Graphene may change the world.

[Bhagi Katbamna]

http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/science/more-good-news-on-those-carbon-supercapacitors.html

That battery life video that had gone viral due to a recent post on UpWorthy (and which we told you about Tuesday) now has an update. We told you that researchers at Ric Kamen's lab at UCLA had found a way to make a non-toxic, highly efficient energy storage medium out of pure carbon using absurdly simple technology. Today, we can report that the same team may well have found a way to make that process scale up to mass-production levels.

The recap: Graphene, a very simple carbon polymer, can be used as the basic component of a "supercapacitor" -- an electrical power storage device that charges far more rapidly than chemical batteries. Unlike other supercapacitors, though, graphene's structure also offers a high "energy density," -- it can hold a lot of electrons, meaning that it could conceivably rival or outperform batteries in the amount of charge it can hold. Kaner Lab researcher Maher El-Kady found a way to create sheets of graphene a single carbon atom thick by covering a plastic surface with graphite oxide solution and bombarding it with precisely controlled laser light.

English translation: He painted a DVD with a liquid carbon solution and stuck it into a standard-issue DVD burner.....

 

[zapvor]

i see you browse reddit!

 

[Ombelibable]

Graphene is epic, no doubt. It's discoverers got the Nobel prize, not without good reason.
BTW, supercapacitors are commercially available now.

 

[guanzishou]

Let's just hope the mining process of Graphene won't disturb more ecosystems in the world ...

Karin's family herded reindeer for generations. They had no idea what was under their feet

Northern Europe's Indigenous people, the Sámi, say their way of life is being threatened by a wave of "green colonialism". Can their voices to parliament save them?

www.abc.net.au

Karin’s family has followed the reindeer’s seasonal migration through the hills of northern Sweden “since ancient times,” she says, perfecting the “long-term sustainable use of the land”. But after the discovery of Europe’s largest graphite deposit not far from her village, a different kind of sustainability project is now underway. Australian-based company Talga Group has outlined a billion-dollar proposal to mine the graphite, an in-demand material for EVs, and has already started test drilling under a trial mining license.

Local Sámi including Karin are fighting the proposal. One herder told Foreign Correspondent one-sixth of his reindeer grazing area will be lost. Other mines have already encroached on their ancestral herding lands and Karin fears for the health of the reindeer if another project is approved. “The more intruded upon we become, the greater the risk, in my opinion, for a cultural collapse,” she says. “Because the land is so important for the culture and for the language.”

Three different Sámi villages and the Sámi Parliament have voiced their opposition to the project. But Talga chief operating officer Martin Phillips says the company has had good dialogue with local Indigenous people and will continue with its plans regardless of whether the communities give their consent.

“We’ll still proceed with digging if the court gives us that permission to,” he says. “We’re following due process and we are following all of the laws and the legislation that Sweden has laid out for us.”

Karin fears the current proposal could be just the beginning of a much larger project. She wishes her Sámi Parliament had more influence but, she says, “our people are used to fighting” for their culture.