Humankind has an insatiable appetite for energy that has put the planet in a very precarious position environmentally, but is also one of the main drivers of prosperity and improved living standards. New Atlas keeps you up to date with the latest breakthroughs in the energy sector, from the expanding field of renewable energy production to the exponential rise of battery technology and the slow march towards cold fusion.
Hydrogen may be the zero-emission fuel of the future, but transport and storage has always been a head-scratcher. Highly flammable and difficult to ship due to its low density, the logistical issues have always stood in the way of progress, until now.
Continue Reading
Researchers have found that materials known as niobium tungsten oxides form microscopic structures that let lithium ions flow through them at much greater rates than current technology allows. The finding could be the key to building safe lithium-ion cells that charge in minutes rather than hours.
Continue Reading
Striking a balance between common materials and efficiency is important for batteries, and regular old salt looks like it could fit the bill – after a few kinks are ironed out. Now, KAUST researchers have developed a way to make disordered graphene that can improve the sodium-ion battery recipe.
Continue Reading
A team of Harvard engineers has been making strides over the past few years with organic flow batteries, and has now tested a new molecule that makes for the longest-lasting, high-performance organic flow battery so far.
Continue Reading
Flow batteries have the potential to help store energy on a large scale, but there are a few issues still to overcome. Stanford engineers have developed a new type of flow battery that might be scalable, safe, efficient and inexpensive, using a metal mixture that remains liquid at room temperature.
Continue Reading
Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have developed a new way to build solar cells containing bacteria, which are more efficient than similar systems and can even work on dim, cloudy days.
Continue Reading
The latest tidings from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, creators of the Wendelstein 7-X, are that a new record has been set for the fusion product – another significant step along the path to practical fusion power.
Continue Reading
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in association with LCW Supercritical Technologies has made a potentially important breakthrough for the nuclear industry by extracting five grams of powdered uranium, called yellowcake, from ordinary seawater.
Continue Reading
Silicon is fast approaching its theoretical limit for solar efficiency, but pairing it up with other materials could help break through. Researchers have developed a new technique for combining silicon and perovskite solar cells, and reported a new record efficiency of 25.2 percent.
Continue Reading
A relatively new player on the nuclear fusion scene, a UK company called Tokamak Energy, is claiming a new milestone in the area after heating its ST40 device to 15 million degrees Celsius, similar to temperatures found at the center of the Sun.
Continue Reading
See the stories that matter in your inbox every morning