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Category: sustainability – Page 304

An international study involving researchers from CNRS and CEA as well as the company Kayrros reveals hundreds of major methane leaks linked to the global exploitation of oil and gas. Scientists show that their mitigation would lead to climatic and economic benefits amounting to billions of dollars for the main hydrocarbon producing countries. This work is published on February 4, 2022 in the journal Science.

Original press release published on CEA.

A major contributor to climate change, methane (CH 4) has a warming potential over 100 years approximately 30 times greater than that of CO 2. A quarter of anthropogenic emissions of this greenhouse gas come from the global exploitation of coal, oil and natural gas, of which CH4 is the main component. In 2018, a study had already exposed, based on the case of the United States, the vast underestimation in official inventories of emissions related to the extraction and distribution of oil and gas. A discrepancy which could be explained by sporadic undeclared releases of large quantities of methane by operators in the sector.

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University of Delaware researchers have broken new ground that could bring more environmentally friendly fuel cells closer to commercialization. Credit: Graphic illustration by Jeffrey C. Chase.

University of Delaware researchers’ carbon capture advance could bring environmentally friendly fuel cells closer to market.

University of Delaware engineers have demonstrated a way to effectively capture 99% of carbon dioxide from air using a novel electrochemical system powered by hydrogen.

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Meta Architectuurbureau and Van Bergen Kolpa Architecten have designed Agrotopia, a greenhouse in Belgium that was added to the roof of an agricultural market to create an urban food production centre.

Located in the city of Roeselare, Agrotopia is Europe’s largest public building for urban food production and will be used to both farm food and educate the public about agriculture.

The 9,500-square-metre greenhouse was built on top of the REO Veiling agricultural auction market. It was commissioned by REO Veiling together with Flemish farming and horticulture research institute Inagro.

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On this land taken from Indigenous Peoples, a new nation was eventually born, largely built by those whose ancestries traced back to the Old World via immigration and slavery.

As the country grew, inventions like the telephone, airplane, and Internet helped usher in today’s interconnected world. But the inexorable march of technological progress has come at great cost to the health of the planet, particularly because of global dependence on fossil fuels. The United Nations declared in 2017 that a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development would be held from 2021 to 2030. This Ocean Decade calls for a worldwide effort to reverse the oceans’ degradation.

The dawn of this decade, 2020, also marked the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s journey. Plymouth 400, a cultural nonprofit, has been working for more than a decade to commemorate the anniversary in ways that honor all aspects of this history, said spokesperson Brian Logan. Events began in 2020, but one of the most innovative launches is still waiting in the wings—a newfangled nautical craft, the Mayflower Autonomous Ship, or MAS.

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Fewer CO2 emissions, more cargo space.

California-based startup Natilus revealed a new unmanned aircraft that it believes will make air cargo more sustainable as well as cost-effective, a report from *NewAtlas* reveals.

The company designed a blended wing body aircraft, similar to NASA’s X-48 “green airliner” concept, which it says allows it to offer “an estimated 60% more cargo volume than traditional aircraft of the same weight while reducing costs and carbon dioxide per pound by 50%.” startup Natilus’ new aircraft promise fewer CO2 emissions and more cargo space.

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Koenigsegg has announced new high power, compact motors and powertrains for electric cars.

Christian von Koenigsegg is an inveterate tinkerer who has built a business on his ability to squeeze extraordinary amounts of power out of internal combustion engines. Lately, he has turned his talents to electric motors and drivetrains. On January 31, his company announced two breakthrough products that could transform the world of electric cars.

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DaVinci penned the aerial screw design in the 1400s, way before air travel was a thing. Now, it’s being put to action with this student-built drone.

Drones aren’t anything new —multi-rotor aircraft are becoming a bigger part of people’s lives every day. From the latest batch of up-and-coming urban air mobility companies to hobby applications, electric aircraft with four or more motors are commonplace, and generally, they use conventional multi-bladed propellers to keep themselves aloft. That’s not what’s going on with this particular drone developed by engineering students at the University of Maryland, though.

Assembled for a student design competition hosted by the Vertical Flight Society, it’s a mixture of old and new. With rotors reminiscent of Leonardo DaVinci’s aerial screw illustrations from the late 1490s, it flies like any other drone would, all while looking extremely bizarre and having interesting flight characteristics.

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In addition to the beautiful reddish image seen by the telescope, ESA stated that the data gathered from this sort of observation could aid in deciphering riddles surrounding the Universe’s beginning.

About Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope is massive, NASA said. Hubble orbits Earth at around 340 miles (547 kilometers). It measures the length of a huge school bus and weighs the equivalent of two adult elephants. Hubble travels at a pace of around 5 miles per second, about the same as traveling from the east to the west coast of the United States in 10 minutes. Hubble is a spacecraft that runs on solar power.

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LANSING, Mich. — Michigan has finalized a contract to build the country’s first wireless charging road system in Detroit, the state announced Tuesday.

The Michigan Department of Transportation awarded the project to Electreon, an electric vehicle solutions firm that will construct a 1-mile stretch of road open to the public and capable of charging battery-powered cars and trucks in real time.

The road where it will be built hasn’t been selected yet, the state said. It will be located somewhere in Detroit.

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