Wind turbines tend to look like windmills or giant propellers, and the design does in fact borrow from that. But that isn’t the only design that’s ever been tried. At Sandia National Laboratories wind energy experts are looking at vertical axis wind turbines, (called VAWTs). VAWTs have a couple of advantages over traditional horizontal-axis designs,…

A new kind of solar cell made from carbon harvests sunlight that other cells can’t see. The technology could greatly boost the efficiency of solar panels and help bring the down the price of solar panels.