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An $8 million battery lab opened yesterday at the University of Michigan that will help Ford develop batteries that are smaller, lighter and less expensive to produce.

Staples Canada has set a goal to divert 100,000 kilograms of batteries from landfills in 2014 and says it, with partner Call2Recycle, has collected and diverted 30,295 kg of batteries in the first quarter this year. The company also says, in the first two months of 2014 alone, it reduced emissions by 3,572 metric tons of CO².

The University of Michigan opened an $8 million electric vehicle battery lab funded in part by Ford and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. The lab will enable Ford and other automakers to research and test new battery technologies.

Tesla founder Elon Musk has announced a new project that could get millions of people off the grid. Musk's increased interest in the emerging energy storage market has led to plans for a giant lithium-ion battery factory. Home and businesses owners could buy these battery systems for backup power or for managing solar electricity generation and use

Electric car manufacturer Tesla has revealed a battery for the home that can store power from solar panels, be used in case of a power outage and potentially transition solar-powered homes to be off the grid entirely. "The goal is complete transformation of the entire energy infrastructure of the world, to completely sustainable zero carbon," said the company's founder, Elon Musk. 

Geochemists from the UK developed a way to take dangerous nuclear waste and turn it into artificial diamonds. These diamonds can generate their own electric current. With a half-life of nearly 5,800 years, these potential diamond batteries could offer solutions to both waste and energy issues.

Disney researchers in Pittsburgh have discovered a way to store energy in paper-like materials that can later be harvested via rubbing, sliding or tapping. The resulting energy can then be used to turn on LED lights, activate an e-ink display, or turn on other low-power devices.

General Motors' enterprise data center in Detroit cut energy consumption 70% by installing a flywheel for battery-free backup power and implementing in-row cooling techniques. The facility also achieved LEED Gold certification.

The United States and China contributed most to record mountains of electronic waste such as cellphones, hair dryers and fridges in 2014 and less than a sixth ended up recycled worldwide, a U.N. study said on Sunday. Overall, 41.8 million tonnes of "e-waste" - defined as any device with an electric cord or battery - were dumped around the globe in 2014 and only an estimated 6.5 million tonnes were taken for recycling, the United Nations University (UNU) said.

As battery storage technology has improved - Tesla announced in May its entry into the energy storage market - an increasing number of hotels are investing in energy storage systems to help reduce demand charges that typically account for at least 30 percent of a commercial electricity bill, and often as much as 50 percent.

Transport for London has today (Wednesday 27 August) announced that it is to trial innovative technology that will enable specially designed buses to wirelessly charge their batteries while they wait at bus stands.

Volvo Cars on Wednesday became the first mainstream automaker to sound the death knell of the internal combustion engine, saying that all the models it introduces starting in 2019 will be either hybrids or powered solely by batteries.

Amidst the madness of 2017, a bigger shift was missed than probably any other - right at the commanding heights of the economy: Natural gas fizzled out of the plan for the future.