Lifeboat Foundation

Renewable energy is now richer than the Oil industry.

In yet another sign of the pace of the global energy transition – and the massive switch taking place in the investment community – the market value of company that describes itself as the world’s biggest producer of wind and solar power, US utility NextEra, has overtaken that of what used to be the world’s most valuable company, oil major ExxonMobil.

The flip occurred last last week, when NextEra overtook ExxonMobil to become the largest energy company in the US by market value. As Forbes reported, an investment in NextEra a decade ago would have delivered to return of 600 per cent, while an investment in ExxonMobil would have returned minus 25 per cent.

Continue reading “World’s biggest wind and solar producer now worth more than ExxonMobil” »

Airbus’s plan to bring to market a zero-emission passenger aircraft by 2035 means it needs to start plotting a course in terms of technology in 2025. In fact it needs to plot several courses.

It looks like something out of “Star Trek,” and runs on a fuel experts once thought “crazy,” but Airbus hopes that in 15 years we’ll be flying into a greener future aboard this new zero-emission aircraft concept.

Amazon unveiled the electric delivery van that is being built by Michigan-based EV startup Rivian. The delivery giant aims to have 10,000 vehicles on the road by 2022 and 100,000 by 2030.

The team’s findings have been published in Nature: Scientific Reports: “Transition delay using biomimetic fish scale arrays,” and in the Journal of Experimental Biology: “Streak formation in flow over biomimetic fish scale arrays.”

Reducing drag means faster aircraft speeds and less fuel consumption—an important area of study for aerodynamicists such as Professor Bruecker, City’s Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Nature-Inspired Sensing and Flow Control for Sustainable Transport, and City’s Sir Richard Oliver BAE Systems Chair for Aeronautical Engineering.

Through their biomimetic study, Professor Bruecker’s team has discovered that the fish-scale array produces a zig-zag motion of fluid in overlapping regions of the surface of the fish, which in turn causes periodic velocity modulation and a streaky flow that can eliminate Tollmien-Schlichting wave induced transition to reduce skin friction drag by more than 25 percent.

Virgin Hyperloop One will test its futuristic technology in West Virginia, where it will build its first certification center. The center will be a proving ground for a hyperloop system designed to whisk floating pods packed with passengers and cargo through vacuum tubes at 600 mph or faster.

Yes, it is True! A Tesla car is cruising space! The founder of SpaceX Elon Musk wanted to launch a ‘silly’ payload for SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket debut flight because a rocket’s first flight has potential to fail. Typically, aerospace companies launch massive concrete blocks as mass simulators during risky rocket flights. As the dreamer that Musk is, he opted to launch something that would inspire the public to dream big and look at the stars — his flashy midnight cherry Tesla Roadster. The electric vehicle became the crazy payload for the rocket’s launch.

On February 6, 2018, SpaceX conducted Falcon Heavy’s debut flight; It lifted-off from historic launch Pad 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The successful test turned Falcon Heavy into the most powerful rocket in operation, it produced about five million pounds of thrust (22MN). During the mission, SpaceX shared Live footage as the Tesla Roadster was placed into orbit. It was a very inspiring to watch an actual car orbiting around Earth with, a mannequin dressed as an astronaut, positioned in the Tesla driver’s seat; while the radio played “Life on Mars” by David Bowie (video below). After the awe-inspiring launch, Musk wholeheartedly said — “Life cannot just be about solving one sad problem after another. There need to be things that inspire you, that make you glad to wake up in the morning and be part of humanity. That is why we did it. We did for you.”

Ramping Up

Johnson announced that the U.K. would invest about £160 million ($207 million) that will go toward factories that would develop new turbines as well as floating offshore turbines themselves. In order to power every home in the U.K., those turbines would need to generate about 40 GW of power, Engadget reports. That’s four times the nation’s current wind energy output.

“Your kettle, your washing machine, your cooker, your heating, your plug-in electric vehicle, the whole lot of them will get their juice cleanly and without guilt from the breezes that blow around these islands,” Johnson announced at the U.K. Conservative party conference.

Circa 2009

Whizz electrocatalyst frees the hydrogen from ‘liquid gold’

US researchers have developed an efficient way of producing hydrogen from urine — a feat that could not only fuel the cars of the future, but could also help clean up municipal wastewater.

Continue reading “Urine turned into hydrogen fuel” »

“Why would anybody place the front end of a Nissan Skyline GT-R on a Tesla Model 3, even as a rendering?” one might rightfully ask. We’ll, let’s try to answer that.