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A Company Is Taking on Tesla With Its Easy-Install Solar Roof Tiles

And it claims any roofer can install its new solar shingles.

GAF Energy, a division of roofing giant GAF, developed new solar shingles that are so easy to install no special equipment or knowledge is required, a TechCrunch report reveals.

The new accessible home renewable energy option provides serious competition for Tesla, who revealed their own new tiles with 22 percent more energy capacity last month.

Solar shingles have traditionally been difficult to install, as they replace traditional shingles to act as roofing material and solar cells at the same time. Tesla’s solar roofs, for example, require a special team to carry out what is essentially a whole roof replacement that has, in the past, taken weeks to complete.

With its new solar shingles, GAF Energy hopes to make installation easier and more flexible. Not only will it allow quicker install times, but it will also allow specific patches of roofing to be replaced with solar shingles, meaning customers won’t only have the option of replacing their entire roof.

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China to cut new energy vehicle subsidies

China has cheap labour and huge market so still EV companies will invest in China.


BEIJING, Jan 1 (Reuters) — China will cut subsidies on new energy vehicles (NEVs), such as electric cars, by 30% in 2022 and withdraw them altogether at the end of the year, the Finance Ministry said on its website on Friday.

The ministry had said in April 2020 that NEV subsidies would be cut from 2020 to 2022 by 10%, 20% and 30%, respectively.

For NEVs for public transport, subsidies would be cut by 10% in 2021 and by 20% in 2022.

World’s first super-large ethane carrier delivered in Shanghai

Capable of shipping 99,000 cubic meters of liquefied gas across the Pacific Ocean, the world’s first very large ethane carrier (VLEC), “Pacific Ineos Belstaff,” was named and delivered by Chinese shipbuilder Jiangnan Shipyard Group in Shanghai on Tuesday.

As the largest carrier for ethane in the world by far, the vessel features the Type-B cargo quartet containment system “BrilliancE” developed by Jiangnan Shipyard. B stands for Type-B and E stands for ethane and ethylene.

It is also equipped with dual-fuel technology that can use ethane as fuel through a shaft generator that helps it meet the most stringent emission requirements.

Due to Precision Launch, NASA Says Webb Space Telescope’s Fuel Likely To Last Way More Than 10 Years

After a successful launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Dec. 25, and completion of two mid-course correction maneuvers, the Webb team has analyzed its initial trajectory and determined the observatory should have enough propellant to allow support of science operations in orbit for significantly more than a 10-year science lifetime. (The minimum baseline for the mission is five years.)

A Neutron Star Unleashed an Energy Equivalent to That Created by the Sun in 100,000 Years

In a tenth of a second.

We’ve just taken another step toward comprehending enormous magnetar explosions.

For the first time, a group of international researchers was able to measure oscillations in the brightness of a magnetar during its most violent moments.

This was a brutal moment in time indeed, as in less than a tenth of a second, the magnetar expelled energy equivalent to that created by the sun in 100,000 years!

Why you should know about magnetars (and why they’re scary) A magnetar is a rare form of neutron star distinguished by an extremely powerful magnetic field. Its field is about 1,000 times stronger than that of a regular neutron star — a trillion times greater than that of the Earth! We only know about 30 of these objects, since detecting them is a difficult task for our current technologies. While they are known to suffer violent eruptions, we know relatively little due to their unexpected nature and their short duration time of barely tenths of a second.

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James Webb Space Telescope Has Enough Fuel For More Than 10 Years of Mission

Thanks to Ariane 5 rocket launching Webb on the right path.

After nearly 30 years of planning and thorough work, NASA finally got to launch its $10 billion next-generation space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), on Christmas day. JWST is now headed on a long six-month trip until it can begin its science mission and start to conduct routine science operations.

Now, it turns out that JWST might be traveling and collecting data for much longer than initially expected. JWST was forecast to be operational for 5 to 10 years, but NASA’s latest analysis revealed that the observatory should have enough fuel to “allow support of science operations in orbit for significantly more than a 10-year science lifetime.”

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