Lifeboat Foundation

Wind power in the UK set a new record today by generating 14 gigawatts for the first time – nearly 37 per cent of the country’s electricity.

The National Grid control room confirmed that 13.9 gigawatts was the highest ever metered wind output.

It was responding to a tweet by “wind-loving Walthamstow mum” Sarah Merrick, who said: “Think this might be a new wind record”.

Continue reading “UK sets new wind power record as turbines deliver 14 gigawatts for first time – 37 per cent of nation’s electricity” »

Look out for—falling space debris?

A large Chinese satellite that’s free-falling to Earth could crash into southern Michigan sometime between now and early April, researchers say.

According to a new report from the Aerospace Corporation, southern portions of lower Michigan fall into the regions listed as having a high probability of debris landing from the 8.5-ton space station. The report also identifies northern China, central Italy and northern Spain as regions with higher chances of impact.

Continue reading “Chinese satellite filled with corrosive fuel could hit lower Michigan” »

I’d suggest France partner with Algeria to start trying to build a massive solar array in the Algerian desert, there is nothing out there. Although it is a rough neighborhood.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) — France will commit 700 million euros to the International Solar Alliance (ISA), President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday at the founding conference of the organization, reiterating the European country’s commitment to the alliance and clean energy.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi ® shakes hands with French President Emmanuel Macron as he arrives to attend the International Solar Alliance Founding Conference in New Delhi, India, March 11, 2018. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi.

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For weeks, digital clocks in Europe have been lagging behind. The unexpected source of the problem: Kosovo and Serbia, whose power grid operators can’t find common ground.

Clock radios and timers on microwaves and stoves have gotten out of sync in Europe in recent weeks. The reason: Coordination problems between the power grid operators of Kosovo and Serbia.

Since mid January power companies in Kosovo and Serbia have failed to mutually balance their electricity grids in the case of irregularities. According to the grid codes of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), they are obliged to maintain a mean frequency of 50 hertz (oscillations per second) and help each other out if necessary.

Continue reading “Clocks in Europe are running late because of the Kosovo conflict” »

Sending a spacecraft to the far reaches of our solar system to mine asteroids might seem like an improbable ambition best left to science fiction. But it’s inching closer to reality. A NASA mission is underway to test the feasibility on a nearby asteroid, and a niche group of companies is ramping up to claim a piece of the pie.

Industry barons see a future in finding and harnessing water on asteroids for rocket fuel, which will allow astronauts and spacecrafts to stay in orbit for longer periods. Investors, including Richard Branson, China’s Tencent Holdings and the nation of Luxembourg, see a longer-term solution to replenishing materials such as iron and nickel as Earth’s natural resources are depleted.

Millions of asteroids roam our solar system. Most are thought unsuitable for mining, either because they’re too small, too inaccessible to Earth or because the materials that make up the asteroid have little value. But we know of almost 1,000 asteroids that show potential. Timing is everything, though. The varied orbits of these asteroids mean that many are nearby only once every several years.

Neutron stars aren’t the twinkle-twinkle kind you typically see in the night sky. They’re stellar corpses, and incredibly dense sources of gravity, with perhaps 1.5 times the mass of the sun packed into an area less than a dozen miles across. Around 9,000 light years away from Earth, one neutron star seems to have befriended a red dwarf. And scientists observed the new relationship beginning in a flash of energy.

An international team of researchers first spotted what looked like the symbiotic relationship of an old red dwarf star waking up a neutron star on August 13, 2017, using an Earth-orbiting telescope called INTEGRAL. While binary stars are common, lots of things about this finding, from capturing the initial blast that signaled the start of the stellar relationship, were a surprise.

“It was a very exciting find,” study author Arash Bahramian from Michigan State University told Gizmodo, “Especially given that it’s rare to see the start of the process.”

Continue reading “Scientists Observe Red Giant Waking Up Neutron Star in a Flash” »

We could do this today. A couple ideas i would pitch would be: 1. A series of giant solar arrays in the American SW. 2. Giant wind turbines located in Tornado alley and built to withstand a direct hit from a tornado and try and put them where tornadoes would make direct hits on purpose.

After we get these sites built up enough to power the US, then build them up to power North and South America, eventually expand into Asia.

It would require an infrastructure overhaul costing hundreds of billions—if not trillions—of dollars, but technically speaking, it’s possible.

Continue reading “The US Could Supply 80 Percent of Its Energy with Wind and Solar” »

As hemp makes a comeback in the U.S. after a decades-long ban on its cultivation, scientists are reporting that fibers from the plant can pack as much energy and power as graphene, long-touted as the model material for supercapacitors. They’re presenting their research, which a Canadian start-up company is working on scaling up, at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

David Mitlin, Ph.D., explains that supercapacitors are energy storage devices that have huge potential to transform the way future electronics are powered. Unlike today’s rechargeable batteries, which sip up energy over several hours, supercapacitors can charge and discharge within seconds. But they normally can’t store nearly as much energy as batteries, an important property known as energy density. One approach researchers are taking to boost supercapacitors’ energy density is to design better electrodes. Mitlin’s team has figured out how to make them from certain hemp fibers—and they can hold as much energy as the current top contender: graphene.

“Our device’s electrochemical performance is on par with or better than graphene-based devices,” Mitlin says. “The key advantage is that our electrodes are made from biowaste using a simple process, and therefore, are much cheaper than graphene.”

Continue reading “Could hemp nanosheets topple graphene for making the ideal supercapacitor?” »