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Category: energy – Page 75

It’s worth noting that Airloom’s new wind turbine can be configured vertically or horizontally and that it can be deployed offshore as well as on land.

“For decades, the wind industry has lowered the cost of energy production by scaling ever larger turbines. Although this has been extremely successful in driving down overall costs, the approach now faces challenges in terms of both siting and cost of materials,” said Carmichael Roberts of Breakthrough Energy Ventures in a press release. “Airloom’s unique approach can solve both these problems, opening new market opportunities for wind energy that will further drive down costs. We look forward to Neal’s leadership in bringing this revolutionary technology into the market.”

With small-scale prototypes already up and running, the company plans to use its seed funding for research and development of the Airloom wind energy test device, which is designed to produce 50 kilowatts (kW) of electricity. Future systems are expected to be megawatt-scale and deployed hundreds of megawatts at a time in utility-scale wind farms.

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A team of George Mason University scientists has received a federal grant of more than $13 million to work with the Department of the Navy to study and better understand increased solar activity that could potentially cause an “internet apocalypse” disrupting all electronic communications on Earth, including satellite communications.

Research from the grant, which will total $13.6 million in expenditures over five years, will be done in collaboration with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and will include state-of-the-art data mining, analysis, and scientific modeling, among other endeavors, led by Mason faculty, students and staff. Under the terms of the contract, Mason provides scientific support for a broad range of astronomy-related activities that are of interest to the U.S. Navy and the nation at large.

“The main focus is on solar activity and the way it can impact systems on Earth,” said principal investigator Peter A. Becker, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within the College of Science. “This is especially important to the Navy—and more broadly the Department of Defense—because high-energy outbursts from the sun can have a strong negative impact on earthly radio and internet communications. And they can also have a detrimental effect on navigation systems and energy grids on Earth.”

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It started with a simple experiment that was all the rage in the early 20th century. And as is usually the case, simple experiments often go on to change the world, leading Einstein himself to open the revolutionary door to the quantum world.

Here’s the setup. You take a piece of metal. You shine a light on it. You wait for the electrons in the metal to get enough energy from the light that they pop off the surface and go flying out. You point some electron-detector at the metal to measure the number and energy of the electrons.

Done.

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Extreme fast charging (XFC) battery technology

StoreDot is a leader in extreme fast charging (XFC) battery technology, which uses silicon-dominant chemistries to enable rapid charging without compromising energy density or safety. The company has successfully validated its “100in5” XFC cell, which can deliver 100 miles of range in five minutes, at an independent battery lab in Israel. The cell has also shown superior performance compared to other EV batteries.

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“Plastic recycling has been touted as a solution to the plastics pollution crisis, but toxic chemicals in plastics complicate their reuse and disposal and hinder recycling.”

As such, plastic recycling today is an essential part of waste management and environmental preservation initiatives. Recycling plastics minimizes the environmental impact of plastic manufacturing, conserves energy, and helps lower the need for new raw materials.

A crucial sustainable process

However, a new study is putting a damper on this crucial sustainable process. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg investigated recycled plastic pellets gathered from 13 different nations and discovered they contained hundreds of hazardous substances, including pharmaceuticals and pesticides.

Continue reading “At least 491 dangerous chemicals found in recycled plastics” | >