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Convert Oil Wells to Solve the Solar Storage Problem

Cars That Think

The California-based Hyperlight Energy will be piloting an installation where they plan to use existing oil wells as solar thermal wellsprings, with the stored energy being converted back to clean electricity when required. Thermal energy storage is a known low-cost, low-risk approach for storing solar energy in the form of heat,” adds Codd.

Oil 120
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The world’s only coal-to-nuclear reactor plant just broke ground in Wyoming

Baua Electric

How the Natrium nuclear reactor plant works The project features a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. The energy storage capability allows the plant to integrate seamlessly with renewable resources and is the only advanced reactor design with this feature.

Wyoming 52
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Stanford team devises new bio-inspired strategy for using CO2 to produce multi-carbon compounds such as plastics and fuels

Green Car Congress

The new Stanford approach was inspired by ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO)—an enzyme involved in the first major step of carbon fixation, a process by which atmospheric carbon dioxide is converted by plants and other photosynthetic organisms to molecules such as glucose. Aanindeeta Banerjee, Graham R.

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Researchers Propose Solar-Driven Biomass Gasification Pathway for Synthetic Fuel Production

Green Car Congress

High temperature heat for biomass gasification is obtained from a molten-salt system in a solar concentrating tower. One of the feasible approaches is heating sand (Olivine, also the catalyst of gasification reaction) by hot molten salt from a solar concentrator tower, using a gasifier designed as a fluidized-bed of olivine particles.

Solar 186
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What is Home energy management system, why it is needed

Baua Electric

Mechanical Storage: Flywheels: These devices store kinetic energy in a spinning rotor and convert it back to electricity when needed. Thermal Storage: Molten Salt Storage: This involves storing heat in molten salt and using it to generate steam, which then drives a turbine to produce electricity.

Energy 52
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New $30M ARPA-E program to develop new solar conversion and storage technologies; targeting higher solar penetration in mix

Green Car Congress

a) Hybrid solar converter (award Categories 1A and 1B). Models of the solar-resource-rich California electricity grid show that PV curtailments will begin at penetrations as low as 12%, while about one-third of PV electricity would be curtailed at penetrations of ~28%. Schematics of technology areas addressed by the FOCUS FOA.

Solar 290
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California Energy Commission awards more than $5.5M for green transportation projects and $1.8M for 20 energy research projects

Green Car Congress

The award recipients are: Buster Biofuels, LLC, based in the San Diego area, will receive $2,641,723 to convert a 7,300 square foot industrial warehouse building into a biodiesel manufacturing and fueling facility. The facility will create biodiesel from renewable waste-based materials such as used cooking oil from restaurants.

San Diego 346