Efficiently-Arranged Vertical Axis Wind Turbines Could Offer 2 Times The Power of Classic Ones
It looks like the CalTech guys are not the only ones involved in such inventions, as a company called "Wind Harvest International" says they can double the ourput of large horizontal axis wind farms by placing one-megawatt VAWTs between them, in a way that would boost their power output.
NREL Building PDIL: Six Automated Robots Helping Solar Industry's R&D
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has built a robot that will help the R&D of thin film solar cells, analyzing possible defects faster and more accurate than any other existing system. It is called the PDIL (Process Development and Integration Laboratory).
Harvesting Energy From Small Vibrations for Use in Pacemakers and Implants
University of Michigan researchers, at their Engineering Research Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems, have just created highly efficient some energy-harvesting devices that use the energy from surrounding arbitrary, non-periodic vibrations.
New Quaternary Semiconductor Alloy Could Gear Up Development of Solar Cells
Cun-Zeng Ning and Alian Pan, from Arizona State University, have discovered and fabricated the first quaternary semiconductor nanowire materials, by alloying two binary semiconductors (ZnS + CdSe) - Zinc Sulfide and Cadmium Selenide, and obtained ZnCdSSe.
Zinc Oxide Crystal Acting as Piezoelectric Material To Get Hydrogen From Water
A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have just discovered that crystals of zinc oxide, if submerged, absorb its vibrations and act like a piezoelectric material, developing areas of strong negative and positive charges.
Electronically-Controlled Tintable Glass Inventors Receive Grant from DOE
A Minnesota-based invention company called Sage Electrochromics, Inc has received a financial loan of $103 million from the Department of Energy for it's breakthrough glass innovation, a window that can be switched on or off to reject up to 98% of the sun's heat and light on a push of a button.
First Solar Signs Agreements With Major Energy Utilities to Provide Solar Power
First Solar Inc. has recently announced that it will start working on a huge photovoltaic project called Desert Sunlight in Southern California. The facility will produce 550 MW from solar power, of which 300 MW will be sold to California's Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and 250 MW to Southern California Edison (SCE).
Stolen Electrons from Green Alga Demonstrate New Kind of Organic Solar Cells
WonHyoung Ryu at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, working with overseas colleagues from Stanford, found an interesting way of hybridization between a green alga, Chlamydomonas, and gold nanowires, to directly collect the electrons produced through photosynthesis by the plant.
Spanish Researchers Discover How Graphite Can Become Magnetic
A team of physicists from the Autonomous University along with Francisco Guinea from the Institute of Materials Science from Madrid, Spain, have discovered that by removing individual atoms from a graphite surface, local magnetic moments can be created in the graphite.
Newly Discovered Magnetic Material 18% Stronger Than Any Other Known Magnet
Jian-Ping Wang, a materials physicist from the University of Minnesota in Twin Cities, and his colleagues have produced a material that is 18% more magnetic than the most magnetic material known to this day. They have been able to produce a combination of eight parts iron, one part nitrogen. The resulted material has the formula Fe16N2 and its extremely high magnetism lies in its complicated crystalline structure.
