Electricity

If you've ever had a packing peanut stick to your clothes as you unbox your Amazon delivery, then you know that Styrofoam is pretty good at generating static electricity. A new invention turns that quality into a workable energy-saving solution.

Incredibly, for the first time, scientists have unraveled how static electricity works, something first recorded in 600 BCE but not fully understood until now. While cats are not the only culprits, their fur is a prime vessel for charging your hands.

When you picture a sci-fi energy source, glowing green crystals are right up there. Scientists in China have now demonstrated just that, in the form of a “micronuclear battery” that can provide continuous low levels of power for decades.

The WindFloat Atlantic project – the world's first semi-submersible floating offshore wind farm – has exceeded expectations over the last four years of operation, generating a total of 320 GWh of electricity, enough to power about 25,000 homes each year.

Deep Fission has come up with a new solution to the economic and safety problems of nuclear power that is, to say the least, novel. The idea is to build a reactor that's under 30 inches (76 cm) wide and stick it down a mile-deep (1.6-km) drill shaft.

Two 650-foot-tall towers have risen in China's Gansu Province. Combined with an array of 30,000 mirrors arranged in concentric circles, the new facility is expected to generate over 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year.

One of the world's largest engines becomes a clean generator. Originally designed to burn diesel, dual-fuel, or gasoline for tankers and container ships, the Wärtsilä 31 marine engine gets a new life generating clean, renewable electricity.

China's Betavolt New Energy Technology has unveiled a new modular nuclear battery that uses a combination of a nickel-63 (⁶³Ni) radioactive isotope and a 4th-generation diamond semiconductor and can power a device for 50 years.

A study has found that an electric eel’s discharge is strong enough to transfer genetic material from the environment into the cells of nearby animals. The finding suggests that electric eels could affect genetic modification in nature.

Research has found that non-invasively applying a mild electrical current to the brain twice a day for six weeks improved cognitive functioning and plasticity, the ability of the brain to ‘rewire’ itself, in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers have alloyed arsenic with phosphorus to create single-atom-thick ribbons that are highly conductive, making them ideal candidates for use in next-generation batteries, solar cells and quantum computers.

Adoption of wireless charging has been fairly slow, but it could pick up if it worked over longer distances. Now Aalto University engineers have developed a new system that can allow more efficient wireless power transmission over longer distances.