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Archive for the ‘sustainability’ category: Page 609

Aug 19, 2015

Indian airport now runs entirely on solar power

Posted by in categories: energy, solar power, sustainability

One Indian airport now runs just from its own solar power plant.

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Aug 18, 2015

Record-Breaking Laser Hits 2,000 Trillion Watts

Posted by in categories: energy, solar power, sustainability

The most powerful laser beam ever created has been recently fired at Osaka University in Japan, where the Laser for Fast Ignition Experiments (LFEX) has been boosted to produce a beam with a peak power of 2,000 trillion watts – two petawatts – for an incredibly short duration, approximately a trillionth of a second or one picosecond.

Values this large are difficult to grasp, but we can think of it as a billion times more powerful than a typical stadium floodlight or as the overall power of all of the sun’s solar energy that falls on London. Imagine focusing all that solar power onto a surface as wide as a human hair for the duration of a trillionth of a second: that’s essentially the LFEX laser.

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Aug 18, 2015

Is Solar Power Right for You? Have Google’s “Project Sunroof” Help You Decide

Posted by in categories: energy, solar power, sustainability

Project Sunroof maps out how much sun and shade hit homes on any given day. Head here to See how much shine your home gets and if solar power is good for you.

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Aug 5, 2015

The First Vegan Burger that ‘Bleeds’ like Meat

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

This is the product that Google wanted to buy for $300 million and just got denied…

The first vegan burger that ‘bleeds’ like meat.

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Aug 5, 2015

China is building its first large-scale solar plant in the Gobi Desert

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

In a move that once again proves its commitment to renewable energy, China has begun construction on its first large-scale commercial solar plant out in the sun-dreched expanse of the Gobi Desert. Called Delingha, the colossal facility will spread out across 25 km² (6,300 acres) of vacant land in the country’s Qinghai province, and will feature six huge solar towers hooked up to an array of solar mirrors.

When complete, the plant will have a capacity of 200 megawatts, which means it will be able to supply electricity to 1 million households in Qinghai year-round. “Its designed heat storage is 15 hours, thus, it can guarantee stable, continual power generation,” Qinghai Solar-Thermal Power Group board chair, Wu Longyi, told the press.

The facility is the first solar plant to be run as a commercial entity, and according to Svati Kirsten Narula at Quartz, it’s being jointly developed by BrightSource Energy, based in Oakland, California, and the Shanghai Electric Group in China. The first phase of construction will look at completing two solar towers so they can generate 135 megawatts each to cover more than 452,000 homes, and then the remaining four will be completed to cover at least 1 million.

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Aug 4, 2015

Four Technologies That Could Let Humans Survive Environmental Disaster

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transhumanism

My new story for Gizmodo: Climate Change apparently is here–to survive and thrive, go transhuman. The essential thing to remember here is that environmental change creates a mandate for our species to speed up technological progress to make sure we can adapt to changing conditions on Earth.


Scientists say we blew it. We bought too many plastic trinkets from Walmart; we drove too many gas-guzzling Broncos. We made babies like rabbits without questioning if the planet could handle so many people. Well, it looks like it couldn’t. Climate change is here to stay, and it’ll probably end up affecting nearly every aspect of our lives over the next century.

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Aug 3, 2015

World’s first “aqueous solar flow battery” outperforms traditional lithium-iodine batteries

Posted by in categories: energy, solar power, sustainability

The scientists who last year revealed the world’s first solar battery that essentially combines a battery and solar cell, are now reporting its first significant performance milestone. Tested against traditional lithium-iodine batteries, the researchers are claiming energy savings of 20 percent.

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Jul 30, 2015

Solar Now Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels for Many Small Businesses

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

SolarCity is expanding its services to small and medium-sized businesses. This move allows local businesses to save money with renewable energy. Going solar.

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Jul 24, 2015

Phosphorene could lead to ultrathin solar cells

Posted by in categories: energy, solar power, sustainability

Scientists at Australian National University (ANU) have used simple transparent sticky (aka “Scotch”) tape to create single-atom-thick layers of phosphorene from “black phosphorus,” a black crystalline form of phosphorus similar to graphite (which is used to create graphene).

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Jul 23, 2015

2015 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium | July 26–31, 2015 | Milan, Italy

Posted by in categories: big data, complex systems, computing, food, information science, machine learning, mapping, space, surveillance, sustainability

MilanPhotoCollage_md


Hosted by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, the International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2015 (IGARSS 2015) will be held from Sunday July 26th through Friday July 31th, 2015 at the Convention Center in Milan, Italy. This is the same town of the EXPO 2015 exhibition, whose topic is “Feeding the planet: energy for life”.

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