Lifeboat Foundation

Electric bicycle sales have been on a skyward trajectory since early in the pandemic, and new numbers show they are selling more units than electric cars and plug-in hybrids combined.

Those figures recently released by the Light Electric Vehicle Association trade group help bolster the case for personal electric vehicles as alternatives to larger cars and trucks.

According to data released by the LEVA, the US saw nearly 790,000 electric bike imports in 2021. That marks a 70% increase from the 463,000 imports in 2020.

The innovative project Green H2-Hub Haren in the Emsland region in northern Germany uses H-Tec Systems electrolysers for sector integration.

The Green H2-Hub Haren project in Haren in Lower Saxony, northern Germany uses two electrolysers from H-Tec Systems. This was announced by project leader CEC Haren GmbH & Co. KG and electrolyser manufacturer H-Tec Systems. The order was placed with H-Tec Systems by the electricity and gas distribution network operator Westnetz. This research and development project is intended to enable the establishment of a decentralized hydrogen facility. At the site, green hydrogen will be produced from wind energy and stored in connection with specific regional applications, primarily for the mobility sector. The H2-Hub targets various hydrogen applications in rural areas – in particular in the field of agriculture – based on the production and use of sustainably generated hydrogen. In addition, the project is intended to significantly increase the city of Haren’s rate of self-sufficiently produced renewable energy. The goal is to implement a model that will also develop and prepare a comprehensive integration of other rural locations and regions in Lower Saxony into the H2 supply infrastructure.

The town of Haren aims to be completely self-sufficient with green energy. New storage systems as part of the H2 Hub enable a significant use of excess electricity from times of peak generation. The 16 wind turbines of the community wind farm Fehndorf-Lindloh are connected to a PEM electrolysis system, as well as an additional battery storage system in combination with a superordinate energy management system. In addition, a hydrogen filling station and a gas network feed-in point will be built. In this way, the project allows the transfer of surplus electricity to other sectors, such as heating or transport.

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Royal BAM announces ‘world’s first’ fully electric asphalt road paver with dual electric motors and a pair of massive 270 kWh batteries!

If you are a scientist, willing to share your science with curious teens, consider joining Lecturers Without Borders!

Established by three scientists, Luibov Tupikina, Athanasia Nikolau, and Clara Delphin Zemp, and high school teacher Mikhail Khotyakov, Lecturers Without Borders (LeWiBo) is an international volunteer grassroots organization that brings together enthusiastic science researchers and science-minded teens. LeWiBo founders noticed that scientists tend to travel a lot – for fieldwork, conferences, or lecturing – and realized scientists could be a great source of knowledge and inspiration to local schools. To this end, they asked scientists to volunteer for talks and workshops. The first lecture, delivered in Nepal in 2017 by two researchers, a mathematician and a climatologist, was a great success. In the next couple of years, LeWiBo volunteers presented at schools in Russia and Belarus; Indonesia and Uganda; India and Nepal. Then, the pandemic forced everything into the digital realm, bringing together scientists and schools across the globe. I met with two of LeWiBo’s co-founders, physicist Athanasia Nikolaou and math teacher Mikhail Khotyakov, as well as their coordinator, Anastasia Mityagina, to talk about their offerings and future plans.

Julia Brodsky: So, how many people volunteer for LeWiBo at this time?

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The RVFL was used in combination with four different techniques: the Jellyfish Search Algorithm (JFSA); the Artificial Ecosystem-based Optimization (AEO); the Manta Ray Foraging Optimization (MRFO) model; and the Sine Cosine Algorithm (SCA). Through the four models, the academics assessed the PV-fed current, the cooling power, the average air chamber temperature, and the coefficient of performance (COP) of a PV-powered STEACS for air conditioning of a 1m³ test chamber under diversified cooling loads varying from 65 to 260W.

The system was built with six solar panels, an air duct system, four batteries, a charge controller, TECs, an inverter, heat sinks, a test chamber, and condenser fans. “The TECs were mainly connected with the air duct arrangement and placed close to each other [and] were placed between the air duct and heat sinks,” the researchers explained. “When direct PV current was fed to TECs arranged on the sheet of the air duct system, one face [became] cold, defined as a cold air duct, and another side [became] hot, called “hot air.” The air ducts were composed of an acrylic enclosure wrapped with a protection sheet.”

How can solar panels be more efficient? Breakthrough research out of Cambridge could see solar panel technology reach 35% efficiency by 2025.

SpaceX’s Starship will be a multipurpose launch vehicle, capable of returning astronauts to the Moon to build a permanent base and enabling humanity to build a sustainable colony on Mars. It is expected to become the world’s most powerful rocket-ship. “Starship was designed from the onset to be able to carry more than 100 tons of cargo to Mars and the Moon. The cargo version can also be used for rapid point-to-point Earth transport. Various payload bay configurations are available and allow for fully autonomous deployment of cargo to Earth, Lunar, or Martian surfaces,” the company said.

SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle has many potential uses and capabilities that will enable access to space like never before. The cargo version of Starship will be able to launch entire satellite constellations in a single launch inside its payload bay. For perspective, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 can carry up to 60 Starlink in a tight configuration inside its 5.2-meter diameter fairing, Starship will be able to carry 400 Starlink to deploy in a single launch inside its fairing. Starship will be capable of deploying giant spacecraft to space inside its clamshell-like fairing, which has an outer diameter of 9-meters –“the largest usable payload volume of any current or in development launcher,” the company says. SpaceX also plans to design an extended Starship volume capability for payloads requiring up to 22-meters of height.

Starship will also be able to capture already in orbit to be repaired or brought back to be disposed of on Earth, according to SpaceX’s Starship User Guide. “Fully-reusable Starship and Super Heavy systems are expected to allow for space-based activities that have not been possible since the retirement of the Space Shuttle and Space Transportation System, or have never been possible before. With a fully reusable Starship, can be captured and repaired in Orbit, returned to Earth, or transferred to a new operational orbit,” SpaceX’s vehicle guide says. This will be possible with Starship’s large clamshell-like cargo door mechanism that opens and closes, as shown in the image below. The clamshell door can be modified to “chomp up” old and space junk orbiting Earth. “We can fly Starship around space and chomp up debris with the moving fairing door,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in July 2021.

Circa 2021

When Harley-Davidson debuted its first electric motorcycle back in 2019, it was held back by an expensive price tag and early production issues. After spinning out LiveWire as a separate brand earlier this year, the company is back with its second electric bike, and it looks to address those issues.

The most eye-catching feature of Harley-Davidson’s new LiveWire One is its price tag. The electric motorcycle will cost $21,999. That’s almost $8,000 less than the $29,799 the original LiveWire sold for when it came out in 2019. With federal subsidies, Harley-Davidson told The Verge it expects most people will be able to buy the LiveWire One for less than $20,000.

Continue reading “Harley-Davidson’s latest LiveWire electric motorcycle is more affordable” »