Sustainability – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Feb 10
2018

TAE Technologies pushes plasma machine to a new high on the nuclear fusion frontier

TAE Technologies, the California-based fusion company backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, said its latest and greatest plasma generator has exceeded the headline-grabbing performance of its previous machine.

“This announcement is an important milestone on our quest to deliver world-changing, clean fusion energy to help combat climate change and improve the quality of life for people globally,” Michl Binderbauer, the company’s president and chief technology officer, said in a news release. “This achievement further validates the robustness of TAE’s underlying science and unique pathway.”

Feb 9
2018

5D storage crystal joins Tesla Roadster on incredible space journey

The successful launch of the new rocket, the Falcon Heavy, by SpaceX from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida into a Mars orbit around the Sun, has captured the world’s imagination and attention mainly because of its power but also because of its payload.

Famously aboard the spacecraft is a Tesla Roadster, owned by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, but joining the bright red sports car on its journey around our solar system is the Arch Library, created using 5D optical storage technology developed by Professor Peter Kazansky and his team at the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre.

This first Arch library (pronounced Ark) – known as the Solar Library — contains the Foundation Trilogy of science fiction books written by Elon Musk’s favourite American author, Isaac Asimov… Archs are the vision of the Arch Mission Foundation which wants to permanently preserve and disseminate human knowledge as part of an ‘Encyclopedia Galactica’ across time and space for the benefit of future generations.

Feb 9
2018

First 3D imaging of excited quantum dots

Quantum dots are rapidly taking center stage in emerging applications and research developments, from enhanced LCD TVs and thin-film solar cells, to high-speed data transfer and fluorescent labeling in biomedical applications.

Feb 9
2018

Observatory Spots Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster Zooming Through Space (Video)

The Tesla Roadster and its mannequin driver that launched into space aboard SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy rocket on Tuesday (Feb. 6), has been spotted by a telescope on the ground.

Feb 8
2018

Tesla Plans to Triple Battery Deployments in 2018

Tesla said residential solar deployments were affected by the short supply of Powerwalls for customers who wanted solar plus Powerwall in their house.

Feb 8
2018

Forget curtains. One day, you could block out glare with smart windows that also charge your phone

New material pulls double-duty as shade and perovskite solar cell

Maria Temming

Feb 8
2018

SpaceX Successfully Launches The Falcon Heavy With A Tesla Roadster On Board

The Falcon Heavy is finally on its way to mars and this rocket has had its fair share of delays. Elon Musk gave us a first glimpse of the rocket a couple of months ago and then a little later announced the unique cargo that it would be carrying. At the start of this year, he announced that the rocket will be launched within the first month but there were more unexpected delays and things finally got back on track as it completed the static test last week.

The Falcon Heavy Rocket launched its test flight successfully from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Millions of fans from all around the globe watched the launch go off without a hitch. The Falcon Heavy has 27 engines which give a thrust equal to 18 Boeing (BA) 747 jetliners making it the biggest rocket ever made. “It’s the biggest rocket in the world by far,” SpaceX CEO Musk told CNN’s Rachel Crane on Monday.

Feb 7
2018

First look at Ionity ‘ultra-fast’ charging network map of planned stations

Ionity, the new ‘ultra-fast’ joint electric car charging network by BMW, Mercedes, Ford and Volkswagen, is slowly starting to take shape in Europe and now we get to see the map of their planned stations for the first time. This new network is believed by many to be the most important electric vehicle charging infrastructure effort since Tesla’s Supercharger network. They are planning 400 stations with a capacity of up to 350 kW across Europe by 2020. They started work on the first 20 stations last year and they plan to hit a total of 100 stations this year. Now we get to see what that netwo…

Feb 7
2018

Elon Musk’s Tesla overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to the asteroid belt

Deeper space.

Feb 4
2018

Tesla is installing Powerwalls and solar power on 50,000 homes to create biggest virtual power plant in the world

Tesla has been making big moves on the energy storage market in Australia, but they are now all being dwarfed by this new project that will see them install solar arrays and Powerwalls on 50,000 homes to create the biggest virtual power plant in the world. The company’s main project has been the 100MW/ 129MWh Powerpack project in South Australia, the largest in the world for now. But now instead of being a large centralized battery system using Tesla’s Powerpacks, the new project announced today is using Tesla’s residential battery system, the Powerwall, to create decentralized energy stora…