There were two presentations on the Swift ultralight flying wing at this year’s Electric Aircraft Symposium. Dr Steve Morris of the MLB Company related the flight testing of a manned version of the craft, which had been and is being modified by a group of NASA researchers. That NASA team presented material on the unmanned version of the Swift, as modified to allow autonomous flight. Three industrious and inventive souls, Corey Ipollito, Paul Espinosa, and Al Weston, presented their work on the Swift Unmanned Aerial System (UAS), which they are undertaking with a small team of experts as a mostly volunteer effort at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California. Ilan Kroo’s famous design has had many variants, including several others electrically powered, but none quite as sophisticated, and none with the range of missions envisioned for the craft by this trio. The airplane, test flown in December 2009 by Brian Porter for MLB, carried its human payload for …
Bagging Algae – Pollutants into Energy
For the Fourth Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium on April 23 and 24 in Rohnert Park, California, Dr. Jonathan Trent was an ideal kickoff speaker. His work with NASA Ames Research Center on converting pollutants into algae-based biofuels could have long-term effects on cleaning up our planet’s air and water, and provide byproducts that will help to feed the 900,000,000 who go hungry every day. As he notes, “Unless we go electric, we must move to low-carbon fuels.” The problem is not a new one. As musical satirist Tom Lehrer wrote in his 1960’s plea for emissions control, “Pollution, Pollution,” “The breakfast garbage that you throw in to the bay/They drink as lunch in San José.” Dr. Trent, a PhD. in Marine Biology, has a solution called OMEGA, “Offshore Membrane Enclosure for Growing Algae.” Explaining that the wastewater treatment plant on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay dumps 300,000 gallons of effluent each day, Trent notes that capturing that waste and performing a …
Half a World Apart, United in Their Research
Dr. Yi Cui, a winner of the 2004 MIT Technology Review World Top 100 Young Innovator Award (among other notable awards), and Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University, was a distinguished presenter at the CAFE Foundation’s Third Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium last April. He talked about the structure and manufacturing of lithium-ion cells, and the material limitations placed on the performance of those cells. His breakthrough in using nanowires in the cathode promises an 80-percent gain in the cell’s charge-holding ability, equivalent to ten years of the normal cell improvement of eight percent per year. The good news was somewhat of a letdown for many, who were hoping to hear of a total 10X performance improvement for the entire battery. Dr. Cui advised attendees that the introduction of similar improvements in battery anodes would be required before that quantum leap in performance could be achieved. In the meantime, as reported in our entry, …
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