Sunday, March 2nd, 2025

Time	Event
4:34p	Fast New 3D Printing Technique Shines Holograms into Resin Can a new 3D-printing technique shorten 3D printing times to just seconds? A team of researchers in Europe has modified Tomographic Volumetric Additive Manufacturing, which can "create entire objects in one shot by shining light patterns into liquid resin," according to the 3D Printing Industry blog. (The liquid resin then solidifies when the light intensity is high enough...) While this approach can fabricate support-free, micro-scale parts within tens of seconds, it is "highly inefficient." This is because under 1% of the encoded light reaches the resin vial. Conventional TVAM can also lead to unwanted distortions and poor resolution due to light blurring and projection artifacts. To address these limitations, the researchers developed HoloVAM, a new technique that uses a 3D hologram instead of conventional volumetric light projections. This approach reportedly boosts light efficiency by 20 times, resulting in faster and more accurate 3D printing. According to their paper, published in Nature Communications, HoloVAM successfully fabricated several millimeter-scale objects in under 60 seconds with fine details as small as 31 micrometers... They believe this new approach offers value for medical bioprinting applications, thanks to HoloVAM's use of "self-healing beams." These can generate and retain their shape when passing through materials, which is particularly valuable when 3D printing with cell-laden bio-resins and hydrogels. Thanks to Slashdot reader BizarreVR for sharing the news. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
8:17p	How Buildings Are Staying Cool and Saving Money - with Batteries Made of Ice "Thousands of buildings across the United States are staying cool with the help of cutting-edge batteries made from one of the world's simplest materials," reports the Washington Post — ice. When electricity is cheap, the batteries freeze water. When energy costs go up, building managers turn off their pricey chillers and use the ice to keep things cool. A typical building uses about a fifth of its electricity for cooling, according to the International Energy Agency. By shifting their energy use to cheaper times of day, the biggest buildings can save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on their power bills. They can also avoid using electricity from the dirtiest fossil fuel plants. In places where the weather is hot and energy prices swing widely throughout the day — for instance, Texas, Southern California and most of the American Southwest — buildings could cut their power bills and carbon emissions by as much as a third, experts say... When every building is blasting its air conditioner at the same moment on a hot day, power companies often fire up backup generators, known as peaker plants, which are generally extra pricey and polluting. If utilities avoid using peaker plants, they'll pollute less and save money. Last year, the Energy Department struck a tentative $306 million loan deal with the ice-battery-maker Nostromo Energy to install its systems in 193 California buildings to make energy cheaper and cleaner while lowering the state's blackout risk. "The batteries themselves are huge..." the article acknowledges, citing one in New York City that uses 100 parking spot-sized tanks "which collectively make 3 million margaritas' worth of ice each night... But that's starting to change." (And they believe new smaller designs "could bring the batteries into smaller buildings and even houses.") Wherever they can squeeze into the market, ice batteries could be a cheaper and longer-lasting option than the lithium-ion batteries that power phones, cars and some buildings because their main ingredient is water, experts say. The pricey chemicals in a lithium-ion cell might degrade after 10 years, but water never wears out. And according to the article, one company has already installed ice batteries in over 4,000 buildings... Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
10:12p	'Exponential Spin-up' In Geothermal Energy Projects Brings Hope for Green Power Earth's core "burns with an estimated forty-four trillion watts of power," the New Yorker reminds us — enough to "satisfy the entire world's energy needs" with a power source that's carbon-free, ubiquitous — and unlimited. (Besides running 24 hours a day, one of geothermal energy's key advantages is "it can be used for both electricity and heating, which collectively account for around 38% of global climate emissions...") And one drilling expert tells them there's been an "exponential spin-up of activity in geothermal" energy projects over the last two years. (Ironically it was the fracking boom also brought an "explosion of new drilling practices — such as horizontal drilling and magnetic sensing — that inspired a geothermal resurgence.") In 2005 one research team calculated that just 2% of the heat just four miles underground in America "could meet the entire country's energy needs — two thousand times over," according to the article. So their new article checks in on the progress of geothermal energy projects around the world, including a Utah company using a diamond-bit drill to dig nearly a mile into the earth to install a 150-ton steel tube surrounded by special heat-resistant cement — all to create "a massive straw" for transporting hot water (and steam). The biggest problem is drilling miles through hot rock, safely. If scientists can do that, however, next-generation geothermal power could supply clean energy for eons... At 6:15 P.M. on May 3rd, cement had started flowing into the hole. Four hours later, part of the cement folded in on itself. The next morning, the cement supply ran out; the men had miscalculated how much they needed. This brought the three-hundred-million-dollar operation to a maddening halt... The cement truck from Bakersfield arrived around 8:30 P.M. By ten-thirty, the men were pouring cement again, gluing the enormous metal straw in place. Next, the team scanned the borehole with gamma rays... Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)

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