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All-in-one solar-powered tower makes carbon-neutral kerosene in the field at pilot-scale

Green Car Congress

Researchers in Europe led by a team from ETH Zurich have designed a fuel production system that uses water, CO 2 , and sunlight to produce aviation fuel. We are the first to demonstrate the entire thermochemical process chain from water and CO 2 to kerosene in a fully-integrated solar tower system. Zoller et al.

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Climate Change is NSF Engineering Alliance’s Top Research Priority

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Since its launch in April 2021 , the Engineering Research Visioning Alliance has convened a diverse set of experts to explore three areas in which fundamental research could have the most impact: climate change; the nexus of biology and engineering; and securing critical infrastructure against hackers.

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A New Energy-Efficient Hydrogel Pulls Water From Air

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Using a new kind of hydrogel material, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have pulled water out of thin air at temperatures low enough to be achieved with sunlight. Atmospheric water harvesting draws water from humidity in the air. The material is a hydrogel, a polymer network that naturally retains a lot of water.

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Study Finds Stratospheric Water Vapor Is An Important Driver of Decadal Global Surface Climate Change

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Decadal warming rates arising from (i) greenhouse gases and aerosols alone (black); (ii) that obtained including the stratospheric water decline after 2000 (red); and (iii) including both the stratospheric water vapor decline after 2000 and the increase in the 1980s and 1990s (cyan). Stratospheric water vapor and radiative processes.

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Solar-to-Jet-Fuel System Readies for Take-Off

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As climate change edges from crisis to emergency, the aviation sector looks set to miss its 2050 goal of net-zero emissions. A glimmer of hope, however, comes from solar fuels. Using concentrated solar energy, they were able to produce kerosene from water vapor and carbon dioxide directly from air.

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Pilot Project Sends Kelp–and Carbon–to the Seafloor

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Last January, in the waters off Cebu City in the Philippines, researchers first deployed a huge flexible ring seeded with seaweed and spanned by spokelike ropes and tubes. Every nightfall, cranks mounted on a floating platform lower the ring 25 meters below the surface to expose the seaweed to cooler, more nutrient-rich water.

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Heating Buildings With Solar Energy Stored in Sand

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Anthropogenic climate change confronts humanity with a challenge: How can we keep warm now as we try to prevent our world from overheating in the future? A Small Country with Large Heating Needs Big problems demand big solutions, and there is perhaps no bigger 21st-century problem than climate change.

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