Lifeboat Foundation

Uranus really is strange. Not only does it rotate on an axis that sits at a 98-degree angle to its orbital plane, but, unlike the other giant planets, it doesn’t appear to release more heat than it receives from the Sun. Its magnetic field, too, appears warped compared to the Earth’s. An impact could perhaps help explain some of these strange traits.

Scientists have been simulating giant impacts into Uranus since the early 1990s, according to the new paper published in the Astrophysical Journal. This time around, researchers built a new simulation with the newest and best available data of the planet’s composition. This allowed them to model how a giant impactor, perhaps one to three times the mass of Earth, would have deposited “material and energy inside Uranus” and how much debris would be left over, from which moons could form.

“This study provides some great new insights into what might have happened all those billions of years ago, with material left over from the impact possibly even serving to trap some of that heat inside,” Leigh Fletcher, Royal Society Research Fellow at the University of Leicester, told Gizmodo.

Continue reading “Did Something Massive Smash Into Uranus?” »

The advantages of flow batteries include easy scalability and long cycle life. Among its disadvantages are relatively low energy density and high component cost.

Form Energy’s use of sulfur, which is both cheap and abundant, lowers those costs dramatically.

Continue reading “The New Energy Storage Tech Gates, Bezos, Ma, and Branson Are Investing In” »

Geospatial analysis shows that ‘mini-grids’ would be the cheapest technology to provide universal electricity access by 2030.

Achieving universal access to electricity is essential for solving many global development challenges. Decentralized renewable energy technologies have emerged as a viable solution. Small, clean energy utilities called mini-grids are a key piece of the puzzle. They are community-based grids that generate and distribute power at the point of consumption. And they could be the most cost-effective way to deliver access to more than a third of the 1.1 billion people across the world who still lack any electricity supply, according to new analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Yet mini-grids are still largely an afterthought for many governments and their financial backers in Africa and Asia. Evidence strongly suggests that this mindset must change if the world is to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 – access to modern, affordable, clean and reliable energy for all by 2030.

Continue reading “Here’s the solution for 1.3 billion people still lacking electricity” »

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A California utility is seeking permission to have a company build the world’s largest battery, joining a growing list of power companies investing in storing electricity.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co., part of PG&E Corp., detailed plans for four storage projects totaling nearly 570 megawatts in a Friday filing to regulators, including a 300-megawatt battery installation at a natural-gas-fired power plant owned by Vistra Energy Corp.

Wind power on Mars makes it possible for any rover or other craft to collect power at the poles or other areas on the planet that don’t get constant sunlight.

Dashing around a battlefield in the bulky robo-armor Tom Cruise wore in Edge of Tomorrow won’t cut it in the real world. For starters, it’s way too big. And the energy required to power something that size—via a gas engine strapped to your back in some early inventor iterations—is noisy and a giveaway to the enemy that you’re approaching.

But a raft of newly developed exoskeletons is starting to meet the slimmed-down, stealth requirements of today’s troop commanders, who see these power-assisting suits as vital to the future combat missions. Among the most promising, and weird-looking, is the “third arm” that the U.S. Army Research Laboratory developed to help soldiers carry and support their weapons on the battlefield. The lightweight device, which weighs less than four pounds and hangs at a soldier’s side, stabilizes rifles and machine guns, which can weigh up to 27 pounds. This improves shooting accuracy and also minimizes fatigue. It can even be used while scrambling into position on the ground.

The kind of fatigue that the third arm aims to negate is a killer on the battlefield, and most of the new suits are similarly meant to help troops minimize the energy they use to carry enormous supply packs, weapons and other battlefield gear. In May, Lockheed Martin unveiled its lightest weight powered exo for lower body support. Dubbed ONYX, the form-fitting suit, which resembles an unobtrusive web of athletic braces, reduce the effort soldier’s need for walking, running, and climbing over varied terrain while carrying a heavy loads of up to 100 pounds.

Covering roofs and walls of buildings with vegetation is a good way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And these green roofs and walls make cities look nicer. Toronto’s central business district adopted a policy of establishing green roofs on around half of all city buildings in 2009. Research shows this could reduce maximum city temperatures by up to 5℃.

We spent the past 12 months analysing the case for more greenery on Australian city buildings, drawing on international comparisons. We’ve shown that a mandatory policy, coupled with incentives to encourage new and retrofitted green roofs and walls, will provide environmental, social and business benefits.

These include improved air quality, energy conservation and reductions in stormwater run-off from buildings, which would decrease flash flooding. Green roofs and walls also become new habitats for biodiversity and can be pleasant spaces for social interaction in dense urban areas.

Renewable resources are great, but they bring a new element of uncertainty to a power grid. This element can lead to failure in surprising ways, according to a new paper.

A team of researchers built a model of power grids that transport electricity from solar and wind power. That means that there are places where the grid receives fluctuating inputs of power, since levels of sunlight and wind and vary.