Lifeboat Foundation

The Los Angeles Affordable Housing Challenge, the 16th installment of Buildner’s affordable housing competition series, welcomes architects and design enthusiasts from around the globe to submit inventive solutions to tackle Los Angeles’ housing crisis. As the city grapples with skyrocketing rents, gentrification, and expensive starter homes, affordable housing for lower-income households has become increasingly scarce.

This competition seeks to generate imaginative and pragmatic solutions to address the diverse housing needs of Los Angeles residents, including families, single professionals, and couples. Participants are encouraged to think beyond conventional housing models and explore innovative designs that offer flexibility, affordability, sustainability, and a sense of community.

Volvo’s new small electric SUV delivers luxury, range, and speed for a very reasonable price. Take a dive into the affordable EV that arrives in 2024.

The ability to produce more electricity per weight compared to traditional silicon solar cells makes them highly suitable for sending into space to harvest the Sun’s energy, according to the researchers.

“High specific power is actually one of the greatest goals of any space-based light harvesting or energy harvesting technology,” said Deep Jariwala from the University of Pennsylvania.

“This is not just important for satellites or space stations, but also if you want real utility-scale solar power in space. The number of [silicon] solar cells you would have to ship up is so large that no space vehicles currently can take those kinds of materials up there in an economically viable way.”

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MIT aeroengineers are creating a 1-megawatt electrical motor that is a stepping stone toward electrifying commercial airliners. Pictured are some industrial concepts for hybrid-electric aircraft.

BEIJING, June 9 (Reuters) — BYD announced on Friday a new brand of electric vehicles (EV) ranging from off-road to sports cars as the company looks to meet more diversified consumer demand.

The new brand is called Fang Cheng Bao, which translates from Chinese literally as “Formula” and “Leopard”. The Chinese EV giant is expected to launch the first model this year — an SUV identified for now internally as SF, BYD said in a statement.

BYD, with its Dynasty and Ocean series of pure electric and plug-in hybrid models mostly priced under 300,000 yuan ($42,140.16), has been out selling Volkswagen-branded cars in China since November.

The Honda Riding Assist is an electric vehicle that has a low center-of-gravity and a very low seat height. In a global debut at CES, Honda unveiled the Honda Riding Assist motorcycle, which leverages our robotics technology to create a self-balancing motorcycle that greatly reduces the possibility of failing over while the motorcycle is at rest.

source/image: Alpha SQUAD official.

Global oceans were warmer last month than any other May in records stretching back to the 19th century, the European Union’s climate monitoring unit reported Wednesday.

Sea temperatures at a depth of about 10 meters were a quarter of a degree Celsius higher than ice-free oceans in May averaged across 1991 to 2020, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

Year-round, long-term trends have added 0.6C to the ocean’s surface waters in 40 years, said C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess, noting that April had also seen a new record for heat.

Solar power is the fastest-growing form of renewable energy and currently accounts for 3.6% of global electricity production today. This makes it the third largest source of the renewable energy market, followed by hydroelectric power and wind. These three methods are expected to grow exponentially in the coming decades, reaching 40% by 2035 and 45% by 2050. Altogether, renewables are expected to account for 90% of the energy market by mid-century, with solar accounting for roughly half. However, several technical challenges and issues need to be overcome for this transition to occur.

The main limiting factor for solar power is intermittency, meaning it can only collect power when sufficient sunlight is available. To address this, scientists have spent decades researching space-based solar power (SBSP), where satellites in orbit would collect power 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without interruption. To develop the technology, researchers with the Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) at Caltech recently completed the first successful wireless power transfer using the Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment (MAPLE).

Continue reading “New Satellite Successfully Beams Power From Space” »

Airbus’ vision for more sustainable aircraft cabins includes lighter, recyclable materials, new catering concepts, and a focus on transparency.