Recycling is good. Those empty beverage cans we turn in at the supermarket come back to us, newly reformed and filled with our favorite drinks – all at about 1/10th the energy cost of making the cans from fresh bauxite and generating all the electricity necessary for new aluminum stock. Besides, aluminum ore is a limited resource, and finding and mining fresh supplies is ever harder and more expensive. Lithium is an even more severe problem. Used rechargeable batteries other scarce minerals such as cobalt, manganese and lithium-based electrolytes. Most of the world’s supply of lithium seems to be in places not necessarily allied with U. S. interests. Battery University says 70-percent of the world’s supply is in Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Australia and China. Bolivia’s salt flats are in a mostly inaccessible area and would require building of major roads and extraction facilities. Unfortunately that country is not on good terms with the United States. China will want to protect its …
e-Genius, Klaus Ohlmann Set Records, Records, Records!
“Records, Records, Records!” heads the news on the Institut for Flugzeugbau (IFB) web site this morning. The sub-head reads, “Experienced hands plus a high-performance airplane plus one week equals seven world records.” Admitting to fuzzy math, the writer still draws a clear line to the seven records. Klaus and e-Genius spent the third week of July in Seeres – La Bâtie, France where they achieved seven FAI (Fédération Aéronautique International) World Records in the Category of Electric Airplanes. According to the IFB, “In two flights (July 18th and 19th) he attained: – Speed on a 100 km round trip : 178.1 kilometers per hour (96 knots, or 110.4 mph) – Speed on a 500 km round trip : 93.03 km/h (50 kt – 57.5 mph) – Distance of 504 km (312 miles) – Absolute altitude of 6,376 m MSL (20,918 feet) – Time to climb to 6,000 m (20,000ft) : 1:53 min (an average of about 177 feet per minute) …
Trapping Light: A “Perfect” Solar Absorber?
The news item from David L. Chandler at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) claims that researchers there have come close to realizing the “ideal” for solar absorption, trapping and containing all of light’s wavelengths that reach earth’s surface from the sun. This absorbed sunlight is converted to heat by a two-dimensional metallic dialectric photonic crystal, which can absorb sunlight from a wide range of angles and withstand extremely high temperatures. Even better, it can be made cheaply and in large quantities, according to MIT. One aspect of the design that might make it difficult to use on aircraft is its high operating temperature. A solar-thermophotovoltaic (STVP) device, the energy from the sunlight hitting the cells is “first converted to heat, which then causes the material to glow, emitting light that can, in turn, be converted to an electric current.” Having worked on an earlier version of STVPs, the researchers noted that the solar cells had many hollow cavities. Nature …
Sion Power, Airbus, UAE Team Up to Set Dubai Altitude Record
First, let’s get the new acronym out of the way. The solar-powered flyer recently setting records in Dubai is part of the Airbus High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) program. One headline led off with “What’s the HAPS?” leaving your editor saddened by not having thought of it first. Such craft were previously referred to as HALEs (High Altitude Long Endurance) platforms. It’s also part of the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST), a kind of Middle-Eastern STEM program promoting technological advancement and sustainable development in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The airplane set three world records in 2010, flying over the desert Southwest in America as part of Qinetiq’s development program. It managed 336 hours 22 minutes and 8 seconds then, but has added a record 61,696 feet altitude to its accomplishments during a 23 hour, 47 minute flight over Dubai, the highest flight so far in the UAE. Gizmag noted the flight was the first time …
Lithium Sulfur Batteries – Energy Storage at New Heights
Last year, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announced that researchers had “successfully demonstrated that lithium-sulfur battery technology can indeed outdo lithium-ion on several fronts.” Theoretically, lithium-sulfur batteries could be four times as energy dense as today’s lithium-ion batteries, but that promise had yet to be demonstrated. ORNL took initial steps toward that goal, and within the last few months researchers at Vanderbilt University have shown a strong lead in forming lithium-sulfur batteries with commercial potential. Echoing work done at Sakti3, ORNL researchers demonstrated an all-solid-state lithium-sulfur cell, addressing flammability issues shared by batteries with solid electrolytes. Using lithium polysulfidophosphates (LPSPs) in the cathode, and which have ionic conductivities eight times higher than that of lithium sulfide (Li2S) the team coupled that with a lithium anode to create “an energy-dense, all solid battery.” Energy density was a noteworthy 1,200 mili-Amp-hours per gram, about 7 to 8.5 times that of conventional lithium batteries. A number of blogs repeated the slightly overheated lines …
Learning About Energy Regeneration from Birds
Phil Barnes has one of the most fascinating web sites on the Internet, combining his aerodynamic expertise and love of soaring birds with his radical approach to staying up perpetually (or until the pilot grows exhausted). Albatross, birds he’s studied for decades, soar along the tops of ocean waves, seeking food for themselves and their broods, often traveling thousands of miles before setting down. They have the advantage of bifurcated brains, able to stay awake in one hemisphere of the brain while the other hemisphere nods off, a trait they share with dolphins. Would it be possible for humans to tap the energy in the air to soar for indefinite periods? Could truly fuel-free flight be a reality? Phil is betting both sides of his brain on an affirmative answer to that. His presentation at this year’s Experimental Soaring Association Western Workshop in Tehachapi, California was more than an addendum to previous work in this area, but an expansion of …
OOPs!… She Did It Again! 270 MPH for Eva
Eva Håkansson not only drives her Killajoule racing sidecar at hellacious speeds, but built it, wired the battery pack and now campaigns it with a five-person crew – including herself and her husband Bill Dube’. Over the Labor Day weekend, she topped 240 mph in her little bullet. Not content with only four miles per minute, she and Bill returned for even more speed on September 13. Business Insider reported, “But Håkansson and Dube knew their creation could go even faster. So last week, they returned to the Bonneville and upped the ante even more by hitting a whopping 270.224 mph. ‘The computer model showed a possible maximum speed of ~270 mph,’ Håkansson wrote in her blog. ‘For the first time ever, practice agreed with theory. We were both pleasantly surprised. It doesn’t happen very often, for sure’” Eva headlined the blog entry, “Now it’s starting to feel fast…” A123 supplied 14 Amp-hour pouch cells for the record attempts. Eva reports, “They are …
Combining the Best Features of Balsa Wood, Ceramics and NERF®
California Institute of Technology (CalTech) floats this imaginary trial balloon to elicit interest in a new material developed by materials scientist Julia Greer and her colleagues. “Imagine a balloon that could float without using any lighter-than-air gas. Instead, it could simply have all of its air sucked out while maintaining its filled shape. Such a vacuum balloon, which could help ease the world’s current shortage of helium, can only be made if a new material existed that was strong enough to sustain the pressure generated by forcing out all that air while still being lightweight and flexible.” Not only are the scientists achieving the strong, lightweight part of the equation, they are “on the path” to making their new material “non-breakable” and able to return to its original size and shape when squished. As described in her talk shown above, she and her group turned to architectural solutions, only making their bridge-like trusses at the nano scale – where things …
The New Mythbusters: Slow Charging May Not Make Batteries Last Longer
For the last 60 years, your editor remembers the oft-repeated advice from garage mechanics and now lithium-ion advocates that slow charging is the way to make your batteries last for many cycles. Where does this put Tesla, for instance, with its 20-minute Superchargers? Are you damaging your expensive cells by being in a hurry? In yet another example of counter-intuitive thinking at work, researchers at SLAC, the National Accelerator Laboratory at located on the Stanford University campus have challenged several tenets of conventional battery wisdom. According to PC World, their work, “published on Sunday in the Journal, Nature Materials, challenges the commonly held notion that slowly charging a battery helps prolong its life and that it’s damaging to a battery if a large amount of energy is withdrawn in a short time.” William Chueh, a senior author of the paper and researcher at the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES), told the magazine, “’We’ve always thought of a …
Formula E, Complete with Obligatory Crash and a Glycerin Chaser
Aside from Lucas di Grassi and Audi Sport ABT winning the first Formula E race in Beijing, China over the weekend, it would have been almost unremarkable except for the last-lap, last corner collision between Nicolas Prost and Nick Heidfeld. The spectacular crash was TV news worthy, and despite the initial friction during and after the crash, Prost and Heidfeld both sent mea culpa apologies to each other via social media. Formula e races, so far, seem fairly civilized affairs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV5Fri0gTX0 35 of the other 40 starters, all essentially alike aside from their team paint jobs, crossed the finish line unscathed and having burned nothing but rubber during their 45 minutes around the 3.44 kilometer (2.13 miles) track. Even the charger used to “fuel up” the racers burns pollution-free glycerin provided by Aquafuel, a British-based specialist in renewable fuels, according to Formula E Holdings. Aquafuel explains that, “Glycerin is a by-product of biodiesel production. For every 9 gallons of biodiesel, 1 …