Lifeboat Foundation

We’re talking fuels and fertilizers required for the development of life-support systems on the Red Planet.

In 2015, Vasco Guerra, from the University of Lisbon, happened to attend a lecture by Professor Dava Newman, director of the MIT Media Lab and a former deputy administrator of NASA, on space exploration and the forthcoming NASA missions. Back then, Guerra was leading a project on plasma reforming of carbon dioxide on Earth — how CO₂ could be a potential raw material to produce fuels with the help of green energy.

Scientists have been working on plasma technologies to split CO₂ into oxygen and carbon monoxide, primarily prompted by the persistent problems of climate change. international team of researchers have introduced a plasma-based method that could convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and produce fuels on Mars.

Brandon Ennis, Sandia National Laboratories’ offshore wind technical lead, had a radically new idea for offshore wind turbines: instead of a tall, unwieldy tower with blades at the top, he imagined a towerless turbine with blades pulled taut like a bow.

This design would allow the massive generator that creates electricity from spinning blades to be placed closer to the water, instead of on the top of a tower 500 feet above. This makes the turbine less top-heavy and reduces the size and cost of the floating platform needed to keep it afloat. Sandia filed a patent application for the design in 2020.

However, before he could set his idea in motion, the team needed to build software capable of modeling the response of the turbine and floating platform to different wind and sea conditions to determine the optimal design of the whole system.

It’s been a while since Elon Musk published an extensive blog post outlining his stance on a specific topic. On the official Tesla website, his last blog post was on August 24, 2018, when he explained his decision to keep Tesla a publicly-traded company. Fortunately, a new Elon Musk essay has been posted in China, outlining the Tesla CEO’s thoughts on a number of topics — from sustainability, the Tesla Bot’s real-world use, Neuralink’s focus on the disabled, and SpaceX’s exploration aspirations.

The new Elon Musk essay was published in China Cyberspace 0, the Cyberspace Administration of China’s (CAC) flagship magazine. A translation of the essay was posted by Yang Liu, a journalist from the state-owned news agency Xinhua 0, on the Beijing Channel blog. As could be seen in Liu’s post, Musk actually discussed a number of topics in detail.

In a way, the publication of the new Elon Musk essay in the CAC’s flagship magazine is significant. As noted by The Register 0, Musk’s essay suggests that Chinese authorities approve of the Tesla CEO’s positions on the topics he discussed. Only a few other foreign entrepreneurs would likely be given the same honor.

Simply put, we need a reliable and secure energy grid. Two ways to ensure continuous electricity regardless of the weather or an unforeseen event are by using distributed energy resources (DER) and microgrids. DER produce and supply electricity on a small scale and are spread out over a wide area. Rooftop solar panels, backup batteries, and emergency diesel generators are examples of DER. While traditional generators are connected to the high-voltage transmission grid, DER are connected to the lower-voltage distribution grid, like residences and businesses are.

Microgrids are localized electric grids that can disconnect from the main grid to operate autonomously. Because they can operate while the main grid is down, microgrids can strengthen grid resilience, help mitigate grid disturbances, and function as a grid resource for faster system response and recovery.

While scientists have hoped that rechargeable zinc-manganese dioxide batteries could be developed into a viable alternative for grid storage applications, engineers at the University of Illinois Chicago and their colleagues identified the reasons these zinc-based fuel systems fail.

The scientists reached this conclusion after leveraging advanced electron microscopy, electrochemical experiments and theoretical calculations to look closer at how the zinc anode works with the manganese cathode in the battery system.

Their findings are reported today in Nature Sustainability.

The new concrete made of tyres will be eco-friendly and cheaper. Engineers from RMIT succeeded in producing concrete from materials such as gravel, tyre, rubber, and crushed rock. It is believed that this innovation will be cheaper and eco-friendly. The team is now looking into reinforcing the concrete to see how it can work in structural elements. A group of researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), has succeeded in replacing the classic method of making concrete, which is made of gravel and crushed rock, with rubber from discarded tyres that are suitable for building codes.

According to the press release that has been published by the university, new greener and lighter concrete also promises to reduce manufacturing and transportation costs significantly. Small amounts of rubber particles from tyres are already used to replace these concrete aggregates. However, the previous process of replacing all concrete with aggregates had not been successful.

The study published in the Resources, Conservation & Recycling journal showed the tyres’ manufacturing process.

Continue reading “Australian engineers produce concrete from tyre, rubber, and rocks” »

Water is the most essential resource for life, for both humans and the crops we consume. Around the world, agriculture accounts for 70% of all freshwater use.

I study computers and information technology in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute and direct Purdue’s Environmental Networking Technology (ENT) Laboratory, where we tackle sustainability and environmental challenges with interdisciplinary research into the Agricultural Internet of Things, or Ag-IoT.

Continue reading “Saving water with wireless technologies is possible — but there are challenges” »

Copper prices have surged in 2021. The base metal remains in high demand, much thanks to its need in green energy projects and electric cars. In May 2021, commodities analysts at Goldman Sachs called copper ‘the new oil.’ That’s because electric cars need several times more copper than their gas-powered counterparts. And power grids getting electricity from wind, solar and hydro sources also need copper—much more than the industry is currently producing. Here’s how copper became so important to the world economy and the green energy revolution.

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Continue reading “Why A Looming Copper Shortage Has Big Consequences For The Green Economy” »