🌋Why volcanic ash could be a key piece in G7 countries' green energy puzzle, China's solar-powered robot astronaut, and Google's latest and greatest AI chip

Researchers at the University of Barcelona have found an unusual but highly remarkable use for volcanic ash: a storage medium for renewable energy.

Following the eruption of a volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands, the research team saw an opportunity to explore storing energy from concentrated solar plants in volcanic ash.

They found the ash to perform even better than molten salts extensively used to store heat storage in solar plants. For more on this development, check out today’s Must-Read.

🔥Today’s job of the day as featured on jobs.interestingengineering.com:

> MIT Field Engineer
> Software Engineering Manager

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MUST READ

🌋 Study finds volcanic ash could store excess solar energy

Concentrated solar plants, unlike solar farms, leverages a large field of mirrors to converge the Sun’s energy to a single point, generating temperatures over 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1000 degrees Celsius).

These temperatures heat water, generating electricity by rotating turbines. Researchers converted volcanic ash into pellets and mixed them with molten salts to prevent corrosion.

Their experiments revealed volcanic ash’s excellent thermal conductivity and heat capacity. Moreover, the ash was barely oxidized even after many cycles. This inexpensive waste material could play a crucial role as G7 countries seek to grow renewable energy storage by six times by the end of the decade.

🤖 Solar-powered robot astronaut could soon be heading to China’s space station

China’s Tiangong Space Station will soon become home to Taikobot, a humanoid robot. Developed by the National University of Defence Technology, the Taikobot will help with everyday tasks aboard the space station.

Taikobot boasts a suite of advanced sensors and cameras to navigate spaces. A pair of human-like hands help perform delicate tasks, including handling tools like hammers and electric screwdrivers.

Having undergone extensive testing within a mockup of the Tiangong on Earth, the 5 feet-5 inches humanoid robot, weighing 55 pounds, will undergo further final tests before being deployed for real on the space station.

🖥️ Google unveils its most potent AI chip with 67% energy efficiency

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced the launch of its most advanced Tensor Processing Unit, Trillium. The new chip is one of few options in the market which are not from Nvidia.

The new chip boasts a 4.7x increase in peak compute performance per chip compared to its predecessor. Additionally, the company also claims to have doubled the High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) capacity and the Interchip Interconnect (ICI) bandwidth.

Trillium will power the next wave of AI models and agents, and help companies utilizing Google Cloud services, including Deep Genomics and Deloitte.

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IE QUIZ: THE RESULTS

In yesterday’s quiz, we asked, Can you find the missing number?

The answer is: The first circle(Top Left)=((8×5)+4)+5= 49, The second circle(Top right)=((7×3)+6)+5=49, The third circle(Bottom)= ((9×4)+5)+5= 46

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