Electrical power

http://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-have-conducted-the-first-thorium-salt-experiments-in-over-40-years#.WaUkb5ppSUB.facebook Netherlands-based nuclear power provider, NRG, are taking a gamble. They’re conducting experiments that could see a shift from uranium-based nuclear power to thorium. There has been the historical battle between using uranium or thorium as a nuclear fuel. Uranium provided a potential source of weapons-grade plutonium. A significant advantage of using thorium over uranium is it doesn’t →

https://futurism.com/people-are-using-old-laptop-batteries-to-build-their-own-versions-of-teslas-powerwall/ Tesla’s Powerwall was intended to provide a convenient way for homeowners to store electricity for future use, such as when the power goes out. But with a $5,500 price tag, they haven’t been affordable for many consumers.  Some who had been interested in the tech, however, decided to try to make their own: constructed their own powerwalls by utilizing →

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/benchtalk/4458731/Whipping-a-cheap-LED-PSU-into-usable-shape This interesting article analyses some cheap mains AC to 12V DC power supplies and how thet can be fixed to work OK. With some modifications they can be used to provide power to LED lighting. The writer of this article has a continuing love-hate relationship with Cheap Chinese Chotchkes – in this case, 18W power →

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/08/16/morgan-stanley-predicts-market-grid-storage-will-explode-next-3-years/ A new report authored by Stephen Byrd, a utility and cleantech analyst at Morgan Stanley, and Adam Jonas, its auto analyst, shows that they are bullish on the market for grid storage products. “Demand for energy storage from the utility sector will grow more than the market anticipates by 2019–2020,” the pair says. They predict →

http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/green-energy-will-overtake-fossil-fuels-by-2020-morgan-stanley-analyst-states?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1501961581 According to leading global investment firm Morgan Stanley the continuous drop in costs and the benefits surrounding green energy make it a rapidly more appealing option than its carbon-emitting cousins. A top analyst at the firm says green energy will overtake fossil fuels by 2020. There was no clear answer what they ment by “overtake”, but →

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/07/31/study-finds-that-storage-prices-are-falling-faster-than-pv-and-wind-technologies/#.WX_20l9ZtdU.twitter Long-term R&D spending played a critical role in achieving cost reductions. Energy storage projects may bring the cost per kWh of a lithium-ion battery down from $10,000/kWh in the early 1990’s to $100/kWh in 2019, according to a new study written by a research team from University of California and TU Munich in Germany, →

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40558758?SThisFB It seems that using fusion energy will be promising looking “around the corner” technology for quite many years according to a new version of a European “road map”. The road map drawn up by scientists and engineers at EUROfusion lays out the technological hurdles to be overcome. We will have to wait until the second half of →

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod Here are some pictures what lightning can do to a tree – example why you need lightning protection on buildings. →

I have earlier posted DC to AC inverter teardown that showed wat was inside one cheap “modified sinewave” inverter. Now I do a tear-down to a more expensive “true sineware” inverter PI150S from Velleman. This inverter convers 12V DC to nice sinewave 230V 50Hz AC power  (up to 150W). View to front and back. This unit →

http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4458391/How-smart-is-it-to-deploy-smart-meters-on-the-smart-grid-?utm_content=buffer93829&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer Conventional grids are ‘dumb’ and ‘blind’ since they do not monitor themselves using various modern sensor technology like those deployed in a typical smart grid architecture. In a smart grid architecture, numerous sensors are deployed throughout the grid infrastructure that can monitor, test, and communicate. This may even lead to self-repair and healing/removing and →