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Archive for the ‘energy’ category: Page 197

Mar 2, 2021

Technologies to Rapidly Restore the Electrical Grid after Cyberattack Come Online

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, energy

Under our RADICS program, researchers developed tools to aid in the rapid recovery of our power grids amidst a cyberattack. Today we’re spotlighting the program’s many accomplishments: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2021-02-23

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Mar 1, 2021

Bottling the World’s Coldest Plasma to Unlock the Secrets of Fusion Power

Posted by in categories: energy, physics, space

Laser-cooled plasma-in-a-bottle could answer questions about the sun, fusion power. Rice University physicists have discovered a way to trap the world’s coldest plasma in a magnetic bottle, a technological achievement that could advance research into clean energy, space weather and astrophysics.

Mar 1, 2021

Off-grid construction site taps into hydrogen fuel cell tech to power operations

Posted by in category: energy

Circa 2020


With the development of new technology, the way construction sites operate is changing.

Feb 26, 2021

Sergey Brin’s airship aims to use world’s biggest mobile hydrogen fuel cell

Posted by in categories: energy, transportation

Sergey Brin’s secretive airship company LTA Research and Exploration is planning to power a huge disaster relief airship with an equally record-breaking hydrogen fuel cell.

A job listing from the company, which is based in Mountain View, California and Akron, Ohio, reveals that LTA wants to configure a 1.5-megawatt hydrogen propulsion system for an airship to deliver humanitarian aid and revolutionize transportation. While there are no specs tied to the job listing, such a system would likely be powerful enough to cross oceans. Although airships travel much slower than jet planes, they can potentially land or deliver goods almost anywhere.

Hydrogen fuel cells are an attractive solution for electric aviation because they are lighter and potentially cheaper than lithium-ion batteries. However, the largest hydrogen fuel cell to fly to date is a 0.25-megawatt system (250 kilowatts) in ZeroAvia’s small passenger plane last September. LTA’s first crewed prototype airship, called Pathfinder 1, will be powered by batteries when it takes to the air, possibly this year. FAA records show that the Pathfinder 1 has 12 electric motors and would be able to carry 14 people.

Feb 25, 2021

What is Gravitricity’s Gravity-Based Energy Storage System?

Posted by in category: energy

British start-up company Gravitricity has developed a system to store excess energy by using the power of gravity.

Feb 25, 2021

Beware of Lazy Bitcoin Research | Insights

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, energy, sustainability

Bitcoin mining is mainly driven by renewable energy — hydro (by far the largest component), solar, wind and geothermal. Period.

In fact, we’ve estimated the lower bound of renewables penetration in the bitcoin mining energy mix to be 77.6%.

From 2018, but it’s likely gotten better since then.

Continue reading “Beware of Lazy Bitcoin Research | Insights” »

Feb 24, 2021

Would You Cycle For An Hour Every Day If It Powered Your Home For 24 Hours?

Posted by in categories: energy, health

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cgb9lfKW_d4

People often complain about both the high cost of energy and the fact that “they don’t have time to exercise.” This invention certainly solves both problems.

Feb 24, 2021

What is Flywheel Energy Storage – How Does it Work?

Posted by in category: energy

Flywheel energy storage is a promising replacement for conventional lead acid batteries. How does it work as an energy storage system?

Feb 21, 2021

Cybersecurity, Emerging Tech, Risk Management — Winter 2021 Writings & Media

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, energy

These three pillars of cybersecurity risk management need not stand alone. In fact, they all should be incorporated together in cybersecurity framework strategy to identify gaps, mitigate threats, and build resilience in the case of an inevitable cyberattack. Of course, there are many other elements and protocols associated with utilization of these cyber risk management pillars. Combining them creates a more holistic mindset that also makes it easier to plan and adapt. With the growing sophistication of global cyber-threats and the expanding digital attack surface, a vigilant three pillar approach makes good sense.

Chuck Brooks, President of Brooks Consulting International, is a globally recognized thought leader and evangelist for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies. LinkedIn named Chuck as one of “The Top 5 Tech Experts to Follow on LinkedIn.” Chuck was named as a 2020 top leader and influencer in “Who’s Who in Cybersecurity” by Onalytica. He was named by Thompson Reuters as a “Top 50 Global Influencer in Risk, Compliance,” and by IFSEC as the “#2 Global Cybersecurity Influencer.” He was named by The Potomac Officers Club and Executive Mosaic and GovCon as at “One of The Top Five Executives to Watch in GovCon Cybersecurity. Chuck is a two-time Presidential appointee who was an original member of the Department of Homeland Security. Chuck has been a featured speaker at numerous conferences and events including presenting before the G20 country meeting on energy cybersecurity.

Feb 21, 2021

Increasing optical data transmission speed

Posted by in categories: energy, materials

Pulsed lasers repeatedly emit light for a short period of time as if blinking. They have the advantage of focusing more energy than a continuous wave laser, whose intensity is kept unchanged over time. If digital signals are loaded in a pulsed laser, each pulse can encode one bit of data. In this respect, the higher the repetition rate, the more the amount of data that can be transmitted. However, conventional optical-fiber-based pulsed lasers have typically had a limitation in increasing the number of pulses per second above the MHz level.

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced that the research team led by Senior Researcher Dr. Yong-Won Song at the Center for Opto-Electronic Materials and Devices was able to generate at a rate at least 10000 times higher than the state of the art. This achievement was accomplished by inserting an additional resonator containing graphene into a fiber-optic pulsed– oscillator that operates in the domain of femtoseconds (10-15 seconds). The data transmission and processing speeds are expected to increase significantly by applying this method to data communications.

The KIST research team noted that the characteristics of the wavelength and intensity of laser light that change over time are correlated (Fourier transform). If a resonator is inserted into the laser oscillator, the wavelength of the pulsed laser is periodically filtered, thereby modifying the pattern of laser intensity change. Based on this background research, Principal Researcher Song synthesized graphene, which has the characteristics of absorbing and eliminating weak light and amplifying the intensity by passing only strong light into the resonator. This allows the laser intensity change to be accurately controlled at a high rate, and thus the repetition rate of pulses could be increased to a higher level.