Tech for Good

2021-07-26 07:00:18 ​Energizing steps

Today's exciting tech is from a London-based startup Pavegen. Their floor tiles can transfer the kinetic energy of pedestrians into electrical power.

The tiles have electromagnetic generators inside. Each step on them causes generators to move - setting off a rotary motion that generates power. As per the company, a single step is enough to generate the off-grid amount of energy to light an LED lightbulb for 20 seconds.

The Pavegen tiles also have API sensors to transmit data about movement behavior. That data is used to analyze peak times for foot traffic, predict consumer trends, and create heat maps of popular urban spaces. When installed in a retail space, shop visitors may earn digital currency for every step they take via a smartphone app and then use it to get a discount or donate to charitable causes. It looks for me like a clever marketing move, helping to bring user engagement to another level.

Pavegen was founded in 2009 by Laurence Kemball-Cook, an engineering graduate from Loughborough University. As a student, he regularly used Victoria train station, which has around 75 million visitors each year. He realized that there might be potential to harness some of that human kinetic energy and convert it into off-grid electricity.

Since that time, Pavegen has raised more than $8 million through angel investing and crowdfunding to develop the efficiency of its tech and has delivered more than 200 projects in 30+ countries. It has partnered with such brands as Google, Coca-Cola, Adidas, and KIA, among many others.

Pavegen created its technology with a vision to make energy consumption and creation more tangible for people to improve their understanding of issues relating to climate change and sustainability. The team believes they can aid the evolution of smart cities and address the issues of future urban development.

Interview with Pavegen founder by Impakter
Company's website

#urbantech #startups Open / Comment

2021-07-25 07:00:11 Here's your Sunday recap of this week's good stuff:

Smog eaters - a campaign by Dutch studio to reduce air pollution and inspire a clean future
Electric Alice - a full-electric business aircraft for the middle-mile flight market
Virtual power plant - Tesla to build the largest distributed battery globally to help accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy
Sustainable construction - a remarkable office building producing more energy than it consumes over the lifespan
Forester drone - an autonomous drone to find missing people in the forest

As usual, I welcome your comments and wish you a fine weekend

Your Tech for Good Open / Comment

2021-07-23 07:00:07 Forester drone

A team of scientists from the Austrian University of Johannes Kepler has recently published an article in the Science Robotics journal. It describes the results of experiments to create an autonomous drone to find missing people in the forest.

Rescuing the lost or searching for hiding criminals is a rather difficult task - it is almost impossible to find a person under dense foliage from a helicopter or an airplane. Thermal sensors also do not help in this case. Attempts to use ground-piloted drones have not shown decent results either.

Austrian scientists have developed technologies that could make drones more helpful for this task. They taught them to find objects hidden by the crown of trees by shifting the focus from the foliage to what is behind it, thanks to onboard airborne optical sectioning (AOS), working directly on the device. AOS combines multiple images to see through barriers like a forest canopy.

Also, thermal imaging technology works with a machine learning application, determining the heat source: a person, an animal, or something else.

An autonomous drone carries all this. It uses location data for search and adjusts the route following the signals from thermal sensors and prompts from the AOS algorithms.

If the system detects something, the drone approaches the object to get a better look. If the drone manages to find the desired person, it transmits the coordinates to the operator.

The team conducted 17 field experiments. The drone was able to detect 38 of 42 people hiding in the forest. That is not a bad result for a prototype.

The machine weighs 140 kg and can fly for three hours without recharging, even in bad weather. Scanning speed - 10 meters per second.

Article on Techxlore
2-minute video of the drone operation

#robotics #AI Open / Comment

2021-07-22 07:00:06 Sustainable construction

The construction industry is responsible for almost 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Making it more sustainable is a way to build a greener future for humanity. Today I want to highlight a remarkable construction project setting a template for others to follow.

In late 2020 a Norwegian-based company Snøhetta has completed the carbon-negative Powerhouse Telemark building in Porsgrunn, Norway. It is going to produce more energy than it will consume over its lifespan. That includes its construction, demolition, and the embodied carbon of building materials.

How is it possible? Well, many good techs are involved. The Powerhouse has a large photovoltaic covering on the roof and a south-facing facade. That will generate 256,000 kilowatts annually, allowing the building to distribute surplus energy into its surroundings. The building's facades are highly insulated by a mix of wooden panels that provide solar shading and Cembrit fiber cement panels. These panels can store thermal heat during the day and slowly emit heat during the evening. That helps heat and cool the building passively, in tandem with a system that uses geothermal wells dug 350 meters below ground.

Powerhouse Telemark's interior materials are as sustainable as possible, composed of a minimal palette of local wood, gypsum, and carpet tiles made from 70 percent recycled fishing nets. Building materials, furnishings, and fixtures are consistent and standardized to reduce waste. They also complement the building's "environmental concrete" structure - a type of concrete that uses less energy in its production and produces less carbon dioxide than traditional concrete.

Artificial lighting is at an absolute minimum, with windows bringing light into the depths of the building.

The Powerhouse concept proves that we can construct new buildings and refurbish existing ones and at the same time reach our sustainability targets.

3-minute video featuring the Powerhouse Telemark design
Article on Dezeen

#architecture #solar Open / Comment

2021-07-21 10:48:35 ​Virtual power plant

Tesla is on our radar again. It looks like this company cannot help generating more excellent tech news.

Many of you know that electric vehicles are not the only product of Elon Musk's venture. It also sells home energy solutions, like solar panels and solar roofs. Tesla's roof consists of great-looking tiles, each being a solar panel that produces clean energy. Tesla's Powerwall is a compact home battery that stores generated energy and makes it available anytime. Like many other Tesla products, Powerwalls are hot; the company currently cannot meet demand due to global chip shortage.

On July 22th Tesla is making the next move inviting its energy customers in California to join its Virtual Power Plant (VPP). VPP aggregates the power capacities of the Powerwall owners and enhances power generation along with trading this power on the electricity market. Once customers have opted in, Tesla will dispatch their Powerwalls when the grid needs support, without risking customer energy security.

The company listed several benefits of joining VPP:
customers will be able to earn credit for their energy that is sent to the grid;
during the critical need in the grid, Powerwalls dispatch energy reducing dependence on fossil-fuel generators and cleaning the grid;
VPP participants will help California reduce or even avoid blackouts during severe emergencies. Powerwall can keep the lights on for all in the community;
Powerwall customers will not lose any of their energy security. Instead, Powerwall will discharge during VPP events but will not discharge below your backup reserve. Customers can adjust their backup reserve to control their contribution to the VPP.

With this project, Tesla wants to build the largest distributed battery globally — with over 50,000 Powerwalls, and allows its customers to help accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy.

If you were a Powerwall owner, would you opt-in?

Article on CleanTechnica
Solar roof website

#solar Open / Comment

2021-07-21 07:00:11 ​Virtual power plant

Tesla is on our radar again. It looks like this company cannot help generating more excellent tech news.

Many of you know that electric vehicles are not the only product of Elon Musk's venture. It also sells home energy solutions, like solar panels and solar roofs. Tesla's roof consists of great-looking tiles, each being a solar panel that produces clean energy. Tesla's Powerwall is a compact home battery that stores generated energy and makes it available anytime. Like many other Tesla products, Powerwalls are hot; the company currently cannot meet demand due to global chip shortage.

On July 22th Tesla is making the next move inviting its energy customers in California to join its Virtual Power Plant (VPP). VPP aggregates the power capacities of the Powerwall owners and enhances power generation along with trading this power on the electricity market. Once customers have opted in, Tesla will dispatch their Powerwalls when the grid needs support, without risking customer energy security.

The company listed several benefits of joining VPP:
customers will be able to earn credit for their energy that is sent to the grid;
during the critical need in the grid, Powerwalls dispatch energy reducing dependence on fossil-fuel generators and cleaning the grid;
VPP participants will help California reduce or even avoid blackouts during severe emergencies. Powerwall can keep the lights on for all in the community;
Powerwall customers will not lose any of their energy security. Instead, Powerwall will discharge during VPP events but will not discharge below your backup reserve. Customers can adjust their backup reserve to control their contribution to the VPP.

With this project, Tesla wants to build the largest distributed battery globally — with over 50,000 Powerwalls and allows its customers to help accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy.

If you were a Powerwall owner, would you opt-in?

Article on CleanTechnica
Solar roof website

#solar Open / Comment

2021-07-20 07:00:12 ​Electric Alice

We haven't yet mentioned the electric plane market, though it has a lot of exciting projects. One of those is from a US-based company Eviation delivering electrification to regional flights. The company was formed in 2017, and in 2022, the team brings to market their first full-electric business aircraft, Alice.

Eviation CEO Omer Bar-Yohay, in an interview with CleanTechnica, mentioned that flying a business jet averages around $3000 per hour. An electric airplane slashes that cost by about 90%. That means that ticket prices for Alice could be substantially less than those for conventional aircraft.

At the same time, the technical specifications of Alice remain impressive. With a maximum takeoff weight of 6,350 kg (about 14,000 lb), the Alice 9-passenger electric aircraft should fly 650 miles (around 1000 km) cruising at about 240 knots (276 mph or 444 km/h). Service altitude is 30000 feet (about 9 km). While kerosene planes fly faster, electric planes like Alice are 2 to 3 times quieter than commercial jet airplanes and can use shorter runways. This factor means they can fly into or out from smaller airports, closer to travelers' final destination.

The regional flight market which the company aims for is enormous. Per Omar Bar-Yohay, "in 2017, Americans spent $1 trillion traveling distances between 50 and 650 miles." Eviation has already secured its first client, Cape Air, the American middle mile aircraft carrier from New England. "In the very beginning, it was extremely difficult to convince partners, clients, anybody, investors that we are not delusional. Today it feels like everybody is on board, and this is where the industry should go. The industry is beginning to notice that there is really a tectonic shift here," Bar-Yohay told Business Insider.

I can see a bright future for the company and this industry as a whole. While electric planes are more sustainable in terms of emissions, it looks like they can also be economically feasible.

Eviation website featuring the Alice aircraft
Article on CleanTechnica

#aviation #startups #EV Open / Comment

2021-07-19 07:00:04 ​Smog Eaters

Earlier, we discussed Daan Roosegaarde's studio and his GROW project with dancing lights across the farmland that enhance plant growth and reduce the use of pesticides. Today I want to share a spectacular SMOG FREE project by the same Dutch studio.

SMOG FREE is a campaign consisting of several parts to reduce air pollution and inspire a clean future.

The 7-meter tall SMOG FREE TOWER is the world's first smog vacuum cleaner using positive ionization technology to produce smog-free air in public spaces. Smog-eating tower provides a local solution for parks and playgrounds, cleaning 30 000 m3 per hour and using a small amount of clean electricity. It already allows people in South Korea, China, the Netherlands, and Poland to breathe and experience clean air for free. And it looks great.

As a tangible souvenir, Roosegaarde also creates SMOG FREE RINGS, made from the compressed smog particles collected from the SMOG FREE TOWER. By sharing the SMOG FREE RING, you donate 1000 m3 of clean air to the city by investing in the next smog-eating tower. Couples all over the world use it as engagement and wedding rings.

The recent SMOG EATING BILLBOARD is launched in Monterrey, Mexico. The billboard advertisements are coated with a special resin, a nanotechnology material called Pollu-Mesh. This coating is activated with sunlight, making a photocatalysis process in which, when in contact with the contaminating particles, it neutralizes them, releasing oxygen. Each roadside advertisement measures 12.7 by 7.2 meters and provides the same amount of oxygen that 30 trees can provide over six hours.

SMOG FREE BICYCLE is the latest addition to the SMOG FREE campaign. The bicycle sucks up polluted air, cleans it, and gives clean air to the cyclist. Roosegaarde developed it with ofo, the leading Chinese bike-sharing program. The manta ray, a fish that filters water for food, inspired the design. The bicycle works similarly: a plug-in device on the steering wheel of an existing bicycle inhales polluted air, purifies it, and gives clean air to the cyclist. It intends to celebrate the bicycle and make thousands of them impact on the larger urban scale.

More on Smog eating billboard by Dezeen
More on Smog free bicycles by Welovecycling
Daan Roosegaarde studio website

#architecture #recycle #social Open / Comment

2021-07-18 10:10:27 Here is your Sunday summary of this week's posts:

Table salt for Tesla - new lithium extraction technology by Tesla to reduce EV battery cost in an environmentally friendly way
Queen of waste - a story of professor Veena Sahajwalla who leads Australia's efforts on its way to a circular economy
Solar mobility - a Netherlands-based startup with its solar-powered vehicle to solve the first/last-mile transportation issue
Green energy island - the lagest construction process in Danish history to create green energy for 9 million households
Psychological support - Robin robot to help children staying in hospitals feel better

As usual, if you have somebody who may need it, please feel free to share

Have a nice weekend

Your Tech for Good

#weeksummary Open / Comment

2021-07-16 07:00:07 ​Psychological support

Today I want to tell a story about a startup whose Robin robot is now being successfully tested in children's clinics and dental surgeries in the United States.

The startup from Yerevan, Armenia, is called Expper. The team is actively working with psychologists to teach the device to recognize children's emotions in real-time and respond to them correctly by changing the expression of a cartoon face on the screen. In Armenia, the robot received good reviews from dentists - children are less nervous and less afraid to come back for a second appointment after talking with Robin.

The robot is about 120 cm high. It is covered with recycled bioplastic and can be effortlessly disinfected under a UV lamp or with sprays and liquid solutions. Children love to hug Robin - his narrow "body" widening towards the base is well suited for this.

He can show cartoons and playfully teaches how to maintain hygiene.

In the United States, robots are also being tested for psychological support of children staying in hospital for a long time. As the Expper investor said, the easiest way is to agree on pilot projects with clinics in Los Angeles because there is a strong Armenian diaspora, which helps a lot. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the level of bureaucracy is higher, and pilot projects take longer to approve. However, during the pandemic, more clinics wanted to try companion robots. That is because children felt even more lonely due to the limited communication with friends and family and the workload of medical staff.

Pilot tests for two months in two Armenian clinics showed that children feel better thanks to the interaction with Robin. According to a survey of hundreds of young patients, more than 26% felt more joyful, 34% showed a decrease in stress levels.

In a video posted several days ago on the startup's official channel, the doctor says the robot helps children feel like they are in control.

It motivates young patients to eat more, get out of bed and move more often, participate in games. This all has a positive effect on their well-being and the healing process.

Expper's Robin website

#robotics #medical Open / Comment