This is kind of crazy since the technology to move away from leaded gasoline or fuels has been around for DECADES. The fact that anyone is still using tetraethyl lead as a fuel additive is horrendous. We can hit right around 100% octanes right now too from a synthetic chemistry perspective.
Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) have been around for awhile now just like how we have had carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene.
These nanoparticles offer really a interesting strength to weight ratio and a relatively easily modified surface compared to CNTs. The article posted here is misleading due to the relatively high cost of the CNCs to isolate and then use in what looks to be an under cured epoxy resin.
Isolating the CNCs potentially can be done through mechanical means, but I suspect the authors here were using chemical isolation through some sort of acid hydrolysis (they don't say in the abstract).
But overall mixing the CNCs at that weight ratio with an epoxy resin should have yielded 1-3 GPa modulus or higher and the fact that they got 0.66 to me indicates it's under cured and not really that useful.
I actually worked on this stuff when I was in graduate school and we were doing surface modified CNCs with a biobased epoxy resin. We loaded at 1-10 wt% of CNCs and got modulus values between 2-3 GPa with some modest increases in Tg. We were expecting better results, but that's life.
This to me seems like MIT is trying to toot their own horn for some not very interesting results.
Pretty sure GE had a similar bottom slicing program and look at how that company has performed. They were once a big conglomerate and they are now a shadow of their former self.
Companies are just collections of people who are delivering goods and services to customers and returning money to shareholders. The PIP story isn't even surprising based on reporting from Big Technology and even the New York Times story from a few years ago.
I suspect Amazon is going to be in decline the next 20+ years and the start of that decline will be the company breaking up and selling off it's "non-core" businesses.
In the US (or at least in the Northeast) it's the responsibility of the people who live in those buildings or who own the commercial buildings to clean the sidewalks of snow.
This is like a time honored tradition of everyone pitching in to clear the snow so we can all get on with our lives. This is for commercial zoned areas as well as residential.
Further, neighborhood streets are often cleared by private contractors hired by the city, while the larger plows do the big roads. Apparently you can make 300 dollars an hour if you've got a truck and plow attachment when it snows, but you need to be ready to jump into action.
This is how it works in Sweden too. The house owner is most of the time responsible for the snow on the walkway outside their house. The city will often clear it off if you call and ask for help but you will have to wait until everything else is done.
What we are talking about is the parts of the street that is state owned like designated bicycle/pedestrian roads separate from the road.
All the plowing is also done by a private contractor that has a prenegotiated contract with the state before winter comes. They in their turn will hire whatever they can get their hands on if it's a bad winter.
Rammed earth you definitely need to be careful of the humidity and mitigation internal humidity is going to be important. Good technique though for arid/desert climates.
Timber Frame + external insulation with anairtight building envelope is a really good construction method that will be energy efficient and last a long time.
With the right clay mixture, rammed earth can be made more or less waterproof like brick, or you can make actual fired rammed earth bricks. Adding graphene flakes can significantly improve the structural qualities, and added carbon black can increase thermal conductivity (heated flooring) or provide em shielding.
There are lots of materials to play with and mix up for structures.
My only issue with this was the steel potentially rusting over 1000 years. There is a lot of water vapor that moves in and out of a house and mitigation of that water is important. Stainless steel will rust given enough time/water too.
Anti-corrosion coating on the steel and waterproofing of the foundation slab with a self adhered membrane are two overlooked points imo. Easy enough to tie in waterproofing of the slab with a water/vapor barrier on the walls and the roofing underlayments too.
Unsealed brick is also relatively weak if there is a significant amount of water vapor and prolonged years of freeze/thaw will eat away at the brick/mortar and reduce structural integrity of the facade.
I may be biased since waterproofing product development is my day job.
As for the other comments on the cost of steel being obscene, I'd counter that volumetric steel modular construction is a growing market. Steel is also more easily recycled than wood and lumber costs in 2021 were really high. Probably part of the reason Katerra went bankrupt too (mismanagement played a role too I'm sure).
I agree on the steel in the ground with corrosion, I'm guessing the author implies there is an anti-corrosion coating on there already (since not having one seems idiotic), but I suspect it wouldn't last that long and honestly it seems a little excessive since slab on grade is pretty common and I've seen 200+ year old homes sitting on big rocks that are sitting on compacted soil.
