NASA’s NuSTAR telescope has spotted patches of high-energy X-rays radiation across the sun’s surface that could explain why the star’s atmosphere is mysteriously hot.
Category: energy – Page 137
This Arkansas school turned solar savings into better teacher pay
The project that resulted has helped slash the district’s annual energy consumption by 1.6 million kilowatts and in three years generated enough savings to transform the district’s $250,000 budget deficit into a $1.8 million surplus.
Just as Hester envisioned at the outset, a major chunk of the money is going toward teachers’ salaries — fueling pay raises that average between $2,000 and $3,000 per educator per month.
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System provides cooling with no electricity
The new system is described today in a paper in the journal Science Advances, by MIT graduate student Arny Leroy, professor of mechanical engineering and department head Evelyn Wang, and seven others at MIT and at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
Such a system could be used, for example, as a way to keep vegetables and fruit from spoiling, potentially doubling the time the produce could remain fresh, in remote places where reliable power for refrigeration is not available, Leroy explains.
2022 story:
https://news.mit.edu/2022/passive-cooling-off-grid-0920
Imagine a device that can sit outside under blazing sunlight on a clear day, and without using any power cool things down by more than 23 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). It almost sounds like magic, but a new system designed by researchers at MIT and in Chile can do exactly that.
The device, which has no moving parts, works by a process called radiative cooling. It blocks incoming sunlight to keep from heating it up, and at the same time efficiently radiates infrared light — which is essentially heat — that passes straight out into the sky and into space, cooling the device significantly below the ambient air temperature.
We’ve Just Seen an ‘Exceptional’ Once-in-a-Millennium Space Explosion
A record-breaking gamma-ray burst detected in October 2022 has now been described as a one-in-a-thousand years event.
It’s called GRB 221009A, and with up to 18 teraelectronvolts of energy packed in its emissions of light, it’s considered the most powerful gamma-ray burst on record.
We’ve been waiting to learn more about this incredible explosion, and now the analyses have started to arrive on preprint server arXiv, with a trio of papers submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
US startup introduces DC-to-DC solar EV charger
With most EV chargers, which are AC-to-DC, there is lost energy and a longer charging time. But with DC to DC, according to Enteligent, the DC-to-DC charging results in up to 25% energy savings because the power does not have to be converted.
From pv magazine USA
Enteligent unveiled its DC-to-DC-solar hybrid bi-directional EV charger this week at Intersolar North America. Powered by the sun, the EV charger can supply 25 kW of fast DC charging, charging three times faster than AC Level 2 EV chargers, the company reports.
Electric buses are driving a silent revolution in Nairobi
Electric buses could help solve the problem. Today Bhattacharya is the CEO and co-founder of BasiGo, a mobility startup racing to electrify the city’s buses. The company is not alone. Swedish-Kenyan electric vehicle manufacturer Roam also has its eyes set on Nairobi’s mass transport sector. Both are rolling out fleets of buses this year that could mark the start of a new chapter for city’s famous matatu culture.
During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in Nairobi, Kenya, something improbable happened: a mountain appeared. To curb the transmission of the virus, authorities called on the city’s thousands of private bus operators to cease trading. “Within three days, the air completely cleared,” recalls entrepreneur Jit Bhattacharya. “You could see Mount Kenya … crystal clear,” some 90 miles away.
Bhattacharya also saw an opportunity. Kenya produces 90% of its electricity from renewable sources – mostly geothermal and hydropower – and has surplus grid capacity, yet it imports nearly all its petroleum fuels. What if clean energy could be channeled into the transport sector? Maybe it could help the city clean up its act. Maybe Mount Kenya could become a permanent feature for Nairobi once more.
The Kenyan capital is home to over five million people, and matatus, privately owned minibuses and shared taxis, “are critical to the way people in Nairobi get around,” explains Christopher Kost, Africa program director at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. “In the city, we have 40% of trips on public transport.”
Researchers may have just future-proofed turbines in the aerospace and energy industry
Researchers have come up with a new way to use 3D printing to make a new superalloy.
A group of researchers has developed a new superalloy resistant to high temperatures. This could if ever brought into production, prove revolutionary for the future of turbines.
This would increase its efficiency and decrease waste heat.
Craig Fritz/Sandia Labs.
At present, steam turbine blades, bearings, and seals are made of metal that tends to soften and elongate well before its melting point, which is one issue restricting the output of today’s power plants. If these issues are resolved, it is possible to increase the temperature of anything that uses a steam turbine to convert heat into electricity.
