NewNergy

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has built its reputation on printers, PCs and other tech gear. Now it's lending a hand to a much different industry: solar.

HP had a recent announcement that it will license technology it co-developed with Oregon State University to solar startup Xtreme Energetics, which hopes to launch its first products in two years. The HP technology will help grab the sun's rays for solar panels in a way that could generate electricity at twice the efficiency and half the cost of traditional solar panels, the companies say.

Labels: computers, efficiency, solar

One of the most promising new ideas in energy efficiency comes from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The proposition: get more power and efficiency out of turbocharged motors by injecting ethanol, methanol or E85 (85 percent methanol, 15 percent gasoline) into the engine at times of higher demands for power.

The MIT crowd claims this technology can boost gas mileage by as much as 30 percent, and that it allows a high-compression engine and high-boost turbocharger to operate on regular gasoline. Daniel Cohn, senior research scientist at the MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, and other MIT professors, have formed a company, Ethanol Boosting Systems, and are testing their concept with Ford Motor.

On another front, Daimler and General Motors are experimenting with motors that run on gasoline but combine features of traditional gasoline engines (fuel ignited by a spark) and diesel technology (fuel ignited by compression of fuel and air).

More from here -Automakers explore gas-saving technology

Labels: efficiency, engines, ethanol

Physicist Bram Hoex and colleagues at Eindhoven University of Technology, together with the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, have developed a process that improves the energy produced by solar panels by six per cent (in relative terms), a new world record in solar cell efficiency.

By using an ultra-thin aluminium oxide layer at the front of the solar cell, Hoex was able to improve the cell’s conversion of sunlight into energy from 21.9 per cent to 23.2 per cent. The record breaking technology was showcased in the USA at a major solar power convention.

More from here - Solar Panels – World Record Breakthrough in Cell Efficiency

Labels: efficiency, solar

Researchers in Australia have produced highly efficient miniature crystals -- a breakthrough which they claim can soon revolutionise the way people harvest and use solar energy.

Lead researcher Professor Max Lu from the University of Queensland said they were one step closer to the holy grail of cost-effective solar energy with their discovery.

"The beauty of our technique is that it is very simple and cheap to make such materials at mild conditions. Now that the research has elucidated the conditions required, the method is like cooking in an oven and the crystals can be applied like paints," the 'Nature' quoted Lu as saying.

More from here

Labels: costs, efficiency, solar

As a child, you might have used magnifying lenses to focus sun's rays onto anything you wanted to burn. Even if you haven't, you'd be well aware that it's possible to do so. IBM takes it to a whole new level and used a magnifying glass to significantly improve solar energy output.

According to test results, IBM was able to capture 230 watts of energy on just one centime of solar cell which would then be converted to 70 watts of usable electricity. That is FIVE times the usual output of typical PVs. So, if just a small surface area could generate electricity which could power whole structures, for example, this means there'd be a decrease in the needed quantity of photovoltaics, thereby lessening installation costs.

More from here

Labels: efficiency, inventions, solar

Physicist Bram Hoex and colleagues at Eindhoven University of Technology, together with the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, have developed a process that improves the energy produced by solar panels by six per cent (in relative terms), a new world record in solar cell efficiency.

By using an ultra-thin aluminium oxide layer at the front of the solar cell, Hoex was able to improve the cell’s conversion of sunlight into energy from 21.9 per cent to 23.2 per cent. The record breaking technology was showcased in the USA at a major solar power convention.An improvement of more than 1 per cent (in absolute terms) may at first glance appear modest, but it can enable solar cell manufacturers to greatly increase the performance of their products.

The ultra-thin (about 30 nanometers) aluminium oxide film contains unprecedented high levels of built-in negative charges, preventing the significant energy losses that usually escape from the surface of solar cell arrays during the day.

Full report from here

Labels: efficiency, solar

The 2-Mode Hybrid system uses a new, electrically variable transmission (EVT) that offers the best of both worlds: fuel economy and real SUV capability. The two modes consist of a continuously variable operation, for low-load driving situations and a fixed-gear operation, for high-load conditions such as towing or highway driving.

Drawing on experience gleaned in the development of hybrid bus propulsion systems, GM designed the two-mode EVT to provide the best combination of city and highway fuel economy; it is used in concert with the 6.0L Gen IV V-8 engine with Active Fuel Management. Furthermore, the EVT is designed to bolt directly to the standard four-wheel-drive transfer case found on the gasoline-only models for true four-wheel-drive capability.

The Escalade Hybrid’s drivetrain is made up of components, each of which works together to provide seamless, economical and comfortable operation that goes virtually unnoticed by the driver ...

Source: 2009 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid

Labels: autos, efficiency, electric-cars, hybrids

Scientists at Newcastle University, UK have pioneered breakthrough technology in the fight to cut greenhouse gases.

The Newcastle University team, led by Professor Michael North, has developed a highly energy-efficient method of converting waste carbon dioxide (CO2) into chemical compounds known as cyclic carbonates. Cyclic carbonates are widely used in the manufacture of products including solvents, paint-strippers, biodegradable packaging, and in the manufacture of a new class of efficient petrol anti-knocking agents that increase fuel efficiency while reducing further CO2 emissions!

The Newcastle University team estimates that the technology has the potential to use up to 48 million tonnes of waste CO2 per year, reducing the UK's emissions by about four per cent.

The conversion technique relies upon the use of a catalyst to force a chemical reaction between CO2 and an epoxide, converting waste CO2 into this cyclic carbonate. While the reaction between CO2 and epoxides is not exactly new. But this reaction until now required a lot of energy. The process used until now also requires the use of ultra-pure CO2, a costly substance.

The Newcastle team has succeeded in developing an exceptionally active catalyst, derived from aluminium, which can drive the reaction necessary to turn waste carbon dioxide into cyclic carbonates at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, vastly reducing the energy input required.

To date, alternative solutions for converting CO2 emissions into a useful product has required a process so energy intensive that they generate more CO2 than they consume.

If the catayst developed by the Newcastle team is used at the source of high-concentration CO2 production (in the exhaust stream of a fossil-fuel power station or the exhaust of a car), it could take out the carbon dioxide, turn it into a commercially-valuable product and at the same time eliminate the need to store waste CO2!

If applied optimally, this technology could be able to cut down CO2 emissions significantly while satisfy the demand of about 50 million tonnes for cyclic carbonates and its derivatives. This will amount to about 4% of the total CO2 emissions in the UK.

Not a bad result at all for an invention that cuts down a pollutant while producing a useful product (anti-knocking agent) that conserves more energy while decreasing pollution even further.

Sources:
Wikipedia

Labels: efficiency, environment

As part of its Sustainable Computing Program, Microsoft Corp. recently announced it will support four academic research projects focused on energy efficiency in computing in the areas of datacenter power efficiency, power management and the creation of parallel computing architecture with decreased power demands.

Through this program, Microsoft Research is stimulating research across a broad range of areas with the potential to significantly improve energy efficiency. And considering that a single 100-watt incandescent light bulb left on around the clock for a year costs more than $80 to power and releases 1,350 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere -- roughly the same amount of power that an idle PC uses in that same timeframe -- finding ways to lessen humankind's impact on the environment is critical.

Full news release here

Labels: efficiency

Web 2.0 Goes Green: IBM Pioneers New Server Design for Web-Based Organizations

IBM introduced an entirely new category of server uniquely designed to address the technology needs of companies that operate massive data centers with tens of thousands of servers, like online gaming, social networks and Search and Internet companies.

The IBM "iDataPlex" system leverages IBM's blade server heritage to build a completely new design point that:

-- More than doubles the number of systems that can run in a single rack,
-- Uses 40 percent less power while increasing the amount of computing
that can be done five times(1),
-- Can be outfitted with a liquid cooling wall on the back of the system
that enables it to run at "room temperature" -- no air conditioning
required,
-- Uses all industry standard components as well as open source software
such as Linux to lower costs.

Companies that operate massive scale-out data centers spend 10 to 30 times more on energy costs per square foot than a typical office building. The energy used powers both hundreds of thousands of servers and the air conditioning needed to cool them. IBM iDataPlex is a new rack system featuring design innovations in cooling and efficiency that will help it replace the inefficient "white-box" servers commonly used by such Internet companies.

Way to go, IBM.

Full news release here

Labels: efficiency

Read a brief but to-the-point article by Marianne Lavelle @ US News on energy efficiency. Her point is simple but absolutely true - energy efficiency simply works, but no one is willing to accept it can make a huge different and hence take the pain of implementing efficiency measures, instead looking forward to silver bullets that have not happened in a long, long time (though she talks only about the US, it is quite valid, in differing degrees for the entire world)

Some interesting quotes:

"National laboratory researchers showed definitively, for example, that if ductwork is constructed so that it's inside the "envelope" of a house—the living space instead of the attic or crawl space—the homeowner can save a quarter to a third on air conditioning or heating costs. And we all could save energy.

Now that's a research breakthrough, in a way, and one we have the technology to implement today. But it isn't being done, except by builders who are devoted to "green" construction. As the home builders association explains in my story, the industry would view any mandate as a burden."

In the words of a scientist who had been working on the energy efficiency domain: " "To me, that's the story," he says. "We've been doing these scenarios and potentials for 35 years. The question is why are we still doing it?" Schipper has come to believe that the battle is ideological: "There is a fundamentally deep and disturbing opposition to the notion that things can change," he says."

Read the full article here

Labels: efficiency

Researchers at McMaster University (coolest name ever) have succeeded in 'growing' light-absorbing nanowires made of high-performance photovoltaic materials on carbon-nanotube fabric. The nanowires are made from exotic materials like gallium arsenide, indium gallium phosphide, etc, and they can absorb more energy from the sun than silicon, allowing the creation of both efficient and flexible solar panels.

The aim is to produce flexible, affordable solar cells composed of Group III-V nanowires that, within five years, will achieve a conversion efficiency of 20 percent. Longer term, it's theoretically possible to achieve 40 percent efficiency, given the superior ability of such materials to absorb energy from sunlight and the light-trapping nature of nanowire structures. By comparison, current thin-film technologies offer efficiencies of between 6 and 9 percent.

More from here

Labels: efficiency, solar

A new approach is able to create a dramatic improvement in cheap solar cells now being developed in laboratories

By using a popcorn-ball design -- tiny kernels clumped into much larger porous spheres -- researchers at the University of Washington are able to manipulate light and more than double the efficiency of converting solar energy to electricity. The findings were presented in New Orleans at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society April 10.

Dye-sensitized solar cells, first popularized in a scientific article in 1991, are more flexible, easier to manufacture and cheaper than existing solar technologies. Researchers have tried various rough surfaces and achieved higher and higher efficiencies. Current lab prototypes can convert just over one tenth of the incoming sun's energy into electricity. This is about half as efficient as the commercial, silicon-based cells used in rooftop panels and calculators.

More from here

Labels: efficiency, solar

Nanomotors just got ten times faster

Arizona researchers have made a breakthrough development by making a new generation of sub-microscopic nanomotors that are up to 10 times more powerful than existing motors.

The development, say researchers led by Joseph Wang, is a big step forward to a practical energy source for powering tomorrow's nanomachines.

Currently nanomotors, including so-called "catalytic nanomotors," are made with gold and platinum nanowires and use hydrogen peroxide fuel for self-propulsion.


More from here

Labels: efficiency

Super-efficient lighting technologies provide energy saving ideas, outdoors and in

In Australia, the husband and wife team behind Lumiflux has found a way to make a 50 year old technology seem new and, well, shiny. Electroluminescence, or EL, has been the technology behind your digital watch night-light and a series of small lamps from Sylvania for a long time. Until quite recently, though, EL was not bright enough for more widespread area lighting applications.

Ernest and Gabriella Kabay have developed EL panels that are flexible, easily cut to shape and 2-3 times brighter than previous generations of EL. This makes them ideal for outdoors advertising and signage.

In the US alone there are approximately one hundred million exit signs. Every year, these require thirty to thirty five billion kilowatt-hours, which costs two point eight billion dollars to produce and is the equivalent of four million cars on the road. Lumiflux EL signage would reduce that to 10% of current figures.

More from here

Labels: efficiency, lighting

Philippines Government Posts P2.3-billion Savings from Better Energy Management

May 22nd, 2007

The combined initiatives of the private sector and government to efficiently manage energy consumption resulted in a hefty P2.3-billion cost savings for Philippines.

The implementation of the government energy management program for both the power and oil sectors resulted in P613.86-million worth of savings...

The Philippine businesses’ energy efficiency index, as compared to their global counterparts, was seen faring well. It surpassed the achievements of Brazil, China, Malaysia, Germany, Turkey, Poland, Hong Kong, Mexico and India.

The set of incentives being offered by international institutions and nongovernment organizations also serve as stimulus for government and private sector entities to practice energy efficiency and conservation initiatives.

Read the full post from here @ ASEAN Energy News Service

Labels: conservation, efficiency

Higher Air conditioner efficiency using solar power

You may have probably heard of Solar Air Conditioner. It can produce cooling effect by absorbing heat from Sunlight. Normally, these types of ACs are absorption type refrigeration systems using Ammonia cycle, salt and vapor pressure stuff. But these are still limited to research labs with few commercial applications.

In this post the author talks about using electricity (from solar) to get some extra points of efficiency from your existing AC.

Interesting post, read more from here @ A Sun Energy World

Labels: efficiency, inventions, research, solar

Nordic states offer lessons in real energy independence

By Neal St. Anthony, Star Tribune, April 16, 2007

Four U.S. ambassadors tout the high-output, cleaner-burning economies, and they say the ideas could work in Minnesota, too.

Minnesota and the United States can learn a lot from Sweden and the other Nordic nations about energy efficiency and alternative fuels and still grow the economy and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, the four U.S. ambassadors to those countries said in the Twin Cities on Monday.

Read the full news report from here @ Star Tribune

Labels: efficiency

Research Shows Segway(R) PT Tops the List of Most Energy-Efficient Transportation

Press release

BEDFORD, N.H., April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The findings of an in-house analysis conducted by Segway Inc., show the environmental benefits of the Segway(R) Personal Transporter (PT) compared to traditional transportation options like cars and sports utility vehicles (SUVs). The research evaluates a variety of vehicles relative to their impact on the environment, both in emissions created and energy consumed, proving that the Segway PT can substantially decrease greenhouse gas emissions and is the most energy-efficient alternative to short-distance, single-occupancy car journeys.

Read the full press release from PR Newswire

Labels: conservation, efficiency, environment, inventions, transportation

EcoSmart Fire eco-friendly heating systems available

EcoSmart Fire The EcoSmart Fire is a re-invention of the old spirit stove. Using renewable energy and utilising new design and technology, the EcoSmart Fire is environmentally friendly, aesthetically pleasing, highly efficient and cost effective. EcoSmart Fire also fits into a vast array of architectural environments.

Read the full report from here @ Info Link, Australia

Labels: design, efficiency, environment, inventions

Sugar-fuelled battery soon to juice up portable electronics

New technology uses any sugar source from soft drinks to tree sap for fuel

Liz Tay (PC World) 26/03/2007

Fuel cell technology that is currently in development boasts the ability of extracting energy from virtually any sugar source to power portable electronics like cellular phones, laptops, and sensors. The new technology is expected to be biodegradable, environmentally friendly and more energy efficient than current options, providing a green alternative to current Lithium-ion batteries.

The cell operates at room temperature and uses enzymes to oxidize sugars, hence generating electricity. So far, researchers have run the batteries on glucose, flat soft drinks, sweetened drink mixes and tree sap.

Read the full news story from here @ Computer World, Australia

Labels: batteries, efficiency, electricity, inventions

U.S. automakers still don't get it

By Tommy Denton, Mar 20, 2007

After the energy shocks of the 1970s, the US Congress demanded that U.S. automobiles become far more energy-efficient. The average vehicle mileage required under the 1970s standards rose from the teens to the mid-20s -- and then sat there.

Thirty years later, after a spasm of gluttonous gorging of fuel to power SUVs and other muscle machines, the world's most profligate petroleum consumer has fallen back into vulnerability. Rather than applying the basic lesson that those who eat too much should eat less, much of the American business mind has been dedicated to finding alternative fuels to sate the nation's ravenous energy appetite, says this interesting opinion piece.

Read the full article here @ Roanoke

Labels: conservation, efficiency

Human waste used to heat apartment

Canadian Press, March 26, 2007

Halifax (CP) - A low-rise apartment building in Halifax heated with the help of human waste takes energy efficiency to new heights, says an engineer whose company was involved in the affordable-housing development.

Energy providers working on the new building started with the concept that sewage isn't useless material; Human waste from the four-storey building is pumped into a holding tank for six hours before it's released into the city's sewer system. during these six hours, a geothermal inside the tank takes the heat out of the sewage.

Read the full article from here @ The Star Phoenix

Labels: efficiency, waste

Echelon Technology To Help Reduce Energy Use in Home Appliances

(WebWire) 3/8/2007

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Echelon Corporation, a global networking company providing technology and solutions for controls, smart metering, and energy and environment management, and LonMark® International, a non-profit trade association, announced that CECED, the European Committee of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances, has adopted Echelon’s technology as part of its Household Appliances Control and Monitoring – Application Interworking Specification (AIS) standard. The CECED AIS standard defines Echelon’s control networking technology platform as one of the technologies for communication among household white goods such as ovens, washers and dryers.

The combined solution with Echelon’s standard will support the growing demand for intelligent home appliances that are more energy efficient, user friendly and convenient.

Read more from this press release here @ WebWire

Labels: conservation, efficiency, homes

Bright idea: Consumers attracted to energy savings of compact fluorescent lamps

ERIC SHACKLETON
March 10, 2007

Excerpts:

1. Compact fluorescents provide high energy efficiency
2. Nova Scotia's energy minister says the province plans to give retailers four or five years to prepare for a ban on incandescent light bulbs
3. Project Porchlight, a campaign organized by a not-for-profit energy conservation group, is working to deliver one CFL bulb to every household in Canada.
4. the PL bulbs, also called CFLs, have a longer life and will save the buyer money.
5. CFLs are also environmentally friendly because less energy is used.

More from this news report @ Brooks Alberta Business News

Labels: conservation, efficiency, electricity, environment, homes, lighting