Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability

Many forms of energy surround you: sunlight, the heat in your room and even your own movements. All that energy—normally wasted—can potentially help power your portable and wearable gadgets, from biometric sensors to smart watches. Now, researchers from the University of Oulu in Finland have found that a mineral with the perovskite crystal structure has the right properties to extract energy from multiple sources at the same time.

Perovskites are a family of minerals, many of which have shown promise for harvesting one or two types of at a time—but not simultaneously. One family member may be good for solar cells, with the right properties for efficiently converting solar energy into electricity. Meanwhile, another is adept at harnessing energy from changes in temperature and pressure, which can arise from motion, making them so-called pyroelectric and piezoelectric materials, respectively.

Sometimes, however, just one type of energy isn’t enough. A given form of energy isn’t always available—maybe it’s cloudy or you’re in a meeting and can’t get up to move around. Other researchers have developed devices that can harness multiple forms of energy, but they require multiple materials, adding bulk to what’s supposed to be a small and portable device.

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For the past five decades—from the Apollo-era lunar science experiments to the Mars Curiosity and the New Horizons missions—Pu-238 Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTG) have served as a power source. While some of the NASA’s forays will continue to rely on these RTGs, others will require larger power sources to enable human space and planetary exploration and establish reliable high bandwidth deep-space communications. Solar power cannot handle this goal. A larger nuclear-based power source is required.

In a recent Washington Post article, Jeff Bezos, founder of amazon.com and creator of Blue Origin space project said, “I think NASA should work on a space-rated nuclear reactor. If you had a nuclear reactor in space—especially if you want to go anywhere beyond Mars­—you really need nuclear power. Solar power just gets progressively difficult as you get further way from the sun. And that’s a completely doable thing to have a safe, space-qualified nuclear reactor.”

Calls for space nuclear power are not new. In fact, numerous reactor concepts have been proposed in the past. Their development is often dampened by the perception that nuclear is too hard, takes too long and costs too much.

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Quest to settle riddle over Einstein’s dark energy theory may soon be over

Saving energy is just as important as finding new and sustainable sources. By reducing the demand we reduce the energy and storage needed in the first place.

This is a first step in creating the tools needed to design and engineer low energy electronics. Cell Phones that last for weeks on a single charge and computers and servers using micro watts. However you will still need a lot of energy to drive screens and interface devices.

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If climate change, nuclear weapons or Donald Trump don’t kill us first, there’s always artificial intelligence just waiting in the wings. It’s been a long time worry that when AI gains a certain level of autonomy it will see no use for humans or even perceive them as a threat. A new study by Google’s DeepMind lab may or may not ease those fears.

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Scientists have discovered that a certain type of mineral has the right properties to extract energy from multiple sources at the same time — turning solar, heat, and kinetic energy into electricity.

The mineral is a type of perovskite — a family of minerals with a specific crystal structure — and this is the first time researchers have identified one that can convert energy from all three sources at room temperature.

Since the first perovskite solar cell was invented back in 2009, these minerals have been positioned as the ‘next big thing’ in renewable energy technology.

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Young Bae of Advanced Space and Energy Technologies in Tustin, California, has improved his photonic laser thruster. was developed with NASA funding. His thruster works because light exerts pressure when it hits something. In theory, it is possible to move an object like a CubeSat by nudging it with a laser beam. In practice, however, the pressure which light exerts is so small that a device able to do a useful amount of nudging would require a laser of unfeasibly large power.

Dr Bae has overcome this limitation by bouncing light repeatedly between the source laser and the satellite, to multiply the thrust. In his latest experiments, Dr Bae has managed to amplify the thrust imparted by a single nudge of the laser by a factor of 1,500, which is big enough to manoeuvre a CubeSat as well as a conventional thruster would. This brings two advantages. First, since no on-board propellant is required, there is more room for instruments. Second, there being no fuel to run out, a CubeSat’s orbit can be boosted as many times as is desired, and its working life prolonged indefinitely.

A suitable laser is required to provide the thrust. Dr Bae thinks it could be in orbit as well. The laser would be powered by solar cells and shepherd a veritable flock of CubeSats, providing the propulsion needed to move and arrange them as required.

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Nice forum on QC Crystal Superconduction in Mar.

From March 8–10, 2017, an International Conference on Crystal Growth is to be held in Freiburg under the auspices of the German Association of Crystal Growth DGKK and the Swiss Society for Crystallography SGK-SSCR. The conference, jointly organized by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, the Crystallography department of the Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University Freiburg and the University of Geneva, is to be held in the seminar rooms of the Chemistry Faculty of the University of Freiburg. Furthermore, the Young DGKK will hold a seminar for young scientists at Fraunhofer ISE on March 7, 2017.

“Whether for mobile communication, computers or LEDs, crystalline materials are key components of our modern lifestyle,” says Dr. Stephan Riepe, group head in the Department of Silicon Materials at Fraunhofer ISE. “Crystal growth has a long tradition and today is still far from becoming obsolete. Materials with special crystalline structure are being developed for applications in high-temperature superconductors through to low-loss power transmission. Artificial diamonds are a favorite choice for building quantum computers. At the conference, the production of silicon, III-V semiconductors and most currently perovskite layers for cost-effective high efficiency tandem solar cells will also be discussed.”

In Freiburg, a close cooperation exists between the Fraunhofer Institutes and the University of Freiburg. For example, at Fraunhofer ISE a doctoral thesis of the University of Freiburg was carried out which investigated how impurities can be minimized during multicrystalline silicon production. In the production process, liquid silicon is melted in a quartz crucible and subsequently solidified. Similar to flour’s function when sprinkled in a baking form, silicon nitride powder acts as a separating agent between the crucible and the silicon. Here the aim is to reduce impurities on the scale of parts per billion, or ppb, to achieve the highest solar cell efficiencies. On a regular basis, student and doctoral degree theses are carried out to address such questions.

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New Graphene based flash memory card coming.

Dotz Nano (ASX: DTZ) has successfully completed a proof of concept research study into the use of Graphene Quantum Dots (GQDs) in flash memory devices with the Kyung Hee University in South Korea.

GQDs are being developed for use in various applications including medical imaging, sensing, consumer electronics, energy storage, solar cells and computer storage.

Dotz Nano is in advanced negotiations to sign a full licensing agreement with Kyung Hee University related to this technology.

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