Collaborate Disseminate
Water can hold a huge amount of thermal energy, and a new system to tap into this resource is being trialed in Scotland. A startup called SeaWarm uses heat stored in bodies of water for buildings, pulling four times more heat out than electricity used…. Continue reading HotTwist water-based thermal system cuts heating bills by 75%
A new heat-to-energy converter has reached a record efficiency of 44% – the average steam turbine manages about 35%, for comparison. This thermophotovoltaic cell is a major step on the way to sustainable, grid-scale renewable energy storage.Continue Re… Continue reading Thermal power cell harvests electricity from heat at record efficiency
An energy supplier in Finland has announced the upcoming construction of an underground seasonal thermal energy storage facility about the size of two Madison Square Gardens that could meet the heating demands of a medium-sized city for up to a year.Co… Continue reading 90-GWh thermal energy storage facility could heat a city for a year
A new industrial-scale ‘sand battery’ has been announced for Finland, which packs 1 MW of power and a capacity of up to 100 MWh of thermal energy for use during those cold polar winters. The new battery will be about 10 times bigger than a pilot plant … Continue reading Giant ‘sand battery’ holds a week’s heat for a whole town
Defense contractor Teledyne FLIR has unveiled its new thermal sniper scope that can see its own bullets fly by day or night at ranges up to 2,200 m (1.3 miles). First seeing light at the annual SHOT Show in Las Vegas, the ThermoSight HISS-HD allows sni… Continue reading New thermal scope lets snipers see bullets in flight without tracers
Researchers at UCLA recently developed what they are calling a thermal transistor: a solid-state device able to control the flow of heat with an electric field. This opens the door …read more Continue reading A Transistor, But For Heat Instead of Electrons
Using a temperature-driven “wax motor,” researchers have created an adaptive roof tile system that helps keep a room at a comfortable 18 °C (65 °F). It delivers an extraordinary 3.1X reduction in cooling energy consumption, and 2.6X for heating.Continu… Continue reading Wax-actuated adaptive tiles radically cut heating and cooling energy
In an average day, tropical oceans absorb about 278 petawatt-hours of solar energy. Harvesting just 1/4000th of that energy would supply the entire world’s daily electricity – and ocean thermal energy conversion provides a possible method.Continue Read… Continue reading First commercial-scale ocean thermal energy generator slated for 2025
There’s a point in a component’s thermal regime that’s between normal operation and overloaded to the point of obvious failure. That’s a dangerous region, because the component isn’t quite hot …read more Continue reading Thermochromic Treatment Keeps Solderless Breadboards Smokeless
While there have been hiccups here and there, the general trend of electronics is to decrease in cost or increase in performance. This can be seen in fairly obvious ways …read more Continue reading IR Camera Is Excellent Hacking Platform