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Category: sustainability – Page 159

Areas of New York City are sinking while others are rising at varying rates due to both natural and man-made factors.

One of the key indicators of climate change is the rise in sea levels at a global scale, with recent rates being unprecedented in the last 2,500 years. In an exciting study published yesterday, 27 September, NASA-based scientists found that some areas of New York City are sinking while others are rising at varying rates due to natural and man-made factors.

Interesting Engineering had reported earlier on a similar study, which said that New York is sinking due to a natural phenomenon called subsidence, where heavy objects, like buildings, gradually settle over time or when… More.

Shuo Guo/iStock.

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Tesla has broken ground on the site of its planned futuristic diner with a drive-in theater and Supercharger station.

Yes, it sounds like that crazy project is actually happening.

This project has been in the works for a long time. In 2018, Elon Musk said that Tesla planned to open an “old school drive-in, roller skates & rock restaurant at one of the new Tesla Supercharger locations in Los Angeles.” It was yet another “Is he joking?” kind of Elon Musk idea, but he wasn’t kidding.

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The process not only shortens the time required for recycling but also reduces secondary waste streams.

The world is expected to experience a surge in battery demand as it moves to renewable energy sources. And, with the development of sustainable energy technologies, there will be a subsequent increase in the demand for precious metals used in batteries. Many of the materials used in such batteries, like lithium-ion batteries, are not available in abundance, and the best way to meet this need is to recycle old batteries.

To aid in this mission, a team of researchers at Rice University in the United States of America has developed a new recycling process that helps salvage more than 98 percent… More.

Petmal/iStock.

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Most of today’s EVs use lithium-ion batteries, the same kind you’ll find in your smartphone or laptop. These batteries all have two electrodes (one positive and one negative), and the negative one is usually made of graphite.

While the battery is being charged, the lithium ions flow from the side of the battery with the positive electrode to the side with the negative electrode. If the charging happens too fast, the flow can be disrupted, causing the battery to short circuit.

StoreDot’s EV battery replaces the graphite electrode with one made from nanoparticles based on the chemical element germanium — this allows the ions to flow more smoothly and quickly, enabling a faster charge.

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University of Washington researchers are rolling out another tiny robotic breakthrough, this time in the form of an autonomous device that relies on surrounding light or radio waves to move in short bursts.

The robot, dubbed MilliMobile, is about the size of a penny and weighs as much as a raisin, and a typical power source, such as a battery, has been kicked to the curb in favor of more environmentally friendly approach.

MilliMobile has a solar panel-like energy harvester that sits above four tiny wheels, enabling the robot to roll — in incremental steps — about the 30 feet in an hour across surfaces such as concrete or packed soil.

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With the rapid-paced rise of AI in everyday life, nothing, not even the traditional farmer, is untouched by the technology.

A survey of the latest generation of farm tools provides a taste of just how far modern farming has come.

The Ecorobotix, a seven-foot-wide GPS-assisted “table on wheels” as some have described it, is a solar battery-powered unit that roams crop fields and destroys weeds with pinpoint precision. It boasts a 95% efficiency rate, with virtually no waste.

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Material used in organic solar cells can also be used as light sensors in electronics. This has been shown by researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, who have developed a type of sensor able to detect circularly polarized red light. Their study, published in Nature Photonics, paves the way for more reliable self-driving vehicles and other uses where night vision is important.

Some beetles with shiny wings, firefly larvae and colorful mantis shrimps reflect a particular kind of light known as circularly polarized light. This is due to in their shell that reflect the electromagnetic light waves in a particular way.

Circularly polarized light also has many technical uses, such as satellite communication, bioimaging and other sensing technologies. This is because circularly polarizing light carries a vast amount of information, due to the fact that the around the light beam spirals either to the right or to the left.

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The first Tesla Supercharger station with a “Magic Dock” to allow non-Tesla electric cars to charge has been spotted in the US.

After opening its Supercharger network in Europe last year and indicating that it would do the same in North America by the end of the year, we were a bit disappointed when it didn’t happen.

However, we know that it is still imminent. It could really happen any day, or it might have already happened by way of a “soft launch.”

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Professor Nita Farahany reveals to Azeem Azhar the startling advancements of brain-scanning technology and the extraordinary implications this tech has for privacy and humanity.

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The European Commission will launch an anti-subsidy investigation against Chinese automakers, which may result in higher import duties on electric vehicles.

The boom has finally been lowered on Chinese electric-vehicle companies. On September 13, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen used her State of the Union speech to announce that the organization is launching an “anti-subsidy investigation into electric vehicles coming from China.”

The move—which could have serious ramifications for global automakers—has long been in the making.

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