Hybrid Airplane

Capable of Battery-Only Take-Offs

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~ It's long been thought that replacing liquid fuels in airplane power-trains would be nearly impossible. Apparently not:

Similar to General Motors' Chevy Volt drive train, the DA36 E-Star uses a serial hybrid electric drive train in which a main engine is powered alternately by a gasoline-powered generator and batteries.

A 70-kilowatt Siemens engine runs the aircraft's propeller. That engine is powered alternately between a small Wankel combustion engine made by Austro Engine that runs on gasoline and acts as a generator, and EADS batteries. Additional EADS batteries are used during takeoff and ascent.

The plane first flew a month ago in Austria but made its public debut two weeks ago at the Paris Air Show.

Boeing should worry; EADS is the parent company of arch-rival Airbus and the development target is obvious:

While it's in early development, Siemens claims its drive train can be scaled up for use on a large passenger plane, and under further development hopes to create a drive train that can save 25 percent in fuel consumption.

Can we compete with biofuels?

(h/t Grist)

What If Everything Ran on Gasoline?

Respiring Minds Want to Know

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~ This commercial for the Nissan Leaf asks the provocative question, and answers it with both wit and an ample dose of absurdity:



Clever. But curses on YouTube (Google) for larding this commercial with—that's right!—more commercials! And for the Chevy Volt and Honda's vague hydrogen plans of all things. How long before YouTube fully becomes BoobTube?

Where's It Wednesday—XXXVI

OK, the picture last time (2 weeks ago) was way too easy for Chad, so this week is especially for you awesome battery dude! Where in Seattle is this?

Answer next week.

Details on the weekly Where's It Wednesday puzzle here.
Other weeks' puzzles here.
Answer to the last puzzle, two weeks ago, after the jump.

Electric Cars

Back to the Future?

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~ The first practical electric cars were built more than 100 years ago, back before gasoline and other fossil fuels came to dominate transportation starting in the 1910's.

What's surprising is not that such electric cars were built, but that they used standard battery technology then available and boasted some of the same features of modern electric cars, including 50-mile or longer driving ranges between charges.

Wireless Electric Vehicles

The Power of the Open Road

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~ What will power our transportation future? The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has built a prototype magnetic train that runs on an electrical road:

On Tuesday researchers launched an environmentally friendly public transport system using a "recharging road"-- with a vehicle sucking power magnetically from buried electric strips.

The Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV), towing three buses, went into service at an amusement park in southern Seoul. If the prototype proves successful, there are plans to try it out on a bus route in the capital.

Getting Cars Out of Idle

Stop-Start Technology Saves Gas, Emissions

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There are still a lot of ways to improve auto efficiency in the United States. Better fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards for cars, and also for trucks. Communicating what cars do better is also a good step. Electric cars are better still, and the fears about them unfounded. There's also a technology used in Europe for years that cuts down the wasted gas (and emissions) of pointless idling. It's similar to what's used in golf carts, but it works for regular gasoline-powered cars too. It's called stop-start, or microhybrid technology:

The microhybrid system centers on start-stop technology, which turns off engines at traffic stops. This has long been a feature of full-hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius, but as a relatively inexpensive addition to purely internal combustion cars, it can improve fuel economy by 10 percent or more.

Ford is using high-performance batteries developed by Johnson Controls. “Stop-start technology is well-established on our cars in Europe, and so it’s only natural we would bring it to our home market in the U.S. for the fuel economy our customers expect,” said a Ford spokeswoman, Jennifer Moore.

Ford’s Auto Start-Stop technology combines the upgraded battery with a modified starter motor and a voltage-quality module to ensure that accessories function normally with the engine off.

When our leaders call for an "all-of-the-above" approach, they should embrace more than just generation technologies. Efficiency technologies like this must be adopted broadly as well.

Rare, But Not Unusual

Rare Earth Elements

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News stories about rare earth elements (REE) are becoming more frequent as greater attention focuses on the rise of the cleantech and renewable energy industries, the growing economic competition between the US and China, and issues of natural resource scarcity and security.

REE are under increasing control by China, which dominates world production and supply. The Chinese have used their effective monopoly to further their industrialization, but also as part of a broader effort to establish their position in the global economic and political order.

The physical properties, commercial uses, economic factors, and political considerations of REE are not widely known or appreciated by the public, yet their importance is real and growing. An examination of the different aspects of REE will illuminate not just their future significance, but also serve as an example of the broader economic and political trends of the next few decades.

More on Energy and Sputniks

ARPA-E Director Dr. Arun Majumdar

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Yesterday's post covered US Energy Secretary Stephen Chu's address on the importance of government support for energy innovation. Included on the dias at the National Press Club was Arun Majumdar, Director of ARPA-E. Below is a repost from the Hydrovolts blog of 2/20/10 with remarks made by Dr. Majumdar on the "Three Sputniks."

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Arun Majumdar, Director of ARPA-E, spoke to about 150 people in the atrium of the Paul Allen Computer Science & Engineering Building at the University of Washington on Thursday. Dr. Majumdar provided a detailed explanation of the role of his agency in building a technology "pipeline" connecting the creators of new solutions to the integrators searching for solutions to the "three Sputniks" of energy security, green house gas (GHG) emissions, and US global technological leadership. He sees these as all connected, composing three axes of the same 3-D reality. We must stop importing 60% of our oil from "places hostile to us" and then burning it, exacerbating damage from climate change. Finding other ways to create the energy we need that are clean and renewable will also power US innovation, economic prosperity, and global leadership. Tackling these Three Sputniks is the Congressional directive to ARPA-E.