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Yearly Archives: 2008
Mazda Postpones H2 Car Because of Poor Existing Storage
They don't want to use hydrogen in a fuel cell device, but rather burn it and use the power. The principle is the same with the one in BMW 7-series from last year, but they have something different on hand. Mazda doesn't use the classic piston-engine, which can backfire sometimes if fueled with hydrogen. Instead, they use a Wankel rotary engine.
Graphene-Based Hydrogen Storage Tanks Open New Limits
Not only US and Japan can take initiatives in this area, and here's the proof: a couple of researchers from Greece designed a material that almost meets the 2010 standards set by the US Department of Energy (DOE) for hydrogen storage, in terms of weight/pressure supported.
Silver-Zinc Rechargeable Battery to be Unveiled Today at Batteries 2008 Conference
Today, dr. Ross E. Dueber, the CEO of ZPower, a battery producing company, discusses the technology of making the silver-zinc battery for consumer electronics at the Batteries 2008 conference in Nice France. The conference just started today and is of great interest for the alternative energy blogosphere.
Highly Efficient Flexible Silicon Solar Cells Invented
Scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University invented a silicon solar cell. The interesting fact is that it's flexible and it can be printed on a curved surface or a fabric. Although solar paint has been produced, there are a few situations where you'd rather use more solid solar cells (like porous surfaces, where paint cannot be applied well).
Discovery: Clathrates Thermoelectric Materials Offer Better Efficiency
Some researchers from the University of Ã…rhus, Denmark, have studied promising thermoelectric materials from the group or clathrates, which create crystals full of 'nano-cages'.
Vatican Started Installing Their New Solar Panels
The workers say that the newly installed solar panels will save about 200 tons of CO2 in just 2 weeks (the equivalent of 70 tons of oil). It's just nice. In fact, the Vatican is the only place I don't think these expensive things will get stolen. The project is estimated to about $1.5 million.
Toshiba`s SCiB Battery: Charging in 5 Mins/No Plans for Use in EV Soon
Toshiba has developed an advanced type of Lithium-Ion batteries, the SCiB (Super Charge ion Battery). They say it has the capacity of charging within 5 minutes at 90% of its capacity, and it is being able to bear 5000 to 6000 charges until it starts losing capacity. They used the battery to demonstrate these on a laptop.
Solar Paint soon to be Marketed as The Cheapest Source of Energy
Some recent partnership between UK university researchers and Corus Colours, also a UK-based firm, brought to the surface a promise of future commercialization of cheap dye-based solar panels.
Free Piston Engine: Worth Investing In It to Power Future Electric Cars?
Since the idea of economy started in humanity's mind, everybody wants to reduce the expenses, mostly on energy dependence. Nowadays, when hybrid cars and, generally, electric vehicles are starting to play a huge role in car industry, and electric technology is starting to get cheaper yearly, there still are scientists that get inspired by the old explosion engine principles, albeit they are being used for more than a hundred years and their power source is mainly based on fossil fuel.
BASF DLR-H2: First Manned Fuel Cell Airplane Took Off!
This spring, Boeing announced a flight powered by fuel cells, only that the take-off was powered by a Li-Ion battery. This autumn, on Sept. 30, the Germans did it from head to toe by using only hydrogen! Wow!
