Will plug-in vehicles be just a passing novelty in the United States, or will they spark a dramatic transportation shift that ultimately affects everyone? Both scenarios, and others in between, were posited at a recent Advanced Automotive Battery Conference in Pasadena, Calif. How Californians take to electrified automobiles will help to set the tone for the nation. Tom Cackette, chief deputy executive officer of the California Air Resources Board, told a symposium audience that “you basically...
More...
Bloomfield combustion engines developer LiquidPiston, Inc. has secured a $5 million investment that will allow the company to add jobs and further advance its fuel efficient rotary diesel engine technology. The company recently closed on a $5 million Series B investment round from a group of investors including Northwater Capital and Adams Capital Management. Alexander Shkolnik, president, CEO and founder of the company, said LiquidPiston is developing internal combustion engines based on an inn...
More...
On Tuesday, Cyclone Power Technologies of Pompano Beach, Fla., announced that it would attempt to break the land-speed record for an unlikely race class: steam cars. A British team set the existing record of 148.308 miles per hour in 2009. The prior record holder? A 1906 Stanley Steamer. Spearheading the attempt is Chuk Williams, an engineer who has built a pair of steam-powered vehicles, including a dragster. Mr. Williams is building the chassis and body for the racecar, while Cyclone is supply...
More...
LARAMIE - The UW-based Clean Coal Task Force (CCTF), whose job is to first identify and then fund research projects that could lead to the development of technologies to reduce the environmental impact of coal-based energy, will call for a second round of proposals for the second consecutive year. The 12 approved projects from the initial 2010 RPF received $6,992,300, leaving about $7 million remaining for additional projects. A second RPF will be issued on Jan 31, 2011 to use the remaining 2010...
More...
On January 20th, 2011 EnviroMission Ltd. (South Melbourne, Australia) announced that it has received an independent valuation at USD$60 million of its Solar Tower technology, associated intellectual property and development rights. The company states that it will reference this valuation in its half-year financial statement for the second half of 2010. "This valuation represents an independent assessment of the value of EnviroMission's enhancements to Solar Tower technology, new intellectual pro...
More...
Waste heat and low-temperature geothermal are hot sources of renewable energy that get a boost from Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) systems. In Brisbane, Australia, a 240-kW ORC unit at a timber plant will soon harvest heat from an existing biomass burner and generate electricity to power kilns for drying lumber. Similar ORC systems are becoming killer add-ons for other heat-based renewable energy plants, including concentrating solar and utility-scale geothermal systems. “People are realizing now...
More...
Keep it low to the ground. Video too. Think of this as solar thermal with a bank shot.Researchers at the Masdar Institute, the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Cosmo Oil have begun to test a new/old technology for converting heat from the sun into electricity that could further cut costs. It works by adding another layer of mirrors to the process. In Masdar’s prototype, ground-based heliostats-i.e. flat mirrors -- concentrate heat from the sun and aim it at a tower. So far, that’s similar t...
More...
Convection is the most common form of building heating and cooling... but what about radiation? Most people are familiar with ‘all air’ HVAC distribution systems, in which air is the fluid by which both ventilation air from the outdoors and warm or cold air (for heating or cooling, respectively) is delivered to a space. There are many, many types of air-side systems and their associated fans must be sized to move both the peak cooling load plus the ventilation air. This distribution method u...
More...
Didier Guffond, of French aerospace laboratory ONERA's Physics, Instruments and Sensing department, looks at some of the ways in which military aircraft are protected against ice deposits. Atmospheric ice is a meteorological hazard that may affect an aircraft's operations. It is formed when supercooled droplets impact on the front part of different structures. Ice deposits on aircraft surfaces affect the aerodynamic performance of lifting and control components, directly influence the safety of ...
More...
Scientists ask themselves: how can we get hold of the vast, yet intermittent and unevenly distributed, solar energy resource such that it can be stored and transported from the sunny and uninhabited regions of the earth’s sunbelt to the world’s industrialized and populated centers, where much of the energy is required? This question has motivated the search for recipes to transform sunlight into chemical energy carriers in the form of storable and dispatchable liquid fuels, such as gasoline ...
More...
