Sustainability – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Jul 26
2016

Welcome to Lab 2.0 Where Computers Replace Experimental Science

We spend our lives surrounded by high-tech materials and chemicals that make our batteries, solar cells and mobile phones work. But developing new technologies requires time-consuming, expensive and even dangerous experiments.

Luckily we now have a secret weapon that allows us to save time, money and risk by avoiding some of these experiments: computers.

Thanks to Moore’s law and a number of developments in physics, chemistry, computer science and mathematics over the past 50 years (leading to Nobel Prizes in chemistry in 1998 and 2013) we can now carry out many experiments entirely on computers using modeling.

Jul 26
2016

Quantum dot photosensitizers as a new paradigm for photochemical activation

Interesting work on solar energy and Q-dot photosensitizers.

Interfacial triplet-triplet energy transfer is used to significantly extend the exciton lifetime of cadmium selenide nanocrystals in an experimental demonstration of their molecular-like photochemistry.

Photosensitizers are an essential component of solar energy conversion processes, in which they are used to generate the highly reactive excited states that enable energy conversion (e.g., photochemical upconversion).^{1, 2} Typically, molecular triplet photosensitizers are used for such applications, but to improve the solar energy conversion process, the identification and preparation of next-generation triplet photosensitizers is required. However, the design of such photosensitizers—suitable for solar energy conversion and photocatalytic applications—remains a challenge.³

Jul 25
2016

Computers Could Use More Than World’s Production of Energy by 2040

The report, by the Washington DC-based Semiconductor Industry Association and the Semiconductor Research Corporation, includes a chart which shows for the amount energy needed per bit, computing will not be sustainable by 2040.

This is when the energy required for computing is estimated to exceed the estimated world’s energy production.

Jul 25
2016

China Bans Testing Of Autonomous Cars On Its Highways

No offense Tesla, Google, GM, etc.

China has banned highway testing of autonomous vehicles while the country’s auto-industry regulator works with local police to determine specific national rules about autonomous car testing.

Jul 23
2016

Audi Mesarthim F Tron Quattro concept supercar that is powered with nuclear fusion

The concept of nuclear fusion is definitely a reliable and sustainable option to meet the energy needs of the world without fossil fuels. There are several scientists who will suggest this as a beneficial option. Nuclear Fusion is a method of fusing together the atomic nuclei. It can produce vast amount energy with only a small amount of fuel. It can prove to be really beneficial if control of the method is perfected. It will take only a small number of small fusion power stations to provide sufficient energy for the whole world. It will also ensure no harmful emissions at all. The Audi Mesarthim F Tron Quattro concept is a nuclear powered car imagined by Grigory Gorin, a Russian car designer.

The Russian car designer imagined this amazing concept of providing power to a car by harnessing nuclear fusion. The fusion reactor along with the attached plasma injectors can be seen in the middle of this Audi concept car. The equipments required to generate the steam are packaged around them. The heat of the reactor is used which spins a turbine that connected to a generator. The generator charges the batteries that are located at the front and alongside of the Audi Mesarthim F Tron Quattro concept. The batteries power the electric motors (wheel mounted).

Jul 22
2016

Facebook’s solar-powered internet drone takes flight

SAN FRANCISCO Facebook Inc (FB.O) said on Thursday it had completed a successful test flight of a solar-powered drone that it hopes will help it extend internet connectivity to every corner of the planet.

Aquila, Facebook’s lightweight, high-altitude aircraft, flew at a few thousand feet for 96 minutes in Yuma, Arizona, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post on his Facebook page. The company ultimately hopes to have a fleet of Aquilas that can fly for at least three months at a time at 60,000 feet (18,290 meters) and communicate with each other to deliver internet access.

Google parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) has also poured money into delivering internet access to under served areas through Project Loon, which aims to use a network of high-altitude balloons to made the internet available to remote parts of the world.

Jul 22
2016

Let’s all move to Mars! The space architects shaping our future

We’ve had starchitects. Now we’ve got space architects. Oliver Wainwright meets the people measuring up the red planet for inflatable homes and farms made of moondust concrete.

Jul 22
2016

Facebook Test-Flies Drone to Bring Internet to Remote Areas

US social networking giant Facebook announced on Thursday a successful test of its solar-powered Aquila drone, which will beam Internet to people in remote areas.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Facebook has been working on Aquila Project with leading experts in aerospace and communication technologies, from NASA’s jet propulsion lab to a small UK firm that created one of the world’s longest flying solar-powered drones.

Jul 21
2016

Huge sail will power JAXA mission to Trojan asteroids and back

I wonder, if NASA and/or SpaceX goes to Mars in the 2030’s as planned, by the time the 2050’s roll around a manned attempt to Ceres or Jupiter trojans might be attempted or perhaps an unmanned vehicle made on Mars beats this sail.

Japan’s space agency has its sights on unexplored asteroids as far away as Jupiter, a project that at one level draws on centuries of sail science.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency this month unveiled a huge prototype solar sail designed to power a JAXA probe as it explores asteroids that circle the sun on roughly the same orbit as Jupiter. The sail measures 2,500 sq. meters and is made up of thousands of ultraslim solar panels.

“The fascination of the universe lies in its countless unknowns, and our research is a challenge to reveal the mysteries with our own hands,” said Jun Matsumoto, a JAXA researcher who designed the kite-like sail.

Jul 21
2016

Facebook Heads For The Clouds With Its Internet-Streaming, Solar-Powered Aquila Drone

Tech now really moving into the clouds.

Although the world is increasingly connected through the internet, there are still four billion people or 60% of the world’s population who do not have such access. 1.6 billion of those people live in remote locations and do not have access to mobile broadband networks. Facebook Connectivity Lab just announced the first full-scale test flight of Aquila, a solar-powered airplane that can be used to bring affordable internet to isolated areas.

Aquila is a high-altitude, long-endurance, unmanned solar-powered airplane. It has a wingspan bigger than a Boeing 737 airplane but weighs hundreds of times less due to its carbon fiber frame. Many of the team members who contributed to the craft had previous experience at at NASA, Boeing, DARPA, Northrop Grumman, and the British Royal Air Force.