It’s hard to believe but summer is already drawing to a close, which means millions of students across the United States are going back to school to boost their brainpower in subjects like science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM. Of course, our favorite STEM topic is energy, which plays a vital role in… Keep reading →
WASHINGTON, DC —The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2017 student design competition, which challenges collegiate teams to design, build and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient and attractive, will take place October 5 – 15, 2017, in Denver, Colorado, Energy Department and Denver officials announced today. The 14 collegiate teams competing in 2017 will focus… Keep reading →
Hydropower has been around for more than a century, and is currently the nation’s largest source of clean, domestic, renewable electricity. What could its role look like in the year 2050? Providing about 7 percent of the nation’s electricity, hydropower supports more than 143,000 jobs in engineering, manufacturing, construction and utility operations and maintenance — all… Keep reading →
It’s hot out there! With temperatures reaching nearly triple digits in many parts of the country, air conditioning systems are working extra hard to keep you cool. While air conditioners provide comfort, they also use a lot of power. The Energy Information Administration estimates cooling accounts for about 6 percent of the total energy used in average American… Keep reading →
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today has selected Argonne National Laboratory to lead a consortium of university, private sector and national laboratory partners for a new, medium- and heavy-duty truck technical track under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) Truck Research Utilizing Collaborative Knowledge (TRUCK) program. The multidisciplinary consortium, includes Cummins… Keep reading →
It’s the classic chicken-or-the-egg question. If attempting to revolutionize the auto industry, do you introduce the car or the supporting infrastructure first? For Joel Ewanick, the answer was obvious – get the infrastructure in place. Ewanick, CEO of FirstElement Fuel Inc., is bringing hydrogen fueling stations to California under the consumer-facing brand True Zero to… Keep reading →
Cheers erupted from an audience peering over plywood walls into a mock-up hot cell, the shielded environments scientists use to inspect spent nuclear fuel. The robot inside had successfully moved a mock radioactive sample from a transport box, out of its containers, into an examination instrument, and then back again. It was a satisfying ending… Keep reading →
Scientists just got one step closer to the next generation of solar panels. Today’s solar panels convert sunlight to electricity using silicon crystal chemistry. Future solar panels might rely on perovskite, a promising material that has the potential to make panels cheaper, simpler, and more efficient. Scientists just need to tweak perovskite to maintain its… Keep reading →
On March 26, 2015, nine researchers published a study in the Environmental Science and Technology journal entitled “Impact of Natural Gas Extraction on PAH Levels in Ambient Air.”
Doctors today have a powerful arsenal of cancer-fighting chemotherapy drugs to choose from, but a key challenge remains: to better target these drugs. The hope is to kill tumors while limiting a drug’s potentially harmful side effects, and researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory may have a found a way. The… Keep reading →
