Tag: Energy

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Plasma for Fusion: How magnets are paving the way for clean energy

by Brianna Alicofigures by Aparna Nathan The phrase “energy crisis” likely brings to mind rising gas prices, drying up oil reserves, increasing greenhouse gases, climate change, and the like. Scientists, politicians, and civilians alike are working to combat this crisis by creating plans and developing clean energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines, which generate energy with relatively little carbon emission. Currently, wind … Continue reading Plasma for Fusion: How magnets are paving the way for clean energy

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Human endurance is not limitless

Imagine you’re running a race. But this is no normal race—this is a 140-day trek from Huntington Beach, CA to Washington, D.C. Welcome to Race Across the USA, a seemingly-superhuman feat that provides the perfect laboratory to study human endurance. After all, extreme athletes push their bodies to the proverbial “limit”—but what, exactly, is this limit? That’s what a new study published in Science Advances … Continue reading Human endurance is not limitless

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Blog, SITN20: Celebrating 20 Years

The Future of Solar is Bright

by Emily Kerr figures by Abagail Burrus The Sun emits enough power onto Earth each second to satisfy the entire human energy demand for over two hours. Given that it is readily available and renewable, solar power is an attractive source of energy. However, as of 2018, less than two percent of the world’s energy came from solar. Historically, solar energy harvesting has been expensive and … Continue reading The Future of Solar is Bright

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Blog, Special Edition on Artificial Intelligence

How Artificial Intelligence Will Revolutionize the Energy Industry

by Franklin Wolfe figures by Franklin Wolfe and Kimia Mavon Earlier this year, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and the richest man on Earth, wrote an essay online at “The blog of Bill Gates,” to college students graduating worldwide in 2017. He stated, “If I were starting out today… I would consider three fields. One is artificial intelligence (AI). We have only begun to tap … Continue reading How Artificial Intelligence Will Revolutionize the Energy Industry

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Charging your cell phone through your shirt

Modern society is built on portable electronics, and with these power-hungry pieces of technology comes the need for convenient charging. To mitigate the need to find power outlets, a team at the University of Central Florida, lead by Jayan Thomas, created a ribbon which both harvests solar energy and stores it within a single unit. Remarkably, the technology is able to be woven with other … Continue reading Charging your cell phone through your shirt

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Blog, Special Edition: Dear Madam/Mister President

Reconsidering the Risks of Nuclear Power

by Jordan Wilkerson figures by Shannon McArdel The United States emits an immense amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is extremely likely that the rising global temperature trends since the mid-20th century is dominantly due to human activity. No scientific organization of national or international standing disputes this. Furthermore, the US Department of Defense has … Continue reading Reconsidering the Risks of Nuclear Power

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An InFusion of hope : Towards a cleaner planet Earth

In November 2015, Germany switched on the WX7 stellarator, their billion dollar nuclear fusion machine and produced stable helium plasma for the very first time. Just 3 months after their initial success, the German physicists were able to produce and sustain hydrogen plasma for the first time. The generation of hydrogen plasma is an important step towards carrying out nuclear fusion, a process where two … Continue reading An InFusion of hope : Towards a cleaner planet Earth

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Solid-oxide Fuel Cells: Using familiar fuel in a new way

by Michael R. Gerhardt Our climate is rapidly changing, and many countries are beginning to take action. In the United States, President Barack Obama has announced the Clean Power Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electric power generation, while Chinese president Xi Jinping has announced economic incentives to reduce emissions [1,2]. Even oil companies have publicly acknowledged the challenges we face and have voiced … Continue reading Solid-oxide Fuel Cells: Using familiar fuel in a new way

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The Light of Elendil in Shelob’s Lair

By Andrew Wong, a second year graduate student in the Applied Physics program at Harvard University.       The increase in global energy demand and subsequent carbon dioxide emissions has driven advancements in renewable energy generation technologies such as wind turbines and solar cells. However, these technologies are inherently intermittent, and require robust energy storage devices. Inexpensive, large-scale energy storage systems such as aqueous … Continue reading The Light of Elendil in Shelob’s Lair

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