Power and Electrical Engineering
This topic covers issues related to energy generation, conversion, transportation and consumption and how the industry is addressing the challenge of energy efficiency in general.
innovations-report provides in-depth and informative reports and articles on subjects ranging from wind energy, fuel cell technology, solar energy, geothermal energy, petroleum, gas, nuclear engineering, alternative energy and energy efficiency to fusion, hydrogen and superconductor technologies.
Silicon solution could lead to a truly long-life battery
New devices may provide power for decades
Using some of the same manufacturing techniques that produce microchips, researchers have created a porous-silicon diode that may lead to improved betavoltaics. Such devices convert low levels of radiation into electricity and can have useful lives spanning several decades.
While producing as little as one-thousandth of the power of conventional chemical batteries, the new “BetaBattery” concept is more efficient and potentia
New mathematical model better describes transistor behavior
Penn State and Philips researchers have merged the best features of their respective approaches to produce a new mathematical model that describes the behavior of the MOS transistor in a wide class of integrated circuits found in the majority of electronic devices from computers to digital watches to communications systems.
Certain circuits can only be simulated accurately using the new approach, known as the PSP model, including passive mixers used in mobile phones to increase bat
Continuous electricity cable monitoring now a reality: Greater reliability at reduced cost
In collaboration with KEMA, two postgraduate students from Eindhoven University of Technology have developed a device that continuously monitors cables to localize weak points in distribution networks. Data on weak point development and location enables an electricity company to pre-empt problems by timely intervention. This in turn enhances network reliability and reduces costs. With their invention, Jeroen Veen and Peter van der Wielen received in April their doctorate degree at the Eindhoven
MIT profs, colleagues propose plan for nuclear energy
Team members are former senior energy or security advisors in Democratic and Republican administrations from Carter to Clinton
MIT faculty members and colleagues, all former senior energy or security advisors in Democratic and Republican administrations from Carter to Clinton, have proposed a pragmatic plan that would allow the world to develop nuclear power without increased risk of weapons proliferation.
Under their plan, which appears in the winter 2004-2005 issu
From photovoltaics to solar thermal collectors: Evaluating and improving green design
Relatively few good examples exist of buildings that have excellent energy performance. Often “green buildings” are developed and publicized, but then actual energy functioning is not reported, sometimes because performance is less than anticipated. Having inhabited its new green headquarters for the first year, The Woods Hole Research Center is addressing those issues by tracking, and making publicly available, information on the performance of its building.
Because the Researc
LUCA technologies confirms real-time methane generation
May provide opportunity to convert finite oil resource to long-term production of natural gas
Luca Technologies LLC today announced that its researchers have confirmed the presence of a resident, methane-generating community of microorganisms (“microbial consortium”) in substrate samples taken from the 110,000 acre Monument Butte oilfield located in North Eastern Utah. This site represents the latest in a series of active “GeobioreactorsTM” that Luca Technologies has identified