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Archive for the ‘sustainability’ category: Page 272

Mar 5, 2022

New York City Pursues Net-Zero in the Borough of Queens

Posted by in categories: climatology, habitats, sustainability

As cities address climate change, they are looking at passive buildings and novel approaches to energy and heating.


Cities are being challenged to tackle climate change through net-zero strategies that include passive homes, geothermal heating, and more.

Mar 5, 2022

New Solar Panel Design Uses Wasted Energy to Make Water From Air

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

The system directly addresses clean water shortages and crop devastation worldwide.

Mar 5, 2022

‘Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures’: Elon Musk says the US needs to increase oil and gas output

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, energy, sustainability

“Sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react instantaneously to make up for Russian oil & gas exports,” Musk said.

Mar 4, 2022

Reprogrammed bacterium turns carbon dioxide into chemicals on industrial scale

Posted by in categories: chemistry, economics, genetics, sustainability

Process achieved at industrial scale in 120 litre reactor.


Factory

The 120 litre LanzaTech pilot plant that can convert carbon dioxide into acetone and isopropanol.

Continue reading “Reprogrammed bacterium turns carbon dioxide into chemicals on industrial scale” »

Mar 4, 2022

Panasonic plans new massive battery plant in U.S. to supply Tesla —NHK

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

TOKYO, March 4 (Reuters) — Japan’s Panasonic Corp (6752.T) is looking to purchase land in the United States for a mega-factory to make a new type of electric vehicle (EV) battery for Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), public broadcaster NHK reported on Friday.

Panasonic is looking at building the factory, to cost several billion dollars, in either Oklahoma or Kansas close to Texas, where Tesla is preparing a new EV plant, NHK reported. NHK gave no timeline for Panasonic’s U.S. project.

NHK did not cite the source of its information. Panasonic said the reported plan was not something it announced.

Mar 4, 2022

Tesla factory in Germany gains conditional approval to start commercial production

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, sustainability

Tesla has gained approval to begin commercial production at its new factory near Berlin, local German officials announced Friday.

The conditional license for the vehicle and battery plants in Brandenburg was expected following months of delays. Tesla had intended to start production of vehicles by early summer of 2021 in Brandenburg, but the Covid pandemic, supply chain complications and clashes with environmentalists all slowed their pace.

The project, which was approved with the 536-page decision, includes the plant for the production of up to 500,000 vehicles per year, according to a translated release.

Mar 4, 2022

These solar panels create clean water in the desert

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

Mar 3, 2022

Elon Musk explains why Tesla hasn’t tried to make the world’s longest-range electric car: ‘That would’ve made the product worse’

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, sustainability, transportation

The weight from the additional battery cells required to match the range of gas cars would slow the car down and make it less efficient, Musk said.

Mar 3, 2022

Tesla is considering a significant expansion of its Fremont Factory

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, employment, sustainability, transportation

Tesla’s Fremont Factory could have its production capacity increased, according to CEO Elon Musk. Tesla is “considering expanding [Fremont] significantly,” Musk said in a Tweet last night.

Following Musk’s heavily publicized jab at President Joe Biden on Tuesday night for not mentioning Tesla in the State of the Union Speech with the likes of Ford and GM, who received Biden’s praise for electric vehicle projects resulting in employment opportunities. While Biden commended Ford for $11 billion invested and 11,000 new jobs and GM for $7 billion and 4,000 new employment opportunities in Michigan, Musk hit back with a valid point.

“Tesla has created over 50,000 US jobs building electric vehicles & is investing more than double GM + Ford combined,” he said, alerting “the person running this account” to give Tesla more credit.

Mar 3, 2022

Earthworms can reproduce in Mars soil simulant

Posted by in categories: food, space, sustainability

Space worms.


Two young worms are the first offspring in a Mars soil experiment at Wageningen University & Research. Biologist Wieger Wamelink found them in a Mars soil simulant that he obtained from NASA. At the start he only added adult worms. The experiments are crucial in the study that aims to determine whether people can keep themselves alive at the red planet by growing their own crops on Mars soils.

To feed future humans on Mars a sustainable closed agricultural ecosystem is a necessity. Worms will play a crucial role in this system as they break down and recycle dead organic matter. The poop and pee of the (human) Martian will also have to be used to fertilise the soil, but for practical and safety reasons we are presently using pig slurry. We have since been observing the growth of rucola (rocket) in Mars soil simulant provided by NASA to which worms and slurry have been added. ‘Clearly the manure stimulated growth, especially in the Mars soil simulant, and we saw that the worms were active. However, the best surprise came at the end of the experiment when we found two young worms in the Mars soil simulant’, said Wieger Wamelink of Wageningen University & Research.

‘The positive effect of adding manure was not unexpected’, added Wamelink, ‘but we were surprised that it makes Mars soil simulant outperform Earth silver sand’. We added organic matter from earlier experiments to both sands. We added the manure to a sample of the pots and then, after germination of the rucola, we added the worms. We therefore ended up with pots with all possible combinations with the exception of organic matter which was added to all of the pots.