Lifeboat Foundation

“Pamela” is an uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) developed as an entrepreneurial idea at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) for sampling a variety of surface water particles, from microplastic to plankton to salmon lice. The USV is a joint effort by an interdisciplinary team—Andrea Faltynkova, a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Biology, and Artur Zolich, a postdoc at the Department of Engineering Cybernetics.

Faltynkova studies microplastics in the ocean. Microplastics are bits of plastic smaller than 5 mm, which is roughly the size of the end of a pencil. While researchers know that microplastics can have negative effects on marine or freshwater organisms, there’s less known about how they affect human health. But studying microplastics is a challenge because of the nature of the substance itself, she says.

“Microplastics are so heterogeneous. It’s a very large, diverse group of particles. Not only that but they are very unevenly distributed. Microplastic is not like other dissolved pollutants that can be detected even in small quantities of water or soil. If you go and you take a liter from the sea, and there’s no plastic in it, can you conclude that there is no plastic in the sea?” she asked.

Are gas stations doomed in the long run, or is there an opportunity to reinvent them as a fast-charging destination stop for EV drivers?

Germany-based global ultrafast EV charging technology company ADS-TEC Energy sees the rise of EVs as a new opportunity for gas stations. Electrek spoke with John Tuccillo, global head of corporate and government affairs for ADS-TEC Energy, about what the reinvention of gas stations into superfast EV charging stations would look like and what it would take to make that happen.

Electrek: As we move to vehicle electrification, what do you think will happen to gas stations, and what are the challenges that gas stations face?

Tesla has teased its Optimus humanoid robot prototype with a new image ahead of a full unveiling planned for September 30th.

Earlier this year, CEO Elon Musk announced “Tesla AI Day #2” with “many cool updates” on August 19.

The original “Tesla AI Day” held last year was an event focused on the company’s self-driving program. The automaker also unveiled its Dojo supercomputer and announced plans for the “Tesla Bot” humanoid robot – now known as Tesla Optimus.

State plans for the National EV Charging Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program were due to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation this week, and many states released a draft plan for feedback in the last couple of months. The NEVI Program is one of two programs in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that provide funding for publicly-accessible electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure. Program funds can be used to plan for, install, operate, and maintain EV charging stations along travel corridors, with a focus on designated Alternative Fuel Corridors. Funding under the NEVI program totals $5 billion from 2022 through 2026. Funds will be allocated to states each year for implementation based on a pre-established formula, provided the departments of transportation in those states submit a satisfactory EV charging plan to the Joint Office, with updates to the plan required annually.

So what’s in the draft plans?

I pulled a few draft plans to look at as a starting point, aiming for a cross section of states in different regions, with different politics, with different economic stakes in the EV transition, at different places in EV adoption, with different weather. I couldn’t get quite the representative cross section I wanted because there are still big gaps in which states have released a draft plan. I decided to start with Alabama, California, Texas, and Wyoming.

The concrete industry is just one of many looking at new manufacturing methods to reduce its carbon footprint. These efforts are essential to fulfilling the Paris Agreement, which asks each of its signees to achieve a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. However, a new study from researchers in Japan and Belgium and focusing exclusively on Japan concludes that improved manufacturing technologies will only get the industry within 80% of its goal. Using a dynamic material flows analysis model, the study claim that the other 20% will have to come from changes in how concrete is consumed and managed, putting expectations on the buyer as well as the seller.

Electric cars, fluorescent lights, water-saving shower heads, these are all examples of efforts to lower our carbon footprint. However, the energy savings are made from the supply side, with companies developing new technologies that reduce the amount of energy consumed for the same amount of use. Notably, they put little demand on the user, who can use the product no differently than before.

The same holds true for concrete, the most consumed human-made material in the world. Many studies have shown the potential for making the concrete industry more energy efficient through esoteric efforts like “clinker-to-cement ratio reduction,” “cement substitution with alternative binders,” and “carbon capture and utilization.” The problem, explains Dr. Takuma Watari, a researcher at the Japan National Institute for Environmental Studies and lead of the new study, is that supply-side efforts are not enough if nations are serious about achieving net-zero carbon emissions.

T he introduction of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has revolutionised transport technology. We wouldn’t be witnessing the current electric vehicle (EV) revolution without them. However, with the production of these batteries, which contain lithium and cobalt, comes associated with environmental and social costs. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, which accounts for 60% of the world’s supply of cobalt, a large number of unregulated mines use children as miners.

Children as young as 7 “breathe in cobalt-laden dust that can cause fatal lung ailments while working tunnels that are liable to collapse,” notes this report in The Guardian. Meanwhile, lithium mining has resulted in significant loss of groundwater in South America, while toxic leaks resulting from the process have poisoned water bodies in Tibet.

To lessen the burden on the environment, while meeting the growing demand for EVs, one possible solution could be recycling these Li-ion batteries.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Georgia Institute of Technology have 3D printed a dual-phase, nanostructured high-entropy alloy that exceeds the strength and ductility of other state-of-the-art additively manufactured materials, which could lead to higher-performance components for applications in aerospace, medicine, energy and transportation.

The work, led by Wen Chen, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at UMass, and Ting Zhu, professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, is published by the journal Nature (“Strong yet ductile nanolamellar high-entropy alloys by additive manufacturing”).

Wen Chen, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at UMass Amherst, stands in front of images of 3D printed high-entropy alloy components (heatsink fan and octect lattice, left) and a cross-sectional electron backscatter diffraction inverse-pole figure map demonstrating a randomly oriented nanolamella microstructure (right). (Image: UMass Amherst)