Breakthrough: Artificial leaves could create sustainable fuel
Inspired by photosynthesis, Cambridge University scientists have developed a leaf-like device that uses water, light and carbon dioxide to create a clean-burning liquid fuel. They say floating solar farms could use their zero-carbon process to create synthetic and sustainable fuels that will displace fossil energy sources in hard-to-electrify sectors such as marine and aircraft fuels.
After 10 years of development, researchers say tests demonstrate that these devices can transform sunlight into fuel “as efficiently as plant leaves.” Their solution may also yield additional benefits, such as cleaning polluted waterways, providing water and fuel to remote coastal communities, or creating cleaner plastics and fertilizers.
Battery-less EVs could save space, reduce costs
Tesla and a few Chinese automakers are investigating a new solution to EV drivers’ range anxiety. Instead of building bigger, heavier batteries, they’re integrating battery functions into the automobile’s frame. China-based CATL is working on creating cell-to-chassis (CTC) technology, in which the battery, chassis and underbody of an EV work as one, eliminating standard battery packs and enabling ranges of 1,000 kilometres per charge – as well as roomier interiors. Tesla claims CTC technology will allow vehicles to save 370 parts – reducing vehicle body weight by 10% and cutting battery costs 7%.
“If nature can grow limestone, why can’t we?”
More than 7% of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions go to producing concrete. But U.S. researchers are making carbon-neutral concrete by replacing quarried limestone with “biogenic limestone” produced by microalgae.
Lead researcher Wil Srubar of the University of Colorado’s Living Materials Lab got the idea while snorkelling coral reefs in Thailand. Coral is made of limestone from the hard outer skeletons of invertebrates called polyps. “If nature can grow limestone,” he asks, “why can’t we?”
Srubar estimates that two million acres of open ponds could meet the U.S.’s annual concrete needs. That’s 1% of the land used to grow corn, he says.
CPP invests in a faux-meat future
Would you invest in a Colorado company that makes faux-chicken cutlets and steaks from mushroom roots? You’re already in. Toronto-based CPP Investments, which oversees the Canada Pension Plan’s $500-billion nest egg, just joined a US$150-million investment round for Boulder, Colorado–based Meati Foods. Meati’s alternative proteins went on sale in July at three Colorado supermarkets and an upscale fast-food chain named Birdcall.
Meati’s goal is to cut the carbon out of protein: at scale, the firm’s technology will produce the meat equivalent of 4,500 cows every 24 hours while using less than 1% of the water and land required for equivalent meat production.
Fast-charging EVs moving forward, slowly
Consumers who’ve put off buying electric vehicles because of the long wait while the battery charges, rejoice! Researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory have devised a way to charge EV batteries to 90% within 10 minutes.
The lithium-ion batteries found in EVs are normally damaged by fast charging. But researchers using machine learning have identified the specific conditions that lead to battery failures – and used that data to optimize the amount of energy they could quickly put into a battery cell. This technology may lead to new EV battery designs, but they’re probably five years away.
