main – Alternative Energies

Luke Hagedorn
anderson
class-at-the
January 13, 2016
0 Comments

Wind Project Development: From a Legal Perspective

Recently, Alan Anderson and I were thrilled to be invited to present to a class at the Washburn University Law School. For those of you that don’t know, Washburn has developed a truly exceptional energy and oil & gas law program (something that I dearly wish I could have had in law school), thanks in large part to the efforts of Prof. David Pierce. When Prof. Pierce’s invites us to do just about anything, we usually jump at the chance. For this presentation, our goal was to provide a high-level but fairly comprehensive overview of the types of legal issues that arise during the main stages of a wind project’s design, construction and operation phases. Interestingly, after we sat down to plan out …

admin
annual-increase
attracting-many
January 7, 2016
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Global renewable energy growth continues

Global renewable energy capacity continues to grow year after year. In 2014, around 135 GW of new renewable energy capacity were added worldwide, meaning that the total global renewable energy capacity now stands at around 1,712 GW, representing 8.5{f24b02adee2102ff0c5f5079c50862fc8ba5fa53f8615b567037555463da2377} increase from the year 2013. In the same time, carbon dioxide emissions remained pretty much the same in 2014, as compared to 2013, even despite the 1.5{f24b02adee2102ff0c5f5079c50862fc8ba5fa53f8615b567037555463da2377} annual increase in global energy consumption. The growth in renewable energy capacity is the main factor preventing the growth in carbon emissions. The other important factor is the improvement in energy efficiency.

admin
cea
Energy
January 5, 2016
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Promising new prototype of battery

An alternative technology to Li-ion has been designed for application in specific sectors. The researchers have developed the first battery using sodium ions in the usual “18650” format, an industry standard. The main advantage of the prototype is that it relies on sodium, an element far more abundant and less costly than lithium. The batteries have displayed performance levels comparable to their lithium counterparts, and this new technology is already attracting industrial interest. It could be used to store renewable energies in the future, say researchers.

admin
atmosphere
carbon
December 30, 2015
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Using sunlight to recharge the cooling system of trailer containers

A group of scientists has replaced diesel with kinetic energy, saving up to 20 thousand liters of fuel annually, they say, adding that this includes a series of energetically self-sustained boxes for the transport of perishable goods, with a cooling system that replaced the use of diesel with sunlight and kinetic energy.

Suzanne Jacobs
advice
blue
December 29, 2015
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Plant hackers trade software for DNA, still live with their parents

The modern-day “hacker,” as portrayed in popular culture, is a human subspecies native to basements, back rooms, and warehouses. They often sport multiple piercings and complicated hairstyles. They tend to wear perpetual looks of disdain and, indifferent toward mental or physical health, feed on fast food and vending machine fare — a peculiar preference, given the inconvenience of sticky fingers on keyboards. But this stereotype might be changing, the Wall Street Journal reports, because just as the hackers of yore co-evolved with the internet boom, there’s a new kind of hacker co-evolving with the biotech boom. Sebastian Cocioba, a 25-year-old resident of Queens, NY, is one such “biohacker.” Here’s more from the Wall Street Journal: Born into…

admin
carbon
dr-
December 29, 2015
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Graphene as a front contact for silicon-perovskite tandem solar cells

A team of researchers has developed an elegant process for coating fragile perovskite layers with graphene for the first time. Subsequent measurements show that the graphene layer is an ideal front contact in several respects.