The generation of electricity and heat with no pollution and with considerably less emission of the greenhouse gas CO2 sounds too good to be true. However, it is possible with the so-called SOFC fuel cells, which Risø has been conducting research into for over 20 years. The technology is now on its way to reach [...]

Fuel cells could create a breakthrough for electric cars, because refuelling them is fast and easy, just like your traditional gas guzzler. But there’s an obstacle. Current fuel cells need platinum in order to work. And that’s expensive. Now chemists from Copenhagen, Potsdam and Hanau have taken the first step towards producing fuel cells using [...]

A milestone in the history of renewable energy occurred in the year 2008 when more new wind-turbine power generation capacity was added in the U.S. than new coal-fired power generation. The costs of producing power with wind turbines continues to drop, but many engineers feel that the overall design of turbines is still far from [...]

Conversion of sorghum grass to ethanol has increased with the interest in renewable fuel sources. Researchers at Iowa State University examined 12 varieties of sorghum grass grown in single and double cropping systems. The experiment was designed to test the efficiency of double cropping sorghum grass to increase its yield for biofuel production. The author [...]

Green energy too comes out of the electricity socket, but to get there it has to travel a long journey – from wind turbines in the North Sea or regional solar, wind and biogas power plants. On the way to the consumer lots of energy is lost. New electronic components will change things in future. [...]

The Technische Universität Darmstadt has dedicated a pilot plant for capturing carbon dioxide contained in flue gases of power plants. Its Institute for Energy Systems and Technology plans to utilize the plant for investigating two innovative methods for CO2 capture that require less energy and lower operating costs than earlier approaches. Combustion of fossil fuels, [...]

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory have fabricated transparent thin films capable of absorbing light and generating electric charge over a relatively large area. The material, described in the journal Chemistry of Materials, could be used to develop transparent solar panels or even windows that [...]