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Category: energy – Page 106

Electric buses could help solve the problem. Today Bhattacharya is the CEO and co-founder of BasiGo, a mobility startup racing to electrify the city’s buses. The company is not alone. Swedish-Kenyan electric vehicle manufacturer Roam also has its eyes set on Nairobi’s mass transport sector. Both are rolling out fleets of buses this year that could mark the start of a new chapter for city’s famous matatu culture.

During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in Nairobi, Kenya, something improbable happened: a mountain appeared. To curb the transmission of the virus, authorities called on the city’s thousands of private bus operators to cease trading. “Within three days, the air completely cleared,” recalls entrepreneur Jit Bhattacharya. “You could see Mount Kenya … crystal clear,” some 90 miles away.

Bhattacharya also saw an opportunity. Kenya produces 90% of its electricity from renewable sources – mostly geothermal and hydropower – and has surplus grid capacity, yet it imports nearly all its petroleum fuels. What if clean energy could be channeled into the transport sector? Maybe it could help the city clean up its act. Maybe Mount Kenya could become a permanent feature for Nairobi once more.

The Kenyan capital is home to over five million people, and matatus, privately owned minibuses and shared taxis, “are critical to the way people in Nairobi get around,” explains Christopher Kost, Africa program director at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. “In the city, we have 40% of trips on public transport.”

Continue reading “Electric buses are driving a silent revolution in Nairobi” | >

Researchers have come up with a new way to use 3D printing to make a new superalloy.

A group of researchers has developed a new superalloy resistant to high temperatures. This could if ever brought into production, prove revolutionary for the future of turbines.

This would increase its efficiency and decrease waste heat.

Continue reading “Researchers may have just future-proofed turbines in the aerospace and energy industry” | >

Nanoscale defects and mechanical stress cause the failure of solid electrolytes.

A group of researchers has claimed to have found the cause of the recurring short-circuiting issues of lithium metal batteries with solid electrolytes. The team, which consists of members from Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, aims to further the battery technology, which is lightweight, inflammable, energy-dense, and offers quick-charge capabilities. Such a long-lasting solution can help to overcome the barriers when it comes to the adoption of electric vehicles around the world.

A study published on January 30 in the journal Nature Energy details different experiments on how nanoscale defects and mechanical stress cause solid electrolytes to fail.

According to the team, the issue was down to mechanical stress, which was induced while recharging the batteries. “Just modest indentation, bending or twisting of the batteries can cause nanoscopic issues in the materials to open and lithium to intrude into the solid electrolyte causing it to short circuit,” explained William Chueh, senior study author and an associate professor at Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

The possibility of dust or other impurities present at the manufacturing stage could also cause the batteries to malfunction.

Continue reading “New Lithium Metal Battery Lets Drones Fly 70 Percent Longer” | >

NEW YORK (AP) — Archaeologists in Kenya have dug up some of the oldest stone tools ever found, but who used them is a mystery.

In the past, scientists assumed that our direct ancestors were the only toolmakers. But two big fossil teeth found along with the tools at the Kenyan site belong to an extinct human cousin known as Paranthropus, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.

This adds to the evidence that our direct relatives in the Homo lineage may not have been the only tech-savvy creatures during the Stone Age, said study author Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program.

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To make long-term presence on the Moon viable, we need abundant electrical power. We can make power systems on the Moon directly from materials that exist everywhere on the surface, without special substances brought from Earth. We have pioneered the technology and demonstrated all the steps. Our approach, Blue Alchemist, can scale indefinitely, eliminating power as a constraint anywhere on the Moon.

We start by making regolith simulants that are chemically and mineralogically equivalent to lunar regolith, accounting for representative lunar variability in grain size and bulk chemistry. This ensures our starting material is as realistic as possible, and not just a mixture of lunar-relevant oxides. We have developed and qualified an efficient, scalable, and contactless process for melting and moving molten regolith that is robust to natural variations in regolith properties on the Moon.

Using regolith simulants, our reactor produces iron, silicon, and aluminum through molten regolith electrolysis, in which an electrical current separates those elements from the oxygen to which they are bound. Oxygen for propulsion and life support is a byproduct.

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A new chemical process developed by Danish company Vestas can ensure that wind turbine blades are recycled at the end of their life, instead of being abandoned or going to landfill sites.

Wind power is one of the best ways to decarbonise the world’s electricity. Recent years have seen explosive growth in capacity additions, as well as gigantic new turbine designs able to generate as much as 18 MW. The costs keep falling, while efficiencies continue to improve. The trend is now obvious: renewable energy is the future and will inevitably displace fossil fuels.

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A new North Carolina State University study, performed in collaboration with battery testing researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, shows that extremely short pulses from a high-powered laser can cause tiny defects in lithium-ion battery materials—defects that can enhance battery performance.

The technique, called nanosecond pulsed laser annealing, lasts for only 100 nanoseconds and is generated by the same type of laser used in modern-day eye surgeries. Researchers tested the technique on graphite, a material widely used in lithium-ion battery anodes, or positive electrodes. They tested the technique in batches of 10 pulses and 80 pulses and compared the differences in current capacity; power is calculated by multiplying voltage by current.

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in portable electronic devices and electric cars. With further improvements, these batteries could have a major impact on transportation and as storage devices for renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

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