(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . From the GNR Newsroom: Its the Monday Good News Roundup [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-03 Our normal picture of Sunflowers will be preempted this Monday for this picture of the best good news from the last week. Welcome back to the Good News Roundup, Where every Monday myself, Killer300 and Bhu get together and gather the good news to start your week off right. I snapped that little pic above at work on Friday, because I wanted it to be front and center this week. I wont dwell too much on it except to say that this is basically the only way the Trump story was ever gonna end, and here’s hoping that he finally faces justice. Now enough on that cretin, onto the good news. The small municipal airport sits in a state where abortion is now banned in virtually all cases. But a short flight away in Kansas, it remains legal. That’s launched a wave of travel from across the South and Midwest in pursuit of pills and procedures no longer legal in many places. Michael — who asked to only use his first name — is part of a growing group of hobby pilots who have begun ferrying people across state lines to get abortions and gender-affirming medical care, flouting local restrictions and bans. They’re volunteers with Elevated Access, an Illinois-based group that operates with degrees of secrecy because its work falls into gray legal territory. The flights spare people seeking stigmatized medical care from the costs, delays, and security checkpoints that go along with traditional travel. These are some good people, and bless them for all they are doing. History is going to remember these people as heroes no doubt. Leading global lithium supplier Albemarle will expand its production of battery-grade materials in the U.S., as the country looks to build up a domestic supply chain for clean energy. The company will build a $1.3 billion lithium processing facility in Chester County, South Carolina, according to a Wednesday announcement. The initial plan is to produce 50,000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide annually, to support domestic battery manufacturing for electric vehicles and energy storage. The more electric vehicles we have for the future the better, that much is certain. Earlier this month, Block-Lite, a family-owned masonry business, announced plans to produce concrete by combining CarbonBuilt’s alternative-cement process with Aircapture’s technology that removes carbon dioxide from the sky. The three partners received a $150,000 grant from the 4 Corners Carbon Coalition, a network of local governments in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, to design the first-of-its-kind manufacturing facility. The companies plan to retrofit one of Block-Lite’s facilities and begin production in 2024. Initially, the plant will churn out 30,000 metric tons per year of concrete, while also removing some 500 tons of atmospheric CO 2 annually. The novel processes are expected to reduce overall emissions from concrete-making by over 70 percent, according to the developers. As climate crisis looms, we are proving that we are more and more ready to meet the challenge. With every new technology and innovation we are coming up with more weapons to face the upcoming turmoil. Vattenfall, which is owned by the Swedish state, combined radar data with cameras to identify the species of seabird and create a three-dimensional image of birds’ flight patterns and how they avoid offshore wind turbines’ rotor blades. The movements of herring gulls, gannets, kittiwakes, and great black-backed gulls were studied in detail from April to October, when bird activity is at its height. (This study only looked at four bird species, but Vattenfall says the model can and should be applied to more types of seabirds and to onshore wind farms as well.) The study’s findings: Not a single collision between a bird and a rotor blade was recorded. So basically the wind turbines are not a threat to birds (because I guess that’s one of the various criticisms being cooked up by the crackpots who oppose these turbines. And believe me I’ve heard some stupid ass excuses against them). And now, for your consideration, a Monday GNR Lightning round Shooting survivor crashes Nashville shooting press conference Top lawyers defy bar, will not prosecute peaceful climate protestors LA school workers secure deal after three day strike Atlanta “Stop cop city” movement is spreading Israel protests are bringing Netanyahu to his knees Jorts the cat wants you to fight back Very good stuff. Now back to our regular story posting. he climate tech press often bemoans shortages of lithium, a metal crucial for the development of electric vehicle batteries. Far less digital ink has been spilled over the scarcity of another metal that you could argue is even more crucial to the clean energy transition: Copper, which S&P Global recently dubbed the "metal of electrification." Copper is an integral component not just of transmission wires (search "copper theft" and you’ll realize what a nagging issue it is already for utilities), it’s also crucial for scaling up production of solar panels, wind turbines and EVs. So what if you could commercialize a material that possesses the conductivity of copper and is stronger than steel and lighter than aluminum? That’s the moonshot vision of DexMat, a Houston-based carbon nanotube startup born at Rice University and built on patents by the late Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Rick Smalley and his collaborator Matteo Pasquali, the startup’s founder and chief science adviser. DexMat has already benefited from more than $20 million in non-dilutive funding in the form of grants from two U.S. Air Force research agencies, the Department of Energy, NASA, the National Science Foundation and Advanced Functional Fabrics of America. That money has helped develop niche applications that are already generating commercial revenue for the company, such as wiring in plane wings that can help de-ice them electrothermally rather than through the glycol-based chemicals currently used to handle this. Once again I have to say it: I love living in the future. Solar farms that are also flower fields to help support local ecosystems? I love every part of that (I wouldn’t visit though, allergies). North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) on Thursday vetoed a bill that would have prohibited public school teachers and staff from referring to students and other staff by pronouns that do not match their sex assigned at birth. In a letter expanding on his decision to the North Dakota Senate president, Burgum argued the bill’s ambiguity “would invite lawsuits” and “put teachers in the precarious position of trying to determine how to refer to students without violating law.” Also because its pointlessly cruel and stupid. Like most of this Anti Trans bullshit. To quote a meme I saw recently, leave Trans people alone, or we’re gonna start identifying as a PROBLEM. So what is it? Hope is more like a muscle than an emotion. It’s a cognitive skill, one that helps people reject the status quo and visualize a better way. If it were an equation, it would look something like: hope = goals + road map + willpower. “Hope is the belief that your future can be brighter and better than your past and that you actually have a role to play in making it better,” according to Casey Gwinn and Chan Hellman in their book, “Hope Rising.” Decades of research have now proved that hope, defined this way, can be reliably measured and taught. Using 12 questions, called the Hope Scale — a version of which you can take yourself here — more than 2,000 studies have demonstrated that people with stronger hope skills perform better in school, sports and work. They manage illness, pain and injury better and score higher on assessments of happiness, purpose and self-esteem. Among victims of domestic violence, child abuse and other forms of trauma, hope appears to be one of the most effective antidotes yet studied. Still, there is resistance to hope, even among those who know it best. For a long time, Hellman, a psychologist by training, did not think giving people hope was his job, either. At conferences, he would wave people off when they asked him how to build their capacity for hope. “I don’t do hope. I study it,” he’d tell them. Human beings cannot survive without hope, Despite what the doomsayers may say. Which is why the GNR exists, to try and give you a little bit of hope, especially in the dark times. And I think that’s a good point to leave off on. Everyone have a good week, and if you celebrate have a happy Easter. 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