alternative energy

A team of engineers in the McKelvey School of Engineering has developed a high-powered fuel cell that operates at double the voltage of today’s commercial fuel cells. It could power underwater vehicles, drones and eventually electric aircraft at a significantly lower cost.

The government of India’s Department of Biotechnology, Indian corporate leaders and Washington University in St. Louis have invested $2.5 million to launch the Indo-U.S. Advanced Bioenergy Consortium for Second Generation Biofuels (IUABC). The goal of the center is to increase biomass yield in plants and algae, enabling downstream commercial development for cost-effective, efficient and environmentally sustainable production of advanced biofuels.

Jim Jackson (left), project manager in Facilities Management at the School of Medicine, explains energy used in light bulbs to a visitor to the energy conservation and alternative energy station at the School of Medicine’s Earth Day festivities April 19 in the BJC Institute of Health Hope Plaza. In addition to energy, visitors learned about recycling, gardening and water conservation, and transportation and clean air.

Earth Day activities at the School of Medicine will take place from 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Thursday, April 19. All faculty, staff and students are encouraged to take part to learn about energy conservation and alternative energy; recycling; gardening and water conservation; and transportation and clean air.

This summer students participating in the McDonnell Academy Global Energy and Environmental Partnership (MAGEEP) International Summer Experience traveled to the Shenzhen-Hong Kong metropolitan area to learn about alternative energy research and practice but also to explore the festivals, museums and food of another culture.

Wind power is one practical alternative to petroleum.The director of a sustainable energy research center at Washington University in St. Louis is challenging President-elect Barack Obama to set goals in energy research and implementation. “I would like to see the next president of the United States set a similar goal to President Kennedy’s from 1961 — to put a man on the moon and to bring him back to Earth by the end of the decade,” says Himadri B. Pakrasi, Ph.D., the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, and Professor of Energy in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Wind power is one practical alternative to petroleum.The director of a sustainable energy research center at Washington University in St. Louis is challenging the next president of the United States to set goals in energy research and implementation. “I would like to see the next president of the United States set a similar goal to President Kennedy’s from 1961 — to put a man on the moon and to bring him back to Earth by the end of the decade,” says Himadri B. Pakrasi, Ph.D., the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, and Professor of Energy in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoMuthanna Al-Dahhan (left) and graduate student Rajneesh Varma are researching effective ways to take agricultural waste and make biofuel out of it.Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis, using an impressive array of imaging and tracking technologies, have determined the importance of mixing in anaerobic digesters for bioenergy production and animal and farm wastes treatment. They are studying ways to take “the smell of money,” as farmers long have termed manure’s odor, and produce biogas from it.