Energy conversion Archives – The Green Optimistic

Energy Scavenged from Wireless Signals More Efficiently Due to New “Special Materials”

Danny Harper — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 07:52:40 +0000

Think of it as an energy-producing Bug Zapper. But rather than enticing and systematically destroying curious insects, this harvesting device gathers unused wave energy (ala microwave, Wi-Fi, satellite signals) and tunes them for useful applications. While gathering energy in such a manner has been done before, researchers at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering have […]

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Greece Seeks Economic Comeback In Huge Solar Power Project

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 09:58:48 +0000

Once an empire, Greece is now confronted with maybe the country’s most harsh economic crisis since its birth in ancient times. However, solar power seems to represent part of Greece’s salvation, just like Archimedes’ solar rays once saved them from the enemy. Gioros Papaconstantinou, Greece’s Environment Minister, recently unveiled a $28 billion plan for building […]

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Cheap Hydrogen Obtained By Using Ethanol and Sunlight

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 31 May 2011 18:58:23 +0000

Not only one time had ethanol been tested as a reliable source of hydrogen. Now, a multi-national team of scientists from Spain, Scotland and New Zealand have devised a method to use ethanol and sunlight to extract hydrogen for use in fuel cells to generate electricity.

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HERIC Topology: How a Brilliant Idea Brought 99% Efficiency For Solar Panel Inverters

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 26 May 2011 15:12:43 +0000

Brilliant ideas usually don't need years of hard labor, or at least so it happens most of the time. For example, by implementing a switching trick to a DC to AC current converter used in solar panels, Heribert Schmidt, an electrical engineer (with a doctorate), from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems has managed to halve inverter losses, bringing the efficiency to 98 percent.

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Plants vs Solar Cells: Which is The Most Efficient Energy Converter?

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:26:45 +0000

Both solar cells and plants process sunlight one way or the other, but there's a catch: one of them is more efficient. Guided by common sense, we'd say that the plants' billions of years of "experience" in capturing and storing energy will win. Is it so?

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New Pyroelectric Device Transforms Heat into Electricity With 30% Efficiency

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:19:05 +0000

Thermoelectric devices transform waste heat into electricity and can one day provide increased efficiency for everything from small gadgets to power plants. Scott Hunter, working at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) hopes his new heat-recovering invention will scavenge lost heat with an efficiency of up to 30 percent.

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Solar Thermoelectric Device Harnesses Sun's Heat, Transforms Directly Into Electricity

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 03 May 2011 17:25:13 +0000

A new material that could one day change the efficiency of thermal solar panels has been invented by MIT and Boston College researchers, with collaborators from GMZ Energy. The thermoelectric device is at least eight times more efficient than what's currently available in labs.

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MIT Engineered Virus Could Make Solar Cells More Efficient

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:52:42 +0000

Viruses are mostly seen as the bad side of nature, the fallen creation or just that unwanted flu during those sunny days when you were supposed to go play outside. For Angela Belcher viruses are working tools, since she and her MIT colleagues have just found a way to guide some of them so they make solar cells more efficient, by as much as a third.

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Oceanlinx Prepares to Deploy 2.5MW Tidal Power System Near Sydney

Cristi — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:22:19 +0000

Engineers are performing the last tests and measurements before the grid-connection off the coast of Port Kembla, near Sydney. The system will be generating about 2.5MW by harvesting air pressure that will turn a wind turbine.

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Precision Nanoparticles Technology to Revolutionize Solar Cells

Cristi — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:35:50 +0000

The chemists from the Idaho National Laboratory and Idaho State University may have found the gold mine of solar energy efficiency. They invented the manufacturing of a highly precise and uniform nanopaticle that improves solar cells and further spurs the growing nanotech revolution.

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Meteosat Used to Detect Faulty Solar Panel Power Stations

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:28:18 +0000

Italy is known for its plans to develop photovoltaic power as one of their main sources of energy. Having such a wide experience in solar power harvesting, several issues arise regarding the solar panels' maintenance. Every PV plant has a sensor verifying the quantity of light arriving at its location at any given moment during the day.

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Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Got Better by Using Ionic Salts

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:43:51 +0000

A group of researchers from the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, in Seville, Spain, led by Juan Antonio Anta, are working on optimizing Grätzel solar cells by incorporating ionic salts, known as green solvents, with a view to preventing evaporation of the liquid compounds and the consequent reduction in efficiency. Grätzel (dye-sensitized) cells work by using […]

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New Method of Guiding Light Through Polymer Helps Solar Cells Get Cheaper

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:21:58 +0000

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.

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XX55: Military Designed Methanol Fuel Cell Lasting for Weeks

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:26:14 +0000

The company that produced the XX25 methanol fuel cell we talked about last year, Ultracell, came up with an improved version of it, the XX55. This fuel cell outputs 55watts at 4 amps (10-30 volts), and can last for days or even weeks on a single methane cartridge.

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The Sea Snake: Scotland's 750kW Wave Powered Project

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:47:58 +0000

Scotland built a 180 m tube they call "The Sea Snake", that will capture the waves' movements and energy and transmit it via subshore cables to the land.

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Helix-Shaped Vertical Wind Turbines Will Power GSM Towers in Africa & US

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:36:53 +0000

Too often, regardless of the energy sources being used, the GSM transmission towers' power fails, because of various reasons: theft, heavy rain/snow, disturbances in the grid lines. Helix, a San Diego-based wind company, is working on a wind turbine that is designed to power base stations in hard to reach, remote locations from Africa and the US.

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Clean Hydrogen Obtained Through Thermolysis of Water by H2 Power Systems

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:07:50 +0000

H2 Power Systems, based in the UK, has designed an on-site and on-demand hydrogen producing system based not on electrolysis, but on thermolysis, which is the splitting of water at very high temperatures.

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New Nanostructure Film Reduces Solar Cells Reflection for Better Efficiency

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:55:36 +0000

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.

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Fraunhofer Develops New, Easy to Make High Efficiency Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:06:01 +0000

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.

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Solar Stirling Engine System Working in Colder and Darker Areas

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:22:55 +0000

Stirling engines become more and more used and promoted among alternative energy circles. The interesting fact with them is that they can be fueled by any source of heat, and the cleaner the source is, the better the stirling engine does to the environment.

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