NASA may have just cracked the code for replacing lithium in batteries: ‘Double or even triple the energy’

Tokollo Matsabu
Fri, July 14, 2023 

NASA believes it has cracked the code in the quest to make electric planes a more viable technology.

Researchers at NASA’s Solid-state Architecture Batteries for Enhanced Rechargeability and Safety (SABERS) have created a high-performing battery that they believe can both hold enough electricity and discharge it fast enough to efficiently power an electric aircraft.

Battle of the batteries

Battery performance has long been a roadblock in the development of more sustainable electric airplanes.

While lithium-ion batteries currently dominate the battery technology space, NASA has used a different type of battery called a “solid-state battery” that is lighter and can store more power than lithium-ion batteries.

The solid-state battery isn’t new, but the technology has not been suitable for use in large electronics until SABER’s recent discovery.

Another key advantage that lithium-ion batteries have long held over solid-state batteries is that they can discharge power much faster than solid-state batteries.

SABER says it has addressed this issue with a new innovation that is able to increase a solid-state battery’s discharge rate by a factor of 10 — and then by another factor of five.

“We’re starting to approach this new frontier of battery research that could do so much more than lithium-ion batteries can,” said Rocco Viggiano, principal investigator for SABERS at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, in a press release.

“Not only does this design eliminate 30 to 40 percent of the battery’s weight, it also allows us to double or even triple the energy it can store, far exceeding the capabilities of lithium-ion batteries that are considered to be state of the art,” he added.
Is sustainable aviation around the corner?

Safety is a primary concern for aircrafts. You wouldn’t get on an electric plane if there was a possibility it could catch fire mid-air.

Because lithium-ion batteries contain highly flammable liquid that is prone to leakage, each battery cell is kept in its own steel case, which adds weight. And, when damaged, lithium-ion batteries can still catch fire.

Solid-state batteries, on the other hand, can still be used even when they’re damaged. They also don’t contain liquids, so they can be stacked vertically in one casing, which maximizes space and lightens the load of the battery.

Aircrafts operate in varying temperatures and pressures, going from low to high altitudes in short periods of time, and NASA researchers have found that solid-state batteries can operate in temperatures twice as hot as lithium-ion batteries. Solid-state batteries achieve this using less cooling technology than lithium-ion.

This battery technology has caught the eye of the U.S. government and the aviation industry as a promising way to help reduce the air pollution stemming from air travel. It isn’t commercially viable just yet, but NASA researchers are partnering with various academic institutions to continue developing this battery technology.

Engineers invent genius battery solution for storing clean energy without lithium: ‘The first in the world to do something like this’


Kecia Bal
Thu, July 13, 2023 

Providing energy year-round has so far presented one of green power’s most insurmountable challenges — but now the world’s first fully functional sand battery, which can store green power for months, could present a valuable solution.

According to BBC News, engineers working for Finnish company Polar Night Energy have put sand to work. They installed the first sand battery in July 2022 and have seen promising results so far. The sand is stored in a simple silo, a humble innovation that may help provide a path forward for cleaner, cheaper energy as a viable, sustainable part of everyday life.

While green energy sources are often readily available at certain times of the year, a long-running concern has been finding avenues to store that energy for colder months, when more families and businesses need to turn up the heat.
How would sand batteries work?

First, existing solar panels and wind turbines would generate electricity using natural and available sources.

Some of that electricity would be put to use directly and immediately through an electrical grid to meet current demands, but the remaining, unused energy could be stored as heat in a sand battery, which can be warmed up to 500 degrees Celsius (around 932 degrees Fahrenheit) using the same heat-exchange process that fuels electric fires.

Sand is considered very effective at retaining heat, and under the right circumstances, it could hold that 500 degrees Celsius worth of warmth for months at a time.

Finally, the heat that had been stored could be used to provide hot water heating in order to warm up buildings year-round.

Tucked away in a corner of a small power plant in western Finland, the geographic location of this sand battery pilot may prove to be an ideal scenario for testing the results. With rising prices of dirty energy sources like fossil fuel and cold winter months just ahead, interest in renewable energy sources is rising.

Intermittency — energy sources that ebb and flow, such as solar energy’s dependence on sunlight — has remained a concern and has prompted energy providers to continue to rely on energy from dirty and expensive fossil fuels to balance out availability.

Residents of the small town of Kankaanpää, where the pilot is taking place, will have a chance this winter to test out the results of the sand battery, engineered by the founders of Polar Night Energy. The new company installed the device in the Vatajankoski power plant, which operates the town’s heating system.

“It’s really simple, but we liked the idea of trying something new, to be the first in the world to do something like this,” said Pekka Passi, the plant’s managing director.

The next question will be whether it can be scaled for broader use and even more impactful applications, such as providing electricity as well as a heat source for hot water.

Getting energy from renewable sources is ideal in many ways, as clean energy is often cheaper and has less of a negative impact on our overheating planet, but those sources may only provide truly sustainable solutions if the energy becomes reliable and available when people need it.

Sand batteries may provide one answer to help combat climate change and provide a stable, clean source of year-round heat.

Coastal city was mysteriously abandoned 2,000 years ago. Now, archaeologists know why


Photo from Science in Poland

Brendan Rascius
Fri, July 14, 2023

An ancient city on the coast of India was mysteriously abandoned around 2,000 years ago. Now, after a systematic study of the ruins, archaeologists believe they know why the inhabitants left.

The city of Sopara, located about 60 miles north of Mumbai, was once an important trade hub, connecting Asia to Europe, according to a June 27 news release from Science in Poland.

From as early as 1400 B.C., the maritime metropolis — which was also a religious center — facilitated trade between “Greece, Persia and Arabian settlements,” according to a study published in Current Science.

But, the city’s inhabitants appear to have suddenly skipped town, deserting their clay-brick homes around the third century, according to Science in Poland.

In 2020, archaeologists from Poland and India set out to unravel the mystery of Sopara’s downfall. How did a major trade center become a ghost town?

Using noninvasive techniques, archaeologists methodically studied the ruins, which had previously only been explored haphazardly.

Assisted by drones, they created a three-dimensional model of the ruins, which cover an area smaller than 1 square mile.

They also conducted research at the surface, scanning the ground with metal detectors and drilling narrow holes, known as boreholes, which can help assess geological conditions over time.

An analysis of the boreholes revealed that, around 2,000 years ago, the city’s waterways gradually became filled with silt, a fine sediment carried by running water.

Sopara’s residents likely left town because of silt buildups in the waterway that connected the city to the ocean, the lifeblood of the maritime trade center.

Further information, such as about the city’s layout and building sizes, may be learned during already planned future excavations and analyses, researchers say.

Google Translate was used to translate the news release from Science in Poland.

Turns out all we may need to stop climate change is 139 billion gallons of super-duper white paint


Cork Gaines
Thu, July 13, 2023 

This isn't the climate change-fighting paint, it's just a guy painting a road with a very small brush.

Nick Dolding/Getty Images

According to one professor, we can stop global warming if we used a new super white paint.

The problem though, is we would need to cover at least 1% of the earth's surface with the paint.

That won't be easy, especially with all that water everywhere.

I hope Purdue University is ready for this incoming order.

In 2021, researchers at Purdue University announced that they had developed the whitest paint on Earth. The color is so white that it can reflect over 98% of light. This is particularly useful because light generates heat — and we here on Earth are running a bit hot these days.

If used on a building, the researchers say, the paint would reduce the temperature on the surface, lowering the temps inside and decreasing the need for air conditioning. But what if there was an even bigger application, like reducing the temperature of the entire planet?

According to Jeremy Munday, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Davis, who researches clean technology, if a material like Purdue's paint covered 1-2% of the Earth's surface, the amount of light being bounced back into space would reduce the amount of heat being absorbed by the planet enough to stabilize global temperatures. In other words, it could do a lot to solve climate change. Plus, Munday told the New York Times, the amount of light being bounced back into space wouldn't harm the cosmos very much. "It'd be like pouring a cup of regular water into the ocean," he told the Times.

But just how big is 1-2% of the Earth's surface? The total surface area of the Earth is right around 197 million square miles (and most of that is water), so the paint would need to cover between roughtly 2 million and 4 million square miles. For reference, the total land area of the United States is just over 3.5 million square miles, so we'd need to cover the country in white paint from sea to paint-stained sea.

That would be a lot of paint. A LOT.

If we assume the new paint acts like commerical paint, as the Purdue researchers suggest, a gallon would cover about 400 square feet, we would need roughly 139 billion gallons of the super-duper white paint to cover just 1% of the Earth's surface. Of course, that number doubles if we need to cover 2% of the surface. And none of this takes into account how hard it would be to paint oceans, deserts, and trees.

Painting things white to reduce temperatures is not a new concept. Just drive around my home state of Texas and see how many cars are white. Many places around the world are already painting surfaces white, and Purdue's new paint will help. But it does show that we have a long way to go before the problem is solved.

BEEN TRYING FOR 70 YEARS
The world’s largest nuclear fusion project could change our planet forever — but delays and setbacks keep slowing it down



Sara Klimek
Fri, July 14, 2023

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a collaboration between 35 countries, is the largest nuclear fusion project in the world, Scientific American reports. It’s also set to be one of the most expensive and delayed science projects in history, thanks to defective pieces and numerous costly setbacks.

What’s happening?

The reactor, located in southern France, is designed to raise hydrogen to a temperature so hot that it ionizes and forms plasma instead of gas, according to Scientific American. This chemical transformation, caused by the atoms colliding, generates electricity — via a process called nuclear fusion.

This project sounds expensive because it is. The project began in 2006 and was priced at around $6.3 billion, with an estimated completion in 2016. The most recent scope suggests the price is more like $22 billion, with the finished date around 2025. A report obtained via a lawsuit also reveals that the price could be substantially higher and face several more years of delay.

Besides many of its parts arriving later than expected, the ITER has also faced numerous issues with the quality and durability of its materials. Several thermal shields used to keep the refrigerant cool were corroded and cracked because the welding was insufficient.

The project has also faced many policy barriers, including a production halt in January 2022 via the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN). The ASN did not believe the ITER’s plans were sufficient to stop radiation, thus putting personnel at risk.

Why is this significant?

Nuclear fission, the splitting of atoms, has dominated the atomic energy lexicon. Although it has been assessed since the 1950s, fusion has never before been completed at the scale of the ITER. If successful, the ITER will generate 500 megawatts of fusion power for every 50 megawatts of energy heating input — and give scientists more insight into large-scale fusion development.

Fusion has numerous environmental benefits compared to fission or other carbon-pollution-producing energy sources like coal or oil. It can produce four million times more energy than burning coal, oil, or gas and four times as much as nuclear fission, according to the ITER website.

Its only byproduct is helium, an inert clean gas; no “long-lived” nuclear waste is produced. Fusion is also preferable from a safety perspective because the tokamak fusion device can more rapidly cool itself, which prevents meltdowns, and the enriched materials in the reactor can’t be used to create nuclear weapons.

What is being done about this?

A new timetable for the project is set to be completed by the end of 2023, which includes cost modifications and considerations of the ASN’s concerns. The expected full-phase completion date is now as late as 2035.

'Concerning' map reveals where fish caught in the US are full of hazardous 'forever chemicals'


Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Fri, July 14, 2023 

A participant shows her catch during a virtual ice fishing competition on Gull Lake, Brainerd, Minnesota.

Rebecca Fudala/Reuters

Fish in lakes and streams across the US are contaminated with hazardous "forever chemicals."

A map of documented contamination sites shows how PFAS pollution is everywhere.

Eating a fish from a local lake could be equal to drinking PFAS-contaminated water for a month.

Eating fish from a local lake or stream could give you a giant dose of hazardous "forever chemicals," equal to nearly a month of drinking highly contaminated water, researchers have calculated.

Since their invention in the 1930s, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have multiplied and spread. Humans have created thousands of substances in the PFAS class, since their resistance to water and heat makes them useful in everyday products like food packaging and clothing.

But in recent decades, research has revealed that PFAS are harmful to human health. Peer-reviewed studies have linked them to some cancers, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, developmental delays, liver damage, high cholesterol, and reduced immune responses.

What's worse, PFAS only stick around and build up. They're nicknamed "forever chemicals" because they don't really break down. Now they're in soil, food, water, clothing, and even the dust in your home. One analysis found that rainfall across the entire planet contains unsafe levels of PFAS.

So it's no surprise that these substances have filled waterways across the US, where they can accumulate in the bodies of fish. Eating a fish can give you a concentrated dose of its entire lifetime of forever chemicals.

The problem is widespread across the US. The Environmental Working Group assembled a map, below, of the more than 500 samples of PFAS-contaminated fish. The instances span all 48 contiguous states.

Locations where PFAS-contaminated fish have been documented.

Copyright © Environmental Working Group, www.ewg.org. Reproduced with permission.

An interactive version of the map on the EWG website contains details about each site.

The map is based on EPA data from 2013 to 2015, in which the agency tested over 500 samples of fish from freshwater sources across the US.

EWG researchers published their analysis of that data in the journal Environmental Research in January. They found PFOS — one of the most notorious substances — was the largest contributor to PFAS contamination in fish.

An uncle and his nephew fish for salmon with a net on the Trinity River on the Hoopa Valley Reservation in California.Stephanie Keith/Reuters

Eating just one freshwater fish could be equal to a month of drinking water contaminated with 48 parts per trillion of PFOS, EWG researchers calculated. Last year, the EPA lowered the level of PFOS in drinking water it considers safe to 0.02 parts per trillion.

"To find this level of contamination in fish across the country, even in areas not close to industry where you might expect heavy contamination, is very concerning. These chemicals are everywhere," Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, told CNN.
PFAS are everywhere, making the planet 'a bit inhospitable'

Some places have even issued advisories about PFAS contamination in fish, like Wisconsin in 2021, when the state warned people not to eat smelt from Lake Superior more than once per month.

But states don't always detect or warn people about PFAS contamination in their fish. So taking your fishing pole to the local river could be riskier than you think.

"When we start to really worry about using our environmental resources, that makes me really angry and annoyed," Ian Cousins, who led the analysis of PFAS levels in rainwater, told Insider in August.

He said he's also seen PFAS contamination advisories for fishing spots in Sweden, where he lives.

"We kind of made the planet a bit inhospitable," he added.

The new EWG study found that the median total PFAS level in freshwater fish was 278 times higher than that of commercially sold fish tested in the last three years.

A fish market in Reading Terminal Market, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Hannah Beier/Reuters

While avoiding PFAS altogether is probably impossible, it can help to know how to cut out little things that pack big doses — like certain fish in certain waterways.

Though the EPA's stringent new guidelines for PFOS and its equally notorious cousin, PFOA, are not currently enforceable, the agency is working to clean up some of the country's most contaminated drinking water.

The 2021 Infrastructure Bill designated $5 billion for that effort.

Correction: January 19, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misstated the number of samples of PFAS-contaminated fish in the map. There are more than 500 fish samples documented.

This post has been updated. It was originally published on January 19, 2023.

The US wanted to use hundreds of nukes to create an alternative to the Suez Canal

Team Mighty
Fri, July 14, 2023

(Photo by Mahmoud KHALED / AFP)

Israel’s early days were pretty tough. It was the youngest kid in a rough neighborhood and endured endless bullying from its Arab neighbors. After fighting for its independence in 1948, it would face wars for its survival in 1967 and 1973, and nearly launched the world into World War III in 1953. Times were, needless to say, pretty hard. The Suez Canal was one of the keys to Israel’s survival in those early days.

Since its construction in the late 1800s, it’s been a vital strategic waterway, providing the shortest link between the Mediterranean Sea and Asia. In 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser nationalized the canal and threatened to cut off Israel’s access to it.

Israel, with the support of Britain and France, even invaded the Sinai Peninsula in 1952, the event that almost drew in the United States and the Soviet Union. Thankfully, the Suez Crisis was resolved before a larger war could break out, but Israel still needed to ensure its access through the Suez and the Straits of Tiran.

Luckily, just a few years later, the United States happened to be looking for more ways to use atomic energy peacefully while informing the public about the true power and threat of nuclear weapons. Specifically, it was looking to demonstrate the usefulness of atomic explosions in building critical infrastructure projects.

A lot of methods were tested using nuclear explosions, including blasting rock, exploring the Earth’s crust, and developing new methods of mineral prospecting. In Israel specifically, scientists came up with a scheme that would create a new Suez-like canal, linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean through Israel’s Negev Desert – some 160 miles – using 520 nuclear bombs.

Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1962.

The Cold War was certainly an insane time. A memorandum written in 1963 was declassified in 1996, revealing the plans to cut a path of (literal) destruction across Israel using hundreds of two-megaton bombs; the conventional methods of creating such a canal would be “prohibitively expensive,” according to the memo. "It appears that nuclear explosives could be profitably applied to this situation."

“Profitably applied,” in this case, means four nuclear devices for every mile of canal, noting that 130 miles of the 160-mile stretch were uninhabited at the time. The only problem for the canal was the “political feasibility, as it is likely that the Arab countries surrounding Israel would strongly object to the construction of such a canal." Not to mention how the Israelis in the 30 miles of populated canal zone might feel about their country being nuked.

Despite the good intentions of using “peaceful” nuclear explosions, numerous tests were conducted that found these explosions, however peaceful they might have been, heavily irradiated the areas in which they were tested.

Other projects considered for use of peaceful nuclear explosions included widening the Panama Canal, creating a new canal through Nicaragua (called the Pan-Atomic Canal), mining projects in Arizona, and water transportation systems in California. Serious consideration was given to creating a harbor in Cape Thompson, Alaska using hydrogen bombs. It was reconsidered after they discovered Cape Thompson didn’t actually need a harbor.

Dozens of tests were conducted over the course of more than a decade, including hundreds of underground tests, but nothing came of the effort, and the funding to use peaceful nuclear blasts for civilian purposes quietly dried up by 1977.

Hunters Capture 19-Foot Python, the Longest Ever Caught in Florida: 'It Was Trying to Wrap Me Up'


Abigail Adams
Thu, July 13, 2023 a

The record-setting snake was found at Big Cypress National Preserve in Naples on July 10, according to The Conservancy of Southwest Florida

An image of the 19-foot python caught in Naples on July 10

A group of snake hunters recently captured the longest Burmese python ever recorded in Florida.

The record-setting snake — which measures in at 19 feet long and 125 lbs. — was found at Big Cypress National Preserve in Naples on July 10, according to a press release from The Conservancy of Southwest Florida.

Jake Waleri, 22, was among “a group of passionate python hunters” who helped wrangle the reptile, which is believed to be over 20 years old, according to CBS affiliate WINK-TV.

Even wilder? Some of his friends had never gone hunting for pythons before their encounter with the enormous snake, per the outlet.

Related: Florida County Quarantined After One of the World's 'Most Damaging Snails' Is Found in Area

The group initially attempted to catch the snake in a net, but when Jake attempted to grab the snake by its head, it put up a fight.

“The snake went absolutely crazy,” Jake told WINK-TV. “It was trying to wrap me up, trying to strangle me and my friends.”

The group then brought the animal to the Conservancy, where they learned that what they found was special.

An image of the 19-foot python caught in Naples on July 10

The previous record for longest python found in Florida was 18 feet and 9 inches, according to the nonprofit organization.

“We had a feeling that these snakes get this big and now we have clear evidence,” said biologist Ian Easterling in the Conservancy’s release. “Her genetic material may prove valuable for an eventual understanding of the founding population of South Florida.”

Meanwhile, Jake is happy to know that he helped “make an impact on South Florida’s environment.”

“We love this ecosystem and try to preserve it as much as possible,” he said.

Repay ‘debt of honour’ to Afghans who fought Taliban with Britain, Rishi Sunak told

Jon Stone,Adam Forrest and Holly Bancroft
Fri, July 14, 2023 


General Lord Dannatt (inset) joined calls for the prime minister to fulfil promises to refugees (Getty Images)

Military chiefs and MPs have called on Rishi Sunak to keep promises made to Afghan refugees, as they urged the government not to forget its “debt of honour” to those who fought with the UK against the Taliban.

In a letter to the prime minister, key figures – including former British army chief General Lord Dannatt and ex-Nato general secretary Lord Robertson – called for action to end the “disgrace” of those still stranded in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The demand to help Afghans who were promised sanctuary in Britain comes afterThe Independent repeatedly exposed failings in the government’s resettlement schemes.


Among those who have suffered at the hands of the system are the Afghan air force pilot who served alongside coalition forces but is now threatened with deportation to Rwanda because he arrived in the UK in a small boat.

There is also the scandal of nearly 2,000 Afghans who have been deemed eligible to come to the UK, but have been abandoned in hotels in Pakistan still waiting for relocation – an issue first exposed by The Independent. The refugees, who helped British forces, have been accepted under resettlement programmes and moved from their homes in Afghanistan, but have not been given the final green light to come to the UK.

MP Dan Jarvis, a former army officer who served in Afghanistan, today praised The Independent for “shining a light” on the issue as he joined a chorus of voices demanding the prime minister pay attention to those who have been “forgotten and ignored”.

The letter calls on Mr Sunak to “urgently” establish control over the situation, warning that movement from Afghanistan to the UK “effectively ceased” seven months ago, leaving thousands stranded in dangerous situations.

Mr Jarvis told The Independent: “I think Afghanistan is very much in the rear-view mirror and there isn’t the political will to honour the commitments that were made previously.

“These are not economic migrants, these are not people who just want to leave Afghanistan for a better life. These are people who are and will be murdered by the Taliban if they do not get to a place of safety.

“These are people who risked their lives to serve alongside us in support of our mission, at our request, and to whom the UK prime minister made a commitment to shift heaven and earth to get them to a place of safety.”

The former officer said he was “grateful” for The Independent’s campaigning on the issue, adding: “I really appreciate the fact that you’re shining a light on it, because you... have done really good work in trying to keep the flame alive with this.”

Latest figures show that, since the fall of Kabul, 21,387 people have been relocated to the UK under Arap – designed to bring those who helped British forces during the war to the UK – and ACRS, the general scheme for at-risk Afghans applying for resettlement.

But there are many who have not yet made it to the UK. Those accepted under the schemes are initially issued with temporary visas to neighbouring Pakistan where they are put in hotels or holding centres before accommodation can be found for them in Britain.

In the year from September 21 to November 22, 1,377 Afghans were relocated from Pakistan to the UK. But since December last year the government has quietly stopped moving people from there on to the UK, the letter says, with just six relocated to Britain in that time.

According to latest figures, this has left 1,953 Afghans living in “limbo”. The letter’s signatories warned that figure could be close to 4,000 in a year’s time.

Some campaigners claim the government has stopped the flights from Pakistan because it is sensitive to criticism over refugees being housed in hotels in Britain, due to a lack of other suitable accommodation.

But the apparent decision to clear people from hotels before more Afghans are allowed to come to Britain under the scheme means the bottleneck has been moved to Pakistan.

“Their numbers are growing, their lives are on hold, and they are desperate,” the letter says.

“Some have been there for a year, and they are facing a second year. They believe that the British government is working to enable them to start their new lives in the UK. They are mistaken.

“These are people who have passed the rigorous Arap/ACRS tests, they have risked their lives, alongside our own service men and women, to support the UK’s objectives in Afghanistan. It is inconceivable that we should renege on our debt of honour, and forget them.”

Top military figures and politicians who have pursued ministers on the fate of the stranded Afghans say they have been met with a lack of political will in government and found a chaotic situation in which no department has taken responsibility for bringing them to safety.

The letter, meanwhile, warns there “is no plan”.

General Sir John McColl, the army’s former deputy supreme allied commander for Europe, said: “The plight of those Afghans ignored and forgotten in Pakistan is a disgrace. The government must honour its pledge to support those who fought and died alongside us so bravely.”

The former prime minister’s special envoy to Afghanistan told The Independent the government appeared to be “quite happy for this issue to be forgotten and swept under the carpet”, adding: “They’re out of sight and therefore out of mind.”

Mr Jarvis added: “It's almost impossible not to conclude that there isn't a plan and that those people have been abandoned.”

Lord West, a former head of the Royal Navy, told The Independent: “We’re letting people down. We owe the Afghans – so we jolly well ought to get on and do it. Having made all sorts of very good statements, it doesn’t look like we aren’t resettling people we said we would.”

He added: “If it’s an administrative cock-up it must be resolved. If it’s not a cock-up then it goes against government policy. The accommodation seems to be the real problem. It’s not beyond the wit of man to resolve this.”

Lord Robertson told The Independent there was a “moral commitment” made to Afghans eligible for Arap that had been allowed to “drift”.

The former Labour defence secretary said: “There is an outstanding obligation that they need to deliver on. Urgency is appropriate given the promises and commitments made.”

Lord Robertson also called for a rethink on the case of the Afghan pilot refused under the Arap scheme.

The pilot, threatened with deportation to Rwanda, flew more than 30 combat missions alongside coalition forces. As part of the Afghan air force, he went on sorties planned and designed by British and US commanders in the run-up to the fall of Kabul in 2021.

“It seems ludicrous to threaten someone like that with deportation when we committed to help those who helped us,” he added. “Other countries have lived up to their obligations – we should do the same.”

Other signatories of the letter include former international development secretary Rory Stewart, former cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill, and Dr Sara de Jong, co-founder of The Sulha Alliance, a charity which supports Afghan interpreters and other local civilians who assisted British forces.

The Independent has contacted the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence for comment.

Robert Bosch going all-in on hydrogen technologies

Alan Adler
Fri, July 14, 2023 

Robert Bosch will invest $2.6 billion in hydrogen technologies by 2026, including on fuel cells whose first customer will be Nikola Corp. (Photo: Bosch)

Germany-based automotive supplier Robert Bosch expects to post $5.3 billion in sales by the end of the decade from hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen internal combustion engines and electrolyzers that make hydrogen.

It is the latest proclamation that hydrogen is emerging as a meaningful alternative to battery-electric vehicles, which lead the transition to zero tailpipe emissions by at least a couple of years, according to industry leaders.

Bosch became the second industry player this week to add hydrogen as a fuel for internal combustion engines, following Daimler Truck and engine maker Cummins, which is investing $452 million in a plant in Jamestown, New York, to make fuel-agnostic variants of its X15 engine. Bosch is investing $2.6 billion in hydrogen between 2021 and 2026.

Growing adoption of hydrogen ICE

Bosch is developing systems for port and direct injection of hydrogen. Hydrogen ICEs are particularly suitable for heavy vehicles on long hauls with especially heavy loads.

“A hydrogen engine can do everything a diesel engine does, but on top of that, it is carbon neutral,” Markus Heyn, member of the Bosch board of management and chairman of Bosch Mobility, said in a news release from Bosch Tech Day 2023 in Stuttgart. “It also allows a fast and cost-effective entry into hydrogen-based mobility.”

Interest in hydrogen ICE powertrains grew following a recent European Commission decision declaring them as zero emission despite a small amount of carbon dioxide created through the burning of hydrogen as a fuel.

A major advantage of hydrogen engines is that more than 90% of the development and manufacturing technologies needed already exist. Bosch expects to start production in 2024, three years sooner than Cummins. It has four orders for production projects from major economic regions and expects six-figure unit volumes by 2030.

Bosch adding to fuel-cell efforts

Bosch is leveraging several German locations and one in Anderson, South Carolina, to advance work in hydrogen fuel cells.

The Bosch plant in Bamberg, Germany, will supply the Feuerbach factory with the fuel-cell stack. The electric air compressor and recirculation blower come from the Bosch plant in Homburg, Germany.

An early customer is Nikola Corp., which begins production of a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) — the Class 8 Tre — in the third quarter from a plant in Coolidge, Arizona. Nikola has a license to assemble the modules at its plant.

“Bosch is one of the very few companies that are capable of mass producing technology as complex as fuel-cell stacks,” Heyn said. “We don’t just have the required systems expertise but also the capability of quickly scaling up new developments to mass production.”

Making the equipment that makes hydrogen

Like battery-powered engines, an abundance of fuel cells means little without the infrastructure. Bosch joins Cummins and a host of other suppliers in making electrolyzers with proton exchange membranes. They effectively the reverse of the energy conversion method used in mobile fuel cells.

The company intends to make 1.25-megawatt prototypes for pilot applications this year. Volume production is on track for 2025.

Bosch also is working on solid-oxide fuel cells that can be used for the distributed supply of power and heat. In a pilot project at a hospital near Cologne, Germany, Bosch seeks to achieve overall efficiency of 90%. The micropower plant initially will run on natural gas. It can be converted to green hydrogen made from renewables.

“Bosch knows its way around hydrogen and Bosch is growing with hydrogen,” Bosch Chairman Stefan Hartung said at the Bosch Tech Day.

Nikola stock surging on hydrogen fuel-cell truck and supply deals

Pras Subramanian
·Senior Reporter
Thu, July 13, 2023 

Nikola stock (NKLA) is rocketing higher after the electric truck maker announced two big deals for its hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

First off, small-scale hydrogen producer BayoTech agreed to a supply deal with Nikola HYLA’s division, which is its hydrogen distribution and dispensing solution for commercial trucking applications using hydrogen fuel-cell technology. BayoTech has agreed to purchase up to 50 Nikola Class 8 hydrogen fuel cell trucks over the next five years, with the first twelve trucks slated for delivery in 2023 and 2024. Nikola says its fuel-cell trucks have a range of up to 500 miles.

The HYLA tie-up with BayoTech will in turn see Nikola purchase up to 10 of BayoTech’s HyFill hydrogen transport trailers, which are required to distribute high-pressure hydrogen from production sites to refueling stations.

Nikola Corporation (NKLA)  View quote details

Secondly, Nikola supplier Bosch said at its Tech Day 2023 in Stuttgart on Thursday that it would begin volume production of its fuel-cell power modules, with Nikola serving as Bosch’s pilot customer.

Bosch fuel cells will be used in Nikola’s Class 8 truck, which has first deliveries to customers starting in North America in Q3 of this year.

“Bosch is one of the very few companies that are capable of mass-producing technology as complex as fuel-cell stacks. We don’t just have the required systems expertise, but also the capability of quickly scaling up new developments to mass production,” Markus Heyn, Bosch board member and chairman of Bosch Mobility, said in a statement. Bosch says it will invest $2.8 billion into hydrogen fuel technology through 2026, which is over $1 billion more than it was planning to spend.

Bosch's hydrogen fuel cell production line in Germany

Nikola shares traded up nearly 60% in late afternoon trading.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance earlier this year, Nikola CEO Michael Lohscheller said the company was forecasting production of "between 375 and 500 trucks" for the year and that the company plans to temporarily pause production at its Coolidge, Arizona, plant in order to modify the assembly line to accommodate both hydrogen fuel cell and battery electric assembly. The company said it is also leaning more toward boosting production of its hydrogen fuel cell trucks and assembling battery-electric models on a "build-to-order" basis.

It hasn’t been all good news for Nikola recently, as three weeks ago a fire damaged multiple battery-electric trucks at its Arizona headquarters. At the time Nikola said it suspected "foul play," but the Phoenix Fire Department concluded its investigation and found "no evidence at all of arson," meaning a possible battery issue may have been the cause of the fire.

Phoenix and Tempe fire crews battle multiple electric vehicle fires at the Nikola Motor Co. headquarters in Phoenix on June 23, 2023.

Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. 

Doctors walk out in UK health service's biggest strike

AFP
Thu, July 13, 2023 

This is the latest in a wave of public and private sector pay disputes sparked by a cost-of-living crisis (Daniel LEAL)

Hospital doctors in England on Thursday staged the biggest walkout in the history of the UK's state-funded National Health Service, prompting fears for patient safety.

The unprecedented five-day stoppage over pay and staff retention is the latest in eight months of industrial action across the NHS, which is already reeling from a vast pandemic backlog.

"The NHS has been running on goodwill and now this is the last chance to change that," said 27-year-old junior doctor Arjan Singh, on a picket line outside London's University College Hospital.

Colleagues were planning to leave for countries that "care about their doctors", he said.

Nearly 7,000 doctors requested documents for an overseas job application last year, according to the British Medical Association (BMA) union, a record high.

"Doctors have realised they work in a global market," said Singh. "They're not restricted to this country."

Nurses, ambulance staff and other medical workers have all joined picket lines in recent months, adding to pressures on patient appointments.

The industrial action by junior doctors -- those below consultant level -- is scheduled to run until 7:00 am (0600 GMT) on Tuesday.

It comes against a wider backdrop of walk-outs across the economy from train drivers to lawyers over the past year as the UK battles a crippling cost-of-living crisis.

Senior hospital doctors, known as consultants, in England will begin a 48-hour strike on July 20, with radiographers following suit from July 25.

- 'Destructive' -

The BMA's Junior Doctors Committee says medics have effectively had a 26-percent pay cut in real terms in the last 15 years, as salaries have failed to keep pace with soaring inflation.

The government claims that backdating their pay to reflect increases in the cost of living since 2008 is too costly and has instead offered an extra five percent, as it battles to reduce inflation.

"Today marks the start of the longest single walkout by doctors in the NHS's history, but this is still not a record that needs to go into the history books," BMA leaders Robert Laurenson and Vivek Trivedi said.

"We can call this strike off today if the UK government will simply follow the example of the government in Scotland and drop their nonsensical precondition of not talking whilst strikes are announced and produce an offer which is credible to the doctors they are speaking with."

Similar stoppages in June and April resulted in massive disruption with hundreds of thousands of hospital appointments and operations rescheduled.

"The complete inflexibility we see from the UK government today is baffling, frustrating, and ultimately destructive for everyone who wants waiting lists to go down and NHS staffing numbers to go up," Laurenson and Trivedi added.

A record nearly 7.5 million people were waiting to start routine hospital treatment at the end of May, according to data released on Thursday.

Of those around 385,000 had been waiting for a year.

Unions meanwhile on Thursday won a court battle with the government over law changes they said allowed agencies supply employers with workers to plug gaps left by striking staff.

The High Court in London quashed the changes which unions, including the leading health sector union Unite, argued undermined the "right to strike".

har/phz/jj

Junior doctors in England to start 5-day strike – as health boss warns NHS will lose £100m

Rebecca Thomas
Thu, July 13, 2023 

NHS health chiefs say they are “fed up” with the “permanent crisis” of strikes and warn this week’s junior doctors’ walkout will cost the NHS well over £100 million.

Health bosses are “frustrated” at the ongoing industrial action and say hospitals are struggling to get staff to cover shifts, while tens of thousands of appointments and surgeries will be cancelled each day.

It comes after months of nurses’ strikes, while junior doctors will take action from Wednesday for five days, followed by NHS consultants and then radiographers.

NHS forecasts for the first three-day doctors’ strikes showed the costs of covering shifts and the loss of payments for cancelled operations amounted to £100 million across all 215 NHS trusts. Health bosses now fear the five-day strike could cost almost double.

A group of three hospitals in London St George’s, Epsom and St Helier hospitals, warned the latest walkout, which will run over the weekend and into Monday, could be the “toughest yet”.

NHS medical director Dr Stephen Powis has warned tens of thousands of patient appointments and operations will be cancelled each day due to the action.

The warnings come as a survey of health leaders by NHS Providers, which represents trusts, revealed one-third of hospital chiefs are not confident they will meet promises made by prime minister Rishi Sunak to cut NHS waiting lists.

One hospital chief in the south of England warned ahead of the strikes: “It is annual leave season and we are loathe to cancel leave as this is now becoming a ‘perma crisis’ and we are conscious of avoiding staff burnout.”

“We are now covering the weekend which is more challenging … Staff [are] feeling that the Department of Health attitude that industrial action won’t impact on the elective recovery plan is beginning to lack authenticity and lose the locker room.”

They warned it has been harder to find staff to cover junior doctors’ shifts as “they feel there is no end in sight and they are trying to manage their own wellbeing”.

According to a report by NHS Providers, more than a third of trusts are not confident they will hit the government’s target to eliminate the number of patients waiting more than a year for care by March 2025.

It also showed no confidence the NHS will be able to meet other targets, including having 75 per cent of patients urgently referred for suspected cancer diagnosed or cancer ruled out within 28 days.

A third also said they were either very unlikely or unlikely to hit targets for 76 per cent of patients to be seen within four hours in A&E.

Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers said: "We are now seeing an impact on productivity and cost in terms of strike action.”

"Some of the biggest trusts saw a cost of £2.5 to £3 million. Scaling up to all trusts, that is a reported cost of £100 million for the April strikes alone."

"There’s a high level of frustration and deep concern that there doesn’t appear to be a resolution in sight. The consequences of ongoing industrial on patient waits and on staff morale, and indeed the mounting costs of strike action is something that we just can’t allow to become business as usual.”

One NHS chief said: “So it’s costing us close to a million pounds each time there’s a three-day strike. So add that up, across, each time we have a strike across the country, there’s an awful lot of money being lost to this process.

They added: “I don’t think you can underestimate the tensions, and the potential with this good division that this creates, between obviously leaders, and staff, but also among staff themselves.”

Another said: “It’s cost us circa a million for each [strike], and actually, that was each three-day strike. So you could do the math on five days … I’m really worried about the kind of long-term damage it does to relationships within the NHS ... I’m fed up of industrial action.”

Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said: “It is disappointing that the BMA is going ahead with further strike action. This five-day walkout by junior doctors will have an impact on thousands of patients, put patient safety at risk and hamper efforts to cut NHS waiting lists.”