There are at least 1.47 million solar installations of varying sizes in the 48 contiguous U.S. states, from home rooftop panels to utility-owned solar power plants. That’s the conclusion of DeepSolar, a machine learning algorithm developed by researchers at Stanford University that searches satellite images for solar panels. The count is higher than some previous estimates, […]
Two industry groups, Japan’s CHAdeMO and the China Electricity Council, which are the world’s strongest proponents of electric vehicles (EVs), announced in late August they would codevelop an ultrafast charging protocol for EVs. Now, the partners, under the supervision of both the Japanese and Chinese governments, are inviting other countries to join the endeavor. Their […]
Fifty years ago this month Doug Engelbart demonstrated what we’ve come to know as computing—the mouse, hypertext, and windows. His goal wasn’t to revolutionize computing per se, it was to give people better tools for collaboration, which he hoped would lead to better ways to fix the real problems of society. (Moving a cursor around […]
Image: Pamela Boss/SPAWAR/U.S. Navy Violent Chemistry: Craters on the surface of a chunk of palladium may have resulted from low-energy nuclear reactions, according to the Widom-Larsen theory. It’s been a big year for low-energy nuclear reactions. LENRs, as they’re known, are a fringe research topic that some physicists think could explain the results of an infamous […]
Our standards of measurement seem, well, standard. A meter is a meter. A second is a second. The units by which we measure our world simply are—they feel as immutable as an ocean wave. But these longtime standards are set to change. A governing body unanimously voted Friday for the biggest ever overhaul of the […]
National Grid, an international energy company based in the United Kingdom, this week launched its Silicon Valley venture capital arm by funding five companies. The current size of the fund hasn’t been disclosed, but Lisa Lambert, National Grid’s chief technology and innovation officer, says the team plans to invest US $253 million over the next […]
A novel solar cell reported this week by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) in California selectively cranks out electricity and hydrogen. Panels of these hybrid cells, a novel integration of photovoltaic and electrochemical devices, could simultaneously meet real-time energy demand while socking away hydrogen to back up solar, hydro, and wind generators and […]
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have developed wireless charging technology that they say could fill up a typical electric car today in under an hour. This represents a six-fold improvement over a similar wireless charging system they announced in 2016. That plugless EV charging technology, they report, is now being modified for […]
Shoddy construction, midprocess design changes and mismanagement have claimed another major nuclear energy project in the United States. Earlier this month the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) terminated construction of a facility in South Carolina designed to transform 34 metric tons of surplus military plutonium, enough for about 17,000 nuclear weapons, into fuel for nuclear […]
.entry-content .tisubhead { color: #999999; font-family: verdana; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 1px; margin-bottom: -5px !important; text-transform: uppercase; } .tiblogopener { color: #a17e54; font-family: theinhardt; letter-spacing: 1px; margin-right: 15px; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; } THE INSTITUTEProviding reliable electricity is a complicated and expensive process. Any imbalance between supply and demand will damage a power system’s […]