Electra Flies Dawn One, Solar Powered Climate Observatory

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Dawn One is a solar-powered climate observatory, one of many to come and an outgrowth of a long career for John Langford, Electra Aero’s CEO, and collaborator with Professor James G. Anderson of Harvard University. A seeming callback to John Langford’s human-powered aircraft from his MIT days, Dawn One is a 90-foot span unmanned aircraft system (UAS) destined to fly at stratospheric altitudes (49.000 feet maximum) while observing data for quantitative forecasts of risks in the climate.  We see its first flight from the Manassas Regional Airport in Virginia on September 9.  The assistants in hot pink  and orange vests are Hokies, part of Virginia Tech University, and whose name is explained in a lengthy Wikipedia entry. The “solar-battery hybrid …

Faster, Cleaner AND Less Pricey?

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

University of Michigan Research Sprinkled with Optimism (or Not) Can electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) machines provide the swift crossing of  urban distances at a price that will attract the non-flying public? Can they do so while keeping pollution in check? A University of Michigan study, funded in part by Ford Motors, concluded that taking a short (depending on definition) trip in an autonomous electric vertical takeoff and landing machine might not only be quicker than a ground-bound journey through gridlock, but might even be less expensive.  These two factors are important if we are clean  the toxic atmosphere that hangs over our major cities, at least partly brought about by the constant transit of personal automobiles, public buses, …

Making Structural Batteries More Sinewy

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

Multitudes of researchers have exercised their mental muscles trying to make man-made products mimic naturally-occurring structures.  According to University of Michigan researchers, the cartilage in your knees might provide the inspiration for a “structural battery” prototype that would be durable and easy to shape. This blog has long promoted the idea of structural batteries, energy storage systems that could double as strengthening elements in the aircraft shell.  Storing energy in car bumpers or airplane wings has some risk elements.  What will happen to a battery cracked by collisions on the ground or excessive loads in the air, for instance.  Nicking or puncturing existing batteries can cause flaming catastrophes. As U of M researchers note, “[Structural batteries] been a long-term goal …

Solid-State Progress at the University of Michigan

Dean Sigler Batteries, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Battery breakthrough: Doubling performance with lithium metal that doesn’t catch fire Longer-lasting drop-in replacements for lithium ion could be on the horizon These two headlines top a report by Angela Wegrecki from the University of Michigan’s News Service, and despite their hopeful vibes, may even elicit yawns.  We see similar claims regularly, accompanied by promises of a five-year wait for the production models to begin rolling off the line. Most batteries are developed by researchers working with small budgets and small facilities.  Thomas Edison had 40 assistants working with him to test the 1,600 different filaments tried before hitting on a carbonized sewing thread that gave the light he was seeking.  The University of Michigan has 2,700 square feet and …

Traversing Australia on Sunshine

Dean Sigler Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Powerplants, GFC, Solar Power Leave a Comment

Australia supplies 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles) of smooth road and abundant sunshine every year for the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge that bisects the country north to south.  Growing in numbers annually, this year’s five-day race drew 47 teams from 25 countries, with two teams from the Netherlands,  one from the University of Michigan in the United States and one from Tokai University in Japan trading the lead almost daily and battling it out for the first four places in the Challenger Class with daily consistency. University of Delft students had their second win in two years, while rivals from the University of Twente (the Netherlands) achieved a very strong second place overall.  The University of Michigan’s team was a consistent third-place …

Bulletproof Batteries?

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Researchers announce that a “New battery technology from the University of Michigan should be able to prevent the kind of fires that grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2013.”  The use of the word “should” is instructive, since scientist usually couch such announcements in more guarded terms. Battery separator materials are usually not the glamorous part of cell development, most headlines given to electrode and electrolyte breakthroughs.  Kevlar may be a way, within batteries, of preventing a breakthrough.  Nanofibers extracted from Kevlar, that impenetrable material in bullet-proof vests, “stifles the growth of metal tendrils that can become unwanted pathways for electrical current,” according to a University of Michigan report. Separator material stands between layers of other battery materials and ideally allows …

Sakti 3 Announces Significant Battery Breakthrough

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Dr. Ann Marie Sastry, CEO of Sakti3, Inc. of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been quietly working on a high-energy-density battery that would use mass production platforms with “fully scalable equipment” that would take us to the next level of development. Sakti announced this week that its new battery can store over 1,100 Watt hours per liter (Wh/l) in volumetric energy density, about two to four times that for conventional cells.  Scientific American reports 1,143 Wh/l.  According to Sakti’s release, “This translates to more than double the usage time in a wearable device like a smartwatch, from 3.5 hours to more than 9 hours. It also translates to almost double the range in an EV like the Tesla Model S, from …

I’ll Take Manhattan

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

While much of battery research goes into crafting the ultimate anode, cathode or electrolyte, there seem to be few efforts, at least to outside observers, of integrated approaches to making a better total battery.  That may change soon, with the Department of Energy announcing formation of a new Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (J-CESR, or J-Caesar).   Dr. Steven Chu, U. S. Secretary of Energy, has established the Center at Argonne National Laboratory with a budget of $120 million over five years to create a battery five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today’s norms – all within five years. For those of us who’ve grown wary of those “breakthough” announcements that almost always include the line, …

Fast Food for an Energy-Hungry Economy

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Phil Savage, an Arthur F. Thurnau professor and a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, with Julia Faeth, a doctoral student in Savage’s University of Michigan laboratory, have unveiled a fast-cooking process that converts 65-percent of wet algae feedstock into biocrude in one minute. Considering that nature takes millennia to convert ancient flora and fauna into the raw materials of our energy economy, this decidedly quicker process might capture even the shortest of attention spans. The team investigated the hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of wet Nannochloropsis species algae, something like pressure cooking your vegetables, for a mere minute. This was enough to create a form of at least a biofuel precursor. The video exposes Dr. Savage’s skeptical view …

Lifting Yourself by a Disappearing Thread

Dean Sigler Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The University of Maryland announced the successful 11.4 second flight of an American human-powered helicopter with a female pilot – now the National record holder and successor to the first female flight on such a machine – 17 years ago. In 1994, your editor attended a human-powered aircraft symposium in Seattle at the Boeing Museum of Flight. Paul MacCready signed my copy of Gossamer Odyssey and I was official observer (for Chris Roper of the Royal Aeronautical Society) of the first female-powered helicopter flight.  Ward Griffiths, a svelte young thing from a local bike shop, cranked the very similar (to Gamera) thing into the air for 8.6 seconds – a first and a female record at that time.  A Japanese gentleman had …