Turning away from fossil fuels is necessary if we are to avert an environmental crisis due to global warming. Both industry and academia have been focusing heavily on hydrogen as a feasible clean alternative. Hydrogen is practically inexhaustible and when used to generate energy, only produces water vapor. However, to realize a […]
Researchers report that small quantities of useful molecules such as hydrocarbons are produced when carbon dioxide and water react in the presence of light and a silver nanoparticle catalyst. Their validation study – made possible through the use of a high-resolution analytical technique – could pave the way for CO2-reduction technologies that allow industrial-scale […]
Tossing worn-out solar panels into landfills may soon become electronics waste history. Designing a recycling strategy for a new, forthcoming generation of photovoltaic solar cells – made from metal halide perovskites, a family of crystalline materials with structures like the natural mineral calcium titanate – will add a stronger dose of environmental […]
When environmental physicist Kira Rehfeld, from Heidelberg University, visited Antarctica for her research, she was struck by the intense light there. “It’s always light in summer. This solar radiation could actually be used to supply the research infrastructure with energy”, she observes. However, generators, engines, and heaters in these remote regions have […]
Plans were announced this week for two new electric car battery plants in France and Britain involving Envision, the Shanghai-based company that has quietly built a global renewable energy empire. Envision’s two billion euro ($2.4 billion) electric car battery plant in Douai, northern France, will supply French carmaker Renault, it said, becoming France’s second so-called […]
Huge solar panels poke out of pumpkin and tomato fields in Syria’s rebel-held northwest, where after infrastructure was destroyed during a decade of war, many have switched to renewable energy. “We used to rely on diesel-powered generators, but it was a struggle with fuel shortages and price hikes,” said Khaled Mustafa, one of dozens of […]
