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Category: sustainability – Page 361

Clean energy was the No. 2 source of electricity in the US in 2020

Clean energy sources generated a record 834 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity, or about 21% of all electricity generated in the US in 2020, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported yesterday. That includes wind, hydroelectric, solar, biomass, and geothermal.

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Only natural gas (1.617 billion kWh) produced more electricity than clean energy in the US in 2020.

Zinc giant buys wind and solar developer in major green metals and hydrogen play

Korea Zinc buys wind and solar developer Epuron, delivering a wind and solar portfolio of up to 9GW for its green metals and hydrogen ambitions.

Korean Zinc, the world’s biggest zinc, lead and silver producer, has bought Australian-based renewable energy developer Epuron as part of its move towards 100 per cent renewables, green metals and green hydrogen.

The purchase is a significant move, and underlines the determination of some of the world’s biggest metals companies to switch to green products, in moves that will surely turbo-charge the development of wind and solar projects in Australia and across the globe.

AFRL, Northrop Grumman lab tests space-based solar power technology

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL)and Northrop Grumman’s Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research (SSPIDR) Project announced that they are one step closer to collecting solar energy in space and transmitting it to Earth using radio frequency (RF). The team has successfully conducted the first end-to-end demonstration of key hardware for the Arachne flight experiment.

A ground demonstration of novel components for the “sandwich tile” was used to successfully convert solar energy to radiofrequency (RF) – a fundamental step required to pave the way for a large-scale solar power collection system in space. For this to work, it is necessary to use receiving antennas on Earth to convert RF energy into usable power.

Space solar power is a key focus of AFRL, which awarded Northrop Grumman a $100 million contract in 2018 for the development of a payload to demonstrate the key components of a prototype space solar power system. The sandwich tile is currently under development as an essential payload component for Arachne and as a building block for a large-scale operational system.

Solar Polysilicon Prices Start To Plummet

In a bit of good news, the spot price for solar grade polysilicon is dropping quite rapidly. If the trend holds, the cost of solar panels in Australia should follow suit soon-ish.

Polysilicon is used in the manufacture of conventional photovoltaic cells used in solar panels. The sought-after stuff was as cheap as chips in July last year, when it was below USD $7/kg. But a series of events including impacts from the pandemic and a couple of factory fires saw it skyrocket.

Polysilicon spot prices were as high as US$36.64/kg at the beginning of this month. But here’s what’s happened in the last few weeks as reported by Bernreuter Research.

Panasonic to expand Northern Nevada footprint with new Reno campus in early 2022

PENA, the division of Panasonic which produces lithium-ion batteries at the Sparks Gigafactory, will move into an existing building at 645 E. Plumb Lane, about half a mile east of the Reno-Tahoe International Airport. PENA’s headquarters will move from the Gigafactory to the Plumb Lane campus.

“Our new facility in Reno underscores our commitment to evolving and growing to stay at the forefront of the mobility market,” Allan Swan, president of PENA, said in a news release. “Investing in innovation and workforce initiatives in the local community supports our mission of creating a future powered by sustainable energy.”

New Space-Based Solar Panels Could Beam a Great Abundance of Energy to Earth

It’s the stuff of science fiction but it’s real.

Although it may sound like science fiction, space-based solar power has started making headway with several projects underway. In February, we brought you news of technology firm Redwire acquiring Deployable Space Systems (DSS), a leading supplier of deployable solar arrays capable of enabling space missions with the intention of using them to deploy space-based solar power.

Meanwhile, last August we brought you further news, of Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) that collected solar power in space to be transmitted wirelessly to Earth offering energy unaffected by weather or time of day. The project promised to make solar power that could be continuously available anywhere on earth.

X Shore: The ‘Tesla of the Seas’ Is Now Selling Its Luxury EV Boat in the U.S.

And soon it will even dock automatically.

X Shore, the Swedish sustainable boat firm responsible for the Eelex 8,000 recently opened two new offices in the U.S. as part of its plans for expansion, following its U.S. debut at the Palm Beach International Boat Show in March.

“The Eelex 8,000 can travel up to 100nm at lower speeds and can reach speeds over 30 knots. This allows our customers to enjoy being environmentally conscious, without sacrificing performance,” X Shore CEO Jenny Keisu explains in an interview over email.

Since it was founded in 1996, the company has added a host of impressive technologies to its electric boat, drawing comparisons to the “Tesla of the seas”. But, as Keisu tells us, the benefits of the Eelex 8,000 go far beyond providing a sustainable alternative to private boats running on fossil fuels.

The ‘Tesla of the seas’ Much like Tesla, X Shore is bringing a steady cadence of software updates to its boats and the firm even claims it will soon add an autodocking feature, though specifications are yet to be revealed. The technology in its Eelex 8,000 is arguably comparable and, in some cases, more advanced than that of high-end electric vehicles.

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Taiga Motors makes its first production electric snowmobiles

Taiga Motors announced that it has manufactured its first production electric snowmobiles and deliveries are expected to start early next year following regulatory approval.

Like the auto industry, the powersports world is being electrified, and Quebec-based Taiga Motors is one of the companies leading the way for electric snowmobiles and jet skis. Earlier this year, Taiga made waves when it went public and raised $100 million to bring its electric vehicles to production.

Most of the money is going to be used for a big new factory in Shawinigan, but in the meantime, the company is starting low-volume production at a smaller facility in Montreal.

NASA Artemis delegation tours SpaceX’s Starship factory and launch pad

Thanks to the failure of Blue Origin’s NASA Human Landing System (HLS) lawsuit, SpaceX and the space agency were finally able to get back to work last month.

Taking advantage of that, NASA astronauts and Artemis Program leaders recently took a tour of SpaceX’s South Texas Starship factory and launch pads – a massive hub of activity that the company has deemed Starbase. In doing so, save for updates from SpaceX and even members of the public over the last 6–9 months, NASA officials were finally able to get up close and personal with the progress SpaceX has made while the space agency was temporarily forced to halt all work on HLS.

While some aspects of SpaceX’s progress towards orbital Starship test flights were hampered by asymmetry between different programs, namely the readiness of Super Heavy and Starbase’s orbital launch site, SpaceX has still made some impressive progress in less than a year. At the start of 2021, Starbase’s lone orbital launch site was effectively a dirt lot and a fraction of the launch mount – the latter constructed well in advance of the rest of the pad. Less than a year later, that orbital launch site – including a skyscraper-sized launch tower, three massive arms, perhaps the most complex launch mount in spaceflight history, and the largest cryogenic tank farm ever built for a rocket – is on the verge of completion.

Australian discovered graphene material could be key to low-cost next-gen batteries

Australian researchers have struck a deal to commercialise a new next-generation graphene material they say could unlock cheaper and better performing lithium-ion batteries.

Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES), based at the University of Wollongong, say they have discovered a new form of graphene, called ‘Edge Functionalised Graphene’ (EFG), which is both highly conductive and processable for use in a range of electronics.

This includes lithium-ion batteries, with the innovative graphene material promising to improve the efficiency and lower the cost of battery technology used in energy storage devices and electric vehicles.