#28. 🌊River floods | 🔋NanoGraf's silicon oxide batteries | 🅿️Mercedes & Bosch driverless parking

🌡 CLIMATE CHANGE

Clouds less climate-sensitive than assumed (long read)

A recent study has challenged the long-held belief that global warming reduces cloud cover. Instead of dryer high-altitude clouds mixing vertically with more water-saturated low-altitude clouds causing clouds to dissipate, the reverse actually occurs.

Enhancement of river flooding due to global warming (long read)

This is a direct link to an academic research paper that attempts to determine the degree to which anthropogenic climate change has increased the probability of river flooding. Results demonstrated that 20 out of 52 analyzed flood events were indeed more probable due to human-induced climate change, with 14 of the 20 “very likely” due to climate change.

IDB approves $500 mln loan to Argentina to fight climate change (quick read)

A $500 million credit line from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of anthropogenic climate change including climate planning capacity and supporting green finance.

🔋 CLEAN ENERGY

Hitachi Energy debuts wireless grid tech that prevents wildfires (quick read)

Hitachi Energy’s new wireless Spark Prevention Units (SPUs) provide remote monitoring to determine which SPUs triggered the surge arrester to disconnect and prevent sparking.

NanoGraf to launch US’s first large-volume silicon oxide factory (quick read)

Chicago-based NanoGraf (Crunchbase), self-proclaimed makers of the world’s most dense 18650 Li-ion battery cell, announced a 35 ton-per year production of silicon oxide, with up to 1000 tons of silicon anode material per year for use in EV applications by 2024.

Underground water battery to bust energy storage dam wide open (long read)

Texan energy company Quidnet Energy (Crunchbase) has been awarded a $10 million grant to build a “water battery.” Water battery tech is not new: Excess solar or wind or other clean power is used to pump water to a higher elevation which is then gravity-driven to power generators. Quidnet’s solution uses pressurized water between layers of rock instead of complex and expensive above-ground solutions thereby lowering costs 50-75%.

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🚗 AUTONOMOUS & ELECTRIC VEHICLES

Goggo Network and Mobileye plan to collaborate to introduce Level 4 autonomous vehicles for logistics in Europe (long read)

This is a press release outlining the two companies’ collaboration to deploy 40 Level 4 delivery vehicles in Madrid, Zaragoza, Malaga, Barcelona, and Paris.

World first: Bosch and Mercedes-Benz’s driverless parking system approved for commercial use (long read)

This is a press release announcing the first commercially available fully autonomous valet parking system which has been given approval in Germany, with first application in Stuttgart Airpot’s P6 parking garage. The system will be available on S-Class and EQS models optioned with INTELLIGENT PARK PILOT and enable occupants of enabled vehicles to drop off and collect their vehicles without any intervention whatsoever.

Autonomous trucking software upstart Embark has quietly gone from $5B+ to basically worthless (long read)

SF-based AV trucking startup Embark (Crunchbase) doesn’t develop trucks, but rather the AV technology stack for the trucking industry; their revenue model is a per-mile subscription plan for autonomous software they provide. Embark has suffered a 98% stock crash since going public one year ago; they raised funds as part of a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) merger.

🎉 THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY!

Thank you so much for reading, see you tomorrow!-Marc