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Category: sustainability – Page 452

Mineral’s plant buggy looks like a platform on wheels, topped with solar panels and stuffed with cameras, sensors, and software.

But maybe there’s a better way—and Mineral wants to find it.

Like many things nowadays, the key to building something better is data. Genetic data, weather pattern data, soil composition and erosion data, satellite data… The list goes on. As part of the massive data-gathering that will need to be done, X introduced what it’s calling a “plant buggy” (if the term makes you picture a sort of baby stroller for plants, you’re not alone…).

It is in fact not a stroller, though. It looks more like a platform on wheels, topped with solar panels and stuffed with cameras, sensors, and software. It comes in different sizes and shapes so that it can be used on multiple types of crops (inspecting tall, thin stalks of corn, for example, requires a different setup than short, bushy soybean plants). The buggy will collect info about plants’ height, leaf area, and fruit size, then consider it alongside soil, weather, and other data.

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Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have significantly boosted the output from a system that can extract drinkable water directly from the air even in dry regions, using heat from the sun or another source.

The system, which builds on a design initially developed three years ago at MIT by members of the same team, brings the process closer to something that could become a practical water source for remote regions with limited access to water and electricity. The findings are described today in the journal Joule, in a paper by Professor Evelyn Wang, who is head of MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering; graduate student Alina LaPotin; and six others at MIT and in Korea and Utah.

The earlier device demonstrated by Wang and her co-workers provided a proof of concept for the system, which harnesses a temperature difference within the device to allow an adsorbent material — which collects liquid on its surface — to draw in moisture from the air at night and release it the next day. When the material is heated by sunlight, the difference in temperature between the heated top and the shaded underside makes the water release back out of the adsorbent material. The water then gets condensed on a collection plate.

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Circa 2016

Scientists have developed a novel system that recovers energy normally lost in industrial processes.

Each year, energy that equates to billions of barrels of oil is wasted as heat lost from machines and industrial processes. Recovering this energy could reduce energy costs. Scientists from Australia and Malaysia have developed a novel system that is designed to maximize such recovery.

Heat can be converted to electricity by devices called thermoelectric power generators (TEGs), which are made of thermoelectric materials that generate electricity when heat passes through them. Previous studies have attempted to use TEGs to recover energy from the heat generated by, for example, car engines, woodstoves and refrigerators. However, TEGs can only convert a small amount of the heat supplied to them, and the rest is emitted as heat from their “cold” side. No previous studies have attempted to recover energy from the waste heat that has already passed through TEGs. Researchers from Malaysia’s Universiti Teknologi MARA and RMIT University in Australia set out to develop a system that can do this.

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Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a rugged new EQC 4×4 electric off-road SUV to show that electric vehicles can also be adventure vehicles.

That’s actually very much Rivian’s mission with the R1T electric pickup truck and R1S SUV, which it describes as “adventure vehicles.”

As for Mercedes-Benz, instead of making a new vehicle, they decided to modify their existing EQC electric SUV.

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My hero my love.

Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a rather interesting announcement for all-electric vehicle enthusiasts in India, when he mentioned that Tesla is planning on entering the Indian automobile market in 2021. The announcement comes after years of waiting for the Indians to get their hands on a Tesla, and it definitely has got the public buzzing with excitement. Now, Musk has also stated that Tesla will be coming up with a Booking Order Configurator for the Indian customers which will be going live in January 2021.

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