Big Money for Battery Research

Dean Sigler Batteries, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

With war in Ukraine threatening European and even American oil supplies, many nations are scrambling to develop and deploy cleaner sources of energy.  That’s where the U. S. Department of Energy may have a large part in backing big money for battery research.  $3.1 billion in funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), “will support the creation of new, retrofitted, and expanded commercial facilities as well as manufacturing demonstrations and battery recycling.” Batteries get Billions, Big Oil Gets Trillions One sometimes wonders why the governments of the world subsidize Big Oil as much as they do.  Big Oil has created the wealthiest corporations since the Roman Empire.  First-world nations spend a tremendous amount of their wealth in extracting, refining, shipping and consuming these often dirty fuels.   Bill McKibben recently wrote, “…almost half of what we move around the seas is not finished products (cars) nor even the raw materials to make them (steel), but simply the stuff that …

Drones Meeting the Corona Virus Challenge

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, GFC, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

“Ramadan Mubarak, Dean! “As a kid who grew up in the ’80s, I thought by 2020 we’d have flying cars and a clean planet, and yet here we are grappling with a global pandemic and much uncertainty in these very strange times.” This greeting from Hani Almadhoun, Director of Philanthropy for  the the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. UNRWA USA, reminds us of our common humanity and spirituality while lamenting the fact that we don’t yet have those long-promised flying cars or at least a well-looked-after planet. Like the virus, the unfulfilled dream of a “flying car” seems universal. Faced with an imperfect reality, fixed- and rotary-wing drones are showing their worth in fighting the Corona virus (COVID-19) virus and other diseases worldwide. We will sample from A (Alphabet) to Z (Zipline) performing life-saving tasks in sometimes surprising ways. Alphabet The Verge reports, “Alphabet’s nascent drone delivery service is booming. “Alphabet’s drone delivery company Wing …

Restarting the Blog with Bad News – and Some Hope

Dean Sigler Batteries, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Your editor is back in action (in slow motion) having experienced two holes in his stomach, patched neatly by modern medicine and skilled practitioners.  All is reasonably well and getting better.  Certainly better than two well-publicized battery fires. The Bad News Coming out of the recent fog, your editor received an email from Karl Kaser (Kasaero) with dreadful news.  One of two Lilium prototypes had burned, somewhat similar to the recent loss of the Eviation Alice in Prescott, Arizona.  Battery fires are of great concern for the future of the emerging industry. A podcast on the company claims the firm is the, “Best funded air taxi startup in the world,” with 100 million Euros in venture capital riding on its success.  Up to that point in late 2019, Lilium’s worst day was when a co-founder flew a small 3D-printed prototype into a tree.  They have since been surpassed in funding because of Joby’s recent near-unicorn windfalls. This comes as a …

CES 2018 – Intel Inside and Then Some

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Brian Krzanich, Intel’s CEO, took a ride in the Volocopter 2X, becoming the first human passenger on an autonomous flight of the vehicle.  The ride took place in a large enclosed space somewhere in Munich, Germany, on December 3, 2017. An Historical Sidebar It looks a little like Hanna Reitsch’s helicopter flight under the roof of the Deutschlandhalle in Berlin in 1938, a feat she repeated daily during the three-week International Automobile Exhibition.  She later test flew an early V-1 “Buzz Bomb,” her small size adaptable to the craft.  Volocopter’s 2X requires far fewer flying skills, CEO Florian Reuter claiming a five-year-old can control the 2X. Not a Flying Car Sean O’Kane, enthusiastically reporting on the 2X for The Verge, can’t refrain from calling it a “flying car,” an all-too-common error in the popular press.  Monday’s indoor flight came near the conclusion of Brian Krzanich’s keynote address to a packed house at Las Vegas’ Monte Carlo Park Theater, a 5,200-seat …

Will Dubai Beat Everyone to Jetson World?

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

What do you give the country that has everything?  Perhaps the world’s first aerial taxi service. An Excess of Riches Dubai is a fabulously rich country, with an air conditioned beach, the world’s largest shopping mall and an indoor ski center complete with a good base and a layer of powder.  Disappointingly, it’s only the third largest indoor skiing area in the world.  The largest is in the Netherlands, with the second largest in Germany.  At least those countries don’t have to overcome the desert’s heat to drop the temperature below freezing. Visitors to Dubai can be excused for wanting to commute between these tourist attractions in an equally extravagant way.  Buzzing down on them in an eHang 184 passenger-carrying drone will ensure a grand entrance.  An Associated Press report says the Dubai officials are already pushing forward on test flights. “Mattar al-Tayer, the head of Dubai’s Roads & Transportation Agency (RTA), announced plans to have the craft regularly flying at …