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Category: energy – Page 300

Previously Unseen Phase of Matter Produced by Ultrafast Laser Pulses

Adding energy to any material, such as by heating it, almost always makes its structure less orderly. Ice, for example, with its crystalline structure, melts to become liquid water, with no order at all.

But in new experiments by physicists at MIT and elsewhere, the opposite happens: When a pattern called a charge density wave in a certain material is hit with a fast laser pulse, a whole new charge density wave is created — a highly ordered state, instead of the expected disorder. The surprising finding could help to reveal unseen properties in materials of all kinds.

The discovery is being reported today (November 11, 2019) in the journal Nature Physics, in a paper by MIT professors Nuh Gedik and Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, postdoc Anshul Kogar, graduate student Alfred Zong, and 17 others at MIT, Harvard University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, and Argonne National Laboratory.

Lamborghini & MIT Announce new Patent for Supercapacitors

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Batteries are nice to have in hybrid cars. They offer consistent voltage and energy storage to assist the gasoline engines. But electricity can be stored in other ways. A capacitor also stores electrons, but it releases them all at once. Power of this magnitude has never been harnessed by a car, so that’s why Lamborghini and MIT have announced a new patent for supercapacitors.

The Holy Grail of Clean Energy

For a long time it’s been said “fusion is the energy of the future. And always will be”. But now, with an influx of private investment, fusion startups are in the race for the holy grail of energy — limitless, clean power. A company based in Oxford, U.K. believes they’re close.

#BloombergGiantLeap #Science #Technology

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Engineers aren’t trained to be ethical—and that needs to change

This summer, the FaceApp debate exploded on social media, as people questioned the motives of the Russian engineers behind the technology that scanned millions of people’s faces, with no indication of what happened to the data given to the app.

Privacy is presumably top of mind for the general public, but people’s urge to literally see the face of their own future selves seemed to outweigh that threat.

FaceApp may serve no benefit beyond entertainment. But today, every company effectively becomes a tech company by leveraging advanced data analytics to fuel their business.

What’s Next: Vehicles driven by electromagnetic propulsion technology

When we think about eco-friendly vehicles, most of the time we think about electric and hybrid vehicles. At other times, we might even go as far as coming up with vehicles that operate on bio, solar or wind energy. However, this is not all. There are innovations that are breaking all the barriers of thought and technology. One such innovation is electromagnetic propulsion technology. We are seeing many vehicle designs that are utilizing it. Therefore, it would be no wonder if it becomes mainstream in our distant future.

Vehicles driven by electromagnetic propulsion technology

Electromagnetic induction is the next exciting idea of obtaining a clean, green and powerful propulsion for our vehicles. Since magnetic fields easily penetrate solids, liquids and gases alike, we can use this system to design vehicles that move on roads, over rails, in water and underground too. The propulsion system depends on the polarity of the strong and weak magnets. These vehicles would contain these magnets. Like poles will repel and act as an accelerating mechanism. Opposite poles will attract to act as a braking system. In addition, Multi-directional propulsion would be possible with the incorporation of more magnets along various sides.

New Battery Lets Electric Cars Go 200 Miles on a 10-Minute Charge

While some high – end electric vehicles ( like the most expensive Teslas ) are starting to approach those kinds of ranges, it still takes around 50 minutes for a full charge using the most powerful superchargers available. That’s a long time to hang around if you’re doing a cross-country trip that requires multiple pit stops.

The result is range anxiety, where people worry about running out of juice and facing delays due to the long time it takes to recharge their car s. There are two ways to tackle the problem: building higher-capacity batteries or charging existing ones faster.

Bigger batteries are a tricky problem, because vehicles face a balancing act between weight an d capacity. After a certain point the extra weight of batteries cancels out the boost in power they provide. There’s plenty of work into batteries with better energy density—how much charge they can hold for a specific weight—but there aren’t any major breakthroughs on the horizon.

Researchers transmit energy with laser in ‘historic’ power-beaming demonstration

It was the second day of a three-day-long tech demonstration at the David Taylor Model Basin at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where attendees had gathered to stand around in the dark to look at something they mostly couldn’t see.

It was a long-range, free-space power beaming system — the first of its kind. Attendees that day, May 23, could see the system itself—the two 13-foot-high towers, one a 2-kilowatt laser transmitter, the other a receiver of specially designed photovoltaics. But the important part, the laser that was beaming 400 watts of power across 325 meters, from the transmitter to the receiver, was invisible to the naked eye.

A US transit industry first: TriMet’s new electric buses powered entirely by wind

In what is believed to be a transit industry first in the United States, TriMet’s all-electric buses will be powered by 100 percent wind energy. TriMet and project partner Portland General Electric made the historic announcement on Tuesday, April 16, 2019. As Oregon’s largest transit provider, TriMet has committed to a non-diesel bus fleet by 2040. The initial journey toward a non-diesel fleet now begins with battery-electric buses that will be powered by PGE’s Clean Wind℠ renewable energy program.

“Today, we are riding the winds of change. TriMet’s commitment to a zero-emissions bus fleet by 2040 and support of wind power put the agency and our region at the forefront of a cleaner future.”

“We are proud to support TriMet’s work to electrify transportation across our region. Powered by wind, this all-electric bus line is a sustainable transportation option for the community and another step closer to a clean energy future for Oregon.”

Toyota is working on innovating a solar-powered electric car that can ‘run forever’ and never needs charging

Coupled with a high enough battery capacity to keep a vehicle running during darker hours, solar-powered cars have the potential to completely outdo other new types of tech that are currently in the pipeline — from hybrid vehicles to hydrogen-powered cars.

  • Toyota, Sharp, and NEDO have teamed up to manufacture a unique car that could “run forever”, according to Bloomberg.
  • There have been promising advances in developing thin enough solar panels for curved surfaces, as well as in tech for charging vehicles while they’re in motion.
  • The solar cells the companies are working on attaching to the car are only 0.03 mm thick, so they can be attached to curved areas on cars like the roof, the hood, or the hatchback.
  • By pairing more efficient solar cells with high-capacity batteries to keep vehicles running at night, solar cars have the potential to outperform hybrid vehicles and hydrogen-powered cars.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

A solar-powered electric car that runs without needing charging may sound impossible, but Toyota, Sharp, and NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization of Japan) have joined forces to hopefully make it a reality.

By pairing together the best solar panels on the market with the most efficient batteries available — not to mention years worth of experience with car-manufacturing — the companies are hoping, theoretically, to produce a vehicle that might run forever.