Solutions

One Concern Uses AI to Streamline Disaster Relief Efforts

Fri, 2018-11-16 23:25 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Image: One Concern

fastcompany.com - by Katharine Schwab - November 15, 2018

. . . One Concern is launching a machine learning platform that provides cities with specialized maps to help emergency crews decide where to focus their efforts in a flood. The maps update in real-time based on data about where water is flowing to estimate where people need help the most. It’s the latest in a wave of AI-powered tools aimed at helping cities prepare for an era of severe, and increasingly frequent, disasters.

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Our platform provides unprecedented situational awareness and actionable insights for decision-makers.

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How a ‘Solar Battery’ Could Bring Electricity to Rural Areas

Thu, 2018-09-27 21:44 — Kathy Gilbeaux

New solar flow battery with a 14.1 percent efficiency. Photo: David Tenenbaum, UW-Madison

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Chem - 14.1% Efficient Monolithically Integrated Solar Flow Battery

theverge.com - by Angela Chen - September 27, 2018

Solar energy is becoming more and more popular as prices drop, yet a home powered by the Sun isn’t free from the grid because solar panels don’t store energy for later. Now, researchers have refined a device that can both harvest and store solar energy, and they hope it will one day bring electricity to rural and underdeveloped areas.

The problem of energy storage has led to many creative solutions, like giant batteries. For a paper published today in the journal Chem, scientists trying to improve the solar cells themselves developed an integrated battery that works in three different ways.

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This woman was struggling to find fresh food. She never expected this solution.

Sun, 2018-09-23 22:57 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Image via Upworthy

CLICK HERE - The GrowHaus

upworthy.com - by Sam Dylan Finch - August 31, 2018

How do you get healthy food on the table when you can't find any?

This is a question that Ortilia Lujan Flores had grappled with many times before.

She wanted affordable, nutritious food, but lived in a neighborhood that didn’t have an accessible grocery store.

Flores couldn't drive, which limited the few food options she had. "There was nowhere to go," she explains.

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Super Cheap Earth Element to Advance New Battery Tech to the Industry

Thu, 2018-09-20 07:08 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Purdue researcher Jialiang Tang helped resolve charging issues in sodium-ion batteries that have prevented the technology from advancing to industry testing and use. Credit: Purdue University Marketing and Media

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Ultrasound-assisted synthesis of sodium powder as electrode additive to improve cycling performance of sodium-ion batteries

phys.org - by Kayla Wiles - September 19, 2018

Most of today's batteries are made up of rare lithium mined from the mountains of South America. If the world depletes this source, then battery production could stagnate.

Sodium is a very cheap and earth-abundant alternative to using lithium-ion batteries that is also known to turn purple and combust if exposed to water—even just water in the air.

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Resilience Hubs White Paper - Shifting Power to Communities and Increasing Community Capacity

Tue, 2018-08-28 18:08 — Kathy Gilbeaux

CLICK HERE - Resilience Hubs White Paper - Shifting Power to Communities and Increasing Community Capacity (10 page .PDF document)

usdn.org

Summary

Resilience Hubs are community-serving facilities augmented to:

1. support residents and

2. coordinate resource distribution and services before, during, or after a natural hazard event.

They leverage established, trusted, and community-managed facilities that are used year-round as neighborhood centers for community-building activities. Designed well, Resilience Hubs can equitably enhance community resilience while reducing GHG emissions and improving local quality of life. They are a smart local investment with the potential to reduce burden on local emergency response teams, improve access to health improvement initiatives, foster greater community cohesion, and increase the effectiveness of community-centered institutions and programs.

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Solar on Every Home? NREL Outlines Pathways to Ultra Low-Cost Residential Solar

Wed, 2018-08-22 07:40 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Figure 1. Average estimated annual residential rooftop PV market capacity potential from 2017 – 2030 (Source: NREL)

sepapower.org - by Jeffrey Cook - August 16, 2018

If the solar industry reaches this Department of Energy (DOE) target, it could dramatically alter the energy market and present a future where residential PV becomes a standard, cost-effective home installation, versus a luxury or long-term investment. A recent NREL report — Cost-Reduction Roadmap for Residential Solar Photovoltaics (PV), 2017-2030 — models a set of pathways that the industry could follow to realize this future. The analysis focuses on two key markets for residential PV cost reduction: installing PV at time of roof replacement and installing PV at time of new construction. These two market segments were selected because each offers significant cost reduction opportunities while representing a 30 gigawatt (GW) annual market nationwide (see Figure 1).

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