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Category: sustainability – Page 367

Battery-and carmakers are already spending billions of dollars on reducing the costs of manufacturing and recycling electric-vehicle (EV) batteries — spurred in part by government incentives and the expectation of forthcoming regulations. National research funders have also founded centres to study better ways to make and recycle batteries. Because it is still less expensive, in most instances, to mine metals than to recycle them, a key goal is to develop processes to recover valuable metals cheaply enough to compete with freshly mined ones. “The biggest talker is money,” says Jeffrey Spangenberger, a chemical engineer at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, who manages a US federally funded lithium-ion battery-recycling initiative, called ReCell.

Reducing the use of scarce metals — and recycling them — will be key to the world’s transition to electric vehicles.

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Elon Musk has mentioned that the Tesla Cybertruck’s production version would be extremely similar to the all-electric pickup truck’s controversial prototype from 2019. While this may largely be the case, Musk has hinted at some new features that would be included in the production Cybertruck. Apart from updated door handles and rear-wheel steering capabilities, for example, Musk also hinted at “other great things” coming for the vehicle.

A recently published patent application from Tesla has now hinted at a couple more updates that may be coming to the Cybertruck, at least on the design front. The patent, titled “Automotive Glass Structure Having Feature Lines and Related Method of Manufacture,” describes a way to form extremely durable glass structures with aggressive curves and folds. Using such a technique, Tesla stated that it could create components like windshields with very aggressive feature lines that would otherwise not be possible with conventional glass-forming methods.

The patent application’s illustrations showcased how the system would be used in a vehicle such as the Cybertruck. One of the images in the patent featured the far left and right side of the Cybertruck’s windshield having aggressive feature lines that make the all-electric pickup truck even more futuristic and CGI-esque. This is quite different from the windshield used on the prototype Cybertruck, which seemed completely flat.

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Determining if particular extreme hot or cold spells were caused by climate change could be made easier by a new mathematical method.

The , developed by physicists at the University of Reading and Uppsala University in Sweden, looks at the characteristics, or “fingerprints,” of a specific extreme weather event of interest, like a , in order to ascertain whether it can be attributed to natural variability of the climate or is a unique product of global warming.

The method also allows predictions to be made about how likely extreme climate events will be in the future.

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“A new study suggests that if Europe planted trees across all the land suitable for reforestation, it might not only sequester carbon but also partially ameliorate the increasingly dry European summers predicted by climate change models.”

Plant more trees! This message has been one of the cornerstones of the European response to worsening climate change. A new study published in Nature Geoscience suggests that if Europe planted trees across all the land suitable for reforestation, it might not only sequester carbon, but also partially ameliorate the increasingly dry European summers predicted by climate change models. In all, mass reforestation could increase summer rainfall by an average of 7.6%.

“When planned carefully, reforestation could result in additional benefits in regions where it is implemented,” said Ronny Meier, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETH Zürich), and lead author on the study.

Scientists have long identified a link between forests and rainfall, with scientists in the 1850s expressing alarm at reduced rainfall following deforestation. The exact mechanisms of this relationship are, however, still not fully understood. Meier and his colleagues used data from 3,481 rain-gauge stations across Europe to build a statistical model linking forest cover and rainfall levels. The research team then used the model to predict how much rainfall might change if forest cover increased.

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Commercial prospects for robotaxi services remain uncertain in the near term due to the immaturity of the technology, the absence of legislation to clearly define responsibility in case of a self-driving accident, and persistently high costs associated with the complex self-driving systems.

Baidu’s autonomous driving unit has partnered with the luxury electric vehicle brand of BAIC Group to bring fifth generation Apollo Moon robotaxis to Chinese roads, cutting the cost of the vehicles by two thirds.

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Imagine a home that pay you to live in it because you can make a living out of it and grow almost all of your food in it as even sell food from it. Imagine a home that provides its own water and energy. Imagine a home concept that will work almost anywhere on Earth or in space that is cheap to build! Imagine living a high standard of living with virtually no environmental or carbon footprint whilst you retain freedoms. Imagine much less need for utilities. Imagine a home that is resilient, sustainable, can stand up better to environmental or manmade disasters. You own personal bug-in fortress. Imagine a home so green it will start an ice age! See the Greenest concept ever! Image a home you could put almost anywhere! This IS a world changing concept. Make it go viral!

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#Electric and faster than a Tesla. The Rimac Nevera is now officially the fastest accelerating production vehicle in the world. While on its way to participate in Pebble Beach celebrations this weekend, the electric hypercar made a stop at Famoso Raceway in McFarland, California, where it managed to set a production car record quarter-mile time of 8.582 seconds at 167.51 mph, according to Rimac. That was fast enough to beat the company’s own unofficial record of 8.62 seconds, which it set in Croatia back in June. Unlike that previous attempt, Rimac utilized a drag-friendly, VHT-prepped surface this time around. https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a37304155/rimac-nevera-qua…ld-record/

Rimac enlisted Brooks Weisblat from DragTimes to be the wheelman for the record-setting attempt. Thankfully, that means we have some great video footage to go along with the new record. The Nevera is perfectly suited for this sort of endeavor, as the electric hypercar packs 1,914 horsepower and 1,741 lb-ft of torque. The car’s four electric motors also provide all-wheel drive, which utilizes Rimac’s All-Wheel Torque Vectoring 2 technology. Despite the help from the prepared surface and AWD, the Nevera wasn’t exactly testing in ideal conditions. The temperatures outside were as high as 98 degrees fahrenheit, with the track itself measuring in at 149 degrees fahrenheit. This required the company to make some setup adjustments as they went, making several passes in the process. The record-setting run itself was actually the eleventh pass the company made in quick succession.

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We’ve seen a lot of electric vehicle growth and success stories in the past several years, but one area that’s been a bit of a letdown has been the semi truck market. Unfortunately, we still don’t have the Tesla Semi, and it was recently delayed until 2,022 and a big side area of that market that “futurists” have long been excited about is potential self-driving trucks. Platoons of self-driving semi trucks are especially exciting since tight, train-like caravans of semi trucks would use far less energy than the current system, and those trucks could much more easily be cost-competitive electric trucks with zero tailpipe emissions. Anyway, though, we’re getting ahead of ourselves again.

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