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Category: energy – Page 282

Stable Higgs mode in anisotropic quantum magnets

The Higgs mode associated with the amplitude fluctuation of an order parameter can decay into other low-energy bosonic modes, which renders the Higgs mode usually unstable in condensed matter systems. Here, the authors propose a mechanism to stabilize the Higgs mode in anisotropic quantum magnets. They show that magnetic anisotropy gaps out the Goldstone magnon mode and stabilizes the Higgs mode near a quantum critical point. The results are supported by three independent approaches: a bond-operator method, field theory, and quantum Monte Carlo simulation with analytic continuation.

This Wind-Powered Super Sailboat Will Carry 7,000 Cars Across the Atlantic

The cargo ship of the future is coming.

A wind-powered super sailboat could change how we ship cargo, reducing energy-related carbon emissions in a method still used by 90 percent of manufactured goods. The Wallenius Marine OceanBird can carry 7,000 cars at a time and is powered totally by wind.

🚱 You like badass boats. So do we. Let’s nerd out over them together.

Prototype gravity-based energy storage system begins construction

As renewable energy generation grows, so does the need for new storage methods that can be used at times when the Sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. 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.

If you coil a spring, you’re loading it with potential energy, which is released when you let it go. Gravitricity works on the same basic principle, except in this case the springs are 500- to 5,000-tonne weights. When held aloft by powerful cables and winches, these weights store large amounts of potential energy. When that energy is needed, they can be lowered down a mineshaft to spin the winch and feed electricity into the grid.

Gravitricity says that these units could have peak power outputs of between 1 and 20 MW, and function for up to 50 years with no loss of performance. Able to go from zero to full power in under a second, the system can quickly release its power payload in as little as 15 minutes or slow it down to last up to eight hours.

World’s biggest wind and solar producer now worth more than ExxonMobil

Renewable energy is now richer than the Oil industry.

In yet another sign of the pace of the global energy transition – and the massive switch taking place in the investment community – the market value of company that describes itself as the world’s biggest producer of wind and solar power, US utility NextEra, has overtaken that of what used to be the world’s most valuable company, oil major ExxonMobil.

The flip occurred last last week, when NextEra overtook ExxonMobil to become the largest energy company in the US by market value. As Forbes reported, an investment in NextEra a decade ago would have delivered to return of 600 per cent, while an investment in ExxonMobil would have returned minus 25 per cent.

The shift is as significant as the one the world has seen in the auto industry, with electric vehicle maker Tesla overtaking the biggest car companies in the world in the last year, to the point where it is now valued at more than the next five biggest global car makers combined, despite producing just a fraction of the number of cars.

New Reactor Design Could Produce First Ever Energy-Positive Fusion Reaction

Could this be the energy source of the future?

The secret to the SPARC reactor is that its magnets will be built from new high-temperature superconductors that require much less cooling and can produce far more powerful magnetic fields. That means the reactor can be ten times more compact than ITER while achieving similar performance.

As with any cutting-edge technology, converting principles into practice is no simple matter. But the analysis detailed in the papers suggests that the reactor will achieve its goal of producing more energy than it sucks up. So far, all fusion experiments have required more energy to heat the plasma and sustain it than has been generated by the reaction itself.

The SPARC reactor is designed to achieve a Q factor of at least two, which means it will produce twice as much energy as it uses, but the analysis suggests that figure might actually rise to ten or more. The papers used the same physics and simulations as the ITER design team and other previous fusion experiments.

Why this space age airplane could change flying forever

Airbus’s plan to bring to market a zero-emission passenger aircraft by 2035 means it needs to start plotting a course in terms of technology in 2025. In fact it needs to plot several courses.

It looks like something out of “Star Trek,” and runs on a fuel experts once thought “crazy,” but Airbus hopes that in 15 years we’ll be flying into a greener future aboard this new zero-emission aircraft concept.

UK Pledges to Get 100% of Residential Power From Wind Turbines

Ramping Up

Johnson announced that the U.K. would invest about £160 million ($207 million) that will go toward factories that would develop new turbines as well as floating offshore turbines themselves. In order to power every home in the U.K., those turbines would need to generate about 40 GW of power, Engadget reports. That’s four times the nation’s current wind energy output.

“Your kettle, your washing machine, your cooker, your heating, your plug-in electric vehicle, the whole lot of them will get their juice cleanly and without guilt from the breezes that blow around these islands,” Johnson announced at the U.K. Conservative party conference.

Urine turned into hydrogen fuel

Circa 2009

Whizz electrocatalyst frees the hydrogen from ‘liquid gold’

US researchers have developed an efficient way of producing hydrogen from urine — a feat that could not only fuel the cars of the future, but could also help clean up municipal wastewater.

Using hydrogen to power cars has become an increasingly attractive transportation fuel, as the only emission produced is water — but a major stumbling block is the lack of a cheap, renewable source of the fuel. Gerardine Botte of Ohio University may now have found the answer, using an electrolytic approach to produce hydrogen from urine — the most abundant waste on Earth — at a fraction of the cost of producing hydrogen from water.

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