Fuel Cell Progress in Britain

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado released a document last year on the viability of fuel cells for various applications, including transportation.  The National Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Learning Demonstration Final Report, “analyzed data from more than 500,000 individual vehicle trips covering 3.6 million miles traveled and more than 152,000 [kilograms] hydrogen produced or dispensed.”  The agency tested 180 vehicles over a six-year period. With United States Department of Energy expectations that fuel cell powered vehicles could achieve: • 250-mile driving range • 2,000-hour fuel cell durability • $3/gallon gasoline equivalent (gge) hydrogen production cost (based on volume production) At least two fuel cell manufacturers report results exceeding these numbers, so the major impediment to wide-spread implementation of this clean technology seems to be lack of an effective distribution network.  The NREL lists 54 existing H2 sites, with 15 projected for the near future, nowhere near the estimated 159,000 outlets (including convenience stores) that sell gasoline and other …

New “Leaf” Turns Over More Energy

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Scientists have been working on imitating nature’s ability to photosynthesize the sun’s energy, much as plants turn that energy into food for their health and growth.  Daniel Nocera, for instance, created an artificial leaf that split water into oxygen and hydrogen that could fire up a small fuel cell and run an electric light.  According to a Science Pub lecture your editor recently attended, an eight-ounce glass of water can power a 60-Watt bulb for 20 hours.  Nocera, in a Pop! Tech talk, claims an Olympic-size swimming pool could supply all the world’s energy needs. Nocera now works at Harvard, but researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), his former home, are taking his work further, detailing all the limitations that keep his “artificial leaf” from giving off more storable energy. As explained in the MIT press release, “The original demonstration leaf, in 2011, had low efficiencies, converting less than 4.7 percent of sunlight into fuel… But the team’s new …

Cambridge, MIT Chasing Room-Temperature Hydrogen

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

News from Cambridge University shows some promise for inexpensive production of hydrogen, an elusive process considering the lightest element in creation is also the most common, said to make up 90 percent of the visible universe.  On earth, it readily combines with oxygen to form water, a handy thing to have around for the benefit of our species. Getting hydrogen out of the water so that we can burn it in our cars and airplanes is a frustrating process, though, often requiring more energy for the extraction than can be obtained from its combustion. According the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, “To make [hydrogen] usable in fuel cells or otherwise provide energy, we must expend energy or modify another energy source to extract it from the fossil fuel, biomass, water, or other compound in which it is found. Nearly all hydrogen production in the United States today is by steam reformation of natural gas. This, however, releases carbon dioxide in the …

Keeping a UAV Aloft for 48 Hours – On Laser Power

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Lockheed Martin and LaserMotive recently managed to keep a drone, the Stalker Unmanned Aerial System (UAS), flying for 48 hours on a laser-guided recharging system.  Its on-board batteries can maintain flight for two hours, so the demonstration improves endurance by 2,400 percent. Your editor admits to possibly over-healthy skepticism regarding transmittal of power to aircraft, remembering early NASA demonstrations that were noisy and more lightning-like than focused.  LaserMotive’s technology seems to overcome these objections. Stalker is described by Lockheed-Martin as “a small, silent UAS used by Special Operations Forces since 2006 to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.”  The miniature plane  weighs a little over six kilograms (13.2 pounds) and has a wing span of three meters (9.84 feet).  As shown in the video, it can be hand-launched by a single soldier or enforcement office and fly for up  to two hours at up to 4600 meters above the ground.  In this video, narrated by that guy who’s heard in every …

The Happiest Materials Scientist

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

According to his NASA biography, “Dr. Ajay Misra, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is Chief of the Structures and Materials Division in the Research & Technology Directorate at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.  In this position, Dr. Misra has the responsibility for planning, advocating, coordinating, organizing, directing and supervising all phases of Division research and business activities.”  At the fourth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium in Rohnert Park, California in April 2010, Dr. Misra was among the most charming and happiest of presenters – probably because he had so many happy things to talk about.  Much of the joy comes from the continuing revelations about the characteristics of carbon and boron nanotubes.  They turn out to be absolutely wonderful for thermal, structural, battery, capacitor and motor applications.  Dr. Misra’s talk sounded at times like a pitch for a wonder cure-all, but one backed with solid scientific precepts. Boron nitrate nanotubes have better high-temperature characteristics than carbon …

Man of La Manche

Dean Sigler Uncategorized Leave a Comment

The French call the English Channel “la Manche” (the sleeve), nicely describing the shape of the waterway  while neatly avoiding calling it “English.” Gerard Thevenot, a long-time championship-level hang-glider pilot, celebrated the centennial of Louis Bleriot’s flight across la Manche by flying his hydrogen-powered La Mouette hang glider over roughly the same route Bleriot took between Calais and Dover on August 6, 2009.  Missing the centenary by a few days (Bleriot made the hop on July 25, 1909), Thevenot took an hour and seven minutes to duplicate the trip Bleriot managed in 37 minutes. Having displayed his craft at Aero Expo 2009 at Friedrichshafen, Germany in April, Thevenot also participated in the Coupe-Icare, an aeronautical-artistic fantasia near Grenoble, France before making his historic flight. Like Bleriot, he essentially created his own machine, crafting a simple trike frame to attach to his wing, and adding two hydrogen cylinders, three 2 kW fuel cells, and the controller, motor and propeller developed by Drs. Eck and Geiger.  …