Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability – Page 33

The Overview Effect, the profound shift in human perception that occurs when one sees Earth from the outside, has the power to foster peace and global brotherhood. This underscores the urgent need for an increasing number of people, not just machines, to venture into space.

The concept encapsulated in the title above is the culmination of a two-day discussion held in New York under the auspices of the Summit of the Future. The Space Renaissance International and its 102 allied organizations, the Space 18th SDG Coalition, played a pivotal role in organizing these two events.

The first event[1] took place at the United Nations Plaza 777, NYC, in the heart of the U.N. Headquarters Plaza, thanks to the generous hosting of Henk Rogers[2]. Approximately 50 participants, both in person and virtually, engaged in a robust discussion on the necessity of amending the U.N. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The key proposal was the addition of an 18th SDG, with a specific focus on Civilian Space Development. This discussion was furthered during a Side Event[3] at the Consulate General of Jamaica in NYC, organized and hosted by Dr. Claire Nelson[4]. Robert Katz[5] and Adriano V. Autino[6] expertly co-chaired both events.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. — The owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant said Friday that it plans to restart the reactor under a 20-year agreement that calls for tech giant Microsoft to buy the power to supply its data centers with carbon-free energy.

The announcement by Constellation Energy comes five years after its then-parent company, Exelon, shut down the plant, saying it was losing money and that Pennsylvania lawmakers had refused to bail it out.

The plan to restart Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 comes amid something of a renaissance for nuclear power, as policymakers are increasingly looking to it to bail out a fraying electric power supply, help avoid the worst effects of climate change and meet rising power demand driven by data centers.

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Rio Tinto has ambitious goals when it comes to sustainability. According to the company’s website, it aims to transition all its facilities and operations to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. To achieve this, the company is working with governments to scale up renewable energy resources where it works. For example, Rio Tinto invested more than $500 million to partner with the Canadian government to decarbonize an iron and titanium mine in Quebec.

Mining companies like Rio Tinto provide necessary metals and minerals for global clients. The company’s products and resources are used all over the world in items that people use in their daily lives. Unfortunately, mining with diesel fuel produces carbon dioxide. Rio Tinto is exploring the effectiveness of renewable energy sources in its operations to try and reduce the negative impacts mining has on the Earth.

The Diavik diamond mine features a historic solar power plant that can produce up to 4.2GW hours of electricity for its operations. The solar panels on-site use both the light of the sun as well as light reflected off of snow to generate electricity.

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52 billion solar panels could soon be covering the American highway network. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Chinese Academy of Geosciences, and Columbia University have proposed a historic initiative which could see major global highways covered with solar panels.

The researchers publication “Roofing Highways With Solar Panels Substantially Reduces Carbon Emissions and Traffic Losses” in Earth’s Future advocate for the deployment of solar technology across the global highway network which spans up to 3.2 million kilometers.

In doing so, the researchers estimate that up to 17,578 TWh of electricity could be generated annually. This figure is equivalent to more than a staggering 60% of 2023’s energy consumption. This could offset up to 28% of global carbon emissions and reduce road accident incidences up to 11%.

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Officials in southern California are advising some residents against leaving their homes as wildfire smoke worsens air quality in the region.

On Monday afternoon, the National Weather Service (NWS) office in San Diego broadcast an air quality alert from the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD). The alert warned of increased fine particle pollution from wildfire smoke across parts of southern California, and it is expected to remain in place until 11 p.m. local time Tuesday.

“If you smell smoke or see ash due to a wildfire, remain indoors with windows and doors closed or seek alternative shelter, if feasible,” the alert said. “Avoid vigorous physical activity and run your air conditioner and/or an air purifier. If possible, do not use whole house fans or swamp coolers that bring in outside air. Avoid burning wood in your fireplace or firepit and minimize sources of indoor air pollution such as candles, incense, pan-frying, and grilling.”

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A discovery six years ago took the condensed-matter physics world by storm: Ultra-thin carbon stacked in two slightly askew layers became a superconductor, and changing the twist angle between layers could toggle their electrical properties. The landmark 2018 paper describing “magic-angle graphene superlattices” launched a new field called “twistronics,” and the first author was then-MIT graduate student and recent Harvard Junior Fellow Yuan Cao.

Together with Harvard physicists Amir Yacoby, Eric Mazur, and others, Cao and colleagues have built on that foundational work, smoothing a path for more twistronics science by inventing an easier way to twist and study many types of materials.

A new paper in Nature describes the team’s fingernail-sized machine that can twist thin materials at will, replacing the need to fabricate twisted devices one by one. Thin, 2D materials with properties that can be studied and manipulated easily have immense implications for higher-performance transistors, such as solar cells, and quantum computers, among other things.

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