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Category: energy – Page 189

Olipa Elisa said her 10-year-old son used to have to hike 5km (3 miles) every day to the nearest school, often arriving late and exhausted.

“I am very excited that we now have a school closer to my home, and my child will not have to take the long journey,” said Elisa, 38. “What we need is more of these learning blocks to accommodate other classes.”

Run by 14Trees, a joint venture between Swiss cement manufacturer LafargeHolcim and British development finance agency CDC Group, the project was faster, cheaper and less energy-intensive than conventional construction, said 14Trees managing director Francois Perrot.

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Circa 2020

Harnessing the destructive potential of force and rotation, cutting tools like saws, drills, and angle grinders can obliterate the superlative properties that materials work so hard to perfect. And even when materials are designed to work against the power of these tools, the materials still often fail.

So what if instead we designed materials to work with the power of cutting tools rather than against them? While that may sound counterintuitive, it is just what an international group of researchers has done—and their preliminary tests show the ceramic–metal composite material they designed resists damage beyond shallow surface cuts.

The researchers, from Durham University, University of Surrey, and University of Stirling in the U.K. and Fraunhofer Institute and Leibniz University Hannover in Germany, developed a ceramic–metal composite that, despite being just 15% as dense as steel, is nearly uncuttable. By harnessing the power of vibration, the material directs tools’ destructive energy back upon themselves, wearing the tools down before they can inflict serious damage on the material.

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Circa 2019

Want superhero powers that let you see in the dark just like your cat? In the near future you may be able to—as long as you’re not too squeamish to get injections right into your eyeballs.

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School have discovered a way to give mice the ability to see infrared light, a part of the visible spectrum that we humans simply cannot see, although it’s there.

What we can see is called the visible spectrum. It’s the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be seen as light, but can also take other forms, like radio waves or ultraviolet light. Humans can see the wavelengths from 380 to 700 nanometers, according to NASA, while microwave energy (including the kind you use to heat up pizza) is between 1 millimeter and 1 micrometer.

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HYBRIT and H2 Green Steel have launched projects in Sweden with a target to manufacture 10 million tonnes (mt) of fossil fuel-free crude (green) steel per year by 2030. Success, of course, depends on the numbers adding up, or rather, the numbers going down.

To make green steel, you need green hydrogen; to make green hydrogen, you need cheap renewable energy. HYBRIT and H2 Green Steel believe this will come from wind power at a LCOE of $30 per megawatt-hour. With the trajectory of costs for renewable energy going ever downward, it is likely they will be able to achieve this.

Add to the mix the increasing costs of carbon and the pressure to decarbonize, and you have a winner. It is expected that a carbon credits will be available to green steel producers of around $85 per ton.

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Hydrogen is the simplest element in the universe. And excitement is growing from nations and investors looking to harness its power to make clean, green energy. In this edition of Bloomberg Green, we speak to Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest about his big pivot from dirty coal to clean hydrogen. And Snam CEO Marco Alvera talks to us about his price target for the gas over the next decade. Plus, we break down the difference between gray, blue and green hydrogen, and speak to our BloombergNEF analysts about the possible limitations of the gas.

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A wind turbine sitting idle on a calm day or spinning swiftly when power demand is already met poses a problem for renewables, and is one researchers think can be tackled under the sea.

In one vision, could use seawater to essentially store until it’s needed, helping wean humanity off fossil fuels.

“We came up with a solution that we call the battery,” Frits Bliek, CEO of Dutch startup Ocean Grazer told AFP while showing off the at the CES tech fair in Las Vegas.

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🚀

In the two weeks since its launch on December 25 at 7:20 am ET, Webb has successfully completed many milestones:

✨ Webb released and deployed its solar array, which means the telescope went off battery power and began to use its own generated power.
✨ Webb has had two planned mid-course correction burns. Webb was launched on a direct path to an orbit around the second Lagrange Point (L2), but its trajectory required correction maneuvers to get there.
✨ The 5-layer sunshield has been fully deployed and tensioned. Did we mention it is the size of a tennis court? 🤯
✨ Webb’s secondary mirror, which plays an important role in reflecting light collected by the primary mirror into the telescope’s instruments, has been deployed.

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