New Developments January 2017

Off-grid power in remote areas will require special business model to succeed More than 1.2 billion people lack access to basic electricity service. The majority of those people are living in developing nations, in rural or isolated areas with high rates of poverty. Steep costs and remote terrain often make it impractical or even impossible to extend the electric grid.

Turning up the thermostat could help tropical climates cool down The best cognitive performance, as indicated by task speed, was recorded at 26°C; at 29°C, the availability of an occupant-controlled fan partially mitigated the negative effect of the elevated temperature. In the United States, about 75 percent of electricity is used in buildings. Meanwhile, in the U.S. and worldwide, air conditioning accounts for 40 percent of total energy use and relative greenhouse gas emissions. The tests used smart, energy-efficient desk fans that run on more efficient, direct-current (DC) motors using between 3 and 17 watts, rather than alternative-current (AC) motors that use around 100 watts.

Germanium's semiconducting, optical properties probed under pressure Until now one of the most-promising forms of germanium for practical applications, called ST12, has only been created in tiny sample sizes -- too small to definitively confirm its properties. the nameST12 means "simple tetragonal with 12 atoms." It was created by putting germanium under about 138 times normal atmospheric pressure (14 gigapascals) and then decompressing it slowly at room temperature. The millimeter-sized samples of ST12-germanium that the team created were large enough that they could be studied using a variety of spectroscopic techniques in order to confirm its long-debated characteristics.

Metallic substances conduct electrical current easily, whereas insulating materials conduct no current at all. Semiconducting materials exhibit mid-range electrical conductivity. When semiconducting materials are subjected to an input of a specific energy, bound electrons can be moved to higher-energy, conducting states. The specific energy required to make this jump to the conducting state is defined as the "band gap." While direct band gap materials can effectively absorb and emit light, indirect band gap materials cannot. "Our findings indicate that due to the size of its band gap, ST12-germanium may be a better material for infrared detection and imaging technology than the diamond-cubic form of the element already being used for these purposes."

New technology will cut plug-in hybrid fuel consumption by one third While not all plug-in hybrids work the same way, most models start in all-electric mode, running on electricity until their battery packs are depleted, then switch to hybrid mode. Known as binary mode control, this EMS strategy is easy to apply, but isn't the most efficient way to combine the two power sources. "In reality, drivers may switch routes, traffic can be unpredictable, and road conditions may change, meaning that the EMS must source that information in real-time”. The highly efficient EMS developed and simulated by Qi and his team combines vehicle connectivity information (such as cellular networks and crowdsourcing platforms) and evolutionary algorithms -- a mathematical way to describe natural phenomena such as evolution, insect swarming and bird flocking. The current paper builds on previous work by the team showing that individual vehicles can learn how to save fuel from their own historical driving records. Together with the application of evolutionary algorithms, vehicles will not only learn and optimize their own energy efficiency, but will also share their knowledge with other vehicles in the same traffic network through connected vehicle technology.

New method to remove nickel from contaminated seawater Electrochemical technique traps up to 24 percent of nickel in metal-rich seawater in 1 week

Vader systems creates liquid metal 3-D printer for manufacturing Manufacturers are very interested in the Vader machine, with one automotive parts maker expressing an interest in eventually buying at least 50 of them. A printer with multiple nozzles could cost more than $1 million. His breakthrough came when he thought to expose molten metal in a confined chamber with an orifice to a pulsed magnetic field. The transient field induces a pressure with the metal that ejects a droplet. That was the key to making droplets of liquid metal eject from a nozzle.

Graphene able to transport huge currents on the nano scale The strong electric field of the highly charged ions is able to tear dozens of electrons away from the graphene within a matter of femtoseconds. However, because graphene is able to transport high electric currents, the positive charge can be rapidly neutralized. The current density is around 1000 times higher than that which would lead to the destruction of the material under normal circumstances -- but over these distances and time scales, graphene can withstand such extreme currents without suffering any damage.

Self-assembling particles brighten future of LED lighting The researchers developed a technique in which nanoscale perovskite particles self-assemble to produce more efficient, stable and durable perovskite-based LEDs. The advance, reported January 16 in Nature Photonics, could speed the use of perovskite technologies in commercial applications such as lighting, lasers and television and computer screens. LEDs emit light when voltage is applied across the LED. When the light is turned on, electrical current forces electrons from the negative side of the diode to the positive side. This releases energy in the form of light. LEDs operate best when this current can be strictly controlled. In Rand's devices, the thin nanoparticle-based films allowed just that. Perovskite is a mineral originally discovered in the mid-1800s in Russia and named in honor of the Russian mineralogist Lev Perovski. The term "perovskite" extends to a class of compounds that share the crystalline structure of Perovski's mineral, a distinct combination of cuboid and diamond shapes. Perovskites exhibit a number of intriguing properties -- they can be superconductive or semiconductive, depending on their structure. Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite layers are fabricated by dissolving perovskite precursors in a solution containing a metal halide and an organic ammonium halide. It is a relatively cheap and simple process that could offer an inexpensive alternative to LEDs based on silicon and other materials.

 To each driver the appropriate vehicle The data logger provides insights into how vehicles are used. Once installed in a car, it records all the relevant operational data from the journeys the car makes over a period of several weeks or months. This helps researchers evaluate in a usage-specific way how a car is used, including characteristics such as route profiles or driving style: when does the driver drive more cautiously, when more aggressively? The technology of the data logger is based on the Raspberry Pi single-board computer in which all the electronic components are housed on a single board, making purchase affordable for prospective customers. Installation and activation are straightforward, and can be done by users themselves. The device reads vehicle data via an OBD-II interface that is already built in to every vehicle. Bluetooth data transfer between the OBD-II interface and the data logger is accomplished by means of an adapter manufactured by PACE Telematics GmbH, a Karlsruhe-based start-up.

Meeting the challenges of nanotechnology: Nanoscale catalytic effects for nanotechnology Everyday materials that are being scaled down to the size of nanometres (one million times smaller than a millimetre on a standard ruler) by scientists on a global scale are seen as the future of electronic devices. The scientific and engineering advances are leading to new technologies such as energy producing clothing to power our personal gadgets and sensors to monitor our health and the surrounding environment. Over the coming years this will make a massive contribution to the explosion that is the Internet of Things connecting everything from our homes to our cars into a web of communication. All of these new technologies require similar advances in electrical circuits and especially electrical contacts that allow the devices to work correctly with electricity. There is a pressing need to develop new electrical contact preparation techniques to ensure these devices become an everyday reality.

Wyoming Bill Would Outlaw Renewable Energy Republican lawmakers in Wyoming have introduced a bill that would block the use of renewable energy in the state. If passed, utilities that use wind or solar to produce power for Wyoming residents would be penalized with a costly fine of $10-per-megawatt-hour. Under Senate File 71, only six resources—coal, hydroelectric, nuclear, oil, natural gas, and net metering systems such as rooftop solar or backyard wind projects—are considered "eligible" generating resources. Electric utilities will have one year to be 95 percent compliant with the approved resources and 100 percent compliant by 2019. Miller, however, is not confident the bill will pass, putting its chances at "50 percent or less." Still, Republicans overwhelmingly outnumber Democrats 51-9 in the state House and 27-3 in the Senate. Others have remarked that this law is completely unsound and even unprecedented. "It would be very difficult to implement, difficult to regulate," Shannon Anderson, lawyer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council, told the Star-Tribune. "It goes against longstanding precedent to choose least-cost resources, and it ignores the reality of a multi-state grid."

Increasing energy efficiency of metal-air batteries When the perovskite or polypyrrole are used alone, their activities can not be reached to that of platinum. However, as a result of physically mixing perovksite with polypyrrole, the activity was dramatically enhanced and it was reached to that of platinum. This is first synergistic effect in oxygen electrocatalysis even though there was any chemical interaction between pervskite and polypyrrole.

Extreme space weather-induced blackouts could cost US more than $40 billion daily The daily U.S. economic cost from solar storm-induced electricity blackouts could be in the tens of billions of dollars, with more than half the loss from indirect costs outside the blackout zone, according to a new study. Previous studies have focused on direct economic costs within the blackout zone, failing to take into account indirect domestic and international supply chain loss from extreme space weather. Under the study's most extreme blackout scenario, affecting 66 percent of the U.S. population, the daily domestic economic loss could total $41.5 billion plus an additional $7 billion loss through the international supply chain. Manufacturing is the U.S. economic sector most affected by those solar-induced blackouts, followed by government, finance and insurance, and property. Outside of the U.S., China would be most affected by the indirect cost of such U.S. blackouts, followed by Canada and Mexico -- as "these countries provide a greater proportion of raw materials, and intermediate goods and services, used in production by U.S. firms."

Faster recharging batteries possible after new insights Adding positively charged ions increased how fast lithium moves within the tunnel structures, which is crucial to improving the charging of batteries.

Nordic countries are bringing about an energy transition worth copying About 83% of electricity generation in Nordic countries is low-carbon, of which 63% comes entirely from renewable sources. The Nordic countries are also facilitating other low-carbon transitions across other sectors including heat, buildings, industry, and transport. The energy transition pays for itself (if you factor in the costs of air pollution). The total estimated cost of the Nordic energy transition is roughly $357 billion more than business as usual, which comes to a total of less than 1 percent of cumulative GDP between now and 2050. Almost all of these costs will be offset by fuel savings. Even the external costs associated with the health impacts of air pollution alone in the Nordic countries (about $9 to $14 billion annually) are roughly equal to the additional investment needed to achieve a carbon neutral scenario. Trade and interconnection with other countries are key for reaching energy targets. Cities and municipalities, or 'subnational actors' have taken the lead as key actors driving electricity and heat, energy efficiency, transport and the industry sectors to decarbonise, especially given that urbanization rates across the Nordic region are expected to occur at double the rate of previous decades. It is cities that will need to invest in new buildings, sponsor retrofits, erect electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and optimize heat networks. Even for the Nordic countries, which are relatively wealthy, small, and committed, the transition will take at least three to four more decades. Its success rests upon a number of compelling technological contingencies or breakthroughs, each of which will take time. A few such breakthroughs include a continued phase out of nuclear power; a rapid ramping up of onshore and offshore wind energy; a spectacular diffusion of electric vehicles; a massive increase in bioenergy production; and the commercialization of industrial scale carbon capture and storage.

100% renewable energy sources require overcapacity This study shows the complexity of replacing the present primary energy supply with electricity from intermittent renewable sources, which would inevitably need to be supplemented by other forms of CO₂-free energy production. A back-up system capable of providing power at a level of 89% of peak load would be needed.