Energy – Page 13 – Impact Lab

Energy, government, Hot Issues, Science & Technology News

Is America’s fossil fuel empire collapsing?

February 3, 2020

Since the close of World War II, the United States has overseen an expanding global order built on fossil fuels. That era has come to an end. Where coal powered the British Empire, and oil powered the American Century, renewable energy technologies are now set to drive the post-American world. Europe’s “Green Deal” represents the beginning of this new era.

The most ambitious clean energy project in history, Europe’s Green Deal marks the beginning of a new era in clean energy policy. Notwithstanding its challenges, Europe’s plan represents a “broad roadmap” for remaking its entire economy with the aim of creating the first climate-neutral region in the world by 2050. Underwritten by one trillion Euros in investment, the Green Deal calls for establishing the first-ever climate law anchored to the 2050 climate neutrality target.

Continue reading… “Is America’s fossil fuel empire collapsing?”

Automobiles, Batteries, Electric Automobile, Energy, Science & Technology News

Electric cars will challenge state power grids

February 1, 2020

A Chevrolet Volt hybrid car connected to a charging station at a parking garage in Los Angeles.

SEATTLE — When Seattle City Light unveiled five new electric vehicle charging stations last month in an industrial neighborhood south of downtown, the electric utility wasn’t just offering a new spot for drivers to fuel up. It also was creating a way for the service to figure out how much more power it might need as electric vehicles catch on.

Seattle aims to have nearly a third of its residents driving electric vehicles by 2030. Washington state is No. 3 in the nation in per capita adoption of plug-in cars, behind California and Hawaii. But as Washington and other states urge their residents to buy electric vehicles — a crucial component of efforts to reduce carbon emissions — they also need to make sure the electric grid can handle it.

The average electric vehicle requires 30 kilowatt hours to travel 100 miles — the same amount of electricity an average American home uses each day to run appliances, computers, lights and heating and air conditioning.

An Energy Department study found that increased electrification across all sectors of the economy could boost national consumption by as much as 38 percent by 2050, in large part because of electric vehicles. The environmental benefit of electric cars depends on the electricity being generated by renewables.

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Energy, Engineering, Environment, Science & Technology News

Rolls-Royce plans to build up to 15 mini nuclear reactors in Britain

January 31, 2020

Artist’s concept of a Rolls-Royce SMR plantRolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce has announced that it plans to build, install, and operate up to 15 mini nuclear reactors in Britain, with the first set to go online in nine years. In a BBC Radio 4 interview with business journalist Katie Prescott on January 24, 2020’s Today program, Paul Stein, chief technology officer for Rolls-Royce, said that the company is leading a consortium to produce factory-built modular nuclear reactors that can be delivered for assembly by ordinary lorries.

Currently, the world is undergoing a boom in nuclear power. According to the World Nuclear Association, there are 448 operating civilian reactors and another 53 under construction. However, almost all of these are being built in Eastern Europe and Asia, with China alone building more reactors than the entire Western world combined.

Part of the reason for this is political with every reactor program in Europe or North America facing implacable environmentalist opposition and part of it is the expense of building and operating large reactors in an energy economy now dominated by cheap natural gas. However, one technology trend that could reverse this stagnation is the development of small, modular nuclear reactors that could be mass-produced in factories, carted to the site by ordinary lorries, and then assembled to generate cheap carbon-free electricity.

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China, Climate Change, Energy, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy

The future of energy is being shaped in Asia

January 5, 2020

China now accounts for almost three-quarters of global solar panel production.

A Frenchman is credited with being the first to discover the photovoltaic effect that produces electricity from sunlight. The first solar panel was built in the US. But when Abu Dhabi decided to build the world’s largest individual solar power project, they looked east for help.

The country partnered with Chinese and Japanese companies to construct a facility, which opened this year, with a peak capacity of 1.18 gigawatts generated by 3.2 million solar panels. That’s because Asia, more than any other region on the planet, and China, more than any other nation, currently represent the future of solar energy, and are at the heart of the ensuing industrywide transformation from fossil fuels to renewable and nuclear energy.

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2020 Predictions, Biotech, brains, Energy, Healthcare, Science & Technology News

The major discoveries that could transform the world in the next decade

January 2, 2020

Here’s what scientists are really excited about.

The last decade ushered in some truly revolutionary advances in science, from the discovery of the Higgs boson to the use of CRISPR for Sci-Fi esque gene editing. But what are some of the biggest breakthroughs still to come? Live Science asked several experts in their field what discoveries, techniques and developments they’re most excited to see emerge in the 2020s.

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Batteries, Energy, Inventions, Science & Technology News

Gates, Bezos bet on flow battery technology, a potential rival to big bets on lithium-ion

December 18, 2019

H/O ESS containers

The U.S. energy storage market is expected to grow by a factor of 12 in the next five years, from 430MW deployed in 2019 to more than 5GW and a value of more than $5 billion by 2024, says Wood Mackenzie Energy Storage Service.

Tesla and GM are making big bets on lithium-ion batteries for energy storage systems and electric vehicles, but billionaire investors and venture capital firms are investing in competing battery technology, such as flow batteries.

Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the group of private investors led by Bill Gates and fellow billionaires Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson and Jack Ma, invested in iron-flow battery maker ESS in November.

ESS, which makes long-duration, iron flow batteries, secured $30 million in a Series C investment round from Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), the group of private investors led by Bill Gates and fellow billionaires Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson and Jack Ma, among others.

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2020 Predictions, Energy, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

5 emerging energy technologies to watch out for in 2020

December 12, 2019

2019 was a year of consolidation rather than breakthroughs for clean energy technologies. Will 2020 be different?

This year will likely be remembered as a period of technology consolidation rather than breakthrough innovation in the energy industry. Emerging industries such as offshore wind and lithium-ion battery storage have gone from strength to strength.

Meanwhile, more novel technologies such as energy blockchains and flow batteries have been relatively quiet this year.

In some respects, this is no bad thing. It signals that many low-carbon grid technologies are maturing and achieving the scale needed to compete with fossil-fuel generation. And there is still plenty of scope for innovation in maturing sectors.

In the battery market, for example, “the supply chain is constantly battling disruptions resulting from limited mineral supply,” said Lindsay Gorrill, CEO at the energy storage firm Kore Power.

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2020 Predictions, Artificial Intelligence, Energy, Futurist, Science & Technology News, Tom Frey

Futuristic advancements we can expect within the next decade

December 12, 2019

Our society has made incredible advancements in technology, resulting in pivotal discoveries and accomplishments. We are lucky to be living in a time when science and innovation are proceeding at an increasingly rapid pace. The things we see as commonplace today were simply science-fiction just 10-20 years ago. Looking to the next decade, here are some marvelous technological advancements we can expect.

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Batteries, Energy, Engineering, Science & Technology News

Scientists develop superfast-charging, high-capacity potassium batteries

November 19, 2019

Skoltech researchers in collaboration with scientists from the Institute for Problems of Chemical Physics of RAS and the Ural Federal University have shown that high-capacity, high-power batteries can be made from organic materials without lithium or other rare elements. In addition, they demonstrated the impressive stability of cathode materials and recorded high energy density in fast charge/discharge potassium-based batteries. The results of their studies were published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters and Chemical Communications.

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used for energy storage, particularly in portable electronics. The demand for batteries is surging due to the rapid advancement of electric vehicles with high requirements for lithium. For example, Volvo intends to increase the share of electric vehicles to 50 percent of its overall sales by 2025, and Daimler announced its plans to give up internal combustion engines altogether, shifting the emphasis to electric vehicles.

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2020 Predictions, AI, Energy, Futurist, Science & Technology News, Tom Frey

Futuristic advancements we can expect within the next decade

November 18, 2019

Our society has made incredible advancements in technology, resulting in pivotal discoveries and accomplishments. We are lucky to be living in a time when science and innovation are proceeding at an increasingly rapid pace. The things we see as commonplace today were simply science-fiction just 10-20 years ago. Looking to the next decade, here are some marvelous technological advancements we can expect.

Continue reading… “Futuristic advancements we can expect within the next decade”

Batteries, Energy, Report, Science & Technology News, Solar Power, Wind Power

Gas plants will get crushed by wind, solar by 2035, study says

November 18, 2019

Generators now on drawing boards will be left uneconomical

Natural gas-fired power plants, which have crushed the economics of coal, are on the path to being undercut themselves by renewable power and big batteries, a study found.

By 2035, it will be more expensive to run 90% of gas plants being proposed in the U.S. than it will be to build new wind and solar farms equipped with storage systems, according to the report Monday from the Rocky Mountain Institute. It will happen so quickly that gas plants now on the drawing boards will become uneconomical before their owners finish paying for them, the study said.

The development would be a dramatic reversal of fortune for gas plants, which 20 years ago supplied less than 20% of electricity in the U.S. Today that share has jumped to 35% as hydraulic fracturing has made natural gas cheap and plentiful, forcing scores of coal plants to close nationwide.

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Energy, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy, Solar Power

A new floating solar farm shows that renewables can be easy

November 15, 2019

The Sekdoorn floating solar farm in the Netherlands is completed after a record six weeks of work. This is the fastest construction speed ever for the German company specialized in the renewables sector BayWa r.e., who worked together with its Dutch partner GroenLeven to build the power plant.

The construction was done in only six weeks and the plant can power 4,000 households.

The solar farm will have a yearly energy yield of 13.330 MWh, saving around 6,500 tons of CO2 emissions a year and powering the equivalent of 4,000 households.

Floating solar power plants are what the name suggests, solar panels mounted on a structure that floats on a body of water. The advantage is that they reduce land requirements because they can be installed in industrial pools, drinking water reservoirs and small lakes.

Continue reading… “A new floating solar farm shows that renewables can be easy”