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Through January 2023 only!
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Story #1
is a game changer for the auto industry. We featured a Future
Energy eNews story back in July 2022 on “Solar
Powered Cars are Coming” (reprinted as a link
here), which featured this Lightyear One, as well as
Mercedes, Tesla, Edison Futures, Fisker (Chinese) prototypes.
However, now Lightyear,
a Dutch company, is the leader. The concept, if successful for the
range customers desire, will certainly be a boost for those
concerned about recharging the batteries.
Story #2
is a nice introduction to nerve stimulation for a number of
ailments. Here, Parkinson’s and depression are the focus by the
University of Washington. However, it has now been found to give
paralyzed patients the ability to walk as well, in a new implant
at the spot of the injury, to simulate spinal nerve impulses. This
also makes us at IRI aware of the low current needed to simulate
nerve impulses, which our EM
Pulser 78 is capable of stimulating without invasive
surgery, by Faraday’s Law (magnetic pulses create electric currents
inside body). Other related articles are included.
Story #3
is interesting when one wants use for captured CO2, as the
University of Chicago has done to create ethylene. However, for
those of us who want to remove gigatons (billions of tons) of
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and not simply recycle it, the
carbon capture and sequestration programs are the best to finally
start reducing the atmospheric waste dump we have been using to
deposit about 40
gigatons of additional heat-trapping CO2 EVERY year! Still interesting news since it
can be considered carbon neutral.
Story #4
could be considered the lead story since it is BIG news. When we
see all of the news about lithium shortages in the near future due
to increased demand and other limiting factors, a new sodium-ion
battery production is a glimmer of hope. Now we see a Chinese
company called CTG take the lead with a 145 Wh/kg energy density
and over 4000 charge-discharge cycles, with affordable
ingredients.
Story #5
is a nod to NASA for the successful start to its interplanetary
program with SpaceX called the Artemis
project. On December 11, 2022 the final milestone or perhaps
the first milestone in an around the moon and back journey with
the unmanned Orion spacecraft, which splashed down in the Pacific
Ocean after returning safely to Earth. During the mission, Orion
performed two lunar flybys, coming within 80 miles of the lunar
surface. Artemis
II will include men and women going around the moon.
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1) World's First Solar Electric Car Now In Production
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Interesting Engineering December 2022
Dutch
company Lightyear, which has spent the last six years developing
technologies to make the world's first solar-powered electric
vehicle has now entered a very important phase of its lifetime.
Its first model, Lightyear 0 has now entered production, a company
press release said. As the world moves toward electric modes of
transportation, new challenges are being thrown up. Unlike
combustion engine-powered vehicles that can be refueled virtually
anywhere and in no time, electric vehicles require dedicated
charging infrastructure and time to charge the batteries.
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2) Electric Neurostimulation Can Heal the
Brain—What's the Secret?
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TechBriefs.com November 2022
Brain
stimulation appears to be able to rewire and heal damaged neural
connections. Research from the University of Washington suggests
personalization may be key to more effective therapies. Three
neurostimulation researchers discuss the potential. Doctors
currently use this technique, called neurostimulation, to treat
conditions like Parkinson’s and depression. We believe that
neurostimulation has the potential to not only treat symptoms but
also cure a wider range of diseases by repairing damaged
connections. Our team of biomedical engineers and statisticians
used these tools to show that the changes neurostimulation makes
to neurons depend on how they were connected in the first place.
In other words, for neurostimulation to work, it needs to be
tailored to each individual’s brain.
Patients
With Complete Paralysis Walk With Spinal Cord Implant
by J
Abbasi · 2022 · Cited by 1 — A newly developed epidural electrical
stimulation (EES) system described in Nature Medicine helped 3 individuals
with severe spinal cord ...
Stimulating
spinal cord helps paralysed people to walk again
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3) Integrated, Net-negative System Captures Carbon and
Produces Ethylene
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BrighterSide.com December 2022
Engineers
at the University of Illinois Chicago have built a machine that
captures carbon from flue gas and converts it to ethylene. The
device integrates a carbon capture system with an ethylene
conversation system for the first time. Moreover, the system not
only runs on electricity, but it also removes more carbon from the
environment than it generates—making it what scientists call
net-negative on carbon emissions. Among manufactured chemicals
worldwide, ethylene ranks third for carbon emissions after ammonia
and cement. Ethylene is used not only to create plastic products
for the packaging, agricultural and automotive industries but also
to produce chemicals used in antifreeze, medical sterilizers and
vinyl siding for houses, for example.
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4) Mass sodium-ion battery production rolls off
GWh-class factory as it paves the way for affordable cells without
lithium
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Notebook
Check December 2022
The world's
first mass production of sodium-ion batteries, developed by HiNa
Battery, has reportedly begun with an initial 1 GWh capacity,
scheduled to reach 3-5 GWh next year. The most obvious advantage of
sodium-ion batteries is that they don't use expensive lithium whose
price has shot up 700% in the past two years or so, making electric
vehicles and storage systems way more expensive to produce, with the
increase in costs passed on to consumers.
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