energy Archives

Capitalist utopias and financial futures of the US oil and gas industry

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Dr High examines the relationship between private equity investment and the projects envisaged by oil industry entrepreneurs.

Drawing on long-term fieldwork involving almost a decade of interviews and observations, Dr Mette High, Director of the University of St Andrews’ Centre for Energy Ethics, UK, investigates what happens when oil industry entrepreneurs with utopic projects and private equity firms looking to invest come together. In this study centring on Weld County, Colorado – with more than 22,000 active […]

Building acoustic computers with tuneable phononic crystals

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Dr Banerjee and colleagues have developed a deaf band-based model to use in building acoustic computers, using tuneable phononic crystals.

For more than two decades, physicists have been investigating wave propagation in phononic crystals, a metamaterial designed to control sound waves. A recent consideration involves using phononic crystals in acoustic computing. Acoustic computers execute basic Boolean algebra computations using acoustic waves. Dirac cones make this possible but achieving them is both very difficult and rare. Professor Sourav Banerjee and his […]

Cascading energy: Explaining fluctuations in the solar wind

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An image of the sun emitting rays of energy, and the Earth's magnetic fields dispersing the energy. Dr Charles Smith has explored fluctuations in solar wind, using the latest theory of fluid dynamics to understand how dissipation of energy might provide better explanations than previously used Alfven wave models.

Originating from the dynamic upper reaches of the Sun’s atmosphere, the influence of solar wind can be felt throughout the solar system. We sat down with Dr Charles Smith at the University of New Hampshire to discuss how the latest theories of fluid dynamics, combined with observations from spacecraft missions, can help us to understand turbulence in the interplanetary plasma. […]

Biofield therapy: Evidence for the health benefits of Johrei

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Professor Kenji Yamamoto researches the effect of Johrei, a form of biofield therapy, on patients with hypothermia, to see if it has health benefits

Johrei is an important form of biofield therapy developed by Mokichi Okada in Japan in 1935. It is said to provide health benefits when a practitioner absorbs life-force energy from the universe and channels it toward the recipient. While it is practised in some countries such as Japan, the US, the UK, Brazil, and Thailand, the mechanisms are not well […]

Combating corrosion in geothermal wells

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Geothermal energy holds the potential to harvest vast amounts of energy from within the Earth’s crust. So far, however, exploitation of geothermal energy can be limited by corrosion – which damages the metal pipes required to carry high-temperature steam generated deep underground. In a new experiment, Andri Thorhallsson and Sigrun Karlsdottir at the University of Iceland show how the problem […]

Understanding and responding to climate change: our favourite climate research from 2021

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An aerial view of sea ice in the Arctic, showing white ice at the top and a blue green sea. The article summarises six key articles relating to climate change research published by Research Outreach in 2021

Climate change solutions must reach across education, agriculture, energy production, politics and policymaking, manufacturing, travel, transport – almost every aspect of life. The six articles highlighted below demonstrate the breadth of research being undertaken by scientists globally as they work to understand the complex impacts of climate change, design new technologies and processes for a greener future, assess the financial […]

Pioneering materials informatics: Clean technologies from molecular design

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The Department of Materials Design and Innovation, University at Buffalo

Tackling global challenges in sustainable energy production calls for the rational design of new generations of clean materials, coupling efficiency with low environmental impact. Materials discovery offers a powerful means to predict structure-property relationships in novel materials, but often lacks the ability to account for the complex interplay of length- and timescales that ultimately determine the potential of a material […]

Inspiration from surfactants gives Li-S cells longer life

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The renewable-fuelled future is reliant on improvements in battery energy density to smooth the grid and power electric vehicles for longer journeys. Lithium-ion cells – the industry standard – are almost at their capacity. Lithium-sulfur cells could be the answer, current technology degrades quickly due to an effect called redox shuttling. Dr Gao Liu, a staff scientist and his team […]

More than a just a simple powerhouse: Structure and function of mitochondria

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Mitochondria are well-known as the “powerhouse” of the cell – but these organelles have many other vital functions. Mitochondria are also heterogeneous, differing in structure and function. Dr Kasturi Mitra of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, USA, leads a research team focused on understanding the relationship between structure and function of mitochondria, in both health and disease. Dr Mitra’s […]

Building waveguides for everyday photonic circuits

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From mobile phones to computers, the devices we use every day are almost universal in their use of electricity for transmitting information through their circuits. However, Dr Richard Hildner at the University of Groningen believes that the capabilities of many modern technologies could improve if they were combined with circuits which operate using light. His team’s work has now brought […]