Which countries can use solar energy reliably? A solar atlas that the DLR is creating together with international partners will provide answers to this question for theMediterranean region.

weiterlesen "Solar atlas for the Mediterranean region"

Although organic solar cells can be manufactured with little energy, they produce only a fraction of the electrical power of crystalline silicon solar cells. Much of the current dissipates into the material.

weiterlesen "Uncovering the cause of power loss in organic solar cells"

Biogas is one of the most important forms of renewable energy in Germany, but biogas plants have a CO₂ problem: they produce a gas mixture that contains up to 40 percent CO₂. Before biogas is fed into the gas grid, this CO₂ must be removed.

weiterlesen "CO₂ membranes for biogas"

As the buildings go up on the construction site in Cadarache in the south of France where the international ITER fusion test reactor will be housed, physicists around the world are fine-tuning the processes that will take place inside. As the precursor of a demonstration power plant, ITER will produce energy from the fusion of atomic nuclei – much like the sun.

weiterlesen "Plasma stability made to measure"

About 1 percent of the spent fuel from nuclear power plants consists of plutonium, americium and other transuranic elements that must be isolated from the biosphere for hundreds of thousands of years. Separating these highly problematic elements from the spent fuel (partitioning) and converting them into shorter-lived or stable isotopes (transmutation) has so far been achieved only in the lab.

weiterlesen "A vision of the future: partitioning & transmutation"

Led by Dr. Ernst Huenges, GFZ researchers at the International Centre of Geothermal Research are creating a unique research platform to study the feasibility, sustainability, environmental compatibility and economic efficiency of geothermal energy. Utilisation of this energy form in Germany requires much deeper wells than in the Earth’s volcanic regions.

weiterlesen "The Gross Schönebeck geothermal research platform: from reservoir to kilowatt hour"