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Archive for the ‘energy’ category: Page 25

Apr 27, 2024

Why Can’t We Go Faster Than Light?

Posted by in categories: energy, physics, transportation

Imagine you’re in a car, pedal to the metal, racing down the highway, but no matter how hard you push, you can’t surpass the speed of the car next to you, which is effortlessly cruising at the same pace. Now, replace the car with light, and you have a real cosmic conundrum: why can’t anything go faster than light?

Back in 1905, Albert Einstein turned the world of physics upside down with his theory of relativity. This wasn’t just about E=mc² or the bending of space-time; it was about something that touches everything we do: the speed of light, which is roughly 299,792 kilometers per second. According to relativity, no matter how fast you’re moving towards or away from a light source, you will always measure the speed of light at the same constant velocity.

Continue reading “Why Can’t We Go Faster Than Light?” »

Apr 27, 2024

New Geothermal Technology Could Expand Clean Power Generation

Posted by in category: energy

Long confined to regions with volcanic activity, geothermal promises to become a much more versatile energy source thanks to new technologies.

By Katarina Zimmer & Knowable Magazine

Glistening in the dry expanses of the Nevada desert is an unusual kind of power plant that harnesses energy not from the sun or wind, but from the Earth itself.

Apr 27, 2024

Observation of the colliding process of plasma jets in the double-cone ignition scheme using an x-ray streak camera

Posted by in categories: electronics, energy

The double-cone ignition scheme is a novel approach with the potential to achieve a high gain fusion with a relatively smaller drive laser energy. To optimize the colliding process of the plasma jets formed by the CHCl/CD shells embedded in the gold cones, an x-ray streak camera was used to capture the spontaneous x-ray emission from the CHCl and CD plasma jets. High-density plasma jets with a velocity of 220 ± 25 km/s are observed to collide and stagnate, forming an isochoric plasma with sharp ends. During the head-on colliding process, the self-emission intensity nonlinearly increases because of the rapid increase in the density and temperature of the plasma jets. The CD colliding plasma exhibited stronger self-emission due to its faster implosion process. These experimental findings effectively agree with the two-dimensional fluid simulations.

Apr 26, 2024

Silicon Photonics Manufacturing Ramps Up

Posted by in categories: energy, physics

The promise of photonics ICs is spurring innovation, but complex processes and a lack of open foundries are keeping it from reaching its full potential.

Circuit scaling is starting to hit a wall as the laws of physics clash with exponential increases in the volume of data, forcing chipmakers to take a much closer look at silicon photonics as a way of moving data from where it is collected to where it is processed and stored.

The laws of physics are immutable. Put simply, there are limits to how fast an electron can travel through copper. The speed of an electron, while fast on a macroscopic scale, encounters significant resistance as pathways shrink, leading to heat generation and power inefficiencies. In contrast, silicon photonics circumvents these electrical limitations by harnessing the swiftness of photons, which travel at the speed of light and are not bound by the resistive properties of materials like copper. Unlike electrons, photons do not generate significant heat, can carry more data due to their higher frequency, and suffer from less signal degradation.

Apr 25, 2024

Scientist claims to have ‘evidence’ from ‘Second Law of Infodynamics’ that humanity lives in a simulation

Posted by in categories: energy, physics, space

A scientist at the University of Portsmouth claims to have ‘evidence’ that humanity exists with a simulation. In the 1999 movie The Matrix, the plot centers around the fact that we live in a digital simulation, and scientist Melvin Vopson claims that fact may match the fiction of the popular blockbuster.

Vopson has written extensively on the topic of the possibility that the known universe is a digital facsimile. He has provided articles for The Conversation and authored a book, Reality Reloaded, on the theme.

But while many of the theories posited about the universe being a simulation are in the realm of the abstract, Vopson now claims to have evidence that support his theory. “In physics, there are laws that govern everything that happens in the universe, for example how objects move, how energy flows, and so on. Everything is based on the laws of physics,” the scientist said in 2022, reports Popular Mechanics.

Apr 25, 2024

Revolutionizing Renewable Energy: Innovative Salt Battery Efficiently Harvests Osmotic Power

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

A new semipermeable membrane doubles the osmotic energy output in estuaries, showing potential for sustainable power generation.

Estuaries — where freshwater rivers meet the salty sea — are great locations for birdwatching and kayaking. In these areas, waters containing different salt concentrations mix and may be sources of sustainable, “blue” osmotic energy. In the journal ACS Energy Letters, researchers report creating a semipermeable membrane that harvests osmotic energy from salt gradients and converts it to electricity.

The new design had an output power density more than two times higher than commercial membranes in lab demonstrations.

Apr 24, 2024

E. coli engineered to become methanol addict to make industry feedstocks

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, food

Bacterium could head off food versus fuel dilemma by producing chemicals from agricultural waste.

Apr 23, 2024

The big quantum chill: Scientists modify common lab refrigerator to cool faster with less energy

Posted by in categories: energy, quantum physics

By modifying a refrigerator commonly used in both research and industry, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have drastically reduced the time and energy required to cool materials to within a few degrees above absolute zero.

Apr 23, 2024

China unveils world’s 1st diesel engine with 53.09% thermal efficiency

Posted by in category: energy

Chinese firm Weichai Power unveils an advanced diesel engine that achieves a remarkable 53.09 percent intrinsic thermal efficiency.

Apr 23, 2024

MXenes-based energy storage devices could be charged in seconds

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, engineering

A team at Texas A&M University is taking significant steps for the development of a new generation of energy storage devices. They aim to develop a device that can combine the benefits of current technologies while addressing their limitations.

Dr. Abdoulaye Djire, a chemical engineering professor at Texas A&M University, as well as a few chemistry engineering graduates are focusing on MXenes, which is expected to be a compelling alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries. Currently, the team is exploring the major advantages of nitride MXenes.

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