Latest news with #EscapeVelocity
The Hindu
01-08-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
Neutralist primed to deliver in Altaf Hussain Million
The three-year-old colt Neutralist, who ran second in his last start at Bengaluru is in good shape, and should make amends in the Altaf Hussain Million, the feature event of Saturday's (Aug. 2) races. Rails will be announced one hour before the first race. 1. TRUEFITT & HILL TROPHY (Div. II) (1,000m), Cl. IV, 4-y-o and over, rated 20 to 46, 2.00 p.m.: 1. Ekla Cholo (8) Sandesh 59, 2. Flashman (2) S. Amit 59, 3. Gobby (3) S.G. Prasad 59, 4. Storm Cloud (1) C. Umesh 59, 5. Ananya (7) Bharat 58, 6. Maratha Admiral (5) Parmar 58, 7. Ariyana Star (6) A. Gaikwad 57, 8. Arbitrage (4) Gore 56.5 and 9. Superluminal (9) Mosin 56. 1. EKLA CHOLO, 2. STORM CLOUD, 3. ARBITRAGE 2. JSK1 PLAY & WIN AUGUST TROPHY (1,600m), Cl. III, rated 40 to 66, 2.30: 1. Kimiko (3) Bharat 62, 2. Eaton Square (1) Yash 60.5, 3. Mansa Musa (6) Trevor 57.5, 4. Tiepolo (Siddharth) 56.5, 5. Treat (8) Neeraj 54, 6. Bugatti (7) Kirtish 53, 7. The Milenium Force (5) Sandesh 52.5 and 8. Substantial (4) A. Prakash 52. 1. THE MILENIUM FORCE, 2. TREAT, 3. KIMIKO 3. TRUEFITT & HILL TROPHY (Div. I) (1,000m), Cl. IV, 4-y-o and over, rated 20 to 46, 3.00: 1. Lord Eric (6) Trevor 61, 2. Escape Velocity (1) Gagandeep 58.5, 3. Desert Classic (7) Ajinkya 56, 4. Betsy (5) Sandesh 55, 5. You (9) Bharat 55, 6. Applause (3) Bhawani 54.5, 7. Etoile (4) S. Amit 54, 8. Adonis (2) S.J. Sunil 53 and 9. Moment Of Madness (8) P. Dhebe 49. 1. LORD ERIC, 2. DESERT CLASSIC, 3. BETSY 4. AUGUST HANDICAP (1,400m), 3-y-o only, rated 20 to 46, 3.30: 1. Caradoc (1) Yash 59, 2. Merlet (7) Trevor 57.5, 3. Zafferano (2) Sandesh 57, 4. Solidarity (4) Vivek G 56.5, 5. Allez L' Etoile (3) C. Umesh 55, 6. Azalea (9) Kirtish 55, 7. Royal Champ (6) Antony Raj 55, 8. Tropical Paradise (8) Parmar 55 and 9. Ministry Of Time (5) Shubham 54.5. 1. MERLET, 2. CARADOC, 3. ALLEZ L' ETOILE 5. ALTAF HUSSAIN MILLION (1,200m), Cl. IV, rated 20 to 46, 4.00: 1. Cinderella's Dream (5) Bhawani 59, 2. Surrealist (6) Vivek G 59, 3. Zendaya (7) Sandesh 58.5, 4. Johnny Mac (1) A. Prakash 58, 5. Absolute Gorgeous (2) K. Pranil 56.5, 6. Charlie Brown (9) Antony Raj 55.5, 7. Maysara (3) A.S. Peter 55, 8. Neutralist (8) Trevor 55, 9. Red Mist (10) Ramswarup 52 and 10. Silver Strike (4) Siddharth 51. 1. NEUTRALIST, 2. ZENDAYA, 3. CHARLIE BROWN 6. SPRUNGLI PLATE (1,200m), (Terms) Maiden, 3-y-o only, 4.30: 1. Algonquin (4) Sandesh 56, 2. Dancing Cloud (1) K. Pranil 56, 3. Don Julio (8) Gore 56, 4. El Moran (3) A. Prakash 56, 5. Encino (7) Trevor 56, 6. Wrangler (9) Antony Raj 56, 7. Adeya (11) Bhawani 54.5, 8. Charisse (13) Vivek G 54.5, 9. Foxy (5) T.S. Jodha 54.5, 10. Legacy (10) Yash 54.5, 11. Magical Moments (12) C. Umesh 54.5, 12. She's My Gal (2) A.S. Peter 54.5 and 13. South Beach (6) Parmar 54.5. 1. ENCINO, 2. DON JULIO, 3. LEGACY 7. ZEPHYR BAY PLATE (1,600m), Cl. V, 4-y-o and over, rated 1 to 26, 5.00: 1. Crystal Clear (7) Neeraj 61, 2. Madison (2) Gagandeep 61, 3. Looking Like A Wow (1) Bhawani 60.5, 4. Continental Drift (5) Santosh 60, 5. Oh Kay (6) Sandesh 59, 6. Taabiir (8) T.S. Jodha 59, 7. Ma Cherie (4) S.G. Prasad 58 and 8. The Flutist (3) A. Prakash 51.5. 1. OH KAY, 2. THE FLUTIST, 3. CRYSTAL CLEAR Day's Best: MERLET Jackpot: 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7. Treble: 4, 5 & 6. Tanala: All races. Super Jackpot: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7.
The Hindu
20-07-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
Amadeo and El Greco show out
Amadeo and El Greco showed out when the horses were exercised here on Sunday (July 20) morning. Inner sand: 800m: Pyrite (Mosin) 55, 600/41. Moved fluently. Escape Velocity (Nirmal) 53, 600/39. Moved freely. Among The Stars (Yash), Heaven's Rhythm (S.J. Sunil) 52, 600/38. Former was superior. Chagall (Siddharth) 1400/600m 51. Worked freely. 1000m: Sands Of Dubai (Nirmal), Substantial (Santosh) 1-6, 800/52, 600/39. They moved neck and neck freely. Giant Gold (Aditya) 1-7, 800/52, 600/39. Moved well. Amadeo (Nirmal) 1-7, 800/52, 600/39. Responded well. El Greco (Ajinkya) 1-6, 600/39. Moved attractively.
Boston Globe
17-06-2025
- Automotive
- Boston Globe
China has a lock on rare metals. Does this startup have a crowbar?
The US was once a major supplier of rare earths. But mining and refining the stuff is a deeply toxic business that fell afoul of environmental regulations. US companies abandoned the market to China, which was less concerned about the pollution problem. Now, Phoenix Tailings hopes to revive the industry by extracting the metals from 'tailings,' the rubble created by mining for other minerals, such as iron. It turns out this inexpensive waste matter is full of rare earths. Villalon says his company has developed a new way to capture and refine this metal, while generating virtually no toxic waste. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Indeed, Phoenix Tailings has already begun, according to chief executive Nick Myers. 'We ship on the tonnage scale globally today,' said Myers. 'The primary amount of our contracts are with the automotive sector.' Myers wouldn't identify specific customers, but said that the company's pilot plant in Burlington can put out a maximum of 40 tons of rare earth metals per year. Advertisement In addition, Phoenix Tailings just closed a $76 million funding round to pay for a factory in Exeter, NH capable of making between 200 and 400 tons of refined rare earths per year. Investors include the venture firm Escape Velocity, carmaker BMW and the venture arms of Japanese companies Sumitomo and Yamaha. Advertisement Phoenix Tailings has also begun preliminary planning on a still larger plant with an annual capacity of 2000 tons. Meyer estimates that such a plant could produce 30 percent of the rare earths needed by US civilian industries, and much of the military's needs as well, and could be in operation by 2027. Success isn't assured. Jonathan Hykawy, president of Only 390,000 tons of rare earth oxides were produced worldwide last year, compared to 2.5 billion metric tons of iron. Just 45,000 tons were mined in the US, but nearly all of it was shipped to China to be processed into usable metal. Neodymium and praseodymium are especially prized by carmakers because adding them to an electric motor's iron-based magnets produces a stronger magnetic field and a more powerful and energy-efficient motor. It takes only a little — about five pounds of rare earths in a typical electric car. But 17 million EVs were produced last year, so it adds up. Advertisement Then there are wind turbines. Adding neodymium to a windmill magnet can produce up to 25 percent more power than a regular iron magnet. These magnets weigh several tons, with rare earths making up around a quarter of their total weight. That's several hundred pounds of rare earths for every wind turbine, and 23,000 such turbines were installed worldwide last year, with thousands more on the way. Tomas Villalon is chief technology officer for Phoenix Tailings. David L. Ryan/ Boston Globe Staff In short, we're going to need a lot more rare earths. Villalon and Myers began working the problem in 2019, before most people had begun thinking about it. The two men met through prayer. Villalon, a Roman Catholic, got to know Myers during a Catholic religious retreat in Cambridge. Myers is Greek Orthodox, but he showed up anyway. 'It's close enough,' Meyer said Besides, he added, 'I like the people.' The two men shared a background in science and a shared interest in minerals and clean energy. Myers earned a physics degree at St. Michaels College in Vermont and an MBA from Northeastern University, while Villalon earned an undergraduate degree in materials science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate at Boston University. 'We started talking about, how do we make the metals that power the next 50 years of our civilization?' said Villalon. He and Myers targeted rare earth refining because it's particularly dirty. In 2019 Villalon, Myers, Michelle Chao, another MIT materials scientist, and chief commercial officer Anthony Balladon got to work, building an experimental refining system in Villalon's back yard. Instead of using traditional ores, they focused on tailings, which are cheap and plentiful. The challenge was figuring out how to extract the rare earths stored therein. Advertisement They hit upon a solution of water and solvents that would dissolve the rare earths. The liquid is mixed with molten salts, heated to about 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit, then pumped over electrified membranes that capture the rare earth metals in pure form. There's virtually no toxic waste. The solvents and salts are reused, and the leftover tailings can be buried. The resulting process can be fine-tuned for each of the 17 rare earth metals. Phoenix Tailings is producing four rare earths so far, and can begin offering others if market conditions make it worthwhile. The system works with tailings, but can also extract rare earths from old ground-up EV batteries. And Villalon said it can also be modified to extract lithium from vast underground brine deposits in the southern US. It's good news for the Pentagon, because rare earth-based magnets are vital to many military systems. The US is especially worried about samarium, a rare earth used in making magnets that can withstand extreme heat. At present, all the world's refined samarium comes from China. But Meyer said the New Hampshire plant will be able to produce samarium in small quantities, while completely satisfying military demand for neodymium, praseodymium and two other critical metals, dysprosium-ferroalloy and terbium. And Villalon said the company is in discussions with the US Defense Department about its rare earth needs. While most industry experts say it'll take a decade or more to rebuild US rare earths industry, Villalon and Myers say their system is relatively easy to build and easy to scale. Advertisement 'With traditional technologies you're looking at 15 to 20 years to be able to build and deploy these things,' said Meyer. 'We can scale up in a fraction of that time.' It might not help during the current trade spat with China. But in some future dispute, Phoenix Tailings might give the US a few more cards to play. Hiawatha Bray can be reached at
Vox
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Vox
We're still winning the climate fight. Yes, really.
is a news editor with Vox's politics and policy team. He's helped cover elections, Congress, and both the Biden and Trump administrations. Previously, Sean was Vox's weekend editor. The Trump administration came to power and promised to shift the US's energy policy to one centered on the mantra 'drill baby drill.' That raised the question — will President Donald Trump undo all the progress the US has made in recent years transitioning to renewable energy? To find the answer, Vox's climate and tech teams worked for weeks reporting a series of stories all about where the world stands with respect to renewable energy technologies, what might hasten or slow progress, and what the green revolution will really look like. They found that humanity has reached what they call 'escape velocity' when it comes to the green energy revolution. I recently talked with climate editor Paige Vega about how her team came to this conclusion, and what it means for the future. Check out all the excellent Escape Velocity stories here! I hope this Q&A brings additional insights. Where are we right now with energy under the new Trump administration? Donald Trump's administration has made several moves to dismantle a suite of environmental regulations and really slow down climate progress, including taking us out of the Paris agreement. He's moved really, really quickly to incentivize this vision of an energy future that takes us back to reliance on fossil fuels. And he seems to want to advance a version of American energy dominance that represents a retroactive vision. Despite all that, in a new project, your team explains that Trump's efforts might be diminished by the fact that we've hit a kind of 'escape velocity' on climate? That's right. Trump campaigned on all of the things he's beginning to implement now, and we know how his first term went. However, we've really gotten to this point where market forces, economics, and scalability of green technologies are converging to give climate progress enormous momentum. For instance, we're seeing the price of solar energy come down drastically, and that's making it a very attractive and cheap energy source. Companies and countries that are building new facilities and structures now, or that are looking to add energy to the grid, are finding that the easiest thing for them to do is to tap into energy sources like solar or wind, because they're abundant and very, very cheap. We've also seen a ton of advancement in batteries and grid scale energy capacity. For a long time, one problem with solar or wind energy was that they are intermittent energy sources. It was difficult to power a home using wind energy when it wasn't windy. But now, we've enhanced our ability to create what are essentially giant batteries that can store energy from intermittent energy sources. And we've done that rapidly — since 2021, the utility scale battery capacity, meaning the ability for us to build big batteries and how much energy capacity they have, has accelerated at a rate of more than 30 times. And that means now we have a lot more capacity to harness the energy from a very windy day and store it when we need it. So, we chose Escape Velocity as the name of our project because we think of this as a moment in which — like a rocket with all of this momentum that's like about to leave the atmosphere — we're on a trajectory to leave behind the energy regime of the past and move towards something else. Related Escape Velocity That's astounding about the batteries. What led to such rapid advances? It's really a case of technological innovation being stoked by the low cost of solar and wind. The price of harnessing that energy dropped so much that there was suddenly a strong market incentive, global dynamics and good policies in place for companies to really figure out this battery thing. Tell me more about the economic forces here. There's a couple of different parts to that, and we have to widen the lens a little bit beyond America. The cheapness of solar and wind are one part of the picture. Many states have capitalized on that type of energy, and still remain committed to it, despite what the federal government is trying to do right now. In part because of that, there's an entire labor sector that is building up around this massive shift towards clean energy. We're seeing fewer jobs in fossil fuels, while in 2023, nearly 150,000 new clean energy jobs were created in a single year alone. 2021 was actually a really important year — that year clean energy jobs outnumbered jobs in fossil fuels. There's also the whole movement towards electric vehicles, and the expansion of infrastructure to support getting people out of gas-guzzling cars. America is in an interesting inflection period for this: If Trump succeeds in taking away the incentives for people to buy EVs, that could have a negative effect on the industry here in America. But those rebates were actually pretty narrow anyway, and we're seeing more and more people invest in hybrid cars. There's a lot of consumer desire and interest and excitement around different alternative types of vehicles that are hitting the market, worldwide. In China, there are several companies — mostly famously BYD — that are making really attractive and affordable consumer cars that are entirely electric. Sales of electric and hybrid vehicles are picking up in Mexico, Pakistan, and in European countries, too. And that's because these vehicles are cheap and easy to charge. You mention a lot of other countries there. Is the US in danger of getting left behind under Trump? Regardless of what the US does, the rest of the world is going to zoom ahead with this. The United States actually has a strong hand to play here, but right now we're actively sabotaging it. There is a real risk that we come to a situation where much of the world has cheap, clean energy that's out of reach for Americans. China in particular has clearly seen the writing on the wall, is investing in clean energy as well as the infrastructure to support EVs, and so on. They have the infrastructure to manufacture the batteries and technology the transition requires. And so they're a leader in this space. Now is actually a good time for the US to make a shift. We're at a time where much of our energy grid and our transmission lines are aging. They need to be refurbished, and that's going to be really, really expensive. To do the necessary work would mean pouring a lot of money into an energy system that was designed to utilize fossil fuels and not to harness the potential of emerging energy sources. If we're going to spend so much money doing that, why not use the money instead to realize a version of a US power system that is better able to harness renewable energy? There is no avoiding the fact that we're going to have to switch over to these renewable energy sources at some point. Might some states decide to make this transition on their own, regardless of federal policy? We're seeing some Republican politicians standing up for certain provisions within the Inflation Reduction Act — Biden's huge climate law — that invested billions of dollars into making that shift to renewables. And that creates an interesting tension with the White House. Places like Alabama, Kentucky, and Texas, all predominantly red states, are seeing a real boom in the shift to clean energy jobs. And some red states get an important share of their power from solar and wind — Iowa, for example, gets 60 percent of its energy from wind alone. Because of all this, I think we may see Trump becoming more open to maintaining certain federal clean energy policies than we think, maybe by rebranding them. We already see Trump embracing a few types of renewable energies, like geothermal and nuclear, which seem to be in Trump's good graces. I think politicians, governors across the country, nonprofits, and businesses have figured out that Trump's dislike of renewable energy is partially a branding issue, and you see different entities trying to repackage these technologies in a way that they think Trump would like better. That's a hopeful note. I think readers can find a lot of hope within our package of stories, and a lot of rebellion in it. Escape Velocity is really all about rejecting the idea that climate action lives and dies by who holds power for just four years. The future is still being shaped.
Vox
21-04-2025
- Automotive
- Vox
Escape Velocity
President Donald Trump ran on a promise of more fossil fuels, fewer environmental regulations, and outright climate denial — and now he's following through. His administration is gutting clean energy policy, fast-tracking oil and gas projects, and reshaping environmental policy with sweeping consequences. At the same time, though, there's another force pulling hard in the opposite direction. A global clean tech revolution — one that powers our homes, our cars, and our lives without wrecking the climate — is already well underway. The new generation of wind and solar power, batteries, and electric vehicles are on the verge of, or have already achieved, escape velocity, breaking free from the gravity of political capriciousness. In a lot of places, especially in power generation, the cleanest option is also the fastest, the cheapest, and the one most likely to turn a profit. That's true whether or not you care about the climate. The world is building momentum around clean energy, unlocking ways to grow economies and raise living standards without cranking up the planet's temperature. And every fraction of a degree we avoid means more lives saved, fewer disasters, more stability, and more of the future left intact. It's 2025 — halfway between now and 2050, the year stamped on basically every major climate target. That puts us closer to those deadlines than we are to Gladiator, Kid A, iMacs, and frosted tips. So it's a good moment to pause and ask: How did we get here? Are we moving fast enough? And what's standing in the way? In this special project, Escape Velocity, Vox's climate team set out to answer those questions. We looked at the places where climate progress is still speeding up, the breakthroughs changing everything behind the scenes, and the moments where clean tech might overcome political resistance entirely. The US has played a key role in getting the world to this point. But now, other countries are eyeing the lead. Right now, we're holding a strong hand, but our government is actively sabotaging it. What's at stake isn't just a cleaner future — it's whether the US stays in the race at all. —Paige Vega, climate editor CREDITS: Editorial lead: Paige Vega Editors: Carla Javier, Miranda Kennedy, Naureen Khan, Paige Vega, Elbert Ventura, Bryan Walsh | Reporters: Avishay Artsy, Sam Delgado, Adam Clark Estes, Jonquilyn Hill, Melissa Hirsch, Umair Irfan, Benji Jones, Paige Vega | Copy editors and fact-checkers: Colleen Barrett, Esther Gim, Melissa Hirsch, Sarah Schweppe, Kim Slotterback | Art director: Paige Vickers | Data visualization: Gabrielle Merite | Photo illustration: Gabrielle Merite | Original photography: Annick Sjobakken | Data fact-checking: Melissa Hirsch | Podcast engineering: Matthew Billy | Audience: Bill Carey, Gabby Fernandez, Shira Tarlo | Editorial directors: Elbert Ventura and Bryan Walsh | Special thanks: Nisha Chittal and Lauren Katz
