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Energy hybrid: Battery meets super capacitor

New work demonstrates that it is possible to combine the high-energy density of batteries with the high-power output of super capacitors in a single system - thanks to liquid energy storage materials.

Dec 1st, 2016

Hydrogen in your pocket? New plastic for carrying and storing hydrogen

Researchers have developed a polymer which can store hydrogen in a light, compact and flexible sheet, and is safe to touch even when filled with hydrogen gas.

Nov 28th, 2016

Binge-eating bacteria extract energy from sewage

New research shows that sewage contains a source of energy that can be harvested by using hungry bacteria.

Nov 25th, 2016

How much wind energy can be generated in your area? Check EMHIRES

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre has produced a dataset of wind energy production (EMHIRES) at national, regional and local level across the EU, by the hour for the last 30 years, based on existing wind farms.

Nov 23rd, 2016

Using synthetic photosynthesis to combat climate change

In future, greenhouse gas carbon dioxide could be removed from the atmosphere by deploying a new biological method. Scientists have developed a synthetic but completely biological metabolic pathway based on the model of photosynthesis that fixes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere 20% more efficiently that plants can photosynthetically.

Nov 21st, 2016

Microbes produce organic plastics from flue gas and electricity

The optimized process of microbial electrosynthesis opens up further perspectives for the future production of biofuel or for the storage of power from regenerative sources in the form of chemical products, for instance.

Nov 21st, 2016

Storing carbon dioxide underground by turning it into rock

A new study has found that within two years, carbon dioxide injected into basalt transformed into solid rock.

Nov 18th, 2016

Glow-in-the-dark dye could fuel liquid-based batteries (w/video)

A dye called BODIPY has special chemical properties that could facilitate energy storage, study finds.

Nov 17th, 2016

An international language for solar energy fields

Standardized reporting of energy conversion efficiency could help to develop photocatalysts to produce renewable fuels.

Nov 15th, 2016

New biofuel cell with energy storage

Researchers have developed a hybrid of a fuel cell and capacitor on a biocatalytic basis. With the aid of enzymatic processes, what's known as a biosupercapacitor efficiently generates and stores energy.

Nov 15th, 2016

Turning greenhouse gas into gasoline

New catalyst provides design principles for producing fuels from carbon dioxide emissions.

Nov 15th, 2016

Free software to predict the energy production of photovoltaic systems

Scientists make available for the general public programmes to simulate the functioning and predict the energy production of photovoltaic systems.

Nov 15th, 2016

Anglophone political populism and the cultural rejection of climate change

Donald Trump's US election victory follows hard on the back of the UK's Brexit vote in June. The results - an expression of collective public preference from the electorate - have shaken political and cultural establishments on both sides of the Atlantic. In light of what these two popular votes signify in the context of climate change, it is perhaps ironic that it was largely US and UK science which, from the 1970s through the 1990s, really drove the scientific, public and political construction of the idea of anthropogenic global warming.