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Category: sustainability

Aquila — facebook’s solar powered internet drone

The internet provides information, opportunity and human connection, yet less than half the world has access. We’re proud to announce the successful first test flight of #Aquila, the solar airplane we designed to bring internet access to people living in remote locations. This innovative plane has the wingspan of an airliner but weighs less than a small car and flies on roughly the power of three blow dryers — incredible!

Source: #facebook

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35 percent efficiency.

The cost of solar power is beginning to reach price parity with cheaper fossil fuel-based electricity in many parts of the world, yet the clean energy source still accounts for slightly more than 1% of the world’s electricity mix.

To boost global solar power generation, researchers must overcome some of the technological limitations that are preventing solar power from scaling up even further, which includes the inability to develop very high-efficiency solar cells – solar cells capable of converting a significant amount of sunlight into usable electrical energy – at very low costs.

A team of researchers from the Masdar Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) may have found a way around the seemingly inseparable high-efficiency and high-cost linkage through an innovative multi-junction solar cell that leverages a unique “step-cell” design approach and low cost silicon. The new step-cell combines two different layers of sunlight-absorbing material to harvest a broader range of the sun’s energy while using a novel, low-cost manufacturing process.

The team’s step-cell concept can reach theoretical efficiencies above 40% and estimated practical efficiencies of 35%, prompting the team’s principal investigators – Masdar Institute’s Dr. Ammar Nayfeh, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and MIT’s Dr. Eugene Fitzgerald, the Merton C. Flemings — SMA Professor of Materials Science and Engineering – to plan a start-up company to commercialize the promising solar cell.

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Cannot wait for this material so that I can finally enjoy my run in the park near my US home in August.

WASHINGTON — Engineers have created clothing for a warming world — a fabric that allows your body heat to escape far better than other materials do.

It hasn’t been worn or tested by humans, so outside experts caution this is far from a sure thing, but a team at Stanford University engineered a fabric using nano technology that not only allows moisture to leave the body better, but helps infrared radiation escape better. As a result, they say in Thursday’s journal Science, the body should feel around 4.8 degrees (2.7 degrees Celsius) cooler than cotton and 3.8 degrees (2.1 degrees Celsius) chillier than commercially available synthetics.

This is designed for a warmer world — not just because climate change is making temperatures hotter, but because it takes a lot of energy to heat and cool people’s offices and homes, said study lead author Yi Cui, a professor of materials and engineering.

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Feynman told us clearly: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” Check anything from first principles and experience, ignoring no logical holes, and that is science. Cargo Cult Science arises when the opposing arguments aren’t emphasized. Experts then form and pass down firm beliefs that are delusions. Cargo Cult science is like a perfect replica radio made all of wood: it may have all the trappings of degrees and chairs and journals, but it is missing the key ingredient and won’t function.[1][2]

Vaccine science is cargo cult science according to Feynman’s definition. There are a ton of peer reviewed papers demonstrating that vaccine aluminum is damaging, that vaccines are full of contaminants, that they can disrupt brain and immune system development, that the smallpox vaccine was ineffective, the polio vaccine is of questionable utility, other vaccines’ immunity wanes after only a few years. They never rebut as you can easily verify yourself by examining the citation list here for opposition and then searching the vaccine survey pdfs for the cites. They just ignore it.[3][4][5]

Climate science is cargo cult science. Climate “scientists” have been known to “hide” their own most interesting data, the data contradicting the prevailing theory which is what Feynman said a scientist should emphasize most prominently[6][7]. Alternative theories and methodological objections are ignored or white washed. (Search the IPCC reports for discussion of the opposition.) To say a science is cargo cult science is not to say that there are no papers published in it that are science, but it is to say one should repose zero or negative confidence in any pronouncement one has not personally verified from first principles.

http://TruthSift.com supports Feynman’s model of science applied to everything. Just as in mathematical practice, you can post proofs and refutations. But nothing is considered established unless every proposed refutation has an established counter-refutation. No proposed refutation can be ducked, and anybody who believes they have a rational objection may post it (and see the establishment statuses reflect the objection in real time). Try it out. Check out (and please contribute to) the ongoing diagrammings of the vaccine/climate science etc literatures. When they have passed through true logical review, confronting all the opposing arguments, what remains will be a genuine science.

[1] Richard P Feynman, What is Science? (1968) http://www-oc.chemie.uni-regensburg.de/diaz/img_diaz/feynman_what-is-science_68.pdf
[2] Richard P Feynman, CARGO CULT SCIENCE (adapted from Caltech Commencement Address 1974) https://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
[3] Eric Baum The Top Ten Reasons I Believe Vaccine Safety Is an Epic Mass Delusion (2016) https://lifeboat.com/blog/2016/06/the-top-ten-reasons-i-believe-vaccine-safety-is-an-epic-mass-delusion
[4] TruthSift Topic: Are Vaccines Safe? (2016) http://truthsift.com/search_view?statement=Vaccines-are-Safe&id=406&nid=4083
[5] TruthSift Topic: The Evidence is Weak Vaccines Have Saved More Lives than They Have Cost (2016), http://truthsift.com/search_view?topic=The-Evidence-Is-Weak-That-Vaccines-Have-Saved-More-Lives-than-They-Have-Cost–&id=520
[6] Climate data hidden both early (data showing very rapid rise before 1500) and in 20th century (showing decline): https://climateaudit.org/2011/03/21/hide-the-decline-the-other-deletion/
[7] More data contradicting theory hidden. https://climateaudit.org/2011/12/01/hide-the-decline-plus/

The Wall Street Journal on Aug. 16 reported that China sent the world’s first quantum communications satellite into orbit. The newspaper also stated that China spent $101 billion in 2015 on quantum research and technology development. The satellite has the ability to greatly expand China’s ability to expand their unhackable communications.

Now we in the U.S. read almost daily about some U.S. computer system that has been hacked. Our current technology cannot be considered secure. So what is our government investing in?

According to the GAO, the U.S. spent over $10 billion on global climate change science and technology in 2014. Gave $400 million to Iran for who knows what, and spent about $200 million on quantum technology.

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Audi’s upcoming four-door luxury electric car will have a 311-mile range, along with Level 4 self-driving features (essentially full autonomy, for those keeping track) and three separate electric motors, according to a new report from Autocar. The car is set to go head-to-head with the Model S, based on these new stats, and will likely be called the “A9 e-tron” when it goes on sale sometime in 2020, the publication says.

The range is in line with what Tesla says its new P100D option package will offer for Model S owners, though Autocar says that the Audi A9 e-tron will have a 95kWh battery to achieve that range, rather than the 100kWh version Tesla employs to get 315 miles as measured by EPA standards.

The powertrain for the upcoming vehicle is said to feature three electric motors that combined produce 429 brake horsepower (bhp), with a drive mode that can boost it to 496 bhp for short stints. Audi is looking at electric drivetrain tuning as one way where it will be able to offer a differentiating advantage to potential consumers.

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Something big happened this week at Singularity University.

79 participants from 49 different countries graduated from Singularity University’s 10-week flagship Global Solutions Program (GSP).

Over 30 team projects were launched during GSP, each focused on using exponential technology to address a massive global problem, such as water scarcity, malnutrition, and climate change.

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Elon Musk, Tesla Motors CEO, is alluding to a big announcement about level 4 autonomy later this year. For now though, the technology is still in need of software improvements.

Tesla Motors has been starring in headlines recently, thanks to crashes attributed to the autopilot system, the announcement of the ambitious Master Plan, and the company’s acquisition of SolarCity. Now, Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, is attracting even more media attention.

When asked about Tesla’s progress toward Level 4 fully autonomous driving on a conference call, Musk teased, “what we’ve got will blow people’s minds, it blows my mind …it’ll come sooner than people think.”

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