This past summer, a plane went into a stomach-churning ascent and plunge 30,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico. The goal was not thrill-seeking, but something more genuinely daring: for about 25 seconds at a time, the parabolic flight lifted the occupants into a state of simulated weightlessness, allowing a high-tech printer to spit out cardiac stem cells into a two-chambered, simplified structure of an infant’s heart.
Continue reading… “The factories of the future could float in space”
Futurist Thomas Frey: In 2002, when Dr. Bor Jang, a little-known researcher in Akron, Ohio, filed his patent for graphene, few people had a clue as to how revolutionary it would be. Certainly not the people at the Nobel Foundation who forgot to check the patent registry and instead awarded the Nobel Prize for graphene to scientists Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov from the University of Manchester.
As the poster child for the emerging new super materials industry, graphene is a form of ultra thin carbon just one atom thick. If you can imagine something a million times thinner than a single sheet of paper, you get the picture.
Continue reading… “How graphene is going to transform the way we get power”
Scientists at the University of Glasgow have invented a robot skin that surpasses human flesh.
Professor Ravinder Dahiya and his team created a silicone and graphine skin which provides haptic feedback to the user. The thin layer of graphine acts as a sensor, making the electronic skin (e-skin) very sensitive to touch. It’s also flexible and cheap to manufacture.
Continue reading… “Scientists just made electronic skin that’s better than human skin”
Falling costs of electric vehicles and solar panels could halt worldwide growth in demand for oil and coal by 2020, a new report has suggested. A scenario that takes into account the latest cost reduction projections for the green technologies, and countries’ pledges to cut emissions, finds that solar power and electric vehicles are “game changers” that could leave fossil fuels stranded.
Continue reading… “Electric cars and cheap solar ‘could halt fossil fuel growth by 2020’”
At this rate, just about every man-made surface there is could be covered in solar panels in the future. Yesterday, Tourouvre-au-Perche, a small town in northern France, opened what is likely the first road paved in solar panels in the world, the Guardian reported.
Continue reading… “World’s first solar panel road opened in France”
Like some kind of 21st century Willy Wonka, audacious entrepreneur Elon Muskchose a prime spot on the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot tour to unveil his latest attempt to energize an industry — roofs that generate solar power but look like no other.
Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Motors and chairman of SolarCity, showcased a line of high-design solar roof tiles that would replace clunky solar panels and tie into an upgraded version of the Tesla wall-mounted battery for those times when the sun doesn’t shine. The glass solar shingles resemble French slate, Tuscan barrel tile or more conventional roofing materials with a textured or smooth surface.
A public square in Sandpoint, Idaho now has what looks like a light-up dance floor — 30 hexagonal tiles with flashing LEDs.
But each tile is actually a solar panel, and collectively, the tiles will soon power a nearby fountain and restroom, according to Spokane-based news station KREM 2.
Continue reading… “Snow-melting solar roads being tested publicly for the first time in US”
Water is our most precious resource. We may take this for granted, in developed regions but some 2.8 billion people around the world are affected by the scarcity of clean drinking water.
A tiny new device may help change that. Developed by researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator at Stanford University, the device is about half the size of a postage stamp and uses solar energy to disinfect water with bacterial contamination. The researchers reported their experiments in a paper this week in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Continue reading… “This tiny solar-powered device kills 99.999 percent of bacteria”
Eon Musk has confirmed the next step in the evolution of sustainable energy: Rather than adding solar panels to an existing roof, the panels will BE the roof. What seems like an obvious progression for this technology is actually a unique move in the market.
Continue reading… “Solar Panels Will Be Your New Roof says Elon Musk”
There will soon be a personal craft that can take off and land vertically. It will be electric and seat two people, and is the starting point for what is hoped will be a generation of environmentally friendly and quiet planes. CEO Daniel Wiegand is wanting the plane to be suitable for daily use as an airport is not needed.
Continue reading… “Lilium: The first electrical vertical take-off and landing plane”
Ray Kurzweil has made a number of predictions that have been surprisingly correct in the last few decades. His newest prediction, made at a medical technology conference, is that in a little over a decade solar dominate the energy arena. That may be difficult to believe considering it currently only supplies 2% of global energy.
Continue reading… “Ray Kurzweil predicts Solar Will Dominate Energy Within 12 Years”
Developing cheap energy storage is a critical step in moving to renewables and away from fossil fuels as the primary source of electricity: it’s the only way such intermittent sources can supply power to the grid when the wind’s not blowing and the sun’s not shining.
Continue reading… “Grid storage technology helps to integrate renewables”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
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