Lifeboat Foundation

Desalination plants discharge brine and wastewater, which can also kill nearby aquatic life if the process is not done properly. And generating the large quantity of energy that the plants consume has its own environmental impacts until it can be done carbon-free, which is still years off in most cases.

Unaffordable Water From Costly Plants

Continue reading “There Are Cheaper, More Sustainable Ways Than Desalination to Meet Our Water Needs” »

LAS CRUCES, N.M., May 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — In four weeks of continuous live-fire exercises, an industry team led by Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX) business, and Kord, a wholly owned subsidiary of KBR, defeated multiple 60mm mortar rounds with a 50kW-class high energy laser integrated on a Stryker combat vehicle.

The directed energy weapon system — part of the U.S. Army’s Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense, or DE M-SHORAD — acquired, tracked, targeted and defeated multiple mortars and successfully accomplished multiple tests simulating real-world scenarios.

Continuing to put the DE M-SHORAD system to the test, the recent operational assessment at White Sands Missile Range also included defeating several small, medium and large drones.

Capturing combustion on a large scale is now possible.

The first cross-sectional photos of carbon dioxide in a jet engine exhaust plume were taken by researchers using brand-new near-infrared light imaging technology.

The research was published in Applied Optics’ 28th issue.

Continue reading “Researchers successfully capture the first images of carbon dioxide emissions in aircraft engine” »

Regent has released video of its remarkable Seaglider prototype in flight testing. The first machine to combine the efficiency advantages of ground effect and hydrofoiling in a single design, it promises revolutionary speed and range in coastal areas.

Wing-in-ground effect (WIG) aircraft such as the Soviet-era Ekranoplan have shown promise in the past, but they’re yet to take off, so to speak, as a mainstream form of transport. These low-flying birds ride on a cushion of air between their wings and the surface, which gives them a significant lift and efficiency boost over regular planes flying higher in the air – as long as they stay within their own wingspan of the surface beneath. This extreme altitude restriction means that while ground-effect aircraft could fly over land, it’s too dangerous for regular operations, and they typically stay over water.

Continue reading “Watch the world’s first hydrofoiling ground effect vehicle take off” »

The 100 MW Dalian Flow Battery Energy Storage Peak-shaving Power Station, with the largest power and capacity in the world so far, was connected to the grid in Dalian, China, on September 29, and it will be put into operation in mid-October.

This energy storage project is supported technically by Prof. Li Xianfeng’s group from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. And the system was built and integrated by Rongke Power Co. Ltd.

The Dalian Flow Battery Energy Storage Peak-shaving Power Station was approved by the Chinese National Energy Administration in April 2016. As the first national, large-scale chemical energy storage demonstration project approved, it will eventually produce 200 megawatts (MW)/800 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity.

Bjarke Ingels Group and Barcode Architects collaborated to create ‘Sluishuis’ – an angular residential complex placed above the IJ Lake in Amsterdam. The structure’s sharp geometric ends meet in the air, water, and land, creating a mesmerizing structure that seems to be jutting into the sky while resembling the bow of a ship! It is constructed on an artificial island in the IJ Lake and forms a geometrically-intriguing gateway from the lake.

Designer: Bjarke Ingels Group x Barcode Architects.

In the future, many computers will most likely be based on electronic circuits made of superconductors. These are materials through which an electrical current can flow without energy losses, could be very promising for the development of high-performance supercomputers and quantum computers.

Researchers at University of California Santa Barbara, Raytheon BBN Technologies, University of Cagliari, Microsoft Research, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have recently developed a magneto-optic modulator—a device that control the properties of a light beam through a magnetic field. This device, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronics, could contribute to the implementation of large-scale electronics and computers based on superconductors.

“We are working on a new technology that can speed up high-performance supercomputers and quantum computers based on superconductor technology,” Paolo Pintus, the researcher who led the study, told TechXplore. “Superconductors work properly only at low temperatures, generally just above absolute zero (−273.15° Celsius). Because of this, circuits made of these materials must be kept inside a dedicated refrigerator.”

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers have developed a battery-free, wireless underwater camera that’s powered by sound waves.

Scientists estimate that more than 95 percent of Earth’s oceans have never been observed, which means we have seen less of our planet’s ocean than we have the far side of the moon or the surface of Mars.

The high cost of powering an underwater camera for a long time, by tethering it to a research vessel or sending a ship to recharge its batteries, is a steep challenge preventing widespread undersea exploration.

Continue reading “MIT engineers build a battery-free, wireless underwater camera” »

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, discovered a key material needed for fast-charging lithium-ion batteries. The commercially relevant approach opens a potential pathway to improve charging speeds for electric vehicles.

Lithium-ion batteries, or LIBs, play an essential role in the nation’s portfolio of clean energy technologies. Most hybrid electric and all–electric vehicles use LIBs. These rechargeable batteries offer advantages in reliability and efficiency because they can store more energy, charge faster and last longer than traditional lead-acid batteries. However, the technology is still developing, and fundamental advances are needed to meet priorities to improve the cost, range and charge time of electric-vehicle batteries.

“Overcoming these challenges will require advances in materials that are more efficient and synthesis methods that are scalable to industry,” said ORNL Corporate Fellow and corresponding author Sheng Dai.