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A compound used widely in candles offers promise for a much more modern energy challenge — storing massive amounts of energy to be fed into the electric grid as the need arises. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have shown that low-cost organic compounds hold promise for storing grid energy. …

As the global energy demand continues to grow along with atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), there has been a major push to adopt more sustainable and more carbon-neutral energy sources. Solar/wind power and CO2 capture — the process of capturing waste CO2 so it is not introduced into the atmosphere — are two promising …

High-precision noble gas analyses indicate that solar wind particles from our primordial Sun were encased in the Earth’s core over 4.5 billion years ago. Researchers from the Institute of Earth Sciences at Heidelberg University have concluded that the particles made their way into the overlying rock mantle over millions of years. The scientists found solar …

Coal combustion by power plants and industry pollutes the air, causing many governments to implement mitigation actions and encourage cleaner forms of energy. Now, a new study in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology indicates that in China, indoor air pollution from residential coal burning causes a disproportionate number of premature deaths from exposure to tiny, …

Quantum mechanics can be used to create more stable and more easily produced organic solar cells. These are the findings of new research from the University of Gothenburg. Organic solar cells have many advantages compared with traditional silicon-based solar cells. They can be manufactured cheaply at a large scale using printing presses, and they are …

Australian photovoltaics researchers have made a ‘cool’ discovery: Singlet fission and tandem solar cells — two innovative ways to generate solar power more efficiently — also help to lower operating temperatures and keep devices running for longer. Tandem cells can be made from a combination of silicon — the most commonly used photovoltaics material — …

Hydrogen-based fuels should primarily be used in sectors such as aviation or industrial processes that cannot be electrified, finds a team of researchers. Producing these fuels is too inefficient, costly and their availability too uncertain, to broadly replace fossil fuels for instance in cars or heating houses. For most sectors, directly using electricity for instance …

Tesla is today widely seen as the major disruption company in the automotive industry and leader in battery electric vehicles with its size and market opportunity assessed accordingly. A more precise, but still not comprehensive and accurate view, is that Tesla is the leader in 5 disrupting technologies and its market opportunities much more profound …

Land productivity could be greatly increased by combining sheep grazing and solar energy production on the same land, according to new research by Oregon State University scientists. This is believed to be the first study to investigate livestock production under agrivoltaic systems, where solar energy production is combined with agricultural production, such as planting agricultural …

Researchers in the materials department in UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering have uncovered a major cause of limitations to efficiency in a new generation of solar cells. Various possible defects in the lattice of what are known as hybrid perovskites had previously been considered as the potential cause of such limitations, but it was …

Hydrogen as a clean, renewable alternative to fossil fuels is part of a sustainable-energy future, and very much already here. However, lingering concerns about flammability have limited widespread use of hydrogen as a power source for electric vehicles. Previous advances have minimized the risk, but new research from the University of Georgia now puts that …

Despite the vast amount of water on Earth, most of it is nonpotable seawater. Freshwater accounts for only about 2.5% of the total, so much of the world experiences serious water shortages. In AIP Advances, by AIP Publishing, scientists in China report the development of a highly efficient desalination device powered by solar energy. The …

The now-familiar sight of traditional propeller wind turbines could be replaced in the future with wind farms containing more compact and efficient vertical turbines. New research from Oxford Brookes University has found that the vertical turbine design is far more efficient than traditional turbines in large scale wind farms, and when set in pairs the …

New studies from the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI) shed more light on the economic and environmental costs of mandates in the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), a federal program to expand the nation’s biofuels sector. Researchers said the studies indicate the need to adopt more targeted policies that value the environmental and …

A new study has found Australia’s government-owned airports could produce enough electricity to power 136,000 homes, if they had large-scale rooftop solar systems installed. Researchers at RMIT University compared electricity generated by residential solar panels in a regional Australian city to the potential green energy production of 21 leased federal airports. They found if large-scale …

Researchers assessing the impact of solar energy development across Europe have come up with ten ways in which the expansion of solar can be shaped to ensure pollinators benefit. Space-hungry solar photovoltaic (PV) is set to dominate future global electricity supply, but with careful decision making, efforts to secure clean energy need not come at …

Technology and commercial advancements are expected to continue to drive down the cost of wind energy, according to a survey led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) of the world’s foremost wind power experts. Experts anticipate cost reductions of 17%-35% by 2035 and 37%-49% by 2050, driven by bigger and more efficient turbines, lower …

There is no cheaper way to generate electricity today than with the sun. Power plants are currently being built in sunny locations that will supply solar electricity for less than two cents per kilowatt hour. Solar cells available on the market based on crystalline silicon make this possible with efficiencies of up to 23 percent. …

A new study shows that several disagreements between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt around Africa’s largest hydropower plant, the new Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), could be alleviated by massively expanding solar and wind power across the region. Adapting GERD operation to support grid integration of solar and wind power would provide tangible energy and water …

QUT researchers have used carbon dots, created from human hair waste sourced from a Brisbane barbershop, to create a kind of “armour” to improve the performance of cutting-edge solar technology. In a study published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, the researchers led by Professor Hongxia Wang in collaboration with Associate Professor Prashant Sonar …

ZDF is one of the established public broadcasters (ÖRR) that are co-financed by every citizen in Germany and rightly enjoy great public trust for fair, balanced, and fact-based reporting. If you are looking for a serious assessment of a topic, then ZDF and ARD are an important source and an elementary and stabilizing factor in …

Lakes store huge amounts of methane. In a new study, environmental scientists at the University of Basel offer suggestions for how it can be extracted and used as an energy source in the form of methanol. Discussion about the current climate crisis usually focuses on carbon dioxide (CO2). The greenhouse gas methane is less well …