Chris Hemsworth’s new Limitless collection on wholesome dwelling is unspooling on Disney+ tonight. Which means the time is ripe to verify in on the work of vitality storage pioneer John Goodenough, who remains to be arduous at work after celebrating his one hundredth birthday this 12 months. The connection is longevity, as you will note. When you determine to binge all six episodes directly, make sure to avoid wasting vitality for the ultimate chapter. It is stuffed with surprises.
The Particular person Behind The Lithium-Ion Battery
Professor John Goodenough of the College of Texas at Austin is broadly credited with the work main as much as the lithium-ion vitality storage breakthrough.
“He recognized and developed the crucial supplies that offered the high-energy density wanted to energy moveable electronics, initiating the wi-fi revolution,” explains UT.
“In 1979, Goodenough confirmed that through the use of lithium cobalt oxide because the cathode of a lithium-ion rechargeable battery, it will be attainable to attain a excessive density of saved vitality with an anode aside from metallic lithium,” UT provides, noting that Goodenough received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019 for his work, amongst an extended checklist of different prizes and recognitions.
You’re By no means Too Outdated To Invent New Power Storage Expertise
CleanTechnica caught up with the inventor in 2015, after we caught wind of a brand new vitality storage invention cooked up by Goodenough and his workforce. At an age when most individuals live out Episode 6 of Limitless (spoiler alert!), Goodenough got here up with a brand new sodium-ion battery primarily based on NaFe(SO4)2, which is the components for Eldfellite, a mineral present in Iceland after a volcano erupted (for these of you holding rating at residence, that was the Eldfell eruption of 1973).
Since then, sodium-ion expertise has been a frequent visitor on the pages of CleanTechnica. The US Division of Power is amongst these choosing up the sodium-ion ball and working with it. The company’s Pacific Northwest Nationwide Laboratory, for instance, has been tweaking the components to increase the lifespan of sodium-ion batteries.
In the meantime, UT has additionally performed a number one position in Teague Egan’s new EnergyX vitality storage enterprise, which launched in 2018 to leverage a brand new lithium extraction technique resulting in solid-state battery expertise as a lifespan-enhancer.
This startup is not any small potatoes. Amongst different affiliations, EnergyX has an R&D partnership with the MWET (Middle for Supplies for Water and Power Methods) laboratory at UT. The corporate additionally has unique rights to a collection of applied sciences developed by groups from Monash College, CSIRO (the Australian Nationwide Laboratory), UT beneath a $10.75 million grant from the US Division of Power.
Battling The Local weather Disaster Thoughts Recreation
That’s peanuts. Final month, Reuters reported that EnergyX acquired a dedication of $450 million from the $3.4 billion various funding group World Rising Markets Group, which can turn out to be useful as the corporate lays plans to go public inside the subsequent 12 months or so.
“EnergyX is one in all a number of firms growing its personal model of a direct lithium extraction (DLE) expertise, aiming to provide the metallic much less expensively and with a smaller environmental footprint than conventional open-pit mines and evaporation ponds,” Reuters explains.
If all goes based on plan, GEMG will exhibit how rapidly the arc of worldwide financial decarbonization can bend, now that the large bucks are behind it.
That’s an essential level to bear in mind because the local weather disaster heats up and the “local weather doomerism” social media machine revs up. The relentless pounding of we-are-so-fkd messaging can put a damper on grassroots local weather activists and suck public help away from coverage makers, buyers and innovators.
Final spring, for instance, BBC reporter Marco Silva took be aware of apocalyptic messages on social media that may simply foster emotions of stress, nervousness, and despair, resulting in inaction.
We deliver this up as a result of Limitless takes on the stress issue, and we had an opportunity to interview Columbia College Professor Modupe Akinda, the stress skilled who talked Chris Hemsworth previous his nervousness about engaging in a specific process.
Because the Director of the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Middle for Management & Ethics, Akinda research the psychology and physiology of stress and nervousness. The massive query is why some folks buckle beneath strain and change into frozen in a morass of tension, whereas others double down and thrive.
Akinda has some solutions. In an unique interview with CleanTechnica final week, she described the sort of mindset that may assist stimulate optimistic, can-do responses to the local weather disaster.
Akinda emphasised that the traditional pathways for managing stress are discount, avoidance, or denial. That’s not going to work with the local weather disaster.
“Being frozen is likely one of the outcomes of being taught that stress is debilitating and is dangerous for us,” she stated. “However stress might be enhancing. So acknowledge it — acknowledge your stress, and take into consideration the psychology you have interaction in.”
Quite than heading for meals, drink, and different acquainted coping methods, Akinda advises people who find themselves burdened over the local weather disaster to take a step again and bear in mind why they’re burdened.
“Individuals are burdened as a result of they care,” she stated. “Get again to the underlying cause why you care. That offers you a way of goal and that means. If I need a world the place my youngsters can reside longer, the work I’m doing has that means and goal.”
For Limitless, Akinda engaged Hemsworth in an train of “optimistic self-talk.” She described how that method might be deployed to fend off emotions of helplessness within the face of the local weather disaster.
“I can think about that in a state of affairs like local weather change we expect it is a waste of time, that I’m a idiot for partaking on this space,” she defined. “It is advisable say wow, I’m brave for tackling this. I’m up for a problem.”
“The opposite factor I remind folks is to channel their stress and take a look at the alternatives inherent in that stress,” she added. “We will all level to conditions the place stress helps us rise to the event.”
Akinda additionally had a lot to say about mindfulness, as in taking a step again to nonetheless your thoughts and care for your bodily response to emphasize.
She emphasised that mindfulness is a judgement-free train that may take totally different kinds.
“I remind folks there are many methods to method stilling your thoughts. I’d encourage folks to search out the factor that enables their thoughts to decelerate,” she stated. “If we’re in a position to detect after we are feeling stress it has long run advantages for our well being. Every individual is totally different, and it’s on you to search out what works.”
Onward & Upward For Power Storage
As for options to the local weather disaster, vitality storage is the important thing to unlocking the huge assets of the solar and wind, which is why CleanTechnica pays a lot consideration to the subject.
Battery-type vitality storage expertise will get a lot of the eye, partly due to its software to the attention-getting world of electrical automobiles.
That’s only one department of a sprawling discipline that features pumped hydro “water batteries” and different programs that leverage the huge useful resource of the Earth’s gravity, along with the rising inexperienced hydrogen market.
Observe me on Twitter @TinaMCasey (for now).
Discover me on Mastodon at @Casey@mastodon.inexperienced (vitality and clear tech) and @Casey@masthead.social (vitality, clear tech and ESG).
Picture courtesy of Nicole Cappello (Disney) through dropbox.
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