Category: power

“We measured the masses of 19 different actinide isotopes with a high precision of one part per million level, including the discovery and identification of the new uranium isotope,” Toshitaka Niwase, a researcher at the High-energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) Wako Nuclear Science Center (WNSC) in Japan, told Live Science in an email. “This is the first new discovery of a uranium isotope on the neutron-rich side in over 40 years.” Niwase is the lead author of a study on the new uranium isotope, which was published March 31 in the journal Physical Review Letters…

Niwase and colleagues created the uranium-241 by firing a sample of uranium-238 at platinum-198 nuclei at Japan’s RIKEN accelerator. The two isotopes then swapped neutrons and protons — a phenomenon called “multinucleon transfer.” The team then measured the mass of the created isotopes by observing the time it took the resulting nuclei to travel a certain distance through a medium. The experiment also generated 18 new isotopes, all of which contained between 143 and 150 neutrons.

“Right now, Long Island is powered about 80% by fossil fuels. And when we go to 2040 it will be 0% for New York. Off shore wind will probably provide 25% of the state’s electricity within the next 10 to 15 years. So it’s a massive, renewable clean source of energy at affordable prices. And it’s located right near where all the electricity demand is,” CEO of LIPA Tom Falcone said. “We need to transition downstate from fossil fuels to renewables. And that’s a great challenge for New York, because we can’t really build anything on the land because there isn’t land. So we have to share the ocean,” said Adrienne Esposito from Citizens Campaign for the Environment.

Renewables in Europe and North America grew by 57.3 GW and 29.1 GW, respectively. Africa saw an increase of 2.7 GW, slightly above 2021. Oceania continued its double-digit growth with an expansion of 5.2 GW, and South America had a capacity expansion of 18.2 GW. The Middle East recorded its highest increase in renewables on record, with 3.2 GW of new capacity added in 2022, an increase of 12.8%. Although hydropower accounted for the largest share of the global total renewable generation capacity with 1,250 GW, solar and wind continued to dominate new generating capacity. Together, both technologies contributed 90% to the share of all new renewable capacity in 2022. Solar led with a 22% (191 GW) increase, followed by wind, which increased its generating capacity by 9% (75 GW).

Tracking capabilities are built into the ebii to help keep tabs on it 24/7. If the bike is ever stolen, it can be locked remotely and tracked using its built-in GPS locator. But don’t think that you won’t find typical bike parts here either, as the Acer ebii still features high-end components like a belt drive instead of a chain drive, 160mm hydraulic disc brakes, and 360-degree LED lighting. Airless tires are designed to remove the chance of flats, and a lefty-style fork does double duty as a conversation piece and a fancy weight saver.

There’s also a 460 Wh electric bicycle battery that is said to offer a range of up to 68 miles (110 km) per charge. A top speed of 15 mph (25 km/h) and a 250W rear hub motor look to keep the bike within European and Asian power and speed limits. There’s no hand throttle, which means riders will have to rely on pedal assist that is activated when the rider spins the pedals. It appears that there’s some confusion about the 2.5-hour charger included with the bike, as some in the industry seem to think it can be used to charge phones and batteries as well. In fact, it’s actually the e-bike’s removable battery itself that can function as a portable power station to charge up your mobile devices. Pricing and availability are not yet available. But there is a launch video to build up excitement.

“Xcel Energy took swift action to contain the leak to the plant site, which poses no health and safety risk to the local community or the environment,” the Minneapolis-based utility said in a statement. While Xcel reported the leak of water containing tritium to state and federal authorities in late November, the spill had not been made public before Thursday.

State officials said they waited to get more information before going public with it…. “Now that we have all the information about where the leak occurred, how much was released into groundwater, and that contaminated groundwater had moved beyond the original location, we are sharing this information,” said Minnesota Pollution Control Agency spokesman Michael Rafferty, adding the water remains contained on Xcel’s property and poses no immediate public health risk.

The company said it notified the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the state on Nov. 22, the day after it confirmed the leak, which came from a pipe between two buildings. Since then, it has been pumping groundwater, storing and processing the contaminated water, which contains tritium levels below federal thresholds. “Ongoing monitoring from over two dozen on-site monitoring wells confirms that the leaked water is fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility or in any local drinking water,” the Xcel Energy statement said.

When asked why Xcel Energy didn’t notify the public earlier, the company said: “We understand the importance of quickly informing the communities we serve if a situation poses an immediate threat to health and safety. In this case, there was no such threat.”

Sucking carbon dioxide out of the sky — or “direct air capture,” as it is known by experts and scientists — is a bit like a time machine for climate change. It removes CO2 from the atmosphere and stores it deep underground, almost exactly the reverse of what humanity has been doing for centuries by burning fossil fuels. Its promise? That it can help run back the clock, undoing some of what we have done to the atmosphere and helping to return the planet to a cooler state.

The problem with direct air capture, however, has been that it takes energy — a lot of energy…. But if the energy powering that comes from fossil fuels, direct air capture starts to look less like a time machine than an accelerator: a way to emit even more CO2. Now, however, a company is working to combine direct air capture with a relatively untapped source of energy: Heat from Earth’s crust. Fervo Energy, a geothermal company headquartered in Houston, announced on Thursday that it will design and engineer the first purpose-built geothermal and direct air capture plant. With the help of a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the company hopes to have a pilot facility online in 3 to 5 years.

If it works, it will be a way to produce carbon-free electricity, while reducing CO2 in the atmosphere at the same time. In short, a win-win for the climate. “You have to have your energy from a carbon-free source” for direct air capture to make sense, said Timothy Latimer, the CEO of Fervo Energy. “Geothermal is a great match….” Geothermal wells don’t, of course, get anywhere close to Earth’s core, but a geothermal well drilled just 1 to 2 miles into hot rocks below the surface can reach temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees. Water is pumped into the well, heated and returned to the surface, where it can be converted into steam and electricity. Even after generating electricity, most geothermal plants have a lot of waste heat — often clocking in around 212 degrees. And conveniently, that happens to be the exact temperature needed to pull carbon dioxide out of an air filter and bury it underground.
The article notes a study which found that if air capture were combined with all the geothermal plants currently in America, the country “could suck up around 12.8 million tons of carbon dioxide every year.”

And “Unlike wind and solar, a geothermal plant can be on all of the time, producing electricity even when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.”

A White House official said at a briefing that Tesla would be eligible for a subsidy – including retrofitting its existing fleet – as long as its chargers would allow other vehicles with a federally backed charging standard called CCS to charge. The administration said Tesla has not committed to adopting CCS as its standard, but it must comply with the requirements to qualify for federal funds.

As electric-vehicle sales soar — rising 66% in the United States last year to 810,000, according to Kelley Blue Book — automakers are getting better at making them…. Auto executives say that they are finding it is easier and cheaper to design and build new electric models than gasoline-powered ones. The battery cells made by Ultium, for example, are part of a collection of components that can be mixed and matched in many types of vehicles. Carmakers have long used the same platforms in multiple models, but the strategy works even better with electric vehicles because the cars have far fewer parts than internal combustion vehicles. The Ultium platform cuts the time needed to develop a new vehicle by almost two years, Dan Nicholson, vice president of electrification at GM, said at a Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago conference in January. As a result, GM will be able to introduce three Chevrolet electric vehicles this year: the Equinox, a Silverado pickup truck and a Blazer SUV. “That’s how we get the economies of scale,” Nicholson said.

The article cite’s legislation passed last year subsidizing battery manufacturers, which “could cut the cost of making electric vehicles by as much as $9,000,” as well as the legislation’s tax credits for cars priced below $55,000.
But besides making it cheaper to purchase an electric car, “the car will need less maintenance,” the article points out, “and the electricity to power it will cost less than the gasoline used by its combustion engine equivalent.”
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader 140Mandak262Jamuna for sharing the article.

The Nevada-based company said it plans to ultimately ramp up to producing 100 gigawatt-hours annually of ultra-thin battery-grade materials from both new and recycled sources in the United States for the first time.” Redwood founder CEO JB Straubel, who previously worked at Tesla, said at an event announcing the loan that he had a “front row seat” while at the Elon Musk-helmed electric vehicle maker to “some of the bigger challenges the the entire industry would face as it scales,” particularly around the battery materials supply chain. “It was somewhat clear even way back then, eight years ago, that this would be a really big bottleneck for the entire industry as it scaled,” Straubel said….

Redwood plans to manufacture battery anodes, containing copper and graphite, and cathodes, containing all the critical metals in a battery — like lithium, nickel, and cobalt — amounting to nearly 80 percent of the materials cost of a lithium-ion battery.

A Detroit newspaper reports Ford will also announce plans Monday to help build a $2.5 billion electric-vehicle battery plant in Michigan.

In fact, this year in America some electric cars could become “as cheap as or cheaper than cars with internal combustion engines,” reports the New York Times — specifically because of “increased competition, government incentives and falling prices for lithium and other battery materials.”

By extending the batteries’ lives, project developers can save both resources and costs. Hall estimates that a system like B2U’s could lower grid-scale battery capital costs by about 40%. “Second life and re-use helps the overall lifecycle be more energy efficient, given all the efforts that go into making that battery,” Hall said in an interview. “So you’re getting maximum value out of it.” Batteries are worked hard during their years powering vehicles, and over time their range deteriorates. But they still hold value as stationary storage, which has gentler demands, Hall said. The batteries in the B2U system are up to 8-years old and once powered vehicles built by Honda and Nissan.