Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: sustainability – Page 388

Solar panels on half the world’s roofs could meet its entire electricity demand — new research

I think we should approach from two angles: 1. encourage and fund through government to have everyone who can to put solar on their home/building/whatever. 2. Also have the massive sites dedicated to solar and wind harvesting. Seems we could be totally solar by mid 2030s.

Rooftop solar panels are up to 79% cheaper than they were in 2010. These plummeting costs have made rooftop solar photovoltaics even more attractive to households and businesses who want to reduce their reliance on electricity grids while reducing their carbon footprints.

But are there enough rooftop surfaces for this technology to generate affordable, low-carbon energy for everyone who needs it? After all, it’s not just people who own their own houses and want to cut their bills who are in need of solutions like this. Around 800 million people globally go without proper access to electricity.

Flying Taxis Got a Major Boost From a New Ultrafast Charging System

Going from zero to full charge in 30 minutes.

Flying taxi firm Lilium and Swedish/Swiss tech multinational ABB announced a collaboration that will see them develop a superfast charging system for eVTOL aircraft that will allow them to increase the amount of time their machines spend in the skies transporting passengers, a press statement reveals.

ABB brings its expertise in battery development to the table, while Lilium provides the platform: its seven-seater eVTOL passenger aircraft, the Lilium Jet. Earlier this month, ABB unveiled the world’s fastest electric car charger, the Terra 360, which is capable of fully charging an EV battery in less than 15 minutes.

In its statement, Lilium says its new system will be able to fully charge a Lilium Jet from zero power in only 30 minutes. It will also be able to reach 80 percent from zero in only fifteen minutes, meaning that incredibly short charging times can be scheduled depending on the travel destination. Lilium says these speedy charge times will help it to stay profitable while maintaining affordable fairs for travelers, as it will allow it to keep its aircraft almost constantly airborne.

It’s Official. China’s Solar Power Can Finally Compete With Coal

The technical potential could rise to ‘nearly 150 PW-hr by 2060′.

The best way to incentivize sustainable energy is to make it affordable.

And the sharp drop in the price of photovoltaic systems has made solar capable of rivaling coal power in China, according to an analysis from researchers published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

However, as solar power comes to encompass a greater slice of a national economy’s power grid, it becomes harder to achieve a sustainable balance against the fact that solar can only generate power intermittently, potentially exacerbating energy management challenges.

Full Story:

Elon Musk’s plan for Tesla, Starlink, and Boring Company in India

E Elon Musk’s plan for Tesla, Starlink, and Boring Company in India: Could the next Elon Musk Tesla empire be in India, a country that he tweeted about entering, be it for cars or helping power the country with renewable energy and there is already movement in India when it comes to Starlink internet service.

Elon Musk visited the Tesla factory in California to the Prime Minister of India(Mr. Narendra Modi). The prime minister is interested in driving India’s technological innovation and wants to see Tesla’s role in renewable energy.

India is ready to provide incentives for Tesla to come to the country, incentives that will reduce the cost of production in India compared to China.

How solar rockets can bring Uber to Musk’s Mars city

One emergent company, Virgin Orbit wants to switch from a fuel-burning upper stage to solar energy, a move that could support future human habitats on other planets.

The satellite launch company has made a name for itself with its visually striking rocket launches. Strapped to the wing of a Boeing 747 the LauncherOne rocket doesn’t need the same launch pads and infrastructure as its competitors.

Virgin Orbit has hosted two successful launches to orbit, but it’s not stopping there. CEO Dan Hart tells Inverse that “we’re developing a solar electric upper stage for our rocket right now.”

Virtual reality: A front-row seat to the impact of (un)sustainable behavior

Witness first-hand how your mountain of waste plastic expands over the years and what impact your food has on the rainforests. Virtual reality gives you a front-row seat to the impact of unsustainable behavior. Communication scientists Marijn Meijers and Hande Sungur have developed highly effective virtual worlds that give people an up-close and personal experience of how sustainable and unsustainable conduct make a substantial difference…

You walk around a supermarket and whenever you take a product from the shelves, a pop-up appears with information about the environmental impact of your choice, for example, clearcutting of tropical rainforest to cultivate the palm oil in your chocolate spread. You travel through time to see how much plastic waste your everyday products create in the future, and travel back to see how your mountain of waste shrinks when you make more sustainable decisions.

VR is shown to have a positive effect on sustainability.

The first findings from Meijers and Sungur’s projects are in and the results are positive. “Research into the VR supermarket shows it gets the message across more effectively and gives people the feeling that they have control over the problem,” says Meijers. “They clearly see how buying eco-friendly products contribute to a more sustainable world and that unsustainable choices have a negative effect. This positive effect on the participants’ behavior continued to be reflected in their real-world shopping habits after two weeks.”

Regher Solar is ready to meet the new space industry’s demand for cheaper, better solar panels

The math is pretty basic. How many satellites are going to go up over the next decade? How many solar panels will they need? And how many are being manufactured that fit the bill? Turns out the answers are: a lot, a hell of a lot, and not nearly enough. That’s where Regher Solar aims to make its mark, by bringing the cost of space-quality solar panels down by 90% while making an order of magnitude more of them. It’s not exactly a modest goal, but fortunately the science and market seem to be in favor, giving the company something of a tailwind. The question is finding the right balance between cost and performance while remaining relatively easy to manufacture. Of course, if there was an easy answer there, someone would already be doing that.

Full Story:

Intech Company is the ultimate source of the latest AI news. It checks trusted websites and collects bests pieces of AI information.

Artificial intelligence: ‘The window to act is closing fast’

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a force for good that could play a huge part in solving problems such as climate change. Left unchecked, however, it could undermine democracy, lead to massive social problems and be harnessed for chilling military or terrorist attacks.

That’s the view of Martin Ford, futurist and author of Rule of the Robots, his follow-up to Rise of the Robots, the 2015 New York Times bestseller and winner of the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, which focused on how AI would destroy jobs.

In the new book, Ford, a sci-fi fan, presents two broad movie-based scenarios.

Scientists Can Grow Meat Protein. With Gene-Edited Barley?

ORF Genetics in Iceland is growing 100,000 genetically engineered barley plants in a greenhouse measuring over 22 square feet (2 sq m) to create lab-grown meat.

This cutting-edge approach has the potential to lower prices, eliminate reliance on live animals in the lab-grown meat sector, and speed up the scaling-up process, according to BBC. And, with the fact that meat accounts for nearly 60 percent of all greenhouse gases from food production in mind, such a development could have far-reaching implications in the fight against climate change.