Electricity consumption from the manufacture of artificial intelligence (AI) chips has soared by more than 350 percent worldwide between 2023 and 2024, according to new research from Greenpeace East Asia. In East Asia, the global hub for AI semiconductor production, growing electricity demand from AI chipmaking has been met primarily …
Scientists from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and Pacific Power, Australia, have produced a synthesis of carbon monoxide and hydrogen by combining methane, carbon dioxide and the sunlight, which makes it possible to store and transport solar energy. When the synthesised gas is changed back into carbon …
FROM this year, Chicago (us), will start using three prototype buses powered by fuel cells of a type which were aban- doned after the Gemini space pro- gramme in 1996, but resurrected by Ballard Power Systems of Vancouver - a small Canadian firm of engineers. The only thing coming out …
Is your electricity supply regular? Is your drinking water free of germs? Do your telephones work smoothly? These questions would evoke a unanimous No from most of us. It is now a widely held belief that most of our public services are marked by corruption and callousness. Now a recent …
In a worldwide search for sustainable development, the energy sector seems to be a viable target for radireform. Even in the dominant coal-fired power industry, much thought has gone into reducing carbon emission for unit power generation. The OECD countries, over this century, have shown a good result on that …
EXACTLY 16 months after the UK government stopped aiding research into wave power on the grounds that it had no commercial future, the world's first wave-powered electricity generator has been launched off the shore of Scotland. Promising mass production of power at a wondrously cheap rate, the new electricity generator …
ELECTRIC cars have long been viewed as environment- friendly substitutes to the conventional petrol and diesel driven cars, But one of the main problems confronting the electric car manufacturers is the long time - sometimes as much as 12 hours - that it takes to recharge the vehicles' batteries. Now, …
THE chairperson of the Atomic Energy Regulation Board (AERB), A Gopalakrishnan, has urged the media and public to take a sensible view of the accidental leak of radioactive waste from the Waste Immobilisation Plant (WIP) of the Tarapur Atomic Power Plant (TAPS) and "not to blow up the incident to …
Dorvial Michel, a scientist at Compagnie Industrielle de Tubes et Lamps Electriques Citel, a French company, has devised a lightning arrester. The device has an external metal casing containing a neutral gas (that does not react easily), a metal electrode and a fuse. Under normal conditions, the electrode is electrically …
A $91 million electricity generation plant, jointly financed by a French construction firm and the Ivorian government, promises to metamorphose the west African nation of Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) from an importer of power to a major supplier in the region. The plant will generate 100 megawatts (mw) initially, which …
GEOTHERMAL power is fast emerging as a significant source for electricity in several island nations, mainly in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific regions (The Royal Geographical Society Magazine, Vol 68, No 3). For instance, Indonesia is setting up 2 geothermal power plants each of 55 mw capacity on the …
In India, the Union ministry of non-conventional energy sources is pursuing various R&D; projects to harness the geothermal energy available. About 340 hot springs have been identified in the country, with temperatures varying from 60oC to 130oC. A 5kw experimental power plant is being operated at Manikaran in Himachal Pradesh. …
To conserve energy. the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board has introduced a range of distribution transformers called Amorphous Metal-core Distribution Transformers (AMDT). These transformers could reduce the "noload po"wer loss", or idling loss to 60 watts (w) as compared to 260 w by a conventional transformer. Says Tamil Nadu's minister for …
Eskom, the state-owned electricity utility n South Africa is proving to a major asset for its government. While the Nelson Vandela administration is izruggling to keep its electorat promise of "providing a better life for all" in other ifeas, the power sector aic,rsears to have exceeded ectations. In an announcement …
MOST burgeoning cities are cursed with piles of rotting garbage and endless hours without electricity. But now, Western-Paques (India) Limited, a subsidiary of the Rs 1,000 crore Western India group, is offering a solution to both the problems, rather using one to address the other. The company has developed a …
THE North is persuading India to accept joint implementation (JI) programmes to curtail its emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas. High level delegations from Canada and Germany visited Delhi recently to hold talks with the Indian government officials and experts on national energy policy issues. The reason behind …
PLANTS support human life. Period. Today, a majority of people in the developing countries depend on fuelwood, dung, charcoal and agro-wastes for their cooking, heating and other energy requirements. A flicker of electricity is also produced from agricultural and other wastes. Subsequent to the oil shock in the '70s, and …
Following in Maharashtra's footsteps, the West Bengal power department has unveiled a package including time-of-the-day (ToD) metering and tariff concessions to cut costs and raise non-peak hour demand for electricity. "The West Bengal State Electricity Board (WBSEB) has been facing a widening gap between peak and off-peak demand," says West …
WHAT are the alternatives with us to rectify the imbalance in power generation in the future? To date, we have not only failed to generate power optimally from our existing resources, we have also failed to utilise the energy in an efficient manner. This book says that the situation is …
What are the recommendations from the study, Energy for Tomorrow's World, that are relevant to India? Energy for Tomorrow's World is a global study, where no particular country has been specified. But 1 of the 9 regional working groups was on South Asia, and the people involved talked confidently about …
The US Department of Energy and a Maryland-based company, Fusion Lighting, have jointly developed sulphur light bulbs, which experts claim could be the light sources of the future (New Scientist, Vol 144, No 1951). These bulbs are small glass spheres filled with a mixture of sulphur and argon which when …
