The Boring Company, which is owned by Elon Musk, announced that it finished digging a multi-million-dollar tunnel for Tesla underneath Gigafactory Texas.
Category: sustainability – Page 128
World’s largest robots will help airlines cut carbon emissions
A Norwegian startup is building massive AI robots to help airlines reduce their carbon emissions, save water, and inspect their planes in a fraction of the time it usually takes.
The challenge: The aviation industry is responsible for about 2.5% of global carbon emissions, and while sustainable jet fuels or electric propulsion systems could one day slash that figure, airlines can reduce their emissions right now — simply by cleaning their planes more often.
Washing an airplane’s exterior reduces air resistance, which means it can decrease the amount of jet fuel a plane needs to burn by up to 2% — while that’s not a huge difference, it can add up when you consider there are about 28,000 commercial jets in the global fleet.
Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
Germany’s automakers manufactured around 1.27 million BEVs and PHEVs in 2023, putting it at No. 2 behind China, but 2024 will be bumpy.
The German automotive industry association VDA says that 995,000 purely electric vehicles rolled off German assembly lines in 2023.
China dominates global EV production, but most of its cars are sold domestically. By contrast, 76% of German EVs are sold abroad. The US holds the spot for the world’s third-largest EV maker. And Germany, the home of key automakers such as Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz, leads Europe with more EVs produced than second-placed Spain (256,000) and France (225,000) combined.
World’s heaviest soaring bird inspires wind power design
When placed at the tip of a turbine blade, the c-shaped “winglet” inspired by the condor reduces drag, potentially increasing the turbine’s efficiency by up to 10% in optimal conditions, according to a study published in the journal Energy.
The wings of soaring birds have also been adapted for use in commercial and military aircraft around the world to increase their lift, says co-author Brian Fleck, a professor of mechanical engineering and expert in fluid dynamics.
“We used to have airplanes with straight wings,” says Fleck. “Now we see them with the tips curled up, and there’s a reason for that.”
In a world first, China installs an 18 MW offshore wind turbine
China has installed an 18-megawatt (MW) offshore wind turbine – the world’s largest by power rating – in Guangdong province.
State-owned power generator manufacturer Dongfang Electric Corporation completed the installation of the massive wind turbine at a coastal test base in Shantou on June 5.
China’s 18-MW offshore wind turbine has a 260-meter (853-foot) rotor diameter and a swept area of 53,000 square meters (570,487 square feet) – equivalent to 7.4 standard football fields.
Large-scale, lab-grown meat: Step inside a cultivated meat factory
Lab-grown meat, cultivated meat, cell-based meat, slaughter-free meat: All of these terms refer to the process of creating real meat from animal cells, despite names that may allude to a vegan product.
What benefits are there to growing meat from chicken cells rather than raising animals for slaughter? Industrial animal agriculture is responsible for an estimated 15 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions, and with demand for meat projected to double in the next decade, this technology could offer a more sustainable option for future carnivores.
Come with us as we step inside a lab-grown meat facility, and become some of the first to taste-test chicken that was grown in a bioreactor instead of on a factory farm.
Johns Hopkins Scientists Discover Unusual New Hero in Evolution
One of Earth’s most consequential bursts of biodiversity—a 30-million-year period of explosive evolutionary changes spawning innumerable new species —may have the most modest of creatures to thank for the vital stage in life’s history: worms.
The digging and burrowing of prehistoric worms and other invertebrates along ocean bottoms sparked a chain of events that released oxygen into the ocean and atmosphere and helped kick-start what is known as the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, roughly 480 million years ago, according to new findings Johns Hopkins University researchers published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.
“It’s really incredible to think how such small animals, ones that don’t even exist today, could alter the course of evolutionary history in such a profound way,” said senior author Maya Gomes, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. “With this work, we’ll be able to examine the chemistry of early oceans and reinterpret parts of the geological record.”