Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability – Page 220

face_with_colon_three circa 2021.

Think about where our energy comes from: drilling rigs and smokestacks, windmills and solar panels. Lithium-ion battery packs might even come to mind.

We probably don’t think about the farms that comprise over one-third of Earth’s total land area. But farms can also be an energy source. Barcelona-based battery company Bioo is generating electricity from the organic matter in soil and creating biological batteries that can power agricultural sensors, a growing 1.36 billion dollar global market.

Bioo’s tech eliminates the need for single-use chemical batteries, which have to be replaced frequently. The company will work with large players such as Bayer Crop Science to pilot its sensor tech on farms, while also experimenting with using bio-batteries to power lighting installations. Eventually, Bioo envisions a future where biology may even help power our largest cities.

Continue reading “How biological batteries can generate renewable energy from soil” | >

WEIGHT IS ONE of the biggest banes for car designers and engineers. Batteries are exceedingly heavy and dense, and with the internal combustion engine rapidly pulling over for an electric future, the question of how to deal with an EV’s added battery mass is becoming all the more important.

But what if you could integrate the battery into the structure of the car so that the cells could serve the dual purpose of powering the vehicle and serving as its skeleton? That is exactly what Tesla and Chinese companies such as BYD and CATL are working on. The new structural designs coming out of these companies stand to not only change the way EVs are produced but increase vehicle ranges while decreasing manufacturing costs.

Auto companies are designing ways to build a car’s fuel cells into its frame, making electric rides cheaper, roomier, and able to hit ranges of 620 miles.

Continue reading “A New Approach to Car Batteries Is About to Transform EVs” | >

Musk hasn’t specified how many trucks, the company can roll out.

The long wait for Tesla’s Semi Trucks may have finally come to an end after CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the company would begin deliveries to Pepsi Co starting December this year.

Tesla and its investors must be hopeful that the Semi Truck will herald a new age in electric trucking just as the company’s sedans did for the passenger vehicle segment. Owning a Tesla has been a matter of pride for many who took the plunge into electric vehicles way before governments could even think of electric vehicle sale mandates.

Since its unveiling in 2017, Tesla has been calling the Semi the future of trucking and has promised a whole new electrically powered beast. Here’s what Semi owners can expect with this fully electric truck.

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However, in 1973, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology predicted the end of our civilization with the help of one of the most powerful supercomputers of that time.

In 1973, experts developed a computer program at MIT to model global sustainability. Instead, it predicted that by 2040 our civilization would end.

Recently, that prediction re-appeared in Australian Media, making its way to the rest of the world.

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These days when we are struggling with the pandemic, even breathing with peace of mind has become challenging. Especially the form of the mammalian respiratory system, requiring inhalation and exhalation, leaves us more vulnerable to the propagation of viral diseases.

But now, a group of South Korean artists, Bongkyu Song of BKID and Moon&Jeon, has devised a metal lung concept that uses algae to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. This device named Super Lung is inspired by the respiratory system of birds. Moreover, its designers assert that this concept increases mammalian respiratory efficiency by 300%. But how?

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“The Ce electrolyte is highly oxidative, which poses a challenge towards the stability of anion membrane,” Daoud said. “Thus, the stability and selectivity of anion membrane require further improvement.”

The device achieved a voltage plateau of 2.3 V at 20 mA cm − 2, energy efficiency of 71.3% at 60 mA cm − 2, and a record average Coulombic efficiency of 94% during cycling.

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As if Elon Musk’s week couldn’t be more eventful, the Tesla (TSLA) CEO gave the automotive world more news to chew on.

In a tweet last night, Musk said Tesla has begun production of its long-awaited electric Tesla Semi truck, and that deliveries to Pepsi (PEP) would begin on December 1st. In a follow-up tweet, Musk said the semi would have 500 miles of range and would be “super fun to drive.”

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