The aircraft, evocatively called Skydweller and built by a U.S.-Spanish aerospace firm Skydweller Aero, could help the Navy keep a watchful eye on the surrounding seas while escorting ships months at a time or act as a communications relay platform. The company was awarded a $5 million contract by the U.S. Navy to develop the aircraft.
To stay airborne for so long, the pilotless craft would have 2900sq ft of solar cells on its wings.
Accelerating norway towards a low-carbon economy — bjørn kjærand haugland, co-founder and CEO, skift.
Bjørn Haugland is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of SKIFT Business Climate Leaders (https://www.skiftnorge.no/english), a Norwegian business-led climate initiative with a mission to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy and support the government in delivering on its national climate commitments by 2030. The coalition hopes to demonstrate, to businesses and the government, the business potential that exists in the low-carbon economy and help drive the transition.
Mr. Haugland is the former Executive Vice President and the Chief Sustainability Officer in DNV GL Group where he oversaw the groups sustainability performance and drove company-wide sustainability initiatives.
Mr. Haugland has extensive experience assisting multinational companies in areas such as corporate sustainability, innovation and business development. He was responsible for the Global Opportunity Report, a joint initiative together with UN Global Compact and Sustainia, a fact-based sustainability consulting and communication firm.
Mr. Haugland is today a board member at the University of Bergen, WWF, The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Sporveien and Kezzler. He is also member of the advisory Board for Centre for Responsible Leadership. He is co-founder of Zeabuz, a new service for urban, emission free, autonomous ferries and Terravera, a tech foundation to make sustainability a reality by giving anyone insights to support their everyday decisions. He is member of the The Norwegian Board of Technology (NBT) that advises the Norwegian Parliament and Government on new technology as well as a member of Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences.
Some kinds of water pollution, such as algal blooms and plastics that foul rivers, lakes, and marine environments, lie in plain sight. But other contaminants are not so readily apparent, which makes their impact potentially more dangerous. Among these invisible substances is uranium. Leaching into water resources from mining operations, nuclear waste sites, or from natural subterranean deposits, the element can now be found flowing out of taps worldwide.
In the United States alone, “many areas are affected by uranium contamination, including the High Plains and Central Valley aquifers, which supply drinking water to 6 million people,” says Ahmed Sami Helal, a postdoc in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. This contamination poses a near and present danger. “Even small concentrations are bad for human health,” says Ju Li, the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and professor of materials science and engineering.
Now, a team led by Li has devised a highly efficient method for removing uranium from drinking water. Applying an electric charge to graphene oxide foam, the researchers can capture uranium in solution, which precipitates out as a condensed solid crystal. The foam may be reused up to seven times without losing its electrochemical properties. “Within hours, our process can purify a large quantity of drinking water below the EPA limit for uranium,” says Li.
Shells of tamarind, a tropical fruit consumed worldwide, are discarded during food production. As they are bulky, tamarind shells take up a considerable amount of space in landfills where they are disposed as agricultural waste.
However, a team of international scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has found a way to deal with the problem. By processing the tamarind shells which are rich in carbon, the scientists converted the waste material into carbon nanosheets, which are a key component of supercapacitors — energy storage devices that are used in automobiles, buses, electric vehicles, trains, and elevators.
The study reflects NTU’s commitment to address humanity’s grand challenges on sustainability as part of its 2025 strategic plan, which seeks to accelerate the translation of research discoveries into innovations that mitigate our impact on the environment.
Skydweller Aero’s latest flight test of a modified solar-powered aircraft will provide the real-world data necessary for the U.S.-Spanish startup’s engineers to start developing and testing their proprietary autonomous flight software.
Established in 2019 following the acquisition of Swiss nonprofit Solar Impulse’s Solar Impulse 2 aircraft—which circumnavigated the globe in 2016 — Skydweller is headquartered in Oklahoma, with offices in the Washington D.C. region and a flight test facility in Albacete, Spain, roughly two hours south of their engineering operations in Madrid. During the two-and-a-half-hour optionally-piloted flight demonstration in Albacete, Skydweller’s engineering team completed initial validation of their new flight hardware and autopilot’s ability to initiate and manage the aircraft control, actuation, and sensor technology systems.
A pilot was in the cockpit of the Solar Impulse 2, working in tandem with another operator who controlled the movements of the aircraft remotely from the ground.
Electric tractor developer Solectrac has announced that its e70N tractor is now available for sale. Solectrac recently delivered the 70-horsepower, diesel-equivalent tractors to three farms in Northern California as part of a grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s Funding Agriculture Replacement Measures for Emission Reductions Demonstration Program (FARMER).
Solectrac is an electric tractor developer founded in Northern California with the goal of offering farmers independence from the pollution, infrastructure, and price volatility associated with fossil fuels.
Electrek first reported on Solectrac after it donated a Compact Electric Tractor (CET) to Jack Johnson’s nonprofit organization in Oahu, Hawaii.
Meat lovers will be upset about what I am going to write. I consider myself a meat lover too but I have to face the facts. Livestock industry is consuming a lot of crops like corn, barley, hay and soybeans which cover most of farmlands. And these crops can not be grown inside vertical farms or hydroponic farms. Regenerative agriculture can reduce CO2 and gives a solution to improve the quality of the soil from breaking. We need to let most farm lands to recover so we can avoid desertification. Plant-based food also uses soybeans and other crops but i think it will have less impact on farmlands since livestock will have less share. Humans were hunter gatherers then we start growing wheat to feed our growing population to adapt with the situation and now we are facing new challenges that could change our diet in the next 40 years.
Regenerative farming refers to practices focused on replenishing the soil’s nutrients and includes things like no-till cultivation, rotational cattle grazing, using less synthetic fertilizers and planting cover crops. In addition to making soil and crops healthier, the practices help to sequester CO2.
Lately, the movement has gained the support of major corporations like General Mills and PepsiCo, as well as the Biden administration. Now, a number of carbon markets such as Nori and Indigo Ag are springing up to encourage farmers to participate, but challenges remain.
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This next jump in battery-tech could solve a lot of EV problems.
The world of the internal combustion engine will sadly, but very necessarily, come to a close at some point in many of our lifetimes. Hybrids and electric vehicles are becoming more affordable and more advanced at a rapid pace, which means batteries are taking the place of fossil fuels. This has led to an equally rapid progression in battery technology, with the main goals of improving capacity, charging times, and safety. One major advancement in this field is the advent of solid-state batteries, which promise to push the boundaries of the limitations that current lithium-ion batteries carry.
Electric vehicles have been powered by lithium-ion batteries for years, which are similar to the ones used in laptops, cell phones, and other consumer electronics. They are constructed with a liquid electrolyte inside, which makes them heavy and susceptible to instability at high temperatures. Because each individual battery pack can’t generate all that much energy on its own, several have to be linked together in series, further adding to the weight. The cost of engineering, manufacturing, and installing battery packs makes up a considerable portion of the overall cost of an electric vehicle.
Just like a cell phone, the lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles need to be recharged. The speed at which an electric vehicle’s batteries can be charged depends on the vehicle itself, the type of batteries it uses, and on the charging infrastructure. In general, public charging stations fall into either the Level 2 or Level 3 categories, both of which can charge an EV far quicker than a standard household outlet. Level 1 and Level 2 chargers provide power to the on-board charger via AC power, which is converted to DC power to charge the battery. Level 3, which can also be called DC Fast Charging, bypasses that on-board generator and instead charges the battery directly and at a much quicker rate. Over time, however, both the battery capacity and the ability to reach peak charging rates degrade.
Private sector solutions to major social problems — stephanie smith — director, humanitarian & development, mastercard.
Stephanie Smith is a Director, in the Humanitarian & Development group, at Mastercard (https://www.mastercard.us), the American multinational financial services corporation.
Stephanie is responsible for operations of the Humanitarian & Development group at Mastercard, and ensuring the team’s efficient, consistent, and effective delivery against their vision to provide digital tools and access for education, health, commerce, and other critical services for marginalized individuals and communities. The Humanitarian & Development group is focused on driving commercially sustainable social impact in collaboration with governments, NGOs, and other private sector companies.
After graduating from Oxford University, Stephanie began her professional career at a rapidly growing technology company, Applied Predictive Technologies / APT (acquired by Mastercard) delivering analytics software and consulting engagements to Fortune 500s.
Stephanie is particularly passionate about diversity & inclusion and solving social problems, and has experience delivering projects and technologies that drive a lasting social impact.