Scientists have engineered a mutant enzyme that converts 90 percent of plastic bottles back to pristine starting materials that can then be used to produce new high-quality bottles in just hours. The discovery could revolutionize the recycling industry, which currently saves about 30 percent of PET plastics from landfills, reported Science Magazine.
Elon Musk has revealed the reason behind Tesla’s cabin-facing camera that has been in the Model 3 for years without being used.
When Tesla launched the Model 3, it equipped the vehicle with a standard cabin-facing camera located in the rearview mirror.
It has been almost 3 years since Tesla brought the vehicle to production and this camera, which is included in every Model 3, has remained dormant.
Algeria and Germany have initiated project DESERTEC, a huge solar panel project that feeds European/North African countries with green power.
It was intially something they should have done in 2011.
Anyhow, good 👍
So much have time.have been wasted, its time to move on. Time is running out.
L’Algérie et l’Allemagne ont signé un accord préliminaire depuis plusieurs jours pour démarrer le gigantesque projet Desertec. Cela a été communiqué.
USC scientists have developed a new battery that could solve the electricity storage problem constraining widespread use of renewable energy.
The technology is a new spin on a known design that stores electricity in solutions, sorts the electrons and releases power when it’s needed. So-called redox flow batteries have been around awhile, but the USC researchers have built a better version based on low-cost and readily available materials.
“We have demonstrated an inexpensive, long-life, safe and eco-friendly flow battery attractive for storing the energy from solar and wind energy systems at a mass-scale,” said chemistry professor Sri Narayan, lead author for the study and co-director of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute at USC.
A mutant bacterial enzyme that breaks down plastic bottles for recycling in hours has been created by scientists.
The enzyme, originally discovered in a compost heap of leaves, reduced the bottles to chemical building blocks that were then used to make high-quality new bottles. Existing recycling technologies usually produce plastic only good enough for clothing and carpets.
The company behind the breakthrough, Carbios, said it was aiming for industrial-scale recycling within five years. It has partnered with major companies including Pepsi and L’Oréal to accelerate development. Independent experts called the new enzyme a major advance.
Researchers are turning microbes into microscopic construction crews by altering their DNA to make them produce building materials. The work could lead to more sustainable buildings.
Tesla’s extreme Australian makeover continues with a new “virtual power plant,” part of the continent’s overall program to encourage these collections of renewable resources. Tesla is just the first to make and report on a virtual power plant for the program.
Like the large energy storage facility Tesla operates in South Australia, the goal of the virtual power plant is to both collect energy and store it to be fed back into the grid. The pilot virtual plant is distributed across the rooftops of 1,000 low-income homes in South Australia, and Tesla says its goal is to eventually have 50,000 solar rooftops there. That number might sound small, but South Australia only has about 1.6 million residents.
The farm, the first in the world to commercially grow tomatoes solely under artificial light, is one part of a push to transform food production in the United Arab Emirates, where 80% of food is imported.
With little water, scorching temperatures, and not much arable land, the UAE currently imports 80% of its food. Can it go local?
Even before the coronavirus, air pollution killed seven million people a year. Will today’s cleaner air inspire us to do better?
Germany has broken another renewable energy record but officials say there’s still room for improvement. The German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE) reported Sunday that the combined share of renewable energy in the electricity, transport and heating sectors was 15.2 percent in the first half of 2017, up from 14.8 percent during the same period last year.
For the electricity sector alone, renewables supplied a record 35 percent of the country’s power in the first six months of 2017, about a 2 percent increase from 2016’s numbers. To compare, renewables accounted for only 15 percent of the United States’ total electricity generation in 2016.
Despite the new benchmark, BEE acting managing director Harald Uphoff told DW that Germany’s transition to clean energy across all sectors is not happening fast enough. The BEE report showed that renewables provided only 5.1 percent of energy consumed in the transport sector and 13.6 percent in heating.
