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BREAKTHROUGHS & DISCOVERIES
Early Indicators of Aviation Futures & Environmental Issues
FUEL INNOVATIONS
Biofuel-powered U.S. Service
(AIN Online, Nov 09 2011)
Alaska Airlines and sister carrier Horizon Air have purchased sufficient biofuel from SkyNRG, an aviation biofuels broker, to operate a total of 75 passenger flights using biofuel during the month of November.
Beginning today, Alaska Airlines will fly a Boeing 737 between Seattle and Washington, D.C., for a total of 11 trips and Horizon Air will fly a Q400 a total of 64 trips from Seattle to Portland, Ore. The aircraft will be burning a 20-percent blend of sustainable biofuel that "meets rigorous international safety and sustainability standards." Dynamic Fuels, the producer of the renewable synthetic fuel made from used cooking oil, is a $170 million joint venture between Tyson Foods and Syntroleum...READ MORE
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Your Next Flight Could be Plant Powered
(smartplanet, Nov 07 2011)
The next time that you board an airliner, youmay be an unwitting participant in green technology testing. Major airlines are booking commercial flights on planes fueled by algae, plant oils, discarded cooking oil, trash, and even recycled industrial waste.
Airlines across the globe are experimenting with alternative fuel sources to hedge against volatile oil prices, become more sustainable, and reduce carbon pollution emissions. Here are some examples of how the industry is faring:
Today, SmartPlanet's Kirsten Korosec wrote about how United Airlines has partnered up with Solazyme and Honeywell to use an algae-based fuel on a flight from Houston to Chicago.
Solazyme became a public company on its ability to create renewable oil through microbial fermentation - meaning, algae is decomposed into fuel by microbes. Ethanol fuel is similarly produced by the microbial fermentation of sugar...READ MORE
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Farm Fields Could Yield Jet Fuels of the Future
In June, DOE announced an award of up to $13.4 million dollars to Virent and its partners to develop a process to cost effectively convert cellulosic biomass - in this case the non-edible parts of corn - into jet fuel.
Senior Technician Bill Bray (front) and Master Technician Bob Lyons (back) and inspect and service the biomass pretreatment reactor in NREL's Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility. DOE recently announced an award of up to $13.4 million dollars to Virent, NREL, and partners, to develop a process to cost effectively convert cellulosic biomass into jet fuel. Credit: Dennis Schroeder
"Projects such as these are helping us to diversify our energy portfolio and decrease our dependence on foreign oil," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the announcement. "Together with our partners, the Department is working hard to expand the clean energy economy, creating jobs in America and providing sustainable replacements for the fuels and products now provided primarily by petroleum...READ MORE
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(JCOnline.com, Oct 31 2011)
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Dave Ormond of Anderson Aeromotive Inc. stands next to an unmodified Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engine Sunday in Grangeville, Idaho.
The engine was used to test high-octane, unleaded, sustainable general aviation gasoline developed by Swift Enterprises Ltd. (Photo provided By Anderson Aeromotive)
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Aviation fuel developed by a company at Purdue Research Park in West Lafayettehas passed -- with flying colors -- three days of testing for use in airplanes with radial engines.
More than 100 gallons of 100SF gasoline from Swift Enterprises Ltd. powered an unmodified Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine during recent testing in Grangeville, Idaho.
"The need to replace our present leaded avgas with an environmentally friendly alternative is obvious," said Ray Anderson of Anderson Automotive Inc., where the testing took place. "We are happy to cooperate in this effort to continue to evaluate 100SF, and we look forward to the next round of testing...READ MORE
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ORGANIZATIONS & INSTITUTIONS Group's Goal is Greener Aviation (Molly McMillin, The Wichita Eagle, feb 03 2011)
A new national alliance - spurred by Wichita planemakers - will bring manufacturers together to share information on helping address aviation's environmental challenges.
Board members of the Lindbergh Foundation unveiled the Aviation Green Alliance at Thursday's Wichita Aero Club luncheon at the Hilton Wichita Airport. "Wichita was the catalyst," David Treinis, principal for Blacksheep Consultants and vice chairman of the Lindbergh Foundation, said after a panel discussion on aviation trends and the environment...READ MORE -
INSTALLATIONS Solar Powered Airport Hangar (SolarPowerPanels.ws Dec 11 2010) Hangar at night - solar power during the day-Solar power at airports is getting to be quite the thing! Just look at Denver International Airport's new solar array. Now, a slightly less famous airport is getting into the solar swing of things. The Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California has the first solar powered airport hangar.
A few days ago, the airport announced that the rooftop of Hangar 25 is now covered with solar panels. The panels cover approximately 60,000 square feet and generate enough electricity to power the lights, forklifts, plug-in vehicles and more...READ MORE
- Off the Hangar: Installing Energy-Efficient Technology
(Airport-Technology.com, Sep 10 2009)
An aircraft supplier based in a Canadian airport hangar has garnered dramatic cost and efficiency savings. Ian McInnes reports on the technology used. What could have been conceivably called the second 'great depression' is looking to be thankfully only a 'great recession'. Prior to the downturn, economies around the world were booming and crude oil prices had soared to an all-time high. As some economies begin to show signs of coming out of recession, it is clear that for many the business world has changed. Companies are more mindful than ever of energy costs and looking for ways to be more efficient, save money and to be more environmentally friendly...READ MORE
More on Energy Efficient Aircraft Hangars Here.
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MATERIALS & MANUFACTURING (Stephen Shankland, CnetNews, Nov 22 2011) Researchers at HRL Laboratories, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of California at Irvine have created what they say is the lowest-density material, a lattice of hollow tubes of the metal nickel.  | |
The super-low density of this metal lattice means it can perch with no trouble on a dandelion.(Credit: HRL)
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Its volume is 99.99 per cent air, and its density is 0.9 milligram per cubic centimeter - not including the air in or between its tubes. That density is less than one-thousandth that of water. The metallic microlattice, as the researchers call it, could be useful for absorbing sound, vibration and shock. Other possibilities, according to HRL: electrodes that could increase how much energy Lithium-ion batteries can store and lower their manufacturing costs; air-cooling devices for computing electronics; and lighter-weight materials for automobiles, aircraft and spacecraft...READ MORE -
Toyota develops breakthrough material that removes 95% of ozone from air (Eric Loveday, Green.Autoblog.com, Jul 21st 2011) Researchers at Toyota Central Research and Development Labs in Japan claim to have developed a mesoporous two-line ferrihydrite (M2LFh) that, if used in an ozone (O3) filter, could remove up to 95 percent of unreacted O3. Ferrihydrite is a substance composed of iron, oxygen and water, as you most assuredly already knew, right? 
The two-line (derived from its X-ray diffraction properties, which shows two lines) ferrihydrite material is porous, boasts a massive inner surface area and has a high percentage of iron sites at or near its surface...READ MORE -
SYSTEM INNOVATIONS Move Over Electric Car, The Electric Airplane is Coming (Steven Ashley, Txnologist.com, JULY 23, 2011)  Several years ago, when the auto industry faced government pressureto minimize its environmental footprint by reducing fuel consumption and tailpipe emissions, manufacturers turned first to hybrid-electric and then battery-electric powertrains that now move Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs.
Today, confronted with substantially the same environmental mandates, the aviation industry has begun gearing up to use those same green power plants to propel aircraft. The electric car is so yesterday; electric airplanes are coming...READ MORE - Electric Aircraft Technology Effort Gets Boost at Oshkosh (John Morris, AviationWeek.com) The arrival of a Chinese-built electric-powered aircraft at the Experimental Aircraft Assn.'s AirVenture 2009 has sharpened the focus on making the technology commercially viable. Industrialization will be key, bringing economies of scale that will in turn spur further development of lighter, more powerful fuel sources than today's lithium polymer battery packs. And Shanghai-based Yuneec International might prove to be the catalyst to accelerate the technology into the commercial arena, making economic electric flight possible for sport pilots and, eventually, heavier aircraft and military UAVs....READ MORE - XCOR Aerospace, Inc Announces Completion of Supersonic Wind Tunnel Testing (SOP newswire2, Sep 20 2010)  XCOR Aerospace, Inc. announced today they have completed the primary supersonic wind tunnel testing of the Lynx suborbital spacecraft. The tests were performed at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) using a precision scale model and demonstrated the integrity of the Lynx aerodynamic shape and provided data to make final refinements to the vehicle. These new data provide confidence that the Lynx aerodynamic shape will have stable and controllable flight throughout the range of Mach numbers and angles of attack needed for the Lynx mission... READ MORE
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Doubling EV Range with Solid State Batteries (Martin LaMonica, News.Cnet.com, October 19 2011)
To make the next generation of lithium ion batteries, start-up Satki3 is making batteries on equipment normally used to make potato chip bags. Company founder and CEO Ann Marie Sastry provided a few details on the work Sakti3 is doing to make a battery that will double the energy density compared with existing lithium ion batteries during a talk at the EmTech conference at MIT today. Satki3's ambitions offer a view into how emerging solid-state battery technology could accelerate electric vehicle sales and make batteries for electronics cheaper and longer lasting...READ MORE - Sun-free Photovoltaics (Nancy W. Stauffer, MITNews, July 28 2011) Materials engineered to give off precisely tuned wavelengths of light when heated are key to new high-efficiency generating system. A new photovoltaic energy-conversion system developed at MIT can be powered solely by heat, generating electricity with no sunlight at all. While the principle involved is not new, a novel way of engineering the surface of a material to convert heat into precisely tuned wavelengths of light - selected to match the wavelengths that photovoltaic cells can best convert to electricity - makes the new system much more efficient than previous versions...READ MORE - Epson Launches the Moverio Transparent Head-mounted Display(Gizmag.com, Nov 10 2011) Recently in Japan, Epson showed off its new head-mounted display, the Moverio - billed as world's first transparent video eyewear. Users wearing the Moverio can see images displayed on a background of the real world, which could be particularly useful when using the glasses in public spaces, such as trains or planes. The Moverio is equipped with two TFT LCD 0.52-inch displays, both running at 960×540 resolution, and a pair of earphones. The device is capable of simulating a maximum 320-inch image as seen from a distance of 20 meters (65.6 ft). MPEG-4/MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video files are supported in both 2D and 3D (side by side). AAC and MP3 audio files can also be played. Running Android 2.2, the Moverio offers Wi-Fi connectivity, which gives direct access to YouTube and web browsing. There's no Android Market onboard, although some basic apps will be pre-loaded, including a gallery, music player, and web browser..READ MORE -
(Josie Garthwaite, Gigaom.com, Sep 15 2010)
Thinner electronics that can last for days without recharging and electric cars that can go hundreds of miles between fill ups: These are some of the benefits that could result if lithium-ion battery startup Amprius delivers on its promise to enable batteries with four times more energy density (the amount of energy that can be stored in a battery of a given size) compared to today's state of the art technology. The key, according to Amprius, is a silicon nanostructured anode, or a material that draws in the lithium ions when a battery recharges...
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