Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability – Page 70

A new study from UC Berkeley confirms what EV fans already know: EV adoption does, in fact, make the air cleaner. Perhaps even more importantly, the study offers some quantifiable, granular data about how much electric vehicles are impacting emission rates in the here and now, not just in the foreseeable future.

Not that these numbers will blow you away, mind you, but still, it’s good news.

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found that between 2018 and 2022, CO2 emission from all sources (industries, homes, traffic) across the San Francisco Bay Area dropped around 1.8% per year – a difference the researchers attribute to widespread EV adoption in the area. For vehicle emission rates, those numbers dropped 2.6% annually. EVs made up nearly 40% of new auto registrations in San Jose and 34% in San Francisco last year.

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Our everyday electronic devices, such as living room lights, washing machines, and televisions, operate thanks to electrical currents. Similarly, the functioning of computers is based on the manipulation of information by small charge carriers known as electrons. Spintronics, on the other hand, introduces a unique approach to this process.

Instead of the charge of electrons, the spintronic approach is to exploit their magnetic moment, in other words, their spin, to store and process information – aiming to make the computers of the future more compact, fast, and sustainable. One way of processing information based on this approach is to use the magnetic vortices called skyrmions or, alternatively, their still little understood and rarer cousins called ‘merons’. Both are collective topological structures formed of numerous individual spins. Merons have to date only been observed in natural antiferromagnets, where they are difficult to both analyze and manipulate.

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The upcoming entry-level Mercedes-Benz EV dubbed the “one-liter car” for its long-range capabilities, was finally caught out in the wild. In a new video, the electric Mercedes CLA was spotted testing near the Arctic Circle. The new EV is Mercedes-Benz’s answer to the Tesla Model 3.

Mercedes unveiled the electric CLA Concept in September, the first model in a new series of entry-level EVs.

The EV is expected to feature over 466 miles (750 km) driving range based on Mercedes’ next-gen MMA platform. Nicknamed the “one-liter car,” the electric CLA concept has an energy consumption of around 5.2 mi/kWh (12 kWh/ 100 km).

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A battery cathode in development in labs at the University of California San Diego has Wolverine-like self-healing properties.

Better yet, the regenerative ability of the lithium-sulfur electrode could help to unlock chemistry that doubles electric vehicle range, according to the experts. It’s a promising breakthrough with fascinating potential.

“We are very excited about the discovery of this new material,” study co-senior author Professor Ping Liu said in a university lab report.

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Leading EV battery maker CATL released its new breakthrough battery pack with up to a nearly 1 million mile (1.5 million km), 15-year warranty.

CATL launched the battery pack with Yutung Bus Co to power commercial vehicles like buses and different classes of trucks.

Yutong, one of China’s largest bus makers, said the new battery packs will be used in upcoming electric vehicles. According to the company, the new long-lasting EV battery has zero degradation through the first 1,000 cycles.

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In an effort to bring clean, renewable energy to some of the world’s more remote islands — many of which are powered by old diesel generators — a pan-European consortium of seven companies has designed a device capable of turning seawater into electricity.

The Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, or OTEC, technology consists of three main parts that are being built all over the world: a cold-water riser pipe, which is being fabricated in Austria, a cylindrical hull, which is being built in the Canary Islands (a Spanish autonomous community, where the OTEC will be assembled and tested), and a gimbal connection point.

Once the entire OTEC prototype is complete, it will be installed on the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands, a little under two miles off the coast. There, it will be tested in harsh ocean conditions for one year. The OTEC is designed to be disconnected if conditions get too harsh and moved closer to shore until the weather clears up.

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A Tesla engineer has given a rare update on the Tesla Semi electric truck program amid new EPA rules that should give it a boost.

Tesla Semi is currently only in low-volume production at a facility outside Gigafactory Nevada.

In January 2023, Tesla announced a massive expansion of Gigafactory Nevada to add production of Tesla Semi trucks and 4,680 battery cells and to finally expand the factory to its originally planned size.

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In an era where the quest for sustainable energy sources has become paramount, researchers are tirelessly exploring innovative avenues to enhance fuel production processes. One of the most important tools in converting chemical energy into electrical energy and vice versa is electrocatalysis, which is already used in various green-energy technologies.

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Scientists have developed a sustainable method to make high-performance plastics from agricultural leftovers, turning them into valuable materials.

In our rapidly industrialized world, the quest for sustainable materials has never been more urgent. Plastics, ubiquitous in daily life, pose significant environmental challenges, primarily due to their fossil fuel origins and problematic disposal.

Now, a study led by Jeremy Luterbacher’s team at EPFL unveils a pioneering approach to producing high-performance plastics from renewable resources.

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