Lifeboat Foundation

Nearly every air taxi concept involves rapidly spinning propellers or ducted fans placed in strategic positions outside of the main fuselage of the aircraft — moving air fast enough to achieve thrust in the direction of propulsion.

However, a new air taxi concept from a company in Seattle breaks from the norm — reinventing flight with bladeless fans at incredible power levels, according to Jetoptera’s official website.

A new Tesla Megapack project has broken ground in Arizona, and when it comes online in 2024, it will be the state’s largest energy storage system.

For utilities, battery energy storage is one of the most helpful new technologies they can employ to reduce fossil fuel dependence and increase the reliability of their associated grid. By holding onto excess power generated during lulls in demand, power companies can more easily address peak demand and, importantly, reduce costs. Now, a new Tesla Megapack energy storage system is set to do just that in Arizona.

The Sierra Estrella energy storage facility, constructed by utility company Salt River Project (SRP) and energy system constructor Plus Power LLC, will be the largest of its kind in Arizona. The massive network of Tesla Megapacks will have a capacity of 1,000MWh, enough energy to power 56,000 homes for four hours. According to previous information released by SRP, the project was set to cost $400 million, but this does not account for the recent Tesla Megapack price cut.

Tesla is preparing to launch Powerwall 3, the third generation of its home battery pack, according to information obtained by Electrek.

In 2015, when launching its Tesla Energy division, Tesla launched the first generation of the Powerwall, and it quickly became, by far, the most popular home battery pack in the residential market.

Shortly after, Tesla launched Powerwall 2, a new version of the residential battery pack with more energy and power capacity.

Electric vehicles feature lithium-ion battery packs today. They are heavy. But in the future lithium-air batteries that are more energy dense, lighter, and smaller could revolutionize EV design.

Lithium-air provides 4x greater energy density, and gets the oxygen needed in the chemical process from the surrounding air.

Yahoo Finance Live anchors Brad Smith and Jared Blikre break down Tesla’s ‘Master Plan Part 3’.

Video Transcript

BRAD SMITH: Tesla CEO Elon Musk reveals the third part of the EV maker’s master plan is to lead the global effort to convert the world to sustainable energy here. And as part of that, according to Musk, Tesla’s projects will take $10 trillion in investments.

Researchers have discovered that in the exotic conditions of the early universe, waves of gravity may have shaken space-time so hard that they spontaneously created radiation.

The physical concept of resonance surrounds us in everyday life. When you’re sitting on a swing and want to go higher, you naturally start pumping your legs back and forth. You very quickly find the exact right rhythm to make the swing go higher. If you go off rhythm then the swing stops going higher. This particular kind of phenomenon is known in physics as a parametric resonance.

Continue reading “Physicists Discover that Gravity Can Create Light” »

Researchers at Tokyo University of Science have achieved a two-order improvement in the response speed of solid-state batteries.

Researchers at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linköping University, have together with colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, developed a method that increases the signal strength from microbial electrochemical cells by up to twenty times. The secret is a film with an embedded bacterium: Shewanella oneidensis.

Adding bacteria to electrochemical systems is often an environmentally sensitive means to convert chemical energy to electricity. Applications include water purification, bioelectronics, biosensors, and for the harvesting and storage of energy in fuel cells. One problem that miniaturisation of the processes has encountered is that a high signal strength requires large electrodes and a large volume of liquid.

Researchers at Linköping University, together with colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, USA, have now developed a method in which they embed the electroactive bacterium Shewanella oneidensis into PEDOT: PSS, an electrically conducting polymer, on a substrate of carbon felt.

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