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Category: sustainability – Page 513

How to build a Dyson sphere in five (relatively) easy steps

We are closer to being able to build a Dyson Sphere than we think. By enveloping the sun in a massive sphere of artificial habitats and solar panels, a Dyson Sphere would provide us with more energy than we would ever know what to do with while dramatically increasing our living space. Implausible you say? Something for our distant descendants to consider? Think again. We could conceivably get going on the project in about 25 to 50 years, with completion of the first phase requiring only a few decades.

Charging hundreds of EVs parked at a condo is a solvable problem, here’s how

Skeptics like to point out that most EV drivers live in single-family homes that make charging easy. And they point to the current lack of charging stations at condos as an impenetrable obstacle to EV adoption. But this viewpoint reflects a lack of understanding of how daily EV charging works. I recently chatted with Jason Appelbaum, chief executive of EverCharge — the biggest EV charging network you never heard of.

Several hundred electric cars, all parked in the same condo garage, can easily get their daily dose of electricity. It requires a smart load-balancing system.

Creating Water From Thin Air

About 2.1 billion people around the world do not have immediate access to clean drinking water.

The Water Abundance XPrize competition rewards innovators who come up with new ways to harvest clean water from the atmosphere.

This year, the winning design can produce at least 2,000 litres of water per day, which would satisfy the needs of 100 people.… See More.

These two designers have created a device that can pull clean drinking water out of thin air

By: PETER KOTECKI, Businessinsider.com

Continue reading “Creating Water From Thin Air” | >

German NGO Cites Passive Cooling as Vital to Sustainable Buildings

German Sustainable Building Council also highlighted importance of NatRefs in ACs at ATMO/DTI Conference.

Using shading for passive cooling, © Simy27, 2020.

Passive cooling design, as well as natural refrigerant-based air conditioning, are vital to achieving sustainable cooling in buildings, according to Anna Braune, Director of Research and Development at the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB), a Stuttgart, Germany-based NGO.

Ford unveils electric Mustang Mach-E race car with 1,400 horsepower

Ford Motor has developed a racing version of its upcoming all-electric Mustang Mach-E crossover with 1,400 horsepower and a top speed that’s not street legal.

The company plans to use the prototype vehicle, which it’s calling the Mustang Mach-E 1400, to show off the potential performance of all-electric vehicles as the new crossover begins arriving in dealerships later this year.

“It’s an all-around athlete,” Mark Rushbrook, motorsports director of Ford Performance, told CNBC. He called the vehicle a “learning platform” for the company to utilize aspects of for its future all-electric vehicles.

Miami chemists’ breakthrough technique enables design at the interface of chemistry and biology

A technique developed by Miami University associate professors of chemistry and biochemistry Dominik Konkolewicz and Rick Page may help enable more rapid and efficient development of new materials for use in pharmaceuticals, biofuels, and other applications.

Konkolewicz’s and Page’s technique uses nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology to illuminate how proteins and synthetic polymers interact in chemical substances known as bioconjugates.

Oxygen breathes new life into solar cell research

(Nanowerk News) Scientists in Australia and the United States have been able to ‘upconvert’ low energy light into high energy light, which can be captured by solar cells, in a new way, with oxygen the surprise secret ingredient. The results are published in Nature Photonics (“Photochemical upconversion of near-infrared light from below the silicon bandgap”).

Scientists in Australia and the United States have been able to ‘upconvert’ low energy light into high energy light, which can be captured by solar cells, in a new way, with oxygen the surprise secret ingredient.

The results are published in Nature Photonics (“Photochemical upconversion of near-infrared light from below the silicon bandgap”).

While the approach’s efficiencies are relatively low and more work is needed to achieve commercialisation, the research is an exciting development, according to senior author Professor Tim Schmidt from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science and UNSW Sydney.

“The energy from the sun is not just visible light,” Prof. Schmidt explains.

Tesla and SpaceX are partnering up to create new materials to use on Earth and in space

Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla plans to use a different alloy for the upcoming Cybertruck electric pickup.

When Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck last year, one of the most interesting features was the fact the vehicle isn’t going to be built using a traditional automotive body system but with an exoskeleton.

The automaker wrote about the exoskeleton:

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