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Category: energy – Page 194

Solar Desalination Skylight provides free lighting and drinking water

A New Zeland-based designer Henry Glogau has developed Solar Desalination Skylight, a device that uses seawater to create natural ambient light, drinking water, and generates energy from the remaining sea salt.

Glogau’s Solar Desalination Skylight is the finalist of the Lexus Design Award 2021, a competition dedicated to empowering humans to make good things for the future of humanity and the planet. Projects that are finalized and awarded are determined by their positive impact on human society.

It emits a natural light, produces drinking water, and utilizes leftover salt brine for energy creation.

Seismic waves from earthquakes reveal changes in the Earth’s outer core

In May 1997, a large earthquake shook the Kermadec Islands region in the South Pacific Ocean. A little over 20 years later, in September 2018, a second big earthquake hit the same location, its waves of seismic energy emanating from the same region.

Though the earthquakes occurred two decades apart, because they occurred in the same region, they’d be expected to send seismic waves through the Earth’s layers at the same speed, said Ying Zhou, a geoscientist with the Department of Geosciences in the Virginia Tech College of Science.

But in data recorded at four of more than 150 Global Seismographic Network stations that log seismic vibrations in real time, Zhou found an anomaly among the twin events: During the 2018 , a set of seismic waves known as SKS waves traveled about one second faster than their counterparts had in 1997.

Volvo unveils hydrogen-powered truck with 1,000km range

Swedish truck manufacturer Volvo Trucks has unveiled a hydrogen fuel cell truck which the company claims will have a range of up to 1,000 kilometres and a refuelling time of less than 15 minutes.

The hydrogen fuel cell truck will join other zero-emission truck options already on offer, battery-electric trucks and trucks that run on renewable fuels such as biogas.

“We have been developing this technology for some years now, and it feels great to see the first trucks successfully running on the test track,” said Roger Alm, president of Volvo Trucks.

Can we time travel? A theoretical physicist provides some answers

Time travel makes regular appearances in popular culture, with innumerable time travel storylines in movies, television and literature. But it is a surprisingly old idea: one can argue that the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles over 2,500 years ago, is the first time travel story.

But is in fact possible? Given the popularity of the concept, this is a legitimate question. As a , I find that there are several possible answers to this question, not all of which are contradictory.

The simplest answer is that time travel cannot be possible because if it was, we would already be doing it. One can argue that it is forbidden by the , like the or relativity. There are also technical challenges: it might be possible but would involve vast amounts of energy.

DoD’s DARPA studies tech to recharge drones while in flight

The US Department of Defense’s innovative tech unit, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is looking for ways to recharge drones while still in flight using laser-shooting tanker planes as the source of that energy.

“This Airborne Energy Well is a potential component of a more expansive energy web of power generation, transfer relays and receiving solutions, enabling the Department of Defense (DoD) to dynamically allocate energy resources to more flexibly deliver military effects,” the RFI notes.

Ink coating could enable devices powered by heat

Researchers in Sweden report that they are closing in on a way to replace batteries for wearables and low-power applications in the internet of things (IoT). The answer lies in an ink coating that enables low-grade heat, which is generated by devices, to be converted to electrical power.

Publishing in Applied Materials & Interfaces (“Thermoelectric Inks and Power Factor Tunability in Hybrid Films through All Solution Process”), the researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm report that they have developed a promising blend of thermoelectric coating for devices that generate heat amounting to less than 100 oC.

A piece of film is coated in thermoelectric ink. (Image: KTH The Royal Institute of Technology)

A weird star produced the fastest nova on record

Astronomers are buzzing after observing the fastest nova ever recorded. The unusual event drew scientists’ attention to an even more unusual star. As they study it, they may find answers to not only the nova’s many baffling traits, but to larger questions about the chemistry of our solar system, the death of stars and the evolution of the universe.

The research team, led by Arizona State University Regents Professor Sumner Starrfield, Professor Charles Woodward from University of Minnesota and Research Scientist Mark Wagner from The Ohio State University, co-authored a report published today in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.

A is a sudden explosion of bright light from a two-star system. Every nova is created by a white dwarf—the very dense leftover core of a star—and a nearby companion star. Over time, the white dwarf draws matter from its companion, which falls onto the white dwarf. The white dwarf heats this material, causing an uncontrolled reaction that releases a burst of energy. The explosion shoots the matter away at high speeds, which we observe as .

The Vivatech exposition is awesome

Check it out and post some of the stuff from it. My favorite because of fuel prices was this:

Many innovations in the mobility sector will be on the agenda, among them Japanese electric inflatable vehicles transportable in a backpack and operational in just a few seconds from Poimo, which will be seen for the first time outside Japan.

You will find many more innovations to investigate and post. Just google the companies listed in the link and their innovations.

VivaTech is the world’s rendezvous for startups and leaders to celebrate innovation. It’s a gathering of the world’s brightest minds, talents, and products.

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