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Archive for the ‘sustainability’ category: Page 272

Feb 19, 2022

Elon Musk’s Boring Company has submitted a proposal for a 6.2-mile underground transit system in Miami

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, sustainability, transportation

Elon Musk’s The Boring Company has submitted a proposal to construct a 6.2-mile underground transit system in Miami, Insider can reveal.

The North Miami Beach Loop would ferry Tesla vehicles between seven stations along State Road 826, between the Golden Glades Transit Center and Sunny Isles Beach at Newport Pier, according to the proposal, seen by Insider.

The Boring Company estimated that the loop would initially be able to carry more than 7,500 passengers per hour, and could be scaled to carry more than 15,000 per hour.

Feb 19, 2022

Tesla announces it has produced 1 million next-gen 4680 battery cells

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

Tesla has announced that it has produced 1 million of its next-generation 4,680 battery cell at its pilot factory in California.

The announcement comes as Tesla is expected to start deliveries of its new Model Y equipped with its 4,680 cell and structural battery pack.

In 2020, Tesla unveiled its new 4,680 battery cell, a new tabless cylindrical cell in a much bigger format that the company claimed produces six times the power and five times the energy capacity while significantly reducing the cost.

Feb 19, 2022

Self-healing materials for robotics made from ‘jelly’ and salt

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, sustainability

Researchers have developed self-healing, biodegradable, 3D-printed materials that could be used in the development of realistic artificial hands and other soft robotics applications.

The low-cost jelly-like materials, developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, can sense strain, temperature and humidity. And unlike earlier robots, they can also partially repair themselves at room temperature.

The results are reported in the journal NPG Asia Materials.

Feb 18, 2022

Engineering Student Builds Solar Panels That Don’t Need Direct Sunlight, Uses UV Light

Posted by in categories: engineering, solar power, sustainability

Also read: IIT delhi built solar panels that track sun’s movement to generate more electricity.

However, now an engineer from the Philippines has developed a new kind of solar panel that doesn’t really need sunlight to generate electricity. At least not directly.

Developed by Carvey Ehren Maigue, a student at Mapua University in the Philippines, the novel solar panels (called AuRES) are designed to feed off the UV rays of the sun — something that even dense cloudy days cannot block.

Feb 18, 2022

A next-generation Chevrolet could have airless tires

Posted by in categories: business, sustainability, transportation

Michelin has been working with General Motors to develop airless tires that will be sold on a next-generation Chevrolet Bolt electric car, expected to go on sale in the next few years, a Michelin executive said. It could mark the decline of over 130 years of tire tradition but also the end of one of the most annoying aspects of car ownership: keeping air in the tires.

“We want to bring the next generation of the Chevrolet Bolt with airless tires,” Alexis Garcin, president of Michelin North America said in an interview with CNN Business, “and it’s going to happen now in the next three to five years.”

Feb 18, 2022

Revolutionary new solar panels don’t need sunlight to generate energy

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

New solar panels that don’t need sunlight have been invented and could revolutionize the green energy initiative.


The idea of solar panels that don’t need sunlight might sound crazy, but it’s not completely impossible. As a cornerstone of the revolution to bring more clean energy to people, solar panels have become one of the best options out there. However, these energy conductors have one fatal flaw. They require direct sunlight to create energy. What if we could remove that flaw, though? That was the idea behind AuREUS, a new solar panel that doesn’t rely on direct sunlight to generate energy.

Continue reading “Revolutionary new solar panels don’t need sunlight to generate energy” »

Feb 18, 2022

These New Solar Panels Don’t Need Sunlight to Produce Energy

Posted by in categories: engineering, solar power, sustainability

Solar panels are a cornerstone of the clean energy revolution. And yet, they have one great flaw: when the clouds roll in their productivity dives.

Now, a new type of solar panel has been developed by an electrical engineering student at Mapua University that harvests the unseen ultraviolet light from the sun that makes it through even dense cloud coverage. Maigue, who won the James Dyson Sustainability Award for his creation, hopes it will soon be used on the windows and walls of large buildings, turning them into constant sources of energy.

Continue reading “These New Solar Panels Don’t Need Sunlight to Produce Energy” »

Feb 18, 2022

Solar canals could generate 13GW of energy annually for California

Posted by in categories: climatology, solar power, sustainability

Turlock Irrigation District (TID) has announced Project Nexus, a pilot project to build solar panel canopies over a portion of TID’s existing canals to operate and research how water-plus-energy can meet California’s needs for climate resiliency.

The Project Nexus could contribute to a more water resilient future for California and position the State to meet its ambitious clean energy goals. The Project will assess the reduction of water evaporation resulting from mid-day shade and wind mitigation; improvements to water quality through reduced vegetative growth; reduction in canal maintenance through reduced vegetative growth; and generation of renewable electricity.

The inspiration for Project Nexus comes from the concept presented in a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Merced, and UC Santa Cruz, which found many advantages to mounting solar panels over open water canals. The study showed that covering the approximately 4,000 miles of California canals could save 63 billion gallons of water annually. This amount of water could be used to irrigate 50,000 acres of farmland or meet the residential water needs of more than 2 million people.

Feb 17, 2022

New studies highlight the potential of self-heating plasmas for fusion energy

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, physics, solar power, sustainability

Most energy-producing technologies used today are unsustainable, as they cause significant damage to our planet’s natural environment. In recent years, scientists worldwide have thus been trying to devise alternative energy solutions that take advantage of abundant and natural resources.

In addition to , wind and seawater energy solutions, some physicists and engineers have been exploring the possibility of sourcing energy from nuclear reactions. This is the process through which two atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus and an energetic neutron.

Two research teams working at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF) demonstrated new approaches to increase nuclear energy production via a laser-driven . Their findings, published in recent Nature and Nature Physics papers, open new exciting possibilities for one day using self-heating plasmas as sustainable energy sources.

Feb 17, 2022

Scientists combine AI and atomic-scale images in pursuit of better batteries

Posted by in categories: chemistry, robotics/AI, sustainability, transportation

Today’s rechargeable batteries are a wonder, but far from perfect. Eventually, they all wear out, begetting expensive replacements and recycling.

“But what if batteries were indestructible?” asks William Chueh, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford University and senior author of a new paper detailing a first-of-its-kind analytical approach to building better batteries that could help speed that day. The study appears in the journal Nature Materials.

Chueh, lead author Haitao “Dean” Deng, Ph.D. ‘21, and collaborators at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, MIT and other research institutions used artificial intelligence to analyze new kinds of atomic-scale microscopic images to understand exactly why batteries wear out. Eventually, they say, the revelations could lead to batteries that last much longer than today’s. Specifically, they looked at a particular type of lithium-ion batteries based on so-called LFP materials, which could lead to mass-market electric vehicles because it does not use chemicals with constrained supply chains.