Lifeboat Foundation

The world is highly dependent on fossil fuels to power its industry and transportation. These fossil fuels lead to excessive carbon dioxide emission, which contributes to global warming and ocean acidification. One way to reduce this excessive carbon dioxide emission that is harmful to the environment is through the electroreduction of carbon dioxide into value-added fuels or chemicals using renewable energy. The idea of using this technology to produce methane has attracted wide interest. However, researchers have had limited success in developing efficient catalysts for methane.

A Soochow University research team has now developed a simple strategy for creating cobalt copper alloy catalysts that deliver outstanding methane activity and selectivity in electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction. Their research is published in Nano Research.

Over the past 10 years, scientists have made notable progress in advancing their understanding of catalysts and applying the knowledge to their fabrication. But the catalysts that have been developed have not been satisfactory for use with methane, in terms of selectivity or current density. Despite the great insights scientists have gained, the strategies they have attempted in creating catalysts for methane are just too costly to be useful in practical applications.

For the first time ever, electricity is delivered through heated supercritical carbon dioxide.

The method has so far succeeded in adding 10 kilowatts to the grid.

Researchers were inspired by elevators to create the system.

Continue reading “A groundbreaking power-generating system delivers electricity to an Air Force Base electrical grid” »

Canada-based Tyromer is building a pilot factory in Arnhem to bring its circular rubber products to the European market. Specializing in the devulcanization of rubber from scrap tires, Tyromer will fine-tune and exhibit its recycling technology at its new Dutch facility in order to sell the process to third parties. The company is one of the first in the Netherlands to give this hard-to-process residual product a high-quality new life, making it a valuable addition to the Dutch circular economy.

Located at Kleefse Waard Industrial Park (IPKW) in Arnhem, the factory is currently being set up. “We expect to be able to start early in the summer [of 2021],” said Jos van Son, managing director of Tyromer Europe. Tyromer will employ approximately 12 people in Arnhem.

“Tyromer has a unique solution to a major problem: mountains of car tire rubber that cannot be reused. Companies such as Tyromer, which have solutions for societal challenges with smart technologies, are a welcome addition to the East Netherlands ecosystem. The fact that Tyromer is establishing itself at IPKW, where many companies are involved with energy and circularity issues, is good news for the activity in our region,” added René Brama, investment manager of Tech at Oost NL.

In 2017, Stanford University researchers presented a new device that mimics the brain’s efficient and low-energy neural learning process. It was an artificial version of a synapse—the gap across which neurotransmitters travel to communicate between neurons—made from organic materials. In 2019, the researchers assembled nine of their artificial synapses together in an array, showing that they could be simultaneously programmed to mimic the parallel operation of the brain.

Now, in a paper published June 15 in Nature Materials, they have tested the first biohybrid version of their artificial synapse and demonstrated that it can communicate with living cells. Future technologies stemming from this device could function by responding directly to chemical signals from the brain. The research was conducted in collaboration with researchers at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology—IIT) in Italy and at Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands).

“This paper really highlights the unique strength of the materials that we use in being able to interact with living matter,” said Alberto Salleo, professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford and co-senior author of the paper. “The cells are happy sitting on the soft polymer. But the compatibility goes deeper: These materials work with the same molecules neurons use naturally.”

Across the United States, local wind and solar jobs can fully replace the coal-plant jobs that will be lost as the nation’s power-generation system moves away from fossil fuels in the coming decades, according to a new University of Michigan study.

As of 2019, coal-fired electricity generation directly employed nearly 80,000 workers at more than 250 plants in 43 U.S. states. The new U-M study quantifies—for the first time—the technical feasibility and costs of replacing those coal jobs with local wind and solar employment across the country.

The study, published online Aug. 10 in iScience, concludes that local wind and solar jobs can fill the electricity generation and employment gap, even if it’s required that all the new jobs are located within 50 miles of each retiring coal plant.

Silicon is the second most abundant element on earth, making up a hefty 27.7% percent of the earth’s crust. Apart from its ability to create sandy beaches and clear glasses, silicon also holds the potential to make highly efficient metal ion batteries.

In a world where alternative energy storage devices like lithium-ion batteries are gaining momentum, there is a need to harness the excellent specific energy capacity of silicon as an electrode material. The commercial application of silicon-based electrode materials is often hindered due to two major reasons: 1) lack of mechanical stability arising from uncontrolled volume expansion upon lithiation, the process of combining with a lithium-ion, and 2) rapid energy fading caused by the formation of unstable solid-electrode interface (SEI) formation.

Over the years scientists have developed various advanced silicon-based negative electrodes or anode materials to overcome the aforementioned problems. The most prominent among them are silicon nanomaterials. However, silicon nanomaterials come with certain demerits, such as a large demand and supply gap, difficult and expensive synthesis process, and, most importantly, a threat of fast battery dry-up.

The sad truth is that our electricity markets currently lack the ability to accept the vast amounts of renewable energy capacity to meet state targets and corporate commitments to procure clean energy. A study by Princeton University found that high-voltage transmission capacity would need to expand by 60% to meet clean energy targets, representing billions of dollars in needed utility upgrades.

However, we can avoid much of this need by siting renewable resources closer to where they are needed – at the distribution level of the grid. In order to do so, we will need to take several key steps to solve major system barriers to expanding renewable energy on the grid. The good news is that with some policy improvements – some major and some minor – renewable energy capacity at the distribution level can meet needs without the long lead time required for larger, utility-scale resources.

A recent “gigantic jet” of lighting shot up 50 miles into space, a phenomenon that scientists are just beginning to understand.

The economy of Southern Africa is rapidly developing, driving a growing demand for electricity. Efficiently meeting this demand will require balancing social, economic, geographic, technological and environmental considerations.

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara led an international team that analyzed the region’s resources and power grid. Using this data, they developed an energy portfolio that most effectively meets Southern Africa’s 2040 energy requirements, finding that wind and solar are the region’s most cost-effective options. What’s more, their model’s proposal effectively freezes greenhouse gas emissions at 2020 levels while doubling the amount of electricity the grid can produce. A detailed analysis appears in the journal Joule.

Currently, Southern Africa’s 315 million people use about 275 terawatt hours, roughly the same amount as California. “However, Southern Africa is expected to double its electricity demand by 2040,” said co-lead and corresponding author Ranjit Deshmukh, an assistant professor in UCSB’s Environmental Studies Program. “Developing the region’s excellent wind, solar and natural gas resources is the least expensive option for its consumers, and can meet this demand without increasing the region’s electricity sector carbon emissions.”