Lifeboat Foundation

Companies specializing in cutting-edge construction techniques are aiming to make a difference by churning out high-quality homes at a lower cost than traditional industry standards. Among these are 3D printed homes, “foldable” homes, and homes that ship in kits then are assembled like Ikea furniture.

Now a new player is joining the list, and it just got a serious financial boost. Vantem Global has already helped construct a total of over three million square feet of living space in six different countries, and earlier this month closed a Series A funding round co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures (Breakthrough was founded by Bill Gates in 2015 to invest in sustainable energy and emissions-reduction technologies).

Continue reading “This Gates-Backed Startup Builds Modular Homes Out of Energy-Efficient Panels” »

Tiny crystals, known as quantum dots, have enabled an international team to achieve a quantum efficiency exceeding 100 percent in the photocurrent generated in a hybrid inorganic-organic semiconductor.

Perovskites are exciting semiconductors for light-harvesting applications and have already shown some impressive performances in solar cells. But improvements in photo-conversion efficiency are necessary to take this technology to a broader market.

Light comes in packets of energy known as photons. When a semiconductor absorbs a photon, the electromagnetic energy is transferred to a negatively charged electron and its positively charged counterpart, known as a hole. An electric field can sweep these particles in opposite directions, thereby allowing a current to flow. This is the basic operation of a solar cell. It might sound simple, but optimizing the quantum efficiency, or getting as many electron-hole pairs from the incoming photons as possible, has been a long-standing goal.

An investigation into Hino blames a lack of psychological safety for 20 years of false carbon emissions data. But can it be nurtured?

The state of Maine has started a campaign to educate residents about heat pumps and now they can heat homes even in the winter.

Heat pumps are i ncomprehensible to many people. How can a thing that looks like an air conditioner keep people warm in the winter? The state of Maine wants to install 100,000 heat pumps in the next 3 years and is off to a good start. 27,000 of them were installed by Maine residents last year. Presently, about 60% of all homes in Maine are heated by oil furnaces — one of the highest percentages in America. All those furnaces mean lots of carbon emissions.

Maine may not have the harshest winters in the United States, but it certainly comes close. Old time Mainers like to say their weather is “10 months of winter and 2 months of damn poor sleddin’.” Outside of cities like Portland, its residents tend to be skeptical of new ways of doing things, and that reticence extends to heat pumps.

Continue reading “Heat Pumps Prove Themselves During A Harsh Maine Winter” »