Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability – Page 364

Smart charging can save electric vehicle drivers £110 a year and cut carbon footprint

Drivers of electric vehicles could save an average of £110 a year—and cut their carbon footprint by 20%—by using “smart charging” to power up their cars at the best possible times, a report by a research team involving Swansea University experts has shown.

Smart charging helps spread out demand for electricity to avoid overloading the National Grid. This is a major issue given the huge growth in the number of electric vehicles, with up to 11 million forecast to be on Britain’s roads by 2030.

Already people can get cheaper electricity by charging at certain times, usually in the early hours of the morning. But smart charging could go much further than this. For example, it could mean charging when windy weather means surplus wind power is being generated, or having your charging automatically coordinated with your neighbors.

The Original Inventor Of “Metaverse” On Technology, Life, And Books: Interview With Neal Stephenson

Few individuals write about issues that impact human survival. Fewer still win multiple literary awards for writing science fiction novels. Hardly anyone joins a major corporation as chief futurist. Neal Stephenson can be credited for doing all three.

Writer, academician, video game designer and technology consultant are just some of the things Neal is famous for. He has authored historical epic novels ‘Cryptonomicon’ and ‘The Baroque Cycle;’ science fiction novels ‘The Diamond Age’ and ‘Anathem;’ contemporary thrillers ‘Zodiac’ and ‘REAMDE;’ and science fiction epic ‘Seveneves,’ among others.

His “Snow Crash” published in 1992 preceded ” The Matrix” series and introduced the concept of “The Metaverse”. Yes, Neal Stephenson coined the term. And his 1994 “Interface” preceded NeuraLink by over 20 years!

In his latest science fiction book “Termination Shock,” Neal lays out a scenario where an individual takes technological steps to intervene in climate change in order to ensure human survival. Let’s hope that this book does is not as prophetic as some of the others.

His imagination, unique sense of technology trends, immersive literary style, and attention to detail set a very high bar for the other science fiction authors. In the past, when people asked me what I would do when aging is defeated, I usually answered that I would catch up on Neal Stephenson’s novels as well as movies and video games based on his work.

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Could a Real-life Stillsuit Keep Us Alive on a Desert World?

Could water-recycling suits help future astronauts survive on Mars?

It’s one of the most well-known pieces of speculative technology in science fiction: the Stillsuit.

As an essential feature of Frank Herbert’s Dune, the Stillsuit is the body-fluid recycling full-body suit worn by the Fremen of Arrakis, a technological adaptation to a desert world with almost no water but home to an extremely valuable resource that leads to human colonization of the barren planet.

While there isn’t any of the spice melange on Mars (at least none that we know of), Dune’s Arrakis has some very strong parallels to the red planet just down the way from us, and some important lessons to teach about survival in such an unforgiving environment.

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Look at how much the planet has changed in four decades with Google Earth Timelapse

What if we could go back in time to four decades ago, when we first heard the term “climate change,” and take a good look at planet Earth?

The new Google Earth Timelapse feature lets us do that. We can scan the globe and look back from the present day to 1984. The feature gives us a unique opportunity to see how human action and natural forces have changed the planet since the 1980s.

The Google Earth Timelapse feature will allow you to view a 37-year timelapse of the entire planet or zoom in on a specific location and time.

Bangkok’s noisy scooter-filled streets may quiet down with new electric motorcycle trial

The Thai government is starting a new trial in Bangkok that will see electric scooters replace their gas counterparts for motorcycle taxis in the city.

The trial run could have big implications not just for Bangkok, but for scooter and motorcycle-laden cities across much of Asia.

If you’ve ever visited Thailand, you’ll surely have seen two of their most popular forms of public transportation that we don’t offer here in the West: rickshaws (tuk-tuks) and motorcycle taxis.