Gas stoves have been quite the “hot button issue” lately. But a range of data from decades’ worth of research has already reached a consensus: Cooking with gas is dangerous to human health and a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Electrification has been ongoing, with Europe leading the way
Everyone is worried about outdoor air pollution, right? Yet, a poor indoor air quality (IAQ) can be an invisible yet ruthless killer. Even worse than Freddy Krueger. At least, you could see him in your dreams, I mean nightmares. Seriously, pollutants like volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particulate matter (PM), and
Heat pumps are versatile, efficient, and great for both heating and cooling … or are they? Whenever heat pumps are mentioned, critics bring up their ineffectiveness in the cold, so is that still true? Or do more modern heat pumps continue to work effectively in cold climates? I’m currently building
I’ve been living with solar panels for almost 5 years now here in Massachusetts, and I thought it was time to take a look at how it’s been going. There’s been some twists and turns with solar production and how it’s fared going through the cold
The solar industry has a potentially fatal flaw: its reliance on silver. As a precious metal, silver is costly and difficult to come by, yet critical to pretty much every kind of solar panel.1 Worldwide solar capacity has officially crossed into terawatt territory and silver is putting that continued
Who doesn’t want a smartphone, laptop, or EV that can charge in minutes? Or a device that holds its charge just as well when it’s 5 years old as the day you plugged it in for the first time? Faster-charging, longer-lasting, and cheaper energy storage options are something
One of the benefits of a factory built home is that the insulated wall panels are assembled in a climate controlled facility. However, they still need to get assembled on site … and that’s when mother nature can take her revenge. My factory built house started getting raised on site
Grid-scale lithium-ion batteries are our current go-to chemical energy storage solution, but they present their own challenges in safety, sustainability, cost, and longevity. However, the competition is … heating up. New forms of thermal energy storage systems built using abundant, cheap materials are on the rise. One company is aiming to
Where there’s tech, there’s magnets. The strong magnets that generate their own magnetic field, AKA permanent magnets, aren’t only on your fridge. They’re in multiple places inside your fridge, and in your cell phone, headphones, and hard disk drive, too. Permanent magnets are also a critical
Whether it’s to regulate the temperature of food, medicine, or people, we’ll always need some form of cooling tech to survive. We tend to turn to air conditioning to solve these problems, but that has us stuck in a positive feedback loop that isn’t at all positive.
With the ever-growing demand for electrifying everything, we need more sustainable batteries. Li-ion devices are cost-effective but rely on lithium, graphite, and other materials, whose sourcing has significant environmental and social impacts. One potential solution is being developed where wood is used to replace these materials with a bio-based alternative.
As good as lithium-ion batteries are, they have their limitations and challenges, but there’s also plenty of battery alternatives. Flow batteries alone have enough variations in chemistry to make your head spin. Zinc-bromine batteries are one up-and-coming contender … and calling them up and coming sounds funny when you consider