By Jerry James Stone •
October 14, 2009
A fuel-cell-powered aircraft set a world record by staying aloft for a whopping 23 hours and 17 minutes on just a single load.
In fact, the unmanned aircraft broke the previous record by double. Of course, the plane was built by the Naval Research Laboratory and not by students from the University of Michigan. Still, those students kept their plane in air for over 10 hours–impressive!
Of course their plane was only $2,500. I am guessing the Navy-built one cost us a whole lot more.
By Susan Kraemer •
October 7, 2009
A German supplier of electronics and powertrain design to most of the major automakers for the last 25 years has just secured a patent that could be a game changer for electric vehicle adoption. Their technology would allow electric vehicles to be charged as they drive over any road embedded with a recessed wireless recharging strip, using electromagnetic induction.
Ingenieurgesellschaft Auto und Verkehr (IAV) says the technology will be available commercially within 3 years, is insensitive to weather conditions, and is not susceptible to mechanical wear.
As Wilfried Nitschke from IAV says, “The road is then the range extender.”
By Tina Casey •
July 24, 2009
DARPA, the U.S. military’s chief high-tech office, is looking for a few good photovoltaics. Not just any garden variety solar panels, mind you. The agency is soliciting proposals for Low-Cost Lightweight Portable Photovoltaics (PoP) that can stand up to battle conditions and environmental extremes while delivering high power conversion efficiency. Think backpacks with built-in solar capacity, with teeth.
By Tina Casey •
July 4, 2009
Is the world ready for another ambitious ocean power program?
Blue Energy Canada Inc. and World Energy Research are moving quickly in that direction. After signing a memorandum of understanding last month, the two companies just announced a formal agreement to build a 200 megawatt, half-billion dollar commercial tidal power project based on Blue Energy’s Davis Tidal Turbine. Meanwhile, DARPA (the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has been quietly working the other end of the scale to develop buoy-sized ocean power generating equipment.
By Tina Casey •
June 2, 2009
Abandoned land mines have been called “the worst form of pollution on earth.” They kill up to 20,000 people every year, and according to one recent study it will take 450 years to find and clear all of them. That estimate might be too optimistic, because new mines can be laid as fast as the old ones are cleared. Ridding the world of land mines sounds like a Sisyphean task of epic proportions. Or is it? Enter DARPA (the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency) and the humble bee.
By Tina Casey •
May 31, 2009
After a year-long demonstration project, the U.S. Navy is poised add its own contribution to reducing the military’s carbon bootprint - or carbon wake, as the case may be. The Navy stands to gain up to 87% in savings for shipboard lighting, by switching from conventional light bulbs to high efficiency LED and HID systems developed through DARPA under the HEDLight (High Efficiency Distributed Lighting) program. One recent retrofit has been accomplished by Ohio-based Energy Focus, Inc. Saving energy is just part of the picture: the quantum leap to HEDLight is also expected to yield significant gains in the Navy’s strategic efficiency.
By Tina Casey •
May 2, 2009
President Obama announced new federal funding goals for science, particularly the transformational energy research program ARPA-E, just as a a global swine flu pandemic was getting underway, so it’s little wonder that the news sank with barely a ripple. Among those who did take notice, the Sierra Club stated that “we have finally closed the books on the Bush era of climate denial.” But a closer look at ARPA-E suggests that it’s way too soon to pop the corks.
By Tina Casey •
April 28, 2009
The next generation of portable fuel cells is being, almost literally, battle-tested by the U.S. military, which put a portable fuel cell/battery system through its paces this past February during field maneuvers in the 28th annual Cobra Gold. Cobra Gold is the U.S. military’s long-running multilateral exercise in Thailand. The lightweight, portable fuel cell system was developed by DARPA’s Robust Portable Power Sources program, and its tooth-to-tail implications apply to military and civilian sustainability, too.
By Tina Casey •
April 22, 2009
Beam me up, Scotty: programmable matter is one step closer to reality. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has just announced the successful completion of a key milestone in Phase I of its Programmable Matter research. The goal is to develop particles that can assemble into solid objects on command - and that’s got big implications both for warfighters and the military’s carbon bootprint, too.
The Pentagon will spend $400 million to develop solar-charged, hydrogen fuel cell blimp which will reach an altitude of 65,000 feet and remain airborne for 10 years.
By Tina Casey •
March 16, 2009
If you don’t know what DARPA is, you will soon. The Defense Advanced Research Group invented the internet back in 1969, and now it has set its sights on geoengineering a cure for global warming. What does that mean? For one thing, it means that a communications network originally designed for national defense somehow [...]
