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Archive for the ‘sustainability’ category: Page 589

Aug 3, 2016

Tesla acquires sister firm SolarCity for $2.6 billion

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, solar power, sustainability, transportation

Tesla buys SolarCity.


(Reuters) — SolarCity Corp agreed to be acquired by sister company Tesla Motors Inc in a deal worth $200 million less than the initial offer, sending shares of both companies down in early trading on Monday.

Electric vehicle maker Tesla expects to achieve “significant” cost savings and “dramatic improvements” in manufacturing efficiency as a result of the acquisition of solar panel installer SolarCity, Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Monday.

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Aug 2, 2016

Tesla is building an electric minibus based on the Model X

Posted by in categories: climatology, economics, Elon Musk, energy, robotics/AI, sustainability

Elon Musk has been a busy man lately as he works to transition the world to renewable energy and sustainable transportation with the goal of decarbonizing the global economy to meet the challenge of climate change. To meet that goal, Tesla will need to address “high passenger-density urban transport” – and Musk just confirmed plans to create a fully autonomous electric Minibus using the Model X chassis.

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Aug 1, 2016

Elon Musk is kicking off an automated low-carbon future with the merger of Tesla and SolarCity

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI, sustainability, transportation

Elon Musk is today set to merge Tesla Motors and SolarCity, Reuters is reporting, kicking off part two of his master plan to transform our cities and suburbs into environmentally friendly automated wonderlands.

In July Musk wrote of his plan to merge the two companies in a blog post entitled Master Plan, Part Deux, saying it was essential to “create a smoothly integrated and beautiful solar-roof-with-battery product that just works, empowering the individual as their own utility, and then scale that throughout the world.

“We can’t do this well if Tesla and SolarCity are different companies, which is why we need to combine and break down the barriers inherent to being separate companies. Now that Tesla is ready to scale Powerwall and SolarCity is ready to provide highly differentiated solar, the time has come to bring them together.”

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Jul 31, 2016

Lab 2.0: Will Computers Replace Experimental Science?

Posted by in categories: chemistry, computing, mobile phones, physics, science, solar power, sustainability

We spend our lives surrounded by hi-tech materials and chemicals that make our batteries, solar cells and mobile phones work. But developing new technologies requires time-consuming, expensive and even dangerous experiments.

Luckily we now have a secret weapon that allows us to save time, money and risk by avoiding some of these experiments: computers.

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Jul 31, 2016

Artificial Intelligence May Soon Drive Your Car — And Keep You Company at the Same Time

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, sustainability, transportation

Honda said in a press release that the AI will use conversations with the driver and other data it gathers ‘both to perceive the emotions of the driver and to engage in dialogue with the driver based on the vehicle’s own emotions.’ The just-announced partnership works toward application of the ‘emotion engine,’ which is ‘a set of AI technologies developed by cocoro SB Corp., which enable machines to artificially generate their own emotions.’


Image source: Getty Images.

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Jul 29, 2016

Smart bricks will transform how buildings work

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, habitats, sustainability

Smart bricks capable of recycling wastewater and generating electricity from sunlight are being developed by a team of scientists from the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). The bricks will be able to fit together and create ‘bioreactor walls’ which could then be incorporated in housing, public building and office spaces.

The UWE Bristol team is working on the smart technologies that will be integrated into the in this pan European ‘Living Architecture’ (LIAR) project led by Newcastle University. The LIAR project brings together living architecture, computing and engineering to find a new way to tackle global sustainability issues.

The smart living bricks will be made from bio-reactors filled with microbial cells and algae. Designed to self-adapt to changing environmental conditions the smart bricks will monitor and modify air in the building and recognise occupants.

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Jul 29, 2016

PV Nano Cell’s nanometric silver conductive ink enables non-contact digital inkjet printing

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

Nice.


PV Nano Cell has commercially developed ‘Sicrys’, a single-crystal, nanometric silver conductive ink delivering enhanced performance for digital conductive printing in mass production applications. The inks are also available in copper-based form, delivering all of the product’s properties and advantages with improved cost efficiency.

Problem

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Jul 28, 2016

This Farm of the Future Uses No Soil and 95% Less Water

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

Considering it uses 95% less water than regular farms, could vertical farming be the future of agriculture?

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Jul 28, 2016

Breakthrough solar cell captures carbon dioxide and sunlight, produces burnable fuel

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have engineered a potentially game-changing solar cell that cheaply and efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide directly into usable hydrocarbon fuel, using only sunlight for energy.

The finding is reported in the July 29 issue of Science and was funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. A provisional patent application has been filed.

Unlike conventional , which convert sunlight into electricity that must be stored in heavy batteries, the new device essentially does the work of plants, converting into fuel, solving two crucial problems at once. A solar farm of such “artificial leaves” could remove significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and produce energy-dense fuel efficiently.

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Jul 28, 2016

Scientists Synthesize Liquid Fuel from Solar Energy

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

The nextgen of Solar and fuel energy.


Scientists have just discovered a way to directly convert solar energy into a synthetic fuel using carbon dioxide. Current solar technologies operate in either photovoltaic solar or thermal solar. Photovoltaic solar energy is generated through solar panels, which are typically seen on the roofs of houses and many solar plants. The other method of thermal solar is typically only used in large-scale energy plants, as it used mirrors to focus solar energy to heat a liquid which then powers turbines. Both methods, however, involve the conversion of solar energy into electricity. While electricity is useful, much energy is lost in the storing of electricity, something that the conversion process to liquid fuel overcomes.

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