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Category: sustainability – Page 215

Can Lightning’s electric motorcycle really charge as fast as a gas tank fill-up?

Touring, a type of riding that involves long distance trips, has long been the achilles heel of electric motorcycles. While e-motos have developed to the point where they can beat combustion engine motorcycles in nearly every other metric, quick recharging required for long distance riding has yet to reach parity with a gas station fill-up. At least, that was until Lightning Motorcycle debuted what it says is the fastest charging electric motorcycle yet.

Lightning Motorcycles, the Southern California-based boutique e-motorcycle manufacturer, claims that its new fast-charging electric motorcycle can recharge nearly as fast as a combustion engine motorcycle can refuel its tank.

Previously, the quickest DC fast-charging electric motorcycles like the models from Energica or Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire One boasted a recharge time of around 30 minutes for a nearly topped-up battery.

New priming method improves battery life, efficiency

Silicon anode batteries have the potential to revolutionize energy storage capabilities, which is key to meeting climate goals and unlocking the full potential of electric vehicles.

However, the irreversible depletion of lithium ions in silicon anodes puts a major constraint on the development of next-generation lithium-ion batteries.

Scientists at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering have developed a readily scalable method to optimize prelithiation, a process that helps mitigate lithium loss and improves battery life cycles by coating silicon anodes with stabilized lithium metal particles (SLMPs).

Bjarke Ingels designs Vollebak Island home to demonstrate “philosophy of hedonistic sustainability”

Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has collaborated with clothing brand Vollebak to design an entirely self-sufficient, off-grid island home in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Planned for an island within Jeddore Harbour, the house is designed to exemplify the clothing brand’s ideals and Ingels’ studio BIG’s “philosophy of hedonistic sustainability”.

“Vollebak is using technology and material innovation to create clothes that are as sustainable and resilient as they are beautiful,” said Ingels.

Seaweed to Replace Plastic | Edible & Biodegradable Packaging | Notpla

Notpla has been announced as the winner of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, in the category of ‘Build a Waste-Free World’!

https://www.notpla.com/

We visited Notpla, a company that is challenging plastic pollution by creating edible and biodegradable packaging using seaweed.
Seaweed and other plants are 100% biodegradable and can break down in weeks, making them a great sustainable packaging alternative to plastic. We spoke with Pierre, the co-founder of Notpla to learn more about the company’s ambitions. Notpla is a company dedicated to innovation and improving the market of single use packaging through the use of their revolutionary plant-based material.

Check out Notpla-https://www.notpla.com/

Learn more about the Nick Maughan Foundation-https://nmf.org/

Continue reading “Seaweed to Replace Plastic | Edible & Biodegradable Packaging | Notpla” | >

AI robots tell UN conference they could run the world

GENEVA: A panel of AI-enabled humanoid robots took the microphone on Friday (Jul 7) at a United Nations conference with the message: They could eventually run the world better than humans.

But the social robots said they felt humans should proceed with caution when embracing the rapidly-developing potential of artificial intelligence, and admitted that they cannot — yet — get a proper grip on human emotions.

Some of the most advanced humanoid robots were at the United Nations’ AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, joining around 3,000 experts in the field to try to harness the power of AI and channel it into being used to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change, hunger and social care.

23-YO Brews Up Startup Success With Hot Chocolate That Empowers Organic Farmers

Anuva Kakkar, the 23-year-old entrepreneur behind Tiggle, an Agra-based D2C organic hot chocolate brand, has come a long way in a very short period despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. From selling cups of hot chocolate to commuters outside the DLF Phase-3 metro station in Gurugram to starting her brand of hot chocolate powder and selling over 2 lakh cups through 2021, it has been a mercurial rise.

Made of premium cocoa sourced from a 40-acre family-owned certified organic farm near Pollachi, Tamil Nadu, Tiggle today sells three ‘premium’ varieties of hot chocolate powder — Light Hot Chocolate Mix, Dark Hot Chocolate Mix and Jaggery Hot Chocolate Mix. So, how did this entrepreneur from Agra set up her venture in such a challenging time for commerce?

New glass could cut carbon footprint by nearly half and is 10x more damage resistant

Worldwide, glass manufacturing produces at least 86 million tons of carbon dioxide every year. A new type of glass promises to cut this carbon footprint in half. The invention, called LionGlass and engineered by researchers at Penn State, requires significantly less energy to produce and is much more damage resistant than standard soda lime silicate glass. The research team recently filed a patent application as a first step toward bringing the product to market.

“Our goal is to make glass manufacturing sustainable for the long term,” said John Mauro, Dorothy Pate Enright Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State and lead researcher on the project. “LionGlass eliminates the use of carbon-containing batch materials and significantly lowers the melting temperature of glass.”

Soda lime silicate glass, the common glass used in everyday items from windows to glass tableware, is made by melting three primary materials: quartz sand, soda ash and limestone. Soda ash is and limestone is calcium carbonate, both of which release carbon dioxide (CO2), a heat-trapping greenhouse gas, as they are melted.

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