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23
Aug

Bird Deaths From Solar Plant Exaggerated By Some Media Sources

There seems to be some hysteria online about bird deaths associated with the Ivanpah solar project in California. For example, this news article calls the solar power plant a “death ray“ as if it is a weapon. The same article says that hundreds of thousands of birds might be dying, or 28,000 or 1,000. That is a very wide range,

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23
Aug

WeCycle — Free App Offers Personal Travel Diary & Useful Data For Cities

WeCycle has launched a free app for iPhones (and soon Android devices) that automatically detects multiple modes of transport and crowdsources information about one’s travel patterns. With this app, cyclists will help make urban areas friendlier and safer. The app shows where the town or city needs more investment in bike routes. This new app does that job and more.

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23
Aug

Africa To See More Renewable Energy Growth In 2014 Than In 2000-2013

Sub-Saharan Africa is set to see more renewable energy come online this year than it has in the previous 14 years, proof that the region is becoming one of the most exciting markets to watch for renewable energy technologies such as onshore wind, small-scale and utility-scale solar, and geothermal power. This is according to new research from Bloomberg New Energy

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23
Aug

Sakti3 — Battery Startup — Aims To Hit $100 Per kWh

Honestly, this one wasn’t planned: last night, I wrote about a new study concluding that until EV battery costs get down to $100 per kWh, most US consumers would be better off going with an electric car with less than 100 miles of range rather than splurging for a long-range electric car. Now, battery startup Sakti3 is saying that its

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22
Aug

Low Dependence on PC

Comparing with some battery testing systems in the market, there’s another amazing characteristic of Neware battery tests – low dependence on PC. When running the tests, our battery testing instruments don’t depend on PC too much, even in some emergency your PC doen’t work/shut down/restart/reset, our instruments still work well offline.

22
Aug

MIT Turns Dead Car Batteries Into Clean Solar Energy

When a car battery calls it quits, it usually ends up at a service station that disposes of it responsibly, because it contains toxic lead. A team of MIT researchers thought there might be something worth keeping, and now say they have successfully recycled materials from spent batteries to create long-lasting, clean-running solar panels. Recent solar cell research has included

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22
Aug

Scientists Create Thin, Transparent Solar Generator

Not many people think clunky solar roof panels are attractive, but we live with the unsightly installations because they provide clean, renewable energy. It would be better if solar power could be generated by nearly invisible means – say a thin, transparent film that lays on the screen of your cell phone or over the windows of your house. That’s

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22
Aug

Integrated display power and LED driver IC for Smartphones

I expect there will be lots of Smartphone designers who will welcome the arrival of Intersil’s ISL98611 power management IC which integrates the display power and backlight LED driver functions in a single chip. The ISL98611 also has a so-called hybrid dimming feature which Intersil says will improve display brightness uniformity and color consistency.  The highly integrated ISL98611 has a

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22
Aug

Is free-space wireless charging viable? Dialog thinks it’s worth a try

Energous’ technology promises charging of devices such as Smartphones, within a room or within around 3m of a charging point, with no connections to the hand-held or wearable device and with no requirement to lay it on a charging pad or mat. Details of Energous exact technology have so far been sketchy, but the company says it is using the

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22
Aug

Volvo opens proving ground for next-gen car technology

AstaZero enables engineers to test their vehicles in a broad range of potential traffic situation. On an area of 2 million square metres, the site includes rural roads, a city area, multilane roads and a high-speed area for tests related to vehicle dynamics like avoidance manoeuvres at high speed. The site is encircled by a 5.7 km highway. The rural

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