02-10-2023, 12:13 AM
Promising news on the wind turbine front: A Danish wind turbine giant has just discovered how to recycle all rotor blades, CanadaToday.
The assertion is that Vestas has discovered a chemical treatment that can break down the epoxy in the blades and this enables the components to be reused, keeping them out of landfill. Even better, this should also work in other industries where epoxy is a problem.
On the battery front, there seem to be multiple advances occurring every day.
MIT Discovery Could Unlock a Safer and Lighter Lithium Battery, SciTechDaily.
A new lithium-air battery design promises unprecedented energy density, Techspot.
Both developments would produce lighter, denser and safer batteries as they’d avoid using liquid electrolytes and would resist the development of dendrites. The MIT discovery also seems to avoid efficiency loss which will mean less waste.
There’s even improvements in dye-sensitised solar cells (DSCs) which are cheap, transparent, and flexible. They can be affixed to windows which would work well with city office buildings and greenhouses. They could also power laptops or phones just using ambient light.
Low-cost 'transparent' solar cells reach new efficiency record, electricity-generating windows incoming?, Techspot.
This sort of progress is why I don’t buy into hand-wringing over current problems concerning renewable energy production. The technology is improving quickly which can’t be said of the fossil fuel industry.
The assertion is that Vestas has discovered a chemical treatment that can break down the epoxy in the blades and this enables the components to be reused, keeping them out of landfill. Even better, this should also work in other industries where epoxy is a problem.
On the battery front, there seem to be multiple advances occurring every day.
MIT Discovery Could Unlock a Safer and Lighter Lithium Battery, SciTechDaily.
A new lithium-air battery design promises unprecedented energy density, Techspot.
Both developments would produce lighter, denser and safer batteries as they’d avoid using liquid electrolytes and would resist the development of dendrites. The MIT discovery also seems to avoid efficiency loss which will mean less waste.
There’s even improvements in dye-sensitised solar cells (DSCs) which are cheap, transparent, and flexible. They can be affixed to windows which would work well with city office buildings and greenhouses. They could also power laptops or phones just using ambient light.
Low-cost 'transparent' solar cells reach new efficiency record, electricity-generating windows incoming?, Techspot.
This sort of progress is why I don’t buy into hand-wringing over current problems concerning renewable energy production. The technology is improving quickly which can’t be said of the fossil fuel industry.