• Nuclear waste recycling for better nuclear power generation

    Researchers aim to produce safe nuclear fuel that can be 80 percent recycled, compared to the current 1 percent; these fourth generation nuclear power systems can lead to a reduction of the amount of high-level, long-lived nuclear waste to a tenth of what it is today, while energy output can increase hundredfold

  • Compressed natural gas as transportation fuel

    A number of different fuel sources — ethanol, biodiesel, electricity, and hydrogen — have each shown their promise as an alternative to petroleum; scientists at Argonne Lab want to add one more contender to the list of possible energy sources for light-duty cars and trucks: compressed natural gas (CNG)

  • Sea water could corrode nuclear fuel

    Japan used seawater to cool nuclear fuel at the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant after the tsunami in March 2011 — and that was probably the best action to take at the time; scientists have since discovered a new way in which seawater can corrode nuclear fuel, forming uranium compounds that could potentially travel long distances, either in solution or as very small particles

  • U.K. opens first marine energy park

    Energy from the waves or tides has the potential to generate up to 27 GW of power in the United Kingdom alone by 2050, equivalent to the power generated from eight coal-fired power stations

  • Mysterious flotsam in Gulf came from Deepwater Horizon rig

    Scientists track debris from damaged oil rigs, helping forecast coastal impacts in the future

  • One step closer to controlling nuclear fusion

    Nuclear fusion – heating gas to several million degrees so it becomes plasma — holds the promise of abundant energy, but controlling the fusion process inside a nuclear reactor is exceedingly difficult; scientists achieve a breakthrough in controlling instability in the plasma

  • New material for building thermonuclear fusion reactors

    Two European projects – ITER and DEMO — propose development of fusion reactors that are economically viable; this work depends on the development of new structural materials capable of withstanding damage by irradiation and elevated temperatures resulting from the fusion reaction

  • Depleted gas reservoirs used for carbon storage

    One way to keep CO2 from accumulating in the atmosphere is to bury (or “sequester”) it under ground; a demonstration project in Australia verified that depleted natural gas reservoirs can be used for geologic carbon sequestration; the carbon sequestration approach involves pumping CO2 deep underground for permanent storages

  • Cleaning toxins from the oilsands

    Oilsands development uses a vast amount of water and even though it’s recycled multiple times, the recycling concentrates the toxins and metals leftover from extracting and upgrading the bitumen, resulting in controversial tailings ponds that are a significant risk to the environment; scientists offer a way to make oilsands exploitation cleaner

  • Scrub carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere too expensive

    While it is possible chemically to scrub carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere in order to lessen the severity of global warming, the process is prohibitively expensive for now; best to focus on controls for coal-burning power plants, say researchers

  • Small, modular reactors to figure in U.S. energy future

    A newly released study concludes that small modular reactors (SMR) may hold the key to the future of U.S. nuclear power generation; an SMR would have a generating capacity of 600 megawatts or less, would be factory-built as modular components, and then shipped to their desired location for assembly

  • Shale gas development and healthy water sources

    Geological formation known as the Marcellus Shale contains gas reservoir holding nearly 500 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable gas; at current use rates, that volume could meet the U.S. demand for natural gas for more than twenty years; trouble is, extracting shale gas involves considerable pollution risks for water; Pennsylvania has more miles of stream per unit land area than any other state in the United States – and it is concerned about the quality of its water if more shale gas is extracted

  • Large-scale power storage for the energy grid

    The sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow; Stanford University researchers have used nanoparticles of a copper compound to develop a high-power battery electrode that is inexpensive to make, efficient and durable that it could be used to build batteries big enough for economical large-scale energy storage on the electrical grid

  • Serving and protecting – and saving money in the process

    As municipalities battle tight budgets and rising gasoline prices, law enforcement fleets across in the United States have found a way to save taxpayer dollars by shifting to clean-burning, American-made propane autogas

  • New source of energy: urine

    Urine is the most abundant waste on Earth; American chemists have combined refueling one’s car and relieving one’s bladder by creating a new catalyst that can extract hydrogen from urine