Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Talking Energy: carbon capture and storage

Hot topic: fully operational carbon capture and storage (CCS) is still several years away, but when it finally arrives this “clean coal” technology will change the face of energy generation

Garage Invention Turns Restaurants Into Power Plants

A new garage-engineered generator burns the waste oil from restaurants’ deep fryers to generate electricity and hot water. Put 80 gallons of grease into the Vegawatt each week, and its creators promise it will generate about 5 kilowatts of power.

Head winds are blowing in the face of alternative energy

Tailwinds will soon give alternative energy a boost in the form of the energy policies and subsidies from the incoming Barack Obama administration.

Can Nuclear Power Compete?

On an August afternoon in Washington, D.C., typically miserable for its heat, humidity and stillness, reporters gathered at a downtown hotel not known for its air-conditioning. Stuffed inside a windowless conference room that was being heated still further by the television people’s lights, we waited for Michael J. Wallace, who had been trying, in fits and starts, to unveil nuclear power’s second act.

Chrysler’s plan to beat the Chevy Volt

Chrysler is pinning a huge part of its future on a plan to produce a full line of electric vehicles, at a reasonable cost to both the carmaker and the consumer.

Harvesting Electricity From Moving Vehicles

Parasitic energy harvesting” might sound like it is part of a Sci-Fi plot where alien beings feed off of the energy emanating from human bodies, but it is actually a means of reclaiming wasted energy.

Electric Cars vs. Oil in Hawaii

Since the late 1990s, I’ve been convinced that in the long run, the majority of cars would be some form of electric vehicle (EV), whether in the form of hybrids, with power generated onboard from engines or fuel cells, or battery EVs tapping external sources of power.

10 of the Most Fuel-Efficient Cars in the United States

You don’t have to be Leo DiCaprio to own one of the most fuel-efficient vehicles available, although it certainly helps if you want someone hot to ride shotgun. The stodgy auto industry, spurred by high gas prices and consumer demand, is coming around with more hybrid vehicles, smaller models and alternative energy options. Still, “fuel efficiency” stateside is an oxymoron akin to “congressional ethics” and “doing nothing.”

Plumbing the oceans could bring limitless clean energy

The idea of tapping the ocean’s different thermal layers to generate electricity was first proposed in 1881 by French physicist Jacques d’Arsonval but didn’t receive much attention until the world oil crises of the 1970s.