Drones to be power plants in the sky, beam energy back to earth

Source:treehugger

© New Wave Energy UK

Move aside, high-altitude kite turbines and space solar arrays. A company called New Wave Energy UK has an ambitious goal for harvesting solar, wind, and heat energy from 50,000 feet above the surface of the planet, and beaming it back down to earth.

The company wants to pick up where other technologies fail, so focusing on the fact that there is little biodiversity or air traffic at that height and that one device could harvest energy from multiple sources, New Wave Energy UK has come up with a design for drones that each harvest energy, use a bit to power themselves, and send the rest down to use to power our own homes, offices, devices and so on.

New Wave Energy UK states in a press release: "The technology is a wireless solution which will incorporate wireless power transmission from the drones (and their wireless network) to the Earths surface, another new technology developed by multiple bodies in the USA and Japan for energy production using solar satellites. Aerial energy harvesting is in its infancy however does show great promise."

The company is first going to test out its technology on a smaller scape by using it to help in natural disasters by providing energy to search and rescue missions and other emergency services. They will also provide energy to those in need in developing or remote areas. If it works, it could potentially be scaled up to provide power to entire countries.

Gizmag reports that, "Each drone will have four rotors, multiple wind turbines and a flat base for generating solar power. It'll be able to power itself with the harvested energy and generate an additional 50 kW that can be transmitted wirelessly to the ground. Rectenna arrays installed inland or on offshore installations would receive the electromagnetic waves and convert them into usable power."

"At 50,000 ft (15,000 m) there is very little air traffic and biodiversity, unless you go over the Himalayas," company director Michael Burdett tells Gizmag. "Implementing a system in these conditions will not obstruct any existing systems."

Though there are a lot of components, each with the potential to break (and as is the case with many energy sources, a large embodied energy footprint from the get-go), the company is developing a design that could be easily updated. But thousands would be needed for just one "power plant". The upside is that NIMBY is a non-issue since the drones will be miles above the ground.

So would it be easier to do this project, with its myriad of potential problems, or get solar panels on the roof of every building in the US? I'm guessing solar panels on every building might be a more reasonable route, but it's always good to dream big. The potential is certainly there, and it is an exciting endeavor. If the company can get the needed funding, it expects to have a working prototype within six months after receiving the funds.

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SunCat solar batteries charge themselves

Source:cnet

Solar-powered phones such as the Samsung Blue Earth are great eco-friendly concepts, but we won't see these sun-worshipping devices replacing mainstream handsets anytime soon. Meanwhile, we still have a mountain of gadgets that need to be juiced regularly, which is why designer Knut Karlsen's idea of integrating flexible solar cells on to rechargeable batteries could be a more immediate solution to reducing our carbon footprint.

Named after a feline basking in the sun, SunCat involves flexible solar-cell strips glued to nickel-metal-hydride rechargeable cells.

With a conductive silver pen and flat wires recycled from a broken Canon lens, Knut managed to get a weak trickle charge connection. He admitted that the first prototype wasn't ideal, but he's working on a second model that may include a display for checking battery life and capacitors for more efficient charging.

A downside to this is that the battery will have to be smaller, according to Knut, if these extra components were to be added into a standard cell.

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New Caterham Electric Bicycles Offer Good Looks, Range

Source:earthtechling

Caterham Cars, a British company known for its specialist lightweight sports cars, is branching out into two-wheeled offerings, including a few rather good looking newelectric bicycles. These were debuted recently at the International Motorcycle Exhibition (EICMA) in Milan as part of the new Caterham Bikes division.

Both electric bikes will go on sale sometime next year, likely after spring, at what’s dubbed affordable prices. The first offering, simply known as the Classic E-Bike, is said to be a “classically-inspired design” that harkens back to the “golden age of British motorcycling,” but which does not require its rider to have a license for operation in the European Union. It is driven by a 36-volt, 250 watt brushless electric motor that’s powered by a 36-volt, 12 aH lithium battery that can be expanded. The range is said to be between  25-50 miles (40-80 km).

image via Caterham Bikes

Key features of the Classic E-Bike include classic British racing colors detailed with pinstriping, an aluminum frame, leather handle-bar grips, Shimano 3-speed hub gears, a large “fuel” tank that doubles as luggage storage, a three way adjustable seat and a LED dashboard with battery status, speedo, trip meter and range.

Joining the classic design is the more modern looking Carbon E-Bike. It is said to be at “the cutting edge of both design and materials” that’s inspired by F1 technology. It sports a modular carbon-aluminum frame that’s configurable to three different sizes to meet the size and shape of each rider.

image via Caterham Bikes

Powering this electric bicycle is a  36-volt, 250 Watt brushless motor, feeding its power through an eight-speed Shimano Nexus gear hub. No riding range was mentioned, but given that it, like the other bike, is powered by a 36-volt, 12 aH lithium battery, one should expect it will be able to go between 25-50 miles (40-80 km).

Standing out on the Carbon E-Bike are items like a LED dashboard with battery status, speedo, trip meter assistant ratio and range indicator; a three-way adjustable seat and wheels which feature lightweight but strong aluminum rims, laced with stainless steel spokes.

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Solar-Powered Robot Structure May Be Roaming Toward a Park Near You

Source:Mashable

The whole robots-taking-over-the-world scenario comes to mind when describing Morphs, robotic and geometric sculptures that are to control their own movements, adapt to different surroundings and reshape how humans think about architecture. These solar-powered mechanical creatures are programmed to crawl between different locations and self-assemble in order to interact with humans.

Morph creator William Bondin used his background in architecture to explore how social dialogue can be inspired by structures. He mixed in robotic capability to give these movable structures intelligence of their own.

SEE ALSO: This Robot Can Teach Programming to Your 5-Year-Old

"Morphs are very low-level creatures in terms of computation, and have much less computational ability than a mobile phone. Instead, they rely on their environments in order to display a level of self autonomy. These playful robotic creatures will encourage the public to choreograph them into dance routines, assemble them into complex sculptural geometries or else play music at them, which they will play back over time," Bondin told Mashable in an email.

Morph stands for Mobile Reconfigurable Polyhedra; the latter word refers to the slime mold physarum polycephalum, the organism that inspired Morph's environmental-behavior concept. The organism does not have a brain, but instead uses a cognitive process embodied within its environment. When foraging for food, the creature navigates and distinguishes between different locations by marking previously explored areas with slime.

Not actually using slime, Morphs are programmed to avoid shady and watery areas to protect their electronics. Instead, they seek sunlight and dry areas, fueling their solar power. They also deposit data into a Bluetooth network that identifies their location, and whether or not they are actively used by a human.

Bondin emphasized that Morphs are more than static sculptural forms; he said they are robotic structures able to change and respond to the natural landscape, and are meant to interact with humans and other architecture.

By 2015, Bondin hopes to design a larger-scale Morph. Once its interactive capability and safety is tested, the mega-Morph will eventually be installed in a public park. The project is funded by the Government of Malta's art-scholarship program.

"The 2015 prototypes are meant to be a step closer, and let us observe and understand the next set of challenges, which mainly revolve around machine learning and human occupation," Bondin told Mashable in an email.

The latter refers to the interaction between humans and Morphs — the idea of friendly relations between robots and humans instead of a fight over who controls the world.

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Swarthmore police test solar car

Source ; philly.com

This is a solar-powered police car in Swarthmore. You can see the solar panel on the back of the car. (Julie Zauzmer/staff)

SWARTHMORE Amid an ordinary day of teaching classes and supervising lab experiments, Swarthmore College instructor Carr Everbach got the sort of call one afternoon that most professors never receive.

A solar panel on a police car was on fire, the caller said. The police needed the professor to come put out the flames.

Everbach found himself running to the police station to help handle the smoldering car, the sort of town-gown collaboration that he had not imagined. He helped put the fire out, and if his ongoing experiment is a success, he plans to provide more help to the Swarthmore Borough Police Department than just amateur firefighting. He wants to let it run its cars partly on solar energy.

The idea was Mayor Rick Lowe's brainchild. Having heard about similar projects elsewhere, he envisioned a police car powered in part by the sun, and asked the president of the college to make it happen. She provided the funding, about $1,200, for a prototype. Kara Bledsoe, now a sophomore at the college, spent the last summer designing and testing the system. And on the one day that the police department could spare a working police car from its fleet, Bledsoe and Everbach worked rapidly to install the battery, three solar panels, and some wiring.

Since then, the car has been patrolling Swarthmore while soaking up the sun. And aside from that time that the panel caught on fire, due to a problem that has since been fixed, the experiment is going smoothly, Everbach said.

Police officers spend a lot of their time sitting in place in their cars, Everbach said. They are not driving, but they need to keep their radio and other devices running. Usually, they simply idle their cars.

The goal of the Swarthmore prototype is to use solar power to fuel a second battery for the car. The radio and other devices get their power from that battery. Officers can turn off their cars rather than idling - which means saving lots of money on gasoline - and they will not use up their main battery.

"What we have allowed them to do is to focus on their job and not think about whether the car's going to start," Everbach said. "They have to fight crime and chase the bad guys. . . . They don't have to worry about running down their batteries as much as they used to."

Everbach is tracking police officers' usage of the car to see how much the solar-powered battery reduces the time they spend idling and to make sure that the solar panels provide enough power even during the dim wintry months. At the end of the year, he plans to publish the results and perhaps look toward replicating the technology for other police departments.

But he won't rule out any more fiery mishaps.

"It's a prototype," he said. "No prototype has worked perfectly, ever. You don't see the Wright brothers' plane flying around much anymore."

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Battery-Powered Planes

Source : Forbes

By MIT Technology Review Custom, an Energy Realities Partner

Batteries are becoming ever more compact; solar panels are becoming ever more efficient; and composite frame-construction materials keep getting both stronger and lighter. The products of those three trends are spreading throughout the world of technology, not least by making feasible what until recently had been only a sci-fi dream: electric airplanes.

To be sure, an electrically powered heavy-duty commercial aircraft that can handle passengers and cargo the way today’s airliners do is, at best, two or three decades away. The main obstacle: petroleum products, especially jet fuel, have tremendous energy density; that is, they provide enormous amounts of power relative to their weight. Unfortunately, electric batteries currently offer barely more than six percent of gasoline’s energy density. Lack of energy density is one reason that the batteries that power popular electric cars like the Tesla can weigh half a ton, about a quarter of the weight of the entire vehicle.

But those limitations notwithstanding, scores of experimental lightweight electric airplanes already exist that are capable of carrying one or two people for long distances—and soon, around the world. Many of these are basically electrified gliders, which need a tow from another plane to get airborne, but can stay up in the sky with the help of solar panels.

The Taurus Electro G2 takes a different approach, made by glider manufacturer Pipstrel. That aircraft has an electric engine that lifts it aloft, at which point the engine retracts and the Taurus operates like a traditional glider.

The Taurus is priced at $130,000, and is available commercially. Most other electric airplanes are experimental devices, and not in regular commercial production. As befits the Wright brothers-like spirit of their creators, these aircraft often make news with their exploits. The most famous is the Swiss-made Solar Impulse, a project of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne that is funded mainly by a number of European companies, including Bayer and Deutsche Bank, and which, true to its name, gets its energy from solar panels. Those panels provide enough power for the Solar Impulse to take off by itself.

This summer, the Solar Impulse made headlines by flying across the United States in six hops, with each hop lasting between 19 and 25 hours. Electric planes still have a long way to go in matching traditional jets in the speed department.

The ultimate journey — around the world — is scheduled for 2015, featuring a redesigned Solar Impulse that will combine the weight of an average automobile with a wingspan of 80 meters, wider than that of an Airbus A30. It will fly at an altitude of up to 12,000 meters (40,000 feet) and stay aloft for up to five days. Circumnavigating the globe is expected to require four or five separate flights.

Where might all this lead? One of the most ambitious attempts at imagining a future all-electric aircraft is the VoltAir, which the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), the European consortium behind the Airbus, has been showing off as a “concept plane” at aviation industry events, including the famous biennial Paris Air Show. The body of the VoltAir is cucumber-shaped; its wings are long and thin; and the engine is located at the back of the fuselage. The plane will be made with the next-generation carbon-fiber materials already found in today’s advanced aircraft, like the Boeing Dreamliner.  But much of the rest of the VoltAir doesn’t yet exist, at least not outside a few specialized laboratories. Chief among its still-to-be-developed components are super-conducting electric motors to run the engines, and ultra-advanced lithium ion batteries that are to power them.

Built on over 100 years of excellence in technology journalism, MIT Technology Review Custom is the arm of global media company MIT Technology Review that’s responsible for creation and distribution of custom content. Our expert staff develops meaningful and relevant content from concept to completion, distributing to users when and where they want it in digital, print, online, or in-person experiences. The turn-key solutions offer everything from writing and editing expertise to promotional support, and are customized to fit clients’ content marketing goals—positioning them as thought leaders aligned with the authority on technology that matters. 

This article is also published on the Energy Realities website.

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This Solar-Powered Tree Keeps Your Gadgets Charged

Source: brit.co

You know we love us some solar power, and we’re always looking for different ways to keep our gadgets powered up when the power’s down. And when these things come together, look good, and happen to be on Kickstarter, we’re really psyched. While unfortunately funding has been paused on the project, we’re still impressed by the idea and creativity of this project.

Case in point for today? Electree+.

This quirky-looking darling is a tree sculpture covered with solar panels, letting you charge your devices at your desk… provided your desk has ample sunlight.

Described as part sculpture and part appliance, we love that this combines the aesthetic with the pragmatic. Who says fun, function, and fashion can’t all find a home on your desk?

But how does it work? Ok, first of all it doesn’t need direct sunlight but charges off of natural daylight. It only needs 4 hours of daylight to charge the average smartphone and can store up to 36 hours of power at one time. You connect via USB and can connect two devices at once. You can also opt for a wireless charging zone (yes, a wireless charging zone). Amazing.

Electree+, naturally, is looking for funding over on Kickstarter. $199 will get you the electree+ with a black base as well as a tshirt, on-the-go solar charger, fun decals, and the ability to choose future colors of electree+ base plates.

Who knew serious solar power could be so accessible? Can’t wait to try this out and to see what other desktop and home appliance/sculptures start popping up in the technosphere.

What do you think of electree+? Do you have any solar-powered devices or charges you love? Talk to us in the comments below. 

And, of course, if you love the electree+ concept as much as we do, be sure to show your support on Kickstarter!

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