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Category: sustainability – Page 9

Welcome to the age of wireless electricity.

Nikola Tesla once envisioned a world where electricity could be transmitted wirelessly, eliminating the need for wires and revolutionizing energy distribution.

Over a century later, that dream is on the brink of becoming reality.

Companies worldwide, from America’s Wave Inc. to Japan’s Space Power Technologies and New Zealand’s Emrod, are pioneering wireless power transmission technologies. These innovations range from microwave and laser-based energy transfer to solar satellites that beam electricity from space. New Zealand is already testing Emrod’s wireless energy infrastructure, which could provide clean, sustainable power across difficult terrains. Meanwhile, advancements like wireless EV charging roads and underground charging systems are making the technology more practical than ever.

As promising as wireless electricity sounds, challenges remain—chief among them, public skepticism and efficiency concerns.

Despite this, major institutions like Caltech and Purdue University are pushing forward, with projects aimed at developing large-scale wireless power solutions. Whether through inductive charging for electric vehicles, space-based solar power, or rectenna-driven energy grids, the world is inching closer to Tesla’s vision. If successful, wireless electricity could revolutionize industries, eliminate the limitations of traditional power grids, and usher in a new era of energy sustainability.

The future of power might just be as simple as turning on a switch—without plugging in.

Continue reading “Center for Energy Systems Research” | >

Researchers have developed a battery capable of converting nuclear energy into electricity through light emission, according to a new study.

Nuclear power plants generate about 20% of the electricity in the United States and produce minimal greenhouse gas emissions. However, they also generate radioactive waste, which poses risks to human health and the environment, making safe disposal a significant challenge.

To address this, a team led by researchers from The Ohio State University designed a system that harnesses ambient gamma radiation to generate electricity. By combining scintillator crystals—high-density materials that emit light when exposed to radiation—with solar cells, they successfully converted nuclear energy into an electric output powerful enough to run microelectronics, such as microchips.

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UT Austin researchers have developed a biodegradable, biomass-based hydrogel that efficiently extracts drinkable water from the air, offering a scalable, sustainable solution for water access in off-grid communities, emergency relief, and agriculture.

Discarded food scraps, stray branches, seashells, and other natural materials serve as key ingredients in a new system developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin that can extract drinkable water from thin air.

This innovative system, called “molecularly functionalized biomass hydrogels,” transforms a wide range of natural products into sorbents—materials that absorb liquids. By pairing these sorbents with mild heat, the researchers can extract gallons of drinkable water from the atmosphere, even in arid conditions.

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Satellite-based optical remote sensing from missions such as ESA’s Sentinel-2 (S2) have emerged as valuable tools for continuously monitoring the Earth’s surface, thus making them particularly useful for quantifying key cropland traits in the context of sustainable agriculture [1]. Upcoming operational imaging spectroscopy satellite missions will have an improved capability to routinely acquire spectral data over vast cultivated regions, thereby providing an entire suite of products for agricultural system management [2]. The Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment (CHIME) [3] will complement the multispectral Copernicus S2 mission, thus providing enhanced services for sustainable agriculture [4, 5]. To use satellite spectral data for quantifying vegetation traits, it is crucial to mitigate the absorption and scattering effects caused by molecules and aerosols in the atmosphere from the measured satellite data. This data processing step, known as atmospheric correction, converts top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiance data into bottom-of-atmosphere (BOA) reflectance, and it is one of the most challenging satellite data processing steps e.g., [6, 7, 8]. Atmospheric correction relies on the inversion of an atmospheric radiative transfer model (RTM) leading to the obtaining of surface reflectance, typically through the interpolation of large precomputed lookup tables (LUTs) [9, 10]. The LUT interpolation errors, the intrinsic uncertainties from the atmospheric RTMs, and the ill posedness of the inversion of atmospheric characteristics generate uncertainties in atmospheric correction [11]. Also, usually topographic, adjacency, and bidirectional surface reflectance corrections are applied sequentially in processing chains, which can potentially accumulate errors in the BOA reflectance data [6]. Thus, despite its importance, the inversion of surface reflectance data unavoidably introduces uncertainties that can affect downstream analyses and impact the accuracy and reliability of subsequent products and algorithms, such as vegetation trait retrieval [12]. To put it another way, owing to the critical role of atmospheric correction in remote sensing, the accuracy of vegetation trait retrievals is prone to uncertainty when atmospheric correction is not properly performed [13].

Although advanced atmospheric correction schemes became an integral part of the operational processing of satellite missions e.g., [9,14,15], standardised exhaustive atmospheric correction schemes in drone, airborne, or scientific satellite missions remain less prevalent e.g., [16,17]. The complexity of atmospheric correction further increases when moving from multispectral to hyperspectral data, where rigorous atmospheric correction needs to be applied to hundreds of narrow contiguous spectral bands e.g., [6,8,18]. For this reason, and to bypass these challenges, several studies have instead proposed to infer vegetation traits directly from radiance data at the top of the atmosphere [12,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26].

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Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander is set to make history as it targets a March 2 lunar landing near Mare Crisium, a vast plain on the Moon’s near side. Carrying NASA’s cutting-edge science and technology, this mission marks another crucial step in humanity’s return to the Moon under the Artemis program. As part of NASA’s CLPS initiative, Blue Ghost’s success will pave the way for future lunar and Martian exploration.

Mission Overview: Blue Ghost’s Lunar Delivery.
Launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 on January 15, Blue Ghost carries 10 NASA payloads designed to investigate the Moon’s environment and test new technologies for future missions. These experiments will provide critical data on lunar surface conditions, radiation levels, thermal properties, and advanced landing systems—all essential for upcoming crewed missions.

Live Landing Coverage & Key Moments.
The landing event, hosted by NASA and Firefly Aerospace, will be streamed live on NASA+ and Firefly’s YouTube channel starting at 2:20 a.m. EST on March 2, roughly 75 minutes before touchdown. The stream will cover the final descent, landing confirmation, and initial mission updates. A post-landing press conference will follow, where experts will discuss the mission’s success and upcoming science operations on the lunar surface.

Why This Mission Matters.
Blue Ghost is a key part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which enables private companies to deliver science and technology to the Moon. These robotic landings will support Artemis astronauts, testing vital systems for future long-term lunar habitation and, ultimately, crewed missions to Mars. NASA’s collaboration with companies like Firefly Aerospace ensures rapid progress in space exploration, resource utilization, and sustainable lunar development.

The Future of Lunar Exploration.
With CLPS contracts valued at $2.6 billion through 2028, NASA is committed to building a strong commercial space ecosystem. The $101.5 million contract awarded to Firefly for this mission underscores the agency’s dedication to fostering innovative, cost-effective lunar transportation solutions. Future missions will refine navigation, in-situ resource utilization, and long-duration surface operations, bringing us closer to a permanent human presence beyond Earth.

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Continue reading “LIVE NOW! Blue Ghost’s Historic Moon Landing: Science, Innovation & The Future of Space” | >

It turns out acetate-fed yeast produces about the same amount of vitamin B9 as those that eat sugar. Just 6 grams, or 0.4 tablespoon, of the harvested dried yeast meets the daily vitamin B9 requirement. The vitamin levels were measured by a team led by co-author Michael Rychlik at the Technical University of Munich, Germany.

For protein, the researchers found that the levels in their yeast exceed those of beef, pork, fish, and lentils. Eighty-five grams, or 6 tablespoons, of yeast provides 61% of daily protein needs, while beef, pork, fish, and lentils meet 34%, 25%, 38%, and 38% of the need, respectively. However, the yeast should be treated to rid compounds that can increase the risk of gout if consumed excessively. Even so, treated yeast still meets 41% of the daily protein requirement, comparable to traditional protein sources.

This technology aims to address several global challenges: environmental conservation, food security, and public health. Running on clean energy and CO2, the system reduces carbon emissions in food production. It uncouples land use from farming, freeing up space for conservation. Angenent also stresses that it will not outcompete farmers. Instead, the technology will help concentrate farmers to produce vegetables and crops sustainably. The team’s yeast may also help developing nations overcome food scarcity and nutritional deficiencies by delivering protein and vitamin B9.

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The araneopathogenic genus Gibellula (Cordycipitaceae: Hypocreales) in the British Isles, including a new zombie species on orb-weaving cave spiders (Metainae: Tetragnathidae)

Authors: Evans, H.C. 1 ; Fogg, T. 2 ; Buddie, A.G. 1 ; Yeap, Y.T. 1 ; Araújo, J.P.M. 3, 4 ;

Source: Fungal Systematics and Evolution

Publisher: Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute

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A battery that’s safer and cheaper than lithium-ion while offering comparable energy density? That sounds like a pipe dream. But such a battery is in fact in the works, using a chemistry of renewables to store over 220 Wh/kg. Singaporean startup Flint believes it has the formula for the most sustainable battery the world has ever seen, capable of replacing lithium for applications like EV power and grid storage. Maybe that is a dream. Or maybe it’s the revolutionary eco-optimized battery of the near-future.

A fully sustainable paper battery that can be recycled and dropped in compost at the end of its life cycle sounds too good to be true. It kicks off a major cynicism alert, and the questions flow like water through a burst dam.

Does it offer such low capacity as to be useless for anything outside a laboratory? No, Flint estimates energy density at 226 Wh/kg, which falls comfortably within the range of existing lithium tech.

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Combustion engines, the engines in gas-powered cars, only use a quarter of the fuel’s potential energy while the rest is lost as heat through exhaust.

Now, a study published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces demonstrates how to convert exhaust heat into electricity. The researchers present a prototype thermoelectric generator system that could reduce fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions—an opportunity for improving sustainable energy initiatives in a rapidly changing world.

Fuel inefficiency contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and underscores the need for innovative waste-heat recovery systems. Heat-recovery systems, called thermoelectric systems, use semiconductor materials to convert heat into electricity based on a temperature difference.

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