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Category: sustainability – Page 692

A Quantum Computing-Dominated World Is Coming In Less Than 10 Years, Says CEO Of Acronis

I told folks this; I see another one from Google has joined the QC less than 10 year club. My guess is more likely less than 7 years.

A seminal moment in the quantum technology field just happened: Google’s team of scientists have simulated a hydrogen molecule from its quantum computers, a breakthrough that suggests it could “simulate even larger chemical systems,” writes one of Google Quantum’s engineers, Ryan Rabbush. The search engine’s achievement underscores the technology’s potential as Rabbush posits it can “revolutionize the design of solar cells, industrial catalysts, batteries, flexible electronics, medicines, materials and more.”

As advances in such supercomputers continue, investment and research in this field gathers greater momentum as Google, Alibaba, Baidu, Amazon and other tech giants and governments too are racing to develop this technology. Recently, the European Commission allocated €1 billion to research, incubate and invest in quantum technologies. Meanwhile Google last month made headlines about testing its quantum security to shield its Chrome browser.

“It is a technology that is developing very rapidly,” explains Serguei Beloussov, CEO and founder of data security firm Acronis, adding that industries related to “creativity and human ingenuity” are more difficult to predict and that is the case with this fast-developing field. “Quantum computing at the moment [particularly] quantum metrology and quantum security are things that are dependent on science so [development] can be very slow or rapid. If this technology actually appears, it will be such a huge change that companies like Amazon, Alibaba, Google want to be in front of that change and that is why they are investing,” says this tech expert who is also executive chairman of tech company, Parallels.

Electric vehicles can meet drivers’ needs enough to replace 90 percent of vehicles now on the road

Could existing electric vehicles (EVs), despite their limited driving range, bring about a meaningful reduction in the greenhouse-gas emissions that are causing global climate change? Researchers at MIT have just completed the most comprehensive study yet to address this hotly debated question, and have reached a clear conclusion: Yes, they can.

The study, which found that a wholesale replacement of conventional vehicles with electric ones is possible today and could play a significant role in meeting climate change mitigation goals, was published today in the journal Nature Energy by Jessika Trancik, the Atlantic Richfield Career Development Associate Professor in Energy Studies at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), along with graduate student Zachary Needell, postdoc James McNerney, and recent graduate Michael Chang SM ‘15.

“Roughly 90 percent of the personal vehicles on the road daily could be replaced by a low-cost electric vehicle available on the market today, even if the cars can only charge overnight,” Trancik says, “which would more than meet near-term U.S. climate targets for personal vehicle travel.” Overall, when accounting for the emissions today from the power plants that provide the electricity, this would lead to an approximately 30 percent reduction in emissions from transportation. Deeper emissions cuts would be realized if power plants decarbonize over time.

Japan firm marks one small step for solar energy in space

A major Japanese machinery company said Friday that it has succeeded in transmitting energy wirelessly, marking a step toward making solar power generation in space a reality.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said it used to send 10 kilowatts of power—enough to run a set of conventional kitchen appliances—through the air to a receiver 500 metres (1,640 feet) away.

Wireless power transmission is currently under development as the core technology to tap the vast amount of solar energy available in space and use it on Earth.

Another Tesla Autopilot Crash, This Time in China

One more of these; we may see government step in at the consumer’s urging.

Nobody was killed or even injured. But a minor accident involving a Tesla Model S running on Autopilot in China is again raising questions about exactly how the feature works.

The electric car company said Wednesday that it is investigating the Aug. 2 incident. The driver’s Tesla sideswiped a Volkswagen that was parked halfway in the lane of a busy Beijing highway. The company said Autopilot was engaged and the driver was not holding the steering wheel.

But the driver, Luo Zhen, claimed he was misled by Tesla. He told the Reuters news agency that Tesla salespeople described Autopilot as a “self-driving” system. On a test drive, he said “the demonstrator took his hands off the steering wheel and took his feet off the accelerator and the brake.”

Commercial Space Travel And Colonization: SpaceX, NASA, And NextSTEP Make Preparations For Lift Off

Commercial space travel is about to become a reality brought about by many private companies bent on taking their earthbound successes into space. The FAA is now open to granting permits to private companies to travel into space. It is hoped that this activity will lead to the colonization of Mars.

Elon Musk of SpaceX has the goal of beginning the colonization of Mars in the next decade. He plans to make commercial space travel and colonization a reality in his lifetime, according to The Washington Post. Mr. Musk is the mastermind behind both Tesla and SpaceX. He is one of the most brilliant minds of our time. An innovator and businessman, Elon has a track record of making dreams a reality and turning his plans into tangible results. Comparing his project to the colonization of America, Mr. Musk explains why he thinks people will agree to move to mars.

“The months-long journey is sure to be hard, risky, dangerous, difficult, [but] just as with the establishment of the English colonies, there are people who love that. They want to be the pioneers.”

Researchers Use E.coli to Engineer Improved Biofuels

Interesting.

Although E. coli bacteria is often considered as a bad bug, laboratory-adapted E. coli that do not harm human beings and can multiply fast have been commonly used for various research purposes.

The same property allows the bacteria to rebuild into the smallest of factories when their chemical producing ability is utilized. E. coli possesses the ability to crank out pharmaceuticals, biofuels, and various other useful products.

Currently, a team of researchers from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University have developed a technique to efficiently produce biofuels in certain E. coli. Fuzhong Zhang, assistant professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, accompanied by other researchers, has discovered a new method that will eliminate a major hurdle in the production process.

How to turn green light blue

The upconversion of photons allows for a more efficient use of light: Two photons are converted into a single photon having higher energy. Researchers at KIT now showed for the first time that the inner interfaces between surface-mounted metal-organic frameworks (SURMOFs) are suited perfectly for this purpose — they turned green light blue. The result, which is now being published in Advanced Materials (“Photon Upconversion at Crystalline Organic–Organic Heterojunctions”), opens up new opportunities for optoelectronic applications such as solar cells or LEDs.

Photon upconversion: energy transfer between the molecules is based on electron exchange

Photon upconversion: energy transfer between the molecules is based on electron exchange (Dexter electron transfer). (Image: Michael Oldenburg)

With new water generators, Carrollton startup can unlock the ocean above your head

In the blackland prairie of Texas, an ocean is thousands of miles away. But Benjamin Blumenthal, co-founder and chief executive officer of SunToWater Technologies, says we’re all standing under the sixth ocean — the one that’s above our heads.

The Carrollton startup makes an appliance that unlocks that water supply. The company’s water generators — each about the size of a central air conditioning unit — use air, salt and solar power to produce gallons of drinkable water. They could bring water to rural communities without a municipal water supply, regions stricken by drought or developing countries with water contamination.

But the company will target a higher-end market first: Homeowners with large lawns to water and swimming pools to fill. Blumenthal said SunToWater is focusing on customers in California and Texas, two states that have coped with an unpredictable, and often limited, water supply and the water restrictions and high utility bills that come with it.

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