Train carrying coal to a power plant.
The Great Energy Shift is happening in spurts and is starting in places like Arizona and Mississippi instead of coming from legislation in Washington. Last week two two utilities faced decisions on whether to fight the future or embrace it.
Continue reading… “The death of coal in America”
Homeowners who aimed their panels toward the west, instead of the south, generated 2% more electricity over the course of a day.
Solar panels should face in the general direction of the sun. You would think that would be easy to do. But most installers of solar panels, especially the ones for homes, follow conventional wisdom handed down from architects, which holds that in the northern hemisphere, windows and solar panels should face south.
Continue reading… “Most solar panels are facing in the wrong direction: Study”
Electricity usage doesn’t seem to be affected by electric cars so far.
Since electric cars lessen dependence on fossil fuels, what effect are they having on power consumption? The concern is that the large numbers of electric cars will increase the demand for electricity and overwhelm power grids — despite studies to the contrary.
Continue reading… “Electric cars have almost no grid impact so far”
Hundreds of companies are investing in electricity transferred through magnetic fields.
Nikola Tesla, the inventor and rival to Thomas Edison, in the early 1900’s built the Wardenclyffe Tower, a 187-foot-high structure on Long Island, which he said could transmit electricity wirelessly. Financier J.Morgan backed the Wardenclyffe Tower. The project failed, and Tesla ended up broke. (In an earlier experiment in Colorado, Tesla had wirelessly lit up 200 lamps over a distance of 25 miles, but pedestrians witnessed sparks jumping between their feet and the ground, and electricity flowed from faucets when turned on. Oops.)
Continue reading… “Electric power without transmission lines”
Wind power could generate as much as 18 percent of global electricity by 2050.
Wind energy only accounts for a small percentage of global electricity production even though we have seen more wind farms popping up over the last few years. Wind power generates only 2.6 percent of the world’s electricity, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency, but that number is expected to grow significantly over the next few decades.
Continue reading… “Global wind power capacity expected to skyrocket”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJTl2oqaWPs[/youtube]
All of that electricity in a thunderstorm. All that lightning, all those kilojoules of power, just waiting to be harnessed, if only we knew how do it! Could we really harness the electricity from lightning?
Continue reading… “Will we ever be able to harness the power of lightning?”
A new energy source from fractional hydrogen will allow a gallon of ordinary water to become energy.
A remarkable new energy source from fractional hydrogen will allow a gallon of ordinary water to become the energy equivalent of 200 barrels of oil, a team of physicists working near the onetime laboratories of Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein are saying.
Continue reading… “Hydrino Theory validated by Harvard tests”
Photovoltaic solar panels
The drop in cost of solar panel prices will help make solar affordable to more people and it will increase the size of the solar market. But this ongoing cost reduction means much more than that.
Continue reading… “Cost of photovoltaic solar panels to drop $0.36/watt by 2017”
America could do with some Californication when it comes to clean tech. California is beating everywhere else hands down, from public policy and capital invested to adoption of electric vehicles and smart meters.
Continue reading… “Clean Edge ranks the states and cities in the clean-tech economy”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4ufvLPWqgI[/youtube]
If you need a power source when you are camping you might want to consider the PowerPot by Power Practical, winner of the Inventor of the Year Award at the 2012 DaVinci Inventor Showcase. The PowerPot turns heat into useful electricity. It will power lights so you can see what you’re cooking, recharge a cellphone, or run a little Bach while you’re contemplating the flames (or really whatever music you’re into).
David Carroll, nanotechnologist at Wake Forest University.
Nanotechnologist, David Carroll, is working on a simple material that he thinks will soon be a part of everything you own. Carroll’s research group at Wake Forest University developed a flexible fabric that makes electricity from heat or movement. It could revolutionize cheap, renewable energy.
Continue reading… “Electricity-creating fabric could be everywhere soon”
The State Grid Corporation of China is running the smart-grid project using passive optical networking technology.
Smart-grid technology testing has begun in China hat could eventually be deployed nationwide to make the delivery of electricity more reliable and efficient. It might also serve as a way to deliver high-speed Internet, TV, and telephony to the farthest reaches of the country.
Continue reading… “China tests smart-grid technology”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.