Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability – Page 622

In a majority vote, the lower house of Dutch parliament supported a motion to no longer allow new sales of petrol or diesel cars from 2025. The action was brought by the PvdA, which would bring forward Netherland’s commitment to full electric transportation by decades.

If followed through on (via a Labour motion for the Cabinet’s support), in 2025 only sustainable, zero-emission cars will be available to be purchased.

We assume those still individuals and businesses requiring petrol vehicles (that are yet to be offered via a plug) will have to rely on the used segment of the market from this point on.

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If you dig deep enough into the Earth’s climate change archives, you hear about the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. And then you get scared.

That was a time period, about 56 million years ago, when something mysterious happened — there are many ideas as to what — that suddenly caused concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to spike, far higher than they are right now.

The planet proceeded to warm rapidly, at least in geologic terms, and major die-offs of some marine organisms followed due to strong acidification of the oceans.

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Researchers at the ASU School of Life Sciences may have found a way to improve crop performance and yield with the help of some new biotechnology. They’ve discovered a method to enhance a plant’s tolerance to stress, which could help them survive inclement conditions and still produce food.

The world’s population is currently exploding. There is already well over 7 billion people on Earth, and that number is expected to grow even larger in the next few years. This means that feeding the human race will become more of a challenge in the coming decades.

As the human population grows, climate change is taking its toll. Weather conditions are shifting in areas that are usually used to grow crops, which means that plants in those areas may not produce as much as they normally would. Drought, abnormal heat and other conditions could cause farms to lose production.

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Nuclear fusion needs a “Wright brothers” moment, to convince the world of its promise of unlimited clean and safe energy and so unlock significant private investment, according to a physicist whose says his company is closing in on that goal.

David Kingham, the chief executive of Tokamak Energy, has announced his company’s target of producing its first electricity by 2025 and feeding power into the grid by 2030, as well as investment from the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Harnessing the nuclear energy which powers the sun has long been touted as the ultimate solution to the challenge of powering the world while halting climate change. But, as fusion sceptics often say, the reality has stubbornly remained a decade or two away for many years.

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Vortex is a bladeless, wind-powered generator prototype that produces electricity with minimal moving parts and leaves a minuscule footprint. To top it off, it makes almost no sound. The design aims to reduce both visual and aural impact of traditional bladed turbines, and utilizes the power within swirling vortices of air.

There are many people using standard wind turbines who find them to be problematic. Bladed wind turbines are dangerous to birds, they are incredibly noisy, and their gigantic size makes commercial use a property allowance issue as well. These concerns might be excuses for those who prefer old-aged electricity, but they hold truth to them and these reasons might be holding back the universal acceptance of standard turbines. This is where Vortex finds itself with the upper hand. The unit is much more compact than windmills, and uses the natural currents of wind to move a series of magnets located within its base to generate electricity.

The design does not produce an equatable amount of energy to wind-driven turbines, but it has fewer moving parts and happens to be up to 80% more cost effective to maintain. Also, it reportedly has 40% less of a carbon footprint in comparison with standard wind turbines, so this system has definite economical benefits.

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The world is shifting to clean and renewable energy to power homes and transportation. Just like electronic devices, all green homes and cars will require Lithium-ion batteries to store energy and power them. LiTHIUM X locates and develops lithium assets with the goal of supplying the increasing demand from global battery giants like Panasonic, AESC, LG, BYD and – soon – utility companies.

LiTHIUM X is a lithium resource explorer and developer with a focus on becoming a low-cost supplier for the burgeoning lithium battery industry. Its Sal de los Angeles project is situated in the prolific “Lithium Triangle” in Salta Province, Argentina. The project is comprised on 8,156 hectares covering the nucleus of Salar de Diablillos with approximately C$19 million having been invested in the property by previous operators, including $16.2 million in work completed at Sal de los Angeles between 2010 to 2015. It contains high grade brine with a historic NI 43–101 resource of 2.8 million tonnes LCE and historic positive project economics.

LiTHIUM X also has the largest land package in Clayton Valley, Nevada covering over 15,040 acres between its Clayton Valley North project and Clayton Valley South extension. Both land packages are contiguous to the only producing lithium operation in North America – Silver Peak, owned and operated by Albemarle, the world’s largest lithium producers.

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