#giantleap — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #giantleap, aggregated by home.social.
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#SodiumIonBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium
Oct 26th 2023
Excerpt: "Fortunately, lithium is not the only game in town. As we report this week, a clutch of firms are making batteries based on sodium, lithium’s elemental cousin. Since sodium’s chemical properties are very similar to those of lithium, it too makes for good batteries. And sodium, which is found in the salt in #seawater, is thousands of times more abundant on Earth than lithium and cheaper to get at. Most of the companies using sodium to make batteries today are also Chinese. But pursuing the technology in the West might be a surer route to energy security than relying heavily on lithium.
"Besides its abundance, sodium has other advantages. The best lithium batteries use #cobalt and #nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #EnvironmentallyDestructive. Proposals to grab it from the #seabed instead have caused rows. A good deal of the world’s cobalt, meanwhile, is extracted from small mines in the #DemocraticRepublicOfCongo, where #ChildLabour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use #electrodes built from #iron and #manganese [and wood #lignin], which are plentiful and uncontroversial. Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts.
"Sodium is not a perfect replacement for lithium. It is heavier, meaning sodium batteries will weigh more than lithium ones of an equivalent capacity. That is likely to rule them out in some cases where lightness is paramount. But for other applications, such as #GridStorage or #HomeBatteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in #ElectricVehicles."
Read more:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/10/26/sodium-batteries-offer-an-alternative-to-tricky-lithiumArchived version:
https://archive.ph/7x6JX#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIon #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse #NoLithiumMining #NoMining
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Fast-charging #SodiumIon battery uses anodes made from trees
By C.C. Weiss
June 09, 2024"A month after #NatronEnergy began its first-of-kind sodium-ion battery mass production, Swedish sodium-ion developer #Altris has identified a means of making the LithiumFree batteries even more sustainable. Together with partner #StoraEnso, it's adapting tree pulp-sourced carbon toward use as an anode material.
"A byproduct of wood pulp manufacturing, #lignin has long been investigated for possible use as a more sustainable electrode material. Finnish renewable materials company Stora Enso made headlines in 2022 when it partnered up with Swedish battery manufacturer #Northvolt toward using its proprietary #Lignode material in lithium-ion battery anodes. Stora Enso describes Lignode as a hard carbon material refined from lignin.
"By teaming with Altris, Stora Enso looks to go even more sustainable while further localizing the European battery supply chain. As we looked at when Natron Energy kicked off production a few weeks ago, sodium-ion batteries eliminate the need for rare minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel, relying on abundant sodium that can be sourced locally without harmful #mining. "
Read more:
https://newatlas.com/energy/wood-based-sodium-ion-battery/#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIonBatteries #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse
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Sustainability-inspired cell design for a fully #recyclable #SodiumIon battery
Tiefeng Liu, Yaping Zhang, Chao Chen, Zhan Lin, Shanqing Zhang , Jun LuNature Communications, 2019 Apr 29
"Effective #recycling technologies represent a solution to the #sustainability and environmental consequences of spent #RechargeableBatteries . Here, the authors show a bipolar electrode design that allows not only good electrochemical performance but a closed loop of material use for sodium ion batteries."
Read more:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6488666/#SolarPunkSunday #Reuse #SodiumIonBatteries #NewTechnology
#GiantLeap #EWaste #EWasteRecycling #EWasteReuse -
#Earth4All #Argentina: Young people confront today’s challenges through debate
At a time when social and environmental crises are deepening, this initiative shows that young people are not just aware of the challenges—they are ready to lead the transformation. The real challenge is to listen to them and make room for their voices in the creation of truly transformative public policies.
5 June 2025
"On 9 May, young people between the ages of 18 and 30 gathered simultaneously in #Córdoba, #BuenosAires, and #Tucumán to take part in the workshop 'Understanding the present to build the future we want,' part of the Earth4All Argentina National Engagement Strategy led by the #ClubOfRome – Argentinian Chapter.
"Organised in collaboration with #FundaciónAlimentaris and #JóvenesPorElClima, the workshop was part of the participatory process of the National Participation Program (NEP), an initiative aimed at gathering diagnostics, experiences, and proposals from local communities to influence public policy. Its goal is to collectively adapt the international Earth4All model to local realities. The model warns of the urgent need to move away from the current path, described as '#TooLittleTooLate,' and to move toward a '#GiantLeap' centred on #social and #EnvironmentalJustice. This transformative agenda is structured around five turnarounds: #EradicatingPoverty, #ReducingInequality, #EmpoweringWomen, transforming #FoodSystems, and driving the energy transition.
"The workshop brought together university students from the host cities, #grassroots and #EnvironmentalActivists, and civically engaged youth eager to influence #LocalPolicies and practices. Facilitated by Jóvenes por el Clima, the event was organized around two main dynamics: first, introducing the foundations and challenges of the Earth4All model; and second, mapping specific local issues and working in thematic groups aligned with the model’s five pillars, with the aim of #CoCreating concrete proposals grounded in the experiences and voices of #YoungPeople."
#SolarPunkSunday #LtG #Activism #SocialJustice #CollectiveAction #CollectiveLearning #StartLocal #Collaboration
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So, it's not all bad news... I came across this from the "Recalibration" article referenced earlier... I plan on reading this soon!
#EarthForAll: A #Survival Guide for #Humanity
"Published in 2022, this book details the findings of our initiative and details how we can steer humanity away from #ecological and #social catastrophe.
"The book is the result of collaboration between the 21st century Transformational Economics Commission and systems analysts and modelling teams. The lead authors are Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Owen Gaffney, Jayati Ghosh, Jørgen Randers, Johan Rockström and Per Espen Stoknes.
"The economic system keeps crashing. It's time to install a new operating system.
"Earth for All is both an antidote to despair and a road map to a better future. Using powerful state-of-the-art computer modeling to explore policies likely to deliver the most good for the majority of people, a leading group of scientists and economists from around the world present five extraordinary turnarounds to achieve prosperity for all within planetary limits in a single generation.
Coverage includes:
- Results of new global modeling that indicates falling wellbeing and rising social tensions
- heighten risk of regional societal collapses"Two alternative scenarios – #TooLittleTooLate vs #TheGiantLeap – and what they mean for our collective future
- Five system-shifting steps that can upend poverty and inequality, lift up marginalized people, and transform our food and energy systems by 2050
- A clear pathway to reboot our global economic system so it works for all people and the planet.
"Written in an open, accessible, and inspirational style using clear language and high impact visuals, Earth for All is a profound vision for uncertain times and a map to a better future."
Giant leap
"This scenario assumes societies embark on a new path to a #sustainable world by 2050. What if we fundamentally reconfigure our economies, energy and food systems so that they work for both people and the planet? Can we avoid the worst of #ClimateChange impacts and increase our societies’ resilience to shocks? Will we succeed in ending extreme poverty, guaranteeing everyone a healthy diet and access to quality education and healthcare?"
Book:
https://earth4all.life/the-book/Website:
https://earth4all.life/#SolarPunk #SocietalChange #SW #World3 #LtG #LimitsToGrowth #StabilizedWorld #resilience #SharingEconomy #Sustainability #Technology #GiantLeap #SolarPunkSunday