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Univ of Washington team working to make poplar coppice viable cheap, high-volume biofuel feedstock

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Their results, published recently in two papers—one in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering and the other in Biotechnology for Biofuels (open access)—point to a promising future for using poplar coppice for biofuel. Chang Dou, Wilian F. Marcondes, Jessica E.

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Bloomberg NEF forecasts falling battery prices enabling surge in wind and solar to 50% of global generation by 2050

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The arrival of cheap battery storage will mean that it becomes increasingly possible to finesse the delivery of electricity from wind and solar, so that these technologies can help meet demand even when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. Coal’s share in primary energy in 2017 fell to 27.6%, the lowest since 2004.

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Volvo makes its last diesel car and puts it in a museum

Baua Electric

But those days are over now as the company moves toward an all-electric future. He added, “So instead of investing in a shrinking business, we choose to invest in the future – electric.” In the US, diesel never had the same traction, due the abundance of cheap gas. Fast-forward to today, that number has dropped to 12%.

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Baker Institute expert: crude-oil production increase a risky strategy for Saudi Arabia

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This glut could be exacerbated by future carbon taxes and other policy restrictions on fossil fuels, he said. If policymakers believed that threats to monetizing oil reserves will grow stronger in the future, they may opt to increase oil output in the present, a phenomenon described as the “green paradox”. —Krane (2017).

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Danish Power Systems sets new record with degradation rate in high-temperature polymer fuel cells

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Methanol is cheap to produce and it is easy to extract methanol from biological resources. The company projects that the technology is so mature that actual commercialization is in the near future. 
. The Danish Power Systems fuel cell stacks use methanol as fuel. —managing director of Danish Power Systems Hans Aage Hjuler.

Polymer 170
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UT Austin team develops new family of high-capacity anode materials: Interdigitated Eutectic Alloys

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The results suggest that a smaller, lighter rechargeable battery could be made with the new anode in the future. Then, you can reduce the microstructure by rolling it, which is an extraordinarily cheap step to convert a microstructure into a nanostructure. The research was published in the journal ACS Energy Letters. 7b00844.

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New plasma synthesis process for one-step conversion of CO2 and methane into higher value fuel and chemicals

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Moreover, it is a cheap carbon source which can increase the atom utilization of CO 2 hydrogenation due to the stoichiometric ratio of C and O atoms, as well as reducing the formation of water. … 2017) “One-Step Reforming of CO 2 and CH 4 into High-Value Liquid Chemicals and Fuels at Room Temperature by Plasma-Driven Catalysis,” Angew.