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Heating Buildings With Solar Energy Stored in Sand

Cars That Think

In a region known for long, dark winter nights, Polar Night Energy is building a system in the city of Tampere that can heat buildings with stored solar energy — all day, all night, and all winter long. This means that storing and distributing energy is as important as its generation. The apparent contradictions do not end there.

Store 91
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Power-to-gas trial to inject hydrogen into Australia’s gas grid; A$5M award to AquaHydrex

Green Car Congress

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) announced a trial for a new type of electrolyzer which could see excess renewable energy stored in the gas grid and used to decarbonize Australia’s gas supply. Storing renewable energy directly in the gas network was a logical first route to market for the invention.

Gas 150
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New nanolithia cathodes may address technical drawbacks of Li-air batteries; scalable, cheap and safer Li-air battery system

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An international team from MIT, Argonne National Laboratory and Peking University has demonstrated a lab-scale proof-of-concept of a new type of cathode for Li-air batteries that could overcome the current drawbacks to the technology, including a high potential gap (>1.2 V)

Cheap 150
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Organically synthesized porous carbon shows “exceptional” potential as Li-ion anode material

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A international team of researchers, led by Lancaster University in the UK and Jilin University in China, reports the first organically synthesized sp?sp The scientists discovered that OSPC-1 is able to store more than twice as many lithium ions, and therefore power, as graphite at the same mid-range speed of charging.

Li-ion 170
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Los Alamos-led study finds how to improve natural gas production in shale; hydrocarbon transport within nanopores

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Partners include the New Mexico Consortium, University of Maryland, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research. The investigation focused on interactions between methane and the organic content (kerogen) in rock that stores a majority of hydrocarbons.

Gas 243
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Researchers use melamine to create effective, low-cost carbon capture; potential tailpipe application

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Using an inexpensive polymer called melamine, researchers from UC Berkeley, Texas A&M and Stanford have created a cheap, easy and energy-efficient way to capture carbon dioxide from smokestacks. The best carbon capture technique today involves piping flue gases through liquid amines, which bind CO 2.

Low Cost 243
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UT and ORNL researchers develop new class of pseudocapacitor; anion-based intercalation pseudocapacitance

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Unlike other devices, the team’s is the first to utilize oxygen anions (negatively-charged ions) instead of cations (positive ions) to store its energy. The device uses a perovskite material (LaMnO 3 ), a structure containing vacant sites where oxygen anions can be stored, making these advancements a possibility.