Energy
Humankind's insatiable appetite for energy has put the planet in a very precarious position environmentally, but it also drives 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 nuclear fusion.
Latest News
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Scientists have put forward a solution to a major problem plaguing lithium metal batteries, demonstrating how a finely tuned carbon membrane can prevent these types of battery form failure and enable them to be safely charged over hundreds of cycles. -
To maximize the exposure of wind turbines, blades are placed atop tall towers on the crests of hills or miles off shore. But a new study has shown how turbines behind hills could actually produce higher amounts of energy than those out in the open.
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A tiny, cheap molten salt reactor that fits in a shipping container could radically disrupt the nuclear power industry. Denmark's Seaborg says it will mass-manufacture them and deploy them globally on floating barges, on a paradigm-smashing timeline.
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Norway's Wind Catching Systems has made a spectacular debut with a colossal floating wind turbine array it says can generate five times the annual energy of the world's biggest single turbines – while reducing costs to be immediately competitive.
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MIT has developed a device that generates electricity using a completely new mechanism. “Particles” made of carbon nanotubes are dunked in an organic solvent, which induces a current to potentially power small robots or drive chemical reactions.
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Scientists have made a breakthrough that overcomes a technical issue that has held back highly promising lithium-metal battery architecture, which could pave the way for batteries with as much as 10 times the capacity of today's devices.
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With a view to one day developing transparent solar cells that can double as windows in homes and other buildings, an international team of scientists has demonstrated a new type of transparent electrode that can function as a key building block.
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Chinese state media is reporting that scientists working on the EAST experimental nuclear fusion reactor have achieved a new world record by holding plasma of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds in their latest round of experiments.
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Scientists have discovered unexpected behavior in perovskite crystals that represents an entirely new state of matter, which they say can help drive the development of advanced solar cells and other optical and electronic devices.
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GE is looking to unlock the potential of far offshore wind installations through the development of massive turbines that can operate in deeper waters, using advanced floating platforms to keep them steady as waves crash around them.
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Maxeon Solar Technologies reckons that it's come up with a way to install PV panels on the roofs of buildings that may not be able to support conventional setups, creating frameless, thin and lightweight panels that can be adhered directly to a roof.
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There is still some work to do in bringing current redox flow battery designs up to speed in terms of both performance and sustainability, but a new approach tackles the problem on both these fronts, by drawing on a compound commonly found in candles.
