Energy

Heating and cooling buildings is a major consumer of energy, especially older ones that weren’t built with modern energy efficiencies in mind. Now Fraunhofer engineers have developed a modular solar-powered facade that can heat or cool rooms.

Unless you're really into trivia about gas lanterns and the mantles that make their light so bright, you've probably never heard of thorium, but you may hear a lot more about it in the future. This unassuming metal could one day rival uranium as the nuclear fuel of choice.

Berkeley Lab engineers have developed a roof coating that can keep a building warmer or cooler, depending on the weather. When it’s warm out the material will reflect sunlight and heat, but it switches itself off in winter, reducing energy use.

An interesting new research project out of Sweden's Linköping University has demonstrated how plant roots can be used as energy storage devices, by watering them with a special solution to make their roots electrically conductive.

Engineers have demonstrated a pilot system that produces fuels from sunlight and air. The device captures carbon dioxide and water from the air and uses solar energy to convert it into syngas, which is then converted into carbon-neutral liquid fuels.

California company Radiant has secured funding to develop a compact, portable, "low-cost" one-megawatt nuclear micro-reactor that fits in a shipping container, powers about 1,000 homes and uses a helium coolant instead of water.

Wireless power transmission has potential, but range is a major hurdle. In a new proof-of-concept, Ericsson and PowerLight Technologies demonstrated a technique called optical beaming, using a laser to transmit power to a portable 5G base station.

While we've been hearing a lot about wearable piezoelectric devices that produce electricity from people's movements, such gadgets don't work well under certain conditions. A new bioelectric wearable, however, could excel where they falter.

Microbial fuel cells are a promising new way to generate electricity, but so far they’re plagued by inefficiency. Researchers at UCLA have now found a way to wring more energy out of them, by feeding the bacteria silver to make them more conductive.

Scientists in China have demonstrated a creative approach to flexible energy storage, designing a novel supercapacitor that maintains high capacity when stretched and twisted thanks to accordion-style wrinkles.

Widespread wireless charging could one day keep our devices juiced up indefinitely. A new breakthrough has been made in that direction, as researchers in Japan have developed a system that can turn a whole room into a wireless charger.

The world produces more than 1.8 billion tons of steel a year, releasing nearly twice that weight in carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It's a huge decarbonization challenge, but steel giant ArcelorMittal is starting on a new green plant in Spain.