Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘sustainability’ category: Page 232

Jan 15, 2022

These homes are off-grid and climate resilient. They’re also built out of trash

Posted by in categories: climatology, habitats, sustainability

What if climate change and the housing crisis already had a solution? What if we just need to reevaluate our relationship with the Earth — and with our garbage? A day at the Earthship Biotecture can make anyone a believer in a brighter, greener future.

Jan 15, 2022

This self-sustainable expanding trailer is a complete solution designed for urban nomads

Posted by in categories: life extension, sustainability

The need to rejuvenate amidst nature is crucial in stressful times to heal and grow. This has sparked a trend for a nomadic lifestyle without any compromises in living comfort. Yes, I’m talking about the growing popularity of towable trailers, RVs, caravans, and houses on wheels that promote an upbeat mobile lifestyle. So, how will things be, say, a decade or more from now?

Industrial designer Jason Carley imagines a future where the urban lifestyle will be punctuated by life on the road triggered by sky-rocketing living costs and the aging infrastructures that are dependent on ecologically disruptive fuels and technologies. Jason thinks of a time in the year 2035 where nomadic life will revolve around mastery of resources and an efficient mode of travel. Thus comes into the picture this towable trailer that gives love back to nature. Targeted for the young and resilient urban customers, the rig is an accessible retreat to escape from the stresses of life for a few weeks or even months.

Jan 15, 2022

This 3D printed portable toilet is made from recycled plastic!

Posted by in categories: economics, sustainability

The Throne goes further in its realization of a circular economy by composting the waste produced by users and using this compost locally. Eventually, the teams want to put the technologies and tools in the hands of local communities. When innovation is shared fairly and the carbon footprint created by logistics and shipping of these products can be greatly reduced. The Throne is just one example of the possibilities of what additive manufacturing can do for scaling sustainable design and development – it’s only waste if you waste it!

Designer: Nagami and To:.

Jan 15, 2022

New Mach 5 Hypersonic Scramjet Is Powered by Sustainable Green Hydrogen

Posted by in categories: engineering, satellites, sustainability

It’s rare that faster can also equate to greener in the aerospace industry, but that’s the goal of Australian startup Hypersonix has in sight.

The company has developed a new hypersonic satellite launch system that will make launches more accessible and also more sustainable. The technology could one day also help develop hypersonic airliners capable of crossing the Atlantic in a little over an hour.

“At Mach 5 and above, friction caused by molecules flowing over the hypersonic aircraft can generate temperatures in excess of 2,000˚C (3,632˚F),” the company says in a press statement. “Suffice to say that Brisbane-based aerospace engineering start-up, Hypersonix Launch Systems, is choosing its materials to cope with these extremes.”

Jan 15, 2022

Computing With Light

Posted by in categories: finance, robotics/AI, sustainability, transportation

There are widely cited forecasts that project accelerating information and communications technology (ICT) energy consumption increases through the 2020’s with a 2018 Nature article estimating that if current trends continue, this will consume more than 20% of electricity demand by 2030. At several industry events I have heard talks that say one of the important limits of data center performance will be the amount of energy consumed. NVIDIA’s latest GPU solutions use 400+W processors and this energy consumption could more than double in future AI processor chips. Solutions that can accelerate important compute functions while consuming less energy will be important to provide more sustainable and economical data centers.

Lightmatter’s Envise chip (shown below) is a general-purpose machine learning accelerator that combines photonics (PIC) and CMOS transistor-based devices (ASIC) into a single compact module. The device uses silicon photonics for high performance AI inference tasks and consumes much less energy than CMOS only solutions and thus helping to reduce the projected power load from data centers.

Full Story:

Continue reading “Computing With Light” »

Jan 15, 2022

Sunman builds gigafactory for its lightweight modules

Posted by in category: sustainability

The Chinese manufacturer of flexible and lightweight solar modules has commissioned the first expansion of its production capacity of 500 megawatts. Another 500 megawatts will have been added by June of 2022.

Jan 14, 2022

Coal-hungry Indiana’s largest-capacity solar farm is about to come online

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

Houston-headquartered renewables company EDP Renewables North America has completed a 200-megawatt (MW) solar farm in Randolph County, Indiana, northeast of Indianapolis. It’s now the largest-capacity solar farm in Indiana.

UnderstandSolar is a free service that links you to top-rated solar installers in your region for personalized solar estimates. Tesla now offers price matching, so it’s important to shop for the best quotes. Click here to learn more and get your quotes. — *ad.

Riverstart Solar Park has a sole 20-year power purchase agreement with electricity supply cooperative Hoosier Energy, which will use the clean energy to power households in central and southern Indiana and southeastern Illinois.

Jan 14, 2022

Exploring Tesla Model S High Voltage Cabling

Posted by in categories: education, engineering, sustainability, transportation

When he’s not busy with his day job as professor of computer and automotive engineering at Weber State University, [John Kelly] is a prolific producer of educational videos. We found his video tracing out the 22+ meters of high voltage cabling in a Tesla Model S (below the break) quite interesting. [John] does warn that his videos are highly detailed and may not be for everyone:

This is not the Disney Channel. If you are looking to be entertained, this is not the channel for you.

Continue reading “Exploring Tesla Model S High Voltage Cabling” »

Jan 14, 2022

1,000-cycle Lithium-Sulfur Battery Could Quintuple Electric Vehicle Ranges

Posted by in categories: chemistry, engineering, sustainability, transportation

A new biologically inspired battery membrane has enabled a battery with five times the capacity of the industry-standard lithium ion design to run for the thousand-plus cycles needed to power an electric car.

A network of aramid nanofibers, recycled from Kevlar, can enable to overcome their Achilles heel of cycle life—the number of times it can be charged and discharged—a University of Michigan team has shown.

“There are a number of reports claiming several hundred cycles for lithium-sulfur batteries, but it is achieved at the expense of other parameters—capacity, charging rate, resilience and safety. The challenge nowadays is to make a battery that increases the cycling rate from the former 10 cycles to hundreds of cycles and satisfies multiple other requirements including cost,” said Nicholas Kotov, the Irving Langmuir Distinguished University Professor of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, who led the research.

Jan 13, 2022

Tesla expands Gigafactory Nevada solar array toward goal to become world’s biggest

Posted by in category: sustainability

New satellite images show that Tesla significantly expanded its rooftop solar array at Gigafactory Nevada as it aims for it to become the world’s biggest.

In 2017, Tesla announced plans for a giant 70 MW rooftop array at Gigafactory Nevada, which would be the largest in the world by a wide margin. The project has been lagging for a long time. Tesla finally started construction of the solar array in 2018 and expanded on it throughout the next few years, but it has never grown near the size Tesla has been talking about.

Last summer, the automaker said that it had deployed 3.2 MW at the site. At the time, Tesla also changed its goal to deploy 24 MW instead of 70 MW on the rooftop of the factory, which itself is now smaller than originally planned. The company said that it believes this would still be enough to be the largest rooftop deployment of solar power.