Lifeboat Foundation

With an estimated 60 to 70 vessels, China allegedly possesses the largest fleet of conventional submarines in the world.

The Chinese Navy could finally use lithium technology to replace the lead-acid batteries that are now used in its fleet of conventional submarines.

Since lithium batteries had a higher risk of catching fire or exploding, the navy was hesitant to replace the submarine fleet’s current batteries with them.

Continue reading “China: Lithium batteries may soon power ‘world’s largest fleet’ of submarines” »

Transitioning away from fossil fuels.

The cost of turning sunlight into electricity has fallen more than 90 percent over the last decade. Solar is now the cheapest form of newly built energy generation. Job done? Not quite. Right now, solar works well at cost-competitive prices and can help us cut emissions significantly. But with less than five percent of the world’s electricity delivered by solar, we are just at the start.

The solar panels of 2022 are like the chunky mobile phones of the 1990s. Much more is possible with the same underlying technology.

Continue reading “Solar panels: How new materials can make them cheaper and better than ever” »

A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have made a serendipitous scientific discovery that could potentially revolutionize the way water is broken down to release hydrogen gas—an element crucial to many industrial processes.

The team, led by Associate Professor Xue Jun Min, Dr. Wang Xiaopeng and Dr. Vincent Lee Wee Siang from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering under the NUS College of Design and Engineering (NUS CDE), found that light can trigger a new mechanism in a catalytic material used extensively in water electrolysis, where water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen. The result is a more energy-efficient method of obtaining hydrogen.

This breakthrough was achieved in collaboration with Dr. Xi Shibo from the Institute of Sustainability for Chemicals, Energy and Environment under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR); Dr. Yu Zhigen from the Institute of High Performance Computing under A*STAR; and Dr. Wang Hao from the Department of Mechanical Engineering under the NUS CDE.

Ice buildup on powerlines and electric towers brought the northern US and southern Canada to a standstill during the Great Ice Storm of 1998, leaving many in the cold and dark for days and even weeks. Whether it is on wind turbines, electric towers, drones, or airplane wings, dealing with ice buildup typically depends on techniques that are time consuming, costly and/or use a lot of energy, along with various chemicals. But, by looking to nature, McGill researchers believe that they have found a promising new way of dealing with the problem. Their inspiration came from the wings of Gentoo penguins who swim in the ice-cold waters of the south polar region, with pelts that remain ice-free even when the outer surface temperature is well below freezing.

We initially explored the qualities of the lotus leaf, which is very good at shedding water but proved less effective at shedding ice,” said Anne Kietzig, who has been looking for a solution for close to a decade. She is an associate professor in Chemical Engineering at McGill and the director of the Biomimetic Surface Engineering Laboratory. “It was only when we started investigating the qualities of penguin feathers that we discovered a material found in nature that was able to shed both water and ice.”

Watch this video to see the beauty of Bashgram, a unique bamboo village located in Tripura, that aims to promote sustainability and eco-tourism, as well as the importance of bamboo in the local culture.

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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.

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.

Continue reading “‘Wind Challenger’: World’s first partially wind-powered cargo ship successfully sailed” »

Prof. Zhang Tao’s group at the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with Prof. Hou Yang from Zhejiang University and Prof. Xiao Jianping from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of CAS, proposed a novel two-dimensional (2D) nanoconfinement strategy to strongly enhance the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity of low-conductivity metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Results were published in Nature Communications.

The development of high-efficiency electrocatalysts for the electrochemical conversion of water to generate environmentally friendly and sustainable hydrogen energy has drawn tremendous attention for decades.

Despite the crucial role the OER plays in water splitting, OER at the anode requires a relatively high thermodynamic potential to accelerate water splitting kinetics. Thanks to the large surface area, tunable porosity, diverse compositions and metal centers, MOFs have emerged as promising candidates for efficient OER electrocatalysts. However, the intrinsically poor conductivity of the most MOFs seriously impede their catalytic activity.

This harkens back to the first time he spoke about Twitter as a town square.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has now confirmed he is buying Twitter. The billionaire has tweeted a letter of sorts addressed to the advertisers who use Twitter. In the letter, Musk explains why he bought Twitter and that most of the speculation surrounding the purchase has been wrong.

Twitter is important to civilization

Continue reading “Elon Musk tweets that the social media platform he’s buying is important to civilization” »

Circa 2018 face_with_colon_three

A passion for botanical-based fashion leads to the sacred and rare bark cloth of southern Uganda.