Category: sustainability – Page 250
Circa 2012
At 2:12 PM local time today, the MS *Tûranor *entered Monaco’s Hercule Harbor, becoming the first ship to travel around the world using only solar power.
It’s the same harbor where the *Tûranor *set out from more than 19 months and 37,286 miles ago. Since then, the ship has made port in six continents, fended off pirates and broke four Guinness world records, including longest journey by solar powered boat and first circumnavigation by solar powered boat.
For the team behind the *Tûranor, *the work has just started. They’ve spent more than a year and a half preaching the solar gospel at stops around the world, and their passion for the power of the sun hasn’t dimmed one bit.
Circa 2014
After decades of experiments, U.S. Navy scientists believe they may have solved one of the world’s great challenges: how to turn seawater into fuel.
The development of a liquid hydrocarbon fuel could one day relieve the military’s dependence on oil-based fuels and is being heralded as a “game changer” because it could allow military ships to develop their own fuel and stay operational 100 percent of the time, rather than having to refuel at sea.
The new fuel is initially expected to cost around $3 to $6 per gallon, according to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, which has already flown a model aircraft on it.
Now, researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed a prototype for fully scalable all–perovskite tandem solar modules. They were able to scale up individual perovskite cells with a power conversion efficiency of up to 23.5% at an aperture area of 0.1 square centimeters to all-perovskite tandem solar modules with an efficiency of up to 19.1% with an aperture area of 12.25 square centimeters.
The aperture area is the usable part of the surface that is not covered by electrodes, frames, or fasteners. At approximately five percent, the loss of efficiency when upscaling is relatively low. “This is the first report of an all-perovskite tandem solar module worldwide,” says Dr. Bahram Abdollahi Nejand, lead author of the publication and team leader for all-perovskite tandem solar modules.
The KIT researchers claimed this remarkable result is the first of its kind reported worldwide. To obtain this, the team increased the efficiency by optimizing the light path and reducing reflections in the solar cell architecture. They implemented an efficient layout for tandem solar modules using high-throughput laser scribing that enables the production of functional tandem solar mini-modules with two-terminal interconnected cell strips. Lastly, they used coating processes (blade coating and vacuum deposition) that are already established in industrial practice.
A recent study from the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and published in Wa | Chemistry And Physics.
This study is intriguing since one of the results of climate change is increasing water temperatures, so removing phosphorus from such waters will prove invaluable in the future, with this study appropriately being referred to as a “future-proof” method.
Since phosphorus in fresh water often results in algal blooms, removing it from wastewater prior to it being released into fresh water is extremely important. This is because algal blooms drastically reduce oxygen levels in natural waters when the algae die, often resulting in the delivery of high levels of toxins, killing organisms in those waters.
Below the surface of US coastal cities and towns, the salt line is rising in aquifers used for fresh water. The cause is climate change.
As sea levels rise, saltwater will intrude into groundwater. For more than 600 million who draw on aquifers, it means a freshwater crisis.
Roel van DijnenI did not realize that India still has such a small economy, smaller then Germany and UK 😳
Eric KlienAdmin.
Roel van Dijnen In related news, India has so far stopped Tesla and Starlink from operating in their country. Governments can, and often do, screw up their economy.
Roel van DijnenEric Klien The screwing up part is rather subjective, imagine the effect on earth when countries like India and Nigeria will adopt the same luxurious lifestyle that we have. But then again, Tesla and Starlink are trying to be part of the solution for that also 😉
Vertical farming saves water, land, and energy — and it could be how we grow food on Mars.