Science – Page 2 – Alternative Energies

admin
department
engineering
January 18, 2016
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‘Yolks’ and ‘shells’ improve rechargeable batteries

One big problem faced by electrodes in rechargeable batteries, as they go through repeated cycles of charging and discharging, is that they must expand and shrink during each cycle — sometimes doubling in volume, and then shrinking back. This can lead to repeated shedding and reformation of its “skin” layer that consumes lithium irreversibly, degrading the battery’s performance over time. Now researchers have found a novel way around that problem: creating an electrode made of nanoparticles with a solid shell, and a “yolk” inside that can change size again and again without affecting the shell.

admin
department
dr-
January 16, 2016
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UAE desert sand can store solar energy up to 1000°c

Researchers have successfully demonstrated that desert sand from the UAE could be used in concentrated solar power (CSP) facilities to store thermal energy up to 1000°C. The research project called ‘Sandstock’ has been seeking to develop a sustainable and low-cost gravity-fed solar receiver and storage system, using sand particles as the heat collector, heat transfer and thermal energy storage media.

Katie Herzog
climate
death
January 16, 2016
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Climate deniers attack NASA scientist dying of cancer

Readers of The New York Times were treated to a deeply touching essay this week by Piers Sellers, a NASA astronaut and climate scientist who was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Sellers wrote: This diagnosis puts me in an interesting position. I’ve spent much of my professional life thinking about the science of climate change, which is best viewed through a multidecadal lens. At some level I was sure that, even at my present age of 60, I would live to see the most critical part of the problem, and its possible solutions, play out in my lifetime. Now that my personal horizon has been steeply foreshortened, I was forced to decide how to spend my remaining time. Was continuing to think about climate change worth the…

Suzanne Jacobs
climate
communications
January 15, 2016
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These bacterial communities are heating up the desert

Do you ever feel like this is a microbial world, and that we’re just living in it? It seems like every day, scientists are discovering new ways that these invisible communities are manipulating our health, impacting the climate, keeping ecosystems in check, and (maybe) occasionally killing off more than 70 percent of all species on Earth. Well, now we can add one more thing to their resume: heating up the desert. According to a new paper published in Nature Communications, bacterial communities that form on arid soil can increase surface temperatures by as much as 10 degrees C. They do this by secreting a kind of “sunscreen” that, while protecting the microbes themselves from harmful ultraviolet light, actually absorbs sunlight that would otherwise reflect off the soil…

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benedictine
central
January 13, 2016
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Vulnerable grassland birds abandon mating sites near wind turbines

Shifting to renewable energy sources has been widely touted as one of the best ways to fight climate change, but even renewable energy can have a downside, as in the case of wind turbines’ effects on bird populations. In a new paper, a group of researchers demonstrate the impact that one wind energy development in Kansas has had on Greater Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) breeding in the area.

Suzanne Jacobs
article
atmosphere
January 12, 2016
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Are we alone in the universe because all the aliens went extinct?

If we’re alone in the universe, then the big question is: Why? There are billions upon billions of Earth-like planets out there. Surely, life would have evolved many times over. But lo, Jody Foster couldn’t find any back in 1997, and today, almost 20 years later, we’re still searching. This conundrum is known as the Fermi Paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi, who famously asked “Where is everybody?” one day while eating lunch with his colleagues (note to self: nix the sad desk lunch; you’ll never get a paradox named after you this way), and scientists have been scratching their heads over it for decades. But in a new paper published this week in the journal Astrobiology, two researchers from the Australian…

admin
chemistry
colorado
January 11, 2016
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Green storage for green energy

Researchers have demonstrated a safe and affordable battery capable of storing energy from intermittent sources — like rooftop solar panels — that is suitable for the home.