Renewables

Imagine a world with little or no concrete. Would that even be possible? After all, concrete is everywhere—on our roads, our driveways, in our homes, bridges and buildings. For the past 200 years, it's been the very foundation of much of our planet. But the production of cement, which when mixed with water forms the binding agent in concrete, is also one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, about 5% of the plane...

Solar fuels, clean fuels from sunlight, water and CO2, form an attractive way for storing solar energy in hydrogen or hydrocarbons, for example. The efficiency of this technology still needs a 'boost'. Researcher Kasper Wenderich, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology of the University of Twente (NL), investigated special nanoplaatjes with platinum particles on them, accelerating the chemical conversion.

The EU TREASORES project has created flexible lighting foils produced in a roll-to-roll method that could hold the potential for the large scale production of low-cost LED lighting panels and solar cells. The project set out to find innovative solutions and develop new technologies to reduce the manufacturing costs of LED lighting panels, solar cells, and other organic electronic devices.

A Tokyo-based company promotes the importance of thinking more carefully about water resources. "Our ancestors were born in the rainforest," said the promotional video, "and our civilisation developed around the great rivers. We drew water from the river. We dug wells. Our evolution depended on securing water. Today, we're running out of it. Water is a source of life. It also confines life to a fixed location. Until now."

We know that human-induced environmental changes are responsible for coral bleaching, disease, and infertility. Loss of the world's stony coral reefs - up to 30% in the next 30 years, according to some estimates - will mean loss of their services, including sequestering some 70-90 million tons of carbon each year and supporting enormous marine biodiversity. Yet despite many advances, we are still far from understanding the causes and processes co...

Expanding the use of recycled water would reduce water and energy use, cut greenhouse gas emissions and benefit public health in California—which is in the midst of a severe drought—and around the world. A new study by the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, published online 17th March in the American Journal of Public Health, found that recycled water has great potential for more efficient use in urban settings and to im...

The 66kV cable system from Prysmian Group has been type tested in accordance with CIGRE and IEC test protocols, as part of the Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA) programme.

  New Monash University research has paved the way for drones to revolutionise ecological monitoring. Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the research found that drones are much more precise at monitoring the size of seabird colonies in tropical and polar environments than more traditional ground counts.

One of the UK's largest battery-based energy storage facilities has been connected to the grid as part of new research led by the University of Sheffield on the growing area of energy storage. The £4m facility was officially launched with the announcement of a new innovation project with energy companies E.ON and Uniper looking at future possibilities for large-scale energy storage and how to overcome the challenges associated with con...

Perovskite solar cells show promise for cost-effective solar energy but heat stability is still an issue. This has been addressed by mixing perovskite materials with inorganic cesium to improve the solar cell’s thermal and structural stability. Using this approach, EPFL scientists have now developed a cesium-containing perovskite solar cell that has achieved efficiency of 21.1%, as well as record-level reproducibility.