Kathryn Johnson, an electrical engineer at the Colorado School of Mines, studies large utility-scale wind turbines. Kathryn’s research aims to make the turbines more efficient in order to capture as much of the wind’s energy as possible. We also visited NSF’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, where scientists are working with local utility companies to create an advanced wind energy prediction system. Using data from sensors mounted on each turbine, the system generates a...

Arizona gets plenty of sunlight, and researchers there are working hard to turn that energy into electricity we can use. At Arizona State University, graduate student Brad Brennan makes and tests new materials that will allow us to build smaller, cheaper, flexible photovoltaic solar cells that can go almost anywhere. Brittany Lynn, a student at the University of Arizona, has been testing solar cells with different surfaces to see how surface shape affects the energy production of the cells.

In Bruce Logan's lab at Penn State Univeristy, researchers are working on developing microbial fuel cells (MFC) that can generate electricity I while accomplishing wastewater treatment. In a project supported by NSF, they are researching methods to increase power generation from MFCs while at the same time recovering more of the energy as electricity. Through their research projects, Logan’s team has already proven that they can produce electricity from ordinary domestic wastewater, as...

Host Lisa Van Pay meets with NSF-funded scientists Yang-Shao Horn and Yogi Surendranath at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as they take on the hydrogen energy challenge. Hydrogen bonds are an extremely efficient way to store energy, and scientists would like to capture this energy to power all sorts of things—from cars to laptops. Unlike other fuel sources, hydrogen can’t be harvested easily, so we have to make it. From the importance of developing an effective catalyst to...

A green roof can certainly make a building look nicer, but can it measurable lower energyrequirements and improve water management? Engineer Jelena Srebric and horticulturist Rob Berghage are working on a project to measure and model how a green roof affects the way buildings use energy and water. In the lab, Tyler Meek does weather experiments indoors to determine the effects of light, wind and water on the roof. Paulo Tabares Velasco works to make a mathematical model to predict what will...

Host Lisa Van Pay visits the scientists and engineers working to make the electric car of the future a reality today. One of the toughest parts is storing enough potential energy to get you where you’re going, and in this case, it’s all about the battery. Graduate student Katharine Stroukoff from the University of Texas-Austin explains how her research may help build a better battery, while Mike Nawrot and Dan Lauber, members of the MIT electric vehicle team, describe the advantages of...

A trip to Snowy River, a bright white crystalline formation found deep within Fort Stanton Cave in New Mexico, reveals a lot about life and energy in unexpected places. Host Lisa Van Pay meets Diana Northup and Monica Moya, researchers who study life in caves. As they explore the cave they ask questions, think of possible answers and ways to test them, and discuss how to share their findings with the community. Together, science and engineering have resulted in advancements that have changed...

Lisa Van Pay of the National Science Foundation meets with Will Lark, an MIT graduate student working on the CityCar project. The two discuss the technologies that make this vehicle unique and explore the relationship between art, science, and design. The CityCar team hopes that their ideas will some day be part of the solution to problems common to many cities: pollution, traffic and lack of green space. This story allows the viewer to see how researchers identify problems, build models to...

Einstein's Messengers is an Award-winning 20-minute documentary on LIGO, NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory. The video examines how LIGO is spearheading the completely new field of gravitational wave astronomy and opening a whole new window on the universe. It explains how LIGO's exquisitely sensitive instruments may ultimately take us farther back in time than we've ever been, catching, perhaps, the first murmurs of the universe in formation. Above all, Einstein's...

The U.S. speed skating team has two best hopes against a powerful South Korean team that took three- of-a-possible-four golds in Torino: Apolo Ohno and J.R. Celski--an 18-year-old World Champion in his first Olympics. Speed skating is all about force and movement--what, in physics, are known as Newton's First Three Laws of Motion. Celski and physicist George Tuthill of Plymouth State University explain.