A wind power company, SheerWind, from Minnesota USA has announced its new Invelox wind power generation technology. The company says its turbine could generate six times more energy than the amount produced by traditional turbines mounted on towers.via: News Direct
Source/image: News Direct
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THE SPIRIT OF INNOVATION
On November 16, 2021, an experimental aircraft called the ‘Spirit of Innovation’, designed by Rolls Royce, would record an average speed of just under 556 km/h or 345mph over a 3km span. The Spirit of Innovation is the world’s fastest, all electric aircraft. It superseded the previous record set by the Siemens eAircraft Extra 330 LE Aerobatic aircraft in 2017 by over 213 km/h or 132 mph, and it also climbed over 60 seconds faster to 3,000 meters or about 10,000 ft.
BUILDING THE AIRCRAFT
The Lycoming engine was replaced by three electric motors and the fuel tank by three battery packs. Combined, the battery packs, motors and control equipment were similar in weight to the existing power plant, however this fully electric system was now capable of outputting around 530hp continuously and almost 1000hp in bursts. By comparison, in a conventional aircraft, the overall weight is reduced as the fuel is used up. To compensate for this, the aircraft was converted to a single-seater to reduce weight further, though at the cost of moving the center of gravity slightly forward.
MOTOR
Designing the propulsion unit for the Spirit Of Innovation was also another major hurdle for the ACCEL team. Not only must the electric motor be compact and powerful, but also possess a high degree of reliability and the ability to tolerate failures, for aviation use. Because no single electric motor was commercially available that would meet these requirements, the team decided on a propulsion configuration composed of a stack of 3 YASA 750R axial flux electric motors coupled by a single shaft running through them. Using 3 of these motors in tandem not only met the power requirements of the ACCEL team but it also offered redundancy against motor failure.
While the entire triple motor system weighed just 111kg or about 244lbs, it was capable of generating around 750kw or 1000hp, though continuous total power was limited to around 210kw or about 280hp, due to thermal constraints.
COOLING
Unlike road going vehicles, aircraft require relatively larger amounts of continuous power simply to cruise. For an electric aircraft this creates safety concerns as the high wattage draw, combined with the density of the propulsion system’s packaging, generates significant amounts of heat. Within the battery pack, each individual cell was fitted with both voltage and temperature sensors. This robust sensor array not only drove the thermal management system, but also served as a safety mechanism, providing the pilot information on the health of the battery as well as alerting to potential failure conditions.
Brooklyn, New York-based Tarform Motorcycles began sketching out designs for its slick-looking electric motorcycles almost five years ago. Despite pandemic-related setbacks that delayed production, the company is now beginning deliveries on its first electric motorcycles.
These aren’t just any run-of-the-mill bikes though.
Unlike many of the electric motorcycles we see today that take on a more conventional design intended to please the widest audience, Tarform focused on a more bespoke, hand-made direction from the beginning.
What if climate change and the housing crisis already had a solution? What if we just need to reevaluate our relationship with the Earth — and with our garbage? A day at the Earthship Biotecture can make anyone a believer in a brighter, greener future.
The need to rejuvenate amidst nature is crucial in stressful times to heal and grow. This has sparked a trend for a nomadic lifestyle without any compromises in living comfort. Yes, I’m talking about the growing popularity of towable trailers, RVs, caravans, and houses on wheels that promote an upbeat mobile lifestyle. So, how will things be, say, a decade or more from now?
Industrial designer Jason Carley imagines a future where the urban lifestyle will be punctuated by life on the road triggered by sky-rocketing living costs and the aging infrastructures that are dependent on ecologically disruptive fuels and technologies. Jason thinks of a time in the year 2035 where nomadic life will revolve around mastery of resources and an efficient mode of travel. Thus comes into the picture this towable trailer that gives love back to nature. Targeted for the young and resilient urban customers, the rig is an accessible retreat to escape from the stresses of life for a few weeks or even months.
The Throne goes further in its realization of a circular economy by composting the waste produced by users and using this compost locally. Eventually, the teams want to put the technologies and tools in the hands of local communities. When innovation is shared fairly and the carbon footprint created by logistics and shipping of these products can be greatly reduced. The Throne is just one example of the possibilities of what additive manufacturing can do for scaling sustainable design and development – it’s only waste if you waste it!
It’s rare that faster can also equate to greener in the aerospace industry, but that’s the goal of Australian startup Hypersonix has in sight.
The company has developed a new hypersonic satellite launch system that will make launches more accessible and also more sustainable. The technology could one day also help develop hypersonic airliners capable of crossing the Atlantic in a little over an hour.
“At Mach 5 and above, friction caused by molecules flowing over the hypersonic aircraft can generate temperatures in excess of 2,000˚C (3,632˚F),” the company says in a press statement. “Suffice to say that Brisbane-based aerospace engineering start-up, Hypersonix Launch Systems, is choosing its materials to cope with these extremes.”
There are widely cited forecasts that project accelerating information and communications technology (ICT) energy consumption increases through the 2020’s with a 2018 Nature article estimating that if current trends continue, this will consume more than 20% of electricity demand by 2030. At several industry events I have heard talks that say one of the important limits of data center performance will be the amount of energy consumed. NVIDIA’s latest GPU solutions use 400+W processors and this energy consumption could more than double in future AI processor chips. Solutions that can accelerate important compute functions while consuming less energy will be important to provide more sustainable and economical data centers.
Lightmatter’s Envise chip (shown below) is a general-purpose machine learning accelerator that combines photonics (PIC) and CMOS transistor-based devices (ASIC) into a single compact module. The device uses silicon photonics for high performance AI inference tasks and consumes much less energy than CMOS only solutions and thus helping to reduce the projected power load from data centers.
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Lightmatter has a roadmap for even faster processing using more colors for parallel processing channels with each color acting as a separate virtual computer.
Nick said that in addition to data center applications for Envise he could see the technology being used to enable autonomous electric vehicles that require high performance AI but are constrained by battery power, making it easier to provide compelling range per vehicle charge. In addition to the Envise module, Lightmatter also offers optical interconnect technology that it calls Passage.
Lightmatter is making optical AI processors that can provide fast results with less power consumption than conventional CMOS products. Their compute module combines CMOS logic and memory with optical analog processing units useful for AI inference, 0, natural language processing, financial modelling and ray tracing.
The Chinese manufacturer of flexible and lightweight solar modules has commissioned the first expansion of its production capacity of 500 megawatts. Another 500 megawatts will have been added by June of 2022.
Houston-headquartered renewables company EDP Renewables North America has completed a 200-megawatt (MW) solar farm in Randolph County, Indiana, northeast of Indianapolis. It’s now the largest-capacity solar farm in Indiana.
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Riverstart Solar Park has a sole 20-year power purchase agreement with electricity supply cooperative Hoosier Energy, which will use the clean energy to power households in central and southern Indiana and southeastern Illinois.
