HadNews.com

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Why aren’t there solar-powered cars? – Emma, age 16, Springville, Utah Solar cars exist. The best place to see them is the World Solar Challenge, a race that’s held every two years in Australia. Competitors have to drive about 1,870 miles (3,000 kilometers), from Darwin on the country’s north coast to Adelaide on its south coast, using only energy from the Sun. Many cars that compete in this race ...... Read Full article on HadNews

In a newly published study, we describe our design for a self-extinguishing rechargeable battery. It replaces the most commonly used electrolyte, which is highly combustible – a medium composed of a lithium salt and an organic solvent – with materials found in a commercial fire extinguisher. An electrolyte allows lithium ions that carry an electric charge to move across a separator between the positive and negative terminals of a lithium-ion battery. By modifying affordable commercial coolants to function as battery electrolytes, we were able to produce a battery that puts out its own fire. Our electrolyte worked well across a wide ...... Read Full article on HadNews

Nuclear power, whose proponents have so often felt pushed to the margins of climate policy, is now firmly at the center of the climate conversation. At last month’s United Nations climate summit (known as COP28), 22 countries pledged to triple 2020’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050.Meeting this dramatic goal will require the world to build new nuclear power at an unprecedented pace. But even if the world falls short of meeting the capacity numbers, the target’s real value may lie in spurring the world to embrace nuclear fission as one of many solutions for decarbonizing the grid.Making good on the pledge will be a huge challenge. In 2020, n...... Read Full article on HadNews

The final text of the latest UN climate summit COP28, now called the UAE consensus, called for countries to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”. Many felt that this “consensus” was more of a compromise, forced by the fossil fuel industry in the face of an ever more evident climate crisis. Meteorologists have confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record and with the added influence of El Niño, the warm phase of a natural cycle in Earth’s climate, 2024 could be huma...... Read Full article on HadNews