'What if a common element rather than scarce, expensive ones was a key component in electric car batteries?
A collaboration co-led by an Oregon State University chemistry researcher is hoping to spark a green battery revolution by showing that iron instead of cobalt and nickel can be used as a cathode material in lithium-ion batteries.'
These U.S. Cities Have More Parking Lots Than Housing - They paved paradise again and again and again.
by Frank Jacobs, Big Think May 17, 2024
"...On average, about one-fifth of all land in city centers is dedicated to parking. But what’s the actual harm being done by all that parking space? For one, city centers that are more “parkable” become less walkable. In other words, fewer things are casually accessible.
...Americans’ attitude toward driving is changing. The share of high school seniors with a driving license has dropped from 85.3% in 1996 to 71.5% in 2015. The rise of shared, multi-modal, and (soon, they keep promising us) autonomous mobility will further reduce the need for driver’s licenses, individual cars, and massive parking facilities in city centers.
Perhaps it’s time for American cities to become denser, more lived-in, more walkable—and less “parkable.”
I'm interested in hearing about any #Linux projects that are targeting #sustainability ping me if you know of anything. Stuff like this from KDE etc https://eco.kde.org/
Millennials are buying homes with friends by Tom Jones 5/17/24
"...A larger share of millennial homeowners have teamed up with friends...to purchase homes — a trend that housing experts predict will continue amid affordability issues in the housing market and the growing number of single Americans. Ten percent of millennial homeowners have purchased a home with a friend, and 7 percent have bought one with a relative other than their domestic partner or spouse.
...“Affordability is probably the key reason to do that, as well as the types of homes that are available for sale,” Dr. Lautz says. “We traditionally have seen that the most popular type of home purchased is a detached single-family home because that’s the type of inventory that we have in the country. That allows enough space for two people to live independently within that property.”
A new and silent land grab is underway – we must stop it - By Ian Scoones, Angela Serrano, originally published by Open Democracy May 20, 2024
“For us peasants, land is not just an investment or something we own, but is part of our lives and our existence”, said...the Network of Farmers’ Organisations & Agricultural Producers of West Africa at a meeting co-convened by the Land Deal Politics Initiative...and activists concerned about the rise of land, water and green grabs.
...Participants of the meeting agreed that policy debates on land have...been stuck in the hallowed halls of the UN or government bureaucracies, where they are captured by market demands, such as offsetting. The subsequent ‘solutions’ then end up incompatible with local livelihoods, failing to consider food-provisioning, as well as people’s cultures, histories and intimate connections with nature..."
"5 Innovative Ideas for Retrofitting a Suburban Office Building" || by Monte Anderson and Christopher Duncan 5/15/2024
"...the modernization of suburban office buildings represents a dynamic shift toward more innovative and human-centric work environments. By embracing concepts such as technology integration, employee well-being, adaptability and community connectivity, developers can create office spaces that not only meet the needs of the present but also anticipate the demands of the future..."
Growth or Scale? By Tom Murphy, originally published by Do the Math May 22, 2024
"...It’s not too hard to lay hands on records of global resource use. One publication I ran across has some useful graphs for a few raw materials in common use. The first graph shows annual extraction of copper, zinc, and lead since 1900, usefully...
...From 1960 to 2005, in no region of the world did annual production of timber moderate alongside growth. The total global activity almost doubled (77% increase) over this interval rather than stagnating or tumbling by a factor of two as growth did.
The result for all of these resources is clear: scale is a more apt correlate than growth. The curves bear a family resemblance to the hockey-stick scale curves: far less resemblance to the peaking growth curves. A confounder in this is that per-capita resource extraction has also risen for many materials, in association with economic growth..."
Got this message from #slack:
> Our records indicate that your mobile device uses a mobile OS version that Slack will stop supporting after September. For the best experience and to continue receiving regular updates [..], we strongly recommend updating your mobile OS as soon as possible.
No mention of fusion energy at least at the top level of in BNEF's New Energy Outlook 2024 report, which is no surprise given its unproven abilities. But at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, we're working hard to carve out a big wedge alongside solar and wind for zero-carbon electricity. Our first machine is under construction, and we want to put power on the grid in the early 2030s. https://about.bnef.com/new-energy-outlook/
Zur #Nachhaltigkeit von #Hardware trägt Langlebigkeit und daher auch deren Reparierbarkeit wesentlich bei. In Frankreich müssen Geräte-Hersteller auf der Verpackung eine Reparierbarkeitsnote angeben. Ersatzteile und Reparaturanleitungen müssen z.B. mind. 7 Jahre verfügbar gemacht werden, um eine gute Note beim "Indice de réparabilité" zu erreichen. So auch beim #Smartphone.
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Oder was fehlt uns sonst, um mehr Bewusstsein für das wachsende Nachhaltigkeitsproblem in der Digitalisierung hinsichtlich #Smart-Geräte und #Hardware insgesamt zu erlangen?
UK breakthrough could slash emissions from cement (lighthouse-eco.co.za)
Scientists say they’ve found a way to recycle cement from demolished concrete buildings.