Electricity

Lightning is a major trigger for wildfires, like the record-breaking blazes that devastated Australia and California this year. But what if we could redirect lightning to strike safely? Graphene particles trapped in a tractor beam could do just that.

Superconductors – materials in which electricity flows without any resistance whatsoever – could be extremely useful. For the first time ever, engineers have created a superconductor out of a state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).

South Australia's neighboring state of Victoria has upped the ante on grid-scale batteries with the announcement that it's partnering with Tesla to build a colossal 300-megawatt battery for grid stabilization and renewable energy storage.

Toyota and Honda recently started testing a fuel-cell bus designed as a mobile power source for disaster relief. Now Nissan has driven out an emergency response vehicle based on its Leaf electric car that will also provide emergency power.

A surprisingly simple new energy storage system is built on blocks that store thermal energy like melted chocolate chips in a muffin. The team says they’re efficient, scalable, safe, inexpensive, and can be used in existing coal-fired power plants.

When disaster strikes, the power often goes out, and it may be a good while before it's restored. Toyota and Honda start testing the Moving e system this month, a fuel cell bus designed to serve as a mobile power source for disaster relief.

A Scottish company called Gravitricity has now broken ground on a demonstrator facility for a creative new system that stores energy in the form of “gravity” by lifting and dropping huge weights.

Yesterday we covered the news that New Zealand's second-largest electricity distributor has signed a deal with startup Emrod to trial long-range wireless power transmission. Today we follow up with an interview with Emrod's founder, Greg Kushnir.

A new type of hybrid solar energy converter can use energy from the Sun to create both electricity and steam. The device reportedly has high efficiency and runs at low cost, allowing industry to make use of a wider spectrum of solar energy.

Making biofuel from algae is showing promise as a green energy source, but it does create large amounts of toxic wastewater. Now, researchers in Australia have found a way to clean up that wastewater, with a simple and scalable electrical process.

Scientists have long hoped to give plastic conductive properties by adding extra materials, and one team of researchers has now put forward a promising possibility its hoped could find uses in large touchscreens or window-mounted solar cells.

When it comes to regular photovoltaic panels, the fewer shadows that are cast upon them, the better. An experimental new device, however, actually generates electricity via the contrast between shadows and light on its surface.