Things Are Good

We recently reached the point that solar power is cheaper than nuclear power and now some researchers at the University of Toronto have found a way to make solar cells even cheaper by using nickel instead of gold.
One of the major drawbacks of most renewable energy sources is high cost. In order to see [...]

Solar power is a wonderfully sustainable source of energy and its biggest hurdle to wide adoption is cost (and going up against subsidized fossil fuels). Well, now the nuclear crowd can’t claim that solar is too expensive because the fact of the matter is that solar power is cheaper than nuclear!
It’s no secret that the [...]

Solar powered air conditioners are a great way to lower power consumption in the hot summer months. Air conditioners turn on when it’s too hot and the sun is generally producing that heat, so why not use the sun to cool down your home?
Many blackouts occur because too many air conditioners are running so [...]

Wind and solar energy generation is criticized for not being always-on, so people have been looking to batteries to steady the flow of energy. Over at Cambridge, there are some people who think that a new type of battery made out of gravel could help with the full adoption of sustainable energy.
Isentopic claims its gravel-based [...]

Those ever smart people at MIT are using origami to model solar cells to make them more efficient. The greater the surface area the more sunlight can be absorbed and used, check out these crazy creations:

Jeffrey Grossman, the Carl Richard Soderberg Associate Professor of Power Engineering at MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), [...]

Photosynthesis is how plants convert energy from the ball of fire in the sky into useful plant-growing energy. The USA’s Department of Energy is actually looking into how photosynthesis can be used to power our homes and even turn homes into miniature power stations using the power of nature.

According to Nocera, his new system can [...]