Project Energy

Sunshine is free, so can photovoltaics be cheap?

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Here’s how to make a solar cell from silicon: take one solid block of doped silicon, saw it into thin wafers, layer said semiconductors beneath a panel of transparent glass, connect them to a metal electrode that can channel away the electrons knocked loose by incoming photons and turn [...]

Tags: advanced research projects agency, arpa, doped silicon, photovoltaic device, renewable electricity, solar cell, solar photovoltaic, thin wafers
Posted in Cutting-edge Research, Innovation, Innovation Needed, Project Energy, Scientific American | No Comments »

An unconventional glut

Newly economic, widely distributed sources are shifting the balance of power in the world’s gas markets
SOME time in 2014 natural gas will be condensed into liquid and loaded onto a tanker docked in Kitimat, on Canada’s Pacific coast, about 650km (400 miles) north-west of Vancouver. The ship will probably take its [...]

Tags: apache corporation, barnett shale, energy developments, hydraulic fracturing, liquefied natural gas, mitchell energy, production of natural gas, self sufficiency, shale rock, shifting the balance of power
Posted in Buying Time, Consider This, Economist, Innovation, Project Energy, disruptive innovation, environment | No Comments »

Unconventional gas

Image by Obscura/ Frederik Hilmer via Flickr

This changes everything
Natural gas is becoming less like oil and more like coal, which is a good thing
WOODY ALLEN, in earlier, funnier days, told a joke about two women in a resort in the Catskills bemoaning the cuisine: “The food at this place is really terrible,” [...]

Tags: coal, energy density, environmental consequences, fossil fuels, internal combustion engines, liquefied natural gas, shales, tight sands, transportation fuel, unconventional gas
Posted in Consider This, Economist, Innovation, Project Energy, Shape of Things to Come?, disruptive innovation | No Comments »

Storing megawatts: Liquid-metal batteries and electricity

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Making aluminum requires a lot of electricity. That’s because the metal bonds tightly to oxygen and it takes a lot of energy to break that bond. In essence, the process of making aluminum is a giant battery with the silvery metal being reduced to purity at the cathode while oxygen [...]

Tags: aluminum industry, aluminum smelters, energy density, liquid metal, liquid metal battery, liquid metals, lithium ion, luis ortiz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Posted in 5 Years Out, Cutting-edge Research, Innovation, Innovation Needed, Project Energy, Resources, Scientific American, Shape of Things to Come? | 1 Comment »

The Lithium Chase

Image by lennox_mcdough via Flickr

For many years, few metals drew bigger yawns from mining executives than lithium, a lightweight element long associated mostly with mood-stabilizing drugs.
Suddenly, the yawns are being replaced by eurekas. As awareness spreads that lithium is a crucial ingredient for hybrid and electric cars, a global hunt [...]

Tags: electric cars, electric transportation, global hunt, lithium, lithium mining, magna international
Posted in 5 Years Out, NY Times, Project Energy, Resources | No Comments »