Energy Archives - Liwaiwai

We Mapped Every Large Solar Plant On The Planet Using Satellites And Machine Learning

An astonishing 82% decrease in the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) energy since 2010 has given the world a fighting chance to build a zero-emissions energy system which might be less costly than the fossil-fuelled system it replaces. The International Energy Agency projects that PV solar generating capacity must grow ten-fold by 2040 if we are to meet the dual tasks of alleviating global poverty and constraining warming to well below 2°C. Critical challenges remain. Solar is “intermittent”, since sunshine varies during the day and across seasons, so energy must be stored for when the sun doesn’t shine. Policy must…

This Is How AI Will Accelerate The Energy Transition

Digital technologies – AI in particular – can become an essential enabler for the energy transition. A new report, Harnessing AI to Accelerate the Energy Transition, defines the actions needed to unlock AI’s potential in this domain. The new IPCC report is unequivocal: more action is urgently needed to avert catastrophic long-term climate impacts. With fossil fuels still supplying more than 80% of global energy, the energy sector needs to be at the heart of this action. Fortunately, the energy system is already in transition: renewable energy generation is growing rapidly, driven by falling costs and growing investor interest. But the scale and cost of…

How To Get More Electric Cars On The Road

A new study from researchers at MIT uncovers the kinds of infrastructure improvements that would make the biggest difference in increasing the number of electric cars on the road, a key step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. The researchers found that installing charging stations on residential streets, rather than just in central locations such as shopping malls, could have an outsized benefit. They also found that adding on high-speed charging stations along highways and making supplementary vehicles more easily available to people who need to travel beyond the single-charge range of their electric vehicles could greatly increase…

It Takes A Lot Of Energy For Machines To Learn – Here’s Why AI Is So Power-Hungry

This month, Google forced out a prominent AI ethics researcher after she voiced frustration with the company for making her withdraw a research paper. The paper pointed out the risks of language-processing artificial intelligence, the type used in Google Search and other text analysis products. Among the risks is the large carbon footprint of developing this kind of AI technology. By some estimates, training an AI model generates as much carbon emissions as it takes to build and drive five cars over their lifetimes. I am a researcher who studies and develops AI models, and I am all too familiar…

Uber Wants To Go All-Electric By 2030. It Won’t Be Easy

The coronavirus pandemic has been an all-around nightmare, but there are a few silver linings. One of these is a renewed focus on the environment. Emissions plummeted worldwide when countries went into lockdown in the spring, and cities have since been implementing new measures to keep pollution down and get people to be more active and environmentally conscious. In keeping with the trend, ridesharing market leader Uber announced on Tuesday that it will transition to a 100 percent electric car fleet by 2030. Lyft, its main competitor, made a similar announcement in June. Are the ride-hailing companies’ commitments to greening…

How A New Solar And Lighting Technology Could Propel A Renewable Energy Transformation

The demand for cheaper, greener electricity means that the energy landscape is changing faster than at any other point in history. This is particularly true of solar-powered electricity and battery storage. The cost of both has dropped at unprecedented rates over the past decade and energy efficient technologies such as LED lighting have also expanded. Access to cheap and ubiquitous solar power and storage will transform the way we produce and use power, allowing electrification of the transport sector. There is potential for new chemical-based economies in which we store renewable energy as fuels, and support new devices making up…

Technology

Solar Energy Farms Could Offer Second Life For Electric Vehicle Batteries

As electric vehicles rapidly grow in popularity worldwide, there will soon be a wave of used batteries whose performance is no longer sufficient for vehicles that need reliable acceleration and range. But a new study shows that these batteries could still have a useful and profitable second life as backup storage for grid-scale solar photovoltaic installations, where they could perform for more than a decade in this less demanding role. The study, published in the journal Applied Energy, was carried out by six current and former MIT researchers, including postdoc Ian Mathews and professor of mechanical engineering Tonio Buonassisi, who is…

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence Can Help Us Fight Climate Change. But It Has An Energy Problem, Too

AI is changing the way we work, live and solve challenges. It can improve healthcare, protect elephants from poachers, and work out how broadband should be distributed. But it could be most valuable as a range of applications helping humanity fight our biggest threat – climate change. AI can strengthen climate predictions, enable smarter decision-making for decarbonising industries from building to transport, and work out how to allocate renewable energy. AI’s relevance as a climate change fighting tool comes at a time when there are increasing ethical concerns linked largely to a data-hungry form of the technology called machine learning,…

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