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That means digging all the trenching and building out all the electrical distribution equipment on site, if not all the chargers, with a microgrid that’s capable of working as well in the future with 12 MW of power as it does with just 4 MW.

“I think this is the same challenge that all of these large sites are facing—it takes an extremely long time to get the power from the utility. Meanwhile, you don’t need it immediately. So how do you create this sort of staged future-proof solution where you’re not having to open the roads multiple times? You want one construction phase and you want that site to support the future demand,” Putignano said.

For fleets that need their own private charging infrastructure, there are other things to think about, too. Energy management solutions are as important here—microgrids as well as battery storage and battery-buffered chargers will play an important role, for example. But not every energy management solution is charger-agnostic, and the collapse of charger manufacturers like Juicebox and Tritium highlight the perils of being stuck in a walled garden belonging to a dead company.

Launching in February 2025, NASAs PUNCH mission will study the Sun’s corona and solar wind with four satellites.

NASA and SpaceX plan to launch NASA’s PUNCH mission (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) in late February 2025 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The PUNCH mission consists of four small satellites designed to enter low Earth orbit and capture 3D, global views of the Sun’s corona. By studying how mass and energy in the corona become the solar wind, scientists hope to gain new insights into solar activity and its effects on space weather.

Grenergy, a Spanish independent power producer focused on the development of PV, wind, and energy storage projects, has announced the arrival of 105 BYD batteries at the port of Iquique, Chile.

Grenergy said that the Chipol Guangan cargo ship, arriving after a 42-day journey from Dachan, China, has delivered 1,050 MC Cube ESS battery modules with a total storage capacity of 600 MWh. The modules will support the Oasis de Atacama solar-plus-storage project in Chile.

Photonic space-time crystals enhance light interaction and amplification, offering new applications in optical information processing.

Photonic space-time crystals are advanced materials designed to enhance the performance and efficiency of technologies like wireless communication and lasers. These crystals have a unique structure that is periodically arranged in three spatial dimensions and also changes over time, allowing precise control of light’s behavior. Researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), in collaboration with Aalto University, the University of Eastern Finland, and Harbin Engineering University in China, have demonstrated how these four-dimensional materials can be applied in real-world technologies. Their findings were published in Nature Photonics.

Photonic Time Crystals

MIT engineers have discovered that the mobula ray, a type of filter-feeding aquatic ray, utilizes a unique mechanism to feed and breathe simultaneously, which could revolutionize industrial water filters.

By studying the geometry of the ray’s mouth and gill structures, they developed a blueprint for more efficient filtration systems, balancing permeability with selectivity to enhance performance without increasing energy consumption.

Filter Feeding and Engineering Insights.