Researchers at Berkeley Labs have now coated electrodes with modified M13 bacteriophage, a harmless bacteria-eating virus, to create the first ever organic piezoelectric material which can convert force to electricity.

The researchers also said that the option is a lot environment friendly as the material is non-toxic, organizes naturally into thin layers and self-regenerates, giving it a possible advantage over chemical options.

By attaching thin layers to, for example, shoes one would be able to charge devices on the go, by sending cables up to pockets. Lets hope there isn’t [...]

The Wind Cube is a modular green energy power system that has been designed by Chen Liao Hsun for urban household use. “The concept,”he says, “is to use three-dimensional wind fields to make up for the insufficiency of two-dimensional ones.” Each individual unit can produce around 100 W of electricity which translates into an estimated 21.6 KWh a month. For an average family of 4 members, a total of 15 Wind Cube units would be enough to take them off the grid.

This concept provides [...]

In a very interesting development, researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, have created an LCD screen which can charge its own batteries from any ambient light source such as the sun, an incandescent bulb and even its own backlight!

We took a look a little while ago at How Modern LCDs Work. As you might remember, each LCD has a polarizing sheet that controls the amount of light that passes through any given pixel. These polarizers are very inefficient, and waste most of the absorbed energy. With this new development however, the standard polarizers have been replaced by a [...]

Conventional nuclear reactors use Uranium 235 as their power source. However, out of all the Uranium that we dig up, only about 1% is U-235 while the rest is composed of, its not so reactive cousin, U-238. So what can we do with this U-238? Well according to some new research, we can now use U-238 as a fuel to power a new generation of nuclear reactors.

Bill Gates has funded a new startup called Terrapower which is attempting to build the first prototype of a new type of nuclear reactor called a traveling wave reactor. this reactor will be using uranium 238 as a fuel source. How this will work is that a bunch of uranium [...]

WiFi networks, Cellphone and Radio Signals. These are just a few of the waves that are spamming the Electro Magnetic Spectrum around you most of the time. You can harvest this energy for more than its intended use. With printable antennas, you can power battery free electronics in most urban environments.

Since this technology is still in its infancy and generates only a few milliwatts, so don’t expect it to power your cellphone or laptop anytime soon. What this technology is good for is powering networks of sensors in locations that don’t have electrical outlets, batteries or access to solar power. This [...]

At the Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian, UK, seawater is taken in and filtered before it is used to cool down the reactor cores. It is not unusual for these inlets to be clogged with debris from the ocean, mainly seaweed and jellyfish. But on the 28th of June, the power plant faced a highly unusual situation.

Clouds of jellyfish seemed to be pulled towards the plant and clogged its intake filters. This reduced the flow of cool seawater to the reactor cores. At first the plant engineers tried to reduce the load on the cores to reduce the amount of water required to cool them, but that was not sufficient and [...]

The Himachal Pradesh Government is ready to setup Bio Energy Power Plants ranging from 100 KW to 1 MW in capacity. The plants would be using a variety of grass called the Congress Grass and Pine Needles as fuel. These plants are causing trouble for farmers in the state but can now be put to good use generating electricity. The state has the potential to generate upto 418 MW of electricity from a number of these Power Plants.

A flywheel battery is a system that stores electricity in the form of kinetic energy, in a mechanism that has a wheel that spins at tens of thousands of RPM. The batteries are made of carbon fiber and levitated in a vacuum using magnetic bearings. Carbon fibre is perfect for this application as it’s very strong and lightweight; it doesn’t take a lot of energy to keep it spinning.

Flywheels are better than batteries in many applications. They can absorb and release power very very quickly, they don’t need much in the way of [...]