The year in clean energy: Wind, solar and batteries grow despite economic challenges
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Solar energy this week
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Cleaning up
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New non-fullerene acceptor helps achieve 20.2% efficiency in organic solar cells
In recent years, engineers have introduced a wide range of photovoltaic (PV) solutions that could facilitate the sustainable generation of electricity worldwide. These include organic solar cells (OSCs), PV devices that use organic molecules or polymers to convert sunlight into electrical power.
Moving beyond the 80-year-old solar cell equation
Physicists from Swansea University and Åbo Akademi University have made a significant breakthrough in solar cell technology by developing a new analytical model that improves the understanding and efficiency of thin-film photovoltaic (PV) devices.
Escaping the lab into the sunlight: Research examines durability of outdoor perovskite solar cells
Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are promising next-generation solar photovoltaic (PV) cells with high performance and low production costs compared to silicon. However, one of the primary challenges to widespread adoption of PSCs is stability and durability.
Giant clams may hold the answers to making solar energy more efficient
Solar panel and biorefinery designers could learn a thing or two from iridescent giant clams living near tropical coral reefs, according to a new Yale-led study.
Tech news
The demonstration of vacuum levitation and motion control on an optical-electrostatic chip
The levitation of microscopic objects in vacuum and the control of their movements while they are suspended was first demonstrated several decades ago. Since then, various research groups have been working on new approaches to control levitated objects in vacuum with greater degrees of freedom.
Can a computer chip have zero energy loss in 1.58 dimensions?
What if we could find a way to make electric currents flow, without energy loss? A promising approach for this involves using materials known as topological insulators. They are known to exist in one (wire), two (sheet) and three (cube) dimensions; all with different possible applications in...
A new method to control quantum bound states in superconducting device
Researchers have successfully controlled the quantum mechanical properties of Andreev bound states in bilayer graphene-based Josephson junctions using gate voltage. Their research is published in Physical Review Letters. The research team includes Professors Gil-Ho Lee and Gil Young Cho from the...
Novel method enhances size-controlled production of luminescent quantum dots
Luminescence refers to the result of a process in which an object absorbs light at one wavelength and then re-emits it at another wavelength. Through light absorption, electrons in the ground state of the material are excited to a higher energy state. After a certain amount of time...
Novel 2D device for quantum cooling converts heat to voltage at ultra-low temperatures
EPFL engineers have created a device that can efficiently convert heat into electrical voltage at temperatures lower than that of outer space. The innovation could help overcome a significant obstacle to the advancement of quantum computing technologies, which require extremely low temperatures...
Controlling magnetism with polarized light: Non-thermal pathway uses inverse Faraday effect
Intense laser pulses can be used to manipulate or even switch the magnetization orientation of a material on extremely short time scales. Typically, such effects are thermally induced, as the absorbed laser energy heats up the material very rapidly, causing an ultrafast perturbation of the...
Physicists develop method to detect single-atom defects in semiconductors
One of the challenges of cramming smarter and more powerful electronics into ever-shrinking devices is developing the tools and techniques to analyze the materials that make them up with increasingly intimate precision.
Scientists discover way to 'grow' sub-nanometer sized transistors
A research team led by Director Jo Moon-Ho of the Center for Van der Waals Quantum Solids within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) has implemented a novel method to achieve epitaxial growth of 1D metallic materials with a width of less than 1 nm. The group applied this process to develop a...
Mapping the surfaces of MXenes, atom by atom, reveals new potential for the 2D materials
In the decade since their discovery at Drexel University, the family of two-dimensional materials called MXenes has shown a great deal of promise for applications ranging from water desalination and energy storage to electromagnetic shielding and telecommunications, among others.
Genetic algorithm enables precise design of phononic crystals
The advent of quantum computers promises to revolutionize computing by solving complex problems exponentially more rapidly than classical computers. However, today's quantum computers face challenges such as maintaining stability and transporting quantum information.
Synthesis method for 1D segmented heteronanostructures uses stress-induced axial ordering
One-dimensional segmented heteronanostructures (1D-SHs) are promising candidates in fields such as photoelectrocatalysis (PEC) and thermoelectrics. Currently, the synthesis of 1D-SHs mainly focuses on sulfides and selenides, with relatively less research on telluride materials, yet tellurides...
Optoelectronics gain spin control from chiral perovskites and III–V semiconductors
A research effort led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has made advances that could enable a broader range of currently unimagined optoelectronic devices.
Visual explanations of machine learning models to estimate charge states in quantum dots
A group of researchers has successfully demonstrated automatic charge state recognition in quantum dot devices using machine learning techniques, representing a significant step toward automating the preparation and tuning of quantum bits (qubits) for quantum information processing.
Cleaning up
New contaminant-tolerant catalyst could help capture carbon directly from smokestacks
A newly designed catalyst created by University of Toronto Engineering researchers efficiently converts captured carbon into valuable products—even in the presence of a contaminant that degrades the performance of current versions.
A prototype superconducting coil opens the way for more energy-efficient electromagnets
How can we advance cutting-edge research but consume less energy? CERN's scientists are working on innovative solutions, and superconductivity is one of the key ingredients.
'Nearly sustainable' hydrogen could cut ammonia production emissions by 95%
Whether sustainably produced hydrogen needs to be 100% green is currently under debate. Using the production of ammonia and artificial fertilizer as examples, researchers have calculated that "nearly sustainable" hydrogen would be better in the end.
High-selectivity graphene membranes enhance CO₂ capture efficiency
Reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions is a crucial step towards mitigating climate change and protecting the environment on Earth. One proposed technology for reducing CO₂ emissions, particularly from power plants and industrial establishments, is carbon capture.
Using copper to convert CO₂ to methane could be game changer in mitigating climate change
Carbon in the atmosphere is a major driver of climate change. Now researchers from McGill University have designed a new catalyst for converting carbon dioxide (CO2) into methane—a cleaner source of energy—using tiny bits of copper called nanoclusters. While the traditional method of producing...
True scale of carbon impact from long-distance travel revealed
The reality of the climate impact of long-distance passenger travel has been revealed in new research from the University of Leeds.
Thermal energy storage and phase change materials could enhance home occupant safety during extreme weather
Bitter cold temperatures. Unrelenting heat. Power outages that last for weeks. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers are planning for extreme weather by calculating what it will take to make the situation survivable.
Scientists probe chilling behavior of promising solid-state cooling material
A research team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has bridged a knowledge gap in atomic-scale heat motion. This new understanding holds promise for enhancing materials to advance an emerging technology called solid-state cooling. The findings are published in the...
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Physics remains undefeated:
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Well, you could at least double the performance of solar farm by using them in tandem with orbiting mirrors - so they would be illuminated 24/7:
Nuclear waste? Where does it go? What do you do with it? The U.S. spent $2 billion on studies with no final decision.
It is constant at least
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Nuclear power has an advantage not reflected in its average price. It's price stability, and for some users that matters
Much of the debate about nuclear power in the month since the Coalition announced its plan to install reactors in seven states has been about cost.
Into breeder reactors. You eat it and turn it into energy.
Alternatively, you just package it up and bury it in the middle of one of those vast wind turbine farms. All the nuclear waste fission power is likely to produce *ever* will easily fit safely within one such farm.
View: https://x.com/achyutha/status/1804456314640175498
After spending billions, the U.S. could not come up with anything they thought was safe. I read the reports. We're talking about storage over thousands of years. The primary concerns were radioactive material seeping into ground water and earthquakes. In Iraq, low-level radiation from depleted uranium rounds has caused significant contamination.
https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/depleted_uranium/
Yes, we have. We have not come up with anything that satisfies the activists who don't like nukes *at* *all.* Breeder reactors will simply eat up a lot of the waste, and a lot more of it could be simply vitrified and dropped down a hole. And if we wanted to, we could grind it all up into powder, mix that powder at a 100:1 ratio with inert rock dust, melt that into 10-gram marbles, place each marble into a block of concrete half a meter on a side, and make them by the tens of millions and build *vast* engineering projects with them. I'm sure that Israel, for one, wouldn't mind a few extra hundred square kilometers of land area built out into the Med, or a giant southern border wall, or a vast aqueduct system to bring desalinated Pacific ocean water into the interior of the country to top up the Ogalala aquifer.
The opposition to nuclear comes from emotion and willful ignorance and a refusal to innovate, rather than any real technical problems. The vast *cost* of nuclear comes not from the technology but the regulations.
Oh brother. I watched a Green Peace boat maneuvering very close to a large ship carrying nuclear waste. They had put the waste in 55 gallon drums and were dropping them in the ocean. Not a "safe" disposal method. The Green Peace boat was determined to get in their way.
Simple solution: spray the waste onto the Greenpeace vessel, then encase it in concrete and sink it to the bottom of the ocean. That's as serious a proposal as your likely apocryphal tale is a serious argument against nuclear power.
Look, Mister Defensive. Nuclear power is the be all and end all. So contact whoever is in charge and offer your brilliant plan. The nuclear industry will thank you.
If you have an actual argument to make, feel free. Otherwise, I'm out, having demonstrated that anti-nuclear activism comes from emotion, not reason.
A whole mountain forest regions paved over with PV arrays. Not only is this darker than the prior terrain, thus adding heat from absorbed sunlight, it's a reduction in the carbon sequestration potential of the trees and shrubs and such that are now blocked off/cut down by the solar panels.
View: https://x.com/amazing_physics/status/1487515990384590850
View: https://x.com/amazing_physics/status/1487515990384590850
Vast PV arrays in the desert would be almost as bad ecologically: deserts are *really* bright. Paving them with nearly-black PV would make deserts even hotter.
Put PV fields over places that are dark: oceans. Or, better, in space.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Well, Europe find the "solution" - they paid Russia to store theur nuclear waste. And then they found that Rosatom perfected the breeder reactor technology, and the "waste" Europeans paid to dispose of, in Russia became nucear fuel that worth billions)
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
The problem of beaming energy from orbit to ground is still not solved satisfactory( That's why I consider space-based mirror arrays, illuminating land-based PV fields, to be optimal immediate solution. You could increase luminosity over solar panels several times, using only simple light beams.
Insufficient effort has been expended on developing the tech.
Unlikely to work. With both an SPS and a mirror, you need to actively aim at the ground target. With the SPS, that's a natural capability; many square KM of sunlight-capture gets converted to electricity and then sent to a far smaller microwave transmitter. With a mirror, you need to either actively aim the whole thing, or have a complex series of reflectors. And even then you can't collimate sunlight into a tight beam due to basic physics.
Additionally: the ground-based microwave receiver has the approximate optical density of chickenwire due to the long wavelengths of microwaves, so you can locate it over water, forests, farms, whatever with minimal effect on what's below. But PV arrays block virtually all light from getting through, so that territory is now ruined for anything else.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
More likely too many unforeseen problems. And concerns about gigawatt-scale masers firing from space at surface... and what if for some reason their beam got diverted, at, say, New York?
I agree, but it's much simpler than microwave-based transmission, and could be made using existing technology.
A good argument. Must admit, I didn't consider that!
Nothing. The watts/sq meter are far too low to be of any consequence. That's why the receiving antenna was *also* miles in extent. But since it was a metal mesh, not solid panels, that mesh could be virtually anywhere.
It doesn't matter if you can build it if it doesn't actually work. Again: how do you beam a wide-spectrum white light beam from GEO to the surface of the Earth that originates from a 1/2-degree-wide source down to a fixed target only a few miles wide? If you know of a way to turn sunlight into a tightly collimated white-light laser beam with anything remotely resembling efficiency using mirrors, the world would shower you with riches because that's currently against the laws of physics.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Re-read about Znamya project, please. I'm not talking about GEO mirrors.
You mean the one that *flashed* by? Converting a few hundred square meters of captured sunlight on the mirror into several square *kilometers* of light on the ground? Such things might, with luck, be turned into something that can provide some measurable increase in illumination over a vast area, but they would not make stable bright spots on the ground useful for solar power generation.
From wiki:
The Znamya 2 was a 20-metre wide space solar mirror. ... produced a 5 km wide bright spot, which traversed Europe from southern France to western Russia at a speed of 8 km/s.[1] The bright spot had a luminosity equivalent to approximately that of a full moon.[2] Although clouds covered much of Europe that morning, a few ground observers reported seeing a flash of light as the beam swept by.
It was a stunt, but demonstrated nothing of any real utility. Parking a giant mirror in low Earth orbit would court disaster from hitting other bits of stuff... except for the fact that it would serve as such an effective airbrake that it'd likely de-orbit before it had a chance to hit much of anything.
10 M radius mirror to 2500 M radius spot = 1/62,500 full sunlight.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
As usual, you did not read enough. Your data is for "Znamya-1", which was merely a concept demonstrator. "Znamya-2" (the one, that failed to deploy due to programming mistake) was supposed to be controllable, capable of holding a spot over a single place. Seriously, from the guy who wrote about spacecrafts and space projects I expect to knew a bit more about such things.
Minor space projects based on flawed notions tend to not hold my interest. Even if they got it to hold on target for a few minutes - the best that could be hoped for given how fast these things cross the sky - it'd *still* be an incredibly low-power-density beam. The spacecraft would be *constant* states of re-orienting themselves - holding themselves on the target, then trying to quickly reposition for the next one - annoying the hell out of people along their path getting flashed randomly in the night. And for what? A short duration probably flickering light barely bright enough to see by? And at low orbital altitudes, the mirrors would spend a good deal of time:
1: Actually within the shadow of the Earth
2: Crossing the daylit side of Earth, being useless.
Very expensive, providing minimal utility for a short span, spending the bulk of their time being unproductive. This is not the description of a program - or a person - deserving much attention.
And "as usual," you seemed to get the designations wrong. Znamya-2 was the experiment; Znamya 2.5 was the one that snagged. Znamya 3 was to be a scaled up version.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Translation: "it's not American and I absolutely refuse to knew anything about it"
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Yep, my bad.
Translation: "it's not American and I absolutely refuse to knew anything about it"
No. It's a flawed concept.
southwestforests
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Would electric gyrocopters count as related content?
View: https://youtu.be/tQ_D1IxwgtM?si=6ebLw4uW_7ZVAfC5
The Brilliance of Modern Gyrocopters
Electric Aviation
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I was generally hyper skeptical about space mirrors, but Kraftt Ehricke can make anything sound cool. The whole paper is pay walled unfortunately but you might be able to find it on... Other sources, preprint sites, etc.
Space Light by Kraftt Ehricke (the man himself!!!) is always a fun read. The traditional approach to space mirror constellations is just to proliferate like mad - both your mirrors, and ground receivers. If you have ten thousand mirrors, each ten hectares, a hundred flashing by every ten minutes ain't as bad, with even, diffuse lighting even.
And if you have a bunch of sites on the ground, at all latitudes, that need light for say one or two hours after sundown to correspond to peak energy needs, then a sun synchronous terminator hugging orbit for your constellation ain't bad. Obviously it ain't going to do it all, absentee ratio blah blah blah, and is nowhere as good as traditional SPS but not uninteresting.
One or two mirrors are pretty sucky, you want at least a few square kilometers worth in GEO if you want to do basic things like nighttime illumination (unless you just want to enhance night vision devices over the Ho Chi Minh Trail as was proposed for Vietnam).
Solving the difficult control problems and all the other problems with the idea of course are in usual Kraft Ehricke style left as exercises for the reader, but boy that guy thinks big!
Paper should be right up your alley, Scott. They have diagrams of an STS deployed beam machine based reflector.
Ehricke was like von Braun: a hell of a pitch man.
Got it. And a number of his other Lunetta/Soletta papers.
He was *great* at thinking big. Not so good at getting the details (including the politics) right, unfortunately. According to him we should have manned bases on Pluto by now.
Not that he's wrong that would *shouldn't,* but man was he way off in what would actually happen.
Ehricke was brilliant. It was Walter Dornberger at Bell who promoted ideas that were 'far too early' for the Americans. There was too much captured German technology and proposals to wade through. It came down to a matter of money. To which projects should be funded and when. The Kennedy administration cancelled the X-20 even though astronauts had been selected and construction had begun at Boeing. The Americans were far less visionary than the Germans. Till today, the movie 2001 is greatly admired. The space station, the 'space clipper,' etc. How much people want such things. The space station was a German wartime design, but no one wanted to pay for it later.
No, it wasn't.
southwestforests
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Funny thing, with me having precisely zero ESP that this conversation was going here today, this book, Amazon's photo, was ordered several days ago and I just got in from the rain while retrieving it from mailbox.
(I do not care for books being shipped in nothing but a plastic bag, but I have to give it credit for protecting book from the rain)
(I do not care for books being shipped in nothing but a plastic bag, but I have to give it credit for protecting book from the rain)
southwestforests
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I do not know if that kind of thing is what this cover art from Amazing Stores magazine of July 1939 is about, but the above brings to mind where it was seen last month in a reblogged post on Tumblr,
View: https://www.tumblr.com/thegildedcentury/5134024206?source=share
(I think it would make a neat plastic model kit in, oh, say, 1/350 scale, to go with other plastic models of navy ships and Star Trek ships for size reference)
(guess you could buy something like 18 makeup mirrors to give it actual mirrors)
southwestforests
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Oh, the web link itself was rendered so as to put the image in the post, I did not expect that.
The station was illustrated post-war. The first evidence of any such thing is post-war interviews with WvB... and WvB *alone.* The man was quick on his feet and dreamed shit up more or less on the spur of the moment to blow sunshine up the US Army's ass in order to secure a position with them. Space stations, A-11 rockets, A-12 rockets, etc. When you look at the immediately post-war "designs" for such things they are all incredibly awful... almost as if he hadn't given them any real thought. Because he hadn't.
Other Peenemunders denied that any such work was done (Georg von Tiesenhausen was asked directly that on my request and his response was said to have been a derisive negatory), and of course it wasn't: WvB got his ass in a sling with the SS for simply *talking* about such things.
The immediate post-war years dreamed up a *lot* of utter BS and mis-heard exaggerations. Witness the "Nazi Sun Gun,"a supposed wartime notion for an orbiting mirror to burn cities to the ground. It was a confabulation of Oberth's orbital mirror meant to provide a little night-time sunshine, a simple disk of foil and supports that got blown up into a vast hollow and pressurized volume filled with Space Nazis and pumpkin plants because reasons.
In the news
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Highly efficient and stable solar cells can now be mass produced like printing newspapers
Scientists at the City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) have developed highly efficient, printable and stable perovskite solar cells to achieve carbon neutrality and promote sustainable development.
Promising material for solar energy gets its curious boost from entropy, researchers show
Solar energy is critical for a clean-energy future. Traditionally, solar energy is harvested using silicon—the same semiconductor material used in everyday electronic devices. But silicon solar panels have drawbacks: for instance, they're expensive and hard to mount on curved surfaces.
Scientists develop efficient and stable hybrid perovskite-organic LEDs with external quantum efficiency exceeding 40%
Tandem LEDs offer an effective way to integrate different light-emitting technologies for better display that meets Rec. 2020 color gamut standard. Now, scientists in China have developed a stable, efficient and high-color purity green LED with a tandem structure by combining perovskite LED and...
Physicists extend lifespan of perovskite solar cells
Silicon dominates the current commercial solar cell industry, offering an attractive combination of low cost, high efficiency and long lifespan.
A new approach to boost the efficiency of non-fused ring electron acceptor solar cells
The power-conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of organic solar cells based on compounds known as polymer donors and fused ring electron acceptors (FREAs) have recently exceeded 19%. In contrast, organic solar cells based on non-fused ring electron acceptors (NFREAs), more affordable compounds...
Researchers move closer to green hydrogen via water electrolysis
Water electrolysis offers an ideal process for hydrogen production, which could play a key role in the global energy transition that increasingly relies on renewable electricity, but whose current production process is extremely carbon intensive.
Novel two-step electrolysis of water proposed for hydrogen production
A research team led by Prof. Chen Changlun from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with collaborators, developed advanced cobalt-doped nickel hydroxide bipolar electrodes and non-noble metal catalysts, which significantly improved the efficiency...
New tools are needed to make water affordable, says study
Rising water prices are forcing many households in the United States to choose between rationing water or risking shutoff by leaving bills unpaid. A study in Environmental Research Letters shows that government agencies and water utilities may be underestimating the true number of households at...
Scientists design method to lessen reliance on air conditioning
Scientists say they have found a way to cool buildings that will reduce dependence on energy-hungry air conditioners.
New carbon storage technology is fastest of its kind
A new way to store carbon captured from the atmosphere, developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, works much faster than current methods without the harmful chemical accelerants they require.
New separation process can efficiently mine rare earth metal europium from electronic waste
Rare earth metals are not as rare as their name suggests. However, they are indispensable for the modern economy. After all, these 17 metals are essential raw materials for digitalization and the energy transition.
Faster charge transfer mechanism could lead to better energy conversion devices
Solar has emerged in recent years as the fastest growing renewable energy source in the United States, spurred in part by great improvements in technology that help turn light from the sun into electricity more efficiently.
Unlocking the potential of anti-perovskites through a convenient one-step synthesis route
Although perovskites have attracted a lot of attention lately, anti-perovskites hold just as much potential as functional materials. Bearing a similar crystal structure to perovskites but with an inverted electrical configuration, anti-perovskites exhibit peculiar properties that could be...
Nanocarbon catalyst design unlocks new avenue for sustainable fuel additive production
Vehicle exhaust from fossil fuel combustion constitutes a main source of air pollutants like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. To mitigate air pollution, researchers are looking into additives to fuels like dimethoxymethane (DMM). But DMM production brings its own environmental hazards.
Offshore wind turbines offer path for clean hydrogen production
Using electricity generated by offshore wind turbines as one pathway to split water to produce clean hydrogen may make economic sense, particularly along the U.S. Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, according to researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Study ranks feasibility of converting 245 US coal plants to nuclear
An assessment ranks the feasibility of converting 245 operational coal power plants in the U.S. into advanced nuclear reactors, providing valuable insights for policymakers and utilities to meet decarbonization goals, according to a new study by University of Michigan researchers.
Study finds health risks in switching ships from diesel to ammonia fuel
As container ships the size of city blocks cross the oceans to deliver cargo, their huge diesel engines emit large quantities of air pollutants that drive climate change and have human health impacts. It has been estimated that maritime shipping accounts for almost 3% of global carbon dioxide...
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