FCC Formally Approves SpaceX's Global, Broadband, Internet, Satellite Network

Elon Musk's SpaceX gains formal approval for satellite broadband network

Elon Musk's SpaceX has been given formal approval by US telecoms regulators to build a global broadband network using satellites. "This is the first approval of a US-licensed satellite constellation to provide broadband services using a new generation of low-Earth orbit satellite technologies," the Federal Communications Commission said in a statement.

 From article, (About 14 million rural Americans and 1.2 million Americans on tribal lands lack mobile broadband even at relatively slow speeds.

Over the past year, the FCC has approved requests by OneWeb, Space Norway and Telesat to access the US market to provide broadband services using satellite technology that the FCC said “holds promise to expand internet access in remote and rural areas across the country”.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been given formal approval by US telecoms regulators to build a global broadband network using satellites.

“This is the first approval of a US-licensed satellite constellation to provide broadband services using a new generation of low-Earth orbit satellite technologies,” the Federal Communications Commission said in a statement.

The system proposed by privately held SpaceX, as Space Exploration Holdings is known, will use 4,425 satellites, the FCC said.

Ajit Pai, the FCC chairman, endorsed the SpaceX effort in February, saying: “Satellite technology can help reach Americans who live in rural or hard-to-serve places where fibre-optic cables and cell towers do not reach.”

On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said SpaceX plans to launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a communications satellite on 2 April at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Musk, who is also the founder and chief executive of Tesla, said in 2015 that SpaceX planned to launch a satellite-internet business that would help fund a future city on Mars.

SpaceX wanted to create a “global communications system” that Musk compared to “rebuilding the internet in space”. It would be faster than traditional internet connections, he said.

“This is an important step toward SpaceX building a next-generation satellite network that can link the globe with reliable and affordable broadband service, especially reaching those who are not yet connected,” Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX said.)

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We Could be Entering a Time Where CO2, Emitted from Power Plants, Does Not Have to Go Into the Atmosphere. It Can Be Changed Into Useful Substances.

Once we can capture CO2 emissions, here's what we could do with it

The carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from power plants each year doesn't have to go into the atmosphere. Researchers are optimistic that within the next decade we will be able to affordably capture CO2 waste and convert it into useful molecules for feedstock, biofuels, pharmaceuticals, or renewable fuels.

From article, (The thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from power plants each year doesn't have to go into the atmosphere. Researchers are optimistic that within the next decade we will be able to affordably capture CO2 waste and convert it into useful molecules for feedstock, biofuels, pharmaceuticals, or renewable fuels. On March 29 in the journal Joule, a team of Canadian and US scientists describe their vision for what we should make with CO2 and how we can make it.

"Similar to how a plant takes carbon dioxide, sunlight, and water to make sugars for itself, we are interested in using technology to take energy from the sun or other renewable sources to convert CO2 into small building block molecules which can then be upgraded using traditional means of chemistry for commercial use," says Phil De Luna, a PhD candidate in materials science. "We're taking inspiration from nature and doing it faster and more efficiently."

De Luna is first author on the paper along with postdoctoral fellow Oleksandr Bushuyev, both of whom are members of the Edward Sargent Lab at the University of Toronto. Sargent, the senior author, is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Their analysis identified a series of possible small molecules that make economic sense and could be made by converting captured CO2. For energy storage needs, hydrogen, methane, and ethane could be used in biofuels. Additionally, ethylene and ethanol could serve as the building blocks for a range of consumer goods, and CO2-derived formic acid could be used by the pharmaceutical industry or as a fuel in fuel cells.

While current technologies that can capture CO2 waste are still in their infancy, with new start-ups currently developing strategies for commercial use, the researchers envision that the coming decades will bring major improvement to make CO2 capture and conversion a reality. Within 5 to 10 years, electrocatalysis -- which stimulates chemical reactions through electricity -- could be a way into this process. And 50 years or more down the line, molecular machines or nanotechnology could drive conversion.

"This is still technology for the future," says Bushuyev, "but it's theoretically possible and feasible, and we're excited about its scale up and implementation. If we continue to work at this, it's a matter of time before we have power plants where CO2 is emitted, captured, and converted."

The authors are aware of the limitations of carbon capture and conversion. First, it has been criticized for not being economically feasible, particularly because of the cost of electricity to make these chemical reactions take place, but this will likely go down as renewable energy becomes widespread over time. Second, there are few factories with a high carbon footprint that emit pure CO2, which is necessary for conversion, but technology that could help with this issue is in development.)

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97% conversion of CO2 into Industrial Chemicals, Plastics, and Fuels, discovered with A Catalyst of Graphene Layered Nickel

Nickel Is the New Key to Recycling C02 Emissions

Researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and Brookhaven National Lab have discovered a new nickel-based catalyst that marks a major step in the quest to recycle carbon dioxide into useful industrial chemicals, plastics, and fuels. The resulting catalyst is not only far more economical than anything made previously, it is also highly efficient.

 From article, (Researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and Brookhaven National Lab have discovered a new nickel-based catalyst that marks a major step in the quest to recycle carbon dioxide into useful industrial chemicals, plastics, and fuels. The resulting catalyst is not only far more economical than anything made previously, it is also highly efficient. Their paper, recently published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science, reports a 97 percent conversion efficiency.

The scientific consensus on climate change indicates that it won't be possible to meet the goals laid out in The Paris Agreement without a significant operational capability to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as a means of restoring balance to the carbon cycle.

A number of diverse efforts are underway in the realms of forestry and agriculture as well as industrial direct air capture systems that can extract carbon dioxide from the air, anywhere. However, while CO2 plays a role as an important industrial chemical, the anticipated demand for it is far smaller than what needs to be extracted to stabilize the environment.

That leads to a question: What else can be done with the excess CO2?

Scientists have long known that carbon dioxide’s dangerous cousin, CO, or carbon monoxide, was a far more useful chemical since it can be reacted with water to produce hydrogen or readily combined with hydrogen to produce any number of hydrocarbon products ranging from plastics to fuels such methanol, ethanol, and diesel. But converting the highly stable CO2 molecule to CO by stripping off one of the oxygen atoms has proven difficult and requires expensive catalysts, such as gold or platinum, and also significant amounts of energy.

But a team of scientists have found a far more affordable catalyst, nickel, to be very effective, when used in a single atom form.

The catalyst built by this team gets its potency from the interaction between the individual nickel atoms and the surface to which they are attached. Stabilizing the atoms on the surface, which in this case is a graphene layer, was one of the key challenges.

To achieve this, the graphene layer is doped with nitrogen, which essentially punches a hole in the layer, displacing carbon atoms in the process. Once a nitrogen atom is in there, it provides a place for the nickel atom to attach. It’s important to note that the nickel atom is not embedded in the graphene plane, but is suspended above it, providing better interaction with the carbon dioxide. The bond is strong enough so that it cannot be thermally disturbed.)

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