Researchers engineer atomically thin molybdenum ditelluride layers to create self-powered photodetectors, advancing low-energy infrared imaging technology.
Category: energy – Page 46
ChatGPT and other AIs consume as much energy as thousands of US households, and demand is only set to rise, but it’s a fraction of other tech.
The “super premium” segment here implies a driving range of around 600 miles per charge. In addition, Samsung will be introducing high-nickel NCS products for the premium segment.
Samsung’s oxide solid-state battery technology boasts an energy density of 500 Wh/kg, nearly double the 270 Wh/kg density of mainstream EV batteries.
This increased density could potentially double the driving range of current electric vehicles.
The Sun’s next 11-year solar cycle has been detected in internal sound waves, even though the current Cycle 25 is at its solar maximum and won’t end until mid-2025. This peak period increases sunspots, flares, and coronal mass ejections, sending more electromagnetic energy towards Earth.
Even though the Sun is only halfway through its current 11-year solar cycle, the first rumblings of the next one have already been detected in sound waves inside our home star.
This existing cycle is now at its peak, or ‘solar maximum’ — which is when the Sun’s magnetic field flips and its poles swap places — until mid-2025.
Looking like a set of bridge supports that were accidentally installed on a cargo ship, a new wind-driven system by startup CoFlow Jet promises to reduce ship fuel costs by up to 90% using stationary cylinders with no moving parts.
Between rising fuel costs and increasing government mandates requiring shipping companies to go carbon neutral by 2050, there’s a strong push to increase the efficiency of cargo ships while reducing their emissions. One way of doing this is to take a page from the history books and readopt sails to harness the wind.
On the surface, that makes sense. Sails have been propelling ships all over the world for millennia and were still used for commercial transport until after the Second World War. However, there are two problems with sails that have pushed them out of the cargo market for all except the most local of niches.
Space weather is heating up in our current solar cycle peak.
By Clara Moskowitz & Matthew Twombly
Aurora sightings may become more common, and satellite communications and power grids could be disrupted, as solar activity peaks. Our nearest star is always volatile, but its magnetic action waxes and wanes on an 11-year loop. The sun is thought to be in a peak now, although scientists will need another year or two to analyze data before they can say for sure. During this high point we should see more sunspots (dark areas where the sun’s magnetic field reaches the surface) and solar storms (ejections of energy from the sun that reach into space and can affect Earth).
Lithium-ion batteries have a lot of advantages. They charge quickly, have a high energy density, and can be repeatedly charged and discharged.
They do have one significant shortcoming, however: they’re prone to short-circuiting. This occurs when a connection forms between the two electrodes inside the cell. A short circuit can result in a sudden loss of voltage or the rapid discharge of high current, both causing the battery to fail. In extreme cases, a short circuit can cause a cell to overheat, start on fire, or even explode.
A leading cause of short circuits are rough, tree-like crystal structures called dendrites that can form on the surface of one of the electrodes. When dendrites grow all the way across the cell and make contact with the other electrode, a short circuit can occur.
Researchers at the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with collaborators from leading international institutions, have introduced an innovative cathode homogenization strategy for all-solid-state lithium batteries (ASLBs).
This new approach, detailed in their recent publication in Nature Energy on July 31, significantly improves the life cycle and energy density of ASLBs, representing an important advancement in energy storage technology.
Current ASLBs face challenges due to heterogeneous composite cathodes, which require electrochemically inactive additives to enhance conduction. These additives, while necessary, reduce the batteries’ energy density and cycle life due to their incompatibility with the layered oxide cathodes, which undergo substantial volume changes during operation.
Given an open bounded subset Ω of $mathbbR^n$$ R n, which is convex and satisfies an interior sphere condition, we consider the pde $-\Delta_infty u = 1$$ — Δ ∞ u = 1 in Ω, subject to the homogeneous boundary condition u = 0 on ∂Ω. We prove that the unique solution to this Dirichlet problem is power-concave (precisely, 3/4 concave) and it is of class C 1(Ω).