Lifeboat Foundation

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) recently did some things to advance EV charging tech that are way over my head to make a battery that could theoretically charge an electric car in only one minute.

That might seem silly to people with a decent EV, but I recently found something that could eventually make EV charging so fast that even the owner of a Porsche Taycan might be shocked and amazed— and, as the owner of a Nissan LEAF, I’m lucky to get a 50 kW charge rate, but that’s only on the first charge. If I try to go anywhere on the highway, I quickly find that the second and third charges are a lot slower. If I keep going, I can expect to get charging rates as low as 14 kW on the second or third session, which is more like DC slow charging than DC fast charging. When I get a chance to test and review better EVs, it seems like witchcraft when getting charging over 100 kW, and faster 250 and 350 kW charging sessions look like alien technology.

“The hybrid lithium-ion battery, which has a high energy density (285 Wh/kg) and can be rapidly charged with a high-power density (22,600 W/kg), is overcoming the limitations of the current energy storage system,” Professor Jung-Goo Kang of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering said. “It will be a breakthrough.”

The world needs a bridge to the renewable energy future.

The world needs more oil and gas to deal with the energy shortages it is currently facing, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at an energy conference in Norway on Monday, Bloomberg.

The comment might seem strange coming from a person who sells electric vehicles, battery packs, and solar roofing products. However, this isn’t the first time Elon Musk has made such a comment.

Continue reading “Elon Musk Says World Needs More Oil and Gas as Bridge to Renewables” »

A study of Li-metal batteries by the research team led by Dr. Byung Gon Kim at Next-Generation Battery Research Center of Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) was published as a cover paper in the international journal ACS Nano.

While the current Li-ion batteries generate energy by taking Li-ions in and out of the graphite anode based on the intercalation mechanism, the Li-metal battery does not rely on this bulky and heavy graphite but uses metallic Li itself as the anode. As the Li-metal shows 10 times higher theoretical capacity (3,860 mAh/g) than graphite (372 mAh/g), it has steadily gained much attention from areas that need high-capacity batteries, such as electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

Despite this advantage, Li can grow in the shape of a tree branch, called a Li dendrite, if it is not uniformly and effectively stored when cycling process, leading to large volume expansion of the electrode, which in turn may shorten the battery’s cycle life and cause safety issue such as fire and explosion triggered by internal short-circuits.

Vietnam is the world’s second-largest rice exporter, and XAG says its agricultural drones have become the “new favorite” of farmers that grow the crop.

Lê Thành Nguyên, at 62 years old, is one of the early adopters of agricultural drones in Vietnam. This year, he used drones on his seven-hectare rice farm for crop spraying, fertilization, and direct seeding by ordering the service from a local pilot team.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Puk1doe4kvw

The media is going nuts over Elon Musk calling for more oil and gas at an energy conference in Norway, but the full quote is not being widely reported and brings some important context.

Earlier this year, Elon Musk called to drill for more oil, which raised a few eyebrows, but it was in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how it sent gas prices skyrocketing:

Continue reading “Media goes nuts over Elon Musk calling for more oil and gas, but here’s the full quote” »

Proposals for beaming solar power down from space have been around since the 1970s, but the idea has long been seen as little more than science fiction. Now, though, Europe seems to be getting serious about making it a reality.

Space-based solar power (SBSP) involves building massive arrays of solar panels in orbit to collect sunlight and then beaming the collected energy back down to Earth via microwaves or high-powered lasers. The approach has several advantages over terrestrial solar power, including the absence of night and inclement weather and the lack of an atmosphere to attenuate the light from the sun.

But the engineering challenge involved in building such large structures in space, and the complexities of the technologies involved, have meant the idea has remained on the drawing board so far. The director general of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, wants to change that.

Sea Wave Energy Ltd (SWEL) has been working for more than a decade on a floating wave energy device it calls the Waveline Magnet. With several prototypes tested on-and off-shore, the company claims it delivers “ultra low cost,” with high output.

Solar electricity generation is proliferating globally and becoming a key pillar of the decarbonization era. Lunar energy is taking a lot longer; tidal and wave energy is tantalizingly easy to see; step into the surf in high wave conditions and it’s obvious there’s an enormous amount of power in the ocean, just waiting to be tapped. But it’s also an incredibly harsh and punishing environment, and we’re yet to see tidal or wave energy harnessed on a mass scale.

Continue reading “Wave-riding generators promise the cheapest clean energy ever” »

Americans keep moving to where the water isn’t and where extreme weather is becoming the norm.

People are still flocking to Sunbelt regions where the housing is cheaper and plentiful — but climate change and extreme weather are worsening.

This holds a great opportunity for a recycling boon.

These frightening figures represent the most robust estimate of marine plastic pollution calculated to date.