, ,

Solar Train Tracks, Speeding Up Solar Adoption, Google Bard w/ Ralph Bond

Show Notes 31 March 2023

Story 1: Here’s a creative idea – put solar panels between railroad tracks!

Source: Wonderfulengineering.com Story by Jannat Un Nisa

Link: https://wonderfulengineering.com/this-is-the-worlds-first-solar-panel-carpet-on-a-railway-track-and-it-may-generate-electricity/

  • Last week on KEX radio I talked about floating solar panels on water reservoirs, and this is another unusual placement idea.  ***See the end of the show notes for a list of the stories I did last week for KEX that you might enjoy***
  • A Swiss start-up called Sun-Ways will soon install solar panels between railroad tracks in the western part of Switzerland.
  • The idea is simple – why not install rugged solar panels in the space between railroad tracks across all, or part of, Switzerland’s 3,300-mile-long national rail network?   
  • And what if you devised a self-powered, multi-car, train-like vehicle that could lay down the solar panels, and then pick them up and store them when maintenance is required for the tracks – and then reinstall them?
  • That’s what Sun-Ways is proposing. 
  • Sun-Ways predicts that if Switzerland’s railroads had solar panels between their tracks that would generate one Terawatt-hour of solar energy per year, equivalent to around 2 percent of Switzerland’s total electric energy consumption. 
  • Imagine if we put solar panels between the approximately 160,000 miles of rail lines here in the United States! 
  • Using the Swiss model calculations, you could theoretically generate 48 Terawatt hours of power each year!  
  • The US uses about 4,000 Terawatt hours each year, so 48 is a tiny fraction, but heck, every bit helps. 

Story 2: New autonomous pile driving robot will accelerate solar farm construction

Source: Forbes Story by Heather Wishart-Smith

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/heatherwishartsmith/2023/03/20/built-robotics-unveils-autonomous-pile-driving-robot-expediting-solar-rollout/?sh=274dc9187591

See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Na6NF11iPc

  • The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act includes a goal to install 950 million solar panels in the US by 2030. 
  • Large solar farms require thousands of 12- to 16-foot-long steel support piles upon which the solar panels are mounted.
  • Traditional manual labor installation methods today can complete around 100 piles per day. 
  • To dramatically speed up this process a California-based outfit called Built Robotics this month introduced a huge autonomous, artificial intelligence-guided pile driving robot called the RPD 35, or Robotic Pile Driver 35.
  • To visualize this robot, picture a big, modified construction excavator with traditional tank-like treads equipped with a special device at the end of its arm that picks up steel “H” piles [or beams] which are stacked on wing-like platforms projecting from the front and rear of the robot.   
  • Designed to build large, utility-scale solar farms, the approximately 3-and-a-half-ton robot can autonomously:
    • survey the site, 
    • determine the optimal distribution and placement of piles, 
    • grab a pile from one of the two onboard storage “wings” 
    • drive the piles into the ground to a depth of eight feet deep with less than an inch tolerance, 
    • and then inspect them at a rate of up to 300 piles per day with a two-person monitoring crew. 
  • The company’s goal is to help build utility-scale solar farms in a faster, safer, and less expensive way – Making solar viable in even the most remote locations. 
  • Be sure to check out the YouTube video Built Robotics has showing this bad boy in action!

Story 3: More artificial intelligence in your life – First we had OpenAI’s ChatGPT, now there’s Google’s Bard

Source: eWeek.com            Story by Drew Robb

Link: https://www.eweek.com/artificial-intelligence/chat-gpt-vs-google-bard/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chat-gpt-vs-google-bard-generative-ai-comparison

  • Recently we talked about Microsoft injecting artificial intelligence capabilities into its Bing and Edge browsers using technology called ChatGPT from an outfit called OpenAI. 
  • The competition is now really heating up with Google recently announcing [in late February] its alternative called “Bard”.  
  • I got an email from the Google Bard team with a link to sign up for early access, which I got early this week, and I’ve been having fun playing around with it.  For example [see the screen grab below] I asked Bard to write a silly kid’s story:
  • Both ChatGPT and Google’s Bard are generative artificial intelligence tools.
  • Generative AI is a type of AI system that, in response to user prompts and questions, is capable of generating text, images, or other media, and also analyze or summarize content from huge knowledge databases. 
  • The term generative AI captured a lot of media attention when OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022.
  • Experts have been, and continue, debating the good and bad things about generative AI, but all agree this emerging technology is going to change our digital lives. 
  • Regardless of how this works out over time, Google’s Bard AI platform is expected to rapidly gain users. 
  • That’s because Google has vast expertise in algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Story 4: Scientists invent oxygen-ion battery as a longer lasting alternative to lithium-ion batteries

Source:  TechXplore.com Based on Vienna University of Technology announcement

Link: https://techxplore.com/news/2023-03-oxygen-ion-battery.html

Source: Popular Mechanics Story by Jackie Appel

Link: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a43391877/oxygen-ion-battery-could-change-energy/

  • Today lithium-ion battery technology is everywhere, in electric cars, smartphones, you name it.
  • But researchers keep hunting for alternatives.
  • Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology have now succeeded in developing an oxygen-ion battery alternative that offers important advantages over lithium-ion batteries. 
  • While the new oxygen-ion battery technology does not offer the high energy densities of lithium-ion batteries, it does offer a major breakthrough advantage.
  • Time out, let’s talk about energy density in a battery.  
  • Energy density is the measure of how much energy a battery contains in proportion to its weight. This measurement is typically presented in Watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg). A watt-hour is a measure of electrical energy that is equivalent to the consumption of one watt for one hour.
  • Power density is the measure of how quickly the energy can be delivered, rather than how much stored energy is available. Energy density is often confused with power density, so it is important to understand the distinction between the two.
  • As we all know, the lithium-ion battery in your phone or other products, gradually loses storage capacity, and ultimately dies. 
  • But the storage capacity of an oxygen-ion battery can be regenerated to offer an extremely long service life. 
  • Another way the new oxygen-ion batteries differ from lithium-ion technology is the use of ceramic materials within the battery, which play a role in the generation of electrical output. 
  • I’m going to geek out for a moment to explain what the ceramics do:
  • When an electric voltage is applied, the oxygen ions migrate from one ceramic material to another within the battery, after which they can be made to migrate back again, thus generating electric current.
  • The significance of the use of ceramic materials goes beyond just a technical composition difference. 
  • Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which can present a fire hazard, the use of ceramic materials in an oxygen-ion battery makes them non-flammable.
  • In addition, unlike lithium-ion batteries, making an oxygen-ion battery does not require the use of rare-earth materials, which are expensive or can only be extracted in an environmentally harmful way.
  • When it comes to how this new battery technology will be used, the Vienna University of Technology team says oxygen-ion batteries would not be good candidates for small devices, like your smartphone.
  • Instead, they believe oxygen-ion batteries would be an excellent  solution for large-scale energy storage systems, for example huge banks of batteries to store electrical energy from wind or solar farm sources.

Topics from last week’s KEX radio I covered that you may enjoy exploring:

Story 1: Researchers have created world’s fastest walking humanoid robot

Source: Interesting Engineering Story by Baba Tamim

Link: https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/artemis-worlds-fastest-robot

See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTkupawAG6w

  • Humanoid robots have been a big deal in recent years with private industry and academic outfits around the world competing to outdo each other.
  • And here’s the most recent competitive milestone:
  • Robotics researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have created a cutting-edge humanoid robot called ARTEMIS that has been timed walking  about 6 feet, 11 inches per second, making it the fastest walking humanoid robot in the world!  
  • The speed walking of this 85-pound, nearly five-foot-tall robot is not the only advanced feature this bot has to offer!
  • ARTEMIS has exceptional balance while walking on uneven terrain due to its groundbreaking actuators designed to function like human biological muscles.
  • Actuators are mini electric, pneumatic, or hydraulic devices that use energy to create motion in a robot.  
  • Most humanoid robots use stiff, position-controlled actuators.
  • ARTEMIS’ actuators are more fluid, springy, and force controlled.  
  • As a result, it can quickly [and that’s the key word here “quickly”] sprint, jump, and walk on uneven and unstable surfaces.
  • Even when ARTEMIS is violently shoved its actuators keep the robot upright.
  • Folks, I recommend checking out the UCLA team’s video to see this achievement in action!

Story 2: New drug rapidly counteracts intoxication, quickly sobers up drunk mice

Source: ScienceAlert.com Story by David Nield

Link: https://www.sciencealert.com/new-drug-counteracts-intoxication-rapidly-sobers-up-drunk-mice

  • Imagine someday rapidly reducing the effects of drunkenness or alcohol poisoning with a single injection in the arm.
  • Using mice as their test subjects, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center discovered that a hormone called fibroblast growth factor 21 increases alertness in the brain.
  • Tests on the mice revealed that this hormone  fights the drowsiness and lack of coordination brought on by drunkenness.
  • As the livers of mice and humans produce the same hormone the researchers contend it could do this for us too.  
  • Ultimately, the goal is to determine an injectable dosage level of the hormone that would dramatically accelerate rousing a human suffering from alcohol poisoning or extreme drunkenness.
  • MARK If this pans out, I can see hypodermic syringes with fibroblast growth factor 21 being in the medical kits of future first responders. 

Story 3: Artificial intelligence and machine learning offer recyclers a new way to separate compostable and conventional plastics

Source: Frontiersin.org   

Link: https://blog.frontiersin.org/2023/03/14/separating-compostable-conventional-plastic-waste/

  • Most of today’s plastic recycling facilities are remarkable places where waste plastics on conveyor belts are shuttled under sophisticated optical scanners that identify plastic from other non-plastic contaminants. 
  • After the optical scanning step workers then conduct manual sorting to improve overall sorting results.
  • This process generally works well, but there’s a big problem.
  • Today’s optical scanners often can’t tell the difference between compostable plastics [which offer a great recycling advantage] and conventional petroleum-based plastics.
  • Okay, so why is it important for a recycling system to accurately identify and separate out compostable plastic?
  • Because unlike conventional plastics, compostable plastics [which are made with a key ingredient derived from dextrose, a sugar produced by plants] will biodegrade in a compost site. 
  • So, to tackle this sorting challenge, researchers at University College London recently announced they used machine learning to create an artificial intelligence system that can accurately identify compostable plastics from conventional plastics.
  • Time out, what is “machine learning”?  
  • Machine learning refers to training an artificial intelligence system to make predictions and decisions without being explicitly programmed.
  • After completing an extensive machine learning process, the University College London’s proposed  AI system model achieved perfect accuracy identifying compostable from conventional plastic materials when the samples measured about ½-by-½ inch or larger.

Story 4: Floating solar panels on water reservoirs, it’s an idea gaining traction

Source:  CleanTechnica.com Story by Steve Hanley

Link: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/03/16/new-study-gives-big-boost-to-floating-solar/

Source: Nature Sustainability  

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01089-6.epdf

  • This is not a science or technology blockbuster news item, but I still wanted to highlight this important new proposal.
  • A recently released study authored by an international team of environmental experts promotes the idea of floating solar panels on many of the world’s water reservoirs to provide a significant share of the renewable energy the world needs.  
  • The study notes floating photovoltaic solar panels on water reservoirs offers several advantages including:
  • Lower cost of installation as compared to land-based solar farms.
  • And, most compelling of all, reducing water evaporation by covering all or part of a reservoir with solar panels. 
  • The team estimates that if 30% of the world’s nearly 115,000 water reservoirs were covered with floating solar panels it would generate approximately 9,500 Terawatt-Hours per year. 
  • And MARK that’s a lot!  One Terawatt-hour is equal to one million megawatt-hours.  
  • Okay, let’s put this into perspective by using an example I think we can all immediately relate to:  
  • Right now, the United States consumes about four thousand Terawatt Hours a year!  
  • So, that’s less than half what the researchers predict could be generated in one year’s time if 30% of the world’s reservoirs were covered with solar panels!

For more info, interviews, reviews, news, radio, podcasts, video, and more, check out ComputerAmerica.com!