NewNergy

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

Underwater Kites to Harness Tidal Power

Posted on Friday, October 30, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 8:50 PM

Sweden-and Uk- based Minesto, has developed a new concept called Deep Green "Underwater Kites"; which uses hydrodynamics to harness tidal currents and makes the flow velocity to increase ten times.

The lite spins in a repeated manner by the force of the tidal current. This process will increase the flow speed entering the turbine ten times. When the tide hits the wing it turnsdown, and creates a little force. The kite is mounted to the ocean bed with a tether and is controlled by a rudder trajectory. This system will use a conventional plant to convert the movement onto electric power.

According to the company, the Deep Green Kite has a wingspan of 12 meters depth at sites with a tidal flow of 1.2 - 2.2 meters/second. The company estimates it'll cost Euro 0.06 - 0.14 per KWh. The company is now preparing to build a scale 1.4 prototype of the technology, which will be ready in 2011.

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Solar Energy Breakthrough: 35.8% Efficiency Achieved

Posted on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 12:18 AM

Sharp Corporation has achieved the world’s highest solar cell conversion efficiency of 35.8% using a triple-junction compound solar cell.

Unlike silicon-based solar cells, the most common type of solar cell in use today, the compound solar cell utilizes photo-absorption layers made from compounds consisting of two or more elements such as indium and gallium. Due to their high conversion efficiency, compound solar cells are used mainly on space satellites.

To boost the efficiency of triple-junction compound solar cells, it is important to improve the crystallinity (the regularity of the atomic arrangement) in each photo-absorption layer (the top, middle, and bottom layer). It is also crucial that the solar cell be composed of materials that can maximize the effective use of solar energy.

Conventionally, Ge (germanium) is used as the bottom layer due to its ease of manufacturing. However, in terms of performance, although Ge generates a large amount of current, the majority of the current is wasted, without being used effectively for electrical energy. The key to solving this problem was to form the bottom layer from InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide), a material with high light utilization efficiency. However, the process to make high-quality InGaAs with high crystallinity was difficult.

Sharp has now succeeded in forming an InGaAs layer with high crystallinity by using its proprietary technology for forming layers. As a result, the amount of wasted current has been minimized, and the conversion efficiency, which had been 31.5% in Sharp’s previous cells, has been successfully increased to 35.8%.

Sharp achieved this breakthrough as part of a research and development initiative promoted by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO)*3 on the theme of “R&D on Innovative Solar Cells”.

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Hydraulic Gearless Transmissions for Large Wind Turbines

Posted on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 11:54 PM

Edinburgh based Artemis Intelligent Power has been awarded £1million under Phase1 of the Low Carbon Energy Demonstration capital grants scheme to develop its Digital Displacement technology to replace the mechanical transmissions of wind turbines.

The technology will be initially demonstrated for a 1.5MW transmission but the Digital Displacement components developed will be directly transferable for multi-megawatt offshore deployment. Digital Displacement Hydraulic Transmission are gearless, making them lighter and lower cost than mechanical transmissions.

Digital Displacement uses different principles to off load unused capacity, in a manner which results in very low parasitic loss and because of the speed this is done, it can be controlled with a high bandwidth with good linearity and low hysteresis.

Waverley Cameron, chairman of Artemis Intelligent Power, said: "The Artemis Digital Displacement technology will provide cost effective solutions to some of the most challenging engineering problems facing the large scale deployment of offshore wind, wave and tidal power generation."

Its Digital Displacement technology has been able to overcome many of the efficiency problems traditionally associated with hydraulics and was originally developed for use on cars as a hybrid system, storing braking energy as hydraulic pressure in an accumulator, which can then be used for acceleration. The system improved fuel efficiency by 40%.

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Labels: efficiency, energy, tidal, wave, wind

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Harnessing the Power of Plasma for Hydrogen Storage

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 11:38 PM

Plasma is like a gas, but many of its atoms have been stripped of an electron or two. These positively charged atoms swim about in a crackling-hot sea of negatively charged loose electrons, making plasmas great electrical conductors.

Kong, technical lead for plasma processing at INL, has built a career of putting plasma to work. He's using it to mass-produce nanoparticles, a project that in August received $1 million in federal stimulus funding. He's also employing plasma to find ways to store hydrogen efficiently, and he'll soon start a project using plasma to convert natural gas, coal and heavy oil to gasoline and diesel.

Kong is also working with a large multinational chemical company to find better ways to store hydrogen.

Simply putting hydrogen in a tank to power a car or appliance is difficult, because the element is a gas at all but extremely low temperatures (its boiling point is -253 degrees Celsius). Tanks holding enough low-density hydrogen gas to power anything would have to be very large, in many cases prohibitively so. Hydrogen could be liquefied — either by compression or cooling — to bring tank size down, but this would require a great deal of energy and raise safety concerns, as elemental hydrogen is very reactive. Chemical storage — in which hydrogen is locked into more complex molecules, then released later after exposure to heat and/or catalysts — strikes many scientists as more practical. But current technologies for making such chemical hydrides are complicated and energy-intensive. Kong is using plasma in an attempt to revolutionize the production process.

The current method of making these complex chemical hydrides is a 13-step process.What they are working on is potentially a one- to two-step process.Eliminating so many steps involves tricky, difficult and unstable reactions, and Kong and his team are still working out the details.

To know about the technology click here

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Solar Beam Concentrator : A New Solar Energy Invention Moves on in Provincial Competition

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 10:22 PM

The solar beam concentrator, designed by Edward Herniak of SolarTron Energy Systems Inc., Massachusetts, USA, has been named one of 25 inventions to make it to the second round of the InNOVAcorp I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition.

Using a celestial guiding system, the solar beam concentrator tracks the sun on a daily basis and isn't affected by the earth's tilt. Much like a wind turbine turns off when it's too windy, the solar beam concentrator goes to sleep when the sun isn't shining.Using a global positioning system, the concentrator rotates to follow the sun, absorbing more of that energy.

The typical unit is 3.8 metres in diameter and produces up to 10 kilowatts of heat, or 34,000 btu per hour. That means if you have a 2,400 square foot house, you can heat your house for a period of 24 hours within three hours,adding some of the energy is stored in hot water tanks.

Herniak said, the concentrator is self-driven so no maintenance is required, and could even be used to de-ice a driveway in the winter with heat pipes built into the driveway. In the warmer months, the energy can be put through an absorption chiller, which would give it a refrigeration effect and be used as air conditioning.

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SoloPower Displays CIGS PV Module Prototype

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 3:08 AM

SoloPower, a California-based manufacturer of thin-film solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules has announced that a prototype of its flexible copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS ) photovoltaic module will be on display at the Solar PowerInternational 2009 conference in Anaheim, California on October 27-29, 2009.

SoloPower`s flexible CIGS modules represent a breakthrough solar product. Because of their lighter weight, they will be deployable with lower installation costs, providing less expensive solar electricity for utility, commercial and industrial customers.SoloPower’s unique and proprietary CIGS technology is a major break-through in low-cost, high-quality, high-volume manufacturing and commercialization of CIGS-based photovoltaics.

SoloPower`s flexible modules will present new opportunities to large rooftop sites that glass-plate modules cannot service due to factors such as weight, high wind conditions, or roof penetrations.SoloPower flexible CIGS modules are expected to be available for sale later in 2010.

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DOE Funds Innovative Energy Research Projects

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 2:32 AM

Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy ("ARPA-E") selects 37 projects to pursue breakthroughs that could fundamentally change the way we use and produce energy.

Some of the innovative projects selected for awards include:

Liquid Metal Grid-Scale Batteries: Created by Professor Don Sadoway, a leading MIT battery scientist, the all-liquid metal battery is based on low cost, domestically available liquid metals with potential to break through the cost barrier required for mass adoption of large scale energy storage as part of the nation's energy grid. If successful, this battery technology could revolutionize the way electricity is used and produced on the grid, enabling round-the-clock power from America's wind and solar power resources, increasing the stability of the grid, and making blackouts a thing of the past. And if deployed at homes, it could allow individual consumers the ability to be part of a future "smart energy Internet," where they would have much greater control over their energy usage and delivery.
Bacteria for Producing Direct Solar Hydrocarbon Biofuels: Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a bioreactor that has the potential to produce a flow of gasoline directly from sunlight and CO2 using a symbiotic system of two organisms. First, a photosynthetic organism directly captures solar radiation and uses it to convert carbon dioxide to sugars. In the same area, another organism converts the sugars to gasoline and diesel transportation fuels. This development has the potential to greatly increase domestic production of clean fuel for our vehicles and end our reliance on foreign oil.
CO2 Capture using Artificial Enzymes: The funding will support an effort by the United Technologies Research Center to develop new synthetic enzymes that could make it easier and more affordable to capture carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and factories. If successful, the effort would mean a much lower energy requirement for industrial carbon capture and significantly lower capital costs to get carbon capture systems up and running. Success of this project could substantially lower the cost of carbon capture relative to current, state-of-the-art amine and ammonia based processes. This would represent a major breakthrough that could make it affordable to capture the carbon dioxide emissions from coal and natural gas power plants around the world.
Low Cost Crystals for LED Lighting: Developed by Momentive Performance Materials, this proposal for novel crystal growth technology could dramatically lower the cost of developing light emitting diodes (LEDs), which are 30 times more efficient than incandescent bulbs and four times more efficient than compact fluorescents. This higher quality, low-cost material would offer significant breakthroughs in lowering costs of finished LED lighting, accelerating mass market use, and dramatically decreasing U.S. lighting energy usage. Lighting accounts for 14 percent of U.S. electricity use.

New Energy Efficient Flow Control Systems for Hydro Power Plants

Posted on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 4:10 AM

Chinese engineering firm, NF Energy Saving Corporation announced that the company has obtained two new patents for its inlet valves for use in the hydro power plants. NF Energy was awarded an invention patent for the ‘butterfly valve body dynamic seal ring pointing device’ and a new application patent for its ‘butterfly valve with butterfly plate adjusting device’.

The dynamic seal ring pointing device was awarded an invention patent, it is used in the inlet valve of hydro power plant. NF Energy’s propriety valve pointing devise has distinct advantages, it provides warning signals, which can be timely sent out with clear instructions. Long term stability of seal ring is achieved through the reduced number of parts. Additionally, the valve pointing device provides greater efficiency, according to NF Energy it saves hydro power due to its easier operation in maintenance, adjustment and replacement of equipment. The valve’s smaller resistance is achieved by optimizing structure.

The butterfly plate adjusting device, is used in the large dimension vertical butterfly valve, the propriety device was awarded a new application patent. It is effective in the reduction of friction and the subsequent wear and tear of bottom valve shaft. The adjusting device is also effective in the prevention of internal leakage. As a result the product achieves energy savings and an extension to the valve's operational life.

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Alaskan Entrepreneur Touts Geothermal Energy Invention

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 3:57 AM

An Alaskan entrepreneur Bernie Karl has pioneered modern technology to tap into one of Earth's oldest energy resources: hot water.

His energy-generating machine lies on a flatbed truck and can be hooked up to oil and gas wells or other heat-emitting sources to generate electricity.Karl adds a branch connection to an oil or gas pipeline, and the process begins when he "hot taps" into waste water coming through the pipes. The hot water enters the tubes of an evaporator encased in a common refrigerant found in many air conditioning systems. As the hot water passes through the evaporator, it begins to boil the refrigerant in the casing surrounding the tubes. The heat given off by the boiling refrigerant then causes an attached turbine to spin, which jump-starts a generator, producing electrical power.Next, cooling water enters from another source, recondensing the vapor refrigerant into a liquid.A pump pushes the liquid refrigerant back to the evaporator, so the cycle can start again. The difference in temperatures drives the entire "binary system." This setup works exactly the opposite of a refrigerator.

His portable geothermal generator units cost from $350,000 to $375,000, each with the potential to generate enough power for 250 average American homes per year.

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Eternal Candle : A Renewable Solar Heat Storage Technology

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 2:45 AM

Ireland’s Trinity College Dublin showcased 15 of its newest technologies last week, with a handful falling under the cleantech sector, that are now ready for commercialization.One of Trinity’s recent inventions is called the Eternal Candle, a renewable solar heat storage technology that has the potential to provide light for the developing world.

The research team led by Anthony Robinson invented a white light-emitting diode (WLED) lantern, powered by the sun. At night, the device converts the stored heat into electricity, which drives the WLED. The lamp doesn’t require batteries or have any running costs, but it’s not exactly eternal. The device is designed to provide light for four to five hours.The technology is best suited for off-grid communities, so the likes of sub-Saharan Africa, China and some parts of India where people don’t have electricity coming into their homes.

To know more cleantech innovations of Trinity College Dublin clik here

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Algae-Based Bioplastics Could Replace Petroleum-Based Plastics?

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 2:10 AM

Cereplast, Inc., manufacturer of proprietary bio-based sustainable plastics, announced that it has been developing a breakthrough technology to transform algae into bioplastics and intends to launch a new family of algae-based resins that will complement the company`s existing line of Compostables & Hybrid resins.

Cereplast algae-based resins could replace 50% or more of the petroleum content used in traditional plastic resins. Currently, Cereplast is using renewable material such as starches from corn, tapioca, wheat and potatoes and Ingeo PLA. Cereplast has initiated contact with several companies that plan to use algae to minimize the CO2 and NOX gases from polluting smoke-stack environments. Algae from a typical photo-bioreactor is harvested daily and may be treated as biomass, which can be used as biofuel or as a raw material source for biopolymer
feed stock. The company is also in direct communication with potential chemical conversion companies that could convert the algae biomass into viable monomers for further conversion into potential biopolymers.

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Kite Power Harnesses Unspooling Motion For Energy

Posted on Monday, October 19, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 8:50 PM

Kite Gen is pioneering a revolution on how to produce clean energy from wind, with the aim not only to compete within the current wind industry but, as still too rarely happens with renewable sources, to move the battlefield into the territory of fossil fuels.

Instead of harnessing wind power to turn blades tethered to a pole, the KiteGen simply harnesses that rapid unspooling motion of kites reeling out as they release upwards. So instead of a heavy static structure this is simply a light and flexible kite.

The KiteGen would hover at 2,600 feet to produce power each time the kite’s tether unspools, spinning an alternator that generates the power. When the cables are completely unwound the production phase ends, the cables are reeled in to start another production phase. The cycle repeats; like in a yo-yo in reverse.

So the KiteGen splits the components of wind power. In the air; nothing but high efficiency air foils. On the ground, all the heavy machinery for power generation. Connecting the two; high resistance lines transmitting the traction of the kite.

The company holds more than 20 international patents and plans a demo by the end of 2010. These guys are thinking out of the box. They point out that there is about a GW of wind potential in the unusable no-fly air space around nuclear power plants. They suggest that’s the perfect spot for their 2,600 foot kite.

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Precision Nanoparticles to Make Solar Cell More Efficient

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 8:26 PM

Chemists at Idaho National Laboratory and Idaho State University have invented a way to manufacture highly precise, uniform nanoparticles to order. The technology, Precision Nanoparticles, has the potential to vastly improve the solar cell and further spur the growing nanotech revolution.The chemists have manufactured nanoparticles of the semiconductor copper indium sulfide (identified here as “quantum dots”), a key component of advanced solar cells. Precision Nanoparticles could enable photovoltaic cells to harness a much bigger chunk of the sun’s radiation spectrum.

Engineers have been working hard to harness more of the solar spectrum, to design cells that put low-energy photons to work and use high-energy photons more efficiently. One of the many properties that changes with a nanoparticle's size is its band gap. Because INL chemists learned how to control nanoparticle dimensions so precisely, it may soon be possible to manufacture — from a single material — semiconductor building blocks tuned to specific wavelengths of light. A photovoltaic cell made of such building blocks could capture huge swathes of the solar energy spectrum. And since the cells would contain only a single semiconducting material, they would be much cheaper, more efficient and easier to construct than current multi-layer designs.

Provided by Idaho National Laboratory, This feature story is available here. It was written by Mike Wall.

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High Efficient Industrial Carbon Capture Technology

Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 2:34 AM

Industrial Research Ltd (IRL) has made a breakthrough that enables the world’s most efficient carbon dioxide capture technology to become commercially viable. IRL Research Scientist Robert Holt is leading the multi-disciplinary team that is investigating the development of a cost-effective enhancement to an existing technique that uses limestone for the capture of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power combustors. IRL has been awarded $350,000 over three years by the Foundation for Research Science and Technology to further develop its technology.

The process is designed to capture carbon dioxide from coal fired power stations and other industries that emit significant amounts of the greenhouse gas.

The lime cycling process uses limestone, a relatively abundant and inexpensive material. It is heated to around 900 degrees centigrade to become lime, which is a very effective material for absorbing carbon dioxide.

When post-combustion flue gas is passed through the lime in a fluidised bed, the CO2 is captured. The process is then reversed to transform the lime back into limestone, which is then used again to capture more CO2.

The 95 per cent pure CO2 that is produced can be compressed to about 3% of its original volume and can then be stored efficiently or used in another industrial process. This process has been known for many years but until now it has not been efficient enough to be considered commercially applicable.The IRL team confirmed that exposing the lime to steam reopens its pore structure and enables it to absorb CO2 efficiently again.

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Energy Generating Roads Made From Solar Cells

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 1:46 AM

Scott Brusaw and his wife,Julie,co-owners of Sagle-based startup Solar Roadways,have come up with an idea to merge the nation's power grid with its system of highways and byways into an "electric road" that would power homes, businesses and vehicles.The Brusaws have drawn up plans for a road system built of 12-foot-by-12-foot solar panels rather than asphalt. The panels would draw energy from the sun to power surrounding homes and businesses, and provide the foundation for a new "smart" power grid.

The idea has a long way to go before it's on the ground, but the federal government is willing to give it a shot. Solar Roadways was recently awarded a $100,000 SBIR Phase 1 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to build a prototype solar road panel for testing and demonstration. If it pans out, Brusaw said phase two could include an additional $750,000 over two years.

Brusaw estimates that one mile of solar roadway could supply a little less than one megawatt enough energy to power as many as 500 homes.

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First Natural Gas Flight: A Breakthrough in Airline Fuel Technology

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 12:56 AM

Qatar Airways has made a major breakthrough in airline fuel technology by operating the inaugural paying-passenger flight powered by natural gas, with a flight between Gatwick and Doha on Monday. The move is regarded as an important step in the industry’s attempts to reduce its dependence on oil-based fuel.

The fuel was developed by Shell and uses a 50-50 blend of synthetic gas-to-liquids (GTL) kerosene and conventional oil-based kerosene.

Jeff Gazzard, board member of the Aviation Environment Federation group, told The Financial Times: “GTL is useful for local airport air quality but has a higher carbon footprint than ordinary fuel.”

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90% of Coal Plant CO2 Captured in 12-Month Test

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 12:46 AM

One year ago the French company Alstom began a year-long US test of capturing CO2 from the water+carbon-dioxide mix created using their chilled-ammonia technology, in the smokestack of the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant in Wisconsin.

Last week the year’s results were announced. The years average CO2 capture rate was 90%, according to a joint announcement from the EPRI, We Energies and Alstom to the Society of Environmental Journalists.

The 12-month test was just completed after running 24 hours a day on a small sectioned-off portion of the smokestack; working on just 5% of the plants total emissions.

But the test is scalable, and the Electric Power Research Institute, the R&D arm of the utility industry, is optimistic that chilled-ammonia technology will work on a larger scale. It is one of several carbon-capture technologies under consideration as we move to a carbon constrained world.

Next, Alstom will work with AEP in Columbus, Ohio to test a scaled-up version of the technology at the Mountaineer power plant in West Virginia. That test takes the next step as well; not just capturing the carbon dioxide but burying it 8,000 feet beneath the plant site.

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MIT Roof Tiles Save Energy in All Climates

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 12:34 AM

A team of students at MIT has just developed a temperature sensitive roof tile that turns black and absorbs heat in cold weather, and turns white, reflecting heat away when it’s hot.

In cold weather, the polymer stays dissolved and the black backing shows through, but exposed to heat, tiny droplets form and scatter the light back to produce a white appearance. The tiles reflected 80% of the sunlight falling on them when white, and only 30% when black.

The cooling needs would then be reduced 20%.

Dark-roofed houses absorb more heat, requiring more air conditioning use in the summer for cooling, which in turn means using more energy for running air conditioners, which emits more greenhouse gases. Steven Chu at the DOE famously recommends “cool” white roofing for the sunny states - mentioning California, Florida and Georgia. Cool roofs reduce energy costs associated with air conditioning.

There are already special energy efficient elastomeric roof paints, rated by the independent cool roof council through coolroofs.org for how well each one reflects heat. California Energy Commissioner Athur Rosenfeld probably originated the idea to use “white roofs” for sunny climates, where air conditioning costs outpace heating costs for energy use.

In summer, the white roofed house is reflecting heat away. lowering energy costs. But for climates that get both extremes of heat and cold winters, there has not been a solution till now. Their carbon emitting energy use goes up summer and winter.

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Nanotechnology Could Reduce Costs of Cellulosic Ethanol?

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 12:26 AM

Cellulosic ethanol is an exciting technology which promises to convert the abundant sources of organic waste worldwide (kitchen waste, yard waste, paper industry waste, etc.) into green alternative fuel.

The traditioinal production process of cellulosic ethanol involves breaking down the cellulose into smaller units (hydrolysis reaction) on pretreated lignocellulosic materials followed by fermentation and distillation.The hydrolysis can be achived by using either acids or enzymes to breakdown the pretreated cellulosic biomass.The process of using enzymes for hydrolysis has been more expensive than the other approach, as the enzymes cost a lot of money, and typically a significant portion are lost during the cellulose degradation.

Researchers from the Louisiana Tech University have developed a way of immobilizing the enzymes, greatly reducing enzyme loss and its corresponding costs. Details on the new approach are scant other than that it uses "nanotechnology", but it seems likely that it employs some sort of charged particles to affix the non-catalytic domains of enzymes to reactor walls or a porous network, or else uses extracellular matrix proteins to bind the enzymes.

The university estimates that a commercial plant would save approximately $32M USD (they did not specify if this was a yearly total or perhaps over the plant's lifetime) and that under the federally established goal to reach 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol, the net saving could be $7.5B USD, if the goal was reached. LTU also notes that they estimate cellulosic ethanol to reduce carbon emissions by 89 percent over traditional fuels.

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‘Bacteria batteries’ For Energy Storage

Posted on Thursday, October 8, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 2:26 AM

Scientists at Pennsylvania State University are pioneering a method whereby electrical energy is stored as methane, which can then be burned to release power when it’s needed. The system’s active ‘ingredients’ are a combination of tiny microbes and CO2. Placed under an electrical current – for example from an off-grid renewable power source such as wind or solar – the microbes convert the CO2 into methane. Professor Bruce Logan, head of the research team, explains that they work in a similar way to the natural process found in marshes.

The initial carbon dioxide needed for the chemical reaction could even come from industrial sources: “CO2 is soluble in water, so the gas stream could be bubbled or transferred” in pipes from factories, for example. The ‘battery’ is designed to work as a closed loop, capturing and reusing the CO2 that’s released when the methane is burned. The energy conversion is about 80%, Logan claims, but admits that “a lot more research into scaling up these systems is needed” before commercial viability could be assessed.

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Plastic-to-oil Converter: A Breakthrough in Green Technology

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 2:10 AM

A breakthrough in green technology arrived in Montgomery County,United States as Evion Inc. unveiled its plastic-to-oil conversion technology.Envion said the facility was its first market-ready commercial unit and it was capable of converting any type of plastic waste into high quality, synthetic light medium oil for less than $10 per barrel. The company estimated that the technology, which it calls the Evion Oil Generator, could turn one ton of waste plastic into approximately four 42-gallon barrels of high quality, synthetic light to medium oil. That oil in turn could be used to produce gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and kerosene.

In addition to adding to use oil production Envion said that its technology could reduce landfill use and expense. Envion estimates that the United States produces approximately 50 million tons of plastic waste per year, with most of its heading for landfills. The company estimates its plastic-to-oil conversion processing cost at approximately $17 per ton, much less than the $70-$200 cost range of landfill disposal.

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Energy-Efficient Silicon Device Compresses Light to Make Ultrafast Signals

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 1:57 AM

Researchers at Cornell University have developed a simple silicon device for speeding up optical data. The device incorporates a silicon chip called a "time lens," lengths of optical fiber, and a laser. It splits up a data stream encoded at 10 gigabits per second, puts it back together, and outputs the same data at 270 gigabits per second. Speeding up optical data transmission usually requires a lot of energy and bulky, expensive optics. The new system is energy efficient and is integrated on a compact silicon chip. It could be used to move vast quantities of data at fast speeds over the Internet or on optical chips inside computers.

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Generating Electricity from Passing Cars

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 1:45 AM

The first practical test of an innovative technology to generate electricity was conducted by Innowattech and the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.The test was accomplished by drivers passing through the Hefer intersection,Israel, without even realizing it.They generated electricity while driving over a ten-meter strip of asphalt,underneath which lie generators capable of producing some 2,000 watt-hours (Wh),the power was relayed to batteries situated beside the road.

The technology is based on piezoelectric materials that enable the conversion of mechanical energy exerted by the weight of passing vehicles into electrical energy. As far as the drivers are concerned, the road is the same.Edery-Azulay added that expanding the project to a length of one kilometer along a single lane would produce 200 KWh, while a four-lane highway could produce about a MWh - sufficient electricity to provide for the average consumption in 2,500 households.

If the pilot test is successful, the project is expected to be expanded. Generators will be situated in one-kilometer strips along Israel's highways.

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Hydrogen-powered Mobile Phone Chargers

Posted on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 9:53 PM

Scientists from Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute recently unveiled a charger powered by hydrogen.According to the scientists, the device can recharge a mobile phone battery in two hours without being plugged.Tsau Fanghei of the research team says they “hope the hydrogen-powered device can replace current mobile phone recharge systems in 2012.”Fanghei says the team will continue to improve the new technology until it is ready for use. This research is part of Taiwan’s efforts to become a major player in the global hydrogen fuel cell industry, and to lower its energy import rate that is currently at 98%.

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Propulsion System for Mobile Offshore Wind Farm Ship

Posted on Monday, October 5, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 2:35 AM

Germany’s Voith Turbo is developing a new marine propulsion system for installation into a special mobile offshore construction vessel which will be used for the installation of offshore wind farms.

Weighing over 80 tons and measuring approximately 8m high, the Voith Radial Propellers will enable the specialised vessel to sail at approximately 10 knots with a full load. The propeller’s 360 degree steering will allow highly accurate positioning even in difficult sea conditions for a vessel which has a design resembling that of a drilling platform.European construction giant STRABAG SE, which employs 76,000 people and had a turnover of €13.7bn last year, has ordered five such Voith Radial Propellers for the vessel.

The groundbreaking for a trial gravity foundation for offshore wind farms took place in Cuxhaven last week. The project is a step toward the realisation of planned wind farms in the North Sea.Completion of the trial gravity foundation is planned for spring 2010. Series production is scheduled to begin in autumn of next year. Starting in 2011, the first wind turbines for the offshore wind power plant GlobalTech I are to be set up from Cuxhaven.

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Labels: energy, inventions, wind

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Move Over Ethanol, Here Comes Biobutanol

Posted on Thursday, October 1, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 4:27 AM

Gevo, the privately held biofuels start-up said that it had successfully retrofitted a demonstration-scale ethanol plant to make biobutanol.Gevo also said it planned to pound the pavement on Wall Street looking for financing to go out and buy up to five ethanol plants to retrofit.

Biobutanol is an alcohol similar to ethanol. Both can be used as a gasoline additive.But biobutanol has some clear advantages over ethanol.Some of them are:

There is no blend wall – ethanol’s 10% limit in gasoline. Biobutanol is approved to get to 16% today – and Gevo, which is backed by investors including Khosla Ventures, Burrill & Co. and Total SA – says that “standard automotive engines can run on biobutanol blended into gasoline at any ratio.”
Experts say that biobutanol can be put into pipelines and refineries without problems.Try running ethanol through a pipeline. It worked kind of like Mr. Clean and swept up a lot of unwanted gunk.
Ethanol makers are trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis of corn prices and gasoline prices. Biobutanol can take multiple feedstocks (corn, stover, sugar cane) and critically can sell its output as either a gasoline additive or as a chemical feedstock to make things like plastic bottles.

No one has built a biobutanol biorefinery at a commercial scale. Yet. The Gevo demonstration-scale plant in Missouri has an annual capacity of about 1 million gallons. So nobody knows if this is economic at scale.

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Labels: biofuels, ethanol

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Nanomaterials to Boost the Efficiency of Geothermal Energy Production

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 4:19 AM

New nanomaterials could provide the boost in efficiency needed to make heat beneath the earth's surface a practical source to generate nearly pollution-free electricity if research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory proves out.Peter McGrail, a fellow at the Richland lab, thinks the nanomaterials may help make geothermal a more practical resource by allowing efficient energy production at lower temperatures.

In conventional geothermal use for power production, hot rock beneath the earth's surface needs to heat water driven into it to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, or more typically hotter, to make electricity production efficient. That hot rock might be found 5,000 feet beneath the ground's surface in a few places, but typically it's much, much deeper.

Heat from the ground is typically extracted by forcing water into the ground and then pumping it up after it's flowed through rock and picked up heat. It then goes through a heat exchanger to heat liquid to produce vapor to drive a turbine. If it's water that's being used as a liquid, it has to be 212 degrees at sea level to produce steam.The traditional geothermal energy production methods are inherently inefficient in the way they remove the heat.

The nanomaterials called "metal organic heat carriers"with particles one-thousandth the width of a human hair can hold onto gas molecules at a much higher temperature, preventing the fluid from flashing to gas in the heat exchanger until it gets to a higher temperature and pressure. If successful, enhanced geothermal systems like this could become an important energy source.

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Labels: efficiency, energy, geothermal, inventions

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Most Efficient Solar Module from DSM

Posted on posted by posted by Mak @ 3:40 AM

Royal DSM N.V., the global Life Sciences and Materials Sciences company headquartered in the Netherlands, announced that its KhepriCoat anti-reflective coating system has contributed to achieving the highest energy conversion ever of a full-size solar module. The world record of 16.4%, achieved by the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), was verified by global certification and testing organization TÜV. The previous record of 15.5% from 1998 was broken with an impressive 0.9% efficiency improvement, of which a significant part can be attributed to DSM's coating.

The new record efficiency to 16.4% means a substantial step in the ongoing quest to bring solar energy closer to "grid parity", the point at which solar energy is equal to or cheaper than traditional electricity. This would make it broadly accessible to both industrial and residential users without state and/or government subsidies.

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Labels: efficiency, energy, solar

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