Through billions of years of evolution, life on Earth has found intricate solutions to many of the problems scientists are currently grappling with. Physicists at the University of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory are trying to unravel nature’s secrets to develop new energy-generating technologies for a more sustainable future.
Focusing on the ancient green sulphur bacteria, research fellows Dr Alex Chin and Dr Nicholas Hine are investigating the early stages of photosynthesis – the process in which plants and some bacteria capture the sun’s light energy and convert it into chemical energy, or food.
A new solar cell material has properties that might lead to cells more than twice as efficient as the best on the market today. An article this week in the journal Nature describes the materials—a modified form of a class of compounds called perovskites, which have a particular crystalline structure.
Fully autonomous robots that collect human urine to power themselves could be a step closer, according to researchers in Bristol.
The engineers from the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) have created a pump based on a human heart that can deliver urine to the fuel cells of the waste-powered “EcoBot”, without the risk of mechanical failures and blockages experienced by current technology.
This could enable the robots to operate without human intervention because they it would allow them to collect their own fuel and use it to generate electricity, the researchers claim.
Researchers might have found a way to economically capture carbon dioxide from power plants and store it underground. The idea is to turn carbon dioxide storage sites into geothermal power plants.
If it works, the technology would provide both the electricity needed to pump carbon dioxide underground and a source of revenue to offset the high cost of capturing carbon dioxide at power plants, compressing it, and shipping it to storage sites.
OFF THE COAST OF FUKUSHIMA, Japan — Twelve miles out to sea from the severely damaged and leaking nuclear reactors at Fukushima, a giant floating wind turbine signals the start of Japan’s most ambitious bet yet on clean energy.
Canadian Solar Inc., una de las mayores compañías de energía solar del mundo, anunció el pasado 16 de octubre que su subsidiaria, Canadian Solar Solutions Inc., ha comenzado la construcción del proyecto MWAC Grand Renewable Solar Project a escala comercial. Se trata del proyecto fotovoltaico más grande llevado a cabo por Canadá y está siendo desarrollado por Samsung Renewable Energy Inc.
Rush to drill backfired. Industry and regulators need to be much more vigilant to avoid environmental damage and public backlash.
The rapid rise of hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, has become hugely controversial on both sides of the Atlantic. The extraction of shale gas out of rock formations in the U.S. has been accompanied by both intensive use of fresh water and dramatically lowered energy prices. As a result of the environmental damage, environmentalists are up in arms, public opinion in much of Europe is against fracking and France has banned the process.
