-hours ...
Energy & Green Tech
The phrase "too much of a good thing" may sound like a contradiction, but it encapsulates one of the key hurdles preventing the expansion of renewable energy generation. Too much of a service or commodity makes it harder ...
Aug 25, 2020
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Robotics
Electrical and electronic scrap (e-scrap) is now one of the fastest growing types of waste. E-scrap includes a wide array of old electronic devices that includes large household appliances such as refrigerators or air-conditioning ...
Energy & Green Tech
In the switch to "greener" energy sources, the demand for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries is surging. However, their cathodes typically contain cobalt—a metal whose extraction has high environmental and societal costs. ...
Jan 18, 2024
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Energy & Green Tech
Solar and wind energy surged to make a record 12 percent of the world's electricity in 2022, a climate think tank calculated in a report Wednesday—though coal remained the leading source globally.
Apr 12, 2023
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Renewable energy is energy generated from natural resources—such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat—which are renewable (naturally replenished). In 2006, about 18% of global final energy consumption came from renewables, with 13% coming from traditional biomass, such as wood-burning. Hydroelectricity was the next largest renewable source, providing 3% of global energy consumption and 15% of global electricity generation.
Wind power is growing at the rate of 30 percent annually, with a worldwide installed capacity of 121,000 megawatts (MW) in 2008, and is widely used in European countries and the United States. The annual manufacturing output of the photovoltaics industry reached 6,900 MW in 2008, and photovoltaic (PV) power stations are popular in Germany and Spain. Solar thermal power stations operate in the USA and Spain, and the largest of these is the 354 MW SEGS power plant in the Mojave Desert. The world's largest geothermal power installation is The Geysers in California, with a rated capacity of 750 MW. Brazil has one of the largest renewable energy programs in the world, involving production of ethanol fuel from sugar cane, and ethanol now provides 18 percent of the country's automotive fuel. Ethanol fuel is also widely available in the USA. While most renewable energy projects and production is large-scale, renewable technologies are also suited to small off-grid applications, sometimes in rural and remote areas, where energy is often crucial in human development. Kenya has the world's highest household solar ownership rate with roughly 30,000 small (20–100 watt) solar power systems sold per year.
Some renewable energy technologies are criticised for being intermittent or unsightly, yet the renewable energy market continues to grow. Climate change concerns coupled with high oil prices, peak oil and increasing government support are driving increasing renewable energy legislation, incentives and commercialization. New government spending, regulation, and policies should help the industry weather the 2009 economic crisis better than many other sectors.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
