Lifeboat Foundation

The U.S. Department of the Interior has announced its approval of the Revolution Wind project. Located off the coast of Rhode Island, it will supply 704 megawatts (MW) of clean energy, more than 16 times the current offshore wind capacity of the United States.

Revolution Wind. A simulated view of the project from Nomans Land, Massachusetts. From BOEM planning document.

Currently, the United States has only a small fraction of the world’s offshore wind power. Its first commercial offshore wind farm, near Block Island in the Atlantic, only began operation in 2016, with a nameplate capacity of 30 megawatts (MW). Since then, it has added just 12 MW, for a total of 42 MW.

A major _New York Times_ investigation reveals how the United States’ aquifers are becoming severely depleted due to overuse in part from huge industrial farms and sprawling cities. The _Times_ reports that Kansas corn yields are plummeting due to a lack of water, there is not enough water to support the construction of new homes in parts of Phoenix, Arizona, and rivers across the country are drying up as aquifers are being drained far faster than they are refilling. “It can take millions of years to fill an aquifer, but they can be depleted in 50 years,” says Warigia Bowman, director of sustainable energy and natural resources law at the University of Tulsa College of Law. “All coastal regions in the United States are really being threatened by groundwater and aquifer problems.”

Transcript: democracynow.org.

Continue reading “U.S. Aquifers Are Running Dry, Posing Major Threat to Drinking Water Supply” »

Bearacreative/iStock.

This is according to a press release by the University of Waterloo published on Monday.

In an era of growing digitalisation, data centers have emerged as the fundamental support of our technological framework. However, worries persist over the ecological effects due to their swift growth and power-demanding activities. These data centers rank among the planet’s most energy-intensive establishments, drawing substantial electricity to fuel servers, cooling mechanisms, and auxiliary apparatus vital for their operations. Such elevated energy usage significantly affects the environment by adding to greenhouse gas discharges and ushering climate change.

The AI Power Consumption Challenge

The growing surge of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in recent years has been a remarkable and transformative phenomenon. However, AI models and algorithms are highly resource-intensive and consume significant amounts of power. Training AI models involve massive computational workloads, often requiring specialised hardware accelerators like GPUs, which consume substantial energy. This power consumption is a major concern when it comes to making data centers greener.

If you live in a place where you can buy Arduinos and Raspberry Pis locally, you probably don’t spend much time worrying about your water supply. But in some parts of the world, it is nothing to take for granted, bad water accounts for as many as 500,000 deaths worldwide every year. Scientists have reported a graphene sensor they say costs a buck and can detect dangerous bacteria and heavy metals in drinking water.

The sensor uses a GFET — a graphene-based field effect transistor to detect lead, mercury, and E. coli bacteria. Interestingly, the FETs transfer characteristic changes based on what is is exposed to. We were, frankly, a bit surprised that this is repeatable enough to give you useful data. But apparently, it is especially when you use a neural network to interpret the results.

What’s more, there is the possibility the device could find other contaminants like pesticides. While the materials in the sensor might have cost a dollar, it sounds like you’d need a big equipment budget to reproduce these. There are silicon wafers, spin coating, oxygen plasma, and lithography. Not something you’ll whip up in the garage this weekend.

NIH-funded study suggests reducing exposure to airborne particulates may decrease dementia risk.

Higher rates of new cases of dementia in a population over time — known as incident dementia — are linked to long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution, especially from agriculture and open fires, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Scientists found that 15% of older adults developed incident dementia during the average follow-up of 10 years.

“As we experience the effects of air pollution from wildfires and other emissions locally and internationally, these findings contribute to the strong evidence needed to best inform health and policy decisions,” said Richard J. Hodes, M.D., director, National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of NIH. “These results are an example of effectively using federally funded research data to help address critical health risks.”

Aviation company Boom Supersonic has undertaken a gargantuan task: it is building XB-1, the world’s first independently developed supersonic jet. The new airline will support next-generation aviation technology such as “carbon fiber composites, advanced avionics, and digitally-optimized aerodynamics to enable sustainable supersonic travel.”

This is according to a press release by the firm published on Thursday.

Credits: Scharfsinn86/iStock.

OleTPRN.

Nature is the ultimate quantum computer.

A team of researchers is designing novel systems to capture water vapor in the air and turn it into liquid.

Continue reading “Researcher finds inspiration from spider webs and beetles to harvest fresh water from thin air” »