THORIUM DEBUNK

Connecticut debuts first electric buses (#cnn)

Story via KVIA

Gov. Ned Lamont and state officials in Bridgeport Monday unveiled Connecticut’s first two battery-electric buses.

They entered service under the state Department of Transportation’s (DOT) electric bus initiative and feature zero tailpipe emissions and will use 125 kilowatt-hour (kWh) electric bus chargers installed ...

The two buses displayed at Monday’s unveiling are the first of up to five, 40-foot battery electric buses and associated charging infrastructure that will be deployed at GBT. All of the buses will include quiet operation, carbon-fiber reinforced composite bodies ...

AI technology can predict vanadium flow battery performance and cost, China Claims

Per an article in techxplore.com 

Recently, a research team led by Prof. Li Xianfeng from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed a machine learning-based strategy to predict and optimize the performance and cost of VFBs.

(..)

This work was published in Energy & Environmental Science on Sept. 22.

(..)

This machine learning model can predict the voltage efficiency, energy efficiency, and electrolyte utilization ratio of the VFB stack, as well as the power and energy cost of the VFB system with high accuracy.

 

More Evidence that China Cannot Sustain Their Technology Lurch

The article in evidence is from an opinion from India, which is most likely a paid propaganda piece. But the raw numbers alone in this article show that China cannot sustain what they are doing -- especially if they are cut off from the US. It is likely that officials in California have seen these programs and do not realized this is a disaster.

I've quote two sections from the piece on PHOTOVOLTAIC & ELECTRIC VEHICLES. Emphasis in quotes added.

PHOTOVOLTAIC

 ++ including refunds for interest on loans

China also offered many forms of support to photovoltaic manufacturers. For example, producers could access cash grants of between ¥200,000 and ¥300,000 ($30,900 to $46,300) available to high-tech startups that are less than three years old with no more than 3,000 employees. Large “demonstration projects” by manufacturers get grants of up to ¥1 million. The China Development Bank, offered low-interest loans of several billion dollars for major production plants. The bank reportedly provided $30 billion in low-cost loans to photovoltaic manufacturers in 2010. A number of Chinese provinces offered further incentives, including refunds for interest on loans and electricity costs, 10-year tax holidays, loan guarantees, and refunds of value-added taxes. To open its production plant in China, Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar was reported to have received $21 million in cash grants, a $15 million property tax break, a subsidized lease worth $2.7 million, and $13 million worth of infrastructure such as roads.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

++ aimed to have 100 million EV by 2020

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology hasalready invested around ¥100 billion ($15.2 billion) by 2020 in subsidies and incentives over the past 10 years to support new-energy vehicle production. The government had set a target of selling 1 million electric vehicles a year by 2015 and aimed to have 100 million by 2020. The government also offered a $9,036 subsidy to buyers of electric cars and subsidized fleet operations in 25 cities. By 2018, China was manufacturing 1.2 million electric vehicles.

NOTE: It is unlikely they have met their 100 million EV goal.

The National Development and Reform Commission also identified lithium-ion cells and batteries as strategic industries, and several government programs subsidize China’s industry through investment and tax credits, loans, and research grants. To give its domestic industry an extra edge, the government essentially requires foreign battery companies to manufacture in China if they wish to sell there. Another major “Atmanirbhar” policy of China.

  

The Story Of China’s Rise To Technological And Economic Leadership
https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/opinion-the-story-of-chinas-rise-to-technological-and-economic-leadership/361065
28 September 2020
 

 

Vertical turbine hydro generator system. Low rpm permanent magnet genera...

I could show him how to make a much simpler winding and get more power and cleaner DC from it.

Also the magnets should be a Halbach array, that would also increase the field and more power as well.

Convert carbon dioxide into ethylene

 https://phys.org/news/2020-09-effective-pathway-carbon-dioxide-ethylene.html

A research team from Caltech and the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering has demonstrated a promising way to efficiently convert carbon dioxide into ethylene—an important chemical used to produce plastics, solvents, cosmetics and other important products globally.

The scientists developed nanoscale copper wires with specially shaped surfaces to catalyze a chemical reaction that reduces greenhouse gas emissions while generating ethylene—a valuable chemical simultaneously. Computational studies of the reaction show the shaped catalyst favors the production of ethylene over hydrogen or methane. A study detailing the advance was published in Nature Catalysis.

"We are at the brink of fossil fuel exhaustion, coupled with global climate change challenges," said Yu Huang, the study's co-corresponding author, and professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA. "Developing materials that can efficiently turn greenhouse gases into value-added fuels and chemical feedstocks is a critical step to mitigate global warming while turning away from extracting increasingly limited fossil fuels. This integrated experiment and theoretical analysis presents a sustainable path towards carbon dioxide upcycling and utilization."

Currently, ethylene has a global annual production of 158 million tons. Much of that is turned into polyethylene, which is used in plastic packaging. Ethylene is processed from hydrocarbons, such as natural gas.

"The idea of using copper to catalyze this reaction has been around for a long time, but the key is to accelerate the rate so it is fast enough for industrial production," said William A. Goddard III, the study's co-corresponding author and Caltech's Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science, and Applied Physics. "This study shows a solid path towards that mark, with the potential to transform ethylene production into a greener industry using CO2 that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere."

Using copper to kick start the carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction into ethylene reaction (C2H4) has suffered two strikes against it. First, the initial chemical reaction also produced hydrogen and methane—both undesirable in industrial production. Second, previous attempts that resulted in ethylene production did not last long, with conversion efficiency tailing off as the system continued to run.

To overcome these two hurdles, the researchers focused on the design of the copper nanowires with highly active "steps"—similar to a set of stairs arranged at atomic scale. One intriguing finding of this collaborative study is that this step pattern across the nanowires' surfaces remained stable under the reaction conditions, contrary to general belief that these high energy features would smooth out. This is the key to both the system's durability and selectivity in producing ethylene, instead of other end products.

The team demonstrated a carbon dioxide-to-ethylene conversion rate of greater than 70%, much more efficient than previous designs, which yielded at least 10% less under the same conditions. The new system ran for 200 hours, with little change in conversion efficiency, a major advance for copper-based catalysts. In addition, the comprehensive understanding of the structure-function relation illustrated a new perspective to design highly active and durable CO2 reduction catalyst in action.

Huang and Goddard have been frequent collaborators for many years, with Goddard's research group focusing on the theoretical reasons that underpin chemical reactions, while Huang's group has created new materials and conducted experiments. The lead author on the paper is Chungseok Choi, a graduate student in materials science and engineering at UCLA Samueli and a member of Huang's laboratory.

Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to ethanol