Lifeboat Foundation

Oil and gas wells no longer in use could be the answer.

NREL researchers Chad Augustine (left) and David Young, along with former colleague Henry Johnston, have been examining the idea of using depleted oil and gas wells as a reservoir for the storage of natural gas. The gas can then be released, as needed, to spin a turbine and generate electricity. Photo by Werner Slocum, NREL.

Chad Augustine and his colleagues at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) see opportunity where others might simply see a hole in the ground.

Continue reading “NREL Researchers Plot Energy Storage Under Our Feet” »

The smallest artificial spin ice ever created could be part of novel low-power HPC.

The project will also become a new tourist attraction, ready to welcome tourists in early 2022.

This represents a $2.6 billion government giveaway to an industry that made $22 billion in profit in 2021.

Earth natural source of heat to warm the house.

These are typically powered by natural gas or electricity, which is usually generated by gas or another fossil fuel, causing a significant share of the nation’s carbon emissions.

Continue reading “‘Geogrid’ helps cut home energy bills to just $1 per month” »

Revolutionary tool will meet future pandemics with accelerated response.

A new tool speeds up development of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products by more than one million times while minimizing costs.

In search of pharmaceutical agents such as new vaccines, industry will routinely scan thousands of related candidate molecules. A novel technique allows this to take place on the nano scale, minimizing use of materials and energy. The work is published in the prestigious journal Nature Chemistry.

The research project took place during the heating period spanning November 2021 to April 2021 and the cooling period from May 2021 to October 2021. The PV system was designed to cover 4.9% of the roof surface area. The total installed power of the building was 480 kW.

Through their simulation, the scientists found that the shade effect of PV panels may reduce the building’s cooling demand by 10.87%, which means a lower power consumption of 136.6 kWh for the cooling months. “Conversely, PV panels increased the heating load in the winter by 3.8%, which means that the rise in heating loads in heating months was 175.3%,” they also explained. “A rooftop PV system provides a greater understanding of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) energy demand variance in buildings which is critical in modern architecture.

Back in 1,859, long before the internet, a massive geoelectrical storm knocked out the telegraph systems in the world. Reports were given of telegraph operators being shocked, the paper catching fire, and the equipment being operated without the batteries being connected. This was caused by the massive surge of electrical power caused by the storm. These storms occur when a bubble of superheated gas from the sun hits the earth. These storms cause massive damage to our solar system. This occurrence causes a massive surge in electrical activity and damage. Scientists studying these events have concluded that they occur every 500 years. The event in 1,859, known as the Carrington Event, was the most recent. This could mean that in the year 2,359, another storm would wipe out the entire internet.

The Carrington Event was the largest recorded geoelectrical storm, but it wasn’t the first to happen. An even bigger storm happened in our solar system in A.D. 774, based on readings taken from ice core samples in the Antarctic. The solar flare that was launched from the sun during this event in the Antarctic caused the fastest and biggest rise in carbon-14. Carbon-14 is an isotope of Carbon, which is created from the sun and contains highly radioactive material. Though the Carrington Event was measured via observatories at the time, scientists were able to read the rings in the ice taken from the Antarctic event, which is now known as the Miyake event. Based on those readings, the Miyake event was even greater than the Carrington event. The readings of the ice showed a 14% increase in carbon-14. The Carrington event only saw an increase of less than 1% in carbon-14 readings.

Scientists have a rating system that measures the level of geoelectrical storms based on a scale of 1 to 5. The geoelectrical storms are then given a designation of G1 to G5 based on their intensity. The Carrington event was rated a G5. That would have meant the Miyake event was even more catastrophic in our solar system. A storm that was three times smaller than the Carrington event occurred in 1989. This event took place in Quebec, Canada, and caused the full collapse of the Hydro-Quebec electrical grid. The geoelectrical storm was so powerful that it also caused damage to a circuit breaker in New Jersey. This resulted in the grid’s circuit breakers going off, which caused five million people being without power for nine hours. Should an electrical storm like this occur in currently, the damage would be immeasurable.

Captured CO₂ products include non-petroleum fuels, vodka, perfume, foam, insulation, mattresses, and carbon fibre for buildings and cars.