SoundEnergy, a Dutch company, has demonstrated a thermal acoustic engine which takes heat from any source and produces a powerful cooling effect without requiring power from any other source – potentially providing air conditioning or refrigeration from industrial waste heat or solar energy. The device combines two technologies which have been understood for a long […]  Read more »

Scientists at Osaka University have reported that they have developed an inexpensive, large-scale and flexible thermoelectric generator that has high mechanical reliability and can convert waste heat into electricity efficiently.  Read more »

The EcoSwing project, funded by the European Union,is aiming to demonstrate a dramatically lower cost, lightweight wind turbine drivetrain using superconducting ceramic tape instead of rare earth elements.  Read more »

Boston Metal has developed a technique for making high-strength steel alloy using an electrolytic cell rather than a blast furnace. The process does not release the huge quantities of carbon dioxide produced in the traditional process.  Read more »

NantEnergy has announced that it has developed a zinc-air battery which is considerably cheaper than other battery types currently on the market, including the lithium-ion batteries.  Read more »

Researchers have found a way of making magnesite, which absorbs carbon dioxide, in a matter of days rather than the hundreds of thousands of years which it takes in nature. A tonne of naturally-occurring magnesite can remove around half a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere.  Read more »

Two MSc students at Lancaster University, have developed a rotating wind turbine which, unlike conventional wind turbines, can take advantage of both horizontal and vertical winds without requiring steering.  Read more »

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have shown that well-established agricultural management practices such as planting cover crops, optimizing grazing and sowing legumes on rangelands, could capture enough carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil to make a significant contribution to international global warming targets.  Read more »

Researchers at the University of California in San Diego, say that they have developed a way to recycle used cathodes from spent lithium-ion batteries and restore them to perform as well as they did when new.  Read more »

A New Zealand company, named Humble Bee, is reverse-engineering the nesting material of the Australian solitary masked bee in a bid to manufacture a biodegradable alternative to plastic on a large scale and at a competitive price.  Read more »