Monthly Archives: August 2017

In Brief New data from GTM Research suggests that rapid adoption of solar power could mean that its global gigawatt capacity rivals that of nuclear power by the end of 2017. While nuclear currently far exceeds solar in terms of energy generation, some predict solar could be the world's largest source of energy by 2050. Sunny Forecast

Solar energy has been on the rise, and based on new data from GTM Research, it could rival nuclear energy in terms of global capacity by the end of 2017.

The data, which is available in the most recent edition of Global Solar Demand Monitor, indicates that solar power will reach a capacity of roughly 390 gigawatts this year. Meanwhile, the latest figures from the Nuclear Energy Institute suggest that the world is currently home to 391.5 gigawatts of nuclear plants.

Solar growth is slowing slightly following a massive jump from 50.3 gigawatts added in 2015 to 77.8 gigawatts added in 2016, 81.1 gigawatts will likely be added in 2017. However, GTM Research expects that growth will continue at a steady rate, with total global capacity reaching 871 gigawatts by 2022.

Capacity is just one piece of the puzzle, though. Nuclear energy is still well ahead of solar in terms of electricity generated, outputting 2,476,671 gigawatt-hours compared to solars 375,000. That being said, the International Energy Agency projects that solar could feasibly become the worlds largest source of energy by 2050 due to its falling cost and increasing convenience.

Solar energy can help us reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, which we desperately need to do as our net emission of 37 gigatonnes of CO per year are wreaking havoc on the planet, causing global warming, extreme weather events, and millions of deaths.

Building solar panels has become much more cost-effective in recent years, which has fostered large-scale solar initiatives all over the world. Now, with Teslas solar roof panels set to provide homeowners with an inexpensive, aesthetically pleasing, and convenient way to take advantage of solar on an individual basis, the technology seems more poised than ever before for energy domination.

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Report Suggests Solar Energy Capacity Will Rival Nuclear Power by ... - Futurism

In Brief A group of planetary scientists studying Mars' atmosphere have finally obtained proof that it snows on the red planet. The snowstorms don't drop a lot of snow, but the way they form can make landings harder for future spacecraft.

We now have evidence that Mars gets its share of snow and that far from being only light flurries, theyre sometimes violent snowstorms.

These storms are much different from what was previously thought of the red planets weather, which only occurs at night and comes with intense gusts of wind. This new forecastcame from a combination of data on water-ice clouds, collected by the Mars Global Surveyor and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft over the years, and data gathered by NASAs Phoenix Lander, which ventured to Mars in 2008.

Its the first time anyone has shown that snowstorms, or water-ice microbursts, occur presently on Mars, said lead researcher Aymeric Spiga, a planetary scientist from the Universit Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris, to New Scientist. Any snow particles formed were thought to fall only very slowly through their own weight.

Spiga explains that previous attempts to find snowstorms were unsuccessfulbecause scientists were using the wrong models, or only one model at a time. Spiga and his team used more sophisticated and fine-scale modelling, allowing them to simulate Mars atmosphere in greater detail.

Many of the snowstorms will gradually come to an end before reaching the planets surface, but others can make it to ground level if a cloud forms closer to the surface. That said, the amount of snow isnt enough to ski on, or even to make a decent snowman.

The way it forms, however, could have an impact onfuture attempts to land on the planet for colonization.

Well, the associated winds found in the storm are rather vigorous, explained Franck Montmessin, another member of Spigas team studying Mars atmosphere, to ResearchGates blog. Since they occur in the lower part of the atmosphere, one might want to avoid these turbulent events to ensure a safe landing.

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New Research Shows Mars Experiences Violent Snowstorms - Futurism

In Brief The top three cryptocurrencies have gone through some changes in the last day, with Bitcoin and Ethereum dropping in price and Bitcoin Cash sharply falling, only to see another meteoric rise.

Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum experienced a few changes since Monday, with some rising to new heights and others dipping down.

As reported by Business Insider, both Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two biggest cryptocurrencies, have seen a single-digit percentage drop, while Bitcoin Cash has seen a double-digit rise.

Bitcoin dropped 2.2 percent against the US dollar as of Tuesday morning, and is now valued at $4,004.67. Ethereum, which recently announced its Metropolis update, saw a slightly larger drop than Bitcoin, dropping 3 percent to $310.32. This drop continued the currencys struggles to hit $350, and its unclear how the Metropolis update will further affect Ether token prices.

Although Bitcoin Cash only split from Bitcoin very recently,at the beginning of August, it quickly became the third-biggest cryptocurrencyin the world. Compared to the top two, Bitcoin Cash rose by 15.6 percent, to $696.39. As impressive as this may be, Business Insider notes the young currency managed to top $1,000 last weekend, but skepticism about its staying power caused it to fall sharply.

Expect prices to fluctuate, as they often tend to do, especially when regarding Bitcoin. Trusted trader masterluc predicts the top digital currency will hit $15,000 by the end of 2017.

Disclosure: Several members of the Futurism team, including the editors of this piece, are personal investors in a number of cryptocurrency markets. Their personal investment perspectives have no impact on editorial content.

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Bitcoin Cash Price Rises While Bitcoin and Ethereum Drop - Futurism - Futurism

In BriefIn an effort to improve the efficiency of naturalphotosynthesis, a researcher at the University of California,Berkeley, has created cyborg bacteria. These bacteria were trainedto grow and cover their bodies with tiny semiconductor nanocrystalsthat act as efficient solar panels for harvesting sunlight. Cyborg Bacteria

Although most life on Earth relies upon photosynthesis as its source of energy, the process has a weak link: chlorophyll. Plants and other organisms use the green pigment to harvest sunlight during photosynthesis, but it is rather inefficient. To that end, scientists have been searching for ways to upgrade natural photosynthesis sohumans would be able to capture and use energy from the Sun more efficiently.

Now, Kelsey K. Sakimoto, a researcher at Peidong Yangs lab at the University of California, Berkeley, has come up with a new alternative to natural photosynthesis: cyborg bacteria that were trained to cover themselves in solar panels that are much more efficient than chlorophyll at converting sunlight into useful compounds.

Rather than rely on inefficient chlorophyll to harvest sunlight, Ive taught bacteria how to grow and cover their bodies with tiny semiconductor nanocrystals, Sakimotosaid in a press release. These nanocrystals are much more efficient than chlorophyll and can be grown at a fraction of the cost of manufactured solar panels.

To produce his cyborg bacteria, Sakimoto fed them the amino acid cysteine and the element cadmium. The bacteria then synthesized cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanoparticles, which efficiently absorb light, functioning as solar panels on the bacterias surfaces. The new hybrid organism, called M. thermoacetica-CdS, produces useful acetic acid from light energy, water, and CO2 at a rate that outperforms any sources of natural photosynthesis.

Today, Sakimoto is presenting his work at the 254th National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Humanity is facing an ever-growing need for alternatives to fossil fuels as we face down the consequences of greenhouse gas emissionsand a rapidly increasing population that requires energy to sustain.

Artificial photosynthesisisnot a new concept, and a system that requires only sunlight and simple organic chemicals to generate renewable energy cheaply and cleanly is understandably highly desirable.

While some limited progress has been made in this area, until now, no proposed solution has been nearly efficient enough to warrant commercial use.

Sakiomotos bacteria, however, operate at an efficiency of more than 80 percent and are both self-replicating and self-regenerating, making this a zero-waste technology with multiple uses. Once covered with these tiny solar panels, the bacteria can synthesize food, fuels, and plastics, all using solar energy, he explained. These bacteria outperform natural photosynthesis.

While he does acknowledge that more research is needed, Sakiomotois hopefully that his cyborg bacteria could prove to be a viable alternative to fossil fuels, helping the world produce energy more cheaply and cleanly.

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Cyborg Bacteria Could Be the Key to Commercially Viable Artificial Photosynthesis - Futurism

In BriefNEO is going head-to-head with Ethereum, claiming that itsplatform provides more options for scripting smart contracts andenhanced reliability. New Kid on the Blockchain

Cryptocurrency is on the riseand, as a result, theres no shortage of companies looking to establish themselves as an essential part of the trading process. In addition to organizations fielding new coins, there are firms that handle other pieces of infrastructure, like Blockchain specialist NEO (formerly known as AntShares).

NEOs biggest competition is currently Ethereum, the blockchain platform behind the prosperous Ether token. Both offer support for programming languages Vitalik Buterin, who originally conceived Ethereum, has felt that the absence of such support has been a major detriment to cryptocurrency but the group behind NEO maintains that its implementation has several advantages.

Smart contracts are automated agreements between traders that can call upon all kinds of different checks and triggers, ranging from a particular date to the balance of a particular account. NEO allows developers to write smart contracts and other projects using familiar programming languages like .NET and Java, with plans to support Python, Go, and JS in the future.

NEO also diverts from the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum in eschewing the need for anonymity. The platform uses a digital identity system thats intended to help it integrate with the real-world economy. Digital identity is expected to give NEO a major advantage as it attempts to spur adoption in its origin country China.

Bitcoin and Ethereum use proof-of-work (POW) to validate transactions, but NEO instead uses a delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT) consensus method.

POW has strong availability, but it also has a big disadvantage, because it cannot ensure finality. Forks and lone blocks will occur easily, explained company co-founder and CEO Da Hongfei. dBFT ensures finality, which means that once a transaction is confirmed by a block, it is confirmed permanently without being rolled back or revoked. In our point of view, finality is far more important than availability in an important financial system.

Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to really make a splash, and it still leads the pack. However, it is still too early to determine the ramifications of itsrecent fork, which could turn out to be either ablessing or a curse.

NEO has been designed with a focus on avoiding the security issues that might prompt a fork. Reliability and stability are a big priority for its creators, having seen projects like Bitcoin Unlimited come undone as a result of such issues.

It certainly seems like NEO is being set up to fulfill the needs of tomorrows cryptocurrency market. That being said, competition from the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum wont be easy to overcome.

Disclosure: Several members of the Futurism team, including the editors of this piece, are personal investors in a number of cryptocurrency markets. Their personal investment perspectives have no impact on editorial content.

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A New Blockchain Platform is Taking on Ethereum - Futurism

In Brief Jim Green, the head of NASA's planetary science division, has confirmed that SpaceX has told the agency that their Red Dragon program will not be ready to go to Mars as soon as previously expected. According to past statements by CEO Elon Musk, a revised timeline could be revealed next month.

NASA has confirmed that SpaceX is making changes to their previously announced timeline for a manned mission to Mars. Jim Green, head of the agencys planetary science division, acknowledged that NASA had been informed that Red Dragon was being put on the back burner.

SpaceX was originally planning to make the journey to Mars in 2018, with NASA providing assistance with regards to navigation and communications as part of a Space Act Agreement between the two organizations. Wed agreed to navigate to Mars, get [Elon Musk] to the top of the atmosphere, and then it was up to him to land, said Green.

Initially, Red Dragon was expected to use a propulsion landing system to make its controlled descent onto the surface of Mars. However, when SpaceX confirmed in July 2017 that the craft wouldno longer have these capabilities, many observers wondered whether the Mars mission might miss its launch date.

Back in June, Musk teased major changes to SpaceXs mission to Mars, noting that updates could arrive as soon as September, so the expedition likely isnt off the table entirely. Whats more, the CEO just revealed the space suitshis company is developing for NASA, so that relationship seems to be as strong as ever.

Getting to Mars is no small feat, but even if SpaceX has to amend their course, the Red Planet appears to still be a big priority.

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SpaceX Has Officially Put Red Dragon on the Back Burner, Delaying Mars Expedition - Futurism