FOUND THIS WEEK

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Microsoft Underwater Datacentre

#229

In 2018, Microsoft submerged a datacentre in the waters off Orkney in Scotland. The tube held 864 servers and 27.6 petabytes of storage and was intended to test the resilience of operating a data centre 117 feet in the ocean. It has now reached its end of life and has been resurfaced to begin the recyling stage of the project.

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Green Hosting

#226

The Green Web Foundation publish a directory of web hosting companies in every country that provide proof of their green claims. Choose a provider on this green list the next time you are buying a hosting package.

Web Dev

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Bill Gates On Vehicles

#226

Bill Gates published a blog post about his thoughts on the future of transport, in particularly vehicle transport. Electric vehicles are great for short haul, provided the efficiency of battery weight to range is improved. He sees the future of long-haul transport in biofuels, that can take CO2 from the atmosphere and combine with water to create hydrogen without any waste. These biofuels power vehicles and extract CO2 from the air, a win win!

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Rebooting Capitalism

#222

The Digital-Life-Deisgn (DLD) Conference recently interviewed economist Mariana Mazzucato about the concept of Rebooting Capitalism. Mariana spoke about how mission driven economies and strategies, which structured value and equity dissemination, is the way forward for a constructive capitalist society that benefits its citizens and the planet.

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Climate Strike Software Licence

#221

The Climate Strike Licence is a software usage licence that software developers can apply to their open source projects to prohibit the use of their code by applications or companies that threaten to accelerate climate change through fossil fuel extraction.

Web Dev

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Github Buries 21TB In The Arctic

#221

Github deposited 21TB of silver halides QR code data on archival polyester reels into Arctic World Archive, down the road from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The 186 archival film reels will be stored 250m below the permafrost and are due to last 1000 years.

Life

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Solar Flow Battery

#220

Researchers at University of Wisconsin-Madison have created a new device called a solar flow battery. The device combines a silicon/perovskite tendem solar cell with a chemical based redox flow battery. The device produces consistent 20% energy efficiency from a charge at any time.

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Rock Dust CO2 Absorption

#220

A nation by nation assessment published in Nature shows that adding crushed rock (finely crushed basalt) to farmland could absorb up to two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air per year. The technique is called enhanced rock weathering and by-products of iron and stell manufacturing, and construction, could be processed to produce the rock dust needed. (H/T to Jenn for sharing this.)

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Water Filled Glass Windows

#219

Dr. Matyas Gutai of Loughborough University has developed and tested a new energy efficient building option, Water Filled Glass (WFG) windows. The WFG system holds water between layers of glass windows, allowing the sun to heat the water, providing insulation and sound proofing. The hot water is then pumped out, replaced, and stored in a water tank. When the temperature drops, the hot water is circulated around pipes to heat the building.