Research
advances energy savings for oil, gas industries A Washington State
University research team has improved an important catalytic reaction commonly
used in the oil and gas industries. The innovation could lead to dramatic
energy savings and reduced pollution. Methane also is a primary ingredient in
natural gas used to heat homes, and it can be converted into many useful
products including electricity. But breaking the strong bond between its carbon
and hydrogen takes a tremendous amount of energy. To convert methane, the oil
and gas industry most often uses a nickel-based catalyst. But it is often less
expensive to simply burn the methane in giant flares on site; however, this
adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, contributing to global warming, and
wastes energy. In the U.S., for example, the amount of methane burned annually
is as much as 25 percent of the country's natural gas consumption. The
researchers determined that they can dramatically reduce the energy needed to
break the bond between carbon and hydrogen by adding a tiny bit of carbon
within the nickel-based catalyst. This creates nickel carbide, which generates
a positive electrical field. This novel catalyst weakens the methane molecule's
hydrogen-carbon bond, allowing it to break at much lower temperatures.
A
city’s solar potential depends on the length of its road network This is
because the formation of the road network defines the spaces that can be filled
by buildings. And the resulting arrangement of buildings influences the amount
of sunlight each building receives.
This
non-toxic battery lasts a decade, could be renewable energy’s missing piece
Researchers at Harvard University have developed a new kind of low-cost battery
that can run for more than 10 years with no maintenance. It is also non-toxic
and inexpensive, to boot. Instead of the solid electrodes found in conventional
batteries, flow batteries contain liquid electrolytes held in separate tanks
that react as they flow through cells. Today’s flow batteries use electrolyte
solutions of vanadium metal dissolved in corrosive acids. Not only is vanadium
expensive, but this formulation also adds cost because it requires special
corrosion-resisting tanks. Plus, all of today’s battery technologies start
losing their capacity to hold charge after a few years, or a few hundred
recharge cycles. The battery loses only 1 percent of its capacity after over
1,000 charge cycles, which is much longer than lithium batteries. The
researchers also calculated that if the battery was charged and discharged
completely once a day, “we would expect it to retain 50 percent of its energy
storage capacity after 5,000 cycles, or about 14 years.”
Tweaking
electrolyte makes better lithium-metal batteries The additive enabled a
4.3-volt battery that retained more than 97 percent of its initial charge after
500 repeated charges and discharges, while carrying 1.75 milliAmps of
electrical current per square centimeter of area. It took the battery about one
hour to fully charge.
New
approach to improving lithium-sulfur batteries Researchers have
demonstrated a new polysulfide entrapping strategy that greatly improves the cycle
stability of Li-S batteries. Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are the power
behind most modern portable electronics, including cell phones, tablets,
laptops, fitness trackers, and smart watches. However, their energy density --
that is, the amount of energy stored within a given amount of physical space,
or mass -- will need to be improved for these batteries to see widespread use
in smart grid and electric transport applications. the energy density of
lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries is five times higher than that of Li-ion
batteries. That advantage, combined with low cost, suggests that this
alternative technology shows promise for high-energy storage applications. But
the use of Li-S batteries is limited by a different problem: rapid capacity
fade, which means that the amount of charge these batteries can deliver at the
rated voltage decreases significantly with use. Wei and colleagues have
demonstrated a new polysulfide entrapping strategy that greatly improves the
cycle stability of Li-S batteries.
Electronic
energy meters' false readings almost six times higher than actual energy
consumption Some electronic energy meters can give false readings that are
up to 582% higher than actual energy consumption. The author of a new report
estimates that potentially inaccurate meters have been installed in the meter
cabinets of at least 750,000 Dutch households.
Vertical
wind turbines could produce 10x the power per acre as their horizontal
counterparts vertical-axis wind
turbines (VAWTs), which are cylindrical and typically look like an egg-beater
or a weather vane. Vertical-axis turbines are cheaper to make and maintain,
take up less space, and safer for birds and bats. The problem is that they are
not very efficient. The power output of a wind farm depends on how its turbines
are arranged. That’s because individual turbines interact with each other and
affect the flow of wind across the array. When conventional wind turbines are
placed close to each other, for instance, upstream turbines slow down wind and
cause turbulence, which decreases power output from neighboring turbines. This
is why such turbines have to be placed hundreds of feet apart. VAWTs, on the
other hand, affect each other positively when placed close to each other.
Lithium-ion
battery inventor introduces new technology for fast-charging, noncombustible
batteries A team of engineers led by 94-year-old John Goodenough, professor
in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and
co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery, has developed the first all-solid-state
battery cells that could lead to safer, faster-charging, longer-lasting
rechargeable batteries for handheld mobile devices, electric cars and
stationary energy storage. The UT Austin battery formulation also allows for a
greater number of charging and discharging cycles, which equates to
longer-lasting batteries, as well as a faster rate of recharge (minutes rather
than hours). Instead of liquid electrolytes, the researchers rely on glass
electrolytes that enable the use of an alkali-metal anode without the formation
of dendrites. This is the first all-solid-state battery cell that can operate
under 60 degree Celsius.
Sustainable,
high energy density battery created It is based on manganese dioxide
(MnO2), an abundant, safe and non-toxic material. The battery is intended for
use at the scale of the power grid. This would make widespread use of solar and
wind power possible.
Chemists
create molecular 'leaf' that collects and stores solar power without solar
panels a molecule that uses light or electricity to convert the greenhouse
gas carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide -- a carbon-neutral fuel source -- more
efficiently than any other method of "carbon reduction." Burning fuel
-- such as carbon monoxide -- produces carbon dioxide and releases energy.
Turning carbon dioxide back into fuel requires at least the same amount of
energy. The molecule -- a nanographene-rhenium complex connected via an organic
compound known as bipyridine -- triggers a highly efficient reaction that
converts carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide.The ability to efficiently and
exclusively create carbon monoxide is significant due to the molecule's
versatility. "Carbon monoxide is an important raw material in a lot of
industrial processes," Li said. "It's also a way to store energy as a
carbon-neutral fuel since you're not putting any more carbon back into the
atmosphere than you already removed. You're simply re-releasing the solar power
you used to make it." The molecule developed at IU takes advantage of the
light-absorbing power of nanographene to create a reaction that uses sunlight
in the wavelength up to 600 nanometers -- a large portion of the visible light
spectrum. If thorium reactors are so great, what's the holdup? It basically
boils down to this: "The science is easy. The engineering is hard." LFTR's
molten salt contains beryllium to help regulate nuclear fission, but it's a big
health hazard. If there's ever a leak or spill of the material, Petti says it
solidifies into a crumbly 'snow' that workers might inhale, raising their risk
of a lung cancer and a disease called berylliosis. Molten salt also contains
lithium, which a reactor can breed into a radioactive gas called tritium. It's
less of a threat than beryllium, but it can bond to water and make it slightly
radioactive, possibly leading to cancer and birth defects. "Salts can be
very harmful to metal piping (think of salt used on the road and what it does
to car bodies)," Swank wrote.
"Another
challenge is the use of [fluorine] which is highly toxic due to its strong
ability to strip electrons." Petti said the LFTR's big bugaboo is its
proliferation risk, since U-233 fuel could be used to make a nuclear weapon. ”If
they want that, they need to be talking to their elected officials and
demanding it, in fact, and saying 'we want to see these things happen.' Because
only a society that decides to embrace this kind of technology is going to
ultimately realise its benefits."
A
Forgotten War Tech Could Safely Power Earth for Millions of Years Energy
from fusion is promising, but it's not yet proved to work, let alone on a
commercial and competitive scale. Nuclear reactors, on the other hand, fit the
bill: they're dense, reliable, emit no carbon, and - contrary to bitter popular
sentiment - are among the safest energy sources on Earth. Called a molten-salt
reactor, the technology was conceived during the Cold War and forgoes solid
nuclear fuel for a liquid one, which it can "burn" with far greater
efficiency than any power technology in existence. It also generates a small
fraction of the radioactive waste that today's commercial reactors - which all
rely on solid fuel - do. And, in theory, molten-salt reactors can never melt
down. What's more, feeding a molten-salt reactor a radioactive waste from
mining, called thorium (which is three to four times more abundant than
uranium), can 'breed' as much nuclear fuel as it burns up. A dysfunctional
uranium fuel cycle in the US has not helped, where just 3 to 6.5 percent of
solid uranium fuel is burned up - and the remaining 93 to 97 percent is treated
as radioactive waste and not reprocessed and recycled. That maximum death-toll
estimates from that analysis show:
- Natural gas is 1.3 times as dangerous as nuclear
- Coal is 27 times as dangerous as nuclear
- Hydroelectric is 46 times as dangerous as nuclear
In
absolute terms, nuclear energy prevents about 80,000 air-pollution-related
deaths a year, according to a 2013 study. One of the most important things
about a nuclear fuel is the chance its nucleus will react with a flying
neutron, a property called neutron cross section. What happens in a thorium
reactor is thorium absorbs neutrons and it forms a new fuel - uranium-233 -
that can then sustain the reaction," he said. "It can produce enough
neutrons to continue turning more thorium into U-233. Breeding U-233 from
thorium also created significant amounts of a worrisome contaminant called
U-232, which scientists had not yet figured out how to remove. U-232 emits a
lot of alpha radiation, which can trigger spontaneous fission - not good for a
nuclear weapon you don't want to randomly explode. Its decay products also emit
a lot of gamma radiation, which can wreck electronics and harm or kill people
who handle bombs. In addition, gamma rays can blow a bomb's cover, since they
are detectable by aeroplane or satellite, and pass through all but the heaviest
radiation shielding. Scientists like Seaborg weren't even certain a
U-233-powered bomb would blow up very well.
New
nanofiber marks important step in next generation battery development
Materials researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have created a
nanofiber that could help enable the next generation of rechargeable batteries
and increase the efficiency of hydrogen production from water electrolysis.
During the synthetization process, the researchers used a technique called
composition tuning -- or "co-doping" -- to improve the intrinsic
activity of the catalyst by approximately 4.7 times. The perovskite oxide fiber
made during the electrospinning process was about 20 nanometers in diameter --
which thus far is the thinnest diameter reported for electrospun perovskite
oxide nanofibers. The researchers found that the new substance showed markedly
enhanced oxygen evolution reaction capability when compared to existing
catalysts. The new nanofiber's mass-normalized catalytic activity improved
about 72 times greater than the initial powder catalyst, and 2.5 times greater
than iridium oxide, which is considered a state of the art catalyst by current
standards.
EnergyTrend:
Cylindrical and Polymer Lithium Battery Cell Price Generally Increase in 1H17
The energy density development for cylindrical batteries has stopped.
Cylindrical battery makers will focus more on larger size product development
to fulfill the need for new vehicle applications. Fewer cylindrical batteries
will be used in laptop application, therefore despite the increasing
cylindrical battery capacity, more and more cylindrical batteries are now used
in power application.
India
to Overtake Japan as the World’s Third Largest Solar Market in 2017, Expects
EnergyTrend “While China remains the largest regional market, its domestic
PV installation target for this year is slightly lower than last year’s
according to the latest government announcement,” said EnergyTrend analyst
Celeste Tsai. “As for the second-place U.S., the country’s current political
climate is not conducive to the growth of its PV market. At the same time,
Japan will continue to lower its feed-in tariff rates over the next few years.
Because India still maintain strong demand for PV products, it has the potential
to overtake Japan to become the world’s third largest solar market by taking at
least 14% of the year’s total PV demand.”
Wind
energy is tough on bats—but it doesn’t have to be that way Though concern
about wind energy’s environmental impacts has focused mostly on birds, turbine
blades also kill vast numbers of bats—hundreds of thousands every year, raising
“the possibility for near or total extinction from wind-energy-related
fatalities,” say researchers who projected current mortality rates into the
future. Frick and colleagues calculate that hoary bats need population growth
rates of between 6 and 14 percent to keep pace with turbine deaths. The actual
population growth rate of that long-lived, slow-reproducing species is around 1
percent. Even in an “optimistic” scenario, writes Frick’s team, hoary bat
populations will fall by 50 percent in the next half-century. A more realistic
figure is 90 percent. Bats are most active when winds are slow and temperatures
mild: below about 13 miles per hour and above 49 degrees Fahrenheit,
respectively. Martin’s team adjusted the settings accordingly on half of
Sheffield’s 16 towers, raising the cut-in speed—the wind speed at which
generators give turbines a boost to get them going—to 6mph from 4mph on nights
warm enough for bats to fly. A next question to answer, then, might be how
people already know so much about solving the problem, yet do so little.
How
much waterdoes it take to makea cup of tea? So how much water goes into a
cup of tea? Somewhere around 30 litres of water is required for tea itself, 10
litres for a small dash of milk and a further 6 litres for each teaspoon of
sugar. This means that a simple cup of tea with milk and two sugars could
actually require 52 litres of water – enough to fill my kettle more than 30
times. The water needed to grow the tea leaves and the sugar cane, as well as
growing the feedstock consumed by dairy cows; the water used in the
manufacturing process for both the main products and their packaging; the water
used to brew the tea and clean the dirty cup; not to mention a number of other
things such as the water used to generate the energy to boil the kettle.
According to the latest figures from the UN, if we continue our on current
trajectory then by 2050 water demand is projected to grow by 55 percent. Using
large volumes of freshwater somewhere like the north of China, a region facing
serious water
shortages
and major issues with pollution, is a far greater issue than using it somewhere
like Canada, which has 20 percent of the world’s freshwater supply.
Pressed,
not baked: A green recipe for making tiles and bricks Ceramic materials
such as bricks, porcelain tiles, and cement carry a heavy carbon emissions
burden. Manufacturing them requires burning large amounts of fossil fuels to
fire raw materials in kilns at temperatures above 1,400°C. Swiss researchers
have now developed a new way to manufacture ceramics that skips the heating
altogether. Instead, the researchers make ceramics by adding water to the raw
material and compressing it at room temperature. The method, outlined in the
journal Nature Communications, slashes energy consumption and emissions, and
produces a material that’s stronger than concrete. Ceramics are non-metal
crystalline materials used in everything from building materials and dinnerware
to medical implant coatings and aerospace parts. Today, manufacturing Portland
cement alone results in 5 percent of the world’s total carbon emissions. The
researchers started with an extremely fine calcium carbonate nanopowder. They
added water and then compacted the material in a conventional hydraulic press
at room temperature. The new process, which is called cold-sintering, could be
made carbon-negative by capturing carbon from the atmosphere to produce the
carbonate nanopowder.
Environmentally
friendly, almost electricity-free solar cooling This absorption chiller
works in the same way as the gas refrigerators used in Finnish holiday cabins,
for example. But in this case, a solar thermal collector is used instead of
gas. The method requires electricity for the flow pumps only. If necessary, the
chiller can also serve as a heat pump. If the collectors did not produce enough
energy during, say, the winter, or on a cloudy day, a heat pump served as a
substitute energy source. Other possible energy sources would be district
heating, biofuel boilers or industrial process heat.
Scientists
harness solar power to produce clean hydrogen from biomass Lignocellulose
is the main component of plant biomass and up to now its conversion into hydrogen
has only been achieved through a gasification process which uses high
temperatures to decompose it fully. The new technology relies on a simple
photocatalytic conversion process. Catalytic nanoparticles are added to
alkaline water in which the biomass is suspended. This is then placed in front
of a light in the lab which mimics solar light. The solution is ideal for
absorbing this light and converting the biomass into gaseous hydrogen which can
then be collected from the headspace. The hydrogen is free of fuel-cell
inhibitors, such as carbon monoxide, which allows it to be used for power. The
nanoparticle is able to absorb energy from solar light and use it to undertake
complex chemical reactions. In this case, it rearranges the atoms in the water
and biomass to form hydrogen fuel and other organic chemicals, such as formic
acid and carbonate.
New
materials could turn water into the fuel of the future Solar fuels, a dream
of clean-energy research, are created using only sunlight, water, and carbon
dioxide (CO2). Researchers are exploring a range of target fuels, from hydrogen
gas to liquid hydrocarbons, and producing any of these fuels involves splitting
water. To create practical solar fuels, scientists have been trying to develop
low-cost and efficient materials, known as photoanodes, that are capable of
splitting water using visible light as an energy source. Over the past four
decades, researchers identified only 16 of these photoanode materials. Now,
using a new high-throughput method of identifying new materials, a team of
researchers led by Caltech's John Gregoire and Berkeley Lab's Jeffrey Neaton
and Qimin Yan have found 12 promising new photoanodes. In the work described in
the PNAS paper, they explored 174 metal vanadates -- compounds containing the
elements vanadium and oxygen along with one other element from the periodic
table.
From
space to the streets: New battery model also makes electric cars more reliable
They are able to predict how much the on-board battery will in fact be utilized
in the course of the satellite's mission. The efficiency achieved here is about
five times greater than with conventional systems. And electric cars on Earth
are already benefiting from the procedure as well.
Mapping
the effects of crystal defects New research offers insights into how
crystal dislocations -- a common type of defect in materials -- can affect
electrical and heat transport through crystals, at a microscopic, quantum
mechanical level. The findings could affect the search for better
thermoelectric materials, which can convert heat to electricity. These are used
for generating power from waste heat, or providing heaters for car seats.
Thermoelectric systems can also provide cooling, for cold-drink chests, for
example.
Liquid
fuel for future computers In the future, a new type of tiny redox flow
battery will supply tightly packed electronic components with energy, while
also dissipating the heat they produce. As the scientists use two liquids that
are known to be suitable both as flow-battery electrolytes and as a medium to
also effect cooling, excess heat can also be dissipated from the chip stack via
the same circuit. The battery built by the scientists is only around 1.5
millimetres thick. The idea would be to assemble chip stacks layer by layer: a
computer chip, then a thin battery micro-cell that supplies the chip with
electricity and cools it, followed by the next computer chip and so on. The
output of the new micro-battery also reaches a record-high in terms of its
size: 1.4 watts per square centimetre of battery surface. Even if you subtract
the power required to pump the liquid electrolytes to the battery, the
resulting net power density is still 1 watt per square centimetre. Although the
power density of the new micro-flow battery is very high, the electricity
produced is still not entirely sufficient to operate a computer chip. In order
for the flow battery to be used in a chip stack, it must be further optimised
by industry partners.
Enzyme
function inhibits battery aging, researchers show It has been known in
biology for a long time that the excited oxygen molecule singlet oxygen is the
main cause of aging in cells. To counter this, nature uses an enzyme called
superoxide dismutase to eliminate superoxide as a free radical. Superoxide also
occurs in cell respiration for energy production and is the preliminary stage
and thus source of singlet oxygen. A study has now stumbled upon astonishing
parallels of oxygen chemistry in battery systems. On top of the problem
recognition and methodology development, the article in Nature Energy also
provides an initial approach to how the storage cell can protect itself from
the reactive oxygen species. "In essence, the battery needs the function
of the enzyme superoxide dismutase. We were able to identify a class of
molecules which can fulfil this function. There has to be a suitable way of
getting the "enzyme" into the battery system -- either through the
electrolyte itself or by means of an additive which dissolves in the
electrolyte.
Liquid
storage of solar energy: More effective than ever before The stored energy
can be transported and then released as heat whenever needed. It is possible to
convert the solar energy directly into energy stored in the bonds of a chemical
fluid -- a so-called molecular solar thermal system. The liquid chemical makes
it possible to store and transport the stored solar energy and release it on
demand, with full recovery of the storage medium. The process is based on the
organic compound norbornadiene that upon exposure to light converts into
quadricyclane.
Energy: Most
efficient silicon solar cells yet The cell achieves a certified conversion
efficiency of 26.3%, showing that silicon solar cells are more efficient than
ever and suggesting that more efficient silicon solar panels are on the way.
Self-sustaining
bacteria-fueled power cell created Researchers have developed the next step
in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) with the first micro-scale self-sustaining cell,
which generated power for 13 straight days through symbiotic interactions of
two types of bacteria. In a cell chamber about one-fifth the size of a teaspoon
-- 90 microliters -- researchers placed a mixed culture of phototrophic and
heterotrophic bacteria. Those metabolic processes generated an electrical
current -- 8 microamps per square centimeter of cell -- for 13 straight days. A
common 42" high-definition television takes about half an amp of
electrical current to function which would, theoretically, require roughly
62,500 cells from the experiment. In reality, these cells will be used to
provide power in remote or dangerous locations for low-power items like health
monitors and infrastructure diagnostic sensors. Last spring, researchers
connected nine biological-solar (bio-solar) cells into a working bio-solar
panel for the first time ever. The bacteria used in that experiment were
phototrophic. That panel generated the most wattage of any existing small-scale
bio-solar cells: 5.59 microwatts. Choi has also developed an origami-inspired
microbe-based paper battery, a microbe-based battery that can use human saliva
as a power source, a battery that can be printed on paper and battery designs
inspired by Japanese ninja throwing stars.
Promising
results obtained with a new electrocatalyst that reduces the need for platinum
A group researchers has developed a manufacturing method for electrocatalysts
that only uses one hundredth of the amount of platinum generally used in
commercial products. The activity achieved using the new material is similar to
that of commercial electrocatalysts. The method is based on the special
characteristics of carbon nanotubes.
The
economic case for wind, solar energy in Africa To meet skyrocketing demand
for electricity, African countries may have to triple their energy output by
2030. While hydropower and fossil fuel power plants are favored approaches in
some quarters, a new assessment has found that wind and solar can be
economically and environmentally competitive options and can contribute
significantly to the rising demand. The tool they used to make these
evaluations, the Multicriteria Analysis for Planning Renewable Energy (MapRE,
at mapre.lbl.gov) was developed at Berkeley Lab in collaboration with IRENA and
is open-source and publicly available to researchers and policymakers.
Air
could be the world's next battery surplus energy generated by wind turbines
and solar cells is used to compress air, which is stored in caverns in solid
bedrock. When air is compressed, it heats up, so a separate underground heat
store stockpiles the heat generated by the compression process. When the energy
is needed, the air is released through a gas turbine, which generates
electricity. The more hot air that is released through the heat store on its
way out, the more electricity will be generated; in other words: the more
effective is the energy storage. The two largest compressed air stores in the
world are in Germany and the USA. They are underground chambers created in salt
formations. But these plants lose a large proportion of the potential energy of
the compressed air, because they do not incorporate a system to store the heat
produced during the air compression stage. it is estimated that this technology
could raise the efficiency of the system to as much as 70-80%. The
corresponding figures for most of the existing storage sites are no better than
45 to 55 per cent, which means that the produced energy is only half of what
was initially used to compress the air into the cavern. there is only a single
requirement as regards the choice of site. Large hollow spaces must already
exist, as it would be too expensive to excavate new caverns and make them safe.
Compact,
efficient system stores solar energy in liquids Now, Swedish researchers
report an efficient, compact new way to store solar energy in chemical liquids.
They have made a prototype hybrid device with two parts. One stores solar
energy in the chemical bonds of a molecule; the stored energy can then be
released as heat whenever needed. The other part uses sunlight to heat up
water, which can be used immediately. The device stores 1.1 percent of the
sunlight hitting it as chemical energy, which is a 100-fold improvement over
the system the researchers first developed in 2013. Up to 80 percent of
sunlight goes to heat the water. The device could store and then release energy
more than 100 times with almost no decrease in efficiency. They also want to
develop a solvent-free system: the chemical solution currently uses a toluene
solvent which could be toxic.
Low-carbon
energy boosts human and ecological health Replacing coal and gas
electricity generation with solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power would have
substantial benefits for both human and ecological health. Even setting aside
climate change, the impact on human health of air pollution, radiation,
carcinogens, and other toxins is smaller from alternative energy sources
compared to fossil fuels. The picture is similar for ecosystem health, which
the researchers measured by calculating the fraction of current species that
could go extinct as a result of a particular anthropogenic change to the
environment. Solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power all have very low
environmental impacts, they found. An unexpected finding of the study, however,
is that biomass fuels have a surprisingly large environmental impact. This is
mostly because it takes a lot of space to grow the plants that are then turned
into biofuels. The use of herbicides on biofuel plantations also contributes to
the environmental impact of this form of energy.
Chevy’s
Making a Hydrogen-Powered Pickup for the US Army Here, the army may have an
advantage. It uses JP-8 jet fuel in many of its ground vehicles and generators.
For the ZH2, it could either replace supply tankers of JP-8 with tankers of H2,
or, to simplify supply chains, make hydrogen from the jet fuel it’s already
got.
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