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Archive for the ‘sustainability’ category: Page 441

Jun 8, 2020

Transparent graphene electrodes might lead to new generation of solar cells

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

A new way of making large sheets of high-quality, atomically thin graphene could lead to ultra-lightweight, flexible solar cells, and to new classes of light-emitting devices and other thin-film electronics.

Jun 8, 2020

Scientists Create Prototype That Generates Electricity From Shadows

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

It sounds like something from a sci-fi movie, but the newly revealed Shadow-Effect Energy Generator (SEG) is a real prototype device. The fascinating concept could help us to transform the way renewable energy is generated indoors.

The SEG uses the contrast between darkness and light to produce electricity. It’s made up of a series of thin strips of gold film on a silicon wafer, placed on top of a flexible plastic base.

Whereas shadows are usually a problem for renewable solar energy production, here they’re actually harnessed to keep on generating power. The technology — which is cheaper to produce than a typical solar cell, according to its developers — produces small amounts of power and could be used in mobile gadgets, for example.

Jun 7, 2020

Russia declares state of emergency after Arctic oil spill

Posted by in category: sustainability

Russian President Vladimir Putin of Russia declared a state of emergency in a region of northern Siberia after a huge oil spill last week turned a river crimson. It is threatening significant damage to the Arctic region. [ 317 more words ].


Norilsk Nickel is the world’s largest producer of platinum and nickel.

The company, along with the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, dispatched hundreds of personnel to clean up the spill. So far, Norilsk Nickel said they had managed to gather up only around 340 tons of the oil.

Continue reading “Russia declares state of emergency after Arctic oil spill” »

Jun 7, 2020

A look at Tesla battery degradation and replacement after 400,000 miles

Posted by in categories: life extension, sustainability

In this new installment of our series on the highest-mileage Tesla Model X (and one of the highest mileage EVs in the world), we look into battery degradation and replacement on a Tesla with over 400,000 miles.

Earlier this year, I bought one of the cheapest and most high-mileage Tesla Model X vehicles ever.

Continue reading “A look at Tesla battery degradation and replacement after 400,000 miles” »

Jun 6, 2020

Huge $161 Million Investment Means Meat Without the Animal Is Here

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

The number of startup companies and the amount of investment dollars going into the field of cultivated meat has exceeded—and will likely continue to exceed—annual exponential growth.


As we race to find sustainable ways to feed the world’s insatiable appetite for meat, the field of cultivated meat has exceeded annual exponential growth— more than doubling every year in terms of the number of startup companies and investment dollars. In late 2015, one startup raised a few hundred thousand dollars. In 2020, there are dozens of cultivated meat companies around the world pursuing everything from shrimp and bluefin tuna to steak and kangaroo.

This year, the sector took another significant step forward when cultivated meat first-mover Memphis Meats closed a $161 million Series B funding round from lead investors Softbank, Norwest, and Temasek. This amount is greater than all other publicly disclosed investments in cultivated meat companies combined and brings total investment in the startup to $181 million.

Continue reading “Huge $161 Million Investment Means Meat Without the Animal Is Here” »

Jun 6, 2020

From Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage to the first mission to Mars

Posted by in categories: alien life, chemistry, geopolitics, habitats, physics, robotics/AI, sustainability, treaties

Pleased to have been the guest on this most recent episode of Javier Ideami’s Beyond podcast. We discuss everything from #spaceexploration to #astrobiology!


In this episode, we travel from Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage to the first mission to Mars with Bruce Dorminey. Bruce is a science journalist and author who primarily covers aerospace, astronomy and astrophysics. He is a regular contributor to Astronomy magazine and since 2012, he has written a regular tech column for Forbes magazine. He is also a correspondent for Renewable Energy World. Writer of “Distant Wanderers: The Search for Planets Beyond the Solar System”, he was a 1998 winner in the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards (AJOYA) as well as a founding team member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute’s Science Communication Focus Group.

Continue reading “From Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage to the first mission to Mars” »

Jun 6, 2020

Can Vertical Farms Fix the Future of Food?

Posted by in categories: food, government, internet, space, sustainability

Singapore has only 1% of its land available for agriculture, so it imports 90% of its food requirements. The government is looking to curb this dependence on outside food sources under a programme titled ‘30 by 30,’ which aims to allow Singapore to grow 30% of its produce by the year 2030. Local vertical farms like Sustenir are at the forefront of bringing about this change. VICE visits the sustainable start-up to understand the future of food.

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Continue reading “Can Vertical Farms Fix the Future of Food?” »

Jun 6, 2020

World’s First Biosolar Leaf Purifies Air and Produces Plant-Based Food

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

Imperial College London has partnered with British startup Arborea to install the world’s first “Biosolar Leaf” technology on its roof. It is first of the kind system to use the microscopic plant to purify the air while producing plant-based food.

Julian Melchiorri CEO of Arborea who pioneered “Biosolar Leaf” technology said – “There has to be a way to feed all the world with healthy and sustainable food by making it the primary choice, not the alternative!”

The system works by growing microscopic plants like blue-green algae, phytoplankton on a solar grid-like layout. In fact, just one acre of “Biosolar Leaf” can remove carbon dioxide and produce breathable oxygen, then, one hundred acres of trees.

Jun 6, 2020

For The First Time Ever, Scientists Have Created Hexagonal Salt

Posted by in categories: chemistry, sustainability, transportation

While it probably won’t make it to your dining table, a new scientific achievement might be able to help in everything from radar equipment to electric cars: scientists have been able to form salt, aka sodium chloride (NaCl), in a hexagonal shape.

This is work done at the smallest of scales, with researchers able to get a thin film of hexagonal salt to form on top of a layer of diamond, due to the chemical interaction of both film and diamond substrate – something the team actually predicted would happen in advance through simulations.

It’s the latest in a series of discoveries where scientists have been able to synthesise 2D materials with unusual crystal structures, and it’s partly this self-imposed restriction to two dimensions that is enabling new and exotic structures to be formed.

Jun 5, 2020

Discovery unlocks ‘hot’ electrons for more efficient energy use

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

Highly energetic, “hot” electrons have the potential to help solar panels more efficiently harvest light energy.

But scientists haven’t been able to measure the energies of those electrons, limiting their use. Researchers at Purdue University and the University of Michigan built a way to analyze those energies.

“There have been many theoretical models of hot electrons but no direct experiments or measurements of what they look like,” said Vladimir “Vlad” Shalaev (shal-AYV), Purdue University’s Bob and Anne Burnett Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who led the Purdue team in this collaborative work.