Lifeboat Foundation

He made the announcement as usual over Twitter.

Over the years, we have watched with excitement as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed more and more details about the Cybertruck. On Thursday, he took to Twitter to share one more feature of the truck: it will be waterproof enough to briefly serve as a boat.

Tesla.

Continue reading “The Cybertruck will also be a boat, says Elon Musk” »

A team of researchers from HSE MIEM joined colleagues from the Institute of Non-Classical Chemistry in Leipzig to develop a theoretical model of a polymeric ionic liquid on a charged conductive electrode. They used approaches from polymer physics and theoretical electrochemistry to demonstrate the difference in the behavior of electrical differential capacitance of polymeric and ordinary ionic liquids for the first time. The results of the study were published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

Polymerized ionic liquids (PIL) are a relatively new class of materials with increasing applications in various fields, from the development of new electrolytes to the creation of solar cells. Unlike ordinary room temperature ionic liquids (liquid organic salts in which cations and anions move freely), in PILs, cations are usually linked in long polymeric chains, while anions move freely. In recent years, PILs have been used (along with ordinary ionic liquids) as a filling in the production of supercapacitors.

Supercapacitors are devices that store energy in an electric double layer on the surface of an electrode (as in electrodes of platinum, gold and carbon, for example). Compared, for example, to an accumulator, supercapacitors accumulate more energy and do so faster. The amount of energy a supercapacitor is able to accumulate is known as its ‘capacitance’.

Regent has released video of its remarkable Seaglider prototype in flight testing. The first machine to combine the efficiency advantages of ground effect and hydrofoiling in a single design, it promises revolutionary speed and range in coastal areas.

Wing-in-ground effect (WIG) aircraft such as the Soviet-era Ekranoplan have shown promise in the past, but they’re yet to take off, so to speak, as a mainstream form of transport. These low-flying birds ride on a cushion of air between their wings and the surface, which gives them a significant lift and efficiency boost over regular planes flying higher in the air – as long as they stay within their own wingspan of the surface beneath. This extreme altitude restriction means that while ground-effect aircraft could fly over land, it’s too dangerous for regular operations, and they typically stay over water.

Continue reading “Watch the world’s first hydrofoiling ground effect vehicle take off” »

Four terminal perovskite-silicon photovoltaic designs helped them in their cause.

A collaboration of researchers from various institutes in the Netherlands broke the 30 percent barrier associated with solar cells. The achievement will help uptakeworldwide solar energy and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, an organizational press release said.

Even as governments across the world are promoting solar energy in their bid to reduce carbon emissions, the adoption of the technology has been limited by its energy conversion efficiency. Most commercially available solar panels top out at 22 percent energy conversion efficiency.

Continue reading “Netherlands researchers break the 30 percent barrier in solar cells” »

More companies are thinking about ways they can change their business processes to be green and combat global warming. But what about giving employees incentives to also go green?

Practices in the workplace to lower carbon emissions can be carried over to employees’ homes through company incentives and programs.

Save your solar panels from the shade.

Currently, solar power accounts for 3.3 percent of the total energy produced in the US, and it has become the fastest-growing source of clean energy in the country. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that by 2050, the share of solar energy in America’s total electricity production could reach 45 percent. However, in order to achieve this milestone, solar energy experts will have to make photovoltaic systems more efficient and advanced than ever.

Continue reading “Our solar power dreams are threatened by shadows, we shouldn’t ignore them for long” »

The AWWA Sky Whale concept represents luxurious and greener aviation.

AWWA Sky Whale, a large, intriguing-looking flying machine, is meant to represent the pinnacle of luxury, performance, and sustainability.

At a recent exhibition on future transportation hosted at Kuwait’s Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Center, the design of Oscar Vinals was on display.

Continue reading “Meet Sky Whale: A 3-story aircraft concept that can seat 755 passengers” »

As electric vehicles grow in popularity, the spotlight shines more brightly on some of their remaining major issues. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin are tackling two of the bigger challenges facing electric vehicles: limited range and slow recharging.

The researchers fabricated a new type of electrode for lithium-ion batteries that could unleash greater power and faster charging. They did this by creating thicker electrodes—the positively and negatively charged parts of the battery that deliver power to a device—using magnets to create a unique alignment that sidesteps common problems associated with sizing up these critical components.

The result is an electrode that could potentially facilitate twice the range on a single charge for an electric vehicle, compared with a battery using an existing commercial electrode.

Regent’s electric seaglider successfully completed its first series of flights and demonstrated her ability to fully fulfill its “float-foil-fly” mission.

A video of Regent’s unique Seaglider prototype in flight testing has just been released. The machine offers breakthrough speed and range in coastal locations as the first to combine the efficiency benefits of ground effect with hydro-foiling in a single design.

Continue reading “Watch world’s first flying electric boat concept complete its test flight” »