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Plans to build a high speed railway line from London to Birmingham could be threatened by a small colony of bats, the Government’s environmental advisers have warned... the bats could be a “show-stopper” ...

A team from the National University of Singapore's Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Initiative (NUSNNI), led by principle investigator Dr Xie Xian Ning, has developed the world's first energy-storage membrane. Electrical energy storage and its management is becoming an urgent issue due to climate change and energy shortage. Existing technologies such as rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors are based on complicated configurations including liquid electrolytes, and suffer from difficulties in scaling-up and high fabrication costs. There is also growing public concern and awareness of the impact of traditional energy sources on the environment, spurring a continued search for alternative, green, sustainable energy sources....

A group of gear heads from Croatia has produced a car designed to show that “electric vehicle” doesn’t have to mean “something my granola-eating neighbor drives.” Rimac Automobil, named for its founder, Mate Rimac, unveiled the Concept_One at the International Auto Show in Frankfurt. Designed as a sleek sports car it is powered entirely by batteries, and can, the company says, hit 62 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds, and reach a limit of 190 mph. The batteries carry 92 kilowatt-hours, or enough to power an average American home for three days -- or drive the car 372 miles, enough...

A stretchy binder material that's compatible with existing factories could help electric cars and portable electronics go 30 percent longer. A stretchy binder material that's compatible with existing factories could help electric cars and portable electronics go 30 percent longer. One approach to the problem is to structure these anodes in a totally different way, for example growing shaggy arrays of silicon nanowires that can bend, swell, and move around as lithium enters and exits. This approach is being commercialized by Amprius, a startup in Palo Alto, California. But growing nanowires requires new processes that aren't normally used in battery...

A Pittsburgh company says its battery has the long life and cheap cost needed to be practical for energy storage. Utilities need cheap, long-lasting ways to store the excess energy produced by power plants, especially as intermittent power from solar and wind farms is added to the mix. Unfortunately, the batteries available for grid-level storage are either too expensive or don't last for the thousands of cycles needed to make them cost-effective. A new battery developed by Aquion Energy in Pittsburgh uses simple chemistry—a water-based electrolyte and abundant materials such as sodium and manganese—and is expected to cost $300 for...

A binding agent found in everything from ice cream to cosmetics could let lithium-ion cells hold much more energy. Lithium-ion batteries could hold up to 10 times as much energy per cell if silicon anodes were used instead of graphite ones. But manufacturers don't use silicon because such anodes degrade quickly as the battery is charged and discharged. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Clemson University think they might have found the ingredient that will make silicon anodes work—a common binding agent and food additive derived from algae and used in many household products. They say this material...

A beautiful Brazilian soap star has the lead role in her own daytime drama, which casts George Soros, the billionaire financier of lefty causes, as a heavy who not only broke her heart, but also reneged on a promise to give her an Upper East Side apartment worth $1.9 million. The drama will be staged in Manhattan Supreme Court, where 28-year-old Adriana Ferreyr yesterday filed a blockbuster $50 million suit charging, among other things, that the frisky octogenarian slapped her around while they were in bed discussing his real-estate betrayal. The sultry actress and the mogul, who's worth some $14.5...

A Japanese research group has developed a solid state lithium battery that appears to perform just as well as conventional liquid lithium ion batteries. The group has published their results in Nature Materials and claim to have found a solid electrolyte that performs on a par with current liquid technology, and does so over a much broader temperature range and because it’s solid should be more compact as well as less sensitive to physical damage and fire hazard. Lithium ion batteries are currently used in a wide variety of consumer electronics (and electric vehicles) due to their energy density, re-chargeability...

DEER ISLE, Maine — Before May 17, Kacen Pedrucci was a normal 15-month-old boy. At his Deer Isle home, he was beginning to talk and was walking around happily, exploring his surroundings and putting things in his mouth as toddlers do. He always had a smile and a sweet disposition. One of his favorite books was The Lion King, which was a “talking book” — by pushing a button on the side of the page, jungle sounds could be heard. But for the last three months, Kacen has been at death’s door, in and out of doctors’ offices, emergency rooms...

GM and Nissan tout systems to reuse the expensive battery packs. At $10,000 a piece, electric-car batteries are too expensive to throw out or recycle into scrap materials. And even after a decade of use, when they can't perform well enough to meet the vehicle's demands, they could still be valuable for other uses. Nissan and GM have both recently announced ways they might make some money from them. Many issues remain unresolved, not the least of which is whether the automakers would need to buy back the batteries from car owners, or whether dealers would simply lease the battery...

A combination of two ordinary materials – graphite and water – could produce energy storage systems that perform on par with lithium ion batteries, but recharge in a matter of seconds and have an almost indefinite lifespan. Dr. Dan Li, of the Monash University Department of Materials Engineering, and his research team have been working with a material called graphene, which could form the basis of the next generation of ultrafast energy storage systems. “Once we can properly manipulate this material, your iPhone, for example, could charge in a few seconds, or possibly faster.” said Dr. Li. Graphene is the...

Modified carbon nanotubes can store solar energy indefinitely, then be recharged by exposure to the sun. A novel application of carbon nanotubes, developed by MIT researchers, shows promise as an innovative approach to storing solar energy for use whenever it’s needed. Storing the sun’s heat in chemical form — rather than converting it to electricity or storing the heat itself in a heavily insulated container — has significant advantages, since in principle the chemical material can be stored for long periods of time without losing any of its stored energy. The problem with that approach has been that until now...

Trapping sulphur particles in graphene cages produces a cathode material that could finally make lithium batteries capable of powering electric cars Lithium batteries have become the portable powerhouses of modern society. If you own a phone, mp3 player or laptop, you will already own a lithium battery. More than likely, you will have several. But good as they are, lithium batteries are not up to the demanding task of powering the next generation of electric vehicles. They just don't have enough juice or the ability to release it quickly over and over again. The problem lies with the cathodes in...

University of Minnesota engineering researchers in the College of Science and Engineering have recently discovered a new alloy material that converts heat directly into electricity. This revolutionary energy conversion method is in the early stages of development, but it could have wide-sweeping impact on creating environmentally friendly electricity from waste heat sources. Researchers say the material could potentially be used to capture waste heat from a car's exhaust that would heat the material and produce electricity for charging the battery in a hybrid car. Other possible future uses include capturing rejected heat from industrial and power plants or temperature differences...

One of Barack Obama's favorite fantasies is that Americans will soon abandon their SUVs and pick-ups in favor of battery operated cars. Implementing energy policies to "boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe" is part of his overall plan to force us to go green. The supposed upside is the standard line of worshippers of the green god – reduced greenhouse gas emissions and a cleaner environment. But, like so much of the hope-and-change agenda, the electric car idea isn't off to a very good start, and new research finds it may not be so green after all either.Obama...

TAMPA — Stefani Hernandez was walking her two Weimaraners outside her apartment complex near International Plaza when she got a weird feeling, like someone was behind her. "I turned around," the 26-year-old remembers, "and there he was, inches from me." He told her she had nice dogs. Qingnong Xiao, 48, is an associate professor at the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science, earning $108,344 a year. He is a hurricane expert with publications in scientific journals. Hernandez didn't know any of that. She didn't know him. But she knew he made her nervous. So she went inside her...

Silicon Valley startup gives details about its technology for making highly efficient yet inexpensive solar cells. A startup that has been working in stealth mode for several years says it has achieved a record solar-cell efficiency of 28.2 percent, nearing the theoretical maximum of 33.5 percent. The mark is roughly 2 percentage points higher than a record set last year—a major advance in an industry that typically measures improvements in tenths of a percent. Alta Devices, founded in 2007 and based in Santa Clara, California, says its innovative techniques lend themselves to large-scale manufacturing. Improving efficiency is essential if solar...

Punches aren’t the only thing a Bonita Springs woman is accused of throwing Monday night. Deputies say she also threw pancakes at men in a McDonald's parking lot. Mariel G. Goodrich, 21, of the 8800 block of Colonnades Court, was arrested Monday by Collier deputies at the 700 block of Vanderbilt Beach Road. According to a Collier County Sheriff’s Office report: While a few unidentified men were purchasing food from a McDonald's drive-through, they began a conversation with Goodrich and her friend who were sitting in a gray Honda Ridgeline truck. Goodrich then threw her pancakes out the car window...

To speed along the success of the electric car, improvements in battery chemistry will matter as much as the price of oil. Batteries are now "part of the clean-tech boom, with all the dewy and righteous credibility of thin-film solar and offshore windmills," Seth Fletcher asserts in Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy. Righteous? Surely. Credible? Maybe. As Mr. Fletcher tells it, the history of batteries over the past 100 years is basically a series of failed efforts to power automobiles, with a recent fruitful detour into electronic gear. For a century we have been trying,...

A startup hopes to commercialize a novel design that features fluid electrodes. Last year, the battery startup A123 Systems spun out another company, called 24M, to develop a new kind of battery meant to make electric vehicles go farther and cost less. Now a research paper published in Advanced Energy Materials reveals the first details about how that battery would work. It also addresses the challenges in bringing the battery to market. A big problem with the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids is that only about 25 percent of the battery's volume is taken up by...