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By HB1962 · Posted
Sorry, there is no global warming! -
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By monterxz · Posted
They've already bought Clipchamp, replaced Movie Maker with it, and made it worse in the end 🤣 -
By Acid · Posted
Microsoft doesn't label their download like 2026.09.07. Their page only says updated on July 9, 2026. I've never seen anybody use YYYY-DD-MM before. When I saw this article I read it as a September 7th update. Shouldn't it be YYYY-MM-DD, like 2026.07.09? -
By hellowalkman · Posted
This innovation could solve Global Warming and change refrigerators forever by Sayan Sen Image by Tuan Vy via Pexels Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) developed a new way of heating and cooling that used electrically charged atoms or molecules, known as ions, to control changes between solid and liquid states. The method, called "ionocaloric cooling," was described in a study published in the journal Science. The idea was based on a familiar example. When salt is spread on roads before a winter storm, it changes the temperature at which ice forms. The new method worked in a similar way by using ions to change the melting point of a material. This created a controlled phase change, which is the process of a material changing between solid and liquid. When the material melted, it absorbed heat from its surroundings. When it became solid again, it released that heat. This allowed heat to be moved from one place to another without using conventional refrigerant gases. The study addressed a long-standing challenge in refrigeration: developing cooling systems that were energy efficient while using refrigerants that had little or no impact on global warming. Most refrigerators and air conditioners use vapor-compression refrigeration, where a refrigerant gas is compressed and expanded in a continuous cycle to absorb heat from one place and release it somewhere else. Many of these systems use hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), synthetic refrigerant gases with a high global warming potential (GWP), a measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas can trap in the atmosphere compared with carbon dioxide. The ionocaloric system instead used only solid and liquid materials, removing the need for refrigerant gases. “The landscape of refrigerants is an unsolved problem: No one has successfully developed an alternative solution that makes stuff cold, works efficiently, is safe, and doesn’t hurt the environment,” said Drew Lilley, a graduate research assistant at Berkeley Lab and PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the study. “We think the ionocaloric cycle has the potential to meet all those goals if realized appropriately.” Heating and cooling accounted for more than half of the energy used in homes, making improvements in this area important for reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Replacing current refrigerants was also part of international climate efforts, including the Kigali Amendment, which was accepted by 145 parties, including the United States in October 2022. Under the agreement, countries committed to reducing the production and consumption of HFCs by at least 80% over the next 25 years. Ionocaloric cooling was one of several caloric cooling technologies under development. These systems worked by making materials absorb or release heat when exposed to an external force. Some used magnetic fields, while others used electric fields. However, these approaches often required relatively strong applied fields while producing smaller temperature changes and lower efficiency. According to the researchers, ionocaloric cooling could produce larger temperature and entropy changes using much lower applied field strengths. In thermodynamics, entropy describes how energy is distributed within a system and plays an important role in how heat moves. Because the working material became a liquid during the process, it could also be pumped through a system, making it easier to transfer heat than in many solid-state cooling technologies. Lilley and Ravi Prasher, a research affiliate in Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area and adjunct professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, developed the theory behind the ionocaloric cycle. Their calculations suggested that the method could match or even exceed the efficiency of conventional refrigerant-based cooling systems. To test the concept, the researchers built an experimental system based on an ionocaloric Stirling refrigeration cycle, a version of the Stirling thermodynamic cycle adapted to move heat using ion-driven phase changes instead of conventional refrigerants. The system used a sodium-iodine salt together with ethylene carbonate, an organic solvent commonly used in lithium-ion batteries. Applying a small electrical current moved ions through the system, changing the material's melting point. As the material melted, it absorbed heat. When the ions were removed, the material solidified and released the stored heat. The researchers reported that the experimental system achieved a coefficient of performance (COP) equal to about 30% of the theoretical Carnot limit, which represents the highest possible efficiency any cooling system can achieve under ideal conditions. It also produced an adiabatic temperature change, meaning the material's temperature changed without gaining or losing heat to its surroundings, of up to 25 degrees Celsius using an applied voltage of about 0.22 volts. According to the study, this temperature change was larger than those demonstrated by other caloric cooling technologies while operating at a comparatively low voltage. “There’s potential to have refrigerants that are not just GWP [global warming potential]-zero, but GWP-negative,” Lilley said. “Using a material like ethylene carbonate could actually be carbon-negative, because you produce it by using carbon dioxide as an input. This could give us a place to use CO2 from carbon capture.” Prasher said the team was trying to balance environmental impact, energy efficiency and equipment costs. “There are three things we’re trying to balance: the GWP of the refrigerant, energy efficiency, and the cost of the equipment itself,” Prasher said. “From the first try, our data looks very promising on all three of these aspects.” While most caloric technologies were discussed for cooling, the researchers said they could also be used for applications such as water heating and industrial heating. The team was continuing to develop prototypes to test different materials, improve the system's efficiency and temperature range, and determine whether the technology could be scaled up for practical use. “We have this brand-new thermodynamic cycle and framework that brings together elements from different fields, and we’ve shown that it can work,” Prasher said. “Now, it’s time for experimentation to test different combinations of materials and techniques to meet the engineering challenges.” Source: Berkeley Lab, Science This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, this material is used for the purpose of news reporting. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing
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