Honda and LG Energy Joint Venture for New EV Plant in Ohio

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By Utility Dive: “Honda and battery maker LG Energy Solution picked Fayette County, Ohio, as the site of their planned battery plant to support Honda and Acura electric vehicle production, the companies announced Tuesday.

The companies will initially commit to investing $3.5 billion in the facility but project total investment to reach $4.4 billion, according to the release. Construction is slated to begin in early 2023, in an effort to mass produce lithium-ion batteries by the end of 2025.

The investment is part of a joint venture with LG Energy Solution, which is pending regulatory approval. Honda partnered with the battery maker after announcing in April it was looking to establish a battery plant near a planned EV production line in North America.”

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Chattanooga EPB’s Gigabit Generated $2.7 Billion in Economic Benefits

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Telecompetitor – EPB of Chattanooga’s gigabit broadband infrastructure has generated $2.69 billion in economic benefits to the community during its first decade of operation, according to a gigabit economic benefits report from the Rollins College of Business at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The study, which was conducted by Bento Lobo, Ph.D., head of the Department of Finance and Economics, identified five ways in which EBP of Chattanooga has benefited the community:

The infrastructure created and retained 9,516 jobs, which is about 40% of jobs created in Hamilton County during the study period.

The project kept unemployment down. This is especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic. The network enabled businesses to transition quickly to remote work. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the county’s unemployment rate in November 2020 was 4.7%. That’s a lower rate than the state of Tennessee overall and also lower than in the U.S. overall (5.3% and 6.7%, respectively).

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Five Reasons Remote Technology Makes Sense

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PowerMag – The case for advanced analytics and remote diagnostics: During the last 25 years significant advancements have been made in remote monitoring capabilities for power plants. A number of operations and maintenance (O&M) functions can routinely be managed remotely, and it is also becoming more common for peaking and renewable energy plants to be remotely operated reliably and safely.

Operating and maintaining a full-scale power plant remotely presents challenges that require sophisticated systems, reliable sensor and diagnostic equipment, stable high-bandwidth communication, and advanced security protocols. Even with progress made in each of these areas, some plant managers don’t foresee a scenario where remote operations will become the norm. But even in cases where there are no plans to run a generating station from a remote location, there is still a solid case for adopting remote technology.

Here are five reasons why the case for remote technology is stronger today than ever before.

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Top 10 Construction Robots in Use Around the World

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EETimes & DesignLines – Construction: no matter if it is residential, commercial, or industrial — is one of the most labor-intensive jobs on the planet. It’s also the least automated, but that is rapidly changing as more robots are entering the field due to labor shortages and the pandemic. Adaptation has always been on the front lines when it comes to new technologies. Like with nearly every industry, automated robots are being deployed to construction sites all over the world.

As their name implies, construction robots are automated machines that assist with surveying, erecting buildings, or demolition. While there is some fear that robots will replace workers, these robots are designed to work with humans, making their jobs more manageable and less hazardous in some cases.

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Why Grid-Tied Solar Power Systems Are Recommended Over Other Solar Systems?

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by the 3 Phase Associates “TEAM”
Renewable energy and distributed energy resources (DERs) continue to flood the electric utility grid providing cleaner and more sustainable energy. As the traditional power grid evolves into a smarter electric grid, environmental regulations push for more cleaner renewable energy sources. Solar PV electric power systems are leading the path in this effort with improvements in technologies, efficiencies, and cost reductions. The grid-tied solar systems are gaining popularity and becoming more favored over other solar electric systems. 
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Self-healing material a breakthrough for bio-inspired robotics

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Science News and Carnegie Mellon University – Many natural organisms have the ability to repair themselves. Now, manufactured machines will be able to mimic this property. In findings published this week in Nature Materials, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created a self-healing material that spontaneously repairs itself under extreme mechanical damage.

This soft-matter composite material is composed of liquid metal droplets suspended in a soft elastomer. When damaged, the droplets rupture to form new connections with neighboring droplets and reroute electrical signals without interruption. Circuits produced with conductive traces of this material remain fully and continuously operational when severed, punctured, or had material removed.

Applications for its use include bio-inspired robotics, human-machine interaction, and wearable computing. Because the material also exhibits high electrical conductivity that does not change when stretched, it is ideal for use in power and data transmission.

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