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U.S. Department of Energy Agency Reduces Monterey Tight Oil Estimate by Over 95% Oakland, California (May 20, 2014) — In an article released this evening, the Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has drastically reduced its estimate of recoverable oil in California’s Monterey shale formation from 13.7 billion barrels to just 0.6 billion barrels—a reduction

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INDIANAPOLIS – Based on growing employee demand, General Motors today (5-20-14) announced that it has installed 401 electric vehicle charging stations at its U.S. production and business facilities. More than 20 percent of the stations use electricity generated from solar canopies to help charge employee vehicles. The majority of the stations are located at GM’s large engineering and corporate facilities

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In the future it will be possible to use IGBT High Power Modules (IHM) from Infineon Technologies AG even longer. More robust construction and greatly improved thermal conductivity behavior increase the average life time in comparison to previous models by a factor of up to 11 under the same conditions of use. A major advantage here is that the electrical

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Mitsubishi Electric Corp. today announced its new one megawatt (1.05 MVA) 9900C UPS – the first true on-line double conversion UPS at this power level to claim the highest efficiency at all load levels. In addition, the 9900C UPS is smaller in size and lighter in weight than competing products. Mitsubishi’s technology results in a reduced total cost of ownership

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Eltek ASA today announced the launch of its multipurpose FlexiMonitor controller add-on CAN node that provides high accuracy sensor support for Eltek Smartpack2-based control systems. The FlexiMonitor is designed for a wide variety of dc power applications in industries such as telecom, railway, offshore and process. In each of these applications, sensors are increasingly being used to monitor battery health,

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The long life of lithium ion batteries makes them the rechargeable of choice for everything from implantable medical devices to wearable consumer electronics. But lithium ion batteries rely on liquid chemistries involving lithium salts dissolved in organic solvents, creating flame risks that would be avoided if the cells were completely solid-state. Now a team of researchers at Tohoku University in

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International Rectifier Corp. (IR) today at PCIM Europe introduced a new generation of energy-efficient Intelligent Power Modules (IPM). The new second generation (Gen2) family of IRAM System-In-Package (SIP) IPMs shrinks and simplifies the design of appliance motor drive applications including air conditioners, fans, compressors and washing machines. Leveraging IR’s advanced Trench Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) and next-generation three-phase gate driver

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Jay Leno’s obsession with automobiles is well known, and the latest addition to his garage is this McLaren P1 hybrid hypercar, star of Leno’s latest YouTube segment. It took Leno just a week to rack up 1,000 miles on his new P1, and with the McLaren CEO on hand, Leno digs deep into the technological prowess of this impressive machine.

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A few months ago, we posted a video of the great Bruce Meyers driving one of Zelectric’s electric Volkswagen Beetles. Bruce was mostly positive about the experience, but stopped just short of endorsing the product – and now we know why: the Bruce Meyers Manx V is out, and it’s 100% electric. Dubbed “New Red”, this electric dune buggy can

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Lithium-ion batteries that last 3 times longer between charges than is the current industry standard are now a reality thanks to new research from the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering. The new way of making lithium-ion batteries — which, humorously, utilizes surgical tubing and one of the key constituents of Silly Putty to great effect — has

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