The U.S. electric system is adapting to a new wave of distributed energy resources, such as solar panels and energy storage. Some of these work together in localized networks known as microgrids—nearly 2,000 are now operating or planned across the country, according to one estimate.
Prized for their flexibility, microgrids can run in an “island” mode or connect to the main grid. Although microgrids can potentially enhance reliability, the current electric system needs upgrading in order to synchronize with them properly.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory study the impact of microgrids and analyze ways to assimilate them smoothly within the larger electric system. Part of this work focuses on the distribution system—the last leg of electricity’s journey from energy source to outlet.
Crop One and Emirates Flight Catering (EKFC) have launched a $40 million joint venture to build the world’s largest vertical farming facility in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The vertical farm facility will cover 130,000 square feet—with a production output equivalent to 900 acres of farmland.
The facility will go under construction near the Al Maktoum International Airport.
For millennia, our planet has sustained a robust ecosystem; healing each deforestation, algae bloom, pollution or imbalance caused by natural events. Before the arrival of an industrialized, destructive and dominant global species, it could pretty much deal with anything short of a major meteor impact. In the big picture, even these cataclysmic events haven’t destroyed the environment—they just changed the course of evolution and rearranged the alpha animal.
But with industrialization, the race for personal wealth, nations fighting nations, and modern comforts, we have recognized that our planet is not invincible. This is why Lifeboat Foundation exists. We are all about recognizing the limits to growth and protecting our fragile environment.
Check out this April news article on the US president’s forthcoming appointment of Jim Bridenstine, a vocal climate denier, as head of NASA. NASA is one of the biggest agencies on earth. Despite a lack of training or experience—without literacy in science, technology or astrophysics—he was handed an enormous responsibility, a staff of 17,000 and a budget of $19 billion.
In 2013, Bridenstine criticized former president Obama for wasting taxpayer money on climate research, and claimed that global temperatures stopped rising 15 years ago.
The Vox News headline states “Next NASA administrator is a Republican congressman with no background in science”. It points out that Jim Bridenstine’s confirmation has been controversial — even among members of his own party.
Sometimes, flip-flopping is a good thing
In less than one month, Jim Bridenstine has changed—he has changed a lot!
After less then a month as head of NASA, he is convinced that climate change is real, that human activity is the significant cause and that it presents an existential threat. He has changed from climate denier to a passionate advocate for doing whatever is needed to reverse our impact and protect the environment.
What changed?
Bridenstine acknowledges that he was a denier, but feels that exposure to the evidence and science is overwhelming and convincing—even in with just a few weeks exposure to world class scientists and engineers.
For anyone who still claims that there is no global warming or that the evidence is ‘iffy’, it is worth noting that Bridenstine was a hand-picked goon. His appointment was recommended by right wing conservatives and rubber stamped by the current administration. He was a Denier—but had a sufficiently open mind to listen to experts and review the evidence.
Do you suppose that the US president is listening? Do you suppose that he will grasp the most important issues of this century? What about other world leaders, legislative bodies and rock stars? Will they use their powers or influence to do the right thing? For the sake of our existence, let us hope they follow the lead of Jim Bridenstine, former climate denier!
The nuclear power sector is seeing a resurgence in innovation, supported by new policies and emerging technologies. The general public and various governments are starting to grasp the value of nuclear power as an alternative, sustainable energy source. Unlike renewables, such as wind and solar power, nuclear energy is not dependent on weather conditions for power generation, having a capacity factor of over 90 percent. Nuclear power is also more eco-friendly than natural gas and coal and its “carbon-free” attributes are seen as critical in the fight against climate change.
For decades, advancements in the nuclear power sector have been incremental and focused largely on making systems “walk away safe.” Today, the industry is pushing the boundaries and exploring applications for nuclear power in ways that have never before been considered.
BWXT is at the forefront of this nuclear renaissance. This 6,000-employee company operates on the model of letting capital drive strategy. BWXT is constantly evaluating new ways to ensure workers, funding, and policies are utilized in the most effective way possible. The company also analyzes the needs of numerous other industries to determine how nuclear power could provide innovative solutions.
Here, the problem is marketing. Around 2bn people eat insects already, but few of them are Westerners. Changing that could be a hard sell. Grind the bugs up and use them as ingredients, though, and your customers might find them more palatable. Hargol FoodTech, an Israeli startup, plans to do just that. Locust burgers, anybody?
MOST people like to eat meat. As they grow richer they eat more of it. For individuals, that is good. Meat is nutritious. In particular, it packs much more protein per kilogram than plants do. But animals have to eat plants to put on weight—so much so that feeding livestock accounts for about a third of harvested grain. Farm animals consume 8% of the world’s water supply, too. And they produce around 15% of unnatural greenhouse-gas emissions. More farm animals, then, could mean more environmental trouble.
Some consumers, particularly in the rich West, get this. And that has created a business opportunity. Though unwilling to go the whole hog, as it were, and adopt a vegetarian approach to diet, they are keen on food that looks and tastes as if it has come from farm animals, but hasn’t.
Soaring global need for cooling by 2050 could see world energy consumption for cooling increase five times as the number of cooling appliances quadruples to 14 billion—according to a new report by the University of Birmingham, UK.
This new report sets out to provide, for the first time, an indication of the scale of the energy implications of ‘Cooling for All’.
Effective cooling is essential to preserve food and medicine. It underpins industry and economic growth, is key to sustainable urbanisation as well as providing a ladder out of rural poverty. With significant areas of the world projected to experience temperature rises that place them beyond those which humans can survive, cooling will increasingly make much of the world bearable—or even safe—to live in. With populations increasing, expanding urbanisation and climate change impacts leading to more frequent heatwaves and temperature rises, the demand for more cooling will increase in the decades ahead.
As of today, July 10, 2018. There are 3081 Exoplanets discovered and confirmed so far… Exoplanets are planets orbiting other stars or found outside our solar system.
These planets orbiting from 2842 stars. We consider these as other solar systems from which 633 of these stars have multiple planets orbiting around them just like our own solar system.
John Bucknell says the nuclear turbo rocket technology and his designs are ready for development. The air-breathing nuclear thermal rocket will enable 7 times more payload fraction to be delivered to low-earth orbit and it will have 6 times the ISP (rocket fuel efficiency) as chemical rockets. The rocket will have two to three times the speed and performance of chemical rockets for missions outside of the atmosphere.
The fully reusable nuclear rocket will be a single stage to orbit system which will be able to make space-based solar power several times cheaper than coal power. Using the 11-meter diameter version of this rocket to build space-based solar power will enable solar power at less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Hydrogen will play a central role as a storage medium in sustainable energy systems. An international team of researchers has now succeeded in raising the efficiency of producing hydrogen from direct solar water-splitting to a record 19 percent. They did so by combining a tandem solar cell of III-V semiconductors with a catalyst of rhodium nanoparticles and a crystalline titanium dioxide coating. Teams from the California Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, Technische Universität Ilmenau, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE participated in the development work. One part of the experiments took place at the Institute for Solar Fuels in the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin.
Photovoltaics are a mainstay of renewable-energy supply systems, and sunlight is abundantly available worldwide – but not around the clock. One solution for dealing with this fluctuating power generation is to store sunlight in the form of chemical energy, specifically by using sunlight to produce hydrogen. This is because hydrogen can be stored easily and safely, and used in many ways – whether in a fuel cell to directly generate electricity and heat, or as feedstock for manufacturing combustible fuels. If you combine solar cells with catalysts and additional functional layers to form a “monolithic photoelectrode” as a single block, then splitting water becomes especially simple: the photocathode is immersed in an aqueous medium and when light falls on it, hydrogen is formed on the front side and oxygen on the back.
The team created a technique called Solution-Process Secondary growth (SSG) which increased the voltage of inverted perovskite solar cells by 100 millivolts, reaching a high of 1.21 volts without compromising the quality of the solar cell or the electrical current flowing through a device. They tested the technique on a device which recorded a PCE of 20.9 percent, the highest certified PCE for inverted perovskite solar cells ever recorded.
Researchers are still working towards increasing efficiency and stability, prolonging lifetime and replacing toxic materials with safer ones. Researchers are also looking at the benefits of combining perovskites with other technologies, like silicon for tandem cells.
