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Category: sustainability – Page 183

It turns out there’s a lot of scrap wood produced by the US Army. According to the US Army Corps of Engineers, more than 80 percent of solid waste produced at the Department of Defense (DoD) forward operating bases consists of scrap wood, cardboard, and paper. This equates to almost 13 pounds of waste per soldier per day that could be reused if handled properly, reducing garbage and supplying useful materials for construction.

DARPA’s new Waste Upcycling for Defense (WUD) program aims to produce a process for turning scrap wood, cardboard, and paper into lightweight, strong, and sustainable materials for reuse in a variety of DoD environments.

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According to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, representatives from Tesla are planning to meet India’s commerce minister this month to discuss the possibility of constructing a factory for producing an all-new $24,000 electric car. Tesla has expressed interest in manufacturing low-cost electric vehicles for both the local Indian market and exports. This meeting would mark the most significant discussions between Tesla and the Indian government since Elon Musk’s meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June, where he expressed his intention to make a substantial investment in the country.

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Dr. Michael Roberts, Ph.D. is Chief Science Officer of the International Space Station National Laboratory (https://www.issnationallab.org/), and Vice President at the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS — https://www.issnationallab.org/about/center-for-the-advancem…dership/), which as manager of the ISS National Laboratory in partnership with NASA, is responsible to the nation for enabling access to the International Space Station for research, technology development, STEM education, and commercial innovation in space as a public service to foster a scalable and sustainable low Earth orbit economy.

Before joining CASIS in 2013, Dr. Roberts worked as a microbial ecologist, principal investigator, and research group lead in the NASA Advanced Life Support program at the Kennedy Space Center.

Prior to arriving at NASA-KSC in 1999, Dr. Roberts completed an undergraduate degree in biology at Maryville College, a doctorate in microbiology at Wesleyan University and post-doctoral research at the Center for Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University and the RIKEN Institute in Wako-shi, Japan.

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A revolutionary new high-temperature superconducting tape could lead to the development of small, efficient tokamak nuclear fusion reactors.

A groundbreaking high-temperature superconducting tape has been devised that could prove revolutionary in our quest to develop sustainable nuclear fusion, reports IEEE Spectrum.

GRETCHEN ERTL/CFS/MIT PLASMA SCIENCE AND FUSION CENTER

A revolutionary material.

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There are now over 1.9 million orders for the long-awaited Tesla Cybertruck, per a crowd-sourced data tracker. Speaking on an Earnings Call earlier this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that demand for the Cybertruck is “so off the hook, you can’t even see the hook.”

Given that Tesla plans to produce 375,000 Cybertrucks a year at peak capacity, new orders will technically take around 5 years to arrive. That said, a significant amount of reservation holders may not follow through with their purchase — after all, the deposit to reserve a Cybertruck was only $100. The Cybertruck is being produced at Giga Texas, although it’s a possibility it could also be built at Giga Mexico when the proposed factory is up and running in a few years’ time.

It will be interesting to see if the Cybertruck will be offered outside of North America. Currently, those in Tesla’s European and Asian markets can pre-order the truck. That said, the Cybertruck’s large size and hefty weight could make selling it overseas a serious challenge. For example, in several European nations it would have to be classed as a commercial truck or semi.

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Halide perovskites are a family of materials that have attracted attention for their superior optoelectronic properties and potential applications in devices such as high-performance solar cells, light-emitting diodes, and lasers.

Caption :

A new MIT platform enables researchers to “grow” halide perovskite nanocrystals with precise control over the location and size of each individual crystal, integrating them into nanoscale light-emitting diodes. Pictured is a rendering of a nanocrystal array emitting light.

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According to scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a bifacial perovskite solar cell holds the potential to produce higher energy yields at lower overall costs.

The bifacial solar cell captures direct sunlight on the front and reflected sunlight on the back. As a result, this type of device can outperform its monofacial counterparts, according to the new study.

“This perovskite cell can operate very effectively from either side,” said Kai Zhu, a senior scientist in the Chemistry and Nanoscience Center at NREL and lead author of a new paper.

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Now that’s something mach can use.

MIT researchers have recently developed a portable desalination unit that can remove particles and salts to turn seawater into drinking water.

The suitcase-sized device, weighing less than ten kilograms, requires less power to operate than a cell phone charger and can also be driven by a small, portable solar panel.

It automatically generates drinking water that exceeds World Health Organization quality standards. The technology is packaged into a user-friendly device that runs with the push of a button.

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A team of researchers from the Instituto de Carboquímica of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has made a remarkable step forward in the development of efficient and sustainable electronic devices. They have found a special combination of two extraordinary nanomaterials that successfully results in a new hybrid product capable of turning light into electricity, and vice-versa, faster than conventional materials.

The research is published in the journal Chemistry of Materials.

This consists of a one-dimensional conductive polymer called polythiophene, ingeniously integrated with a two-dimensional derivative of graphene known as graphene oxide. The unique features exhibited by this hybrid material hold incredible promise for improving the efficiency of optoelectronic devices, such as smart devices screens, and solar panels, among others.

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