New battery could power consumer electronics devices for double the current limit writes Keri Allan in the Engineering and Technolgy Magazi.
A new lithium metal battery has been developed that could power drones, mobile phones, wearable technology and even electric cars for double the current limit.
SolidEnergy Systems has developed a rechargeable ‘anode-free’ lithium metal battery that it says offers double the energy capacity of standard batteries used to power many consumer devices.
Qichao Hu co-invented the battery at MIT before going on to become SolidEnergy Systems’ CEO.
Working in the group of MIT professor Donald Sadoway, a well-known battery researcher who has developed several molten salt and liquid metal batteries during his time at the institute, Hu helped make several key design and material advancements in lithium metal batteries, which became the foundation of SolidEnergy’s technology.
One innovation was using an ultra-thin lithium metal foil for the anode, which is about one-fifth the thickness of a traditional lithium metal anode and several times thinner and lighter than traditional graphite, carbon or silicon anodes.
This shrunk the battery size by half but left the battery particularly volatile. By then making chemical modifications to the electrolyte, the outcome was a battery with the energy capacity benefits of lithium metal batteries but with the safety and longevity features of lithium ion batteries.
Whilst at MIT, Hu formed a team to develop a business plan around the new battery, going on to win first prize at the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition’s Accelerator Contest, and become a finalist at the MIT Clean Energy Prize. The team went on to represent MIT at the US Clean Energy Prize competition, held at the White House, where they placed second.
SolidEnergy Systems is now looking to commercialise its product, starting by bringing the battery into the drone market this coming November.
“Several customers are using drones and balloons to provide free Internet to the developing world, and to survey for disaster relief,” said Hu. “It’s a very exciting and noble application.”
Hu says the next stage will be to launch for smartphones and wearables early next year, followed by electric cars in 2018. He believes that bringing these batteries into the electric vehicle market could move the sector forward leaps and bounds.
“Industry standard is that electric vehicles need to go at least 200 miles on a single charge. We can make the battery half the size and half the weight, and it will travel the same distance, or we can make it the same size and same weight, and now it will go 400 miles on a single charge,” he said.
The NSW government has awarded a $2.3 billion contract for 500 intercity train carriages to a multinational consortium, with the trains to be made in South Korea.
AAP reports that the first batch of intercity trains would be delivered in 2019, with the tender awarded to the RailConnect Consortium. This group included UGL, Hyundai Rotem and Mitsubishi Electric Australia.
Andrew Constance, the state transport minister, said the winning bid offered a 25 per cent cost advantage.
“If I didn’t go with this winning bid you’d be criticising me the other way,” the ABC reports him as saying.
Air New Zealand cut costs by more than AUS$7m by signing a AUS$170m contract for a new global catering service.
The project, which involved drawing up a new simplified contract covering nine airports and four continents, helped the airline win International Procurement Project of the Year in the CIPS Australasia Awards. Procurement’s role in its sustainability framework also helped it win Best Contribution to Corporate Responsibility.
Inflight catering is the airline’s fourth largest operational cost, but the previous contract with LSG Sky Chefs varied in scope and structure at each airport.
At some airports LSG would be accountable for delivering related services such as laundry and headsets, whereas at others Air New Zealand would contract these services directly.
Different ways of breaking down the end-to-end service meant it was impossible to benchmark airports against each other.
Negotiations for the new contract with LSG were complicated by cultural differences as the supplier’s negotiating team was composed mainly of Hong Kong Chinese, but this was overcome by training.
The contract, signed in 2015, will help mitigate the risks of disruption from catering capacity constraints at Los Angeles and San Francisco airports and save $7.3m over the five-year term.
Overall customer satisfaction for food has increased from 74% to 76%, while halving the number of global catering suppliers from 10 to five has led to simpler contract management and increased spend leverage.
Judges in the awards said of the project: “The cost model is a great way to leverage logic into negotiations and the consideration of cultural impacts was a creative touch.”
Meanwhile, procurement played a key role in the airline launching its sustainability framework and the release of its first sustainability report. The function is leading the drive to create an entirely electric fleet of light ground vehicles by 2017 or, where this is not operationally feasible, to use hybrid or best-in-class emissions efficient vehicles.
With the supplier code of conduct and compliance now extending to more than 80% of spend, the airline has also identified areas of high risk and implemented category strategies to mitigate that risk.
The company has also partnered with Virgin Australia to investigate options for locally-produced aviation biofuel.
Other initiatives include contracting New Zealand’s first major winery to gain BioGro Organic Certification, Villa Maria, as a major wine supplier.
Judges said: “Joint supplier-buyer business plans are a good idea. This is definitely a mature function (and leader) with regards to policy and governance.”
Financial results for the year to 30 June 2016Strong container volumes offset a fall in log exports
Highlights
Parent EBITDA for the year to 30 June 2016 rose 2.2% to $125.7 million from $123 million in the prior year as container traffic rose 12.1% to a record of more than 954,000 TEUs - up from 851,000 TEUs in the prior year.
These gains were offset by a decline in bulk cargoes reflecting continuing challenges in New Zealand's forestry and agricultural sectors. Notably, log exports fell more than one million tonnes with declines also in imported stock feed and fertiliser.
Reported revenues fell to $245.5 million from $268.5 million, due to a $32 million decrease in revenue as a result of having to equity account Tapper Transport as an associate company within our Coda partnership.
Net Profit After Tax fell 2.4% to $77.3 million as the Company's largely completed $350 million five year investment programme resulted in higher depreciation charges, which are up $2.7 million in the current year alone.
Port of Tauranga Chairman, David Pilkington, said: "We are very pleased with the progress that has been made against our long term strategy to extend our freight catchment to become the country's leading freight gateway and to prepare to welcome the arrival of the large ships into New Zealand waters.
"Strategic initiatives such as our alliance with OJI Fibre Solutions, Kotahi and Zespri / Tauranga Kiwifruit Logistics continue to drive a strong increase in container volumes to the port. These initiatives have also insulated the Company from this year's significant reduction in log exports.
GOVERNMENT has provided a great way forward for exporters under its National Export Strategy (NES) initiative, says Green Gold Kava managing director Praveen Narayan.
"My small family-owned Fijian owned company knows no bounds and is eager to reach out to the world," he said.
Mr Narayan has always promoted his company's aims of "green gold kava globalisation" to his customers locally and overseas.
The kava exporting company, based in Savusavu, was one of the 11 successful companies awarded grants last week under the Government's NES initiative.
"My company was awarded $60,000 grant for the purchase of new kava pounding and packing machines," Mr Narayan said.
"At the moment I'm outsourcing our kava pounding but now it will be done at our facility under strict quality control."
He said the trust placed by Government on exporters to deliver quality Fijian made Products overseas had resulted in a surge in export of these products.
"With new and improved technology we are moving forward in the export market overseas and now our products are accepted more by the worldwide community," he said.
Green Gold Kava was also invited to be part of the Pacific Trade Invest (PT&I) Pasifika Festival delegation in March and the Pacific Periscope newsletter reported that being part of the delegation "has boosted kava sales for Green Gold Kava owner-exporter Praveen Narayan".
In a trans-Tasman first, a new international trade degree, launching at Victoria University of Wellington in 2017, will encourage students to work beyond traditional academic divides and succeed in the global economy.
The Master of International Trade, open to domestic and international students, offers a unique opportunity to understand international trade law, economics, and political economy, as well as a variety of cultural and critical perspectives impacting trade.
The degree will span four different faculties and schools—Law, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Victoria Business School—giving students a unique perspective on international trade.
“New Zealand has a global reputation as a successful trading nation and is a respected player in international trade negotiations,” Vice-Provost (Research) Professor Kate McGrath says.
“Victoria is already highly regarded for study related to international trade. We are delighted to be taking our offering to the next level, with a degree programme that will be attractive to a range of students who will make their career contributing to the global economy through trade.”
Faculty of Law Professor Susy Frankel says trade concerns are at the centre of many policies, including those relating to primary industries, developing innovation, attracting inward investment, encouraging outward investment, as well as biosecurity, environmental and labour conditions and industry productivity. “The Master of International Trade offers the opportunity to study these aspects of international trade through the lenses of different disciplines.
“This is the only international trade degree in New Zealand and Australia that will include expertise from four different parts of the university, giving students an understanding of the competing interests in the trade sphere and the diversity of views and perspectives about those interests,” Professor Frankel says.
Professor John Overton, from the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, says being able to communicate and negotiate across disciplines is an important skill in the twenty-first century and reflects the nature and challenges of international trade.
Students in one discipline will benefit from study of related areas that have trade impacts, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Dean Professor Jennifer Windsor says. “For example, international relations students should understand the legal rules of international trade law, and law students will benefit from understanding the policy and political economy context of international legal agreements and institutions.”
The core courses in the degree, which can be completed in a year, will cover:
“Discussing Māori involvement in international trade will be an important part of this degree,” says Dr Maria Bargh, the Head of Te Kawa a Māui–School of Māori Studies. “The programme will include content from Māori perspectives, both historical and contemporary, as well as the impacts on Māori and the country’s natural resources of the New Zealand Government entering international trade agreements.”
Enrolment for the new degree will open on 1 October 2016, and full course details, including fees, will be available then on the university’s website.
More information is available on our website: www.victoria.ac.nz/law/about/news/victoria-offers-unique-international-trade-degree/questions-and-answers/
The Reserve Bank today released a Bulletin article reviewing forecast performance. The article uses forecasts from a suite of statistical models as a benchmark to evaluate the performance of forecasts prepared for the Reserve Bank’s quarterly Monetary Policy Statements.
It concludes that since 2003, MPS forecasts have shown similar forecast accuracy to the statistical model forecasts, with slightly more accurate forecasts for near-term interest rates and GDP growth, and inflation at longer horizons.
Neither the MPS forecasts nor the statistical model forecasts performed well at forecasting the exchange rate. The Bank has under-predicted the level of the TWI, leading to lower-than-expected tradable and headline inflation. In recent years, non-tradable inflation has also been lower than forecast, while forecasts for GDP have been largely unbiased.
Reviewing forecasting performance is an important part of the Bank’s forecasting process as it helps to ensure the understanding of economic relationships and drivers is up-to-date. Monitoring forecast errors also enables the Bank to evaluate its monetary policy performance and consider whether it has responded reasonably to new information.
The article published today follows the recent publication of two other Bulletin articles which assessed the Bank’s forecast performance compared to external forecasters and provided a behind-the-scenes look at OCR decision making. These articles were recently referenced in a speech by Assistant Governor John McDermott explaining how the Bank formulates and assesses its monetary policy decisions.
Read the article: Evaluating the Reserve Bank’s forecasting performance
Intel believes the days of using copper wires for data transfers, both between computers and inside of them, are numbered because optical communications are on the horizon.
The chipmaker has started shipping silicon photonics modules, which use light and lasers to speed up data transfers between computers.
The silicon photonics components will initially allow for optical communications between servers and data centers, stretching over long distances, said Diane Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Data Center Group.
Over time, Intel will put optical communications at the chip level, Bryant said during a keynote at Intel Developer Forum on Wednesday. That means light will drive communications inside computers.
SAN DIEGO, Aug. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ResMed (NYSE: RMD), the world's leading tech-driven medical device company and innovator in sleep-disordered breathing and respiratory care, announced today it has filed legal actions with the United States International Trade Commission, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego (3:16-cv-02072-JAH-MDD), as well as courts in New Zealand and Germany, to stop the infringement of its patented technology by New Zealand-based medical device manufacturer Fisher & Paykel Healthcare.
"ResMed is known for its commitment to providing patients with high-quality products that result from sustained, substantial investment in research and development and a focus on each user's needs," said ResMed global general counsel and chief administrative officer David Pendarvis. "ResMed's proprietary designs and superior innovative technologies reflect these priorities."
"We remain steadfast in our commitment to defend our intellectual property wherever necessary to ensure patients receive the high-quality care they deserve. We are confident that when the courts hear all the evidence, ResMed will prevail on its case and defeat any claims asserted by Fisher & Paykel."
In the U.S. International Trade Commission, ResMed seeks an injunction banning importation of Fisher & Paykel Simplus full face mask, Eson nasal mask and Eson 2 nasal mask. In the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, ResMed asserts that Fisher & Paykel Healthcare's Simplus full face mask, Eson nasal mask and Eson 2 nasal mask infringe ResMed's patents relating to modular mask systems, headgear design, and cushion design. ResMed also asked the San Diego court to invalidate patents that Fisher & Paykel recently asserted against ResMed, to declare that ResMed does not infringe those patents, or both.
ResMed has also initiated preliminary injunction proceedings in Germany, and a suit in New Zealand, to stop infringement in those countries. In the German proceedings, the District Court in Munich has already entered two preliminary injunctions to stop the sale of Simplus, Eson and Eson 2 masks in Germany based on infringement of German parts of two of ResMed´s European patents. In New Zealand, ResMed is asking an Auckland court to stop Fisher & Paykel from manufacturing and exporting infringing masks from that country.
About ResMedResMed (NYSE: RMD) changes lives with award-winning medical devices and cutting-edge cloud-based software applications that better diagnose, treat and manage sleep apnea, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other chronic diseases. ResMed is a global leader in connected care, with more than 2 million patients remotely monitored every day. Our 5,000-strong team is committed to creating the world's best tech-driven medical device company – improving quality of life, reducing the impact of chronic disease, and saving healthcare costs in more than 100 countries.ResMed.com | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
Kind Traveler is a new site that lets travelers donate to charity and receive exclusive discounts to luxury hotels.
Way back in 2011, we covered a platform that organizes trekking tours in Southeast Asia, donating a percentage of their revenue to support female entrepreneurs. Now, sustainable travel is available to the less adventurous: Kind Traveler enables luxury holidaymakers to donate money to charity in exchange for exclusive deals with sustainable hotels.kind-traveler-sustainability
The enterprise works in partnership with a number of ‘Kind Hotels’, whose sustainability initiatives are displayed on the Kind Traveler site. Customers select a destination and choose from the 10 cause areas — disaster relief, animal welfare and environment among others. The platform then enables users to donate to any of their charity partners from a selected list of either local or global charities. Under animal welfare, for example, holidaymakers can choose the local charity, Pacific Marine Mammal Centre, or a global one such as Wildaid. In exchange for a donation, customers are offered exclusive rates — a donation of USD 10 can result in discounts as high as 20 percent. Those booking can choose from a growing list of locations, among them New York, Miami, Mexico and the Caribbean.Luxury resorts can often stand in high contrast with the country’s overall economic situation, and tourism often doesn’t contribute to national economic growth. When tourists are aware of this contrast, it can make for an uneasy experience. Kind Traveler’s ‘give and get’ model proposes to solve this problem. As Jessica Blotter, CEO and Co-founder explains, the idea for the enterprise began when on holiday in Belize — finding it difficult to get excited about visiting the Mayan ruins while ignoring the surrounding devastation, they made a decision to help.
According to a recent study, one of the main barriers to the growth of sustainable travel is visibility. Are there more innovations that could help raise the profile of sustainable tourism?
Website: www.kindtraveler.comContact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242