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Yearly Archives: 2009
The Electric Chevy Spark Will Debut in India at a Low Price
It looks like all the big players in the auto industry need boosts and help from their competition after all for succeeding in their plans. GM and Reva Electric Car Co., from India, announced that they will start producing a small electric car for the Indian market, based on GM's Chevrolet Spark. The announcement was made by GM India president Karl Slym.
SuperStation: The Superconductor Energy Hub Uniting U.S. Grids
New Mexico may become a hub for this kind of energetic interaction, as Clovis is wanted to host the SuperStation, a hub using superconducting cables to link three networks: The Eastern Interconnection, The Western Interconnection and the Texas Interconnection. The 5GW carrying cables will be cooled down to -300°F and thus energy losses through heat will be infinitesimally close to zero.
Todd Ditmire’s Petawatt Laser: One Step Closer to Nuclear Fusion
Todd Ditmire, from the University of Texas, has invented a laser device that can produce petawatt power through a process of chirping, that takes a short light pulse (150 femtoseconds) and stretches it out in time, amplifies it to higher energy and then recompresses it to about 100 femtoseconds in time, obtaining 190 joules of energy.
Turkish Company Begins Exploitation of 60MW Geothermal Field
The group already owns a 17.4 MW plant on a field where it has operating rights since September last year, so this new geothermal field can bring them a total of 77.4MW of power.
Mobion Methanol Micro Fuel Cell v4: New Energy Density Records
The Mobion methanol fuel cell engine has surpassed its previous performance, with the fourth version reaching a power density of 84mW/cm², while maintaining its fuel efficiency of 1800Wh/kg, or 1.4Wh/cc.
AFC Developing Cheaper Fuel Cells Immune to CO2 Poisoning
UK-based company AFC Energy has developed an alkaline-based hydrogen fuel cell technology and tested it at a chlor-alkai plant in Germany, where they demonstrated it can generate electricity and feed it to the grid as efficiently as older, more expensive platinum-based fuel cells.
Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Got Better by Using Ionic Salts
A group of researchers from the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, in Seville, Spain, led by Juan Antonio Anta, are working on optimizing Grätzel solar...
Redox Flow Batteries: a Quickly-Charging Alternative to Li-Ion?
Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) in Pfintzal, near Karlsruhe, propose an alternative to the lazily-charging Lithium-Ions: the redox flow batteries.
New Method of Guiding Light Through Polymer Helps Solar Cells Get Cheaper
New research is paving the pathway towards better and more efficient solar cells, as University of Florida chemists have invented a method of "hacking" the molecular structures of the materials the solar cells are made of, in order to gain a maximum transfer efficiency from them.
New Ceramic Material Makes Fuel Cells Capable of Using Normal Fuels
Researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology have invented a new type of ceramic material that could widen the uses of SOFCs, so they could also be used with a wide range of liquid or gaseous fuels, without the need of separating hydrogen or cleaning them.
