Lifeboat Foundation

Early experiences with the new Tesla Model Y with 4,680 cells and a structural battery pack are showing some impressive potential for faster charging and better energy density.

When Tesla delivered its first made-in-Texas Model Y vehicles, we noted that it was strange that Tesla didn’t reveal any details – like specs and pricing – about the new version of the electric SUV.

Continue reading “Tesla Model Y with new 4680 cells shows impressive potential for faster charging” »

Tesla’s battery research arm based in Canada published a paper earlier this month that provides details of a battery design that could serve us for 100 years, Electrek reported.

As the world looks to reduce carbon emissions, electric transportation is one of the ways that is being touted to achieve emission targets that countries have set themselves. To ensure this can be sustainable, countries need to switch to renewable sources of power, while electric vehicle makers need to ensure that the cars themselves do not become a cause of concern.

Dutch company Lightyear has unveiled what it claims is the world’s first production-ready solar car. The Lightyear 0 is a family sedan with 5 sq m (53.8 sq ft) of solar panels built in, capable of generating up to 70 km (44 miles) of charge-free driving a day.

Having scaled its workforce up to 500 people and hooked up deals with more than 100 suppliers, Lightyear is deadly serious about this venture and ready to start manufacturing. Its first car is this four-door fastback electric sedan, with enough onboard battery to deliver a very solid 560 km (348 miles) of freeway driving at 110 km/h (68 mph), even without the sun shining.

Continue reading “Lightyear 0 production solar car could run for months without charging” »

Numerous activities, including construction and demolition, mining and industrial activities, cooking and gardening, and others, generate a substantial amount of garbage. The amount of waste generated is directly proportional to consumption and production patterns.

In most cases, waste formation is the result of inefficient material utilization. Trends in the number, composition and impacts of these materials provide insight into the nation’s efficiency in using (and reusing) materials and resources. It also provides a better understanding of the effects of waste on human health and the environment.

According to surveys, 92 million tonnes of cloth are dumped as garbage each year worldwide. Estimates predict that this figure will likely exceed 130 million tonnes by 2030. When 200 tonnes of water used to make a single tonne of fabric is considered, it becomes clear that the end-to-end processes of the garment industry are severe threats to environmental initiatives.

Italian company Energy Dome has announced the successful launch of its first CO₂ Battery facility in Sardinia, Italy. The milestone marks the final de-risking of the CO₂ Battery technology as Energy Dome enters the commercial scaling phase, becoming the first commercial long-duration energy storage technology on the market offering a reliable alternative to fossil fuels for dispatchable baseload power globally.

The Energy Dome CO₂ battery uses carbon dioxide to store renewable energy, such as solar and wind energy, over a long period and release it quickly. Energy Dome says the technology can be quickly deployed anywhere in the world at less than half the cost of similar-sized lithium battery storage facilities.

Continue reading “Energy Dome launches world’s first CO2 battery for long-duration energy storage” »

Circa 2017

Imagine living in a cocoon-like house without corners.

Italian company Energy Dome has opened the first of its remarkable grid-level energy storage plants. These “CO2 batteries” can store renewable energy over long periods and release it quickly, at less than half the cost of big lithium batteries.

Large-scale energy storage is going to be required on an epic scale all round the world, as green energy begins to take over the world’s power supply. Renewable energy is often generated at times and places where it’s not needed, and a variety of grid-level storage technologies are jockeying for various energy market niches, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

We took a close look at Energy Dome’s CO₂ battery technology last July, but here’s the guts of it: carbon dioxide expands dramatically when it moves to a gaseous state from a liquid state, which it’ll only settle in under pressures at least five times higher than the Earth’s atmospheric pressure. How much does it expand? Well, at room temperature, 2.5675 litres of liquid CO₂ kept at 56 atmospheres of pressure will expand into 1,000 litres of gaseous CO₂. That’s a factor of nearly 400.

Machines bristling with cameras and controlled by artificial intelligence are bringing supernatural precision to weeding, harvesting and fertilizing.