Energy, features and articles | Educational Science

Dec 31, 2008

White House Wants Your Green Ideas

The White House announcement today of a new Middle Class Task Force had a science sub-text that suggests campaign promises of a greener economy remain a focus of the new administration. The task force, run by Vice President Joe Biden, is charged with figuring out how to improve the economic...

Mar 31, 2010

How Are Oil Spills Cleaned?

On Monday, workers in Australia rushed to contain an oil spill from a grounded ship in the Great Barrier Reef. The Chinese-registered Shen Neng 1 ship was carrying 72,000 tons (65,000 metric tons) of coal, and was loaded with 1,000 tons (950 metric tons) of fuel when it collided into...

Mar 31, 2010

Scientists Race to Engineer a New Magnet for Electronics

A magnet at the heart of high-tech products such as cell phones and hybrid cars relies upon an increasingly scarce supply of the rare earth element known as neodymium. Now one of the original inventors of that magnet hopes to create a new generation of magnetic materials that can ease...

Mar 31, 2010

Water-Cooled Supercomputers On the Way

Around the world, engineers are searching for energy-efficient ways to cool down racks of computers in warehouses that get as hot as an oven while powering the Internet. A new study suggests warm water might just be the wave of the future for cooling these energy-hogging data centers – and...

Mar 31, 2010

New Intel Sensor Could Cut Electricity Bill

A new sensor and personal energy management panel made by Intel could help combat global warming by cutting electricity use by one-third. In an address this week during Intel's Developer Forum in Beijing, China, Justin Rattner, chief technology officer, posed the question: What if we could make energy management personal?...

Jan 31, 2010

Cheap Solar Cell Could Be Incorporated Into Clothing

A new solar cell can produce the same amount of energy as the best conventional solar panels while using less expensive material. The novel flexible device could help make solar cells far more practical for products ranging from sunroofs to clothing, scientists say. It could be extremely rugged – you...

Jan 31, 2010

Energy-Saving Tips

{{adsense|premier|right}} Put Your Computer to Sleep March 29, 2010: Learn to love your computer's power management tools, which include automatically turning off the monitor, turning off the hard drives, and putting the entire system into sleep or hibernate mode (preferably after half an hour of inactivity). Microsoft says that hibernate...

Aug 31, 2012

Studies Show Wind Power's Massive Potential

(ISNS) -- There is enough energy for people to reap from the wind to meet all of the world's power demands without radically altering the planet's climate, according to two independent teams of scientists. Wind power is often touted as environmentally friendly, generating no pollutants. It is an increasingly popular...

Jun 30, 2012

Why India Just Suffered the World's Biggest Blackout

India endured the world's largest power failure today (July 31), with a blackout that affected 700 million people, including the nation's capital of New Delhi. Trains and subway systems stopped, while private businesses and hospitals geared up their generators, the New York Times reported. Today's blackout followed another large outage...

Nov 30, 2013

World's E-Waste to Grow 33% by 2017, Says Global Report

By 2017, the global volume of discarded refrigerators, TVs, cellphones, computers, monitors and other electronic waste will weigh almost as much as 200 Empire State Buildings, a new report predicts. The forecast, based on data gathered by United Nations organizations, governments, and nongovernment and science organizations in a partnership known...

Jul 31, 2013

10 Years After Record Blackout, is U.S. Any Better Prepared? (Op-Ed)

Mike Jacobs is a senior energy analyst for the Climate & Energy program of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). This artcile is adapted from a post that originally appeared on the UCS blog, The Equation. Jacobs contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Electricity grid operators...

Jun 30, 2013

Solar Plane Makes Dramatic Landing in NYC to End Cross-Country Flight

NEW YORK — A solar-powered airplane that was set to complete an historic cross-country journey across the United States this weekend made a dramatic early landing late Saturday (July 6), when damage was observed on one of the aircraft's wings. The plane, called Solar Impulse, touched down here at John...

Jun 30, 2013

If A Network Is Broken, Break It More

(ISNS) -- From the World Wide Web to the electrical grid, networks are notoriously difficult to control. A disturbance to just one part of the system can spread quickly and affect the whole thing. But this problem is its own solution: by selectively damaging part of the network, we can...

May 31, 2013

Scaling Up Solar Power May Demand Updated Electric Grid

(ISNS) -- One hour's worth of global sunlight would be enough to power the world's energy requirements for an entire year. But even if humankind can someday harness solar power to meet global energy needs, there is another problem engineers will have to tackle: integrating solar power with existing electrical...

Apr 30, 2013

Homeowners Warm to Solar Power: Op-Ed

Marlene Cimons of Climate Nexus contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. When Linda and Jay Mathews moved back to their native California nearly two years ago — after 20 years in New York and Washington — they found their dream home in Pasadena. It had everything...