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This month we exhibited the IRI electrotherapy
products, books, DVDs, and reports at the Natural Living
Expo here in the Washington DC area (Fairfax VA). It was
a pleasure to talk to everyone about our mission, products and
publications. I even gave a one hour Seminar Training on
Modern Meditation which, if you missed it, is also
available on YouTube for free online at www.tinyurl.com/ModernMeditation. I include a lot of great
scientific findings about the health and brain benefits from
learning this three step technique that anyone can do on a
regular basis, especially to avoid the usual “cortical thinning”
with advanced age.
Another accomplishment this month was my
participation in the 3rd Online International Conference
on Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change on
November 15-16, 2021. For this event, they accepted my
recorded www.tinyurl.com/ValoneClimateVideo presentation (from our
COFE12 Zoom conference) which is full of dynamic facts and
quantitative predictions of climate warming and carbon capture
solutions.
Today, we have a breakthrough in Story #1 with the
first time testing in-orbit of a new electric ion propulsion
technology. Published in Nature magazine as an
Open Access article just a few days ago, the In-orbit
demonstration of an iodine electric propulsion system | Nature, uses solid iodine that
requires no pressure to keep it stable since it is kept at below
100 °C to keep it from melting. And of course, outer space is
also pretty cold as well. The space tech company ThrustMe, already has an impressive
portfolio of iodine thrusters available, all in the millinewton
range which is up to 500 watts.
Story #2 offers another innovation with a solution
to the lithium-ion battery source issue. The University of Texas
at Autin has successfully developed a novel polymer membrane containing
crown ethers – chemically functionalized ligands – to pull
lithium through an aqueous brine solution with the highest
selectivity ever documented for a dense, water-swollen polymer.
Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, Physics World featured the story a month ago. A
related article on the topic offers a perspective on the lithium
market: Process innovations
benefit battery manufacture – Physics World .
Story #3 brings us the ongoing excitement of the
flying car promise by various manufacturers. Now Japan is set to
start producing the SkyDrive SD-03 Flying Vehicle |
SkyDrive Inc. (skydrive2020.com) by 2025 with an
environmentally compatible, zero-emission electric aircraft
structure. Will your place of employment offer a landing pad with
a charging station for you?
Story #4 is huge, mainly because terawatts are huge.
The surprise for such a big production of up to 36 TWh per year
is that the Webber Energy Group at the U of Texas at Austin are
talking only about Rights-Of-Way (ROW) around “highway
exits” using an estimate from a new highway solar evaluation
tool Solar - The Ray |
Let's drive the future. - The Ray | Let's drive the future. The Ray produces a graph
that gives Texas, Illinois, and California the highest
availability with over 1.75 TWh per year for each of them. The
implication is that such locations can serve as charging stations
perhaps for up to 12 million passenger electric vehicles. A
related story https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2021/09/10/solar-in-uncommon-spaces/ offers other great insights,
such as covering a water reservoir with floating solar panels
that also reduces evaporation.
Story #5 also offers a wow moment with a rental car company this month
ordering 100,000 Teslas. Hertz therefore offers customers this
month the option of renting an electric vehicle (Tesla Model 3
sedan). The sale has boosted Tesla’s car company evaluation to
over $1 trillion which is quite remarkable, showing that Elon
Musk was really a visionary. This story is all over the internet,
so an open access version may be preferable, such as Hertz to buy
100,000 Tesla cars in push to offer electric vehicles - CBS News
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1) New Electric Propulsion Engine For Spacecraft
Tested In Orbit for the First Time
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ScienceAlert.com November 2021
Full
in-orbit operation of a satellite-powered by iodine gas has now
been carried out by space tech company ThrustMe, and the technology promises to
lead to satellite propulsion systems that are more efficient and
affordable than ever before. "Iodine is significantly more
abundant and cheaper than xenon, and has the added advantage that
it can be stored unpressurized as a solid," says Dmytro
Rafalskyi, the CTO and co-founder of ThrustMe.
Journal Article in Nature
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2) New Way of Extracting Lithium from Biological
Systems
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Physics World November 2021
A new way
to extract lithium from contaminated water could make this
technologically important metal much easier to produce. The
technique, which involves passing aqueous brines through
lithium-selective polymeric membranes, works in a way that mimics
the potassium channels that regulate the balance of ions in
biological systems.
Lithium
has several applications in low-carbon energy and is widely
employed in electrochemical technologies. Lithium-ion batteries,
for example, dominate today’s market for rechargeable power
storage thanks to the element’s low mass, large reduction
potential and high energy density.
ARTICLE IN PNAS (National Academy of Sciences
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3) Flying Car Ready for Sale in Japan by 2025
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OTScoemce/cp, November 2021
A flying
car has gained the first safety
certificate issued by Japan, allowing them to
commercialize their eVTOL vehicles as soon as 2025. This
marks the first flying car to reach this stage in Japan,
and could pave the way for this decade to be the decade of
flying cars.
SkyDrive’s eVTOL electric
flying car concept is currently represented by the SD-03, which made a successful manned
flight demonstration in August 2020. Carrying just a single seat,
the SD-03 is powered by eight propellers in
a quadcopter formation and has a range of around 10
minutes flight time, reaching top speeds of 30 miles per hour
(48 kilometers per hour)
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4) Highway Side Solar Can Generate Terawatt-hours of
Energy
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Scitech.com November 2021
The study
found that installing solar panels at highway exits could generate
up to 36 TWh per year. That is enough to power 12 million passenger
electric vehicles, and has an estimated value of energy of $4
billion per year, said Esri.
Installing
solar arrays at interchanges, exits, rest areas, visitor centers,
which are maintained by state governments, can be challenging due
to safety, environmental, and future land-use concerns. To address
this, The Ray partnered with Esri to configure a solar mapping tool
that analyzes how suitable and economically valuable a given ROW
location might be.
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5) Hertz and Tesla Team Up
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In
the single largest purchase
of electric vehicles ever, Hertz plunked down an order for 100,000
Teslas worth about $4.2 billion. In another first, Tesla closed the day up more
than 12% with a market value of $1.03 trillion, putting it in a league with
Apple, Microsoft (LinkedIn's parent company), Amazon and Alphabet.
Starting in November, Hertz customers will be able to rent Model 3
sedans in major U.S. markets and parts of Europe. The move by Hertz,
which recently emerged from bankruptcy, is part of a plan to
electrify half of its fleet, including trucks.
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