Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability – Page 366

This next jump in battery-tech could solve a lot of EV problems.

The world of the internal combustion engine will sadly, but very necessarily, come to a close at some point in many of our lifetimes. Hybrids and electric vehicles are becoming more affordable and more advanced at a rapid pace, which means batteries are taking the place of fossil fuels. This has led to an equally rapid progression in battery technology, with the main goals of improving capacity, charging times, and safety. One major advancement in this field is the advent of solid-state batteries, which promise to push the boundaries of the limitations that current lithium-ion batteries carry.

Electric vehicles have been powered by lithium-ion batteries for years, which are similar to the ones used in laptops, cell phones, and other consumer electronics. They are constructed with a liquid electrolyte inside, which makes them heavy and susceptible to instability at high temperatures. Because each individual battery pack can’t generate all that much energy on its own, several have to be linked together in series, further adding to the weight. The cost of engineering, manufacturing, and installing battery packs makes up a considerable portion of the overall cost of an electric vehicle.

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Private sector solutions to major social problems — stephanie smith — director, humanitarian & development, mastercard.

Stephanie Smith is a Director, in the Humanitarian & Development group, at Mastercard (https://www.mastercard.us), the American multinational financial services corporation.

Stephanie is responsible for operations of the Humanitarian & Development group at Mastercard, and ensuring the team’s efficient, consistent, and effective delivery against their vision to provide digital tools and access for education, health, commerce, and other critical services for marginalized individuals and communities. The Humanitarian & Development group is focused on driving commercially sustainable social impact in collaboration with governments, NGOs, and other private sector companies.

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Jeep and Dodge are putting a much bigger focus on electrification now that they’re part of the Stellantis group. Jeep plans to release its first series-produced electric vehicle in 2023, and Dodge said its first plug-in hybrid will land in 2022.

Both models appeared on a product roadmap that Stellantis distributed to investors this month. It focuses on electrified vehicles, so it doesn’t list the upcoming non-electrified launches, and it sheds light on what the future has in store for all of the carmaker’s brands. Specific details like the type of car planned weren’t publicly released, so there’s no official word on what Jeep’s first EV will look like, but our crystal ball reveals two likely possibilities.

One is a production version of the Magneto concept (pictured) introduced earlier in 2021. It’s essentially a current-generation Wrangler powered by an electric motor that spins the four wheels via a six-speed manual transmission and a two-speed transfer case. It’s futuristic but not unrealistic, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see it reach showrooms in the coming years. However, another possibility is that Jeep could build a smaller, likely car-derived EV to sell on the European market, where emissions norms are extraordinary strict and the fines for exceeding them are immense. If that’s the case, the model would likely borrow parts from the Stellantis parts bin.

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This could revolutionize the way solar panels are produced on Earth and in space. The solar panel manufacturing process also releases oxygen as a by-product, which could be used by future astronauts to create breathable environments in space.

The Luxembourg-based startup Maana Electric will soon be testing its TerraBox, a fully automated factory the size of several shipping containers that takes sand and produces solar panels. The company aims to send these small warehouse container-like boxes, capable of building solar panels using only electricity and sand as inputs, to the deserts of the Earth, in order to contribute to the fight against climate change.

If all goes according to the plans, the technology could reach the Moon, Mars, and beyond as well to help future space colonies meet their energy needs. The TerraBox fits within shipping containers, allowing the mini-factories to be transported to deserts across the globe and produce clean, renewable energy.

In addition to contributing to the fight against climate change, this potentially revolutionary product could also help reduce the dependence of renewable energy operators on China, which manufactures the majority of the world’s photovoltaic solar panels.

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Tesla’s recent move to open its Supercharger network to other automakers will enable the automaker to get access to some of the $7.5 billion in EV charging infrastructure funding as part of the new US infrastructure bill.

For years now, Tesla has been talking about opening up the Supercharger network to electric vehicles from other manufacturers.

Last month, CEO Elon Musk finally confirmed that Tesla plans to open Superchargers to other automakers later this year.

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One of the biggest factors affecting consumer adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is the amount of time required to recharge the vehicles—usually powered by lithium-ion batteries. It can take up to a few hours or overnight to fully recharge EVs, depending on the charging method and amount of charge remaining in the battery. This forces drivers to either limit travel away from their home chargers or to locate and wait at public charging stations during longer trips.

Why does it take so long to fully charge a battery, even those used to power smaller devices, such as mobile phones and laptops? The primary reason is that devices and their chargers are designed so the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries charge only at slower, controlled rates. This is a safety feature to help prevent fires, and even explosions, due to tiny, rigid tree-like structures, called dendrites, that can grow inside a lithium battery during fast charging and induce short-circuits inside the battery.

To address the need for a more practical lithium-ion battery, researchers from the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) worked with scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to conduct neutron scattering experiments on a new type of material that could be used to make safer, faster-charging batteries. The researchers produced samples of lithium vanadium oxide (Li3V2O5), a “disordered rock salt” similar to table salt but with a certain degree of randomness in the arrangement of its atoms. The samples were placed in a powerful neutron beam that enabled observing the activity of ions inside the material after a voltage was applied.

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A group of former SpaceX rocket engineers has joined the race to build the commercial electric speedboat. Their revolutionary company, Arc Boats, based in California, has secured a seed funding of $4.25 million to start work on a 24-foot watersports boat that will cost about $300000.

Arc’s first boat looks simple but is something amazing — at least on paper. The Arc Boats already has one prototype ready. The boat will have a 200kWh, 800-volt battery — roughly double the capacity and voltage of Tesla’s current top-tier package. Its 475 HP electric motor will deliver a top speed of around 40 mph (64 km/h), and the battery will allow an average usage time between three to five hours.

The 24-foot-long (7.3 m) boat combines marine-grade aluminum and aerospace manufacturing techniques, which enables a lightweight, low-cost yet strong structure. The boat can seat up to 10 people. Moreover, the boat will throw a wake behind it, meaning it will be fun to use for wake sports like waterskiing.

The speedboat can reach 40 miles per hour and run for 5 hours per charge.

Continue reading “Former SpaceX engineers are building a commercial electric speedboat” | >

The image shows an elongated galaxy sandwiched, and stretched, between two galaxies. A long tail is visible in the galaxy on the right in this image: Called a “tidal tail,” this can occur when stars and gases are “stripped” from the outside arms of galaxies during a merger, according to Cosmos.

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The Hubble Space Telescope — the size of a large school bus — is over 30 years old. The solar-powered telescope takes detailed images of far-off cosmic objects, like Arp 195, yet the legendary instrument is wearing down with age, most recently exemplified by a computer problem that sent Hubble offline for weeks. Still, NASA expects “Hubble will last for many more years and will continue making groundbreaking observations, working in tandem with other space observatories including the James Webb Space Telescope to further our knowledge of the cosmos.”

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