The hydrogen economy has been touted for decades as a way to navigate the clean energy transition. Now a new CSIRO roadmap sets out how hydrogen power can become a major energy player.
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Category: energy – Page 300
Materials can deform plastically along atomic-scale line defects called dislocations. Many technical applications such as forging are based on this fundamental process, but the power of dislocations is also exploited in the crumple zones of cars, for instance, where dislocations protect lives by transforming energy into plastic deformation. FAU researchers have now found a way of manipulating individual dislocations directly on the atomic scale.
Using advanced in situ electron microscopy, the researchers in Prof. Erdmann Spiecker’s group have opened up new ways to explore the fundamentals of plasticity. They have published their findings in Science Advances.
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Ethiopia on Sunday inaugurated a power plant which converts waste into energy, next to a filthy open-air dump in Addis Ababa where a landslide last year killed more than 110 people.
Named Reppie, the facility is the first of its kind in Africa, according to the government and the British company Cambridge Industries behind the project, and will turn 1,400 tons of waste per day into energy.
Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome said at the ceremony that the country “has been investing extensively in hydro power, geothermal, wind energy and now biomass to boost the manufacturing sector with a supply of clean, renewable energy.”
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Global investment in renewable energy (Solar, Wind, Hydro and biofuel) edged up 2% in 2017 to $279.8 billion, taking cumulative investment since 2010 to $2.2 trillion. The level of global renewable power spending has been virtually flat for seven years. There has been an increase in overall installed renewable power each year because of the dropping prices. A 2% increase in spending has resulted in 10% increase in global installations from 2016 to 2017.
A record 157 gigawatts of renewable power capacity was commissioned in 2017, up from 143GW in 2016. This was more than the 70GW of net fossil fuel generating capacity added last year. However, the installed fossil fuel power generates more kilowatt hours because of the low capacity factors of solar and wind power.
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A new type of energy storage system could revolutionise energy storage and drop the charging time of electric cars from hours to seconds.
In a new paper published today in the journal Nature Chemistry, chemists from the University of Glasgow discuss how they developed a flow battery system using a nano-molecule that can store electric power or hydrogen gas giving a new type of hybrid energy storage system that can be used as a flow battery or for hydrogen storage.
Their ‘hybrid-electric-hydrogen’ flow battery, based upon the design of a nanoscale battery molecule can store energy, releasing the power on demand as electric power or hydrogen gas that can be used a fuel. When a concentrated liquid containing the nano-molecules is made, the amount of energy it can store increases by almost 10 times. The energy can be released as either electricity or hydrogen gas meaning that the system could be used flexibly in situations that might need either a fuel or electric power.
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In the quest for clean alternative energy sources, hydrogen is a favorite. It releases a lot of energy when burned—with a bonus: The major byproduct of burning hydrogen is pure water.
The big obstacle has been getting pure hydrogen in sufficient quantity to burn. So scientists are studying hydrogen evolution reactions, or HERs, a type of water-splitting technology in which electrodes, covered with catalytic materials, are inserted into water and charged with electricity. The interaction of the electricity, the catalysts and the water produce hydrogen gas—a clean fuel—and clean, breathable oxygen.
Alas, there is a problem: At present, electrodes must be coated with precious, expensive metals, most notably platinum.
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