Group 14 Gets a Push from Porsche

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

We covered Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s visit to the Group 14 Technologies battery plant in Woodinville last year.  Now the Group is getting attention from Porsche, among other funders.  The startup company announced raising $400 million from investors including the Teutonic automaker. According to Reuters, part of those funds will be used to build a second battery materials plant in eastern Washington State.  The company is now valued at over $1 billion, money which will help expand battery materials production for the silicon-lithium cell market. Silicon is a desirable material in batteries, capable of storing more energy than lithium or other metals.  It has a major drawback, though.  In expanding and contracting during charge-discharge cycles, it eventually deteriorates, crumbles, and brings the battery’s usefulness to an end. Dr. Yi Cui of Stanford University has tried various methods over the years to prevent such crumbling.  His firm, Amprius, has developed a silicon nanowire anode that enables a battery with 450 Watt-hour …

Big Money for Battery Research

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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 …

British Craft eKub

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation 2 Comments

A Proper British Aeroplane eKub is the latest offering from The Light Aircraft Company (TLAC), a British company that specializes in modern adaptations of classic-themed flying machines.  At nearby Cranfield University, Dr Guy Gratton, Associate Professor of Aviation and the Environment, teaches and acts as test pilot on the eKub.  Gratton is also an Associate Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. TechXplor reports, “After taxi tests and “low hops,” the single seat Sherwood eKub made its first flight of 10 minutes and then a second flight later in the day of 22 minutes from Little Snoring airfield in Norfolk.” He can’t seem to get enough of the little ultralight single seater, posting a Tweet showing his takeoff in G-EKUB.  He reports, “Back in the electric office today, more lessons learned, more progress towards practical and viable electric aeroplanes.”  In response to a reader’s question about battery limits on flight time, he explains, “Looking increasingly that we’ll hit our …

Antares, FES, and AdvanTec Create E-ROP Hybrid

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

E-ROP is a multi-party program using an Antares self-launching sailplane.  FES and Adventec have crafted a hybrid version of the Antares 20e with a front electric sustainer (FES) motor in place of its tall mast-mounted motor.  An incremental program, E-ROP begins by replacing the retractable unit with an FES motor on the nose.  This reduces the drag created by the motor being raised into position and simplifies operation. The FES Antares flew for the first time on April 19 with Klaus Ohlmann at the helm.  Ulrich Bronet recorded this short video. Under development since 2016, E-ROP will benefit from an advanced battery package from research partner AdvanTec GmbH.  According to the project, “The concept provides for batteries in the fuselage and wings, which have an energy capacity of 22 [kilowatt-hours] at a total take-off weight of 650 [kilograms] (1,433 pounds) MTOM (Maximum Take Off Mass).”  22 kWh is about one-fifth of a Tesla battery package and will allow up to 450 …

Sky Taxis, Eviation Featured on TV News

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60 Minutes and The Today Show have recently featured sky taxis and future electric airliners on their broadcasts.  This is big news in that such transport is getting recognition in popular media, and even somewhat of a fair hearing.  Even though references to the Jetsons are common in such reports, both these excursions seemed to be less wide-eyed, biased, and skeptical than most. Lift Hexa Although LIFT’s Hexa is featured prominently in publicity for the show, Wisk’s CEO is featured in this promotional piece.  “We’re excited to share that we’ll be on this weekend’s episode of @60Minutes on @cbstv! Be sure to tune in as our CEO, Gary Gysin, sits down with @AndersonCooper to talk about the future of #mobility!” LIFT had a say in promoting the show.  “Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic during rush hour is one of the worst things about the morning commute. But what if people could fly over the gridlock? Anderson Cooper takes a ride in …

A Hybrid Structural Battery

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Is it possible to combine the best features of batteries and supercapacitors to get both enduring energy storage and bursts of power?  Batteries, to varying degrees can store energy and release it over time.  Supercapacitors can provide instant, but short-lived power.  Even more challenging, can can we form a hybrid structural battery, combining form with function?  University of Central Florida researchers think they’ve answered those questions with a battery-supercapacitor hybrid material that could form “power suits” for electric vehicles. Improving on an Earlier Idea This blog first reported on structural batteries 12 years ago, examining the efforts of Volvo and Dr. Emile Greenhalgh of Imperial College London. Several approaches have been made to create a structural battery, but the “power suit” combines electrical potency with enough structural strength to resist driving impacts.  UCF reports, “This new breakthrough continues this line of thinking, with scientists at University of Central Florida and NASA designing a new material featuring unique properties that allow for …

An Italian Hybrid Seagull

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An Italian trimaran light seaplane has many interesting features.  From its hybrid power system to its unique patented folding wings, the Novotech Seagull showcases innovation. Professor Leonardo Lecce has taught aeronautical structures and aerospace construction and maintenance practices at the Federico II University in Naples. Why the choice to limit the craft to marine operations only?  La Republic explains Seagull “allows two people to fly from any coastal location to another, doing without hydroscales and hydroports now non-existent, thanks to a revolutionary technology already patented, of an automated system folding of the wings that allows once moored (landing at sea), to reach and dock in any quay or dock. But also to bring this aircraft ashore in the garages as a small boat or, for the ‘pieds dans l’eau’ (‘feet in the water’) hotels or for the lucky ones who have a villa with access to the sea or the lake, to park it in your garden.” The 650-to-700 kilogram …

Solid State Batteries with a Liquid Chaser

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What if our assumptions prove wrong?  How willing are we to at least examine closely-held beliefs and accept a new, scientific finding?  Sandia engineers are demonstrating that solid-state batteries containing a little liquid electrolyte can be safer than conventional lithium-ion cells. PV Buzz included a great executive summary in their article on the findings: A new study tackled a long-held assumption that adding some liquid electrolyte to improve performance would make solid-state batteries unsafe. Instead, the research team found that in many cases solid-state batteries with a little liquid electrolyte were safer than their lithium-ion counterparts. They also found, if the battery were to short-circuit, releasing all its stored energy, the theoretically super-safe, all-solid-state battery could put out a dangerous amount of heat. Those three points seem to contradict the conventional wisdom that eliminating electrolytes would lead to safer, less flammable batteries. Sandia engineers Alex Bates and John Hewson have published findings challenging that conventional wisdom in the peer-reviewed journal …

Single-Seat eVTOL Commuters

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Single-seat ultralight aircraft are a popular part of personal aviation and a small part of the growing electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) market.  We look at two contenders here, and compare them to a newly-certificated single-seat fixed-wing solar-assisted airplane. KARI’s QTP-UAV KARI – the Korean Aerospace Research Institute – has developed the QTP-UAV, or Quad Tilt-Prop Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.  It’s designated as yet another acronym – OPPAV, Optionally Piloted Personal Air Vehicle Technology Demonstrator. Citing the “Emerging market competition for urban air mobility,” KARI sees their craft as a means to reduce the “enormous social costs resulting from traffic increase on the ground.” A huge number of Korean organizations joined the effort develop the OPPAV demonstrator. “Korean companies (KAI, Hyundai Motors, Hanwha System, VesselAerospace, KAT, Doota, EDT, and RealtimeWave), research institutes (KIAST and KOTI), and Konkuk University formed a consortium for the program sponsored jointly by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MOLIT) and the Ministry of …

Gogoro Goes Solid State

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Gogoro, a Taiwan-based scooter and battery system, has added solid state chemistry to its swappable batteries.  This increases the stored energy in each 9 kilogram (19.8 pound) pack from 1.7 kilowatt-hours of the current liquid electrolyte to 2.5 kWhr.  These packs are light enough for a small woman to handle, as shown in Gogoro’s promotional videos. Growing GoStations Swapping batteries on Gogoro’s own scooters is quick and convenient, with over “10,000 battery-swapping GoStations at over 2,300 locations,” by the firm’s own count.  They serve over 450,000 riders with over 340,000 daily swaps.  Powering 95-percent of all electric two-wheel scooters on the island nation, they’ve “hosted” more than 260,000,000 total battery swaps to date.  Gogoro boasts their “Network subscribers have swapped over 140 million Smart Batteries without incident since 2015.” The number of GoStations is close to exceeding the number of gas stations on Taiwan. A joint development between Gogoro and Prologium, the new solid-state batteries fit the existing modules in …