Lifeboat Foundation

As the world rushes toward “the greatest disconnect between supply and demand in the history of commodities,” Snow Lake Lithium CEO Philip Gross talks us through his company’s plans to open the world’s first all-electric lithium mine in Canada.

Now that we’re starting to see the chaotic and destructive early effects of climate change begin to wreak havoc the world over, the world seems to have finally reached a consensus that we need to decarbonize as rapidly as possible. Which is great – better late than never. But a huge percentage of the push toward net zero carbon by 2050 is going to rely on batteries, and the simple fact is this: there’s not going to be enough lithium.

There’s plenty in the ground, but as we wrote a couple of months ago, there’s nowhere near enough coming out of it, and while everyone seems to be expecting electric vehicles to continue taking over the auto market, the numbers look dire. By 2030, if all existing mines keep producing and everything that’s under construction comes to fruition, there’ll still be barely enough metal to satisfy half of demand. This will be a lithium resource squeeze of epic proportions.

Starship is getting very close to becoming real. Starship just did a 14 engine static fire which is nearly as powerful as the Saturn V that landed people on the moon. A 33 engine static fire should happen within a month.

In addition, NASA just signed up Starship for a third trip to the moon. They have now signed up for one cargo and two crew missions to the moon for a total of over $4 billion. Other customers have signed up with Starship as well.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — NASA has awarded SpaceX a $1.15 billion contract to develop an upgraded version of its Starship lunar lander and fly a second crewed mission.

Continue reading “NASA awards SpaceX $1.15 billion contract for second Artemis lander mission” »

From wearable gadgets to battery separators, the future of sustainable tech is starting to look like a mushroom. A team of researchers from the Institute of Experimental Physics in Linz have completed a proof-of-concept study, testing whether mycelium skin could substitute plastic in the production of soft electronics. The scientists used processed skin from the mushroom Ganoderma Lucidum – a saprophytic fungus native to some parts of Europe and China that grows naturally on dead hardwood.

This works by laying electronic components on the fungal skin through a process called physical vapor deposition, used to produce thin materials. The resulting electronic circuit has high thermal stability and can withstand thousands of bending cycles. The researchers say that combining conventional electronics with the biodegradable material could help reduce waste in the production of wearable electronics and sustainable battery separators, among other uses.

Continue reading “What if We Could Make Electronics From Mushrooms? | Mashable” »

Things can always get smaller.

That might also be true for one of our much-debated energy sources. Even though experts claim that nuclear energy is a reliable and sustainable energy source, the nuclear energy debate continues, with small-scale nuclear reactors being developed around the world. They are said to be a safer and less expensive form of nuclear power. On the other hand, full-scale nuclear reactors are large, expensive, and take a long time to build, and making them smaller, portable, cheaper, and safer could ensure that solar, wind, and hydro are not getting all the attention.

Continue reading “Could micro nuclear reactors be the future of nuclear energy?” »

It will be used to power oil and gas production.

Hywind Tampen, the world’s largest floating wind farm, located off the coast of Norway, has become operational, a company press release said. Of the 11 turbines involved in the project, the first turbine began power production on November 13, with another six scheduled to go online this year.

With the impending doom of climate change and the recent upshoot of fuel prices, countries around the world are looking to switch aggressively to renewable energy. While those in the tropics are looking at solar power, others that can access winds over the seas are looking to build offshore wind farms.

Continue reading “World’s largest floating wind farm is now powering gas and oil production” »

A team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory has developed a new characterization tool that allowed them to gain unique insight into a possible alternative material for solar cells. Under the leadership of Jigang Wang, senior scientist from Ames Lab, the team developed a microscope that uses terahertz waves to collect data on material samples. The team then used their microscope to explore methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI₃) perovskite, a material that could potentially replace silicon in solar cells.

Richard Kim, a scientist from Ames Lab, explained the two features that make the new scanning probe microscope unique. First, the microscope uses the terahertz range of electromagnetic frequencies to collect data on materials. This range is far below the visible light spectrum, falling between the infrared and microwave frequencies. Secondly, the terahertz light is shined through a sharp metallic tip that enhances the microscope’s capabilities toward nanometer length scales.

“Normally if you have a light wave, you cannot see things smaller than the wavelength of the light you’re using. And for this terahertz light, the wavelength is about a millimeter, so it’s quite large,” explained Kim. “But here we used this sharp metallic tip with an apex that is sharpened to a 20-nanometer radius curvature, and this acts as our antenna to see things smaller than the wavelength that we were using.”

Genetic diversity enables coral species to adapt to threats from climate change, so researchers have designed an aquarium coral “family tree” to help maintain and promote genetic diversity.

It is the first coal carrier to be powered by hard sail wind power propulsion technology.

The world’s first partly wind-powered bulk carrier ship sailed to the Port of Newcastle on its maiden voyage this week.

The Japanese shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL), which delivered the 100,422 dwt (dead-weight tonnage) bulker on October 7, 2022, sailed to Newcastle on Monday, reported *Offshore Energy*.