Tag: ELECTRICITY

Aguamenti! Firefighters, it appears, may be invoking wand-like magic in order to put out the flames. (Sadly, 'Harry Potter' incantations won't be needed.) Ludovico Cademartiri, a Harvard University physicist, will be unveiling an electrical solution to extinguishing the fires of the future. Employing large electric fields to disrupt a fire may help to eliminate blazes more quickly, and will ...

After years of work, an MIT scientist has perfected a cheap way to convert and store clean energy using sunlight and water -- much as a plant does during photosynthesis. According to Fast Company, professor Daniel Nocera used solar power captured during the day to split a water molecule into its basic elements -- oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen gas is stored in a fuel cell, which is used to ...

Over the past few months, many politicians and national security experts have grown increasingly worried about what might happen if the U.S. power grid were ever to fall prey to a terrorist attack. Concerns first arose last March, when a scientific study published in the journal Safety Science suggested that even an attack on a small corner of the electrical network could unleash a domino effect ...

Google already offers a free power-consumption meter, called Google Powermeter, that allows users to check their energy-usage levels from their phones or remote computers. Taking a page from Foursquare's location-based book, the company has now added a badge-oriented game for competitive energy consumers to play. The game, which you can find under 'Take Action' on your Powermeter page, offers ...

Dr. Francesco Galembeck of Brazil's University of Campinas presented new research at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society that, he claims, could lead to a new method of collecting renewable energy. According to his experiments, it is possible to generate an electrical charge by passing water vapor, potentially in the form of humid air, over metal particles. Theoretically, this ...

For island-dwellers, water is the most readily available natural resource, which is why a Scottish energy company sees fit to install a gigantic tidal turbine off its coast. According to BBC News, Atlantis Resources recently unveiled its AK-1000 turbine, which stands 73-feet tall, weighs 130 tons, and can generate enough electricity to power 1,000 homes. The 1-megawatt turbine has two giant ...

It's easy to talk about the benefits of 'green' power, but the bottom line is that the method has to be affordable before people will use it. According to Physorg, a study conducted at Duke University claims that solar power in North Carolina has now become more cost-efficient than nuclear power. Earlier this year, the cost of producing one kilowatt hour (kWh) of solar power dropped to 16 ...

A U.K. industrial design student has discovered a way to harness energy each time a toilet is flushed or a bathtub is drained. According to Creative Boom, Tom Broadbent's HighDro Power works much like a miniature hydroelectric dam, inside your building's sewage pipes. When water drains from a toilet, tub, sink or any other appliance, it travels down the pipes, through the device and spins four ...

With so many geeks riding bicycles, it was only a matter of time until the two-wheeled mode of transportation would get wired. An Instructables.com user recently posted a set of DIY instructions that demonstrates how to rig a bike to power USB devices. The user took a regular USB car adapter, and connected it to a voltage regulator, which leads to a stepper motor mounted near the bike's rear ...

While they aren't full-blown 'Transformers,' ultra-thin smart sheets developed by MIT and Harvard researchers could pave the way for machines that fold into different shapes. According to Popular Science, the fiberglass sheets, which are made from .5-inch wide, .5-millimeter thick, triangular tiles, are dubbed 'programmable matter.' The researchers equipped the smart sheets with ultra-thin, ...

Have you ever wondered exactly how "healthy" a light bulb is for your energy bill? If so, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is here to help. According to an FTC press release, every light bulb manufactured after the halfway-point of 2011 will feature a "Lighting Facts" label on its packaging. This label, which is a clear nod to the Nutrition Facts label on food products, will provide information ...

We've always been told to never pull a plug from its socket by yanking on the cord. Doing so, rather than grabbing the housing and gently tugging, can expose dangerous wires. Line up a U.S. wire and strategically pull (not that we've ever done that!), and most plugs will pop out. The unmanageably large sockets and housings in the U.K., though, simply can't be detached in one piece from the wall ...

Oddly enough, cow manure could be a possible solution for technology companies looking for cheaper real estate and electricity. According to The New York Times, a paper written by Hewlett-Packard engineers proposes that tech companies build facilities near dairy farms and use biogas, which is a type of methane created from cow manure, to power their server farms. HP claims that 10,000 cows could ...

In Austria, a telephone booth might soon be used for more than making a phone call. According to an AFP report hosted on Physorg, Telekom Austria proposed earlier this week that the country's phone booths be converted into charging stations for electric cars and other vehicles. The first car-charging phone booth was unveiled in front of Telekom Austria's headquarters earlier this week. By the end ...

Researchers at Stanford University have found a way to harvest 'green' electricity from algae. WonHyoung Ryu and her team enveloped a gold electrode in an algae cell membrane, and used it to trap electrons created during photosynthesis. This is 'green' energy in its purest form (and color), since only protons and oxygen are released during this process. "This is potentially one of the cleanest ...