Tag Archives: efficiency
Tony Fadell, who led the team which designed the first eighteen generations of the iPod and the first three iPhones, has come up with the Nest thermostat for air conditioning systems. As you might expect, it looks a lot better and is much easier to use than current thermostats – and it also has some very smart energy-saving software.
Delft University of Technology is currently testing an intelligent street lighting system which reduces electricity consumption and CO2 emissions by up to 80%, reduces light pollution and is cheaper to maintain than current systems. The system, which was designed by Chintan Shah for a competition to improve the University’s energy efficiency, consists of LED street lights, motion sensors and wireless communication. When there are no cars, cyclists or pedestrians in the vicinity, the lights are dimmed to about 20% of their normal power while passers-by move in a safe circle of light. An added bonus is the fact that the … Continue Reading
Engineers at Oregon State University have reported that they have achieved a major step toward addressing the waste as heat of much of the energy produced by cars, factories and power plants. The new systems should be able to use much of that waste heat either in cooling or the production of electricity. Currently, more than half of the heat generated by industrial activities is wasted. The internal combustion engines of automobiles are even worse – generally operating at about 25-40% efficiency. The new system, called a "thermally activated cooling system", gains much of its efficiency improvement by using extraordinarily … Continue Reading
A report produced by Dr Julian Allwood and colleagues at the University of Cambridge has analysed buildings, vehicles and industry around the world to determine how much energy would be saved if "best practice" efficiency changes wre applied to them. They found that 73 per cent of global energy use could be saved by introducing such changes. The changes to homes and buildings would range from using saucepan lids when cooking and reducing the set temperature of washing machines and dishwashers to triple-glazing windows, eliminating hot-water tanks and installing 300-millimetre-thick cavity wall insulation. In transportation, the key change would be to … Continue Reading
Researchers at the University of Michigan have published an article in Nature Communications describing an optical film that promises to boost the overall efficiency of LCDs by more than 400 percent. Normally, LCDs use several layers of optical devices, such as prisms, to colorize, polarize, and shutter light from a backlight,. Inefficiencies in each layer mean that even the best LCD screen only emit about 8% of the light produced by their backlights. The new color filter is a three-layer sandwich of an insulating material between two layers of aluminum. The entire stack is less than 200 nanometers thick and … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has developed a new air conditioning process with the potential of using 50 to 90 percent less energy than the best current units. The process uses a unique combination of membranes, evaporative cooling and liquid desiccants. It uses the desiccant (highly concentrated aqueous salt solutions of lithium chloride or calcium chloride) to create dry air using heat and then uses evaporative cooling to make the dry air cold. Engineers have known for decades the value of desiccants in air conditioning but, because of the complexity of desiccant cooling systems, they have … Continue Reading
Greenpeace International and the European Renewable Energy Council have produced a report titled: "Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable World Energy Outlook" which provides a detailed blueprint for cutting carbon emissions while achieving economic growth by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and energy efficiency. Acopy of the full 212-page report is here; a 16-page summary is here. Under the Energy [R]evolution scenario, global CO2 emissions would peak in 2015 and drop afterwards. Compared with 1990 CO2 emissions would be more than 80% lower by 2050. The report says that by 2050 around 95% of electricity could be produced by renewable energy. … Continue Reading
University of Warwick researchers have made a breakthrough in adsorption systems design that dramatically shrinks heat pumps making them small and light enough for use in both domestic heating and automotive air conditioning. Researchers have long been aware of a very efficient way to drive heat pumps and air conditioners using adsorption technology. This uses heat from a gas flame or engine waste heat to power a closed system containing only active carbon and a refrigerant. When the carbon is at room temperature it adsorbs the refrigerant and when it is heated the refrigerant is driven out. The process can … Continue Reading
The United States and China have agreed on a plan for future co-operation on renewable energy. The main elements of the agreement are: Establishment of a US-China Clean Energy Research Centre to facilitate joint research and development of clean energy technologies by teams of scientists and engineers from the United States and China, as well as to serve as a clearinghouse to help researchers in both countries. Establishment of a US-China Electric Vehicles Initiative including joint standards development, demonstration projects in more than a dozen cities, technical roadmapping and public education projects. Development of a new US-China Energy Efficiency Action … Continue Reading
Pratt & Whitney has developed a jet engine that is significantly cheaper to run, more efficient and less polluting than current engines. The "geared turbofan" engine burns 12 to 15 percent less fuel than other jet engines and cuts carbon dioxide emissions by 1,500 tons per engine per year. Current jet engines have fans that suck air into the combustion chamber, where it is compressed, mixed with fuel, and ignited. The resulting gas blows through a turbine, generating thrust. This is inefficient because the fan is connected directly to the engine and, so, turns at the same speed as the … Continue Reading
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Renewables News- Dysol Aiming to Print Storage with Solar CellsAustralia's Dyesol Limited has acquired an equity stake in Printed Power Pte Ltd, a spinoff company of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Printed Power is focussing on integrating dye solar cell technology with printed storage and power management systems to … Continue Reading → […]
- CSIRO Printer Makes 10m of Solar Cells a MinuteCSIRO researchers have built a gigantic printer that spits out solar cells at a rate of about ten metres a minute. The printer system uses existing technology to embed polymer solar cells (also known as organic solar cells) in thin … Continue Reading → […]
- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted WaterScientists from Deakin University, together with French colleagues, say that they have manufactured a lightweight and reusable material that can absorb up to 33 times its weight in a wide range of spilt oils, chemical solvents and dyes, while repelling … Continue Reading → […]
- Dysol Aiming to Print Storage with Solar Cells
