Tom Raftery's Library tagged "energy storage" →  View Popular, Search in Google

Energy is at once the greatest motive force in the world economy and the principal environmental challenge for policymakers. The engineers who work on getting energy, storing it, moving it about, consuming it, and conserving it are the focus of this report. Listen to the individual segments, which are now airing on public radio stations across the United States, and check this page frequently to see if and when a show will air on a public radio station in your area.

 

Click on the images below to watch audio slide shows of individual stories.

energy abengoa pumped hydro storage energy storage

Dip an ordinary piece of paper into ink infused with carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires, and it turns into a battery or supercapacitor. Crumple the piece of paper, and it still works. Stanford researcher Yi Cui sees many uses for this new way of storing electricity.

electricity electricity storage energy storage silver nanowires battery batteries paper battery

For years, the stumbling block for renewable energy has been how to store electricity for days when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. But new technologies suggest this goal may be within reach

renewable energy energy storage greenmonktv

The US Fuel Cell Council is now lobbying Congress for more than a billion dollar investment to accelerate America's manufacturing position around this important piece of the future energy sector.

fuel cell energy storage congress

A research group at the University of Texas at Austin has taken a carbon-based nanomaterial called graphene, and developed it into a device that has the potential to vastly improve upon the energy storage capacity of batteries. Reportedly, graphene could also double the current maximum storage capacity of the group of battery alternatives known as ultracapacitors

graphene ultracapacitors energy storage

Business Week is reporting that ”...13 days since Hurricane Ike ripped through Texas, and nearly one-quarter of the residents of the fourth-largest U.S. city still don’t have electricity.”

Is the problem electricity production?
No. The power plants are fine.

The problem is the wires. The grid itself
The network is too vast to repair quickly in the fall out of Hurricane Ike.

The problem is storage.
We have no viable way of storing vast amounts of electricity at the local level.

The solution? Making energy storage a priority and create systems that support a local ‘Electron Reserve’.

energy storage electrical grid grid

YouTube might be best known for videos of cute animals and teens dancing with light sabers. But one nonprofit wants to use it as an idea factory.

The X Prize Foundation, the same organization behind the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize to send private vehicles to the moon, said Tuesday that it has put together an eco challenge for YouTubers called "What's your crazy green idea?" Dream up a world-changing idea to stop global warming, post a two-minute YouTube video about it, and it could be worth $25,000.

x prize foundation energy storage energy efficiency what's your crazy green idea global warming clean fuel renewable energy

Someday, the electricity grid will operate with the equivalent of a giant hard drive. But in the short term, grid storage will look more like a PC's cache or RAM, able to serve up small bursts of power to keep things from crashing.

electricity energy storage