Environment

Wind turbine blades might look elegant, even ballet-like, as they glide through the air. But, much like ballet, achieving that simple grace requires complex, advanced engineering. NREL researchers build a 13-m thermoplastic blade at NREL’s CoMET facility. Photo from the National Wind Technology Center at the NREL Flatirons Campus. (Photo by Ryan Beach / NREL)
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Scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Northern Illinois University (NIU) have successfully prevented lead from escaping damaged perovskite solar cells. The research effort is their latest work in addressing concerns about potential lead toxicity. The light-absorbing layer in perovskite solar cells contains a small amount of lead. Simply encapsulating solar cells does
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Every time I write about solar vehicles, I get the same thing from people in the comments and on social media, like: “That’s a stupid gimmick that’ll add like a mile a day.” “What a joke. That can’t even run the air conditioning.” While these statements have been true for decades, solar technology and EV
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Saudi Aramco logo is pictured at the oil facility in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia October 12, 2019. Maxim Shemetov | Reuters DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco posted a stunning 158% increase in third quarter net income to $30.4 billion dollars, as the world’s largest oil companies continue to benefit from the reopening
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A few weeks ago, right-wing media site NewsMax ran a piece centered around an out-of-context Elon Musk quote. “If we shift all transport to electric than electricity demand approximately doubles … this is going to create a lot of challenges with the grid,” NewsMax quoted Musk as saying, before going on to scare readers about
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A recent check of the live feed from the NEM showed Australian wind generations’ small but increasing contribution to the grid. One discovery I made was that there did appear to be a time when the wind didn’t blow. Angus and Barnaby would be glad about that. The largest states by population (and energy use)
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The ocean was calm when the Peregrine Falcon ship left the harbor in Homer, Alaska, last month with three moorings resting on its deck, all loaded with scientific instruments. Eighteen hours later, these moorings were lowered into the silty waves where they collected data for two months. Two of the moorings were 12-foot submarine-shaped buoys
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