This Month"s Innovations For a Greener Future: Megakites, Solar Flowers, and More

Y_nezcuttowi_Y · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am **Posts:** 2692

A kite flown in a strong breeze will quickly unspool string as it climbs higher. KiteGen Research in Italy aims to turn that action into electricity. The company developed a prototype that flies 200-square-foot kites to altitudes of 2,600 feet, where wind streams are four times as strong as they are near ground-based wind turbines.

As the kites tether unspools, it spins an alternator that generates up to 40 kilowatts. Once the kite reaches its peak altitude, it collapses, and motors quickly reel it back in to restart the cycle. This spring, KiteGen started building a machine to fly a 1,500-square-foot kite, which it plans to finish by 2011, that could generate up to three megawattsenough to power 9,000 homes.

Flower Power

Any blossom would stand out in the desert of southern Israel, but youd be hard-pressed to miss a 98-foot-tall one. The tulip-shaped tower is the centerpiece of the worlds first hybrid-solar power plant, opened this summer by Israeli start-up AORA Solar. An array of 30 mirrors focuses the suns rays on the central steel bud. Inside, the solar energy heats air to 1,800F, causing it to expand and spin a turbine to generate 100 kilowatts. When night falls or clouds obscure the sun, the plant helps heat the air with a standard diesel combuster running on up to eight gallons per hour to provide consistent electricity output, unlike strictly solar plants. AORA is working with Spanish, Chilean and Australian companies to export the tech, which could be reconfigured to burn biofuel, says Pinchas Doron, the companys chief technology officer. Soon, he says, it could be green energy 24/7.

Power on Tap

Power plants often pump more electricity into the grid than consumers demand, and that unused juice fizzles away. Now Beacon Powers energy-storage plant uses that excess to power motors that spin carbon-fiber flywheels. When customers need extra power, the motors stop driving the flywheels and, as the wheels decelerate, convert their motion into electricity. The company recently added 10 flywheelsredesigned to run continuously without overheatingto its two-megawatt facility in Massachusetts, making it the first flywheel system that can feed the grid at any time. Next, Beacon will build a 20-megawatt facility in New York State that could save 33,000 barrels of oil a year.

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Y_nezcuttowi_Y · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am **Posts:** 2692

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Officials announced an ambitious project in New Mexico on Tuesday that would allow energy to flow more freely across the nation"s three massive power grids, breaking down significant barriers to ramping up alternative energy in the United States.

The proposed Tres Amigas SuperStation in Clovis, N.M., would help route energy from isolated wind and solar installations to urban centers and other places that consume the most power.

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Y_nezcuttowi_Y · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am **Posts:** 2692

A new type of redox flow battery presents a huge advantage for electric cars. If the rechargeable batteries are low, the discharged electrolyte fluid can simply be exchanged at the gas station for recharged fluid as easy as refilling the petrol tank.

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Y_nezcuttowi_Y · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am **Posts:** 2692

While most research directed at improving UAVs focuses on upgrading their weapons or sensor packages, the Naval Research Laboratory is also working to ensure that the next generation of killer drones are as fuel-efficient as they are deadly. And a recent test of their hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered Ion Tiger UAV proves how successful they have been: it staid aloft for just shy of 24 hours on a single fuel load.

Flying out of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, the Ion Tiger UAV set a new record for hydrogen-powered flight by staying aloft for 23 hours and 17 minutes. This places close to the 30-36 hour endurance of the Tiger"s gas guzzling Predator and Reaper cousins.

Unlike its larger relatives, Ion Tiger only weighs 37 pounds, thus requiring only .75 horsepower to fly around for the better part of a day. However, the hydrogen powered motor did prove four times more efficient than similarly powerful combustion engines and seven times more powerful than a comparably sized battery.

So far, the Ion Tiger exists only as a proof of concept, and has not been deployed on land or at sea.

[via Science Daily]

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iteletxioy · **Joined:** Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:08 am **Posts:** 1804

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Solar companies are likely to report their brightest earnings in a year as the industry emerges from a brutal downturn, but analysts warn aggressive accounting may cast a shadow on the sector"s outlook.

The nascent industry has seen its profit margins and sales growth erode in the past 12 months as a glut of supply and a dearth of financing in the industry stunted the business, which had been expanding by more than 40 percent per year.

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Y_nezcuttowi_Y · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am **Posts:** 2692

WASHINGTON The services could more effectively power unmanned vehicles, underwater monitoring sensors, ships and aircraft if Naval Research Laboratory scientists achieve their goals of harnessing solar and sea power to fuel the military for years to come, a top NRL scientist said.

A worldwide peak of fuel production is expected in five to 15 years, and increased demand will likely create large swings in price and availability, Barry Spargo, head of NRL"s chemical dynamics and diagnostics branch, said in an Oct. 14 interview on Pentagon Web Radio s audio webcast Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military.

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iteletxioy · **Joined:** Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:08 am **Posts:** 1804

...From the standpoint of the far future, in fact, modern industrialism may turn out to be a primitive and vastly inefficient form of the technic society. Like other human ecologies, the technic society can be defined by its energy sources. A hunter-gatherer society uses energy in the form of food, firewood and raw materials taken directly fr.om natural ecosystems. A nomadic herding society also gets its energy from natural ecosystems, but uses livestock as an energy harvesting technology. A village agricultural society does the same thing using domesticated plants. An urban agrarian society uses energy in the form of food from artificial ecosystems created by human labor and supplements this with modest amounts of nonfood energy in the form of fuels, wind, hydropower and sunlight.

A technic society, by contrast, relies primarily on nonfood energy.

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Y_nezcuttowi_Y · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am **Posts:** 2692

Congress gave final approval to nearly $200 million in hydrogen research funding last week, at a time when the arguments between fuel-cell and battery car advocates are heating up. In their dialogues, which are sometimes more like screaming matches, the more conciliatory hydrogen advocates point out that fuel-cell vehicles use the same kind of electric motors as battery cars, and that the two technologies can support each other. But E.V. supporters, many of whom supported an unsuccessful attempt last May by Energy Secretary Steven Chu to cut $100 million in fuel-cell money, would like to see hydrogen permanently defunded.

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Y_nezcuttowi_Y · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am **Posts:** 2692

A wind turbine blade that absorbs radar signals has been demonstrated at a wind farm in eastern England.

Wind turbines confuse aviation radar signals, making aircraft in wind farms" vicinities difficult to track.

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Y_nezcuttowi_Y · **Joined:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am **Posts:** 2692

Lots of government incentives, plus production costs have dropped a third

NEW YORK - Jillian Lung says she"s no environmentalist. Still, she couldn"t pass up a chance to install a carpet of solar panels atop her co-op in Queens.

At these prices, why not Lung said.

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