Lifeboat Foundation

New biodegradable straws developed in China are as cheap as plastic, stronger than paper, and made from edible materials — but can they make a difference in the global plastic waste problem?

Plastic everywhere: People produce 330 million tons of plastic every year. Less than 9% of it is recycled, and about 12% is incinerated — the rest ends up polluting our natural environment or languishing in landfills.

Continue reading “New biodegradable straws are made by bacteria” »

The innovative project Green H2-Hub Haren in the Emsland region in northern Germany uses H-Tec Systems electrolysers for sector integration.

The Green H2-Hub Haren project in Haren in Lower Saxony, northern Germany uses two electrolysers from H-Tec Systems. This was announced by project leader CEC Haren GmbH & Co. KG and electrolyser manufacturer H-Tec Systems. The order was placed with H-Tec Systems by the electricity and gas distribution network operator Westnetz. This research and development project is intended to enable the establishment of a decentralized hydrogen facility. At the site, green hydrogen will be produced from wind energy and stored in connection with specific regional applications, primarily for the mobility sector. The H2-Hub targets various hydrogen applications in rural areas – in particular in the field of agriculture – based on the production and use of sustainably generated hydrogen. In addition, the project is intended to significantly increase the city of Haren’s rate of self-sufficiently produced renewable energy. The goal is to implement a model that will also develop and prepare a comprehensive integration of other rural locations and regions in Lower Saxony into the H2 supply infrastructure.

The town of Haren aims to be completely self-sufficient with green energy. New storage systems as part of the H2 Hub enable a significant use of excess electricity from times of peak generation. The 16 wind turbines of the community wind farm Fehndorf-Lindloh are connected to a PEM electrolysis system, as well as an additional battery storage system in combination with a superordinate energy management system. In addition, a hydrogen filling station and a gas network feed-in point will be built. In this way, the project allows the transfer of surplus electricity to other sectors, such as heating or transport.

Continue reading “German town goes self-sufficient with wind and green hydrogen” »

SOUTH BEND — The city council gave a unanimously positive recommendation Monday night for two tax abatements that could put South Bend at the epicenter of the hydroponic produce market in Indiana, and possibly the Midwest, for years to come.

JEM Farms South Bend plans to spend as much as $178 million on greenhouses and logistical equipment to grow tomatoes and strawberries throughout the year on land at Calvert Street and Renewable Drive, adjacent to the South Bend Ethanol Plant.

That facility would be located on land owned by Ceres Partners, the agricultural investment group located just south of the University of Notre Dame campus and the original investors in Pure Green Farms.

A study explores how supplementing with a compound produced by gut bacteria when digesting foods such as pomegranates could help reverse muscle aging.

As NASA prepares to send astronauts further into the cosmos than ever before, the agency aims to upgrade production of a critical fuel source: food. Giving future explorers the technology to produce nutritious, tasty, and satisfying meals on long-duration space missions will give them the energy required to uncover the great unknown.

The heat-producing electronic components are printed on a substrate material with a method known as roll-to-roll processing. The 0.05-millimetre thick metal mesh can then be cut to form and installed on materials such as fabrics, paper and floor laminates without any additional support layers and without significantly affecting the properties of the material – be it elasticity or breathability.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has unveiled a thin and flexible precision heater suitable not only for indoor environments, but also for food packaging and clinical surfaces.

Most vertical farms are hydroponic (plant roots sit in shallow troughs of nutrient-rich water) or aeroponic (roots dangle in the air and are periodically misted). But Upward Farms uses aquaponics to fertilize its crops. What does that mean? In a nutshell, that plants are fertilized with fish poop.

To get a little more specific: besides microgreens, Upward Farms raises fish: mercury-free, antibiotic-free, hormone-free hybrid striped bass, in tanks that are separate from the trays of greens. Manure from the fish is collected and fed to the plants, making for a soil microbiome that’s more dense, fertile, and productive than that of most indoor farms, according to the company. Best of all, the company sells the fish to consumers, too.

Upward Farms claims its yields are two times above the industry average thanks to its ecological farming method, which keeps the microbial cell count in soil much higher than it would be with chemical fertilizers. “There’s a communication layer that’s been built in by millions of years of evolution between plants and microbes,” said Jason Green, Upward Farms’ CEO and cofounder. “Plants can say, ‘Hey, I’m stressed in this way, my environment is imperfect in this way, can you help me?’ and plants recruit microbes to their service.”

Autonomous vehicle maker Nuro has added external airbags to its self-driving delivery robots to protect pedestrians — but there’s reason to be skeptical about their effectiveness.

Drivers wanted: During the pandemic, more people started ordering their food, groceries, and other goods for delivery rather than venturing into stores and restaurants for them.

Continue reading “Delivery robots get airbags to protect you in case of collision” »

Scientists have discovered a huge store of hidden water on Mars — and it could be the key to human survival on the Red Planet.

The challenge: Researchers have already discovered ice water on Mars at or near the surface of its frigid poles. They’ve also found evidence of water — either in the form of ice or bound to minerals in the soil — deep underground closer to the Red Planet’s equator.

What they really want, though, is near-surface water closer to the equator. That’s where future Mars explorers are likely to land, and an accessible source of water would be hugely useful for their missions, not only for drinking and growing food, but also for creating oxygen and fuel.