Sub's Alternative Energy Thread

[pinstripers]

https://missouriindependent.com/briefs/fire-erupts-in-southeast-missouri-at-one-of-worlds-largest-lithium-ion-battery-facilities/

lithium fire

[Shockm]

Government debt is citizens debt. Stop giving it away to companies researching and investing in green energy. Let the free market run it's course and let the companies invest their own money into green energy. They stand to profit if successful.

I totally agree.

But how will the politicians get their kickbacks in that case? In other words, slim chance they quit giving handout.

I will never vote for a politician who gave trillions of dollars to EV batteries. It should be a Capitalistic, free market movement toward EV cars. Not a government led movement which Americans don’t support.

[Atxshoxfan]

Government debt is citizens debt. Stop giving it away to companies researching and investing in green energy. Let the free market run it's course and let the companies invest their own money into green energy. They stand to profit if successful. But how will the politicians get their kickbacks in that case? In other words, slim chance they quit giving handout.

[Shockm]

Another potential massive development that could help improve the market for EV's down the road.

US firm’s 5-minute EV battery charge tackles range anxiety in all weather

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The Feds (Government) have certainly tried to incentivize people purchasing EV cars by giving away trillions of dollars (at the expense of trillions of government debt) and that hasn’t worked so they definitely need a “potential massive development to improve their market down the road” that actually works enough that people will want to purchase them. However, that won’t reduce the Fed debt.

[SubGod22]

Nuclear power is coming back — and that could be a win for older workers

What is old is new again. Once stigmatized and sidelined, nuclear energy appears poised for a renaissance.

Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant — where the nation’s worst nuclear accident occurred in 1979 — will be restarted by Microsoft to power its computer centers. Google and Amazon have also announced plans to purchase nuclear power from startup companies generating power from small modular reactors.

The artificial-intelligence boom has triggered a voracious appetite for reliable, large-scale power sources and has led firms known for inventing the future to turn to nuclear energy — an energy source that many in the U.S. had written off as yesterday’s technology. But while nuclear power might be getting a second look, a parallel challenge comes with setting the reactors aglow: Rethinking the value of older workers, and resurrecting an aging nuclear workforce that has also been sidelined.

The revival of nuclear power goes beyond retrofitting existing plants or building new reactors; it also requires reinvesting in the workforce that maintains and operates these facilities. Many of these skilled workers are approaching retirement and are older than the average U.S. worker — yet they are essential to the industry’s future. The often-unquestioned myth that younger workers eagerly wait for older workers to step aside may be true in some industries, but not nuclear energy. If anything, the revival of nuclear power — and the broader push for clean energy — may depend on keeping older workers online for longer.

There is definitely some issues with education/experience in nuclear that will need to be addressed. There may be opportunity for some older individuals to maybe re-enter this field and help get things moving along while the next generation catches up and learns and gains valuable experience. It's a shame that propaganda stifled the nuclear industry for so long based on nothing but fearmongering instead of actual facts.

[SubGod22]

Another potential massive development that could help improve the market for EV's down the road.

US firm’s 5-minute EV battery charge tackles range anxiety in all weather

A US startup has developed a cost-effective technology to charge lithium batteries in just 5 minutes fully.

To meet electric vehicle (EV) market demands, Dallas-based Solidion has developed a patented system enabling fast charging in all climates.

The system uses a graphene-based heat spreader. It quickly warms batteries before or during charging, while an integrated cooling system activates during discharge to prevent overheating.

According to the firm, the technology enables rapid EV charging in any weather, especially overcoming current battery limitations in cold climates. Solidion plans to commercialize it within 2-3 years.

[SubGod22]

Whatever gets nuclear moving forward I'm all for.

Big Tech Is Paving the Way for a Nuclear Breakthrough

Small modular nuclear reactors long seemed like moonshots with lots of promise but not enough commercial interest. That changed recently after tech giants with surging power needs for AI processing swooped in with announcements backing SMR projects.

Earlier this month, Google parent Alphabet said it signed a power purchase agreement with Kairos Power for an up-to-500-megawatt SMR project. Amazon said it would work with X-energy on a 320 MW project that is jointly backed by a utility in Washington state. These SMR projects won’t be built overnight. Both Google and Amazon expect their initial projects to come online by the 2030s at the earliest. Oracle is another company to watch: Chairman Larry Ellison said in an earnings call in September that the company is designing a 1 Gigawatt-plus data center with building permits for three SMR reactors.

SMRs come with the potential to solve some of nuclear energy’s biggest headaches: Cost, safety and time—at least, in theory. That is why tech companies’ backing is so crucial. The industry needs to test and learn before it can prove out the benefits.

[SubGod22]

More potential battery improvements

This Innovation Could Extend Little-Used Zinc Battery Lifespan Hundreds of Times to Create Battery Revolution

German scientists have found a way to extend the lifespan of zinc-ion batteries more than 100-fold, allowing the fringe battery technology to potentially replace the controversial lithium-ion standard found in today’s mobile phones and EVs.

This means instead of just a few thousand charge-discharge cycles, a zinc-ion battery could last hundreds of thousands of cycles—exactly the kind of reliability society needs for a major energy transition.

Fully-developed in 2011, aqueous zinc-ion batteries haven’t entered the market in any truly measurable way. The most publicized use in the modern economy today is probably the EOS 1.0 GWh energy storage plant for solar power in Texas.

In theory, zinc-ion batteries hold many advantages over lithium-ions, but problems, including the growth of needle-like zinc structures—known as zinc dendrites—as well as unwanted chemical side reactions that trigger hydrogen formation and corrosion, remain.

Engineers at the Technical University of Munich crafted a unique material to counter these unwanted reactions in the form of a porous organic polymer called TpBD-2F.

This material forms a stable, ultra-thin, and highly ordered film on the zinc anode, allowing zinc ions to flow efficiently through nano channels while keeping water away from the anode.

“Zinc-ion batteries with this new protective layer could replace lithium-ion batteries in large-scale energy storage applications, such as in combination with solar or wind power plants. They last longer, are safer, and zinc is both cheaper and more readily available than lithium,” said Da Lei, Ph.D. student and lead author of the research published in Advanced Energy Materials.

Known as a ‘base metal,’ zinc is the 23rd most abundant mineral in the world, and is produced in large quantities in many of the world’s top mining nations and by many of the world’s largest gold and copper mining companies which end up with zinc as a common byproduct of their operations.

This really could be a game changer. Cheaper, lasts longer, and is more abundant in multiple places makes it make a lot more sense than lithium if this research holds.

[SubGod22]

Making water out of brine

Student-built desalination tech turns brine into fresh water with 90% efficiency

A student has developed a novel brine desalination method capable of converting over 90 percent of salt water into fresh water, offering a sustainable solution for water scarcity.

Tayia Oddonetto, an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), developed the system, which earned her first place and funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Centers Perfect Pitch Competition.

The research evaluates salt-free electrodialysis metathesis (SF-EDM) as a secondary process to improve water recovery in desalination, achieving 90 percent total recovery. SF-EDM showed high selectivity, reducing salinity by 93 percent without adding sodium chloride, at 80 percent of the cost of conventional methods.

“During class, the professor said that if someone discovered how to turn brine, water with a high salt concentration, into something of value, it’d be revolutionary for the planet. At that moment, I told myself I was going to be the one who found the solution for brine, and that thought has never left me,” said Oddonetto, who is a doctoral student in environmental science and engineering at UTEP, in a statement.

[SubGod22]

Radical tech that harvests electricity from ocean currents gets US funding

The Department of Energy in the United States has awarded an $800,000 grant to Florida Atlantic University (FAU) to enable the commercial readiness of ocean energy technologies.

The FAU’s Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center (SNMREC) is embarking on a groundbreaking feasibility study to set up an ocean current test facility offshore Palm Beach County. It’s claimed that the study will be the first of its kind, leveraging world-class marine energy expertise.

The study will attempt to harness the power of ocean currents to generate clean, renewable energy right off the coast of Southeast Florida and explore its commercial readiness.

The vision for a blue energy hub in Southeast Florida marks a major advancement in renewable energy technology. “The Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy’s vision for a blue energy hub in Southeast Florida represents a significant step forward in renewable energy technology,” said Gregg Fields, Ph.D., FAU vice president for research.

“By establishing a dedicated test facility, we hope to pave the way for a future where ocean currents become a key player in our clean energy landscape. With our strong marine energy industry connections and the expertise of our partners, the region is poised to become a global leader in ocean current energy innovation.”

SNMREC — which will collaborate with a team of experts from The City of Lake Worth Beach Electric Utility, European Marine Energy, 3U Technologies and others — aims to create a blue energy industry cluster in Southeast Florida.

If this works as hoped, it makes a ton of sense. The ocean currents are constant and if that can be harnessed properly it could go a long way towards supplying the energy needs of many coastal areas.

[SubGod22]

New and improved device to capture water in the desert.

Scientists Perfecting New Way to Turn Desert Air into Water at Much Higer Yields

With government funding, a team of engineers at Univ. of Las Vegas are poised to revolutionize how water is supplied in desert climes.

Their new system pulls gallons of water a day out of the air around us, and far from sitting on a bench in a laboratory, this incredible innovation is already moving to market.

Dubbed a ‘watershed moment,’ UNLV mechanical engineering professor H. Jeremy Cho. took a look at all the ways that modern societies use technology to pull water from the air and believed he could make it substantially better.

Desert-dwelling cultures have been creating and sharing innovations for tackling this challenge of nature for millennia, and Professor Cho used nature itself as an inspiration.

Existing mechanical systems of atmospheric water capture typically yield less-than a gallon a day and suffer from diminishing returns at under 30% humidity. Cho’s design relies on a hydrogel membrane inspired by frog’s skin as well as certain plants.

“We took that biological idea and tried to do it in our own way,” Cho told UNLV press. “There are so many cool things happening in nature—you just have to look around, learn, and be inspired.”

This device captures 5x more than any other known device and could be a game changer for parts of the southwest.

Water collected can be turned into drinkable water or hydrogen fuel.

Can also be used in more humid climates where it can extract up to 3x more than it does in more arid locations.

There's a two and a half minute video at the bottom of the article.

[SubGod22]

5 amazing ways that hydrogen-powered tech could transform our future

Hydrogen power is becoming an increasingly attractive energy source — mainly because when burned, it releases water vapor instead of the harmful pollution that comes from dirty energy sources like oil and gas.

What's more, there are some incredibly surprising ways that hydrogen fuel is already providing the energy that could power our future.

01. Hydrogen-powered ships

The preliminary designs for a hydrogen-hybrid research vessel for the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography have been approved by the American Bureau of Shipping. The proposed ship will run on hydrogen for 75% of its energy, with the other 25% coming from clean-running diesel generators.

In 2018, the naval architecture and engineering firm Glosten successfully completed a feasibility study on the vessel, kickstarting the design project. With this approval, Glosten and Scripps can move forward with finding a contractor to begin the ship's construction.

Read more →

02. Enormous cranes

The world's first hydrogen-powered crane became operational in the Port of Los Angeles just this year. A regular diesel-powered crane releases emissions equivalent to burning 400 barrels of oil per year.

Though the single crane in Los Angeles is part of a pilot program, engineers hope that it can provide findings that suggest equal performance to diesel-powered cranes.

Read more →

03. Ultra-efficient passenger ferries

San Francisco recently launched the first-ever hydrogen-powered passenger ferry. The MV Sea Change is running for a six-month trial period, making trips from the downtown San Francisco ferry terminal to Pier 41. During trials, the ferry is free of charge.

The vessel holds 75 people, can run for 16 hours, and travel 345 miles before needing to refuel, and its only byproduct is water. Shipping accounts for 3% of the world's carbon pollution, so ships powered by hydrogen could have major benefits.

Read more →

04. High-powered garbage trucks

Waste management is also getting in on the hydrogen-powered action with a new Class 8 fuel cell-powered garbage truck. The new clean-energy truck is the brainchild of Hyzon, a global hydrogen fuel cell developer, and New Way Trucks, a garbage collection equipment manufacturer.

Waste and recycling company Bigbelly reported that refuse trucks are the worst contributors to vehicle pollution on a per-mile basis in cities. Switching to hydrogen-powered refuse trucks could greatly reduce the emissions from waste management services.

Read more →

05. A new kind of aircraft

Joby Aviation's electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft flew over 500 miles powered by hydrogen fuel cells and electricity. Joby's goal is to have a fleet of clean-energy air taxis to reduce pollution and traffic jams in major cities.

The aircraft's all-electric prototype could previously only travel 100 miles on a single charge but has hugely increased range with the addition of hydrogen fuel cells, which provide more energy without harmful emissions.

Read more →

An interesting start in these areas. I've made it no secret that H₂ intrigues me as a fuel source and I'm quite excited that we're seeing more research and development coming out about it.

The garbage truck stood out to me as there's no doubt they would be one of the biggest single contributors to air pollution in cities as there's a lot of idling and short, stop and go driving that comes with the job of trash collection and they're not the most efficiently built machines when it comes to fuel consumption. And if you've ever been stuck behind one with your windows down you know just how obnoxious the output from the truck is, and I'm not talking about the smell of garbage.

[SubGod22]

Roewe D7 PHEV Covers A Record-Breaking 1,372 Miles Without Refuelling Or Recharging

• The Roewe D7 DMH was driven 1,372 miles (2,208 km) on a single tank of gas and a full battery charge.
• The model earned a spot in the Guinness World Records for the longest range among PHEVs.
• The route included crossing a desert and climbing a mountain, proving the powertrain’s efficiency.

Chinese automakers have stepped up the game in terms of PHEVs and EREVs, promising impressive figures for their combined range. The SAIC-owned Roewe took a step further, achieving a Guinness World Record for the longest distance covered by a PHEV without refueling or recharging – a staggering 2,208 km (1,372 miles).

The record-breaking model is the Roewe D7 DMH, the plug-in hybrid version of the midsize sedan, introduced in China in 2023. A production-spec vehicle covered 2,208 km (1,372 miles) in four days, passing from the cities of Lanzhou, Zhangye, Jiuquan, Turpan, and Urumqi.

Interestingly, the route was neither flat nor limited to smooth tarmac roads in ideal temperature conditions as you would normally expect from an efficiency-focused record run. Instead, the Roewe D7 DMH was driven on gravel, dirt, snow, ice, and wet tarmac, with a 1,600 m (5,249 feet) altitude difference, and temperatures as low as -8°C (17.6°F).

Footage uploaded on Weibo shows the electrified sedan crossing parts of the Gobi desert, and climbing mountains before reaching its destination. The fuel cap and the charging port were covered by stickers throughout the journey. Furthermore, the VIN was checked by officials, to make sure it was the same car that started and finished the test.

94.5 MPG is pretty damn good. Now, the EV portion isn't really all that impressive based on the data, but even still, if you could go 800-900 miles on a tank of gas, that makes a big difference in air quality as well as your bank account. The potential is there.

[SubGod22]

Speaking of fueling the future with food scraps/trash, Hyundai is making progress in that department.

Hyundai turns food scraps into hydrogen power with new method at Georgia plant

Automakers across the world are racing to make significant progress in making a major transition to hydrogen. Hyundai, a South Korean car manufacturer, is a new entrant in this. The company’s plant in Georgia has been running its internal logistics operations using hydrogen, according to a report.

The company has also started testing of domestic production of the fuel using biogas from food scraps. The step is claimed to be a part of Hyundai’s long-term vision of developing a sustainable energy future around the gas.

The carmaker last month unveiled a comprehensive set of end-to-end hydrogen solutions, showing four hydrogen value chain business solutions in four scenario-based exhibitions.

Jim Park, Hyundai’s head of commercial vehicles and hydrogen business development for North America, told Bloomberg that the company’s plant in Georgia is using hydrogen fuel-cell trucks, whose energy density has the ability to give users less range anxiety – because they can go a greater distance.

[SubGod22]

Another step forward for hydrogen production.

High-performance zinc-air battery for safe hydrogen production developed

Researchers have created a new hydrogen production system that addresses the limitations of current green hydrogen methods.

A Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) team’s system uses a water-splitting process with a water-soluble electrolyte to ensure stable hydrogen production while reducing the risk of fire.

The group created a system that produces hydrogen on its own using a high-performance zinc-air battery.

The zinc-air battery-based hydrogen system uses a high-activity, long-lasting catalyst for three key reactions at low temperatures and with simple implementation.

Researchers claim the new catalyst will be a “new breakthrough that can overcome the limitations of current green hydrogen production,” said Jeung Ku Kang, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at KAIST, in a statement.

Hydrogen (H₂) is gaining recognition as a clean fuel due to its high energy density of 142 MJ/kg—three times greater than that of fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel. However, conventional hydrogen production methods result in significant carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.

It is more environmentally good to produce green hydrogen through water splitting using renewable energy sources like solar and wind power, although these sources frequently have efficiency problems because of temperature and weather variations.