Will Nanocrystals Power Electric Cars? - Solar Feeds

Will Nanocrystals Power Electric Cars? - Solar Feeds

The nanomaterial is composed of tiny tin crystals, which are to be deployed at the minus pole of the batteries (anode). When charging the batteries, lithium ions are absorbed at this electrode; while discharging, they are released again. “The more lithium ions the electrodes can absorb and release—the better they can breathe, as it were—the more energy can be stored in a battery,” explains Kovalenko.

Uniform crystals

The element tin is ideal for this: every tin atom can absorb at least four lithium ions. However, the challenge is to deal with the volume change of tin electrodes: tin crystal becomes up to three times bigger if it absorbs a lot of lithium ions and shrinks again when it releases them back. The scientists thus resorted to nanotechnology: they produced the tiniest tin nanocrystals and embedded a large number of them in a porous, conductive permeable carbon matrix. Much like how a sponge can suck up water and release it again, an electrode constructed in this way can absorb lithium ions while charging and release them when discharging. If the electrode were made of a compact tin block, this would practically be impossible.
During the development of the nanomaterial, the issue of the ideal size for the nanocrystals arose, which also carries the challenge of producing uniform crystals. “The trick here was to separate the two basic steps in the formation of the crystals—the formation of as small as a crystal nucleus as possible on the one hand and its subsequent growth on the other,” explains Kovalenko. By influencing the time and temperature of the growth phase, the scientists were able to control the size of the crystals. “We are the first to produce such small tin crystals with such precision,” says the scientist.

Larger cycle stability

Using uniform tin nanocrystals, carbon, and binding agents, the scientists produced different test electrodes for batteries. “This enables twice as much power to be stored compared to conventional electrodes,” says Kovalenko. The size of the nanocrystals did not affect the storage capacity during the initial charging and discharging cycle. After a few charging and discharging cycles, however, differences caused by the crystal size became apparent: batteries with ten-nanometre crystals in the electrodes were able to store considerably more energy than ones with twice the diameter. The scientists assume that the smaller crystals perform better because they can absorb and release lithium ions more effectively. “Ten-nanometre tin crystals thus seem to be just the ticket for lithium ion batteries,” says Kovalenko.
As the scientists now know the ideal size for the tin nanocrystals, they would like to turn their attention to the remaining challenges of producing optimum tin electrodes in further research projects. These include the choice of the best possible carbon matrix and binding agent for the electrodes, and the electrodes’ ideal microscopic structure. Moreover, an optimal and stable electrolyte liquid in which the lithium ions can travel back and forth between the two poles in the battery also needs to be selected. Ultimately, the production costs are also an issue, which the researchers are looking to reduce by testing which cost-effective base materials are suitable for electrode production. The aim is to prepare batteries with an increased energy storage capacity and lifespan for the market, in collaboration with a Swiss industrial partner.

CO2 Sequestration Technique Yields 'Supergreen' Hydrogen Fuel

CO2 Sequestration Technique Yields 'Supergreen' Hydrogen Fuel

The team demonstrated, at a laboratory scale, a system that uses the acidity normally produced in saline water electrolysis to accelerate silicate mineral dissolution while producing hydrogen fuel and other gases. The resulting electrolyte solution was shown to be significantly elevated in hydroxide concentration that in turn proved strongly absorptive and retentive of atmospheric CO₂.
Further, the researchers suggest that the carbonate and bicarbonate produced in the process could be used to mitigate ongoing ocean acidification, similar to how an Alka Seltzer neutralizes excess acid in the stomach.
"We not only found a way to remove and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while producing valuable H₂, we also suggest that we can help save marine ecosystems with this new technique," says Greg Rau, an LLNL visiting scientist, senior scientist at UC Santa Cruz and lead author of a paper appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
When carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, a significant fraction is passively taken up by the ocean forming carbonic acid that makes the ocean more acidic. This acidification has been shown to be harmful to many species of marine life, especially corals and shellfish. By the middle of this century, the globe will likely warm by at least 2 C and the oceans will experience a more than 60 percent increase in acidity relative to pre-industrial levels. The alkaline solution generated by the new process could be added to the ocean to help neutralize this acid and help offset its effects on marine biota. However, further research is needed, the authors say.
"When powered by renewable electricity and consuming globally abundant minerals and saline solutions, such systems at scale might provide a relatively efficient, high-capacity means to consume and store excess atmospheric CO₂ as environmentally beneficial seawater bicarbonate or carbonate," Rau says. "But the process also would produce a carbon-negative 'super green' fuel or chemical feedstock in the form of hydrogen."
Most previously described chemical methods of atmospheric carbon dioxide capture and storage are costly, using thermal/mechanical procedures to concentrate molecular CO₂ from the air while recycling reagents, a process that is cumbersome, inefficient and expensive.
"Our process avoids most of these issues by not requiring CO₂ to be concentrated from air and stored in a molecular form, pointing the way to more cost-effective, environmentally beneficial, and safer air CO₂ management with added benefits of renewable hydrogen fuel production and ocean alkalinity addition," Rau says.
The team concluded that further research is needed to determine optimum designs and operating procedures, cost-effectiveness, and the net environmental impact/benefit of electrochemically mediated air CO₂ capture and H₂ production using base minerals.

The Gaian Dragon: Rainwater Cistern Construction 3

The Gaian Dragon: Rainwater Cistern Construction 3
several strategies are shown in videos, excellent source of info about sustainable living!

Green-Trust.Org | Aquaponics Project

Green-Trust.Org | Aquaponics Project

Breaking News! System is finished and running

The water is circulating, and we have added ammonia and are letting the biofilter develop before adding our catfish!
We have embarked on a new Indoor/Outdoor Solar Powered Aquaponics Self Sufficiency Survival Food project. This project not only includes the base fish and vegetable production system, but also optional solar power system, LED grow lights, and hopefully a DIY greenhouse and methane digestion system for hot water and winter heating of the greenhouse. Fish will be fed by a grub composter. We are looking at http://www.dunnsfishfarm.com/ as our fish supplier.
The fish will be bluegill and catfish (other varieties are being investigated), and the veggies are picked for nutrition, hardiness, and ease of growing, specializing in water plants in addition to traditional plants (see http://survivalfoodplants.com).
The end products are video and ebook documentation, plus kits and supplies. We believe a self secured food supply is critical to our survival.
For participants, the link is http://www.green-trust.org/aquaponics/ (research documents, pictures, video and more), and you will be added to the private mail list for status updates.
Get the plans and research materials at

Aluminum-Air Battery to Power EVs for 1000 Miles : Discovery News

Aluminum-Air Battery to Power EVs for 1000 Miles : Discovery News

The highlight of the video is a technician filling the test car with distilled water, while the projected range is shown rising on a display on the CEO's mobile phone. The water serves as a base for the electrolyte through which ions pass to give off the energy that powers the test vehicle's electric motor. In the test car, the water must be refilled "every few hundred kilometers"--perhaps every 200 miles.
Very simply, an aluminum-air battery uses an aluminum plate as the anode, and ambient air as the cathode, with the aluminum slowly being sacrificed as its molecules combine with oxygen to give off energy. The basic chemical equation is four aluminum atoms, three oxygen molecules, and six water molecules combining to produce four molecules of hydrated aluminum oxide plus energy.
Historically, aluminum-air batteries have been confined to military applications because of the need to remove the aluminum oxide and replace the aluminum anode plates. Phinergy says its patented cathode material allows oxygen from ambient air to enter the cell freely, while blocking contamination from carbon dioxide in the air--historically a cause of failure in aluminum-air cells.
It is also developing zinc-air batteries, which can be recharged electrically and do not sacrifice their metal electrode as the aluminum-air cells do.

MAKE | Arduino Announces New Wireless Linux Board

MAKE | Arduino Announces New Wireless Linux Board

Today, Arduino announced a revolutionary new family of wireless products that combine the Arduino architecture with Linux. The Arduino Yún is intended to be the first member of this new line of wifi products. Arduino expects the new board to bring the power of Linux with ease of use of Arduino.
From the Arduino Press Office, “Yún means ‘cloud’ in Chinese language as the purpose of this board to make it simple to connect to complex web services directly from Arduino.”
Developed in partnership with Boston-based automation engineers Dog Hunter, it’s basically a Leonardo (ATmega32U4) with an embedded wifi Linux board on the PCB, running Linino (MIPS Linux variant) to handle all those wordy text-based formats like XML and other HTTP transactions. You can program it via wifi, or by the usual USB cable. And they’ve also partnered with Temboo for one-stop API access to data from Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, FedEx, PayPal, and many more.
For $69 plus tax you get:

What If We Never Run Out of Oil? - Charles C. Mann - The Atlantic

What If We Never Run Out of Oil? - Charles C. Mann - The Atlantic

Churchill fired the starting gun, but all of the Western powers joined the race to control Middle Eastern oil. Britain clawed past France, Germany, and the Netherlands, only to be overtaken by the United States, which secured oil concessions in Turkey, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The struggle created a long-lasting intercontinental snarl of need and resentment. Even as oil-consuming nations intervened in the affairs of oil-producing nations, they seethed at their powerlessness; oil producers exacted huge sums from oil consumers but chafed at having to submit to them. Decades of turmoil—oil shocks in 1973 and 1979, failed programs for “energy independence,” two wars in Iraq—have left unchanged this fundamental, Churchillian dynamic, a toxic mash of anger and dependence that often seems as basic to global relations as the rotation of the sun.
All of this was called into question by the voyage of the Chikyu (“Earth”), a $540 million Japanese deep-sea drilling vessel that looks like a billionaire’s yacht with a 30-story oil derrick screwed into its back. The Chikyu, a floating barrage of superlatives, is the biggest, glitziest, most sophisticated research vessel ever constructed, and surely the only one with a landing pad for a 30-person helicopter. The central derrick houses an enormous floating drill with a six-mile “string” that has let the Chikyu delve deeper beneath the ocean floor than any other ship.
The Chikyu, which first set out in 2005, was initially intended to probe earthquake-generating zones in the planet’s mantle, a subject of obvious interest to seismically unstable Japan. Its present undertaking was, if possible, of even greater importance: trying to develop an energy source that could free not just Japan but much of the world from the dependence on Middle Eastern oil that has bedeviled politicians since Churchill’s day.
In the 1970s, geologists discovered crystalline natural gas—methane hydrate, in the jargon—beneath the seafloor. Stored mostly in broad, shallow layers on continental margins, methane hydrate exists in immense quantities; by some estimates, it is twice as abundant as all other fossil fuels combined. Despite its plenitude, gas hydrate was long subject to petroleum-industry skepticism. These deposits—water molecules laced into frigid cages that trap “guest molecules” of natural gas—are strikingly unlike conventional energy reserves. Ice you can set on fire! Who could take it seriously? But as petroleum prices soared, undersea-drilling technology improved, and geological surveys accumulated, interest rose around the world. The U.S. Department of Energy has been funding a methane-hydrate research program since 1982.

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Nowhere has the interest been more serious than Japan. Unlike Britain and the United States, the Japanese failed to become “the owners, or at any rate, the controllers” of any significant amount of oil. (Not that Tokyo didn’t try: it bombed Pearl Harbor mainly to prevent the U.S. from blocking its attempted conquest of the oil-rich Dutch East Indies.) Today, Churchill’s nightmare has come true for Japan: it is a military and industrial power almost wholly dependent on foreign energy. It is the world’s third-biggest net importer of crude oil, the second-biggest importer of coal, and the biggest importer of liquefied natural gas. Not once has a Japanese politician expressed happiness at this state of affairs.
Japan’s methane-hydrate program began in 1995. Its scientists quickly focused on the Nankai Trough, about 200 miles southwest of Tokyo, an undersea earthquake zone where two pieces of the Earth’s crust jostle each other. Step by step, y

Morocco launches solar mega-project

Saudi Gazette - Morocco launches solar mega-project
The largest of its kind in the world, according to Mustapha Bakkoury, the head of Morocco’s solar energy agency MASEN, the thermo-solar plant will cost 7 billion dirhams (630 million euros) and is slated for completion in 2015, the official MAP news agency reported.

The ambitious project “reinforces the will... to optimize the exploitation of Morocco’s natural resources, to preserve its environment... and sustain its development,” Bakkoury said at the ceremony which was attended by King Mohammed VI.

A consortium led by Saudi developer ACWA Power won the contract to build the plant, near Morocco’s desert gateway city, last September.
The World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank are helping to finance the solar complex.

It is the first of a two-phase project, due for completion in 2020, that is expected to cover 3,000 hectares and have a generation capacity of 500 megawatts, enough to met the electricity needs of Ouarzazate’s 1.5 million residents.

MASEN’s Bakkoury said in March that companies bidding for the second phase of the project had to submit their proposals by mid-April, with the contract to be awarded sometime next year.

The North African country is aiming to become a world-class renewable energy producer, and is eyeing the chance to export clean electricity to neighboring Europe.

Morocco expects to build five new solar plants by the end of the decade with a combined production capacity of 2,000 megawatts and at an estimated cost of nine billion dollars (6.9 billion euros).

The kingdom has no oil and gas reserves to speak of and is hoping, with the solar projects, along with a string of planned wind farms along its Atlantic coast, to raise renewable energy production to 42 percent of its total power supply mix by 2020. — AFP

Beaglebone updated, now Black 1 Ghz computer with many interfaces!...

Next Big Future: Beaglebone Black 1 Ghz computer with many interfac...: BeagleBone Black is a ready-to-use 1-GHz computer that retails for $45. BeagleBone Black was announced last week by BeagleBoard.org, a sma...

BeagleBone Black was announced last week by BeagleBoard.org, a small group of engineers interested in creating powerful, open and embedded devices. The credit card sized computer runs on Linux and is designed to be an open hardware and software development platform that makes it quick and easy to build systems.

BeagleBone Black includes all the necessary components to connect a display, keyboard and network. It's based on production-ready hardware and software. All of the components—including TI’s 1-GHz Sitara AM335x processor—are commercially available right now.

BeagleBone Black includes 2 GB of on-board storage to run pre-loaded Linux software. It also offers the Cloud9 integrated development environment to kickstart development and keep the microSD slot available for additional storage. 

Arduino Uno vs BeagleBone vs Raspberry Pi | Bits & Pieces from the Embedded Design World

Arduino Uno vs BeagleBone vs Raspberry Pi | Bits & Pieces from the Embedded Design World
We like to build stuff here at Digital Diner. There is always some sort of project going on. These days, most of our projects include some sort of digital component – a microprocessor. If you haven’t gotten bitten by the Maker bug yet, we strongly encourage it. It can be incredibly rewarding. If you have even a minimal understanding of programming, there are websites, platforms and tools to help you develop your skills to the point where you actually create a hardware device with buttons, knobs and servos – a real physical world gadget. Software is fun, but when you can make your project physical it is even better.
There are so many great platforms for creating digitally enabled devices that its gotten hard to figure out which one to use. For example, we are currently building a hydroponic garden project and had to choose a controller to run the pumps, read the sensors etc. We were surprised at the number of choices that were available to us. It can be a little confusing for the beginner. To help, we’ve taken three of the popular models and compared them so that you can choose the right tool for your next project. Spoiler: we recommend all three.
The three models (all of which we use here at Digital Diner) are the Arduino, Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone. We chose these three because they are all readily available, affordable, about the same size (just larger than 2″ x 3″) and can all be used for creating wonderful digital gadgets. Before we get to the comparison, here is a brief introduction to each one.

Arduino with Atmel

The Arduino Uno is a staple for the maker community.  Arduinos come in various sizes and flavors, but we chose the Arduino Uno as an example of the prototypical Arduino.  It has an easy to use development environment, an avid user base and is designed to be easy to interface all sorts of hardware to.

Rasberry-Pi

The Raspberry Pi is the newcomer to the game.  It isn’t really an embedded computer.  It is actually a very inexpensive full-on desktop computer.  It is barebones, but at $35 for a real computer, its worthy of note, and it is a great platform for lots of Maker projects.

BeagleBone

The BeagleBone is the perhaps the least known of these platforms, but an incredibly capable board worthy of consideration for many projects.  It is a powerful Linux computer that fits inside an Altoid’s mint container.

underside of Rasberry-Pi

Raspberry Pi
The underside of the Raspberry Pi.
All three boards features that make them valuable to the hobbyist.  Below is a chart I put together outlining the features of the three for comparison.  If you aren’t familiar with what all these mean, that is fine.  However, there are a few differences that make each of these gadgets shine in their own types of applications.

Comparing the Three Platforms

Comparing the three platforms.
First, the Arduino and Raspberry Pi and very inexpensive at under $40. The BeagleBone comes in at nearly the cost of three Arduino Unos. Also worthy of note is that the clock speed on the Arduino is about 40 times slower than the other two and it has 128,000 (!) times less RAM. Already, you can see the differences starting to come out. The Arduino and Raspberry Pi are inexpensive and the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone are much more powerful. Seems like the Raspberry Pi is looking really good at this point, however, it’s never that simple. First, its price isn’t quite as good as it seems because to run the Raspberry Pi you need to supply your own SD Card which will run you another $5-10 in cost.
Also, despite the clock speed similarities, in our tests the BeagleBone ran about twice as fast as the Raspberry Pi. And perhaps most counterintuitive, the Arduino was right in the mix as far as performance goes as well, at least for a beginner. The reason for this is that the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone both run the Linux operating system. This fancy software makes these systems into tiny computers which are capable of running multiple programs at the same time and being programmed in many different languages. The Arduino is very simple in design. It can run one program at a time and it programmed in low level C++.
An interesting feature of the BeagleBone and the Raspberry Pi is that they run off of a flash memory card (SD Card in the case of Raspberry Pi and MicroSD Card in the case of BeagleBone). What this means is that you can give these boards a brain transplant just by swapping the memory card. You can have multiple configurations and setups on different cards and when you swap cards, you’ll be right where you left off with that particular project. Since both of these boards are fairly sophisticated, it even means that you can easily change operating systems just by creating different cards to swap in.
Choosing a Platform

The Sixth Mass Extinction Is Upon Us. Can Humans Survive? - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

The Sixth Mass Extinction Is Upon Us. Can Humans Survive? - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

Driscoll drew a model of the upper atmosphere on a whiteboard. “Here’s the troposphere,” he said, drawing an arc. Above that he drew another arc for the tropopause, which sits between the troposphere and the next arc, the stratosphere. Most planes fly roughly in the upper troposphere, occasionally entering the stratosphere. To cool the planet, Driscoll explained, we’d want to inject reflective particles into the stratosphere, because it’s too high for rain to wash them out. These particles might remain floating in the stratosphere for up to two years, reflecting the light and preventing the sun from heating up the lower levels of the atmosphere, where we live. Driscoll’s passion is in creating computer models of how the climate has responded to past eruptions. He then uses those models to predict the outcomes of geoengineering projects.

Harvard physicist and public-policy professor David Keith has suggested that we could engineer particles into tiny, thin discs with “self-levitating” properties that could help them remain in the stratosphere for over 20 years. “There’s a lot of talk about ‘particle X,’ or the optimal particle,” Driscoll said. “You want something that scatters light without absorbing it.” He added that some scientists have suggested using soot, a common volcanic byproduct, because it could be self-levitating. The problem is that data from previous volcanic eruptions show that soot absorbs low-wavelength light, which causes unexpected atmospheric effects. If past eruptions like Krakatoa are any indication—and they should be—massive soot injections would cool most of the planet, but changes in stratospheric winds would mean that the area over Eurasia’s valuable farmlands would get hotter. So the unintended consequences could actually make food security much worse.

Alien Grey Captured in Brazil Amazing Video

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The Maury Island UFO Incident 2013

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090624-F-223 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

090624-F-223 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

off  the grid energy autonomy on an isolated island, even the military can see the bottom line of lower operating cost!

A paint that can generate solar power - The Times of India

A paint that can generate solar power - The Times of India

READLONDON: The paint on your wall could soon power your home by generating electricity from sunlight. Interestingly, it could even change colour on request if you find it tiring to stare at the same shade.

British scientists have found that combining the wonder material 'graphene' with other stunning one-atom thick materials could create the next generation of solar cells and optoelectronic devices. The breakthrough, published in the journal Science on Friday, could lead to electric energy that runs entire buildings by sunlight absorbed by its exposed walls.

The energy can also be used at will to change the transparency and reflectivity of fixtures and windows depending on environmental conditions, such as temperature and brightness. The isolation of grapheme led to the discovery of new family of one-atom-thick materials

New photos on this wiki - Solar Cooking

New photos on this wiki - Solar Cooking

SolSource S1 - Solar Cooking

SolSource S1 - Solar Cooking
Scot Frank, from left, Catlin Powers, and Amy Qian developed an early prototype of the SolSource 3-in-1 pictured here in western China.

• April 2013: Solar cooking advocate, Pat McArdle, and John Linquist of One Earth Designs, demonstrated the companies' SolSource S1 parabolic cooker at the National Sustainable Design Expo., held each year in April on the Washington D.C. mall. John had the opportunity to demonstrate the cooker to Jacob Moss, senior State Department coordinator for the Clean Cookstove Initiative. EPA officials who were running the expo. told us the the SolSource is their greatest success story.

• November 2012: One Earth Designs (OED) introduces their new parabolic solar cooker - Working with rural communities in western China, One Earth Designs, a Beijing/Hong Kong-based company, founded by Americans Catlin Powers and Scot Frank, has developed the SolSource S1, a portable parabolic solar cooker designed for use by nomadic communities. The S1 can boil a liter of water in ten minutes. Durable and weather resistant materials ensure a longer lifespan. It has a total weight of 18 kilos including a sturdy base design capable of withstanding the high winds typically encountered in the Himalayas. OED’s other solar cooker design, the SolSource S2 will be the world's first temperature adjustable solar cooker with six discrete settings up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. It will provide users with the capacity to generate electricity, heat their homes, purify their water and cook with stored solar energy at night or on cloudy days.