The math is pretty basic. How many satellites are going to go up over the next decade? How many solar panels will they need? And how many are being manufactured that fit the bill? Turns out the answers are: a lot, a hell of a lot, and not nearly enough. That’s where Regher Solar aims to make its mark, by bringing the cost of space-quality solar panels down by 90% while making an order of magnitude more of them. It’s not exactly a modest goal, but fortunately the science and market seem to be in favor, giving the company something of a tailwind. The question is finding the right balance between cost and performance while remaining relatively easy to manufacture. Of course, if there was an easy answer there, someone would already be doing that.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) is a force for good that could play a huge part in solving problems such as climate change. Left unchecked, however, it could undermine democracy, lead to massive social problems and be harnessed for chilling military or terrorist attacks.
That’s the view of Martin Ford, futurist and author of Rule of the Robots, his follow-up to Rise of the Robots, the 2015 New York Times bestseller and winner of the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, which focused on how AI would destroy jobs.
In the new book, Ford, a sci-fi fan, presents two broad movie-based scenarios.
ORF Genetics in Iceland is growing 100,000 genetically engineered barley plants in a greenhouse measuring over 22 square feet (2 sq m) to create lab-grown meat.
This cutting-edge approach has the potential to lower prices, eliminate reliance on live animals in the lab-grown meat sector, and speed up the scaling-up process, according to BBC. And, with the fact that meat accounts for nearly 60 percent of all greenhouse gases from food production in mind, such a development could have far-reaching implications in the fight against climate change.
The world’s electric grids are creaking under the pressure of volatile fossil-fuel prices and the imperative of weaning the world off polluting energy sources. A solution may be at hand, thanks to an innovative battery that’s a cheaper alternative to lithium-ion technology.
SB Energy Corp., a U.S. renewable-energy firm that’s an arm of Japan’s SoftBank Group, is making a record purchase of the batteries manufactured by Energy Storage Systems. The Oregon company says it has new technology that can store renewable energy for longer and help overcome some of the reliability problems that have caused blackouts in California and record-high energy prices in Europe.
The units, which rely on something called “iron-flow chemistry,” will be used in utility-scale solar projects dotted across the U.S., allowing those power plants to provide electricity for hours after the sun sets. SB Energy will buy enough batteries over the next five years to power 50,000 American homes for a day.
Toxic chemicals known as PFAS exist in almost 42,000 sites around the U.S., according to research released on Tuesday by the Environmental Working Group.
The research published in the American Water Works Association’s journal Water Science found tens of thousands of potential point sources for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances contamination around the country. Researchers analyzed data collected between August 2016 and March 2021. They found numerous previously unknown PFAS sites in samples of water downstream from manufacturing facilities.
“We don’t as of yet have great information on how frequently these different sources are contributing to the PFAS contamination we’re finding in surface water and drinking water,” lead study author David Andrews told The Hill.
Coastal artisanal fisheries, particularly those in developing countries, are facing a global crisis of overexploitation1. Artificial reefs (ARs), or human–made reefs2, have been widely advocated by governmental and non-governmental conservation and management organizations for addressing these issues. Industries, particularly oil and gas, seeking to avoid the costs of removal or conventional disposal of used materials are often major advocates for deploying ARs. Yet, major questions remain regarding the success of such efforts in the context of weak governance and poorly sustained international investment in AR development projects. There is frequently confusion over whether or not ARs should be fishing sites and the precise goals of constructing such ARs are often unclear, making difficult to evaluate their successfulness3. Over the last 40 years, both failures and success AR implementation programs have been reported4,5. The main point of the present work is to underline the importance of the governance issue and address social and management factors on AR “success”.
To improve fishery yields, it has been recommended that ARs must be no-take areas (e.g.,2). Yet, most ARs were historically delineated as sites for fishing4, and were rarely implemented at large scales in/for no-take zones, even in countries with centuries of experience in constructing ARs, such as Japan. In Japan, fishery authorities and local fishers use ARs to promote sustainable catches and to establish nursery grounds of target species6. However, fishery authorities and local fishery cooperatives in Japan have extensive management authority over ARs. For example, fishing around ARs is usually limited to hook and line techniques, with net fishing rarely being permitted in areas where risk of entanglement in ARs is high. Furthermore, during spawning, fishing gear and fishing season are often restricted around ARs in Japan. These practices are recognized for their effectiveness in maintaining good fishing performance and marine conservation in Japan and elsewhere where they have been implemented7.
The UN health agency now ranks air pollution on a par with smoking or an unhealthy diet. As a result, it has issued new, stricter guidelines they claim could save millions of lives.
We all know glass comes from sand but we don’t always get to see this process in action. In this video, we bring you footage of a solar-powered 3D printer that makes glass sculptures out of sand. Impressed? Just wait till you see the clips.
The 3D printer is called Solar Sinter and it was built by Markus Kayser. It works in the following way: after computer-drawn models are loaded into the machine, a large Fresnel lens beams sunlight onto a sandbox which leads to high temperatures of 2,552–2,912 F (1,400–1,600 C).
2021 is only halfway complete, and we cannot yet be said to have defeated the pandemic, but yet at the same time, the travel and tourism industry is said to be poised for a pretty rapid boom. In many ways and places, the recovery has already begun.
A live Globaldata poll showed that people are desperate to enjoy travels and trips again with a majority of them opting for longer trips than before. 26% of their respondents showed a desire to enjoy trips that spanned a minimum of 10 nights. As lockdowns and travel restrictions continue to be eased and countries continue to open up, we will likely see a surge in new tourists and travelers.
Jason Fong, a veteran of the industry, is the brain behind the Boss of Bali brand, a brand that has garnered over 2 million followers on Instagram. Fong shared his knowledge of all things tourism and how he has used his platform to promote the evolution of travel and tourism more sustainably.
A simple cooling system driven by the capture of passive solar energy could provide low-cost food refrigeration and living space cooling for impoverished communities with no access to the electricity grid. The system, which has no electrical components, exploits the powerful cooling effect that occurs when certain salts are dissolved in water. After each cooling cycle, the system uses solar energy to evaporate the water and regenerate the salt, ready for reuse.
“Hot regions have high levels of solar energy, so it would be very attractive to use that solar energy for cooling,” says Wenbin Wang, a postdoc in Peng Wang’s lab. In many parts of the world, there is a greater need for cooling because of climate change, but not every community can access electricity for air conditioning and refrigeration. “We conceptualized an off-grid solar-energy conversion and storage design for green and inexpensive cooling,” Professor Wang says.
