Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Sarah Baker measures the amount of methanol produced by the enzyme-embedded polymer.
Image: George Kitrinos/LLNL

A new study has emerged from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory demonstrating that through the combination of biology and 3-D printing, scientists can turn methane into methanol.

In recent years, methanol has shown a lot of promise as a clean burning fuel. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the alcohol’s high-performance and low emission levels could make it an ideal alternative to gasoline for cars.

On the other hand, methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is adding to the acceleration of climate change. While the chemical compound does not stay in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, it is 84 times more potent due to its ability to effectively absorb the sun’s heat and warm the atmosphere. In fact, methane has outpaced carbon dioxide in climate change impact over the least 100 years, with methane’s impact being 25 times greater.

The development from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory not only provide a clean burning fuel alternative, it effectively helps combat the pressing effects of climate change.

(more…)

How solar panels can save everyone money

CC0 Public Domain

When talking about the benefits of solar energy, one challenge always makes its way into the conversation: cost. While many see solar as a costly alternative to conventional means of generating electricity, a study out of Boston University is showing how solar not only saves those who own panels money, but even those who generate electricity conventionally.

According to the study, the 40,000 solar panels deployed in Massachusetts have effectively cut electricity prices for the nearly three million power users in the state (even those households and businesses not utilizing the panels).

“Until now, people have focused on how much was being saved by those who owned PV,” says Robert Kaufmann, professor of Earth and environment at Boston University. “What this analysis quantified was that it actually generates savings for everybody.”

(more…)

An odd partnership emerged at the Waste EXPO 2016 as truck manufacturer Mack Trucks and Tesla Motors joined forces to introduce an electrified garbage truck based on Mack’s LR model.

The innovative car manufacturer outfitted the truck with a regenerative braking system, which allows the truck to recharge its battery while it operates.

Because of the frequent stopping and start of a garbage truck’s engine, a significant amount of energy is wasted in its day-to-day operation.

“We don’t make vehicles, we just make powertrains,” said Ian Wright, co-founder of Tesla. “There’s a battery pack that you can charge from the grid, and there’s a range-extender generator which can burn fuel, make electricity and keep the battery pack charged so that you don’t run out of range.”

A team of researchers from Iceland is looking to fight climate change by turning greenhouse gases into rocks.

A recent paper published in Science details how researchers have been able to capture carbon emissions and lock them in the ground, transforming them from harmful atmospheric greenhouse gases to volcanic rock.

“Our results show that between 95 and 98 percent of the injected carbon dioxide was mineralized over the period of less than two years, which is amazingly fast,” said lead author Juerg Matter.

A large majority of all electricity in Iceland come from geothermal energy. While geothermal may seem like a very clean source of energy, it is not carbon dioxide independent.

In fact, the geothermal energy of Iceland produces 40,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year. That is only about five percent of what a fossil fuel plant of the same size would emit, but research team is looking to work toward a completely carbon dioxide independent economy.

Image: James Almond/Flickr

New research from the University of Washington is opening another avenue in the quest for better batteries and fuel cells. But this research is not a breakthrough in efficiency or longevity, rather a tool to more closely analyze how batteries work.

While we’ve come a long way from the voltaic pile of the 1800s, there is still much work to be done in the field of energy storage to meet modern day needs. In a society that is looking for ways to power electric vehicles and implement large scale grid energy storage for renewables, batteries and fuel cells have never been more important.

A research team from the University of Washington – including ECS members Stuart B. Adler and Timothy C. Geary – believes that these improvements will likely have to happen at the nanoscale. But in order to improve batteries and fuel cells at that microscopic level, we must first understand and see how they function.

The newly developed probe offers a window for researchers to understand how batteries and fuel cells really work.

(more…)

Image: Ludie Cochrane/Flickr

Researchers from the University of Connecticut are pushing toward a hydrogen economy with the development of a new catalyst for cheaper, light-weight hydrogen fuel cells.

The catalyst — made of graphene nanotubes infused with sulfur — could potentially work to make hydrogen capture more commercially viable.

This development comes during a time where many people are looking to hydrogen in the search for a new, sustainable energy source. While hydrogen may be abundant, it often requires a costly and energy-consuming process to produce. However, if scientists could find an affordable and efficient way to capture hydrogen, it may begin to shift society away from the fossil fuel-driven economy toward a hydrogen economy.

The material developed by the University of Connecticut professors currently shows results that are competitive with some of the top materials traditionally used in these processes, but at a fraction of the cost.

The secret lies in the non-metal catalyst that has many of the same electrochemical properties as rare earth materials.

(more…)

Image: Kathy McLeod/Flickr

From televisions screens we can roll up like newspapers to see-through batteries, researchers are moving electronics toward a more flexible, more transparent future.

The most recent development in this area comes from a group that has developed transparent, flexible supercapacitors made of carbon nanotube films. But this development goes far beyond wearable electronics, with potential applications in both energy storage and harvesting.

“Potential applications can be roughly divided into two categories: high-aesthetic-value products, such as activity bands and smart clothes, and inherently transparent end-uses, such as displays and windows,” co-author of the study Tanja Kallio, told Phys.org. “The latter include, for example, such future applications as smart windows for automobiles and aerospace vehicles, self-powered rolled-up displays, self-powered wearable optoelectronics, and electronic skin.”

With the thin films demonstrating 92 percent transparency and high efficiency compared to other carbon-based counterparts, the researchers believe that further improvements to the supercapacitors durability and energy density could make the product commercially viable.

Image: Kyocera

A joint venture between two Japanese companies has embarked on building the world’s largest floating solar project.

The project is estimated to harvest 16,170 megawatt hours per year – enough to power around 4,970 households.

Not only will the floating solar farm – which will consist of 50,904 panels – produce a large amount of renewable energy, it will also play a major role in offsetting over 8,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually (the equivalent of 19,000 barrels of oil).

Japan is making the move to “floatovoltaics” due to the lack of open land suitable for solar farms, but plentiful water surfaces. Proponents believe floating solar farms will be cheaper to produce than their land counterparts due to less strict regulations held on water surfaces.

Image: Rober Couse-Baker/Flickr

Energy comes in many forms. From solar to wind, there are an abundance of energy technologies available today. But one village in Indonesia is using on very different, very unique product to power their homes: Tofu.

The remote Kalisari village in Indonesia has a vibrant tofu producing industry (over 150 tofu businesses, to be exact). To produce this tofu, a lot of water is required. To make just over two pounds of tofu, some nine gallons of water is required. That water, inevitably, transforms into wastewater and it typically tossed into a nearby drainage system.

But the village has found a way to make that waste reusable in the form of energy. By treating the wastewater with a specific type of bacteria, biogas can be produced. The clean, renewable energy can be pumped directly into households.

(more…)

Image: Heinz Traimer/Wikimedia Commons

We may understand melanin best as the pigment that dictates our skin tone, but these pigments are actually super plentiful – existing in almost every organism on earth. While melanin is all around us, there is still much to learn about its chemical structure.

A group of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University set out to better understand melanin, and in doing so, found that its chemical structure may be conducive to creating certain kinds of batteries.

“Functionally, different types of melanin molecules have quite different chemistries, so putting them together is a little like solving a jigsaw puzzle, with each molecule a puzzle piece,” says Venkat Viswanathan, ECS member and co-author of the study. “You could take any number of these pieces and mix and match them, even stack them on top of each other. So what we researched was, which of these arrangements is really correct?”

(more…)