Lifeboat Foundation

Billions of years from now, the Sun’s finale will turn the entire inner solar system into a very nasty place.

The Sun is an ordinary star. It bathes the solar system with light and heat, making life possible on Earth. It’s as regular as clockwork, and it sets our daily life cycles in conjunction with Earth’s spin. Little wonder ancient peoples revered the Sun as a god. Yet the Sun will not always be steady and reliable. Billions of years from now, the Sun’s finale will turn Earth — and the entire inner solar system — into a very nasty place.

At 4.6 billion years old, the Sun is about halfway through its life. Its adulthood, called the main sequence phase, lasts 10 billion years. When the Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel, it must generate energy by fusing heavier elements.

Continue reading “What Will Happen to the Sun?” »

According to the CATLs patent the next-generation sodium-ion battery’s energy density can easily exceed 200Wh/kg.

Houston-headquartered renewables company EDP Renewables North America has completed a 200-megawatt (MW) solar farm in Randolph County, Indiana, northeast of Indianapolis. It’s now the largest-capacity solar farm in Indiana.

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Riverstart Solar Park has a sole 20-year power purchase agreement with electricity supply cooperative Hoosier Energy, which will use the clean energy to power households in central and southern Indiana and southeastern Illinois.

Olipa Elisa said her 10-year-old son used to have to hike 5km (3 miles) every day to the nearest school, often arriving late and exhausted.

“I am very excited that we now have a school closer to my home, and my child will not have to take the long journey,” said Elisa, 38. “What we need is more of these learning blocks to accommodate other classes.”

Run by 14Trees, a joint venture between Swiss cement manufacturer LafargeHolcim and British development finance agency CDC Group, the project was faster, cheaper and less energy-intensive than conventional construction, said 14Trees managing director Francois Perrot.

Circa 2020

Harnessing the destructive potential of force and rotation, cutting tools like saws, drills, and angle grinders can obliterate the superlative properties that materials work so hard to perfect. And even when materials are designed to work against the power of these tools, the materials still often fail.

Continue reading “Bio-inspired ceramic–metal composite stands its ground against cutting tools” »

Korea Zinc’s boosts bid to make its Australian operations greenest in the world, in deal with Swiss “giga-scale” energy storage company, Energy Vault.

Cutting the weight of fuel tanks and continuing advances in fuel-cell technologies are key to making hydrogen competitive in aviation.

Circa 2019

Want superhero powers that let you see in the dark just like your cat? In the near future you may be able to—as long as you’re not too squeamish to get injections right into your eyeballs.

Continue reading “Nanoparticles Will Give You Superhuman Night Vision” »

HYBRIT and H2 Green Steel have launched projects in Sweden with a target to manufacture 10 million tonnes (mt) of fossil fuel-free crude (green) steel per year by 2030. Success, of course, depends on the numbers adding up, or rather, the numbers going down.

To make green steel, you need green hydrogen; to make green hydrogen, you need cheap renewable energy. HYBRIT and H2 Green Steel believe this will come from wind power at a LCOE of $30 per megawatt-hour. With the trajectory of costs for renewable energy going ever downward, it is likely they will be able to achieve this.

Add to the mix the increasing costs of carbon and the pressure to decarbonize, and you have a winner. It is expected that a carbon credits will be available to green steel producers of around $85 per ton.