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Monthly Archives: October 2008

Venturi Volage: The Future French Rival to Tesla's Roadster

The French piece of electric cake is called "Volage Roadster", and is being developed by Venturi, also a French company. Primary performance analysis with today's presumptions about immediate future technology says that Volage will be capable of reaching 160mph and going about 200 miles with the onboard battery.

First Chinese Solar Powered Cars Unveiled

Unlike the Americans or the Europeans, the Chinese know their way into the cleaner future everybody dreams of. They probably began understanding a long time ago and now bringing into practice the cleanest possible way of transportation: a solar powered electric car.

Revolting: 114 mpg Avion Sports Car Rejected for Fuel Being "Too Cheap"

There was a sports car built in 1984 by Craig Henderson and Bill Green from Bellingham, Washington, and at that time it was able to set a record of 103.7 mpg for Guinness Book(in European terms, that's 2.27 liters/100km). Now they're reviving it with the help of the X-Prize Competition.

Friction Heater Gets Almost Free Energy From Wood – Iron Friction

If this truly works (and I don't see why it shouldn't), it is the greatest home-produced energy discovery since the wheel has been founded. Lloyd Tanner uses an incredibly simple assembly of two 4x4 inch wood pieces, and an iron wheel spinning in between.

Organic Battery Design Mimicking Eel – 28% More Efficient

Yale University researchers created a blueprint for artificial eel-like power cells. Their design is even more efficient and powerful than the natural one they're mimicking, and could one day be used in powering small medical implants.

The Spin Seebeck Effect to Offer Low-Loss Thermoelectric Effect

Eiji Saitoh experimented with a heated magnetized metal (nickel-iron), and found out that the electrons with up spins (aligned with the rod's magnetic field) created an agglomeration on the hot side, while the ones with down spins (unaligned to the rod's magnetic field), created an agglomeration on the cooler side.

Harvard`s Black Silicon: 100 to 500 Times More Powerful Than Old Solar Cells

Kept in secret until yesterday, a newly appeared company, named SiOnyx, unveils an invention of some Harvard researchers, that is going to revolutionize the whole industry. Harvard has been studying their "black silicon" for almost ten years, but nothing has come out of their lab, due to internal policies regarding the output of their discoveries to commercial companies.

Solyndra Cylindrical Solar Panels: Cheaper and Powerful

Solyndra, a company situated in Fremont, CA, has invented a new type of cylindrical solar panel, cheaper to install and more powerful compared to the conventional panels, which are made of flat solar cells.

Sewage Could Be a New Way For Cheap Hydrogen

In the field of hydrogen fuel cell production, Oregon State University researchers have discovered that sewage can produce cheap hydrogen. In comparison with traditional electrolysis technology, sewage can produce hydrogen at a lower cost.

Trametes Versicolor Fungi Could Make Fuel Cells Cheaper

Fungi grown on rotten wood could one day be harvested and genetically engineered for providing future fuel cells with an alternative to the platinum that they nowadays have inside, playing the role of a catalyst.