Dirt Powered Fuel Cell

Northwestern University researchers have introduced a soil-microbe-powered fuel cell, significantly outperforming similar technologies and providing a sustainable solution for powering low-energy devices, with full public access to its designs for widespread application. The fuel cell’s 3D-printed cap peeks above the ground. The cap keeps debris out of the device while enabling air flow. Credit: Bill Yen/Northwestern University

A Northwestern University-led team of researchers has developed a new fuel cell that harvests energy from microbes living in dirt.

About the size of a standard paperback book, the completely soil-powered technology could fuel underground sensors used in precision agriculture and green infrastructure. This potentially could offer a sustainable, renewable alternative to batteries, which hold toxic, flammable chemicals that leach into the ground, are fraught with conflict-filled supply chains, and contribute to the ever-growing problem of electronic waste.     READ MORE...

French People Urged to Save Energy

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that his country was ready to deliver gas to Germany this coming winter should Europe's gas squeeze make such a move necessary, urging French citizens to reduce their energy consumption in order to stave off rationing and cuts.


Macron said French gas could help Germany to produce more electricity which, in turn, would allow Germany to contribute electricity to the French power grid during peak hours.


"We are going to complete the gas connections that will allow us to deliver gas to Germany," Macron told reporters after a video call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.


Both Germany and France are scrambling to replenish gas reserves after Russia curtailed deliveries in retaliation for western support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.


Germany is more dependent on Russian gas than France, which generates most of its electricity in nuclear power stations.  READ MORE...

China Converts Nuclear Fusion into Energy

China’s new announcements indicate that it has taken one step further in that direction.

Nuclear fusion is based on the idea that energy can be released by forcing atomic nuclei together rather than separating them, as in the fission reactions that powers the existing nuclear power plants.

In what could be a significant breakthrough, a Chinese research team claims to have created the world’s first power plant capable of converting fusion energy into electricity without disrupting the power system, South China Morning Post reported.

This development comes a few months after China’s experimental advanced superconducting Tokamak (EAST), HL-2M fusion energy reactor had run for 1,056 seconds at 70 million degrees Celsius.

According to Xiang Kui, chief engineer of thermal systems at the China Energy Engineering Group Guangdong Electric Power Design Institute in Guangzhou, converting the heat into electricity is challenging because the reactor must take a 20-minute break every two hours.

Xiang and his colleagues stated in a report published in the domestic peer-reviewed journal ‘Southern Energy Construction’ that this frequent interruption can create pulse energy that “will cause huge damage to the power grid.”

The entire world is chasing nuclear fusion technology, with a facility in France called International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), where experiments take place with the assistance of a world consortium with the EU, the US, Russia, and even China being members.

They hope to make a breakthrough by the second half of this century.  READ MORE...

Fusion Energy Unchained

Illustration of cloud-like ionized plasma in the ITER fusion reactor tokamak. Credit: ITER

Physicists at EPFL, within a large European collaboration, have revised one of the fundamental laws that has been foundational to plasma and fusion research for over three decades, even governing the design of megaprojects like ITER. The update demonstrates that we can actually safely utilize more hydrogen fuel in fusion reactors, and therefore obtain more energy than previously thought.

Fusion is one of the most promising future energy sources . It involves two atomic nuclei merging into one, thereby releasing enormous amounts of energy. In fact, we experience fusion every day: the Sun’s warmth comes from hydrogen nuclei fusing into heavier helium atoms.

There is currently an international fusion research megaproject called ITER that seeks to replicate the fusion processes of the Sun to create energy on the Earth. Its goal is to generate high-temperature plasma that provides the right environment for fusion to occur, producing energy.

Plasmas — an ionized state of matter similar to a gas – are made up of positively charged nuclei and negatively charged electrons, and are almost a million times less dense than the air we breathe. Plasmas are created by subjecting “the fusion fuel” – hydrogen atoms – to extremely high temperatures (10 times that of the core of the Sun), forcing electrons to separate from their atomic nuclei. In a fusion reactor, the process takes place inside a donut-shaped (“toroidal”) structure called a “tokamak.”  READ MORE...

Molten Salt Battery & Energy

Close-up of the freeze-thaw battery developed by the PNNL team. 

Credit: Andrea Starr/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

During spring in the Pacific Northwest, meltwater from thawing snow rushes down rivers and the wind often blows hard. These forces spin the region’s many power turbines and generate a bounty of electricity at a time of mild temperatures and relatively low energy demand. But much of this seasonal surplus electricity—which could power air conditioners come summer—is lost because batteries cannot store it long enough.

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a Department of Energy national laboratory in Richland, Wash., are developing a battery that might solve this problem. In a recent paper published in Cell Reports Physical Science, they demonstrated how freezing and thawing a molten salt solution creates a rechargeable battery that can store energy cheaply and efficiently for weeks or months at a time. 

Such a capability is crucial to shifting the U.S. grid away from fossil fuels that release greenhouse gases and toward renewable energy. President Joe Biden has made it a goal to cut U.S. carbon emissions in half by 2030, which will necessitate a major ramp-up of wind, solar and other clean energy sources, as well as ways to store the energy they produce.

Most conventional batteries store energy as chemical reactions waiting to happen. When the battery is connected to an external circuit, electrons travel from one side of the battery to the other through that circuit, generating electricity. To compensate for the change, charged particles called ions move through the fluid, paste or solid material that separates the two sides of the battery. 

But even when the battery is not in use, the ions gradually diffuse across this material, which is called the electrolyte. As that happens over weeks or months, the battery loses energy. Some rechargeable batteries can lose almost a third of their stored charge in a single month.  READ MORE...

Will Putin Shut Off Europe's Gas?

Berlin, Germany – Determining the front lines of Europe’s potential energy conflict with Russia is no mean feat. Because should Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government decide to use what analysts often call Moscow’s “gas weapon”, the fallout would impact some European Union nations far more than others.

The variations in potential impacts stem from how different national energy markets are organised and legislated.

Around 35 percent of the EU’s natural gas comes from Russia. And as political tensions have mounted around the build-up of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, there has been much discussion of whether Russia, the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas, might weaponise that dependency to get its way.

Of the 167.7 billion cubic metres of natural gas Europe imported from Russia in 2020, Germany bought the most – 56.3 billion cubic meters – followed by Italy, with 19.7 billion, and the Netherlands, with 11.2 billion.

But what really determines a country’s vulnerability to Moscow’s energy export policies is not how much it buys but what part Russian gas plays in its national energy mix.  READ MORE...

Macro Trends 2020-2030

We outline 12 macrotrends set to shape the 2020s. These represent major shifts in the demographic, environmental, economic, technological, political and cultural landscapes that can be foreseen with a relatively high degree of certainty, though their implications are often more uncertain or ambiguous. We then focus in on a subset of the macrotrends to explore this ambiguity and suggest how the global business community might seek to influence the way these trends play out in order to accelerate progress on Vision 2050. Crucially, too, all the macrotrends are interconnected: how they interact with one another is central to how the next decade will play out. We explore some of these interconnections briefly in the introduction to each landscape.

Macrotrends emerging over the next decade: 

DEMOGRAPHICS 

1. GENERATIONAL HANDOVER Political, economic, cultural & innovation power is shifting. 

2. POPULATION GROWTH IN ASIA & AFRICA Sustaining geopolitical shifts and straining scarce resources. ENVIRONMENT 

3. WORSENING CLIMATE IMPACTS More frequent and more severe weather becomes harder to ignore. 

4. LOCAL POLLUTION, DEGRADATION & SCARCITY CREATE IMPETUS FOR INNOVATION Loss, suffering, instability, displacement & innovation. 

ECONOMY 

5. SHORT-TERM CRISIS, LONG-TERM SLOWDOWN Under-investment, low productivity, weak demand and COVID-19. 

6. PEAK GLOBALIZATION & THE RISE OF ASIA Rival blocs form as economic and political power pivots. 

TECHNOLOGY 

7. AUTOMATION IMPACTS EVERY INDUSTRY & COUNTRY Automation changes lives, industries and economies. 

8. DATAFICATION, FOR BETTER & WORSE Smarter, more efficient, more surveilled – massive efficiency and productivity gains come at a price. 

POLITICS 

9. POLARIZATION & RADICALISM ON THE RISE High levels of dissatisfaction create appetite for radical alternatives 

10. GEOPOLITICAL INSTABILITY Weakened multilateralism and nations in decline – the incentives for stability slowly fade away. 

CULTURE 

11. POST-MATERIALISM: ATTITUDES AND LIFESTYLES DIVERGE Changing aspirations are helping on-demand service models to spread globally. 

12. CULTURE WARS ESCALATE Cultural clashes (youngold, rural-urban, rich-poor) contribute to polarization.

We propose 10 “wildcard” disruptions that could plausibly materialize during the 2020s, resulting in significant impact. Indeed some of them already have, with impacts still snowballing. However, the wildcards are not all negative – they simply have the potential to significant disrupt the landscape that business operates in. The macrotrends and disruptions are deliberately not presented as risks and opportunities. Every risk contains the seed of an opportunity within it – and every opportunity the seed of a new risk. What matters is how we respond to and influence the dynamics of the world around us.

Potential “wild card” Disruptions

1. FINANCIAL CRISIS How much will COVID19 cost, and how will we pay when the next crisis comes? 
2. GLOBAL PANDEMIC No country is fully prepared to handle a pandemic, and neither are any economies. 
3. MAJOR CONFLICT Cyber attacks, e.g. on critical infrastructure will touch all ordinary citizens in a conflict.
4. AN ECONOMIC “SINGULARITY” What happens when new jobs can’t be created where jobs have been destroyed?
5. POPULAR REVOLTS & REGIME CHANGE Inequality will continue to rise making more frequent and severe protest likely.
6. A CLIMATE “MINSKY MOMENT” Costs, disclosures, social pressures all reorient financial flows – but how fast?
7. ENERGY TRANSITION TIPPING POINT Market forces lead to fossil fuel demand peaking and the energy transition accelerates.
8. BIOTECH BOOM Disruption comes to food, health and materials as biotech’s potential emerges. 
9. GLOBAL GREEN (NEW) DEAL Citizens embrace the chance to improve jobs, communities and environments.
10. SOCIETAL “TECHLASH” Society sours on the costs of free tech, treasuries tire of lost taxes and competition.

TO READ MORE ABOUT THESE MEGATRENDS, CLICK HERE...

Underwater Kites

SOURCE,MINESTO...The energy-generating kites "fly" under the water, tethered to the seabed


A pair of sleek, winged machines are "flying" - or at least swimming - beneath the dark waters of the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic.


Known as "sea dragons" or "tidal kites", they look like aircraft, but these are in fact high-tech tidal turbines, generating electricity from the power of the ocean.


The two kites - with a five-metre (16ft) wingspan - move underwater in a figure-of-eight pattern, absorbing energy from the running tide. They are tethered to the fjord seabed by 40-metre metal cables.


Their movement is generated by the lift exerted by the water flow - just as a plane flies by the force of air flowing over its wings.


Other forms of tidal power use technology similar to terrestrial wind turbines but the kites are something different.


The moving "flight path" allows the kite to sweep a larger area at a speed several times greater than that of the underwater current. This, in turn, enables the machines to amplify the amount of energy generated by the water alone.  READ MORE...

The Energy Around Us

The energy that cycles through the systems of Earth comes from two locations. The Sun radiates huge amounts of energy. Only a small portion of that energy hits the Earth, but it is enough to light our days, heat our air and land, and create weather systems over the oceans. Most of the energy you will learn about comes from the Sun.

The Earth also gives off energy. There is a molten outer core of iron (Fe) and nickel (Ni) that radiates heat and creates a magnetic field that surrounds the planet. Current evidence suggests that the inner core is 6,000 degrees Celsius (10,800 degrees Fahrenheit). The asthenosphere and upper mantle also radiate heat from the interior of the planet. Even without the heat of the Sun, the Earth would be warmer than space or a planet with no molten core.

Unless you live on a volcano or a hydrothermal region, the Sun’s energy will affect your life more than any energy from inside the planet.

Where Do You Find Energy?You can find energy in electricity, magnetism, kinetic energy, potential energy, springs and different states of matter. Energy is not something you can hold or touch. Energy exists as a property of matter and can be found in many places ranging from the heat from Earth’s core to incoming radiation from the Sun.

Geographers look at general ideas of energy circulating through systems. The main energy for geographers affects the living organisms of Earth. They examine amounts and types of electromagnetic radiation that include infrared (heat), visible, and ultraviolet light.

Energy descriptions and measurements change a little when physicists start looking at the world. Energy is a property that can be transferred and changed, but never created or destroyed. Physicists often see things in very specific quantities, not always in systems as large as the Earth. They also look at mechanical energy in addition to thermodynamics and electromagnetism.

Let’s say that the Sun heats the Earth and the gases of the atmosphere. As the temperature rises, the molecules become more active and begin to rise. The activity of the molecules also increases the pressure. When the pressure of a system increases, the amount of stored energy also increases. Those molecules want to move to a location with a lower pressure. Wind is created by those pressure differences in the atmosphere. When the wind blows, the energy can be transferred to other systems: turn windmills, help birds fly, make tornadoes, all types of work.

There's an important idea you should always remember when we talk about energy. Sometimes we will use the word radiation. When you think of radiation you probably think about nuclear power plants, bombs, and X-rays. Those are all types of radiation but more important to physical geography is the idea that all light is considered radiation. Electromagnetic radiation includes everything from television and radio waves to something called gamma rays.

Think about the acronym LASER. The R stands for radiation; however, a laser is basically an energized flashlight.

Think about heat. Most heat or "emitted thermal radiation" of an object is actually infrared light.

Petroleum Byproducts

Democrats want to do away with OIL and by default, these products below would go away as well...

FROM BRITANNICA

This is a list of products produced from petroleum. Types of unrefined petroleum include asphalt, bitumen, crude oil, and natural gas. (See also fossil fuel; hydrocarbon; oil; petrochemical; petroleum production; petroleum refining; pitch lake; tar sand.)

Fuels

1. butane
2. diesel fuel
3. fuel oil
4. gasoline
5. kerosene
6. liquefied natural gas
7. liquefied petroleum gas
8. propane

Other Products

1. microcrystalline wax
2. napalm
3. naphtha
4. naphthalene
5. paraffin wax
6. petroleum jelly
7. petroleum wax
8. refined asphalt
9. refined bitumen

This article was most recently revised and updated by Richard Pallardy, Research Editor.

Although crude oil is a source of raw material (feedstock) for making plastics, it is not the major source of feedstock for plastics production in the United States. Plastics are produced from natural gas, feedstocks derived from natural gas processing, and feedstocks derived from crude oil refining.