• Can Nuclear Fusion Help Fuel the World?

    By Sushmitha Ramakrishnan

    The US Department of Energy is expected to make an important announcement Tuesday on the generation of energy using nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion reaction has a higher energy potential than all other energy sources we know. It can release nearly 4 million times more energy than chemical reactions like burning coal, oil or gas, and four times more than nuclear fission. Nuclear fission is the process currently used in all nuclear power plants around the world.

  • Renewable Power’s Growth Is Being Turbocharged as Countries Seek Energy Security

    The global energy crisis has triggered unprecedented momentum behind renewables, with the world set to add as much renewable power in the next 5 years as it did in the past 20

  • The Benefits of Integrating Electric Vehicles into Electricity Distribution Systems

    By Nadia Panossian

    As the cost of EVs continues to decrease, the industry matures, incentives grow, and charging infrastructure improves, EVs could make up the vast majority of vehicles on the road in 2050. Many studies have looked at how increased electricity demand will affect the bulk power system in the United States, but public analysis of the impacts on the distribution system has been less prevalent.

  • Fukushima Fears Notwithstanding, Japan Still Depends on Nuclear Power

    By Nik Martin

    The 2011 Fukushima disaster helped seal the fate of nuclear power in Japan, or so it seemed. Tokyo now plans to extend the life of its nuclear plants and is considering new smaller, safer reactors.

  • Fossil Fuel Past, Green Future: Abandoned Wells May Offer Geothermal Power

    Tapping into abandoned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania, products of the state’s long history of energy extraction — could provide a future source of affordable geothermal energy. Regulators estimate hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells have been drilled in the state, many before modern regulations, and lost over time in fields, forests and neighborhoods.

  • Hydropower Delivers Electricity, Even During Lengthy Droughts

    The megadrought in the Southwestern United States is the driest—and longest—in the last 1,200 years, depleting water reservoir levels to critically low levels over the past 22 years. Droughts particularly impact hydroelectric power dams as well as some thermoelectric power plants that require large amounts of water for cooling. But a new report suggests that the relationship between drought and hydroelectric power is more nuanced than it might seem. Drought-strained hydropower sustains 80 percent average power generation capacity.

  • Battery Tech Breakthrough Paves Way for Mass Adoption of Affordable Electric Car

    If new car sales are going to shift to battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs), they’ll need to overcome two major drawbacks: they are too slow to recharge and too large to be efficient and affordable. Researchers develop new technique that charges EV battery in just ten minutes.

  • The Promise and Peril of Guyana’s Oil Boom

    Most people may not have even heard of Guyana, a tiny country on the northeast coast of South America, but the former British colony is in the midst of an oil boom of staggering proportions. The vast oil reserves discovered off the Guyana coast will soon make Guyana a major oil producer. The question is whether Guyana will escape what economists call the “Resource Curse” — the phenomenon which sees economies that are blessed with natural resources experience less favorable development outcomes than their resource-poor counterparts.

  • Inconsistencies Found in Studies Evaluating Small Hydropower Projects

    Hydropower can move beyond enormous, Earth-altering infrastructure. Small hydropower projects have the potential to contribute more to a renewable energy future because they can be reliable, flexible and cost-effective. But researchers find inconsistencies in studies evaluating small hydropower projects.

  • Existing Water Infrastructure May Hold Key to Generating More Hydropower

    Millions of miles of pipelines and conduits across the United States make up an intricate network of waterways used for municipal, agricultural and industrial purposes. Researchers have found potential opportunities in all 50 states to efficiently utilize existing infrastructure to harvest this otherwise wasted energy.

  • Climate Change Puts Energy Security at Risk

    Climate change, and the more extreme weather and water stress that it causes, is undermining global energy security by directly affecting fuel supply, energy production, and the physical resilience of current and future energy infrastructure. In 2020, 87 percent of global electricity generated from thermal, nuclear, and hydroelectric systems directly depended on water availability. Meanwhile, 33 percent of the thermal power plants that rely on freshwater availability for cooling are in high water stress areas. This is also the case for existing nuclear power plants, 25 percent of which will soon find themselves in high water stress areas.

  • OPEC Agrees to Cut Oil Production

    The 23-member alliance has decided to reduce production by 2 million barrels per day. The move could increase crude oil prices and aid Russia, which is grappling with Western attempts to reduce its financing.

  • Solar Harvesting System May Generate Solar Power 24/7

    With all the research, history and science behind it, there are limits to how much solar power can be harvested and used – as its generation is restricted only to the daytime. A new type of solar energy harvesting system that breaks the efficiency record of all existing technologies. And no less important, it clears the way to use solar power 24/7.

  • Permanent Rupture: The European-Russia Energy Relationship Has Ended with Nord Stream

    Last Monday’s blasts that tore through the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines have already blown up whatever was left of five decades of German energy policy. For Germany, abandoning the Nord Stream pipelines signified a fundamental transformation of Germany’s energy security strategy, and its approach to relations with Russia. “The Nord Stream pipeline was the last gasp of Ostpolitik and this week’s damage is likely fatal.” Emily Holland writes.

  • Propelling Wind Energy Innovation

    Motivated by the need to eliminate expensive rare-earth magnets in utility-scale direct-drive wind turbines, Sandia National Laboratories researchers developed a fundamentally new type of rotary electrical contact. The novel rotary electrical contact eliminates reliance on rare-earth magnets for large-scale wind turbines.