Lifeboat Foundation

Tesla had a rough start to the week, but the company is finally getting some good news to end it.

Q Cells has set a new world-record tandem cell efficiency of 28.7% in collaboration with researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin using a Q.antum-based silicon bottom cell in combination with a perovskite-based top cell.

States seeking electric vehicle charging station funds can calculate job creation.

With the sale of electric vehicles on the rise, the race is on to build a network of convenient, affordable electric vehicle charging stations to keep the cars running.

There are currently about 47,000 public charging stations across the country. As the administration rolls out its plan to build a network of 500,000 electric charging stations across the nation by the end of the decade, the number of charging stations will increase significantly — and quickly.

With both homelessness rates and the cost of housing continuing to climb in the U.S., one startup described as the “IKEA of houses” is determined to make beautifully-designed, energy efficient homes more affordable for everyone.

The founders of NODE believe that access to affordable housing should be a fundamental right. They’re working toward a sustainable solution to the current housing crisis, and it’s one that goes above and beyond the status quo.

Continue reading “This carbon-negative dream house ships in a box” »

As the world struggles to improve the efficiency of cars and other vehicles in order to curb greenhouse gas emissions and improve the range of electric vehicles, the search is on for ever-lighter materials that are strong enough to be used in the bodies of cars.

Lightweight materials made from carbon fiber, similar to the material used for some tennis rackets and bicycles, combine exceptional strength with low weight, but these have been more expensive to produce than comparable structural elements made of steel or aluminum. Now, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have come up with a way of making these lightweight fibers out of an ultracheap feedstock: the heavy, gloppy waste material left over from the refining of petroleum, material that refineries today supply for low-value applications such as asphalt, or eventually treat as waste.

Not only is the new carbon fiber cheap to make, but it offers advantages over the traditional carbon fiber materials because it can have compressional strength, meaning it could be used for load-bearing applications. The new process is described in the journal Science Advances, in a paper by graduate student Asmita Jana, research scientist Nicola Ferralis, professor Jeffrey Grossman, and five others at MIT, Western Research Institute in Wyoming, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

Quantum computers are getting bigger, but there are still few practical ways to take advantage of their extra computing power. To get over this hurdle, researchers are designing algorithms to ease the transition from classical to quantum computers. In a new study in Nature, researchers unveil an algorithm that reduces the statistical errors, or noise, produced by quantum bits, or qubits, in crunching chemistry equations.

Developed by Columbia chemistry professor David Reichman and postdoc Joonho Lee with researchers at Google Quantum AI, the algorithm uses up to 16 qubits on Sycamore, Google’s 53-qubit computer, to calculate ground state energy, the lowest energy state of a molecule. “These are the largest quantum chemistry calculations that have ever been done on a real quantum device,” Reichman said.

Continue reading “Toward a quantum computer that calculates molecular energy” »

Dust on solar panels reduces their output significantly, so they need to be kept clean. But how? Scientists say they have a solution.

Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas is about to start its operations, and when it does, it would be one of the United States’ most ambitious vehicle production facilities. The massive factory, which Elon Musk has noted will be almost a mile long when completed, is expected to hire thousands of workers in the area.

The arrival of Tesla in Texas and the influx of companies moving into the state will likely trigger an increase in the number of people residing in cities like Austin. With this in mind, Austin transit leaders recently stated that the city’s transportation network would play a critical role in aiding or hindering further development. After all, all those new workers need a way to get to and from their jobs.

The discussions were held during a South by Southwest panel on Thursday, where transportation startup leaders highlighted that Austin’s efforts to invest in new mass transit operations are steps in the right direction. Austin-based AI Fleet CEO Marc El Khoury noted that the city and its surrounding areas would be attractive for companies developing innovative transit technologies.

Engineers at the University of Cincinnati have developed a promising electrochemical system to convert emissions from chemical and power plants into useful products while addressing climate change.

UC College of Engineering and Applied Science assistant professor Jingjie Wu and his students used a two-step cascade reaction to convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide and then into ethylene, a chemical used in everything from food packaging to tires.

“The world is in a transition to a low-carbon economy. Carbon dioxide is primarily emitted from energy and chemical industries. We convert carbon dioxide into ethylene to reduce the carbon footprint.” Wu said. “The research idea is inspired by the basic principle of the plug flow reactor. We borrowed the reactor design principle in our segmented electrodes design for the two-stage conversion.”