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Category: sustainability – Page 63

The main cost of an electric vehicle (EV) is its battery. The high cost of energy-dense batteries has meant EVs have long been more expensive than their fossil fuel equivalents.

But this could change faster than we thought. The world’s largest maker of batteries for electric cars, China’s CATL, claims it will slash the cost of its batteries by up to 50% this year, as a price war kicks off with the second largest maker in China, BYD subsidiary FinDreams.

What’s behind this? After the electric vehicle industry experienced a huge surge in 2022, it has hit headwinds. It ramped up faster than demand, triggering efforts to cut costs.

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A team of scientists in the United Kingdom say they’ve discovered a porous material that has the potential to store large quantities of greenhouse gases, making it a possible new tool in the arsenal to fight climate change.

The scientists detailed how they used computational models to develop this material in a newly published paper in the journal Nature Synthesis, arguing that certain features of the structure could make it excellent storage for carbon dioxide and sulphur hexafluoride, another powerful greenhouse gas.

“This is an exciting discovery because we need new porous materials to help solve society’s biggest challenges,” engineering professor Marc Little from Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University said in a statement about the research.

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Tesla Megapack has been selected to power a massive new record-breaking 13 GWh battery system from Neoen in Australia.

This project is the second stage of the Collie Battery project, which is named after a town in Western Australia where the project is located.

As we previously reported, France’s Neoen is already building the first stage with Tesla Megapack 2XLs.

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Nuclear energy has long been regarded as a next-generation energy source, and major countries around the world are competing to secure cutting-edge technologies by leveraging the high economic efficiency and sustainability of nuclear power. However, uranium, which is essential for nuclear power generation, has serious implications for both soil ecosystems and human health.

Despite being a key radioactive material, uranium poses significant health risks due to its chemical toxicity to the kidneys, bones, and cells. As a result, both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization recommend allowing and advocating for uranium concentrations in wastewater to be below 30 μg/L.

The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has conducted research on a nano-material-based adsorption process to efficiently remove uranium wastewater extracted from actual radioactive-contaminated soil. They have also proposed its applicability to prevent secondary environmental pollutions.

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EV battery supplier for Tesla, VW and other brands makes huge progress with new LFP power pack.

CATL has announced its new Shenxing Plus battery will be capable of adding as much as 600km of EV range in just 10 minutes, despite relying on cheaper lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry.

That’s up from 400km range over the same timeframe announced by CATL in August last year.

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As electric vehicle (EV) sales skyrocket, more than doubling in 2021 compared to 2020, and automotive companies announce massive investments in batteries and EVs, the transition from gas to electricity-powered vehicles is looking all the more inevitable.

Still, misinformation abounds during this exciting technological change. Here are seven of the biggest myths about EVs.

1. Electric cars will always be more expensive. Up front electric vehicle prices have steadily fallen since the turn of the century, to the point where they are closing in on parity with gas vehicles.

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As summer approaches, electricity demand surges in the U.S., as homes and businesses crank up the air conditioning. To meet the rising need, many East Coast cities are banking on offshore wind projects the country is building in the Atlantic Ocean.

For electric grid operators, knowing how much wind power these offshore turbines can harvest is critical, but making accurate predictions can be difficult. A team of CU Boulder scientists and their collaborators are working to tackle the challenge.

In a paper published March 14 in Wind Energy Science, a team led by Dave Rosencrans, a doctoral student, and Julie K. Lundquist, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences, estimates that in the Atlantic Ocean region, where the U.S. plans to build large wind farms, could take away wind from other turbines nearby, potentially reducing the farms’ power output by more than 30%.

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NIMS has succeeded in simulating the magnetization reversal of Nd-Fe-B magnets using large-scale finite element models constructed based on tomographic data obtained by electron microscopy.

Such simulations have shed light on microstructural features that hinder the coercivity, which quantifies a magnet’s resistance to demagnetization in opposing magnetic fields. New tomography-based models are expected to guide toward the development of sustainable permanent magnets with ultimate performance.

Green power generation, electric transportation, and other high-tech industries rely heavily on high-performance permanent magnets, among which the Nd-Fe-B magnets are the strongest and most in demand. The coercivity of industrial Nd-Fe-B magnets is far below its physical limit up to now. To resolve this issue, micromagnetic simulations on realistic models of the magnets can be employed.

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Researchers at EPFL have created the first detailed model explaining the quantum-mechanical effects that cause photoluminescence in thin gold films, a breakthrough that could advance the development of solar fuels and batteries.

Luminescence, the process where substances emit photons when exposed to light, has long been observed in semiconductor materials like silicon. This phenomenon involves electrons at the nanoscale absorbing light and subsequently re-emitting it. Such behavior provides researchers with valuable insights into the properties of semiconductors, making them useful tools for probing electronic processes, such as those in solar cells.

In 1969, scientists discovered that all metals luminesce to some degree, but the intervening years failed to yield a clear understanding of how this occurs. Renewed interest in this light emission, driven by nanoscale temperature mapping and photochemistry applications, has reignited the debate surrounding its origins. But the answer was still unclear – until now.

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