Instead of waiting for the electric grid to slowly spread to every remote village, new standalone grids may be the best way to get electricity into every home—and to keep polluting and unhealthy kerosene fires away.
Posts tagged "green"
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Solar Microgrids Bring Power To People Who Have Been Off The Grid Forever →
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Could Lasers Be the New Way to Kill Weeds? →
When gardening, we’re sure many of you have used herbicides to kill weeds and other invasive plants. However, the thing about herbicides is that in order to kill weeds, they are often very toxic and affect everything from those using them to potentially the groundwater. To prevent any possible environmental damage with herbicides in the future, a team from the Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany have developed a hi-tech alternative: weed-killing lasers!
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Delphi gasoline-injection engine technique rivals hybrid's edge →
Running a diesel like engine on gasoline is something Delphi is doing in notable fashion. They claim they are on to a promising way to enjoy an engine that gives the vehicle owner high efficiency and low emissions. Delphi, a major Michigan-based auto-parts supplier, is developing this technology which has shown impressive results in tests. Delphi tried out its combustion concept, which reaps the best of two worlds of low-emission gas and efficient diesel engines. Delphi claims its technology is an improvement upon the fuel economy of gas-powered cars, and can bring forth benefits of the hybrid at less the cost of a large battery and electric motor.
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East coast wind grid gets a go ahead →
Research journals are filled with clever ideas that never quite come to fruition in the form of a successful commercial venture. Technical glitches, a failure to scale, or some sort of unforeseen limitation keep some of the best research from ever having the impact that it might. That’s why it was a pleasant surprise to see that one of the more compelling ideas of the last few years is inching its way towards reality.
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U.S. Will Be Hard-Pressed to Meet Its Biofuel Mandates →
Under the 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stipulates that gasoline and diesel refiners must blend a certain amount of “renewable fuel” into their products or face penalties.
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China Takes Off →
The largest nation on Earth is flying more people more places than ever before. Its struggle to do so without (further) destroying the environment could show the rest of the world a greener way to travel
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Turanor PlanetSolar Solar Boat Completes its Around the World Trip →
After an amazing 18-month journey, the Turanor PlanetSolar sun-powered boat completes its around-the-world trip today! The world’s largest solar-powered boat originally launched on its worldwide trip from Monaco in September 2010 and today the boat will officially finish the trip. The Swiss-designed solar boat is powered by 537 square meters of photovoltaic panels that enabled it to travel around the world and hit spots like Miami, Cancún, Brisbane, Singapore, Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi.
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Researchers Develop A Path To Liquid Solar Cells That Can Be Printed Onto Surfaces →
Scientists at USC have developed a potential pathway to cheap, stable solar cells made from nanocrystals so small they can exist as a liquid ink and be painted or printed onto clear surfaces. The solar nanocrystals are about four nanometers in size — meaning you could fit more than 250,000,000,000 on the head of a pin — and float them in a liquid solution, so “like you print a newspaper, you can print solar cells,” said Richard L. Brutchey, assistant professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
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A Trash-Powered Plane Takes To The Skies →
A modern day Lindbergh is attempting to show us the power of a new kind of fuel by flying the length of England using only garbage to power his flight.
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Power solution: India opens world's largest solar park →
The world’s largest solar power field has been switched on in India’s western state of Gujarat. Accounting for 214 megawatts of photovoltaic solar capacity, it becomes larger than China’s 200 MW Golmud Solar Park, which previously held the record.
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3D Printing Robot Produces Chairs And Tables From Recycled Waste →
Two years ago, a Dutch student named Dirk Vander Kooij was designing furniture and preparing for his graduation project when he was inspired by an old 3D printer. So he got his hands on an industrial robot from a Chinese production line and reprogrammed it into a 3D printer to print furniture using recycled materials from old refrigerators. The robot, named Furoc, prints out furniture as a continuous line hundreds of meters long and can produce a chair in a variety of colors and designs in just 3 hours. Kooij says the method allows structures to be made 40 times faster than traditional 3D printing and can produce 4,000 chairs a year.
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Nature's billion-year-old battery key to storing energy →
New research at Concordia University is bringing us one step closer to clean energy. It is possible to extend the length of time a battery-like enzyme can store energy from seconds to hours, a study published in the Journal of The American Chemical Society shows.
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Nanotube electrodes improve solar cells →
Forests of carbon nanotubes are an efficient alternative for platinum electrodes in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC), according to new research by collaborators at Rice University and Tsinghua University.
The single-wall nanotube arrays, grown in a process invented at Rice, are both much more electroactive and potentially cheaper than platinum, a common catalyst in DSCs, said Jun Lou, a materials scientist at Rice. In combination with newly developed sulfide electrolytes synthesized at Tsinghua, they could lead to more efficient and robust solar cells at a fraction of the current cost for traditional silicon-based solar cells.
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Coming Soon: Electric Vehicles That Talk To The Power Grid To Prevent Blackouts →
Can power companies handle every car owner plugging in at the same time? Probably not, but new software will let the company figure out which cars need charging most so that everyone is powered up by morning.
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Carbon nanotube sponge devours oil →
By adding boron to carbon nanotubes, scientists have created spongy, reusable blocks that absorb oil spilled in water.
