Renewable energy could power the world within the next 30 years, and wind power is one of the cheapest, most efficient ways to get there. Except 80% of the world’s offshore wind blows in deep waters, where it’s difficult to build wind farms. A new design for a radically different wind turbine could begin to change that.

Norwegian company Wind Catching Systems is developing a floating, multi-turbine technology for wind farms that could generate five times the annual energy of the world’s largest single wind turbine. This increased efficiency is because of an innovative design that reinvents the way wind farms look and perform.

Unlike traditional wind turbines, which consist of one pole and three gargantuan blades, the so-called Wind Catcher is articulated in a square grid with over 100 small blades. At 1,000 feet high, the system is over three times as tall as an average wind turbine, and it stands on a floating platform that’s anchored to the ocean floor. The company is planning to build a prototype next year. If it succeeds, the Wind Catcher could revolutionize the way we harness wind power.

“Traditional wind farms are based on the old Dutch windmills,” says Ole Heggheim, CEO of Wind Catching Systems. These wind farms work well on land, but “why is it that when you have something that works on land, you think it will do the same thing on water?”

Offshore wind farms have been in vogue; 162 of them are already up and running, with 26 more to come, mostly in China and the U.K. The problem is that each turbine must be driven into the seabed, so it can’t be installed in waters deeper than 200 feet. As a result, wind farms can’t be built farther than about 20 miles away from shore, which limits their performance potential since the winds are stronger farther out into the ocean.

This is where floating wind farms come into play. The world’s first floating wind farm, Hywind, opened in 2017, almost 25 miles off the coast of Aberdeen in Scotland. The wind farm counts six floating wind turbines that are slotted in a cylinder filled with heavy ballast, to make it float vertically. Because they’re only tethered to the seabed with thick mooring lines, they can operate in waters over 3,000 feet deep.

Hywind is powering around 36,000 British homes, and it has already broken U.K. records for energy output. Wind Catching Systems launched the same year Hywind opened. It claims that one unit could power up between 80,000 and 100,000 European households. In ideal conditions, where the wind is at its strongest, one wind catcher unit could produce up to 400 gigawatt-hours of energy. By comparison, the largest, most powerful wind turbine on the market right now produces up to 80 gigawatt-hours.

There are several reasons for this substantial difference. First, the Wind Catcher is taller—approaching the height of the Eiffel Tower—which exposes the rotor blades to higher wind speeds. Second, smaller blades perform better. Heggheim explains traditional turbines are 120 feet long and usually max out at a certain wind speed. By comparison, the Wind Catcher’s blades are 50 feet long and can perform more rotations per minute, therefore generating more energy.

And because the blades are smaller, the entire system is easier to manufacture, build, and maintain. Heggheim says it has a design lifespan of 50 years, which is twice as much as traditional wind turbines, and when some parts need to be replaced (or during annual inspections), an integrated elevator system will offer easy maintenance. “If you have one turbine and you need to change the blade, you have to stop the whole operation,” says Ronny Karlsen, the company’s CFO. “We have 126 individual turbines, so if we need to change the blade, we can stop one turbine.”

When the system reaches the end of its life, much of it can be recycled. After the first significant wave of wind power in the 1990s, many traditional wind turbines had reached their design lifespan; blades the size of a Boeing 747 wing are piling up in landfills. Not only are the Wind Catcher blades smaller, but they’re also made of aluminum, which, unlike the fiberglass used for larger turbines, is entirely recyclable. “You melt it down and produce new ones,” says Heggheim.
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A prototype will probably be built in the North Sea (in Norway or the U.K.). After that, the company is looking at California and Japan. “Those have good wind resources near the shore,” says Karlsen, “and the governments are supportive and already awarding acreage for developments.” And for those wondering about the dangers this might pose to birds, Heggheim says the structure will be kitted out with bird radars that send out brief pulses of signal to help prevent collisions with migrating birds. “These units will be so far offshore,” he says, “so birdlife along the coast should not be endangered.”

In a power outage, having one of the best portable power stations around will come in real handy. They tend to be expensive, but the peace of mind is worth it because during emergencies you can keep your most important gear running—whether that’s your appliances, a television or radio for news updates, or lights. They’re also the perfect energy source while you’re camping or exploring the great outdoors. You may think you already have all the best camping gear, or best road trip gear, but if you don’t have a power source packed away, you’re not fully equipped.

There is a new portable power station on the block—or, at least, there will be soon. The EcoFlow DELTA Pro is a portable home battery and power station designed to keep an entire home powered for up to a week for emergency use. It puts out enough power to support appliances and electronics. It easily connects with Smart Extra Batteries, Solar Panels, Solar Trackers, Smart Generators, and a Smart Home Panel to extend functionality. You have an opportunity to get a steep discount on the portable battery, thanks to the Kickstarter campaign. It will retail for $3,599, but you can grab it for $600 off, which is $2,999.
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The EcoFlow DELTA Pro portable home battery is a dual-purpose energy-delivery device. It’s a home battery, storing energy that’s generated through various means, but it’s also a portable power station to provide power to your home, RV, small living space, or whatever you need. You could set up lights all over your campsite and connect them to this beast. A single unit has a base capacity of 3.6kWh of energy, but can be expanded to 25kWh with the additions of Smart Extra Batteries, Smart Generators, and a Smart Home Panel—enough to power an entire family’s needs for emergency use for up to a week. It can sustain air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, electronics, and much more. You can pair or sync up multiple units to increase the energy capacity if you need it.

As people ventured out from their pandemic cocoons this year, they gobbled up more electricity than they did before COVID-19 shut the world down. But there still isn’t enough clean energy to meet rising demand, so coal is making a comeback. Global electricity demand climbed 5% above pre-pandemic levels in the first six months of 2021, according to an analysis published recently by London think tank Ember. Electricity grids turned to more coal to meet that demand, and power sector carbon pollution rose 5% compared to the first half of 2019.

“Catapulting emissions in 2021 should send alarm bells across the world. We are not building back better, we are building back badly,” Dave Jones, global program lead at Ember, said in a statement. “The electricity transition is happening but with little urgency: emissions are going in the wrong direction.”

China drove 90% of the rise in electricity demand and most of the uptick in coal. While China is already the biggest carbon emitter in the world, that’s been mitigated because its per capita emissions are less than half that of the US, which is currently the second biggest climate polluter. But China’s per capita electricity demand is also rising rapidly, Ember’s report shows. That highlights how important it will be for the planet for China to get its emissions in check. 

None of the 63 countries Ember analyzed, which account for 87% of the global electricity production, saw a “green recovery” in the first half of 2021. Ember’s criteria for “green recovery” included lower power sector emissions and higher electricity demand, a sign that more electricity was being generated by clean energy sources like solar and wind. Some countries, like the US, had slightly cleaner power sectors compared to 2019, as electricity demand stayed relatively flat, but their emissions are expected to rise again with demand. 

Renewable energy had a growth spurt in the early part of 2021. Together, wind and solar generated more than a tenth of the world’s electricity—doubling their share in 2015 and surpassing nuclear power plants for the first time this year. But solar panels and wind turbines were still only able to meet 57% of the rise in electricity demand, leaving coal—the dirtiest-burning fossil fuel—to provide the rest.

A clean power sector is one of the most crucial steps to achieving global climate goals. Countries are working together under the framework of the Paris climate agreement to limit global warming to about 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures, which could significantly limit the damage we’re already beginning to see because of climate change.

Planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector need to fall by 57% this decade to meet that goal, regardless of a rise in electricity demand, according to a recent analysis by the International Energy Agency. Much of that reduction could come from completely cutting out coal—but the Ember analysis shows that the opposite is happening.

In the future, clean power grids could also translate to clean transportation, housing, and building sectors. All-electric vehicles, homes, and buildings are one way city planners and policymakers have sought to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. But the power sector has a long way to go to provide them all with carbon pollution-free energy. 
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During the height of the pandemic last year, carbon dioxide emissions fell across the board for electricity, transportation, and other energy-hungry industries. That clearly hasn’t been enough to stave off climate change-fueled disasters like worsening droughts, explosive wildfires, record-smashing heatwaves, and severe storms. Moving forward, CO2 cuts will have to come from intentional changes to how the world does business—not because a pandemic put things on pause.

NASA is planning a mission up to an asteroid that is hurtling around in our solar system, and it could be a seriously lucrative mission if it is a success.

In fact, the number, in terms of the potential value of the precious metals that the asteroid may be composed of, is simply baffling, because it's supposedly worth more than $10,000 quintillion.

To put that into context, it's got 22 zeros after it. Written down, it looks like this - 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

It's worth enough to make everyone currently living on earth a billionaire. That's a lot of money.

Anyway, the asteroid with this unfathomable wealth of precious metals stashed away on it is called Psyche 16, and it was discovered back in March 1852.

The 124-mile space rock is set to become the primary focus of a NASA mission which is set for lift off in August 2022.

If it does go ahead, the craft would arrive on the asteroid about four years later.

This would be the first mission that humans have sent to somewhere that is made of metal, rather than rock and ice, as NASA said: "Unlike most other asteroids that are rocky or icy bodies, scientists think the M-type (metallic) asteroid 16 Psyche is comprised mostly of metallic iron and nickel similar to Earth."

It turns out that those sorts of metals in that quantity are worth a hell of a lot.

Of course, there is the question of how you would extract that worth, given that it's floating around in space some four years travel away, but that's something that NASA will presumably intend to scope out on this prospective mission.

So, the asteroid sits between Mars and Jupiter and is thought to have been the 'remnants of a protoplanet' that was destroyed in hit-and-run collisions when the solar system formed', according to the Daily Mail.

Researchers in a recent study said: "The findings are a step toward resolving the mystery of the origin of this unusual object, which has been thought by some to be a chunk of the core of an ill-fated protoplanet."

Katherine de Kleer, assistant professor of planetary science and astronomy at Caltech, added: "We think that fragments of the cores, mantles, and crusts of these objects remain today in the form of asteroids.

"If that's true, it gives us our only real opportunity to study the cores of planet-like objects."
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Also, it might be worth an unimaginable amount of money, so it's probably worth inspecting.