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Category: energy

HOUSTON, Jan. 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Made In Space and Axiom Space today, announce an agreement to be users and providers of one another’s capabilities to manufacture products in space. Made In Space is the only company to produce 3D printed products in Space and Axiom Space is the leading developer of the world’s first privately-owned commercial space station. This collaboration signifies Made In Space’s exciting transition from research phase, to manufacturing for commercial customers.

The companies have been working out the logistical elements of in-space manufacturing, outfitting the in-space factory with equipment, utilities, power, and thermal management to answer customers’ growing demand. In parallel to the manufacturing element, the companies are working together to plan the delivery of completed products to Earth, ensuring their quality during flight and upon arrival.

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  • Exploiting the usage of 2 D crystals in methanol fuel cells

ChemEurpoe — Scientists from the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, in the University of Manchester have come up with a way to utilize 2D materials in an actual operating direct methanol fuel cell. They have shown that the addition of single layer graphene by Chemical vapour deposition, on to the membrane area has significantly reduced the methanol cross over at the same time obtaining negligible resistance to protons thereby enhancing the cell performance by 50%.

Fuel cells count as interesting energy technology of the near future, as they pave the way for the production of sustainable energy using simple hydrocarbons as fuels. They work by a simple operational mechanism with the fuel oxidation on one side, and oxidant reduction on other side, which liberates electrons used for electrical energy generation. A wide variety of fuels, short chain alcohols have been used so far. Methanol remains a favourable candidate due to its high energy density, ease of handling and other operational characteristics.

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Attention all seaweed farmers! US DoE and DARPA wants you.

Did you know that the amount of commercially produced seaweed almost hit the mark of 25 million metric tons last year? China and Indonesia dominate the global seaweed-to-food market, and now the Department of Energy has been casting a hungry eye on the potential for the US to get in on the action, with a particular focus on converting seaweed to biofuel and other high value products.

Of course, there is a problem. Growing seaweed — aka macroalgae — for food is one thing. The algae-to-energy cycle is quite another thing entirely. That’s why the Energy Department has called upon its cutting edge funding division, ARPA-E, to put out a call for the super macroalgae farmer of the future.

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Within the next fifty years, scientists at BAE Systems believe that battlefield commanders could deploy a new type of directed energy laser and lens system, called a Laser Developed Atmospheric Lens which is capable of enhancing commanders’ ability to observe adversaries’ activities over much greater distances than existing sensors.

At the same time, the lens could be used as a form of ‘deflector shield’ to protect friendly aircraft, ships, land vehicles and troops from incoming attacks by high power laser weapons that could also become a reality in the same time period.

The Laser Developed Atmospheric Lens (LDAL) concept, developed by technologists at the Company’s military aircraft facility in Warton, Lancashire, has been evaluated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and specialist optical sensors company LumOptica and is based on known science. It works by simulating naturally occurring phenomena and temporarily — and reversibly — changes the Earth’s atmosphere into lens-like structures to magnify or change the path of electromagnetic waves such as light and radio signals.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=8BhG9ir4-4E

In Brief

  • Scientists are a little bit closer to unlocking the mystery of how the rules of the quantum realm translate to the rules of the classical physics of the observable world.
  • Experts predict that the materials used in this research, topological insulators, will play a key role in furthering this development.

It’s no surprise that quantum physics can be disorienting to the casual observer; after all, it does follow its own set of rules quite different from those of classical physics which rule over our everyday experience. In the quantum realm, things can and cannot be at the same time (to a certain extent) or are continually moving without spending energy. These don’t apply to the physics of macro-level matter.

These two realms are related, in so far as they occur in the same physical space. This relationship is what N. Peter Armitage, an associate professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University, wanted to figure out in a study published in the journal Science. “We found a particular material that is straddling these two regimes,” Armitage said.

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This publication suggests that wax could be carried on vehicles and used to create hydrogen gas in situ, the waste carbon being used to make more wax via syngas production and the Fischer-Tropsch process, where carbon monoxide and hydrogen is converted into hydrocarbons as a potential source of petro-chemicals that does not involve releasing fossil carbon into the atmosphere. While this publication is still a long way from a working industrial-scale process, it offers a very hopeful potential avenue for less-polluting technology.

Philip recently attended an event for other Oxford University chemistry alumni, and one of the speakers drew attention to a recent publication from, among others, Oxford chemists, regarding the production of hydrogen from paraffin waxes by microwave degradation using a ruthenium catalyst.

Hydrogen has often been suggested as an environmentally-friendly replacement energy source for fossil fuels in transport vehicles and other applications requiring high energy density. (Note that hydrogen is not a “fuel”, as it must be made using energy from other sources, which can be environmentally-friendly or not.) However, there are significant problems with this, notably involving the safe storage of a highly-inflammable and explosive gas which is much lighter than air.

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There is unlimited kinetic energy all around us and harnessing it could change the way we interact with the world forever, according to Dr Gonzalo Murillo from the National Microelectronics Center of Spain, whose research into piezoelectric materials has earned him an award for the most novel innovator under 35 in Europe 2016 from the MIT Technology Review, US.

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cyber-attack

The revival of the Cold War attitudes between the U.S. and Russia are just the beginning of the an expanding scene of digital vulnerabilities and shocks to the system that could shut down the grid, cut off grocery and supply lines or leave millions without power in the cold. With global tension, the pretext could come from anywhere:

From Mac Slavo:

The coming era could be the age of electronic disruption, as ATMs, power grids, bank accounts, Internet servers and other important entities in society are intercepted, taken down, hacked or shut off by criminals and commandos in the ongoing cyberwar. Dissidents will be flagged and cut off from their accounts. Natural disasters will compound with these factors, testing the infrastructure and the integrity of the people themselves, who are in danger of devolving into civil unrest.

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