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"Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy Tweet this talk! (we'll add the headline and the URL) Post to: Share on Twitter Email This Favorite Download inShare Share on StumbleUpon Share on Reddit Share on Facebook TED Conversations Got an idea, question, or debate inspired by this talk? Start a TED Conversation, or join one of these: Green Home Energy=Hydrogen Generators-alternative sources Started by Kathleen Gilligan-Smith 1 Comment What is the real missing link in renewable energy? Started by Enrico Petrucco 8 Comments Comment on this Talk 60 total comments Sign in to add comments or Join (It's free and fast!) Sort By: smily raichel 0 Reply Less than 5 minutes ago: Nice smily raichel 0 Reply Less than 5 minutes ago: Good David Mackey 0 Reply 3 hours ago: Superb invention, but I would suggest one more standard mantra that they should move on from and that is the idea of power being supplied by a centralised grid. This technology seems to me to be much more beneficial on a local scale, what if every home had its own battery, then home power generation becomes economically more viable for everyone. If you could show that a system like this could pay for itself in say 5 years then every home would want one. Plus for this to be implemented on a large scale requires massive investment that could be decades away. Share the technology and lets get it in homes by next year. Great ted talk. Jon Senior 0 Reply 1 hour ago: I agree 100%. Localised energy production would also make energy consumers more conscious of their consumption and encourage efforts to reduce it. We can invent and invent all we want, but the fast solution to allowing renewable energies to take centre stage is to reduce the base energy draw. With lower baseline consumption, smaller "always on" generators are required to keep the grid operational. Town and house-l

A new approach to storing electrical energy can store more energy than gasoline in the same volume, and could help extend the range of electric vehicles. But some experts say other approaches are more practical. The biggest technological hurdle facing electric vehicles is their range. Even the best rechargeable batteries cannot match the density of energy stored in a fuel tank. Combining electric power with a combustion engine to make a hybrid electric vehicle sidesteps that problem. But a new take on electrical power storage that is part battery, part chemical fuel cell could ditch gasoline for good.The new design stores energy more densely than petrol, and was conceived by Stuart Licht of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and colleagues. Batteries produce electricity from a closed chemical system that is eventually exhausted. Fuel cells use a constant supply of fuel, so they are continually topped up. Licht's cell has features of each. Its negative electrode, or anode, is made from vanadium boride, which serves double-duty as a fuel too. But unlike the flowing fuel of a fuel cell, the material is held internally, like the anode material of a battery. The vanadium boride reacts with a constant stream of oxygen, as in a fuel cell, provided by the positive electrode, or cathode. This brings in a supply of air from outside.

In recent months, chains including Wal-Mart Stores, Kohl's, Safeway and Whole Foods Market have installed solar panels on roofs of their stores to generate electricity on a large scale. One reason they are racing is to beat a Dec. 31 deadline to gain tax advantages for these projects. So far, most chains have outfitted fewer than 10 percent of their stores. Over the long run, assuming Congress renews a favorable tax provision and more states offer incentives, the chains promise a solar construction program that would ultimately put panels atop almost every big store in the country. The trend, while not entirely new, is accelerating as the chains seize a chance to bolster their environmental credentials by cutting back on their use of electricity from coal.

Although volatility in most assets is sharply lower than it was in November, oil price volatility has continued to climb. This rise in volatility, and resulting near $30-a-barrel oil price, is reflecting the same imbalances in the energy market that $147 oil did last summer: namely inadequate investment in basic infrastructure to produce, deliver, store and distribute energy. Last summer, attention focused on shortages in production capacity. However, present underlying shortages in storage and transportation are creating massive price distortions across the energy complex. Storage and transportation capacity provides the system with a buffer to supply-and-demand shocks by allowing it to run surpluses and deficits that smooth the normal cyclical swings in prices. As global storage capacity has failed to keep pace with growth in global demand over the past three decades, this buffer has shrunk relative to the size of the market, resulting in chronically higher than normal price volatility. Once infrastructure begins to constrain the ability of the market to run imbalances, prices have to create more of the adjustment process. Electricity markets are an extreme case of this. As power cannot be stored, supply must always equal demand, leaving price as the only mechanism to force the adjustment process. Accordingly, electricity is the most volatile of all assets. Due to inadequate infrastructure investment over the past several decades, oil is looking more like the electricity markets.

Scientists from MIT have grown thin, pure and dense carbon nanotubes that in combination with additives can be used as electrodes to store a higher amount of capacity in batteries and super capacitors.

Solar power, the holy grail of renewable energy, has always faced the problem of how to store the energy captured from the sun's rays so that demand for electricity can be met at night or whenever the sun is not shining.

"Thermal energy storage (TES) is a system to store thermal energy. TES can be differentiated into three different categories, namely sensible, latent and thermochemical. The main drivers that propel development of TES system are advancements in material sciences and the emergence of smart thermal grid. Although some of the TES system is already mature especially sensible, adoption of this technology is still slow due to lack of awareness from stakeholders to employ this technology as a method to achieve energy efficiency. Furthermore, high cost of new technology and the recent dramatic drop in oil prices have inhibited or slowed the adoption of TES due to less compelling economics. By using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), emerging TES systems based on latent and thermochemical have been identified as the future of TES systems because it shows remarkable performance capabilities. However, strengthening legislation and standardization frameworks need to be done to see wider adoption of TES systems in the future, especially in Europe and North America."

Air batteries, which create electricity from a reaction between oxygen in the air and a zinc negative electrode, can store five times as much electricity as a similarly sized li-ion battery, although there are problems before they can be commercialised

MIT researchers have discovered a way to store solar energy that could make solar power in homes a mainstream energy option and might even make power companies obsolete, at least for residential needs.

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A U.S. scientist has developed a new way of powering fuel cells that could make it practical for home owners to store solar energy and produce electricity to run lights and appliances at night. A new catalyst produces the oxygen and hydrogen that fuel cells use to generate electricity, while using far less energy than current methods. With this catalyst, users could rely on electricity produced by photovoltaic solar cells to power the process that produces the fuel, said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who developed the new material.

So the CO2 in your soda is, in fact, stored industrial carbon. So when we hear about refrigerators and air conditioners becoming far more efficient by using CO2 as a coolant, we don't have to worry about the CO2. All we have to worry about is how to get this new refrigerant adopted as quickly as possible.

The new Mulberry shop on London's New Bond Street features a concrete floor, display stands made of oak batons and an 8.7m-long polished brass cash desk. The 5,400 feet of retail space features an open and informal layout set on one level.

"All electric power for commercial vehicles has always been a challenge, because of the sheer size of the battery packs required to store and deliver enough energy to drive heavy vehicles over practical distances. As battery technology improves, though, electric hybrid vehicles are now gaining traction in commercial applications where the technology offers significant benefits for drive cycles that involve a lot of city driving in stop-start traffic."

"In the process the waste is treated using steam, the metals present in the waste act as a catalyst and under certain conditions gaseous hydrogen is obtained: a fuel that is becoming established but whose main problem lies in storing it. "