Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability

Belgium-based hydrogen solution company CMB.TECH and crane equipment developer Luyckx have presented what they believe to be the world’s first hydrogen-powered dual fuel excavator. The team has converted a 37 ton Hitachi ZX350LC-7 excavator to a dual fuel machine that can continue to operate on diesel if the supply of hydrogen is not available.

The dual-fuel excavator provides gradual ecological development within the heavy construction and earthmoving sector. With this machine, companies within the sector can embark on energy transition with today’s machines without being permanently dependent on the availability of hydrogen. The solution allows companies to take a first concrete step toward greening the entire heavy excavator sector without limiting the machine’s power or autonomy.

“Driven by the wishes of our end users and fleet owners, we launched an own-initiative feasibility study with regard to possible alternative solutions that help to reduce CO2 emissions, make the machine park more sustainable and do business in a socially responsible way. We have been looking for the right solutions for several years. The challenge was mainly in the area of energy requirements for heavy machinery,” said Jos Luyckx, the CEO of Luyckx.

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A plant fossil from a geological formation in Scotland sheds light on the development of the earliest known form of roots. A team led by researchers at GMI – the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Oxford realize the first 3D reconstruction of a Devonian plant based exclusively on fossil evidence. The findings demonstrate that the appearance of different axis types at branching points resulted in the evolution complexity soon after land plants evolved sometime before 400 million years ago. The results are published in eLife.

New research demonstrates how the oldest known root axed developed more than 400 million years ago. The evolution of roots at this time was a dramatic event that impacted our planet and atmosphere and resulted in transformative ecological and climate change.

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Batteries are widely used in everyday applications like powering electric vehicles, electronic gadgets and are promising candidates for sustainable energy storage. However, as you’ve likely noticed with daily charging of batteries, their functionality drops off over time. Eventually, we need to replace these batteries, which is not only expensive but also depletes the rare earth elements used in making them.

A key factor in life reduction is the degradation of a battery’s structural integrity. To discourage structural degradation, a team of researchers from USC Viterbi School of Engineering are hoping to introduce “stretch” into battery materials so they can be cycled repeatedly without structural fatigue. This research was led by Ananya Renuka-Balakrishna, WiSE Gabilan Assistant Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and USC Viterbi Ph.D candidate, Delin Zhang, as well as Brown University researchers from Professor Brian Sheldon’s group. Their work was published in the Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids.

A typical battery works through a repetitive cycle of inserting and extracting Li-ions from electrodes, Zhang said. This insertion and extraction expands and compresses the lattices. These volume shifts create microcracks, fractures and defects over time.

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Circa 2017

Transformers are found at generating stations and distribution substations. Their primary function is to reduce the high voltages used to transport electricity long distances to the lower voltages needed by homes and businesses. But today’s transformers only operate in one direction. They are poorly equipped for boosting electricity from local sources — typically wind and solar — to the higher voltages needed to mesh efficiently with the larger grid.

Beginning in 2,010 researchers at the National Science Foundation’s FREEDM Systems Center at NC State introduced the first solid state transformer. It could perform all of the functions of a traditional transformer, but could also redirect power as needed to address changes in supply and demand.

“The SST is a fundamental building block in the smart-grid concept,” says Iqbal Husain, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the school and director of the FREEDM Center. “It can scale down voltage for use in homes and businesses, but it can also scale up voltage from solar panels or other residential-scale renewable sources in order to feed that power back into the grid. And because the SST is a smart technology, it can switch back and forth between those two functions as needed.”

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Circa 2020

Since electric vehicles first started hitting the mainstream, people have been asking “why doesn’t that have a solar panel roof?” The answer has always been the same: solar panels just don’t generate that much power. That’s not a huge problem for solar racers, with their ultra-light weight and super-aerodynamic shapes, but for the minuscule daily range a solar roof would give you on your typical daily driver, you’re still gonna need to plug it in.

Ah, but what if your daily driver was the closest thing on the road to a solar racer? An EV truly designed with ludicrous levels of efficiency as the primary goal? Something so aerodynamically slippery that it makes a mockery of the production car world? Well, that’s the Aptera. And its manufacturers claim that its 180 small solar panels, making up an area of more than three square meters (32.3 sq ft), will harvest enough energy that many drivers will never have to charge it.

The top-spec Aptera can self-generate as much as 45 miles (72 km) of range per day in ideal conditions, which is more than twice the average daily mileage of American car owners. And that doesn’t have to be a terribly large amount of energy, thanks to its extreme frugality.

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When Gigafactory Texas was starting its construction, officials in the area started to fondly describe the project’s pace as the “Speed of Elon” on account of its rapid progress. This “Speed of Elon” seems to have never let up since Giga Texas broke ground about 13 months ago as the first image of a pre-production Tesla Model Y was just shared online.

The image was initially shared on Instagram, and it depicted a black Model Y that looked fresh out of the production line. The post was eventually deleted, but not before the image was shared across platforms such as Twitter and Reddit. It’s difficult not to be excited, after all, considering that Giga Texas broke ground just over a year ago in July 2020.

Based on the recently-shared image, it appears that Giga Texas’ Model Y production facility is now ready to start cranking out the all-electric crossovers, at least to some degree. The vehicle was not alone in the picture either, as another Model Y in the background could also be seen passing through the assembly line.

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