A team of researchers from Sydney’s University of New South Wales and the South Australian Museum have investigated how the reversal of Earth’s magnetic pole about 42,000 years could have changed earth’s atmosphere. CNN reports: “Using the ancient trees we could measure, and date, the spike in atmospheric radiocarbon levels caused by the collapse of Earth’s magnetic field,” Chris Turney, a…
Tag: electric power
Greenpeace Claims Fukushima Water Release Could Change Human DNA
An anonymous reader quotes CNN: Contaminated water that could soon be released into the sea from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant contains radioactive carbon with the potential to damage human DNA, environmental rights organization Greenpeace has warned. The environmental group claims that the 1.23 million metric tons of water stored at the plant — scene of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi…
Microsoft Used Hydrogen Fuel Cells To Power a Data Center For Two Days Straight
Microsoft announced Monday that hydrogen fuel cells powered a row of its datacenter servers for 48 consecutive hours, bringing the company one step closer toward its goal of becoming “carbon negative” by 2030. Engadget reports: The idea to explore hydrogen fuel cells originated in 2018, when researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO used a proton exchange membrane…
America Can Achieve Its 90% Clean Energy Goals 15 Years Early
destinyland writes: Most studies aim for deep decarbonization of electric power systems by 2050,” argues a new study from the Center for Environmental Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. But they’ve produced a new report — “the first to show we can get there in half that time with the latest renewable energy and battery cost data.” “Plummeting costs…
Why Remote Work Is So Hard — and How It Can Be Fixed
Cal Newport, writing at the New Yorker: Technological transitions often stumble when we expect them to sprint. In 1989, the Stanford economist Paul David wanted to understand why so many companies were so slow to adopt computer technology; for historical perspective, he turned to the history of the electric dynamo, which had been invented around a hundred years before, and which,…
Tesla’s Secret Batteries Aim To Rework the Math For Electric Cars and the Grid
Electric car maker Tesla plans to introduce a new low-cost, long-life battery in its Model 3 sedan in China later this year or early next that it expects will bring the cost of electric vehicles in line with gasoline models, and allow EV batteries to have second and third lives in the electric power grid. Reuters reports: For months, Tesla Chief…