Month: February 2022

Enlarge / Eve Spectrum 4K 144Hz monitor. (credit: Eve)

While matte screens produce consistent, glare-resistant images in different lighting environments, glossy alternatives can provide a more vivid, colorful image in the right conditions. You can find glossy screens in everything from TVs to smartphones and general-purpose PC monitors. Glossy gaming monitors, though, haven’t been available. A small company called Eve plans to change that by making shiny versions of its two gaming monitors.

On Wednesday, Eve confirmed that it will make a glossy coating option available for two of its three 27-inch gaming monitors, the 4K 144 Hz Spectrum and QHD 280 Hz Spectrum (previously 240 Hz). The company did not confirm a price or release date.

Eve explained the difficulties behind making glossy displays. Despite what you may have seen on Reddit or YouTube, producing a good glossy screen is not as simple as removing a monitor’s anti-glare coating. Glossy displays also require changes to the LCD module’s polarizer filter, which controls the lightwaves.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

What happens to an electric vehicle’s big slab of batteries once it no longer holds a sufficient charge? On Thursday, Redwood Materials moved that conversation forward with an announcement that it has started its EV battery recycling program, with Ford and Volvo as partners.

US law requires an EV’s traction battery to maintain at least 70 percent of its original state of charge after eight years or 100,000 miles. Even older EVs—ones with proper thermal management for the battery pack—are showing resilience to battery degradation over time.

But eventually, a pack will no longer be suitable for propelling a car, at which point it can be given a second life as static storage. After the battery degrades enough, it’s time for recycling.

Enlarge (credit: John Paraskevas/Newsday RM)

For over a decade, the US has blended ethanol with gasoline in an attempt to reduce the overall carbon pollution produced by fossil fuel-powered cars and trucks. But a new study says that the practice may not be achieving its goals. In fact, burning ethanol made from corn—the major source in the US—may be worse for the climate than just burning gasoline alone.

Corn drove demand for land and fertilizer far higher than previous assessments had estimated. Together, the additional land and fertilizer drove up ethanol’s carbon footprint to the point where the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions—from seed to tank—were higher than that of gasoline. Some researchers predicted this might happen, but the new paper provides a comprehensive and retrospective look at the real-world results of the policy.

Proponents have long argued that corn-based ethanol bolsters farm incomes while providing a domestic source of renewable liquid fuel, while critics have said that its status as a carbon-reducing gasoline additive relies on questionable accounting. Based on the new study, both sides may be right.