Lifeboat Foundation

Soot is one of the world’s worst contributors to climate change. Its impact is similar to global methane emissions and is second only to carbon dioxide in its destructive potential. This is because soot particles absorb solar radiation, which heats the surrounding atmosphere, resulting in warmer global temperatures. Soot also causes several other environmental and health problems including making us more susceptible to respiratory viruses.

Soot only persists in the atmosphere for a few weeks, suggesting that if these emissions could be stopped then the air could rapidly clear. This has recently been demonstrated during recent lockdowns, with some major cities reporting clear skies after industrial emissions stopped.

But soot is also part of our future. Soot can be converted into the useful carbon black product through thermal treatment to remove any harmful components. Carbon blacks are critical ingredients in batteries, tires and paint. If these carbons are made small enough they can even be made to fluoresce and have been used for tagging biological molecules, in catalysts and even in solar cells.

The newly passed infrastructure bill could lead to a boom in solar production requiring a lot more land, including farmland. But research is showing solar panels might actually help grow some crops.

This solar farm in Colorado thinks so.

The farming industry is using way too much energy both for its own and the Earth’s sake. To put it in numbers, agriculture uses approximately 21 percent of food production energy, which equals 2.2 quadrillions of kilojoules of energy each year. What’s more, about 60 percent of the energy used in agriculture goes toward gasoline, diesel, electricity, and natural gas.

That’s where agrivoltaics come in. A system where solar panels are in… See more.

Understanding the structural secrets of how mollusks form symmetrical pearls could inspire more optimal materials for solar panels and space travel.

With 145,000 panels.

The world’s largest floating solar farm has now begun operations at the Sirindhorn Dam on the Lam Dom Noi River in Thailand. The dam has a capacity of generating 45MW of power using its solar panels, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) confirmed in a press release.

The news comes after the country started advancing its carbon neutrality goals by 15 years. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Glasgow, UK, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha pledged that his country would attain carbon neutrality by 2,050 much ahead of the earlier set target date of 2,065 local media reported. The announcement is a major move considering that two-thirds of Thailand’s current power generation is sourced from natural gas.

The noise barriers built in Switzerland can supply up to 101 gigawatt hours of solar electricity every year. The prerequisite is that all noise barriers are covered with solar installations, as far as this is possible and economical. This would be possible with a solar capacity of 111 megawatts. This is the result of a study commissioned by the Swiss Federal Council at the instigation of Bruno Storni, a member of parliament from the Swiss Social Democratic Party.

This potential is far below what is technically feasible. However, the authors of the study subtracted the potential that would hardly be economically feasible according to the current state of the art. In addition, they had to take into account site conditions such as shading of the walls or safety aspects.

101 gigawatt hours sounds a lot. But this is only 0.15 per cent of the usable solar potential on roofs and facades used for comparison in Switzerland. For the federal road administration Astra and the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), however, it is nevertheless a major step towards climate neutrality. After all, solar installations on noise barriers near road tunnels alone cover eleven per cent of the potential on Astra’s total surfaces.

AArtificial photosynthesis turns CO₂ into sustainable fuel: Carbon capture is the idea of taking CO₂ from the air and storing it. Carbon conversion is taking that same CO₂ and turning it into something useful. CO₂ can be used for a number of products, but one of the most exciting is alternatives to fossil fuels.

If we look at what’s possible with batteries today, you can do a lot. You can electrify certain portions of aviation, but they’re just never gonna touch that jumbo jet full of a couple of hundred passengers going a thousand miles. And that’s where sustainable aviation fuels come in.

Jason Salfi, CEO of Dimensional Energy, a company using artificial photosynthesis to produce carbon-neutral alternatives to fossil fuels. Their first product, a carbon-neutral jet fuel.

Gallium arsenide (GaAs) has long been touted as the best material for making high-efficiency solar cells because of its extraordinary light absorption and electrical characteristics. It has most notably been put to use in space solar panels.

These GaAs solar cells, however, are extremely pricey to produce resulting in a demand for methods that cut down on the material usage. That’s where nanowire structures come in. These elements can potentially enhance solar cell efficiency compared to standard planar solar cells while utilizing less material.

By using GaAs in the nanowire structures, the team of researchers has found a new way to make an ultrahigh power-per-weight ratio solar cell that is more than 10 times more efficient than any other solar cell.

Scheduled to break ground next year, the project will feature 100 single-story houses “printed” on-site using advanced robotic construction and a concrete-based building material.

Digital renderings of the neighborhood, unveiled last week, show rows of properties with their roofs covered in solar cells. The homes will each take approximately a week to build, according to firms behind the development.

The project is a collaboration between homebuilding company Lennar and ICON, a Texas-based construction firm specializing in 3D-printed structures. The houses have been co-designed by the Danish architecture practice Bjarke Ingels Group.