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NASA demonstrates EM Drive theory, but don't get too excited
A fuel-free engine is the stuff of science fiction for now, but scientists at NASA Eagleworks have published a peer-reviewed paper that suggests the ideas behind an EM Drive are worth testing further. Researchers at Eagleworks, a small NASA team tasked with testing humanity's wildest theories of spaceship propulsion, were able to produce thrust without any kind of propellant, in a vacuum, as they published this weekend in ARC.
Tesla makes its case for buying SolarCity
Tesla's been busy with more than the Model 3 in recent months. In August, founder and CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla would join with his other company, SolarCity, in a $2.6 billion merger. Musk said at the time that the melded company would serve as an "end-to-end clean energy" solution. And just last week, he unveiled the company's new solar roof and Powerwall 2 home battery which, taken together, would harness and store the sun's energy to both the house and the electric car in its garage. On Tuesday, Tesla clarified what it expects to come from the merger and how the two companies will function as one.
Tesla unveils its solar roof and Powerwall 2
At Universal Studios in Los Angeles tonight, Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed off the company's solar roof-top panels, a new $5,500 Powerwall 2 high-capacity residential battery pack, and the Powerpack 2 for businesses.
ICYMI: The ESA's mission to Mars launches next week
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: The European Space Agency and Russia are joining up to launch their ExoMars project next week, which will look for traces of extraterrestrial life on the red planet. Meanwhile, a newer kind of wind energy harvester is being installed in Paris, where leaves on a fake tree can capture energy in breezy conditions.
Part of Scotland will soon be powered by kites
Name a method of generating power that's cheap, efficient, sustainable and sounds like something Mary Poppins dreamed up after downing 20 teaspoons of sugar. That's right -- kite power. One of the world's first non-experimental, kite-driven power stations will be established offshore in Southern Scotland, at the Ministry of Defence's West Freugh Range near Stranraer. UK company Kite Power Solutions plans to install a 500 kilowatt system that it expects will generate 'several hundred megawatts' of energy by 2025, Independent reports.
Solar road tiles get their first public test
No, that's not an elaborate new Lite-Brite kit-- that's the possible future of energy. After years of work (and some last-minute delays), Solar Roadways has installed its first public energy tiles in Sandpoint, Idaho as part of a test. On top of producing a light show, the panels will generate power for the fountain and restrooms in a public square. They have heating elements, too, so they should keep running even in the heart of winter. And if you're not sure how well they'll work in practice, you can check on them yourself -- Sandpoint has a live webcam pointed at the tiles.
Mammoth UK nuclear plant receives final government thumbs-up
Eight years after it was first proposed, the UK government today gave the final go-ahead for Hinkley Point C, a new nuclear power plant to be built in Somerset. The two-reactor site is expected to become operational in 2025, at which point the majority of live nuclear power stations in the UK will be decommissioned, or only a few years away from the same fate. Point C is slated to generate 3,200 megawatts -- roughly 7 percent of the UK's total consumption and well over double the output of any currently operational site. The first new nuclear plant to be built in the UK in decades, it'll also be one of the priciest projects the world has even seen, with conservative estimates putting construction costs alone at £18 billion.
A totally new energy source in slow moving rivers
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: University of Michigan researchers spent years creating a water-harnessing river turbine to create electricity, called the VIVACE. It's the first time electricity appears to be effectively generated in slower rivers rather than oceans, but that's because the developers used physics to get turning turbines to agitate the water enough to create more energy for their neighboring cylinders. It's an as-yet prototype but a promising new development in the realm of water-powered electricity. If you're interested in the giant balloon video from China, that's here, and the JibJab app can be downloaded from an app store. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
California energy standard could cut PC power use by a third
Computers aren't the power hogs they used to be, but California's Energy Commission believes the industry can do better. It just revealed the likely final version of standards that would reduce PC and monitor energy use in the state, and likely the rest of the US by extension. By requiring technology that reduces idle power draw (like more efficient power supplies), the Commission estimates that it could cut about 1,636 gigawatt-hours of electricity use per year in California, or just under a third of the state's PC energy consumption.
Indian researchers recycle fish scales into energy nanogenerator
Indians consume a lot of fish: Data from 2014 estimated that each urban citizen consumed an average of 2.8 kg per year, or about 3.7 million kg for the whole country. That leaves a lot of leftover bones, scales and tails. As they reported this week in Applied Physics Letters, a team of researchers at Jadavpur University looked for ways to re-use this "biowaste" and pioneered a method to generate electricity from it.
World's largest offshore windfarm to be built in the UK
Britain is set to become home to two of the world's largest offshore wind farms after ministers approved plans for a new 1,800-megawatt project capable of supplying 1.8 million UK homes. Hornsea Project Two will be built 55 miles off the coast of Grimsby and could feature up to 300 turbines -- each one taller than the Gherkin building in London.
Elon Musk is working on a roof made of solar panels
Elon Musk's fondness for ambitious, out-of-left-field ideas isn't restricted to electric cars or rockets. During SolarCity's latest earnings call, the entrepreneur revealed that his energy-focused company is developing a "solar roof" -- not a roof with solar panels on it, a roof made out of solar cells. As Musk explains, people install millions of new roofs every year. Why not have them embrace solar power when they look for a replacement? Homeowners with old roofs tend not to install solar panels, since they know they'll have to rip everything off before long.
Lithium-oxygen battery promises lighter electric cars
Lithium-air batteries are supposed to lead to lighter, longer-ranged electric cars thanks to their high power-to-weight output, but they have some showstopping flaws: they not only degrade rapidly, but waste a lot of energy input as heat. Neither is exactly ideal in a vehicle that's expected to last you several years and charge quickly. Scientists at MIT, Argonne National Laboratory and Peking University might have found a better way, though. They've engineered a lithium-oxygen battery that offers the light weight of lithium-air without its drawbacks.
California's last nuclear power plant to close in 2025
California's nuclear-powered dream has an expiration date. The state's utility conglomerate Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) announced yesterday that they will close the last remaining nuclear plants by 2025. They'll replace the output with renewable energy and better efficiency in other stations. But, barring any changes to the moratorium on new plants, it's likely the end for atomic power in the Golden State.
Apple will turn landfill gas into sweet electricity
Apple has been given permission by North Carolina to build a facility that uses the methane emitted from landfill waste to create electricity. The plant, which will be based in Catawba County, will stand for 16 years, with the option of a five-year extension should the parties agree. As 9to5Mac explains, it's an energy method that both generates power from waste and prevents the release of methane into the atmosphere. The news comes less than a day after the firm was given permission to begin reselling energy to power companies.
Artificial 'leaf' could beat real plants at converting sunlight
Natural photosynthesis is considered a good target for solar energy conversion, but it's already considered old hat. Harvard scientists have developed a leaf-like system that should be more effective at converting solar energy than plants themselves. The technology boils down to a jar of bacteria (Ralstonia eutropha), a cobalt water-splitting system and a pair of electrodes. When you send electricity through this partly biological system, the electrodes turn the water into hydrogen gas that you can use for fuel and carbon-based materials. It's only 10 percent efficient, but that's better than the widely established 8 percent baseline for real-world performance.
The Energy Department just started its own podcast
You normally don't think of government agencies embracing podcasts -- even if tight budgets aren't a problem, creativity isn't usually their top priority. The US Department of Energy wants to buck that trend, though. It just started up a podcast, Direct Current, that delves into energy technology, government initiatives and energy history. The first episode touches on the problems surrounding the "soft costs" of solar power, solar technology's milestones and the history of the Energy Department itself.
UK's proposed nuclear plant is one of the costliest things on Earth
Nuclear power has been around for decades, but it still isn't cheap... in fact, it may result in one of the most expensive objects on the planet. Cost estimates for the UK's proposed Hinkley Point C reactor have crept up to £24 billion (about $35 billion), making even some of humanity's more ambitious construction projects seem like small potatoes. The Large Hadron Collider cost "just" $5.8 billion to build, the BBC notes. About the only thing that rivals Hinkley on Earth is Chevron's recently completed $54 billion natural gas plant in Australia. If you're not picky, the International Space Station's collective modules top everything at a total of $110 billion.
Study: we can ditch fossil fuels in 10 years, if we want to
The quest to end the use of fossil fuels might not be as daunting as you think. A University of Sussex study claims that humanity could drop coal and oil within a decade, based largely on historical evidence that many tend to overlook. Professor Benjamin Sovacool notes that energy transitions have happened quickly whenever there was a combination of "strong government intervention" with economic or environmental incentives to switch. It only took 11 years for the Canadian province of Ontario to abandon coal energy, for example, while nuclear power surged to 40 percent of France's electricity supply within 12 years. In the case of fossil fuels, it's a combination of climate change worries, dwindling resources and advanced technology that could step up the pace.
World's largest coal mining firm declares bankruptcy
It won't shock you to hear that the coal industry is facing tough times lately. Job cuts, mine closures and other signs of financial trouble are par for the course. However, that downturn just reached an important milestone: Peabody Energy, the world's largest private coal mining company, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy across most of its US divisions. The firm says it didn't have much choice between steep drops in the price of coal, a weak Chinese market, overproduction of shale gas and "regulatory challenges" (read: better environmental policies). In plainer terms, people just aren't as interested in coal energy as they were in years past.