Renewables

Global warming could occur more quickly than expected, according to a new model by University of Queensland and Griffith University researchers. The model is the first to include 'energy use per person' as a predictive factor rather than focusing solely on economies or populations. It forecasts that population and economic growth combined with rising energy use per person could significantly increase global energy demand and CO2 emissions, causin...

For the first time scientists have looked at the net balance of the three major greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—for every region of Earth's landmasses. They found surprisingly, that human-induced emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from ecosystems overwhelmingly surpass the ability of the land to soak up carbon dioxide emissions, which makes the terrestrial biosphere a contributor to climate change.

How did Madagascar once slot next to India? Where was Australia a billion years ago? Cloud-based virtual globes developed by a team led by University of Sydney geologists mean anyone with a smartphone, laptop or computer can now visualise, with unprecedented speed and ease of use, how the Earth evolved geologically. The globes have been gradually made available since September 2014.

Last month, the United States and 22 other countries agreed to the first-ever global carbon emissions standards for commercial aircraft. The standards, set by the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), are estimated to reduce carbon emissions by more than 650 million tons between 2020 and 2040—roughly equal to the emissions produced by 140 million cars in a single year.

Stanford scientists have discovered a novel way to make plastic from CO2 and inedible plant material, such as agricultural waste and grasses. Researchers say the new technology could provide a low-carbon alternative to plastic bottles and other items currently made from petroleum. "Our goal is to replace petroleum-derived products with plastic made from CO2," said Matthew Kanan, an assistant professor of chemistry at Stanford.

Much of the food sold in our grocery stores are packaged to avoid that substances like oxygen get in contact with the food and decompose it. It is of great importance to know which parameters that decide the permeability of the material. Within the competence center SuMo BIOMATERIALS at Chalmers researchers are developing materials with optimised properties.

Scientists at the University of Twente research institute MESA+ have developed an electrode in the form of a hollow porous copper fibre which is able to convert CO2 into CO extremely efficiently. In principle the invention enables a wide variety of industrial processes, for example in the steel industry, to be made more sustainable. The researchers have applied for a patent on their invention, and their research results have been published in the...

An international team of scientists led by Prof. Daniel Rosenfeld from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem found a way to measure missing critical information needed to quantify manmade responsibility for climate change. In a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors describe a new way to determine both cloud-base updraft speeds and quantify the aerosol particles' ability to create cloud droplets.

For more than 100 years, the Dörverden hydro power plant has been a reliable supplier of sustainable electricity. Now, the plant has been upgraded with a large Li-ion battery system from ads-tec. This highly dynamic system provides important network services for the local connection and, with a capacity of 3MW, regulates fluctuations in the grid's 50Hz rated frequency.

At this week’s SiliconPV conference, imec and Besi have announced that they have demonstrated long term reliability of their 60 cells Ni/Cu/Ag plated solar module, passing 600 thermal cycles, three times the IEC61215 specification, with only minimal power loss of one percent.