Oregon State University engineers have innovated a new nanostructure film technology that they can deposit on any surface and reduce the reflectance of light. Their technology should perform better and have a lower price.
Yet another efficiency record has been established for mass-producible solar cells: 23.4%. The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) from Germany succeeded to manufacture a single-crystal silicon solar cell of a thin p-type semiconductor layer residing on an n-type semiconductor substrate. The solar cell's area is 2x2cm.
Maybe you've heard about Steorn and their Orbo. Steorn is an Irish company that has been promising for a few years to accomplish something mankind has been dreaming for thousands of years: some call it perpetuum mobile, others call it overunity, but it is mostly known as "free energy" in lay terms.
One of the major cities in Europe, Madrid, has found an innovative solution to give a new meaning and usage to the phone booths.
Researchers and designers at the University of Stuttgart's Institute of Aircraft Design (IFB) have announced that they'll begin the construction of a zero-emission electric aircraft powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The aircraft, called Hydrogenius will compete in NASA's Green Flight Challenge competition.
Researcher Takashi Yabe at the Tokyo Institute of Technology claims that he developed a system that can run on solar energy, to refine magnesium and use it as a source of fuel.
A research team at Stanford has developed a new inexpensive sensor chip made with carbon nanotubes, being capable to detect rapid traces of TNT and poison in rivers, reservoirs.
California-based startup, Joule Biotechnologies is developing a unique process using solar energy that converts carbon dioxide into liquid biofuel. This new process could yield up to 20,000 gallons of usable fuel per year per acre of land for approximately the same cost as fossil fuels.
An Oregon-based company, Arcimoto of Eugene, designed their fully electric vehicle capable of reaching no less than 190 mpg, if we take mpg as an energy reference.
Engineering assistant prof. Dane Morgan and Ph.D. student Edward (Ted) Holby, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that making the fuel cells from very small platinum nanoparticles decreases their lifetime. Making them bigger is, though, better.
