Just ahead of Earth Day on Friday, Amazon has announced investments in 37 more renewable energy projects around the world. The company says these will increase its renewable energy capacity by almost 30 percent, up from 12.2 gigawatts to 15.7 GW.
The company claims the new investments will help it to power its operations entirely with renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the original timeline. The latest projects are in the US, Spain, France, Australia, Canada, India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. They include wind farms, solar farms and eight solar rooftop installations on Amazon buildings. A 500 MW solar farm in Texas will be Amazon's largest renewable energy project to date in terms of capacity.
Amazon has now invested in 310 projects in 19 countries. It says that when they're all up and running, they'll generate enough energy to power 3.9 million homes. The quantity of carbon-free energy they'll generate will help avoid 17.3 million metric tons of emissions each year — the equivalent of taking more than 3.7 million combustion engine cars off roads.
In 2019, Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge, a vow to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. That's 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement's deadline. Along the more than 300 signatories that have joined the pledge are Microsoft, IBM and Best Buy.
Amazon said it will invest $2 billion into decarbonization efforts through the Climate Pledge Fund. Along with the accelerated timeline for fully switching to renewable energy, Amazon aims to make its shipments net-zero carbon. It hopes to be halfway to that goal by 2030 and to help it get there, the company placed an order with Rivian for 100,000 electric delivery vehicles.
Researchers have revealed a new thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell that converts heat to electricity with over 40 percent efficiency, performance nearly on par with traditional steam turbine power plants. The cells have the potential to be used in grid-scale "thermal batteries," generating energy dependably with no moving parts.
Thermophotovoltaic cells work by heating semiconducting materials enough to significantly boost the energy of photons. At high enough energies, those photos can kick an electron across the material's "bandgap," generating electricity. So far, TPV cells have achieved up to just 32 percent efficiency because they operate at lower temperatures.
By contrast, the new design from MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) takes power from white-hot heat sources between 1,900 to 2,400 degree Celsius (3,452 to 4,352 degrees F). To do that, it uses "high-bandgap" metal alloys sitting over a slightly lower-bandgap alloy.
The high-bandgap layer captures the highest-energy photons from a heat source and converts them to electricity, while lower-energy photons pass through the first layer and add to the voltage. Any photons that run the two-layer gauntlet are reflected by a mirror back to the heat source to avoid wasting energy.
This is an absolutely critical step on the path to proliferate renewable energy and get to a fully decarbonized grid.
Measuring the efficiency using a heat flux sensor, the team found that power varied with temperature. Between 1,900 to 2,400 degrees Celsius, the new TPV design produced electricity with about 40 percent efficiency.
Steam turbines can deliver the same efficiency, but are far more complicated and restricted to lower temperatures. "One of the advantages of solid-state energy converters are that they can operate at higher temperatures with lower maintenance costs because they have no moving parts," MIT Professor Asegun Henry told MIT News. "They just sit there and reliably generate electricity."
In a grid-scale thermal battery, the system would absorb excess energy from renewable sources like the sun and store it in heavily insulated banks of hot graphite. When needed, the TPV cells could then convert that heat to electricity and send it to the power grid. The experimental cell was just a square centimeter, so the team would have to ramp that up to around 10,000 square feet for grid-level power, but the technology already exists to create cells on that scale, Henry notes.
"Thermophotovoltaic cells were the last key step toward demonstrating that thermal batteries are a viable concept," he said. "This is an absolutely critical step on the path to proliferate renewable energy and get to a fully decarbonized grid."
The UK plans to increase the number of electric vehicle charging stations to 300,000 by 2030. That would increase the current number of charge points in the country by tenfold. The government has committed £1.6 billion ($2.1 billion) to the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy.
The effort to upgrade the charging network includes a focus on fast-charging stations for longer journeys and making EVs more viable for people without access to off-street parking. A previously announced Rapid Charging Fund has put £950 million ($1.25 billion) toward establishing a network of more than 6,000 fast-charging stations along England’s motorways by 2035. Under the strategy, £500 million ($658 million) has been earmarked for setting up charging stations in communities, including on-street locations.
New rules will mean that EV drivers can use contactless payments for charging, compare pricing and use apps to find stations. The UK will ban the sale of new fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2030, so a more expansive charging network will be vital to ease the transition to EVs.
Along with the environmental benefits of EVs, the government touted the plan as a way to create jobs and reduce the UK’s dependency on foreign sources of energy and oil. As is the case elsewhere, prices of gas and home energy have increased dramatically in the UK since Russia invaded Ukraine last month. Access to Russian oil and energy suppliers has been nixed in the wake of sanctions against the country.
For ICE (internal combustion) vehicles, higher a drag coefficient translates into lower fuel efficiency and more frequent trips to the pump. For EVs, a low drag coefficient is even more critical because it directly impacts the vehicle's driveable range, a continuing concern for many potential EV buyers. As such, designing optimally aerodynamic vehicles is in every automaker's interest but doing so does require the use of a specialized wind tunnel technologies, much like the $124 million state-of-the-art HALO facility Honda opened on Monday in Central Ohio.
HALO (Honda Automotive Laboratories of Ohio) is "the world's most advanced wind tunnel" according to Honda, offering three distinct testing capabilities — aerodynamics, aeroacoustics, and racing — with which to develop Honda and Acura products as well as conduct general science and research work with third parties.
Honda
"I can tell you our new HALO wind tunnel will be an incredible new asset to our engineers as well as others evolved in aerodynamic research in America, providing a critical new resource for future innovation," Jim Keller, EVP of Honda Development and Manufacturing of America said in a Friday press call. "This new wind tunnel and our safety research center will provide our R&D engineers with two world-class facilities in Ohio to support the design and development of new products."
When vehicles are operated in a wind tunnel, they drive on what is essentially a giant treadmill belt. These belts are designed to control the boundary layer between the floor and the vehicle, a critical factor in generating accurate aerodynamic data, Mike Unger, Wind Tunnel Lead at HALO, explained during the call. HALO uses two, 40-ton belt modules: a standard "wide" belt, which sits under the entire vehicle and works well for sedans and other low-riding vehicles, and the 5-belt system which puts one under each tire, a fifth under the whole vehicle and is meant for testing SUVs. Each can be swapped out for the other in under four hours.
Honda
For acoustics testing, the HALO utilizes more than 500 exterior microphones studded throughout the wind tunnel and another 54 mics within the vehicle itself. Thanks to a novel microphone array, Honda techs can switch the wind tunnel from aerodynamic testing to aeroacoustic testing in just half an hour — a process that used to take around half a day to complete.
Determining the frontal area of a new vehicle, a stat necessary to properly calibrate the tunnel's results, is done with lasers and optical cameras that precisely measure the vehicle's front and side proportions. The tunnel is also equipped with a 180-degree turntable, Unger said, "which allows us to test various, and sometimes extreme, yaw angles as well load the car as quickly and as efficiently as possible." There's also an 80-ton diagnostic tool.
Honda
"Essentially, it's a big giant big robotic arm that we can attach a sensor on the end of and locate anywhere in the tunnel," he continued. With it techs can "measure any kind of phenomena we're looking for — it could be pressure, velocity, sound, or any other thing... this tool will allow the test engineer to look into detailed phenomena to understand exactly what's going on with the flow field." The system is so precise that it can measure drag forces with a sensitivity of +/- 2.5 Newtons, roughly the weight of a standard D battery.
The tunnel itself is an eighth of a mile long with a test area measuring 3m x 5m x 15m, large enough to accommodate up to a full-size delivery van. It's 8m-diameter fan is outfitted with a dozen hollow carbon fiber fixed-pitch blades which spin up to 253 rpm, driven by a 5MW 6,700HP electric motor, and generates wind speeds in excess of 190 MPH.
Honda
Honda began development on the HALO facility in 2015 in what was initially an effort to mitigate the expenses the company was incurring flying its technicians and the prototypes being developed at the Honda R&D Center in Ohio, around the world in order to get access to suitable aerodynamic testing facilities, like the company's existing wind tunnel in Japan. Those considerations as well as "the arrival of the electrified era, made building Honda's own wind tunnel a smart decision," Wind Tunnel Business Strategy Lead, Chris Combs, said during the call.
The company does not plan to bogart its new facility's research capabilities, however. "Honda has partnered with the Transportation Research Center to form a consortium for the purpose of promoting aerodynamic research that will be shared amongst consortium members," Combs said. "We look forward to hosting college students in the future to advance in STEM careers and overall aerodynamic endeavors. It is anticipated that some non-auto parties will utilize the facility for projects focused on renewable energy like wind turbines and even architectural design."
Automakers have been pursuing the dream of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for decades — who wouldn't want a car that runs on renewable hydrogen and only emits water vapor? But many challenges, from designing cars that can easily hold the fuel, to setting up reliable hydrogen distribution, have made it difficult to turn that dream into a reality. But what if you used those fuel cells to set up a remote EV charging station, or to replace a traditional gas or diesel generator for a large camp? That's what GM is planning to do with its HYDROTEC fuel cell technology, the company announced today.
GM
GM's Mobile Power Generators, or MPGs, are pretty self descriptive: they'd basically let you bring large amounts of electricity anywhere without burning fossil fuels, or expanding a local power grid. It could be useful for concerts, movie sets, or neighborhoods that frequently lose power. (In my town outside of Atlanta, almost everyone owns a gas generator to deal with storm-related outages.)
The announcement also makes plenty of sense for GM, as it's already bringing its fuel cell technology to trucking, aerospace and rail partners. The company says the MPGs will be able to spit out 60 to 600 kilowatts without producing much noise or heat.
GM plans to show off an MPG-powered EV charging station in the middle of 2022, a project co-funded by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and the U.S. Army. Additionally, the California Energy Commission is exploring how MPGs could help provide energy during power shutdowns. GM is also working together with Renewable Innovations to build the EMPOWER rapid charger, which could deliver fast EV charging to existing stations without the need for huge infrastructure improvements. Taking things to an even more extreme level, there's a large MPG implementation that could potentially power large military camps and heavy-duty equipment. (And as a bonus, those camps can actually use the water the MPG emits.)
While it'll likely be years before MPGs can actually deployed, it's heartening to see GM explore uses for fuel cells outside of cars. Battery-powered EVs have evolved so quickly that hydrogen-powered cars don't have much of a future (sorry, Toyota). So it's about time we start considering other ways fuel cells could help.
Toyota has selected a site for its proposed $1.29 billion US battery manufacturing facility. On Monday, the automaker said it would build the plant on the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite, a tract of land located in Randolph County in central North Carolina. When the facility is complete sometime in 2025, it will consist of four production lines, each capable of producing batteries for 200,000 vehicles per year. Toyota plans to eventually expand the facility to produce enough power cells to support up to 1.2 million cars annually.
The plant is part of a broader $3.4 billion investment the automaker has earmarked to expand its battery production capabilities in the US. When Toyota first announced the $1.29 billion facility, it said it would create approximately 1,750 jobs. The company notes it picked Greensboro-Randolph Megasite for a handful of reasons. One of the more notable ones is that it’s a location with access to renewable energy. Toyota says it’s “committed” to using 100 percent clean energy to produce batteries at the facility.
The scale of the project is an acknowledgment by the automaker that it needs to diversify its electrification strategy. More so than any other automaker, Toyota invested significantly into fuel cell technology. So far, it has little to show for its efforts. Outside of California, you can’t buy its Mirai fuel-cell sedan. However, the company’s latest plan is to offer 70 different electric models, including 15 battery electric vehicles, by 2025.
It’s only a payday (or possibly two) away from the holiday season, and with supply difficulties for retailers, manufacturers and everyone in between, it might pay to get ahead of the crowd for some of the most desirable gifts.
While we can’t promise to source you a PS5 or OLED Switch, we’ve got ideas for the game streamer, the creative, the pet parent and more. Naturally, we’ve got camera, laptop and smartphone buying guidance, too. We’re Engadget, after all.
We also have the return of our popular sub-$100 gift selections, along with ideas for stocking stuffers that come in under $50. My pick would be Anker’s tiny Nano II charger. It’s USB-C and ready for high-speed device charging. If you’ve picked up a new phone in the last year and a half, you might have missed the in-box charger. This is probably faster at charging than your years-old Apple charging brick.
You’ve probably heard or seen DJI's gimbals, but rival Zhiyun actually carries more models — particularly those designed for mirrorless, DSLR and cinema cameras. Its three-axis Crane M3, designed for mirrorless cameras, is about the size of a water bottle and offers tilt, roll and pan axes, with locks for each. It works with smartphones and, Zhiyun claims, 90 percent of mirrorless cameras. It also has a quarter-inch adapter, so you can connect a professional microphone to an expansion base and run a second cable to the camera. It’s now available to order starting at $369 (£369) for the standard package.
Renewable sources may meet most power demands in 'advanced, industrialized nations'.
Wind and solar power could meet around 85 percent of US electricity needs, according to a paper published in Nature Communications. Batteries, capacity overbuilding and other storage options could increase that figure. The report found that most reliable systems, in which wind power is prevalent, can meet energy needs between 72 and 91 percent of the time in the countries they studied, and that's before any storage considerations. Add the capacity to store up to 12 hours of energy, and these renewable energy sources can meet between 83 and 94 percent of hourly energy needs.
There is a caveat though: The researchers noted even when wind and solar sources can power over 90 percent of a region's energy needs, there would still be hundreds of hours per year when demand isn't met.
Walmart, working with startup Gatik, has started its fully driverless box truck deliveries between its own locations on a fixed seven-mile loop in Bentonville, Arkansas. The route involves negotiating "intersections, traffic lights and merging on dense urban roads," the companies said.
The new service is part of Walmart's transition to a hub-and-spoke model with warehouses or fulfilment centers closer to customers. This means smaller warehouses, so "there is a growing need for doing repeated trips from the fulfilment centers to the pickup points," Gatik CEO Gautam Narang told CNBC.
You'll see smaller black bars on your TV during IMAX sequences.
You can expect to see Shang-Chi and an array of Marvel movies in movie-theater style large IMAX proportions later this week. The 1.90:1 IMAX aspect ratio will look up to 26 percent taller than the typical 2.35:1 widescreen format in Marvel films, so those annoying black bars will almost disappear while you're watching scenes shot in IMAX. It’s not properly IMAX, which is so square it has enormous black bars on the sides of your TV — see Zack Snyder's Justice League for how that goes.
Shang-Chi will come to the service on November 12th, along with 12 other IMAX-enhanced Marvel movies.
Ryzen chips for we mere commoners will have to wait.
AMD has unveiled its first processors based on its new Zen 4 architecture, and they promise a lot of brawn... at least for some users. AnandTech notes AMD has outlined its early Zen 4 roadmap during a virtual data center event, and the first two CPU families are Epyc chips, aimed at servers and other heavy-duty computing tasks.
The star of the show may be Bergamo. It's designed for cloud computing and emphasizes core density — AMD is promising up to 128 cores in a single CPU. This beastly chip won’t appear until the first half of 2023.
Wind and solar power could meet around 85 percent of US electricity needs, according to a paper published in Nature Communications. Batteries, capacity overbuilding and other storage options could increase that figure.
A blend of wind and solar power should be enough to meet most of the current energy needs in "advanced, industrialized nations," according to the study. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UCI), China’s Tsinghua University, the Carnegie Institution for Science and Caltech looked at 39 years of hourly energy demand data from 42 countries to determine whether there's enough wind and solar resources to meet requirements.
They found that most reliable systems, in which wind power is most prevalent, can meet energy needs in the countries they studied between 72 and 91 percent of the time, and that's before any storage considerations. Add the capacity to store up to 12 hours' worth of energy, and these renewable energy sources can meet between 83 and 94 percent of hourly energy needs. However, the researchers noted even when wind and solar sources can power over 90 percent of a region's energy needs, there would still be hundreds of hours per year where demand isn't met.
“Wind and solar could meet more than 80 percent of demand in many places without crazy amounts of storage or excess generating capacity, which is the critical point,” co-author Steven Davis, professor of Earth system science at UCI, said. “But depending on the country, there may be many multi-day periods throughout the year when some demand will need to be met by energy storage and other non-fossil energy sources in a zero-carbon future.”
There are geophysical challenges at play. The paper suggests it would be easier for larger countries closer to the equator to fully switch to sustainable power sources, since they can more reliably bank on having solar energy all year long. Germany, for instance, might struggle to meet most of its needs through wind and solar, since it's a relatively smaller country at a higher latitude.
One solution would be for neighboring countries to pool their resources. "A lot of consistency and reliability could be provided by a system that includes solar resources from Spain, Italy and Greece with bountiful wind available in the Netherlands, Denmark and the Baltic region," Dan Tong, assistant professor of Earth system science at Tsinghua University and lead author on the paper, said.
Many countries are cutting back on their reliance on fossil fuels, which is key to mitigating carbon emissions and limiting the impact of climate change. Europe generated more electricity from renewable sources in 2020 than it did from fossil fuels, according to a report from two green energy-focused think tanks.
As promised earlier in the year, Tesla is expanding access to its Supercharger charger network. Starting today, the company is opening 10 locations in the Netherlands to non-Tesla EVs as part of a pilot program. Provided you live in the country and you’ve installed the Tesla app on your phone (version 4.2.3 or later), you can use them to charge your car. The stations are located in Sassenheim, Apeldoorn Oost, Meerkerk, Hengelo, Tilburg, Duiven, Breukelen, Naarden, Eemnes and Zwolle.
The one thing to note about the pilot is it's only open to EV drivers who live in the Netherlands. However, if you drive a Tesla vehicle and you’re visiting the country, you can charge your car as normal at the stations. Additionally, how the program expands beyond this initial pilot will depend on congestion at the stations. “Future sites will only be opened to Non-Tesla vehicles if there is available capacity,” the company said.
On Monday, the company also put a non-Tesla port home charger on sale. Both the pilot and charger are a sign Tesla is looking outside of its ecosystem for revenue. That said, it may take a while before we see the automaker open its charging stations in the US to EVs from other companies since those use a proprietary connector.
Google's latest effort to help you make more environmentally friendly decisions is all about your power grid. The new Nest Renew program is a suite of features that look at the times of day when the electricity feeding into your home is cleaner and turning your compatible Nest thermostats on or off accordingly. Renew arrives in a by-invitation preview in the coming weeks, and will be available for free in the continental US when it launches publicly.
At the heart of Nest Renew is the understanding that at any given time, the power grid in your neighborhood contains a mix of clean and traditional energy. In the early afternoon, perhaps, there could be a higher concentration of electricity from solar sources, while a windier day could mean more power from turbines is coming through. Depending on the region, power grids could be getting their electricity from a diverse mix of sources. According to Nest product manager Jeff Gleeson, "a smart dynamic electric grid really needs smart homes."
Nest Renew will not only automate some of this decision-making for you, but it can also give you insights on the type of power coming into your home. First, a new feature called Energy Shift will let those with a Google account and compatible Nest Thermostat automatically activate heating or cooling during times when your grid is cleaner.
Google
Because Google can now see how carbon-intense a grid is, it can start cooling, say, earlier in the day when solar energy is more available (and your home is approaching your temperature limit). Gleeson told Engadget that the company doesn't think people will notice a difference with this change, and stresses that "customers are always in control."
If your thermostat kicks in before you want it to, you can always dial it back down, and you'll know the device is making a Renew-related decision thanks to a green leaf that will appear onscreen. For those whose energy provider charges based on time-of-use, this can also help you save money.
Nest has had the leaf symbol on its product for years as an indicator of more power-efficient temperature control. Now, you can earn leafs by doing things like using Energy Shift, joining monthly challenges to do things like running your laundry on cold. When you accumulate enough leafs to hit milestones, you can vote where Google sends its funds (from a list of its Energy Impact partners starting with non-profits GRID Alternatives and Elevate).
Google
In addition to automatic adjustments via your thermostat, Nest Renew will provide monthly "impact reports" that not only tell you the difference you're making, but also display when the electricity coming into your home is greener. With this data, you can choose to run the laundry, dishwasher or charge your devices earlier or later when your grid is cleaner.
Renew is a free opt-in program and works with the third-generation Nest Learning Thermostat, the Nest Thermostat E or the most recent Nest Thermostat. Google is also offering a Premium tier for $10 a month in select parts of the US. It will unlock a Clean Energy Match feature that will exchange renewable energy credits (RECs) for what it estimates to be the same amount of fossil fuel-based electricity you use at home each month. This way, even if clean energy isn't available when you need to use it, you can at least assuage your guilt over using non-renewable power. Premium members will also get a unified bill that shows their monthly subscription to the program as well as their usual utility charges.
Gleeson said Nest has been working on this program for years, and in that time it has teamed up with utilities and energy providers to encourage enrollment in residential programs, among other things. For Nest Renew, it's teamed up with eight Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems (DERMS) providers to help shape the program to meet their respective zero-carbon goals.
Through the Nest Thermostats, increased visibility and marketing and relevant rewards programs, Google hopes to get more people enrolled in green energy utilities offers and programs. The company also wants to help utilities "bring more renewables online" and accelerate the process either by supporting them in building or buying renewable infrastructure, according to head of energy partnerships Hannah Bascomb.
Google's slew of sustainability-minded announcements today demonstrate a continued commitment towards the "carbon-free future" that CEO Sundar Pichai wrote about a year ago. In what Pichai called "our third decade of climate action," Google plans to operate on carbon-free energy 24/7, help more than 500 cities reduce 1 gigaton of carbon emissions and enable its partners to reduce carbon emissions all by 2030. Nest Renew is a part of a wide-ranging set of updates today across Search, Maps and more to help Google's users make more-informed, environmentally friendly decisions.
