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A look at your account balance has just given you a shock: what's going on here? While you have spent the last few weeks in the office and definitely haven't travelled abroad, your account balance shows that you bought electronics in Turkey and ate out in France. In such situations, customers just have to call their banks to get their money back. But this often means that the banks lose the money.
How can credit cards be better protected? Exercising caution with your wallet and keeping the card in your hands when using it is no longer enough: a restaurant's card reading device can be infected with Trojans without the restaurant owner being aware of it. These Trojans then pass the customer's credit card information on to third parties. Customers are also at risk when they purchase something online. For this reason, banks have introduced if-then rules that stop purchases from other countries if a certain amount is exceeded. In such cases, the card reading device's display shows a note indicating that the bank has refused to make the payment. Until now, bank employees have examined fraud cases manually and applied rules accordingly. But in recent years, cases of credit card fraud have exploded in number, and this approach has quickly reached its limits.

Rapid texting

The "MINTify rule" software now supports bank employees and helps them apply appropriate rules. The software was developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS in Sankt Augustin, in cooperation with their partners at PAYMINT. "Our software analyzes recent transactions that are stored in the credit card company's database. Depending on the size of the company, there can be as many as one million data sets per month," says Dr. Stefan Rüping, group manager at IAIS. "For these transactions, the software searches all possible rules and selects the ten to one hundred best options. The best thing about this program is that it finds the most suitable rules in 30 minutes to an hour." Over time, the researchers aim to make the system even faster, with the procedure lasting just a few minutes. Once this goal has been achieved, the software will also be attractive for companies trading in equity markets.

The banks must define a ratio between the levels of security they want for specific types of cards and consequently how many customers may then not be able to use their cards. The more fraudsters are stopped, the more real customers will face the problem of not being able to make a payment. In an ideal scenario, all fraudsters would be stopped and all customers would be served, but this is not feasible. A more realistic ratio would be "four fraudsters to one customer." Based on this aim, "MINTify rule" can initiate its analysis and select the best possible rules. "At some point it becomes clear whether or not a transaction was legal. The software can learn from this data," says Rüping. In addition, the rules that the security application finds are easy to understand. As a result, bank employees can either take the time to validate the rules or activate them directly.

The "MINTify rule" software is already being used at some banks as well as at a leading European payment processor, and provides protection for millions of credit cards. The software could also provide support in a number of other areas: for instance, it could help doctors at hospitals in the process of selecting medications.
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[color=#006600][/color]The radiotracer was specifically designed to measure, indirectly, the local brain release of mu-opioid, a Researchers used electricity on certain regions in the brain of a patient with chronic, severe facial pain to release an opiate-like substance thats considered one of the bodys most powerful painkillers.The findings expand on previous work done at the University of Michigan, Harvard University and the City University of New York where researchers delivered electricity through sensors on the skulls of chronic migraine patients, and found a decrease in the intensity and pain of their headache attacks. However, the researchers then couldnt completely explain how or why.The current findings help explain what happens in the brain that decreases pain during the brief sessions of electricity, says Alexandre DaSilva, assistant professor of biologic and materials sciences at the U-M School of Dentistry and director of the schools Headache & Orofacial Pain Effort Lab.In their current study, DaSilva and colleagues intravenously administered a radiotracer that reached important brain areas in a patient with trigeminal neuropathic pain (TNP), a type of chronic, severe facial pain. They applied the electrodes and electrically stimulated the skull right above the motor cortex of the patient for 20 minutes during a PET scan (positron emission tomography). The stimulation is called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDnatural substance that alters pain perception. In order for opiate to function, it needs to bind to the mu-opioid receptor (the study assessed levels of this receptor).This is arguably the main resource in the brain to reduce pain," DaSilva said. are stimulating the release of our ( own resources to provide analgesia. Instead of giving more pharmaceutical opiates, we are directly targeting and activating the same areas in the brain on which they work. (Therefore), we can increase the power of this pain-killing effect and even decrease the use of opiates in general, and consequently avoid their side effects, including addiction.Most pharmaceutical opiates, especially morphine, target the mu-opioid receptors in the brain, DaSilva says.The dose of electricity is very small, he says. Consider that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which is used to treat depression and other psychiatric conditions, uses amperage in the brain ranging from 200 to 1600 milliamperes (mA). The tDCS protocol used in DaSilva study delivered 2 mA, considerably lower than ECT.Just one session immediately improved the patient threshold for cold pain by 36 percent, but not the patient clinical, TNP/facial pain. This suggests that repetitive electrical stimulation over several sessions are required to have a lasting effect on clinical pain as shown in their previous migraine study, DaSilva says.The manuscript appears in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry. The group just completed another study with more subjects, and the initial results seem to confirm the findings above, but further analysis is necessary.Next, researchers will investigate long-term effects of electric stimulation on the brain and find specific targets in the brain that may be more effective depending on the pain condition and patients status. For example, the frontal areas may be more helpful for chronic pain patients with depression Symptoms.

The State of Illinois is facing an important renewable energy deadline in 2025, and Northwestern University's Harold H. Kung has a piece of advice for Springfield to consider now: Investment Tax Credit.
llinois is obligated to begin increasing its production of electricity from renewable sources, and a significant chunk of that will be wind power. Wind farms are expensive to build, resulting in higher energy costs for consumers and some risk to investors (who are needed to stimulate wind farm development). Fortunately, a number of government tax incentives can help reduce that burden.

Kung, an energy and sustainability expert, analyzed the impact of two incentives -- Investment Tax Credit and Production Tax Credit -- in six new wind farm scenarios. He found Investment Tax Credit to be more attractive for consumers and investors alike. It provides a lower cost to consumers for electricity produced from wind and a faster return on investment for investors.

"Because of the high capital cost of wind power, electricity generated from wind is more costly than from existing conventional sources," Kung said. "Government incentives can help mitigate the additional costs. It is useful to have estimates of the potential financial effects of various policies, particularly from the consumer's point of view."

Kung is a professor of chemical and biological engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and a Dorothy Ann and Clarence L. Ver Steeg Distinguished Research Fellow.

His analysis is published in the journal Energy Policy.

Illinois has enacted Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) to reduce the carbon footprint of electricity consumption. By 2025, 25 percent of the electricity consumed in the state must be from renewable sources, such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power. Of the renewable energy portion to be phased in through that date, three-quarters is to come from wind power.

Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and Production Tax Credit (PTC) both have a direct monetary effect on the wind electricity price, Kung said. In the short term, ITC is more favorable to investors (it brings about a faster return on investment) and to consumers (due to lower electricity price). But, he added, the benefit of ITC disappears when the capital cost is fully depreciated whereas the PTC could continue for as long as the policy permits.

Other incentives that could lower the capital cost of installation of wind power include policies that encourage and result in technology improvement, land rezoning and installation and upgrade of transmission lines.

Kung's analysis focused on new wind power to be installed within the RPS period beginning in 2011 and ending in 2024 with energy production beginning in the following year (from 2012 to 2025). He used three sets of historic data -- retail electricity sale, electricity generation and capacity -- as bases to construct different electricity production growth and incentive scenarios up until 2025. Kung derived policy implications from his results.

This conceptual study focused on using Oscillating Wave Column (OWC) which is considered as the most efficient way to utilize sea waves, the largest power source on earth, to generate electricity. Previous studies have revealed that global wave power is estimated to be 1TW (1 terrawatt=1012W).

Countries where numerous seafronts surround the country could tap into an alternative source of power generation which could be generated by the waves during the different seasons of the year. In addition, the findings of this study could be adapted to evaluate the capability to produce electricity on shore such as from lakes and rivers with undulated waves.

Researchers began the study with the derivation of mathematical equations for each component in the electrical generation system after taking into consideration the sea wave as the input to facilitate the workability of the entire system. The team of researchers verified the validity of the developed mathematical equations for each stage of the research. This was done to establish its workability. Electrical and mechanical relationships were derived to relate the workability of each component in the system for the purpose of electricity generation. Numerous experiments were conducted to optimize the results in this study which would eventually lead to the generation of electricity. The results obtained from the experiments indicated that the proposed model appears practical could be implemented.

The photovoltaics industry is booming, and the market for solar farms is growing quickly all over the world. Yet, the task of planning PV power plants to make them as efficient as possible is far from trivial. Fraunhofer researchers, working with Siemens Energy Photovoltaics, have developed software that simplifies conceptual design.
The share of renewable energies in the overall energy mix is rising rapidly worldwide. With three-figure growth rates, photovoltaics (PV) play a major role. According to market research organizations, the PV market grew by 139 percent in the year 2010. Germany is among the world's leaders in this technology that uses solar cells to convert sunlight straight into electrical energy. Yet the task of planning large-scale PV power plants spanning several square kilometers is a complex one. With customer specifications, regulations and government subsidy programs to consider, designers must also account for numerous other factors including weather, climate, topography and location. These factors, in turn, influence the selection and placement of the individual components which include the PV arrays with their solar modules, inverters and wiring, not to mention access roads. Until now, engineers have designed solar power plants using CAD programs, with every layout and every variation painstakingly generated separately. This is a very time-consuming approach. To improve a planned power plant in terms of certain criteria, or to compare different concepts with one another, oftentimes the entire planning process has to be repeated.

Several hundred plant designs at the push of a button

In the future, this approach will be improved considerably: researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM in Kaiserslautern, in collaboration with Siemens Energy Photovoltaics, have developed a new planning software that makes it possible to build solar power plants better and more quickly. "Our algorithms programmed exclusively for the Siemens PVplanet (PV Plant Engineering Toolbox) software provide engineers with several hundred different plant designs in a single operation. It takes less than a minute of computation time," ITWM researcher Dr. Ingmar Schüle points out. The only user inputs are parameters such as the topography of the construction site and the module and inverter types that will be used. The user can also change a number of parameters - such as the orientation, spacing and inclination of the solar arrays - to study the impact on the quality of the planning result.

Cost estimates and income calculations included

To evaluate the designed PV power plants, an income calculation is performed that includes a simulation of the weather in the region in question, the course of the sun throughout the year and the physical module performance including shading effects. With the results of this computation and an estimate of the investment and operating costs, the planning tool can come up with a figure for the LCOE (levelized cost of energy). By comparing the plant with a large number of similar configurations, the planners can investigate the sensitivity of the various parameters to find the right solution from a large array of options. "The software assists the expert with decisionmaking and helps with the design of the best possible PV power plant for the site involved.

Which one is 'best' depends on a number of aspects - from the customer's objectives to the site and environmental conditions, but also on the financing concept and the financial incentives for photovoltaics in the target region. All of these criteria are taken into account." Schüle points out. Dr. Martin Bischoff, project manager at Siemens AG, Energy Sector, is also convinced of this approach: "Aside savings, more than anything else the planning tool provides an overview of the scope for optimization. This provides the best possible support for planning the most cost-efficient systems. There has been no other planning software with this scope or level of detail until now." Interested individuals can get an impression of the successful teamwork between ITWM and Siemens Energy Photovoltaics at the Intersolar Europe trade fair in Munich, June 13-15, 2012: the software celebrates its public premiere at the Siemens booth.

Professor Afshin Izadian, a researcher at the Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy at IUPUI, has invented a power inverter that employs just a single switching transistor and generates infinite-level voltages.

Power inverters are at the heart of several renewable energy technologies. Solar power, battery storage, electric vehicles, motor drives and manufacturing robots all use inverters to generate AC power efficiently.

However, the current inverters with multiple switching transistors generate limited voltage levels, are heavy, generate unwanted harmonics (voltage frequencies) and require filters to reduce the harmful effects to the electric grid.

Izadian's invention, the result of a creative reconfiguration of an electrical circuit during a laboratory experiment, would make inverters cheaper, lighter and therefore more efficient than current models.

"The thrilling moment of any research is when your thoughts, designs and implementations come out right and you reach the goal," Izadian said. "An on-demand change of voltage polarity might not seem very exciting, but it becomes increasingly important if you can accomplish it while maintaining desired voltage amplitudes."

Izadian, who has a doctorate in electrical engineering and is a former postdoctoral researcher from UCLA, teaches in the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI. While studying how voltage levels and polarities are created in inverters, he made his discovery. In a creative moment at his lab bench, he began reconfiguring an inverter circuit and discovered a new property technique to create infinite voltage levels and invert the voltage polarity of power circuits. This discovery in turn leads to a corollary insight that the researcher employed to create the new class of inverters.

Not only did the bench test work, it lead to the discovery of several other circuits and controllers for high-power inverters with lower switching loss, higher voltage performance and lighter reconfigured circuits.

For example, unwanted harmonics are greatly reduced with Izadian's invention. This means car manufacturers can reduce the size and insulation of traction motors so that electric vehicles can be made cheaper. The size and weight of the power electronics can also be reduced, which can boost fuel economy in hybrid cars and buses. Such advantages translate into wider adoption of green technologies and more affordable renewable energy for homes, vehicles and businesses.

"The Lugar Center is a tremendous asset to the school's creative and innovative research process," said David J. Russomanno, dean of the School of Engineering and Technology. "We are delighted with Dr. Izadian's work and the possibility that his inverter can impact the renewable energy market. His efforts are a quintessential example of the cutting-edge research that enhances the school's image and reputation and allows us to compete in the renewable energy arena."

Izadian's work is under review by a technical journal, and several large companies have shown interest in the new inverters. They are interested in how Izadian's breakthrough can result in simpler, cheaper and smaller systems with better performance than today's technology.

Izadian has several patents pending on his invention and is seeking research funding to complete the development of the analysis and controls needed for commercial viability. Products could be ready for the marketplace in as little as three years.

In recent years the electronics industry has gained notoriety for creating an endless stream of disposable products that make their way at life's end to developing countries, where poor people without safety gear cut and burn out valuable materials, spilling contaminants into their water, air, and lungs.

Solar modules contain some of the same potentially dangerous materials as electronics, including silicon tetrachloride, cadmium, selenium, and sulfur hexafluoride, a potent greenhouse gas. So as solar moves from the fringe to the mainstream, insiders and watchdog groups are beginning to talk about producer responsibility and recycling in an attempt to sidestep the pitfalls of electronic waste and retain the industry's green credibility.

Solar modules have an expected lifespan of at least 20 years so most have not yet reached the end of their useful lives. But now, before a significant number of dead panels pile up, is the perfect time to implement a responsible program, according to Sheila Davis, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

The nonprofit environmental group has been a leader in recognizing the problems of e-waste, including hazardous disposal sites in the Bay Area left by the semiconductor industry. Now it is focused on the solar boom in Silicon Valley. Last year the group published a report calling for a "just and sustainable" solar industry, and this year it issued a scorecard of solar companies. The scorecard evaluates recycling and extended producer responsibility for the product's end of life, called takeback; supply chain and green jobs; chemical use and lifecycle analysis; and disclosure.

Solar energy is the most widely available resource we have. Every hour, enough solar energy strikes Earth to meet human energy needs for more than a year, according to NASA. Now the solar industry is poised for huge growth in the United States, thanks to policy changes, incentives, technological improvements, and economies of scale. Solar photovoltaics have recently become less expensive than nuclear energy on a per-kilowatt-hour basis, according to a new report from Duke University. Also, solar is widely expected to reach cost parity with fossil fuels in most markets by 2013.

In 2009, Greentech Media estimated that U.S. solar demand will continue to increase about 50 percent annually through 2012. The report said the US capacity installed during 2008 was about 320 megawatts, and it predicted that about 2,000 megawatts would be installed during 2012. Such growth would put US capacity ahead of solar leader Spain and potentially Germany as well.

While most of the new modules will likely have a long, productive life, factory scrap, transport breakages, and field failures are ready for recycling now. Jennifer Woolwich is collecting these broken solar modules in a warehouse near Phoenix.

She founded her company PV Recycling in February 2009 after estimating that she could harvest 500 panels a week from these sources. She is not yet collecting at that capacity, nor does she have enough panels to begin recycling them, but she is talking with solar manufacturers in an effort to win their recycling business.

"Of those we interviewed, 100 percent want recycling," she said. "Eighty percent want an independent third-party doing the recycling."

Woolwich said she has seen a quick evolution in solar manufacturers' attitudes toward recycling: "Last year, there was kind of a 'wait and see, we're not sure how this is going to work' attitude. Over the past 12 months, I've seen a 180. I've seen companies who are hiring consultants to research their whole value chain to identify waste, including the end of life of modules. We've received calls from consumers asking us which companies have takeback programs in place."

Solar companies tend to be secretive about their product recipes, making some manufacturers cautious about, yet conceptually open to, third-party recycling.

"We guarantee that intellectual property will not be put at risk," Woolwich said. "We're not interested in reverse engineering or selling company secrets. We have certificates of destruction that we provide."

For now, though, some companies are doing their own recycling.

SolarWorld, which received an 88 out of 100 on the toxics coalition's scorecard, has been recycling its own panels since 2003 at its main factory in Freiberg, Germany. That factory now receives broken panels from its U.S. plants in Cabrillo, Calif., Hillsboro, Ore., and Vancouver, Wash.

"The fact is, there isn't much to recycle," said Ben Santarris, a spokesman for SolarWorld. "In the future we might expand recycling to our U.S. plants or contract with a third-party recycler."

First Solar earned a rating of 67 on the scorecard. Headquartered in Tempe, Ariz., it has recycling facilities at its manufacturing sites in Perrysburg, Ohio; Frankfurt (Oder), Germany; and Kulim, Malaysia. Lisa Krueger, vice president of sustainable development, said that so far the company is primarily recycling manufacturing scrap.

"It's our intention that there would be other recycling facilities worldwide as you get into those volumes," she said.

Solar modules employ a variety of technologies, and even models within the same technology can have different ingredients. These materials may or may not be classified as toxic depending on who is regulating them.

Dustin Mulvaney is a scientist who works on solar issues at the University of California, Berkeley, and serves as a consultant to the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. He has analyzed solar modules currently on the market and has outlined for each its key ingredients, including potentially toxic elements and materials that would be valuable to recover in recycling.

Used in SolarWorld modules, crystalline photovoltaic is the oldest and most widespread solar technology in the United States, holding 57 percent market share in 2009, according to Greentech Media. "As far as hazardous materials go, you're primarily talking about lead," Mulvaney said.

A thin film technology called cadmium telluride makes up about 21 percent of the U.S. market. First Solar panels use this technology.

Cadmium may be carcinogenic. Exposure affects the lungs and kidneys and can be fatal. "It's gene toxic and a mutagen, so it has the ability to affect DNA, meaning it could affect reproduction and future generations' DNA," Mulvaney said.

Cadmium is technically banned by the European Union's Restriction on Hazardous Substances directive, although the policy currently allows an exemption for its use in solar modules.

Still, there's not a lot of data about whether cadmium is toxic in the alloy form in which it's used in thin film. And cadmium isn't likely to go away anytime soon, as it is uniquely efficient at absorbing light.

Another thin film material, copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), also has a cadmium layer. Indium is a potentially hazardous substance, too, particularly in the form of indium tin oxide, Mulvaney said. Studies have linked it to pulmonary disease in flat-screen TV recycling facilities. And selenium has been documented to be a hazardous material.

While CIGS currently has a market share of just 6 percent, amorphous silicon, which also has an indium tin oxide layer, holds 16 percent.

California's Department of Toxic Substances Control has taken note of the European Union's concern about cadmium and is researching the chemical and physical makeup of various types of modules.

"We think some solar panels, probably the cadmium thin film type, might be hazardous waste when shredded or disposed of in a landfill," said Charles Corcoran, a hazardous substances scientist at the department.

Only panels classified as hazardous would fall under the jurisdiction of the department. It is considering regulatory options to try to steer end users toward recycling rather than disposal.

"That gets a little complicated because California and U.S. regulations aren't necessarily in sync," Corcoran said. "An option might be to transport it out of state where disposal is legal."

Today California has no solar module recycling facilities. But recycling locally is an important tenet of an ethical, sustainable industry, said the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition's Davis. Recycling locally reduces the process' carbon footprint.

"It would also make people more conscious about what goes into the products," Davis said. "And it would create local jobs."

Extended producer responsibility, including module recycling, is currently an expense rather than a source of profit for companies, including Solar World and First Solar.

"As we get to scale, we hope those costs will come down," Krueger said.

A dedicated recycler like Woolwich is counting on economies of scale. Her business plan also includes various revenue streams, including reclaiming and selling materials and providing a service of managing manufacturers' collection and recycling systems.

Davis said recycling costs could be reduced if manufacturers would take the notion of extended producer responsibility to the next level: the design phase.

"If you don't look at the recycling when you're designing the product, then it's really, really difficult to recycle," Davis said. "But if you know you're going to have to pay for the recycling at the end of life, you might make the necessary design changes in your product now to reduce that cost."

Mulvaney said that if the government were to set a price on carbon emissions, that would also help make solar recycling more affordable. Because turning sand into crystals takes 70 to 80 percent of the energy used to make crystalline photovoltaics, he said recycling silicon would "save so much energy in production, it could become a money saver."

Still, most companies that are beginning recycling programs today are proceeding under the assumption that recycling will be a cost. They are preparing for that expense by creating a variety of funding mechanisms based on the principle of producer responsibility.

Via her surveys, Woolwich has found that solar companies are using an annuity program, escrow, maturity bonds, annual fixed contracts, and pay as you go.

Krueger said First Solar uses a trust: "First Solar doesn't have access to those funds except for collection and recycling," she said. "It's designed that way because of the long product life. If something happens to First Solar, the industry won't have to deal with orphan waste."

Some materials in solar modules such as silicon and rare metals could be more valuable in the future, providing an additional incentive to recycle. Material price spikes have caused industry turmoil in recent years. For example, polysilicon shot to $400 per kilogram between 2006 and 2008. It is now down around $55.

Krueger said First Solar currently harvests cadmium and tellurium from its recycling program to use in new modules, even though buying it from a supplier is currently less expensive. She said she expects harvesting costs to come down as recycling scales up.

Mulvaney said that the industry would do well to plan now for the recovery of rare metals such as indium and tellurium.

Of course, materials recovery has an environmental benefit as well. "We'll be able to reduce impact from mining and other environmental hazards by collecting a lot of the metals and other valuable minerals that are being used in panels," Davis said.

Being truly sustainable — and maintaining that green credibility — is a powerful motivator for renewable energy companies.

Santarris said the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition's scorecard was an "important step" toward figuring out which manufacturers are the most environmentally benign.

"There's not a lot of sophistication in the marketplace to differentiate among products and manufacturers of varying environmental performance," Santarris said. "Are solar modules all the same? They're not."

Nanocrystals as protective coatings for advanced gas turbine and jet engines are receiving a lot of attention for their many advantageous mechanical properties, including their resistance to stress. However, contrary to computer simulations, the tiny size of nanocrystals apparently does not safeguard them from defects. In a study by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)and collaborators from multiple institutions, nanocrystals of nickel subjected to high pressure continued to suffer dislocation-mediated plastic deformation even when the crystals were only three nanometers in size. These experimental findings, which were carried out at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), a premier source of X-rays and ultraviolet light for scientific research, show that dislocations can form in the finest of nanocrystals when stress is applied.

"We cannot ignore or underestimate the role of dislocations -- defects or irregularities -- in fine nanocrystals as external stress can change the entire picture," says Bin Chen, a materials scientist with the ALS Experimental Systems Group who led this research. "Our results demonstrate that dislocation-mediated deformation persists to smaller crystal sizes than anticipated, primarily because computer models have not given enough consideration to the effects of external stress and grain boundaries."

Chen is the lead and corresponding author of a paper in Science describing this work. The paper is titled "Texture of Nanocrystalline Nickel: Probing the Lower Size Limit of Dislocation Activity." Co-authoring this paper were Katie Lutker, Selva Vennila Raju, Jinyuan Yan, Waruntorn Kanitpanyacharoen, Jialin Lei, Shizhong Yang, Hans-Rudolf Wenk, Ho-kwang Mao and Quentin Williams.

Plastic deformation is a permanent change in the shape or size of a material as the result of an applied stress. The likelihood of plastic deformation increases with the presence of dislocations -- defects or irregularities -- within the material's structure. Most materials are made up of small crystals, called "grains," and what happens at the boundaries between these grains is critical to material properties. Based on computer simulations and electron microscopy analysis, the belief has been that dislocation-mediated plastic deformation becomes inactive below a grain size of at least 10 nanometers, and possibly as large as 30 nanometers.

"The idea was that below a critical length scale, dislocation-mediated deformation activity would give way to grain-boundary sliding, diffusion, and grain rotation," Chen says. "However, there were many unresolved questions with regards to whether plasticity in ultrafine nanocrystalline grains could still be generated by dislocations and how pressure might affect the deformational regimes."

To investigate grain size and pressure effects on the plastic deformation of nanometals, Chen and his colleagues used ALS Beamline 12.2.2, a superconducting bend magnet beamline that supports radial diamond-anvil-cell X-ray diffraction experiments. Chen and his co-authors recorded in situ observations under a range of high pressures of texturing (when the crystalline grains have preferred orientations) in stressed polycrystalline nickel samples featuring grain sizes of 500-, 20- and 3-nanometers.

"Substantial texturing was observed at pressures above 3.0 gigapascals for nickel with 500-nanometer grain size and at greater than 11.0 gigapascals for nickel with 20-nanometer grain size," Chen says. "Surprisingly, texturing was also seen in nickel with 3-nanometer grain size when compressed above 18.5 gigapascals. This tells us that under high external pressures, dislocation activity can be extended down to a few-nanometers-length scale."

Chen and his co-authors started with nanocrystalline nickel because its face-center cubic structure remains stable under a wide pressure range. They are now applying their techniques to the study of other nanocrystalline materials, both metals and non-metals.

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA and the DOE Office of Science. The ALS is a DOE Office of Science national user facility.
Source: DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

On the road to smaller, high-performance electronics, University of Illinois researchers have smoothed one speed bump by shrinking a key, yet notoriously large element of integrated circuits.
Three-dimensional rolled-up inductors have a footprint more than 100 times smaller without sacrificing performance. The researchers published their new design paradigm in the journal Nano Letters.

"It's a new concept for old technology," said team leader Xiuling Li, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois.

Inductors, often seen as the sprawling metal spirals on computer chips, are essential components of integrated circuits. They store magnetic energy, acting as a buffer against changes in current and modulating frequency -- especially important in radio-frequency wireless devices. However, they take up a lot of space. Inductance depends on the number of coils in the spiral, so engineers cannot make them smaller without losing performance.

In addition, the larger the area the inductor occupies, the more it interfaces with the substrate the chip is built on, exacerbating a hindering effect called parasitic capacitance. Researchers have developed some three-dimensional inductor structures to solve the dual problems of space and parasitic capacitance, but these methods are complex and use techniques that are difficult to scale up to manufacturing levels.

The new inductor design uses techniques Li's group previously developed for making thin films of silicon nitrate, merely tens of nanometers in thickness, that roll themselves up into tubes. The research team used industry-standard two-dimensional processing to pattern metal lines on the film before rolling, creating a spiral inductor.

"We're making 3-D structures with 2-D processing," Li said. "Instead of spreading this out in a large area to increase inductance, we can have the same inductance but packed into a much smaller area."

Using the self-rolling technique, the researchers can shrink the area needed for a radio-frequency inductor to a scant 45 microns by 16 microns -- more than 100 times smaller than the area an equivalent flat spiral would require.

The design can be adjusted to fit target parameters including metal thickness and type, frequency, tube diameter and number of turns. According to Li, this technique could be used for capacitors and other integrated circuit elements as well.

Now, Li's group is working to produce high-performance inductor prototypes, in collaboration with electrical and engineering professor Jose Schutt-Aine. Preliminary experimental data show strong correlation with the modeled designs.

"Once we have optimized this process, we should be able to make an integrated circuit with a completely different platform that could be much smaller," Li said. "It's an ambitious goal."

The National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research supported this work. U. of I. visiting researcher Wen Huang, postdoctoral researcher Xin Yu, graduate student Paul Froeter and mechanical science and engineering professor Placid Ferreira were co-authors of this study. Li also is affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Micro and Nanotechnology Lab, and the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Lab, all at the U. of I.

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Renewable electricity can be transformed into a substitute for natural gas. Until now, electricity was generated from gas. Now, a German-Austrian cooperation wants to go in the opposite direction. In the future, these researchers and entrepreneurs would like to store surplus electricity -- such as from wind power or solar energy -- as climate-neutral methane, and store it in existing gas storage facilities and the natural gas network.
Throughout the world, electricity generation is based more and more on wind and solar energy. So far, the missing link for integrating renewable energy into the electricity supply is a smart power storage concept. Because when the wind is blowing powerfully, wind turbines generate more electricity than the power grid can absorb. Now, German researchers have succeeded in storing renewable electricity as natural gas. They convert the electricity into synthetic natural gas with the aid of a new process. The process was developed by the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW), in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology IWES. Currently, Solar Fuel Technology, the Austria-based partner company, is setting up the industrial implementation of the process. One advantage of the technology:it can use the existing natural gas infrastructure. A demonstrationsystem built on behalf of Solar Fuel in Stuttgart is already operating successfully. By 2012, a substantially larger system -- in the double-digit megawatt range -- is planned to be launched.

For the first time, the process of natural gas production combines the technology for hydrogen-electrolysis with methanisation. "Our demonstration system in Stuttgart separates water from surplus renewable energy using electrolysis. The result is hydrogen and oxygen," explains Dr. Michael Specht of ZSW. "A chemical reaction of hydrogen with carbon dioxide generates methane -- and that is nothing other than natural gas, produced synthetically."

With the rapid expansion of renewable energies, the need for new storage technologies grows massively. This is of special interest for energy utilities and power companies. "So far, we converted gas into electricity. Now we also think in the opposite direction, and convert electricity into 'real natural' gas," explains Dr. Michael Sterner of Fraunhofer IWES, who is investigating engineering aspects and energy system analysis of the process. "Surplus wind and solar energy can be stored in this manner. During times of high wind speeds, wind turbines generate more power than is currently needed. This surplus energy is being more frequently reflected at the power exchange market through negative electricity prices." In such cases, the new technology could soon keep green electricity in stock as natural gas or renewable methane.

"Within the development of this technology, ZSW has been guided by two core issues," explains Michael Specht: "Which storage systems offer sufficient capacity for fluctuating renewable energies that depend on the wind and weather? And which storage systems can be integrated into the existing infrastructure the easiest?"

The storage reservoir of the natural gas network extending through Germany is vast: It equals more than 200 terawatt hours -- enough to satisfy consumption for several months. The power network has only a capacity of 0.04 terawatt hours by itself. The integration into the infrastructure is simple: The natural gas substitute can be stored like conventional natural gas in the supply network, pipelines and storage systems, in order to drive natural gas cars or fire natural gas heating systems.

The new technology aims at facilitating the integration of high shares of fluctuating power generation from renewable energies into the energy system. One goal is to structure the delivery of power from wind parks on a scheduled and regular basis. "The new concept is a game changer and a new significant element for the integration of renewable energies into a sustainable energy system," adds Sterner. The efficiency of converting power to gas equals more than 60 percent. "In our opinion, this is definitely better than a total loss," says Michael Specht. A total loss looms if, for instance, wind power has to be curtailed. The predominant storage facility to date -- pumped hydro power plants -- can only be expanded to a limited extent in Germany.

In order to push the new energy conversion technology forward, the two German research institutes have joined together with the company Solar Fuel Technology of Salzburg. Starting in 2012, they intend to launch a system with a capacity of approximately 10 megawatt.

Converting livestock manure into a domestic renewable fuel source could generate enough electricity to meet up to three per cent of North America's entire consumption needs and lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), according to new research.
The research has implications for all countries with livestock as it is the first attempt to outline a procedure for quantifying the national amount of renewable energy that herds of cattle and other livestock can generate and the concomitant GHG emission reductions.

Livestock manure, left to decompose naturally, emits two particularly potent GHGs -- nitrous oxide and methane. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nitrous oxide warms the atmosphere 310 times more than carbon dioxide, methane does so 21 times more.

The journal paper creates two hypothetical scenarios and quantifies them to compare energy savings and GHG reducing benefits. The first is 'business as usual' with coal burnt for energy and with manure left to decompose naturally. The second is one wherein manure is anaerobically-digested to create biogas and then burnt to offset coal.

Through anaerobic digestion, similar to the process by which you create compost, manure can be turned into energy-rich biogas, which standard microturbines can use to produce electricity. The hundreds of millions of livestock inhabiting the US could produce approximately 100 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power millions of homes and offices.

And, as manure left to decompose naturally has a very damaging effect on the environment, this new waste management system has a net potential GHG emissions reduction of 99 million metric tonnes, wiping out approximately four per cent of the country's GHG emissions from electricity production.

The burning of biogas would lead to the emission of some CO2 but the output from biogas-burning plants would be less than that from, for example, coal.

Authors of the paper, Dr. Michael E. Webber and Amanda D Cuellar from the University of Texas at Austin, write, "In light of the criticism that has been levelled against biofuels, biogas production from manure has the less-controversial benefit of reusing an existing waste source and has the potential to improve the environment.

"Nonetheless, the logistics of widespread biogas production, including feedstock and digestates transportation, must be determined at the local level to produce the most environmentally advantageous, economical, and energy efficient system."

It’s a truism in the smart grid industry that all of the disparate technologies that fall under the categories of smart meters, distribution automation, generation and transmission control systems, high-speed communications networks, and the rest will someday link into a bigger, smarter whole. But to what end?

A new survey, commissioned by IEEE and conducted by Zpryme, takes a crack at answering that question for three key technologies – energy storage, microgrids, and distributed generation technologies like wind, solar and onsite power.

Zpryme surveyed 460 energy industry executives from around the world, and came out with a lot of conclusions (you can download the report here [PDF].) Some are more predictable than others: to no one’s surprise, smart grid executives want to increase public- and private-sector funding for smart grid research and development.

Likewise, each of the three technologies in question will need energy management systems, distribution management systems and communications technologies on the grid to support them -- this constitutes the underlying ICT framework of the smart grid.

But the 32-page report also has a wealth of useful information on just where smart grid executives are focusing their attention when it comes to customers and business models to get these technologies out into the field. Notably, much of this new stuff will be outside the utility’s control and in the hands of the customer, in the form of “distributed energy systems,” to use the report’s parlance.

That doesn’t mean that utilities aren’t customers themselves of these three technologies: survey respondents expect nearly half the growth in distributed generation over the next five years to come from utilities -- more than residential at 46 percent, manufacturing at 42 percent, and government at 41 percent.

Still, that leaves a lot of new technologies in the hands of customers. That’s going to lead to new business models, revenue streams, and third-party arrangements that the monolithic utility industry hasn’t faced before, the report found. Utilities wanting to make it all work to their benefit will have to find ways to serve these new models and markets.

That’s going to make customers a critical part of this stage of development, Andres Carvallo, a member of the Zpryme smart grid advisory board and EVP and chief strategy officer of smart grid network management startup Proximetry, said in a Wednesday interview.

Carvallo noted a few surprises in the report, such as the relative lack of interest seen amongst smart grid executives for their technologies in the retail and construction businesses. He also saw less interest in developing countries and economies than he expected. Broadly speaking, Europe leads the world in distributed generation and microgrids, according to survey respondents -- not surprising, given the continent’s wind and solar resources and goals -- while North America has more energy storage technology.

Microgrids, Storage, Wind and Solar

On the microgrid front, while the military has been a big backer of the technology, it turns out that smart grid execs see hospitals and health care as even bigger future customers, according to the survey. That makes sense, of course -- hospitals have required constant backup power for decades to maintain critical life support systems, making them natural candidates for microgrid-like systems.

At the same time, microgrids also need a lot of work on the standards front (something IEEE has been intimately involved in via its 1547 standard development work) before they can be widely adopted into the grid. In the meantime, real live microgrids are up and running today, whether they’re on military bases, data centers or remote telecommunications sites, but they’re not linked to the smart grid in any standardized way.

For grid-scale energy storage, the key barrier remains high cost, according to two-thirds of survey respondents. Traditional pumped hydro projects, while efficient, cost billions and are limited to convenient canyons and rivers that can be dammed. Batteries, in the meantime, are still quite expensive compared to just bringing more power to the grid, although they can pencil out in key uses, like relieving stressed-out grid corridors that would otherwise need to be upgraded.

At the same time, utilities face growing challenges in managing intermittent renewables and peak power loads, which, along with falling battery prices, could expand the market. Overall, one-third of executives surveyed said the global grid energy storage market would increase by 1 to 5 gigawatts over the next five years, while another third put the increase in 5.1 to 10 gigawatt range, and smaller numbers predicting even greater growth.

The last category, distributed generation, bears close watching, because it’s a category that’s far less under the sway of utility control. Whether via mandate or free-market forces, utilities are seeing more and more intermittent wind and solar power resources being linked to their grids -- and being asked to handle that unpredictable, potentially destabilizing flow of power.

Survey respondents were all over the map in predicting how much new distributed generation capacity was coming. Just over a quarter predicted global distributed generation capacity would grow by 10.1 to 15 gigawatts over the next five years. Another 22 percent predicted less growth, of 5.1 to 10 gigawatts over the next five years -- but another 21 percent said distributed resources could boom by more than 20 gigawatts by 2017.

India's recent massive power grid failure - the largest in history which left some 670 million people without power - has renewed calls for so-called smart grids in the United States, as some analysts have questioned whether a similar event could occur in North America.

Initial thoughts of a similar situation happening in the U.S. draw criticism from many quarters, especially from power industry officials who note that the American grid is much more hearty.

"But there are still situations that can cause major failures, and the interconnected nature of the electrical grid means a problem in one place can be far-reaching," writes Jesse Emspak at Discovery News.

Steven Greenlee, a spokesman for the California Independent System Operator Corporation, which manages power distribution for much of the state, notes that interconnectivity.

"Our grid is just one big machine," he said.

Keeping it all even

The country's infrastructure of power grids provides a constant flow and amount of energy; the voltage and current are related and must be kept at certain levels. Another facet of an alternating current system is that its generators must run in sync.

What that means is that the loads on equipment that transmits the power have to remain in balance. Excessive demand in one region pulls more current through the grid, which results in a drop in voltage.

"But running more current has another effect: Equipment heats up. The power lines, substations and everything else that make up the grid are all designed to operate up to a certain temperature," writes Emspak.

Think of a home. The electrical system is wired into a fuse box; circuit breakers trip when they get too hot. Older systems feature fuses, which blow out when they are overtaxed.

In an electrical grid, a drop in voltage on a transmission line, such as when ice or a tree downs one, creates a situation where the electrical load on the line has to be rebalanced. Power is shunted to lines that are still up and functioning. But that then places an extra load on them because the total amount of energy in the system remains the same. If enough lines crash, grids are designed to reduce their loads automatically by shutting down power to those areas.

And that may just be the way it is - in the U.S., India and elsewhere - for the foreseeable future.

Experts note that the current line-and-wire distribution system is what we are stuck with, likely for decades to come.

That means blackouts will continue to be a reality, though the better the power infrastructure, the less likely they are to happen.

"There's no magic technology that's going to allow us to transmit power wirelessly," Bob Gohn, vice president of research for Boulder-based Pike Research, told Discovery News in a separate interview.

"But there is a future with greater distributed power that is more independent, having your own power generation or with solar or gas power plants, and using storage systems to run your home for a while," he said.

Smart grid equals smarter technology

He says one idea floating around is to produce power locally by combining small-scale power generation with larger batteries located in homes as one way to get your house off the power grid. Such a system would be more reliable, quieter and produce less CO2 emissions than using a backup generator.

Some communities are already experimenting with the concept. Homes power electric storage systems combining solar panels, electric vehicles and smart-meter technology to get more homeowners off power grids and become more power independent.

"You may not run your entire house," says Gohn, "but you could keep your refrigerator going for a while."

Smart-grid experts are encouraging utilities to utilize wireless technology and advanced software systems to help them get a better handle on which houses, specifically, have been affected by outages.

"They won't prevent an outage, but they might allow you to restore things more quickly," Matt Wakefield, senior program manager of smart grid systems for the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry-based non-profit group, told DN.

Sources:

http://news.discovery.com/tech/india-blackout-energy-grid-120802.html

http://news.discovery.com/tech/smart-grid-electricity-120703.html

http://energy.gov/oe/technology-development/smart-grid

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036820_power_grid_failures_smart_grids.html#ix

Reporting in the journal Nature Materials, researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology and the Physics Department of Sapienza University of Rome have discovered a technique to 'draw' superconducting shapes using an X-ray beam. This ability to create and control tiny superconducting structures has implications for a completely new generation of electronic devices.
Superconductivity is a special state where a material conducts electricity with no resistance, meaning absolutely zero energy is wasted.

The research group has shown that they can manipulate regions of high temperature superconductivity, in a particular material which combines oxygen, copper and a heavier, 'rare earth' element called lanthanum. Illuminating with X-rays causes a small scale re-arrangement of the oxygen atoms in the material, resulting in high temperature superconductivity, of the type originally discovered for such materials 25 years ago by IBM scientists. The X-ray beam is then used like a pen to draw shapes in two dimensions.

A well as being able to write superconductors with dimensions much smaller than the width of a human hair, the group is able to erase those structures by applying heat treatments. They now have the tools to write and erase with high precision, using just a few simple steps and without the chemicals ordinarily used in device fabrication. This ability to re-arrange the underlying structure of a material has wider applications to similar compounds containing metal atoms and oxygen, ranging from fuel cells to catalysts.

Prof. Aeppli, Director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and the UCL investigator on the project, said: "Our validation of a one-step, chemical-free technique to generate superconductors opens up exciting new possibilities for electronic devices, particularly in re-writing superconducting logic circuits. Of profound importance is the key to solving the notorious 'travelling salesman problem', which underlies many of the world's great computational challenges. We want to create computers on demand to solve this problem, with applications from genetics to logistics. A discovery like this means a paradigm shift in computing technology is one step closer."

Prof Bianconi, the leader of the team from Sapienza, added: "It is amazing that in a few simple steps, we can now add superconducting 'intelligence' directly to a material consisting mainly of the common elements copper and oxygen."

The X-ray experiments were performed at the Elettra (Trieste) synchrotron radiation facility. The work is published in Nature Materials , 21 August 2011 (doi:1038/nmat3088) and follows on from previous discovery of fractal-like structures in superconductors (doi:10.1038/nature09260).
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Scientists from the University of Tübingen, working with colleagues from Tel Aviv University and the University of Kiel have proposed and experimentally demonstrated a new type of superconducting element -- named the phi-Josephson (φ-Josephson) junction. Implemented in cryogenic devices, this element will make superconducting electronic circuits work practically "by themselves" and improve functionality.
A Josephson junction is a quantum mechanical device consisting of two superconductors separated by a very thin (~2nm) barrier. In spite of the barrier, and thanks to quantum mechanics, the superconducting electrons in one superconductor "feel" their neighbors in the other superconductor and "synchronize" with them, i.e. behave coherently. This quantum mechanical coherence on a macroscopic scale allows using Josephson junctions as very precise sensors of magnetic fields e.g. for medical imaging or as basic elements for a scalable quantum computer.

In conventional Josephson junction this "synchronization" of the electron motion takes place in-phase i.e., without a phase shift. Recently it became possible to make Josephson junctions where the electrons in two superconductors are "synchronized" anti-phase, i.e., with a phase shift of π. Then one obtains what's known as the π Josephson junction. By combining the properties of conventional and π junctions the scientists from Tübingen, Tel Aviv and Kiel have proposed and demonstrated a Josephson junction with an arbitrary phase shift φ between electrons in two superconductors. The value of φ (0<φ<π) can be chosen by design. This φ Josephson junction can be used as a device which keeps a constant phase shift between two superconducting electrodes.

"One can think about the φ-junction as a battery, which provides a given phase shift φ (instead of a voltage like in the usual battery) for an attached superconducting electronic circuit. This phase battery, unlike the usual battery, never discharges as it causes the flow of superconducting dissipationless currents," says Prof. Roman Mints (Tel Aviv University), co-author of the idea.

"We have understood how to combine 0 and π junctions and how to prove experimentally that we have obtained a φ junction during my visit to Tel Aviv in 2011," says Dr. Edward Goldobin -- the leading scientist in this project. "Further, we discovered that this φ Josephson junction may actually be in two states -- it may "synchronize" the superconductors with the phase shift being either +φ or -φ and, thus, one can use it as a bistable system or, in the future, as a quantum bit. In our experiments[2], conducted at 300mK (-273 °C), we demonstrated the existence of these two states: we can determine experimentally in which state the junction is, and we can compel the junction to switch to the desired state +φ or to -φ." The value of the phase shift φ can be controlled by the sample parameters such as film thickness. Prior to this work, scientists thought the ground states could not be modified at will.

"The superconductor-ferromagnet-insulator-superconductor technology used to make a φ junction (composite 0-π junction) results from more than a decade of research, and to date exists in no other lab in the world. However, other groups are catching up," says Dr. Martin Weides, who created the nano-engineered thin-film samples. "The key element of our samples is film morphology control down to the atomic scale."

The groups involved in the collaboration are very optimistic about their results and are going to investigate this φ Josephson junction in greater detail, in particular in the quantum domain, within the Collaborative Research Center SFB/TRR-21.[color=#006600][/color]

Natural gas is produced at oil refineries like this one. Photo by David Parsons.


Electricity from:
Natural Gas



Natural gas is the generic term used for the mixture of vapors that result from the decomposition of plant and animal materials over millions of years. Natural gas, along with oil and coal, is a fossil fuel and, similar to oil and coal, is found in underground reservoirs located in several areas of North America. The primary component of natural gas is methane, a hydrocarbon.
Natural gas is the cleanest of all the fossil fuels.

The stock of natural gas, like other fossil-based fuels, is limited and is therefore not a renewable resource. The combustion of natural gas produces only a fraction of the nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide emissions of oil and coal, and also results in essentially no particulate matter or sulfur dioxide emissions. Natural gas therefore becomes an attractive "transition" fuel, as the energy supply moves away from polluting sources such as coal and nuclear sources and towards cleaner, renewable technologies.

Natural gas can be used as a fuel in conventional steam boiler generators, like other fossil fuels. However, new technologies using natural gas as their primary fuel are far more efficient than older combustion technologies. New state of the art combined cycle plants reduce fossil fuel use by as much as 40 percent.

Combustion turbines are based on jet engines. With the combustion turbine technology, the natural gas is burned, creating superheated gas, which is then pressurized in pipes and used to drive the turbine. Combined cycle technology is really the coupling of two electric generation technologies, and boosts efficiency by using the same fuel to generate electricity twice. Natural gas may also be used in fuel cell technologies that rely upon chemical reactions to create electricity at much higher levels of efficiency than can be obtained from fossil fuel combustion.

What are the environmental issues?

Natural gas creates significantly smaller environmental impacts than coal. On a Btu basis, natural gas combustion generates about half as much carbon dioxide, or CO2, as coal, less particulate matter, and very little sulfur dioxide or toxic air emissions. Natural gas combustion may, however, produce nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide in quantities comparable to coal burning. Ongoing use of natural gas inevitably results in methane emissions, a very potent greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change. Natural gas drilling and exploration can negatively impact wilderness habitat, wildlife and public open space. Among the list of potential negative land impacts associated with natural gas are erosion, loss of soil productivity, increased runoffs, landslides and flooding.

If natural gas is compared to coal combustion, CO2 emissions are significantly reduced, but natural gas combustion still results in a net increase in CO2 emissions and therefore can contribute to climate change.

Gas plant operations may result in significant impacts on water resources, depending on the type of combustion technology and plant design. Combustion turbines do not use significant quantities of water; combined cycle power plants do have a steam-cooling phase that may require significant quantities of water.

Build a Generator

Our society has become accustomed to using equipment and appliances that run on AC power provided by our local power provider. In most cases this is ideal, but in some cases, AC power is not available. AC power may be unavailable because the distribution grid of the power provider is not operating, or because no distribution grid exists in the area, as would be the case on camping or hiking excursions. AC power can be made available in areas that cannot get AC power from a distribution grid by using a gasoline powered generator to make AC power. Gasoline powered generators also may be used to recharge the 12 volt DC batteries of portable equipment. The 12 volt DC batteries allow equipment and appliances to be used in the absence of a power grid, but have limited run time available. Use these tips to learn how to build a generator.
Step1:Acquire an engine. The required engine size is dependent on the amount of power that the generator will need to supply. A good rule of thumb for a useful, compact generator is to choose an engine in the range of 5 to 10 horsepower. Note that most engines rate their horsepower at a speed of 3,600 rotations per minute (RPM). These motors are about the size of lawn mower engines, and are typically available at lawn equipment stores, industrial supply shops or power equipment outlets.
Step2:Choose an AC generator head. This head will use an internal magnet to create electricity when the shaft mounted magnet is spun by the external engine. For most applications, output levels of 2,500 to 5,000 watts is suitable. In sizing the head, use the specification of the manufacturer to determine the engine size needed to drive that head. As a rough estimate, a generator can produce about 500 watts per input horsepower. Heads are available through industrial supply outlets and industrial equipment catalogs.
Step3:Select a 12 volt DC alternator. This alternator will generate 12 volts DC when the shaft is driven by the external engine. The alternator chosen must have a built-in voltage regulator. A 500 watt alternator is typically sufficient, and would require about another horsepower from the chosen engine. Alternators are widely available at auto parts suppliers.
Step4:Fabricate a mounting plate. This mounting plate can be made of any sturdy material that can withstand the vibration of the gasoline engine. The 3 main power pieces (engine, generator head and alternator) must be mounted so that their shafts are parallel and the shaft attachment areas for drive pulleys are in the same plane. Mounting holes and mounting hole patterns must be derived from the manufacturer data for each of the 3 major power pieces.
2
Mount the pulleys. A pulley must be mounted to the engine shaft to belt drive the pulleys that will come already installed on the generator head and the alternator. This pulley size must be chosen so that when the engine is rotating at the nominal running speed given by the manufacturer, the belts will scale this up or down to the pulleys of the generator head and the alternator. Choose the scaling so that the generator head and the alternator are running at the rated speed indicated on the manufacturer data sheet. In most typical generators, this will result in an engine pulley of 5 to 10 inches (125 to 250 mm). Pulleys are available at industrial supply stores and through equipment supplier catalogs.
3
Run the belt or belts. The design of the generator may need different pulleys on the engine to apply proper shaft speed to the generator head and the alternator, or this may be workable with 1 engine pulley and 1 belt. Run the belt over the pulleys and make sure that they are taught. Slotting the mounting holes of the engine will provide good adjustment to achieve this. A V belt is preferable to a standard belt as it will have less tendency to slip. Belts may be acquired from the outlet that supplied the pulleys.
4
Mount the gasoline tank to the mounting plate.
5
Reconnect the gasoline supply. Fill the gasoline tank and place the fuel feed lines to the engine.
Materials needed

Gasoline powered engine
Gasoline tank
AC generator head
12 volt DC alternator
Pulley
Drive belt
Direct drive shaft couplers (pulleys)
wires
magnets
bulbs

ARTICLE SOURCE:www.wikihow.com/Build-a-generator.

Atmospheric electricity is the regular diurnal variations of the Earth's atmospheric electromagnetic network or, more broadly, any planet's electrical system in its layer of gases. The Earth's surface, the atmosphere and the ionosphere, together are known as the global atmospheric electrical circuit. Atmospheric electricity is a multidisciplinary topic.

There is always free electricity in the air and in the clouds, which acts by induction on the earth and electromagnetic devices. Experiments have shown that there is always free electricity in the atmosphere, which is sometimes negative and sometimes positive, but most generally positive, and the intensity of this free electricity is greater in the middle of the day than at morning or night and is greater in winter than in summer. In fine weather, the potential increases with altitude at about 30 volts per foot (100 V/m).

The atmospheric medium, by which we are surrounded, contains not only combined electricity, like every other form of matter, but also a considerable quantity in a free and uncombined state; sometimes of one kind, sometimes of the other; but as a general rule it is always of an opposite kind to that of the Earth. Different layers, or strata, of the atmosphere, located at only small distances from each other, are frequently found to be in different electric states.The phenomena of atmospheric electricity are of three kinds. There are the electrical phenomena of thunderstorms and there are the phenomena of continual electrification in the air. The phenomena of the polar auroras constitute a third branch of the subject.

Most authorities are agreed, however, that whatever may be the origin of free electricity in the atmosphere, the electricity of enormous voltages that disrupts the air and produces the phenomena of lightning is due to the condensation of the watery vapor forming the clouds; each minute drop, as it moves through the air, collects upon its surface a certain amount of free electricity. Then, as these tiny drops coalesce into larger drops, with a corresponding decrease in the relative surface exposed, the electric potential rises until it overcomes the resisting power of the air. This remark will be more clearly understood when it is considered that, with a given charge of electricity, an object's potential rises as the electrical capacity of the object holding the charge is decreased, which is the case when the minute drops coalesce into larger drops. The similarity of lightning to the electricity developed by an electrical machine was demonstrated by Franklin in his memorable kite experiments.
Atmospheric electricity abounds in the environment; some traces of it are found less than four feet from the surface of the earth, but on attaining greater height it becomes more apparent. The main concept is that the air above the surface of the earth is usually, during fine weather, positively electrified, or at least that it is positive with respect to the Earth's surface, the Earth's surface being relatively negative. Additionally, the presence of electrical action in the atmosphere, due to the accumulation of enormous static charges of current generated presumably by friction of the air upon itself, can account for the various phenomena of lightning and thunderstorms. Other causes to produce electricity in the atmosphere are, evaporation from the Earth's surface, chemical changes which take place upon the Earth's surface, and the expansion, condensation, and variation of temperature of the atmosphere and of the moisture contained in it.

According to M. Peltier, the terrestrial globe is completely negative, and inter-planetary space positive; the atmosphere itself has no electricity, and is only in a passive state; so that the effects observed are due to the relative influence of these two great stores of electricity. Researchers are disposed to assume that the terrestrial globe possesses, at least on its solid part, an excess of negative electricity, and that it is the same with bodies placed at its surface; but it appears to them to follow, from the various observations made, that the atmosphere itself is positively electrified. This positive electricity evidently arises from the same source as the negative of the globe. It is probable that it is essentially in the aqueous vapors with which the atmosphere is always more or less filled that it resides, rather than in the particles of the air itself; but it does not the less exist in the atmosphere.

The measurements of atmospheric electricity can be seen as measurements of difference of potential between a point of the Earth's surface, and a point somewhere in the air above it. The atmosphere in different regions is often found to be at different local potentials, which differ from that of the earth sometimes even by as much as 3000 Volts within 100 feet (30 m). The electrostatic field and the difference of potential of the earth field according to investigations, is in summer about 60 to 100 volts and in winter 300 to 500 volts per meter of difference in height, a simple calculation gives the result that when such a collector is arranged for example on the ground, and a second one is mounted vertically over it at a distance of 2000 meters and both are connected by a conducting cable, there is a difference in potential in summer of about 2,000,000 volts and in winter even of 6,000,000 volts and more.

In the upper regions of the atmosphere the air is highly rarefied, and conducts like the rarefied gases in Geissler's tubes. The lower air is, when dry, a non-conductor. The upper stratum is believed to be charged with positive electricity, while the Earth's surface is itself negatively charged; the stratum of denser air between acting like the glass of a Leyden jar in keeping the opposite charges separate. The theory of atmospheric electricity explains equally many phenomena; free electricity, which is manifested during thunder-storms, being the cause of the former; and electricity of a lower tension, manifested during a display of the aurora borealis, causing the latter.

The electric atmosphere is the most frequent cause which deters or prevents electrical transmissions. During storms, it is seen that the some apparatus works irregularly, interrupting the passage of strong currents instantaneously, and often produces upon the apparatus in the offices, between metallic points, bright sparks; in telegraphic systems the armatures of the electro-magnets are drawn up with great force, and the wires and other metallic substances about the instruments fused. It is also observed, but more rarely, currents, which continue for a longer or shorter time, that prevent working of communication systems.