Lifeboat Foundation

A dream of advocates of low cost space access has been beam propulsion of various types, whether laser, microwave, or particle beams.

The engineering firm Munro & Associates made waves recently when it tore the new Tesla Model 3 apart both literally and figuratively. The company dismantles and studies cars and other products, and CEO Sandy Munro was very vocal about his feelings regarding Tesla’s newest electric vehicle. He said the build quality was like a Kia from the 90s. Now, the company has completed its analysis. While Munro’s opinion on the fit and finish hasn’t changed, he has expressed downright shock that the Model 3 is highly profitable for Tesla.

The initial Munro & Associates analysis of the Model 3 called out issues like clunky door handles and windows that bounce around inside the door panels. The exterior panels of the Model 3 also drew Munro’s ire. The gaps are substantially larger than the more expensive Teslas — even conventional cars that cost thousands less look more polished on the outside, according to Munro.

Continue reading “Tesla Model 3 Has Highest Profit Margin of Any Electric Vehicle” »

We’ve had autonomous cars, autonomous trucks, and autonomous buses, and now Osaka-based diesel engine manufacturer Yanmar is introducing a new line of robotic tractors. On October 1, 2018, the company is releasing its 2-series tractors equipped with the Smartpilot autonomous operating system and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) that allow them to operate in autonomous and semi-autonomous modes.

From liquid laundry detergent packaged in cardboard to compostable plastic cups, consumer products these days are increasingly touting their sustainable and renewable origins.

Now researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have created a material derived from crab shells and tree fibers that has the potential to replace the flexible plastic packaging used to keep food fresh.

The new material, which is described July 23 in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, is made by spraying multiple layers of chitin from crab shells and cellulose from trees to form a flexible film similar to plastic packaging film.

For the first time, scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and five other organizations have shown that human influences significantly impact the size of the seasonal cycle of temperature in the lowest layer of the atmosphere.

To demonstrate this, they applied a so-called “fingerprint” technique. Fingerprinting seeks to separate human and natural influences on climate. It relies on patterns of climate change—typically patterns that are averaged over years or decades. But in the new research appearing in the July 20 edition of the journal Science, the team studied seasonal behavior, and found that human-caused warming has significantly affected the seasonal temperature cycle.

The researchers focused on the troposphere, which extends from the surface to roughly 16 kilometers in the atmosphere at the tropics and 13 kilometers at the poles. They considered changes over time in the size of the seasonal cycle of tropospheric temperature at different locations on the Earth’s surface. This pattern provides information on temperature contrasts between the warmest and coldest months of the year.

Australia announced plans Friday to explore concepts such as firing salt into clouds and covering swathes of water with a thin layer of film in a bid to save the embattled Great Barrier Reef.

The UNESCO World Heritage-listed reef, about the size of Japan or Italy, is reeling from two straight years of bleaching as sea temperatures rise because of climate change.

Experts have warned that the 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) long area could have suffered irreparable damage.

Continue reading “Cloud brightening, ‘sun shields’ to save Barrier Reef” »

It wasn’t that long ago that solar power and wind power were labeled as marginal, ‘green’ electricity, but in the last five years or so they have become much more affordable and economically more feasible than conventional sources like coal and nuclear.

What supported solar along the way partly was the emergence of energy storage in the form of battery systems. Electricity can now be made by solar power systems and the excess can be stored for usage at night or on less sunny days. At least, solar power has been paired successfully with energy storage, and it is catching up with solar power. The cost of this newish technology is dropping, “The overall estimated cost fell 32% in 2015 and 2016, according to the 2017 GTM Reseach utility-scale storage report. That will slow over the next five years, GTM reported. But battery storage is — in certain places and applications — on its way to cost-competitiveness.”

According to Lazard, it could drop another 36% between 2018 and 2022. The UC-Berkeley research study, “Energy Storage Deployment and Innovation for the Clean Energy Transition,” predicted lithium-ion batteries could hit the $100 per kilowatt-hour mark in 2018.

Continue reading “More Energy Storage Looming For Wind Power” »

Watersheds channel water from streams to oceans, and more than $450 billion in food, manufactured goods and other economic factors depend on them, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Watersheds also are crucial to the health of surrounding ecosystems and communities. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri have found that climatic changes and urban development, when working in tandem, could have profound effects on watersheds by midcentury.

“In some cases, the effects of urban development and climatic changes on hydrologic conditions can be intensified when both stressors are considered,” said Michael Sunde, a researcher in MU’s School of Natural Resources. “In spring, for example, we found that both factors could increase runoff, which, in turn, can send more pollutants into streams, increase erosion and cause more serious flooding.”

Sunde (pronounced “Soond”) and his colleagues used several models, including land cover change, hydrologic and climate model projections to identify potential changes in a Missouri watershed for the mid-21st century. Individually, increased urbanization and climate change were shown to have different impacts on the watershed. Researchers found that urban development is likely to increase runoff and limit the amount of water absorbed into the ground as groundwater. Evaporation of water from soil and other surfaces and consumptive water use by plants is also expected to decrease due to urbanization. Conversely, projected temperature increases and changing precipitation patterns would cause decreases to runoff and increased evaporation and plant transpiration. However, climate impacts were shown to vary widely, depending on the season and direction of precipitation changes projected by climate models.

Continue reading “Urbanization and changes to climate could pack a one-two punch for watersheds in the future, study finds” »

The U.S. electric system is adapting to a new wave of distributed energy resources, such as solar panels and energy storage. Some of these work together in localized networks known as microgrids—nearly 2,000 are now operating or planned across the country, according to one estimate.

Prized for their flexibility, microgrids can run in an “island” mode or connect to the main grid. Although microgrids can potentially enhance reliability, the current electric system needs upgrading in order to synchronize with them properly.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory study the impact of microgrids and analyze ways to assimilate them smoothly within the larger electric system. Part of this work focuses on the distribution system—the last leg of electricity’s journey from energy source to outlet.