NASAâs Exploration Ground Systems fully assembled NASAâs Space Launch System rocket and Orion Spacecraft, and our launch and recovery teams are fully certified for NASA Artemis I, launching next year. Artemis I will be the uncrewed start of humanityâs return to the Moon! đ
Risen Energy Co. is planning to build a 45 billion yuan ($7 billion) integrated solar power factory in Inner Mongolia thatâll run on clean energy.
The idea of a human-made device that can process solar energy to make usable fuels has been tantalizing researchers since the 1970s. There being no such thing as a free lunch, it is not so easy to engineer a device that mimics photosynthesis, which Mother Nature perfected a long time ago. Nevertheless, researchers at the Department of Energyâs Lawrence Berkeley Lab in California appear to have solved an important piece of the âartificial leafâ challenge.
Solar Energy & The Artificial Leaf Of The Future
The concept of the artificial leaf first crossed the CleanTechnica radar in the form of a card-sized photoelectrochemical cell, back in 2011. Instead of converting sunlight into electricity, the cell acts as a catalyst that deploys solar energy to break water into oxygen and hydrogen.
With an efficiency of 20.9%, the tested cell does not yet fully exploit the potential.
Circa 2020
What do you get when you place a thin film of perovskite material used in solar cells on top of a magnetic substrate? More efficient hard drive technology. EPFL physicist LĂĄszlĂł ForrĂł and his team pave the way for the future of data storage.
âThe key was to get the technology to work at room temperature,â explains LĂĄszlĂł ForrĂł, EPFL physicist. âWe had already known that it was possible to rewrite magnetic spin using light, but youâd have to cool the apparatus toâ180 degrees Kelvin.â
ForrĂł, along with his colleagues BĂĄlint NĂĄfrĂĄdi and Endre HorvĂĄth, succeeded at tuning one ferromagnet at room temperature with visible light, a proof of concept that establishes the foundations of a new generation of hard drives that will be physically smaller, faster, and cheaper, requiring less energy compared to todayâs commercial hard drives. The results are published in PNAS.
Sunny way.
A âbike highwayâ running between Daejon and Sejong in South Korea is a sight âor rather, a concept â, you surely havenât thought of before: It stretches for 20 miles (32 km), and it not only shields cyclists from the sun but also generates power at the same time.
Itâs true that a bicycle lane in the center of a highway is an unusual location for one, especially with three lanes of traffic on either side of it, yet it works. Much like the $3.7 million SolaRoad in the Netherlands, a 230-foot road replaced by solar panels, which powers the highwayâs lighting system, this bike highway is a win for green energy. Its lanes produce more than enough electricity to power the lighting of the highway and the electric vehicle charging stations, according to Fast Company.
However, in the Netherlands, bicyclists ride on top of the panels instead of under them, while South Koreaâs case is the opposite. Under the overhead solar panels, cyclists use subterranean tunnels to enter and exit the path, which boosts safety tremendously since they can get on and off the bikeway without being involved in the regular traffic. Once on the route, theyâre shielded from the traffic on each side by barriers, and while that doesnât provide pleasant roadside views, it does offer sun protection.
This all-electric 4Ă4 off-road concept has a monster battery pack, a brutally angular and military look that borrows heavily from the Cybertruck, and pop-out solar panels for off-grid charging. Oh, and if you need extra range, you can snap two extra wheels and a battery onto the back of it with a self-balancing caboose that makes it a six-wheel-drive.
First things first: Thundertruck is the brainchild of a Los Angeles âcreative consultancy,â conceived mainly as a way to keep the team busy during the first wave of COVID lockdowns. âInstead of baking bread or making puzzles,â says the Wolfgang L.A. team, âwe decided to make a new state-of-the-art EV truck.â
So while Wolfgang says it âhas the ability to support an entire product development program, from research and strategy to initial sketches and first prototypes, all the way to advertising launch campaigns and content creation,â itâs fair to say itâs unlikely weâll be seeing the Thundertruck out bush-bashing or crushing hillclimbs any day soon.
One of the barriers to generating electricity from wind and solar energy is their intermittent nature. A promising alternative to accommodate the fluctuations in power output during unfavorable environmental conditions are hydrogen storage systems, which use hydrogen produced from water splitting to generate clean electricity. However, these systems suffer from poor efficiency and often need to be large in size to compensate for it. This, in turn, makes for complex thermal management and a lowered energy and power density.
In a study published in Journal of Power Sources, researchers from Tokyo Tech have now proposed an alternative electric energy storage system that utilizes carbon © as an energy source instead of hydrogen. The new system, called a âcarbon/air secondary battery (CASB),â consists of a solid-oxide fuel and electrolysis cell (SOFC/ECs) where carbon generated via electrolysis of carbon dioxide (CO2), is oxidized with air to produce energy. The SOFC/ECs can be supplied with compressed liquefied CO2 to make up the energy storage system.
âSimilar to a battery, the CASB is charged using the energy generated by the renewable sources to reduce CO2 to C. During the subsequent discharge phase, the C is oxidized to generate energy,â explains Prof. Manabu Ihara from Tokyo Tech.