Energy

  • Megawatt tidal turbine completed

    U.K. maritime energy specialist completes installation of 1.2 MW tidal energy system off the shore of Northern Ireland; system to provide clean electricity equivalent to that used by 1,000 homes

  • "Fibrous" steel withstands extremely cold temperatures

    Steel is very strong, except that in cold temperatures it becomes brittle; new method of making steel withstand cold temperatures could make steel structures in Arctic areas, like ships or oil rigs, cheaper to construct

  • Developing biofuel for commercial aircraft

    The airline industry seeks to develop non-food biofuel which will offer aircraft cheaper fuel without affecting global food supplies

  • San Francisco aggressively to promote use of electric vehicles

    The City on the Bay to help build charging infrastructure throughout the city and the suburbs to make use of electrical vehicles viable

  • Modelling the tide off the coast of Wales

    Project aims to examine the viability of a £15 billion tidal-range development scheme which, within fourteen years, could generate about 5 percent of the U.K. supply of electricity

  • DOE seeks water power ideas to fund

    The U.S. Department of Energy wants to encourage research into harnessing water power — ocean wave, tidal, current, and other water-based resources – for energy production

  • Wind boom in the United States

    New wind project in ten states brings U.S. wind power capacity to more than 18,000 MW, or enough to serve the equivalent of five million homes

  • Nuclear proliferation looms, I

    Owing to rising oil prices and worries about climate change, there is a growing interest in nuclear power generation; forty countries have told the UN nuclear agency of plans to develop nuclear power generation capability; experts worry that this interest in nuclear technology is fueled at least in part by interest in nuclear weapons - especially in Middle Eastern countries terrified about the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran

  • Smarter electric grid could be key to saving power, II

    Power providers and technology companies are making the electric grid smarter; it will stop being merely a passive supplier of juice; installing smart controls in homes would allow consumers to decide how much energy they need at what price

  • Microbes mine trapped energy

    Microbes naturally convert oil to methane over tens of millions of years; scientists find that this time scale could be shortened to a few hundred days in the laboratory by feeding the oil-based microbes with special nutrients

  • Smarter electric grid key to saving power, I

    Power providers and technology companies are making the electric grid smarter; it will stop being merely a passive supplier of juice; installing smart controls in homes would allow consumers to decide how much energy they need at what price

  • Straw power planned

    With more and more companies turning to biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels, a debate has erupted over the food-energy trade-off involved; a Welsh company bypasses this debate by planning to generate energy from straw

  • Partnership to produce sugarcane-based diesel

    High corn prices have driven California-based biofuel specialist Amyris to join with a Brazilian company to produce sugarcane-based diesel

  • Modernizing the U.S. electrical grid

    The U.S. Department of Energy will invest $50 million in demonstration project aiming to improve efficiency in the U.S. electricity grid

  • How much water is needed to produce various types of energy?

    Most of the energy we consume requires the use of water for its generation; water is a dwindling resource, so researchers wanted to know how much water is required to produce different types of energy