Links CONTACT:  podcast@worldorganicnews.com New “Instantly Rechargeable” Flow Battery could Dramatically Change EV Market — Great Things from Small Things .. Nanotechnology Innovation http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-ftX Old Energy Left Behind — Equivalent of 7 Gigafactories Already Under Construction; Tesla Plans 10-20 More — GarryRogers Nature Conservation http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-fvj Ode to a little stream – Off Grid Power, Part 2: Micro-Hydro — through the luminary lens http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-fvW Solar paint offers endless energy from water vapor: Breakthrough by RMIT Researchers — Great Things from Small Things .. Nanotechnology Innovation http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-fwZ **** This is the World Organic News for the week ending 19th of June 2017. Jon Moore reporting! Back in episode 67 I spoke about the need to replace fossil fuels as the the first big step we could take to start solving our global and local issues of concern. I summarised the current situation thusly: Quote: Climate change appears to be accelerating, we are bathed in chemicals from the 1950s, antidepressants could be endemic in the biosphere, the politics of our times point to towards the greater possibility of nuclear war, industrial agriculture is creating antibiotic resistant pathogens and we have huge numbers of refugees on the move across the globe. End Quote. All of these issues except for, perhaps, nuclear annihilation, were related to fossil fuel use. This week we bring good news in this respect. The big problem with renewables has always been intermittency and our reliance on large grids to deliver electricity. The energy density of storage has been the problem. This can be divided into two broad areas. Battery capacity and time to recharge said batteries. We start with a post from the blog Great Things from Small Things. Nanotechnology Innovation entitled: New “Instantly Rechargeable” Flow Battery could Dramatically Change EV Market — Great Things from Small Things. Quote: Purdue researchers have developed technology for an “instantly rechargeable” battery that is affordable, environmentally friendly, and safe. Currently, electric vehicles need charging ports in convenient locations to be viable, but this battery technology would allow drivers of hybrid and electric vehicles to charge up much like drivers of conventional cars refill quickly and easily at gas stations. This breakthrough would not only speed the switch to electric vehicles by making them more convenient to drive, but also reduce the amount of new supportive infrastructure needed for electric cars dramatically. End Quote The possibilities this releases are significant. No longer will electric vehicles, telephones, laptops, basically anything mobile which uses electricity, have to wait for as long as it takes to recharge the batteries. Filling stations, with the same turn around time as petrol stations become a reality. The effect of this is to make electric vehicles, in particular, more like fossil fuel vehicles from a user’s point of view. No longer does the driver have to keep one eye on the charge level calculating how much available power is on hand to get home to the power point. No longer do these filling stations have to rely on a swap out/swap in system of batteries. We pull in attach the power cable, recharge in minutes, pay and drive off. The magnitude of this is mind boggling. It means the move to much quieter, non-polluting vehicles is now a doable proposition. Part of the problem solved. A post from GarryRogers Nature Conservation entitled: Old Energy Left Behind — Equivalent of 7 Gigafactories Already Under Construction; Tesla Plans 10-20 More. The unit cost of batteries, that is, energy storage has been a stumbling block to renewable electrification of the economy. But and this is a big but, change is afoot! Quote: “In an interview with Leonardo DiCaprio during late 2016, Elon Musk famously claimed that it would take just 100 Gigafactories to produce enough clean energy to meet the needs of the