NewNergy

NewNergy discusses the latest inventions, innovations and breakthroughs in the energy & environmental sciences.

Concentrated Solar Power Could Generate 25% of the World’s Electricity by 2050

A new study from Greenpeace, the European Solar Thermal Agency, and the International Energy Agency’s SolarPACES Group has shown that concentrated solar power (CSP) could generate a quarter of the world’s energy needs by 2050–and create thousands of new jobs and prevent millions of tons of CO2 from being released.

CSP uses mirror to focus sunlight on water. The reaction creates steam that turns turbines and generates electricity. Unlike photovoltaic solar panels, CSP only works in places with reliable sunny weather, such as parts of the southern U.S., North Africa, Mexico, and India.

Sven Teske, co-author of the study, estimates that current investments in CSP ($2.8 billion) could grow under a moderate scenario to over $11 billion by 2010 and produce 7% of the world’s electricity generating capacity. By 2050, investments could grow to $93 billion. Combined with geothermal and wind farms, alternative energies could provide a significant portion of our overall energy needs in the next few decades.

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Solar Cells Along Highways To Generate Power

A promising invention now being tested by Solaroad Technologies,part of a business incubator at Towson University, which collects and stores solar energy, even when it isn't sunny.The idea is to place those cells along highways to generate power for street lights or construction.The circular solar collectors placed along a jersey wall gather much more energy than flat panels, even when its a dim day or at night.This solar cell system has the ability to create electricity when headlights strike these tubes at night.The electrawall also stores what it collects in batteries. The company also wants to market a cube tube, which would be installed on top of a workers cubicle in an office and it would get energy from the florescent lights in the work space.

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New Online Greenhouse Gas Calculator to Measure & Manage Vehicle Fleet Emissions

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and NAFA Fleet Management Association (NAFA) released a new online calculator for fleet managers to measure their greenhouse gas emissions as a first step in creating "greener" vehicle fleets.This tool that enables fleets to track their progress in reducing emissions over time.Recognizing that it is difficult to capture the complete data required by more advanced calculation methods, the Fleet Emissions Tool is designed to minimize data entry needs for fleets while retaining accuracy.

The Fleet Emissions Tool estimates total fleet greenhouse gas emissions from fuel consumption data. This data is directly used to calculate emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), which accounts for about 95% of greenhouse gas from vehicles. Emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are estimated based on their prominence among greenhouse gas from transportation source.

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Electricity Better than Ethanol as Biomass-derived Transport Fuels

Electricity more efficient than ethanol as a biomass energy for transportation fuels, says this interesting post at Physorg.

Naturally, they are talking about two different pathways. Biomass -> Fermentation -> Ethanol -> Transport; and Biomass -> Combustion -> Electricity (or) Biomass -> Gasification -> Electricity.

This sounds interesting and merits some analysis to be done by me later this week.

Biofuel from Waste Fats

UK based biofuel manufacturer, Amplefuel is set to produce 40 million litres of biofuel each year, focusing on making it from used cooking oil and solid fats.The plant, which utilises a variety of feedstocks from waste products, is one of a handful of firms that is able to break the solid fats down to a liquid biodiesel that does not solidify to later cause blockages.

Amplefuel utilise the solid waste fats from cooking that end up in landfill. Around 500kg of this fat is sent to landfill each week from people’s cooking which they put into a container to let it solidify and then leave it with the rest of their rubbish.The plant breaks the solid fat down by heating it and cleaning it of any visible and emulsified water. The two main fats found in solid fat are separated, treated and then cleaned up again and impurities are filtered out. The result is a liquid diesel that is then blended with other materials to ensure it stays liquid at low temperatures, like normal diesel, which solidifies at around -15 degrees Celsius.

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Multi-Junction Solar Cells with High Efficiency

Cyrium Technologies Inc.,Ottawa,announced that multi-junction solar cells produced by the company now exceed the performance of all commercially manufactured solar cells.

Cyrium's first generation solar cells offer efficiencies of 40 per cent or higher together with a nearly constant conversion efficiency for solar concentrations from 200 to greater than 1000 suns. This performance sets a new standard for the solar cells' intended use in the Concentrator PhotoVoltaic (CPV) industry.Cyrium's solar cells not only have record efficiencies, but they exhibit nearly constant efficiency over solar intensities varying from 200 to 1000 suns.Other multi-junction solar cell technologies typically peak at some sun concentration value and decline quickly (efficiency roll off) with increasing concentration.Another benefit of the very low roll-off feature of Cyrium's cells is that CPV systems often have a variable intensity profile when the sun is focussed on an array of cells so that cells need to perform even when the peak concentration is two to three times higher than the nominal concentration.

The most outstanding feature of Cyrium's approach is an optimized design for multi-junction cells that does not add complexity or cost.Cyrium anticipates its second generation product will reach 43 per cent efficiency within one year and third generation products are targeted to be at 45 per cent within two years.

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Irish Tube Compressor: New Method of Harvesting Wave Energy

Dublin based company JOSPA hopes to demonstrate superior performance in sustainable electricity production with their new device called Irish Tube Compressor.

The Irish Tube Compressor is based on reinforced, flexible tubes lying on the water, using air and water driven forward in successive ’slugs’ by ocean waves, with the resulting water head and air pressure being converted to electricity, either by conventional means or being used directly in other processes (such as water desalination).

According to the company, the benefits of the Irish Tube Compressor are:
  • A big improvement in lower maintenance costs
  • Tube- or Hose- based, it mitigates the severity of marine conditions while it cannot remove them entirely.
  • A lower specific capital cost is expected (€ or $ per kW installed capacity)
  • A greater response to varying waves - superior bandwidth availability - greater time availability
  • Lower specific production costs - lower € or $ cost per kWh of production
  • Greater marine survivability
  • Faster return on capital invested due greater annual salable output
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SolarWindows: Small Organic Solar Cells instead of Silicon

Washington, D.C.-based New Energy Technologies, Inc. announced about the development of new tinted transparent glass SolarWindows™ capable of generating electricity by coating glass surfaces with the world’s smallest known organic solar cells.

New Energy’s SolarWindow technology uses an organic solar array, - cells for which about one-quarter the size of a blade of grass - which achieves transparency through the creative use of conducting polymers which have the same desirable electrical properties as the world’s most commercially popular semiconductor, silicon. However, the technology also boasts a considerably better capacity to absorb optically photons from light, thereby generating electricity.

The company also aimed at harnessing the energy beneath the tires using MotionPower™ technology, similar to what is used to power hybrid vehicles. The difference is, instead of being installed in cars and trucks, it’s installed in the roadways, capturing the friction energy that is otherwise dissipated as heat.

full article here

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Zero Emissions Hydrogen Power Plant - The Next Step In Renewable Energy?

Jetstream Wind, Inc.,NM, USA, a developer of breakthrough energy technology hits another milestone in the renewable energy industry. The highly anticipated fully sustainable 10 MW (megawatt) hydrogen power plant safely provides emissions-free electricity and creates 99.999% ultra-high purity hydrogen and oxygen in both liquid and gaseous forms for distribution and sales.

To date, both liquid hydrogen and firm power for the electrical grid are predominantly derived from natural gas and coal, adding a tremendous amount of toxic emissions to the environment. The importance of this dual-purpose plant is in its distinct ability to reliably create and distribute enough clean energy to provide as many as 6000 homes with electricity, while capturing, storing and producing pure oxygen and hydrogen in both liquid and gaseous forms for secondary markets. Significant potential industrial benefactors of the pure hydrogen and oxygen technology include the auto, medical, aerospace and fueling sectors, among countless others.

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Startup Finds Way to Store Wind & Solar Energy

Inventor Labs and its offshoot Mechanical Electric, Inc. in Redwood City, CA, have found a way of storing wind and solar electricity without diesel generators or chemical batteries: Coil up a spring or lift up a heavy weight into the air. The invention, called a mechanical electrical storage appliance, uses the energy generated by uncoiling a spring or dropping weights attached to each unit.

The appliance can store energy from wind and solar sources, which only generate intermittently throughout the day, for later use. Wind energy generated at midnight could be stored and used in the daytime with similar use for solar energy. Inventor Labs formed Mechanical Electric Inc. in April to focus on marketing the appliance. The company’s plan is to concentrate on “low-tech, mechanical kinds of things” like the Mechanical Electric project, which uses no chemicals or diesel fuel.

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PARALEX : Parallel Operating System for Thin Film PV Systems

Sustainable Energy Technologies Ltd (SET) launched its "PARALEXTM" massively parallel operating system for Spanish thin film PV systems at the Genera '09, Trade Show in Madrid, Spain.

The main advantage of SET's low voltage inverter technology is the array architecture used in PARALEXTM systems offers 5 - 15% improved energy yield per kW installed, through the elimination of panel mismatch losses and reduction of partial shading losses. Other advantages of PARALEX systems include the simplicity, flexibility and consistent high energy yield .

PARALEXTM systems use thin film modules which produce more power per kW installed compared to crystalline technologies. The improved light sensitivity of thin film modules means that optimum alignment to the sun is not necessary. Modules can be installed flush with rooftops to reduce the cost of racking, make optimum use of space, and improve aesthetics.With the PARALEXTM operating system, 100% of the PV modules are wired in parallel. The parallel array architecture is enabled by Sustainable Energy's proprietary low voltage inverter technology which is optimized for thin film panels. The elimination of high DC array voltages also provides an important safety benefit to installation and maintenance crews.

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Green Technology Converts Waste Ash from Power Stations into Minerals

Two British scientists, John Watt and Philip Michael, have launched technology that will convert the controversial tonnes of waste-ash from Britain's coal-fired power stations into valuable minerals useful to industries including cement, car and aviation manufacturers.The first plant for RockTron, which is now finished and on-line in Fiddlers Ferry coal-powered station in Cheshire, UK, will transform 800,000 tonnes of ash per year into five valuable minerals. It will also cut the cost of dumping the ash in land-fill sites.

The most significant of the so called eco-minerals are solid glass spheres called aluminio-silicates that could reduce CO2 emissions in cement making - one of the dirtiest processes - by an estimated 400,000 tonnes a year in Britain alone. Another by-product are hollow glass spheres that can be used by automotive and aviation industries to make lighter cars and planes.


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A Novel Way of Recovering Energy from Flowing Water

Ken Upton, a retired entrepreneur in Spain, has come up with a new method of extracting the energy from the oscillating motion, which is being seriously considered by a major company.An enhanced method of extracting power from fluid flow streams has the potential to produce a great deal of carbon free energy.It relies on having wing shaped hydrofoils that repeatedly go into stall and then recover, which results in massive oscillating forces.

In order to enhance the oscillating foil idea, Upton has added a Kenape turbine in front of the oscillating foil. A Kenape turbine is an invention of Ken Upton's that essentially consists of a series of tethered kites that are forced to circle. For use in water, the flexible blades of the Kenape rotor are made bat wing shaped. As well as allowing the extraction of some energy from the flow from the rotation, the wakes of the bat wing elements generate considerable amounts of turbulence to enhance the oscillations of the wing.

In addition to this, Upton's foil shape is a delta wing, with a guiding canard wing at the front, so as to adjust the angle of attack and guide the foil into an attitude that generates maximum flutter.Upton's prototype is only a working model, with the Kenape elements made out of old XRay film, which he says combine the required elements of strength and flexibility.It may have potential of its own as a low cost turbine.

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Mirel: Compostable Bioplastic Get Go-ahead

Massachusetts-based Metabolix is working with the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), to develop its proprietary bioplastic, Mirel™ for military use in food packaging.ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) has teamed up with Metabolix in a joint venture called Telles, to market Mirel bioplastic. The first plant capable of producing Mirel bioplastic in commercial quantites is under construction.

Metabolix announced that Vinçotte (A Belgian firm emerging as a leader in certifying materials for meeting European Norm (EN) standards for compostability) has certified Mirel bioplastic for compostability with its OK Compost and OK Compost HOME marks, meaning that the material is certified to biodegrade appropriately for compost under both industrial and household conditions.

One thing holding bioplastics back from the mass market is price, so once that barrier falls, anything is possible.With the U.S. military and “supermarket-to-the-world” ADM both throwing their considerable weight behind a bioplastic that’s not merely biodegradable but compostable, there’s a chance for the economics of scale to kick in.

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Optiwind : A Small But Powerful Wind Turbine?

A new invention called Optiwind Compact Wind Accelerating Turbine has solved the problem of three-blade turbines that are generally used requiring a lot of free space.With only six meters in diameters, the Optiwind consists of a series of five bladed fans that funnel in the wind and accelerate it in order to generate more power.

The Optiwind comes in two models. The first can generate 150 kilowatt and can be used by buildings that spend up to $35,000 a year in electricity while the bigger model can generate up to 300 kilowatt and can be used in conditions that normally would require about $75,000 a year in electricity money.

Eventhough it is an ideal turbine that can be used by schools, hospitals and hotels, according to local zoning laws, we need about 3.5 acres of open land available to get an authorization for the Optiwind. Another problem with this turbine is it generates some noise compared to other turbines.

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Microwave Technology : A Process of Making Energy from Waste

A demonstration of microwave technology converting industrial waste and difficult-to-process natural resources into diesel, methane, carbon ash and other reusable hydrocarbons was run this week (4th May) by Global Resource Corp. The commercial prototype of the company's system, Patriot-1, is microwave technology that has an automated engineering process to provide a highly energy efficient, emission free way to convert a wide range of materials into energy.

The demonstration, conducted at the companys's research facility, transformed large amounts of scrap tires into diesel fuel, methane, pentane, butane, propane as well as combustible gases, and carbon ash. Patriot-1's technology can process other materials for the purpose of unlocking energy including; shale rock, tar sands, bituminous coal, heavy oil as well as the environmental hazards associated with municipal waste, tanker sludge, waste oil and dredged materials.

To address the economic viability for waste treatment, the technology will maintain an energy efficiency of 1:50, a ratio at which a wide range of materials become commercially viable to convert to energy regardless of commodity costs.

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Nitride-Based Thin-Film Solar Cells for High Efficiency

BluGlass Ltd,Australia,intends to expand the market potential of its remote plasma chemical vapor deposition (RPCVD) manufacturing technology to thin-film solar cells incorporating group III-nitride materials. The firm currently develops and commercializes RPCVD for depositing thin films such as gallium nitride (GaN) and indium gallium nitride (InGaN) in the production of LEDs.

Group III nitride semiconductors have many advantages over current materials, such as,

  • The alloy indium gallium nitride (InGaN) having a direct energy bandgap with wide tunability, giving the potential to convert almost the full spectrum of sunlight (infrared, visible and ultraviolet radiation) to electrical current.Such properties hence allow more energy from the solar spectrum to be captured efficiently by a solar cell and converted to electrical power.Research has established that InGaN solar cells could produce efficiencies of more than 50% [Jani et al. Applied Physics Letters 91, 132117-3 (2007)].
  • Being a low-temperature process, it is suited to the growth of InGaN: during the growth process, the alloy's fragile bonds crack at high temperature, leading to poor-quality material. A low-temperature process would hence allow indium-rich InGaN layers to be grown.
  • InGaN also has superior resistance to energy radiation and high-temperature tolerance. Hence nitride solar cells could maintain high performance under extreme conditions, including space applications such as powering satellites and space probes.
If successful, InGaN solar cells promise to be long lasting, relatively inexpensive and highly efficient.Following recent research on InGaN, BluGlass aims to develop a prototype high-efficiency solar cell for industrial testing.

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Engineered Microorganisms for Cost-Effective Cellulosic Biofuel Production

Mascoma Corporation today announced that the company has made major research advances in consolidated bioprocessing, or CBP, a low-cost processing strategy for production of biofuels from cellulosic biomass. CBP avoids the need for the costly production of cellulase enzymes by using engineered microorganisms that produce cellulases and ethanol at high yield in a single step.CBP is widely considered to be the ultimate low-cost configuration for cellulose hydrolysis and fermentation.The advances of the research includes both bacteria that grow at high temperatures, called thermophiles, and recombinant cellulolytic yeasts.

The first report of targeted metabolic engineering of a cellulose-fermenting thermophile, Clostridium thermocellum, leading to a reduced production of unwanted organic acid byproducts and makes possible production of nearly 6% wt/vol ethanol by an increase of 60% over what was reported just a year ago. Selected strains of C. thermocellum that can rapidly consume cellulose with high conversion and no added cellulase, and grow on cellulose in the presence of commercial levels of ethanol.

Recombinant, Cellulolytic Yeast facilitates 3,000-fold increase in cellulase expression and a significant 2.5-fold reduction in the added cellulase required for conversion of pretreated hardwood to ethanol.These advances enable the reduction in operating and capital costs required for cost-effective commercial production of ethanol, bringing Mascoma substantially closer to commercialization.

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Zero Liquid Discharge : Ethanol Plant Finds New Way To Save Water

POET Biorefining in Bingham Lake, Minnesota, has developed a way to be more efficient in the ways they produce ethanol. After two years of research, they started working on a process that we're now calling zero liquid discharge. And they've implemented this new process in January of this year. Bingham Lake is the first plant in the POET system to start up the patent pending "zero liquid discharge" system. The goal is to reduce water usage from 3.2 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol, to 2.6 gallons of water, a 23 percent decrease.

They've gathered all of the different locations throughout the plant that previously discharge water to the treatment system. They've recollected and filtered several streams. So now they are internally using all their effluent.Even though operating costs will increase,the water bills have already started to drop in Bingham Lake.

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New Wind Turbine Blades to Improve Electricity Production

Researchers at the Purdue University and the Sandia National Laboratories have created a new method of supervising the wind turbine blades, which employs sensors and computational software to establish the best orientation for the generators.Shifting wind and varying intensities in the way air hits the blades are just two of the main reasons why wind farms lose a great deal of efficiency and produce current at fluctuating levels. This new development in turbine blade technology could lead to an increased efficiency, and could finally make the wind a resource able to compete with established fossil fuels.

The ultimate goal is to feed information from sensors into an active control system that precisely adjusts components to optimize efficiency. The upgrades could help turbines become less likely to lose precious time and energy-producing potential while spinning for nothing when the wind shifts. The sensors will be able to pick up minute variations in wind intensity, and to accordingly adjust the entire structure. It could also provide the controlling software with all the information it needs to move the blades in a manner that will ensure an almost uninterrupted energy production. The system will also be able to prevent the blades from getting damaged by high winds, by alerting them of incoming bursts of air at high speeds.

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New Wave Energy Device to Harness the Power of Sea

A new wave energy device known as "Anaconda" is the latest idea to harness the power of the seas.Its inventors claim the key to its success lies in its simplicity: Anaconda is little more than a length of rubber tubing filled with water.Waves in the water create bulges along the tubing that travel along its length gathering energy.At the end of the tube, the surge of energy drives a turbine and generates electricity.

The device is being developed by Checkmate Seaenergy Ltd, which has been testing a small-scale 8m-long prototype in a wave tank owned by the science and technology company Qinetiq.The company is now looking to raise £7m from investors to build a larger version to test at sea.The long-term plan is to have hundreds of these devices offshore where waves are big, in northern Scotland for example.It is claimed that a group of 50 full-size Anacondas - each 200m long - could provide electricity for 50,000 homes.

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New Solar Energy Collector with High Efficiency

An Israeli company, Zenith Solar, has announced the invention of a new type of solar energy collector that is said to be much more efficient than current photovoltaic ones.The new collection device, is a series of rotating dishes made up of mirror which are said to be able to collect as much as 75% of the sun’s energy or five times those of ordinary solar collectors. The use of mirrors will reduce the need for so many photovoltaic cells as are required in other types of solar collectors, making the new system much more affordable, and even comparable to generating electricity with fossil fuels.

Ron Segev, founder and CEO of Zenith Solor was quoted as saying that the new solar collection device will be able to collect and produce thermal as well as electrical energy at the same time.The new collecting dish device will be able get at least 50% more energy from it in the form of hot water, which is derived from water used to cool the device.Once the device is in operation, it will only require maintenance costs since no fuel is needed. It will also work in places where less sunlight is normally available.

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'Green' Rice Could Help With Climate Change Fight ?

Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives' Rice Department's recent research has been aimed at developing rice varieties that emit less methane and carbon dioxide, the key gases contributing to global warming.The photosynthesis of the newly developed plants would emit fewer greenhouse gases. A study to develop other strains to reduce carbon dioxide during harvesting is also under way.

Mr Prasert, director general of the department said, if the research was successful, new rice strains would be offered to Thai farmers. They would produce plants with smaller phloems - the plants' food-conducting tissues.DNA data which is now used for improving new rice strains has shortened the process from 10 years to five or six years. However, a senior researcher at the Rice Department's Bureau of Rice Research and Development said, there was a shortage of new-generation researchers and his office now had only about 20 people working in the area.

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U.S. Military Looks Into Clean-burning Cyclone Engine

Schoell, a Florida inventor, envisions a day when his external combustion engine replaces most of today's gasoline- and diesel-powered internal combustion engines. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy think it may be an efficient way to generate electricity.

The Cyclone engine works by pumping fuel and air into a round combustion chamber, where it swirls cyclonelike and burns at about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Combustion gas passes into a heat exchanger, where it heats deion-ized water to 1,200 degrees under 3,200 pounds of pressure.The water turns into steam, but under pressure the steam remains in a fluid state and is referred to as a "supercritical fluid,".

The steam passes through a valve and into a cylinder, where it expands with almost explosive force to drive a piston. When the piston is pushed to the far end of the cylinder, the steam exits through an exhaust port.From there, the steam enters another heat exchanger, where heat is recovered and cycled back to the combustion chamber. Now cooler, the steam exits the heat exchanger and enters an air-cooled condenser, where it is turned back into water and is pumped back to the first heat exchanger to go through the cycle again.

Schoell has run his engines on gasoline and diesel fuel, but also on fuel made from orange peels, palm oil and chicken fat.cyclonelike swirl of fuel and air in the combustion chamber enables complete combustion so there is little except carbon dioxide as exhaust.In February, Cyclone Power Technologies announced the completion of tests with Raytheon of a Cyclone engine designed for the Navy to use in unmanned underwater vehicles and torpedoes.

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  In the beginning, there were algae,
but there was no oil Then, from algae came oil.
Now, the algae are still there, but oil is fast depleting
In future, there will be no oil, but there will still be algae  
So, doesn't it make sense to explore if we can again get oil from algae?
This is what we try to do at Oilgae.com - explore the potential of getting oil from algae