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October 19, 2014  

Solar Impulse 2: On the way round the world

Solar Impulse 2

Solar Impulse is the only airplane of perpetual endurance, able to fly day and night on solar power, without a drop of fuel.

The chances of succeeding at the first attempt to build a solar airplane capable of flying around the world were judged to be slim, so a more rudimentary prototype, HB-SIA (Solar Impulse 1), was first constructed. Lessons learned from this prototype are incorporated in Solar Impulse 2, the Round-The-World Solar Airplane.

Whereas the prototype uses existing technologies, Solar Impulse HB-SIB (Solar Impulse 2) requires the development of new materials and new construction methods. Solvay has invented electrolytes that allow the energy density of the batteries to be increased; Bayer MaterialScience is allowing the project to make use of its nanotechnologies; and Décision is using carbon fibers that are lighter in weight than any previously seen.

The first wing spar section was delivered to Dübendorf in March 2012. However, during the final test of this central part, the structure of the wing spar succumbed to the load and broke. The initial shock soon turned out to be an opportunity: the flight around the world had to be postponed which opened the door for going to the United States and completing the epic journey across America.

After the official presentation of Solar Impulse 2 to the public on April 9th, the airplane will be rigorously tested during 2014, and the Round-The-World flight will be attempted between March and July 2015.

Below, the first flight of Solar Impulse 2.

June 10, 2013  

BYD: Electric Bus for U.S.

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For being the first to bring electric to public transportation. The ever-innovative Chinese automobile company created the world’s first purely electric bus.

BYD’s e-BUS 12 releases zero emissions, can go for more than 150 miles on a single charge, and uses solar panels located on the roof to convert solar energy into electricity. The buses have been tested in China, Southeast Asia, and Europe; Hertz car rentals will use the buses to transport passengers at LAX.

BYD Electric Bus for U.S. consumer market

Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD has its eye on the U.S. consumer market, even though it’s focused on fleets for the time being. “We want to sell cars to consumers in the U.S. in the next several years,” BYD senior vice president Stella Li told reporters yesterday. BYD could localize production of passenger cars here in about 10 years, she said.

Li was in Lancaster, a desert city about 70 miles north of Los Angeles, where BYD just opened a production plant. The plant will initially produce electric buses, starting in October. BYD aims to turn out 50 units in the first year. The plant will have an annual capacity of 1,000 units, said Li.

“The is the first time a Chinese bus company is opening a manufacturing plant in the U.S. and the first North and South America plant for BYD,” Li told a gathering that included officials from Lancaster, Los Angeles County, the state of California, and several municipal transit companies.

BYD already has a contract with the Long Beach Transit for 10 ebuses, which will be in service in the first half of 2014, Long Beach Transit spokesman Kevin Lee told PluginCars.com. Stanford University has also placed on order for three ebuses, said BYD fleet sales manager Joel Reikes.

Made in U.S.A., By a Chinese Company

BYD has plants that assemble buses from imported parts—known as knock-down assembly—in numerous other countries, including Egypt and Bulgaria. Though some of the parts for the plant in Lancaster will be imported from China, Long Beach Transit used federal funds to buy the BYD buses, and one of the funding conditions is that the BYD ebuses must have at least 60 percent U.S.-produced content.

That isn’t a problem, said Li. The buses will have more than 70 percent local content, she said, and that is before considering the inductive chargers that will be used in Long Beach. If they are included, “It is close to 80 percent,” said Li. Those chargers are from Wave Inc., a Utah startup, and are considered part of the local content, said John Inglish, a Wave director, in an interview with PluginCars.com. It will install two chargers in Long Beach.

Among additional local content, the batteries for the ebuses will be assembled at a nearby plant using imported cells. And, the multiplex electronic control is sourced from I/O Controls Corp. in Azusa, Calif., Michael Kuang, vice president of engineering at I/O Controls, told PluginCars.com

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June 3, 2013  

Cold fusion reactor independently verified, has 10,000 times the energy density of gas

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We are speaking about cold fusion more than 15 years. But, until now, no result to produce energy more than used to produce cold fusion itself. But this energy will be the future and will redisign the world with more energy and possibly more innovations with an energy less expansive. Let´s read this very interesting article fromage Tech in America.

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TECH in AMERICA (TiA)

Rossi's E-Cat cold fusion device

Against all probability, a device that purports to use cold fusion to generate vast amounts of power has been verified by a panel of independent scientists. The research paper, which hasn’t yet undergone peer review, seems to confirm both the existence of cold fusion, and its potency: The cold fusion device being tested has roughly 10,000 times the energy density and 1,000 times the power density of gasoline. Even allowing for a massively conservative margin of error, the scientists say that the cold fusion device they tested is 10 times more powerful than gasoline — which is currently the best fuel readily available to mankind.

The device being tested, which is called the Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat for short), was created by Andrea Rossi. Rossi has been claiming for the past two years that he had finally cracked cold fusion, but much to the chagrin of the scientific community he hasn’t allowed anyone…

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May 26, 2013  

Switzerland: Solar Impulse project

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HB-SIA, Solar Impulse prototype A

With its huge wingspan equal to that of an Airbus A340, and its proportionally tiny weight – that of an average car – the HB-SIA prototype presents physical and aerodynamic features never seen before. These place it in a yet unexplored flight envelope.

Carbon fiber structure, propulsion chain, flight instrumentation, everything has been designed to save energy, to resist the hostile conditions facing airplane and pilot at high altitudes and to marry weight restraints with the required strength.

Solar Impulse is a Swiss long-range solar powered aircraft project being undertaken at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. The project eventually hopes to achieve the first circumnavigation of the Earth by a piloted fixed-wing aircraft using only solar power. The project is led by Swiss psychiatrist and aeronaut Bertrand Piccard, who co-piloted the first balloon to circle the world non-stop, and Swiss businessman André Borschberg.

Piccard initiated the Solar Impulse project in 2003. By 2009, he had assembled a multi-disciplinary team of 50 specialists from six countries, assisted by about 100 outside advisers. The project is financed by a number of private companies. The four main partners are Deutsche Bank, Omega SA, Solvay, and Schindler. Other partners include Bayer MaterialScience, Altran, Swisscom and Swiss Re. Other supporters include Clarins, Semper, Toyota, BKW and STG. The EPFL, the European Space Agency and Dassault have provided additional technical expertise, while Bay Area based SunPower provided the aircraft’s photovoltaic cells.

HB-SIB, the new plane will flight in 2015

It was not built to fly round the world. Its purpose was rather to demonstrate the feasibility of the program by making the first ever whole day-and-night flight without fuel, a task that it accomplished brilliantly in July 2010. The lessons learned by the team are now being applied to the construction of Solar Impulse HB-SIB, which is due to circumnavigate the Earth in 2015.

Question of energy defines the project

At midday, each square meter of land surface receives, in the form of light energy, the equivalent of 1000 watts, or 1.3 horsepower of light power. Over 24 hours, this sun energy averages out at just 250W/m². With 200m² of photovoltaic cells and a 12 % total efficiency of the propulsion chain, the plane’s motors achieve an average power of 8 HP or 6kW.

That’s roughly the amount of power the Wright brothers had available to them in 1903 when they made their first powered flight. And it is with that energy, optimized from the solar panel to the propeller, that Solar Impulse managed to fly day and night without fuel!

FIVE world records established by HB-SIA

Absolute height: 9235 m (30300 ft)
Height gain: 8744 m (28690 ft)
Duration: 26 hours, 10 minutes, 19 seconds
Free Distance along a course: 1116 km (693.5 miles)
Straight distance, pre-declared waypoints: 1099.3 km (683 miles)

Across America 2013: Golden Gate end of April

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March 30, 2013  

Emerging Markets: Opportunities for Energy Innovation

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Emerging markets provide attractive opportunities for innovative energy systems. The competitive advantage of renewable over traditional energy sources is greater than in developed countries. However, socio-economic, cultural, and policy issues might interfere with the innovation process in these countries.

The green revolution must include and empower women. According to Katherine Lucey, founder & CEO of Solar Sister, the main cultural barrier for energy innovation in Africa is gender. Women need access to electricity to bring progress in the community.

Brazil is an emerging global leader in the renewable energy industry, gaining this position by implementing favorable policies and market mechanisms, such as reverse auctions, aimed to remove financial barriers for the energy innovation progress. Today, wind energy represents 25% of Brazilian market share and Lauro Fiuza, VP for International Relations of ABEEolica, said the next step will be bringing solar to the same level, thus creating a complementary system that will make renewables a major power generation source in Brazil.

In developing countries, solar and wind energy are already cost competitive. Technological, financial, and policy innovations are creating win-win conditions for renewables and bringing national energy independence. Although there is not a right set of energy policies for every country, Dr. Kelly Sims Gallagher, associate professor of energy and environment policy at Tufts University, said those countries experimenting with policy solutions – e.g. China – are better positioned than countries spending too much time deciding the right strategy to implement.

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