Small gadgets like phones usually have small chargers, but they often get forgotten plugged in when you wake up in the morning and hurry up to go to work. These often-called "energy vampires" now have a solution - a wind-powered phone charger, actually a design that may just catch if someone will stick to it.
One of the many things I learned in life is that people lose their dreams and never see them fulfilled just because they give up. So is the case with Ford, it seems, who is apparently a little circumspect at which technology to follow... at least for a while.
The Estonian government has recently announced that it plans to create a nationwide network of charge-points for electric cars. According to some officials, the country would sell 10 million carbon credits to Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation in order to meet this goal.
Samsung has recently revealed a transparent 46-inch LCD screen powered by solar energy. It is an upgraded model of a see-through LCD panel showed at the SID 2010 in Seattle, in May last year.
A new printing technology invented by Xerox promises to have the ability of packing more energy into EV batteries. The invention involves the printing of a striped pattern of energy storage materials and highly conductive materials. The resulted electrodes are thicker than conventional ones, but can increase the energy stored in a battery by 10 to 30 percent.
The Swedish tidal energy device developer Minesto has revealed its latest technology using underwater kites to produce clean electricity. Unlike other similar systems, the new technology, called Deep Green, is capable of operating in slower currents.
SiGNa Chemistry Inc has created a kind of a battery that can be recharged with water. At first sight, there's something fishy with their mobile-H2 in the sense that it only needs water to operate and that's all. Ok, let's see some in-depth details of it.
The development of alternative energy has to go hand in hand with a reinforcement of the electrical grid, otherwise the latter will eventually become so busy and will cap the production to its capacity. Such is the case with Germany's grid, which is an example of an imbalanced structure of solar and wind energy harvesters on one hand and the outdated grid, on the other.
Argentinean designer Francisco Tablado has recently designed an autonomous power unit dubbed NEWEN that taps into green electricity for all of your power needs while camping. It is also capable of providing energy to temporary shelters and housing units.
The time for cheap electric cars has come. After last year's announcement of their Twizy, the two-seat urban electric vehicle at the Paris Auto Show (which we attended, btw), Renault is now announcing dirt cheap prices on the same EV that nobody ever thought of and could hardly match.
