Tag Archives: business & technology

Self-driving cars are good. Too good

by DrewKilfoyle Posted on October 9, 2015

Self-driving cars are good. Too good

By on 9 Oct 2015 3:37 pmcommentsShare

Guys, we’re so not ready for the future. The chrome-plated, fuel-efficient, robot-everything future we’ve been working toward? Trust me, we can’t handle it.

Exhibit A: Engineers at Google have been running road tests with a fleet of some 20 autonomous vehicles for six years, and in that time the robo-drivers have been involved in 11 “minor incidents.” I know what you’re thinking: “Not bad! I’d like to see the average human driver cover a million miles without getting into a scrape or 11.”

But with the sensory data of an omniscient god and reflexes that make the rest of us looks like drunk, mitten-handed babies, how did the autonomous fleet get in so much as a single fender bender?

Well, it comes back to said mitten-handed babies. Just because Google’s cars are extremely good at avoiding accidents doesn’t mean they can keep US from hitting THEM. In many of the 11 recorded incidents, a driverless car edging into an intersection or hesitating at a stop sign was rear-ended by an overeager human driver behind it.

That’s right. The robots are here, and they drive like my gran. Where a human driver, used to cruising alongside fellow jerks, might accelerate to cut into the flow of traffic, a driverless car will stop short to minimize risk. Smart? Maybe — but that doesn’t count for much if it’s too smart for the rest of us to catch on.

So we COULD all take a lesson from the robot cars and chill … or, we could program autonomous vehicles to be a little more like us. Which, in the Wall Street Journal, Google admits they’re already doing, by making their cars drive a bit more “humanistically.”

You hear that, future? Stay in your corner. Right now, we need driverless cars that can tailgate and ignore speed limits with the best of us — really, it’s for the greater good.

Source:

All the Accidents California’s Driverless Cars Got in by Being Too Good at Driving

, gizmodo.

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Self-driving cars are good. Too good

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Self-driving cars are good. Too good

A more permeable concrete will inspire you to achieve your wildest dreams

by MargieFaber Posted on October 7, 2015

A more permeable concrete will inspire you to achieve your wildest dreams

By on 7 Oct 2015commentsShare

If you think concrete is boring, then you’ve never watched it soak up 4,000 liters of water in 60 seconds to a Tracy Anderson-approved soundtrack. Let’s just say that Shia LaBeouf better watch his back — this parking lot is vying for his job as the world’s best motivational speaker.

Topmix Permeable is a new type of highly porous, fast-drying concrete developed by the U.K.-based cement company Tarmac. According to Smithsonian Magazine, this veritable Tony Robbins of construction material can absorb up to 1,000 liters of water per square meter per minute. And so can you! Er — sorry — I’m still amped up from that video.

If you’re not impressed by the simple fact of a parking lot absorbing 4,000 — four thousand!!!! — liters of water in 60 seconds, you must be quite jaded indeed, but this actually serves a valuable purpose. A permeable concrete could help cities both conserve water and avoid flooding — something that a Joaquin-ravaged South Carolina could really use right about now. Here’s how it works, from Smithsonian:

Typically, road paving material is made of a mix of large and fine crushed stone held together by a binder. With Topmix Permeable, the fine crushed stone or sand is left out. This makes the resulting material porous enough to accept large amounts of water. A layer of Topmix Permeable concrete is installed on top of an aggregate sub-base of crushed stone, which generally sits on top of the soil. Rainwater drains through the top surface, collects in the aggregate layer, and is slowly released into the ground.

As Smithsonian points out, porous asphalt is already a thing, but it’s not strong enough to handle heavy traffic, lets pollutants run into the water system, and needs regular maintenance in order to keep from clogging. Topmix Permeable is stronger, although still not ideal for heavy traffic areas, and can filter out contaminants like motor oil. It also contains more air space than your average porous asphalt — 35 percent, compared to 20 percent.

Unfortunately, Topmix Permeable is not yet available in the U.S. But, by god, that video is — and if I watch it enough, I might just have to cover the whole world in permeable concrete! Wait, that’s not the point?

Source:

This Concrete Can Absorb a Flood

, Smithsonian.com.

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A more permeable concrete will inspire you to achieve your wildest dreams

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Google-powered map shows that deforestation isn’t just about the Amazon

by CharlotKLYM Posted on September 2, 2015

Google-powered map shows that deforestation isn’t just about the Amazon

By on 2 Sep 2015commentsShare

When you hear deforestation, you might think Brazil. It’s a fair association: Over the past four decades, upwards of 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been cut down. But Brazil also boasts a relative success story, having reduced deforestation in the Amazon by 70 percent over the past ten years. Instead, new data from a collaboration between Google and the University of Maryland illustrate unprecedented — and until now, largely overlooked — forest loss in Southeast Asia and West Africa, among other hotspots:

The collaboration between the tech behemoth and the Maryland researchers expands the scope of Global Forest Watch, a satellite-driven mapping tool that tracks deforestation around the globe. The new satellite analyses are surprising to many and demonstrate the continuing need for rigorous forest monitoring outside regions of traditional deforestation concern.

“I think the key drivers in these key hotspot areas are a combination of external demand from China and internal issues with governance and control,” says Nigel Sizer of WRI, in a video about the data. “A lot of the clearing is actually illegal in some of these countries.”

Sizer cites rubber plantations in Cambodia as an example of such governance issues. A booming rubber industry needs space in which to operate, and wild forests are often the obvious candidates for clearing plantation space in the Southeast Asian country. But proposed rubber plantations are often covers for illegal timber operations, in which forests are cleared and the wood is sold and exported, but plantations never actually appear. Since the turn of the millennium, Cambodia’s tree cover loss has accelerated faster than any other nation’s. Close to a half million acres of forest are lost every year in the country, with much of this loss coming from ostensibly protected forests.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) launched Global Forest Watch in early 2014, a year that saw a global loss of 45 million acres of tree cover. (Not all tree cover loss, however, is caused by deforestation — forest fires, tree disease, and plantation harvesting can also be blamed.) The WRI mapping tool itself — which is pretty incredible — tracks changes in tree cover and land use and allows citizens and journalists to geotag deforestation stories. The group aspires to leverage the tool to expose illegal forest clearing, reports RTCC:

The research is the largest and most up-to-date global dataset for tree cover loss, and shows the promise of cloud computing to help authorities to root out illicit activity.

Satellites can detect areas as small as 30 square metres now, updating global coverage every eight days to track changes, said Matt Hansen at the University of Maryland.

The technology has revolutionised forest surveillance, which before relied on the likes of donor funding for countries to make forest inventories.

Whether or not Google’s deforestation monitoring falls under Alphabet remains, like everything else about Alphabet, an open question.

Source:

Google lays bare overlooked deforestation ‘hotspots’

, RTCC.

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Google-powered map shows that deforestation isn’t just about the Amazon

Posted in ALPHA, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Google-powered map shows that deforestation isn’t just about the Amazon

Could we make tennis rackets out of atmospheric CO2? Science says yes

by ClaireMcLeod3 Posted on August 19, 2015

Could we make tennis rackets out of atmospheric CO2? Science says yes

By on 19 Aug 2015commentsShare

You know the old saying: “When life gives you atmospheric CO2, capture it, turn it into carbon fiber, and build cool stuff with it.” No? That’s OK — I just made it up, but let the record show that if this does become an old saying, you heard it here first.

Researchers at George Washington University have figured out a way to transform everyone’s favorite greenhouse gas into the super-strong and lightweight wonder material known as carbon fiber. As MIT Technology Review reports, carbon fiber (and especially carbon nanofiber) has become somewhat of a darling material among engineers, who are using it in all kinds of things: airplanes, cars, tennis rackets, wind turbines. Unfortunately, carbon fiber can be pretty expensive to make, which is why chemist Stuart Licht and his colleagues at GWU are actually killing two birds with one stone. Their technology both sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere and makes cheaper carbon fiber.

According to Technology Review, Licht and his team estimate that with their technology, the amount of atmospheric CO2 could return to pre-industrial levels within ten years — and that’s even if we don’t significantly slow our emissions in the interim. All they’d need is an area about 10 percent the size of the Sahara Desert in order to capture and convert enough CO2 — a process that involves dissolving the CO2 into molten carbonate.

Which raises the question: How big is the Sahara Desert?

An in-depth Grist investigation revealed that the Sahara Desert covers about 3.5 million square miles. Further calculations showed that about 10 percent of that is 350,000 square miles. Converting to more familiar U.S. territory units, that comes out to more than two Californias. And for those of you in the center of the universe otherwise known as Manhattan, that’s more than 10,000 times the size of your slowly sinking island.

In conclusion, ten percent of the Sahara is a pretty damn big area. Scaling up laboratory experiments like this is always a time-consuming and precarious proposition, so while this technology seems promising, it’s certainly no silver bullet for climate change.

And if this CO2-to-carbon fiber process does prove useful in some capacity, we should all listen to what our old friend Andrew Maynard over at Risk Bites has to say about the health risks of this amazing (but potentially hazardous) wonder material:

Source:
Turning Atmospheric CO2 into Strong, Lightweight Carbon Fibers

, MIT Technology Review.

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A Grist Special Series

Oceans 15


This chef built her reputation on seafood. How’s she feeling about the ocean now?Seattle chef Renee Erickson weighs in on the world’s changing waters, and how they might change her menu.


How do you study an underwater volcano? Build an underwater laboratoryJohn Delaney is taking the internet underwater, and bringing the deep ocean to the public.


How much plastic is in our oceans? Ask the woman trying to clean it upCarolynn Box, environmental program director of 5 Gyres, talks about what it’s like to sail across the ocean, pulling up plastic in the middle of nowhere.


How catching big waves helped turn this pro surfer into a conservationistRamon Navarro first came to the sea with his fisherman rather, found his own place on it as a surfer, and now fights to protect the coastline he loves.


What seafood is OK to eat, anyway? Ask an expertWhen it comes to sustainable seafood, you could say director of Seafood Watch Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly is the ultimate arbiter of taste.

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Could we make tennis rackets out of atmospheric CO2? Science says yes

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Offshore wind power is finally coming to the U.S.

by AngelitEhj Posted on July 24, 2015

A wind in the waters

Offshore wind power is finally coming to the U.S.

By on 24 Jul 2015commentsShare

Clean energy advocates aren’t usually excited by the sight of energy infrastructure off their coastlines, but the barges floating beyond Block Island, R.I., are different. The envoy of crane ships and flatboats are preparing the site of a new offshore wind farm, set to launch after the turbines are installed next summer. Though it will be small by wind farm standards — only five turbines — it will power 17,000 homes when complete.

The Block Island project, by offshore wind developer Deepwater Wind, follows on the heels of Fisherman’s Energy breaking ground on a wind farm off the coast of Atlantic City, N.J., last December. While Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Norway have recently proven the viability of the technology and infrastructure necessary to build an offshore wind farm, there are currently no permanent offshore farms in the United States. One of the problems: the price tag.

The New York Times reports:

“There are many good reasons why offshore wind has not been yet developed while other renewables have in the U.S.,” chiefly its high cost, said Paul Bledsoe, an energy consultant based in Washington and former climate adviser in the Clinton White House. “However, we’re still at a point where we have less than 10 percent renewable energy and if we are going to increase that number dramatically to somewhere near some of the major European countries, offshore wind will almost surely be part of that mix.”

That will take time. When the first offshore farm was built, in Denmark in 1991, developers were not thinking that it would suddenly become a mainstream form of energy, said Michael Hannibal, chief executive of the offshore division at Siemens Wind Energy, which supplied the turbines for that first plant. It took about a decade of testing and planning — and putting in place a set of programs and generous subsidies — for the market to begin taking off in Europe.

The U.S. mostly subsidizes wind energy via a mechanism called the production tax credit (PTC), which, unsurprisingly, provides tax breaks for wind farm production. Offshore farms are especially expensive, though: The radically different infrastructure can cost up to twice as much as onshore wind. The Block Island farm, then, will offer a case study in whether or not the ostensibly sustainable offshore energy can in fact be sustainable in the U.S. regulatory environment. Either way, Obama administration targets state that we’re supposed to hit 20 percent wind energy by 2030. Time to get those turbines turning.

Source:
Offshore Wind Farm Raises Hopes of U.S. Clean Energy Backers

, The New York Times.

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Offshore wind power is finally coming to the U.S.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, oven, Radius, Uncategorized, wind energy, wind power | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Offshore wind power is finally coming to the U.S.

Shell gets the final go-ahead to drill in the Arctic

by CharlotMps Posted on July 23, 2015

Shell gets the final go-ahead to drill in the Arctic

By on 22 Jul 2015commentsShare

Shell has cleared its last regulatory hurdle before beginning drilling in the Arctic. And while that fact has ticked off environmental groups, Shell did not end up receiving the free pass it had been hoping for … at least, not yet. From FuelFix:

Under the limited Interior Department drilling permits, Shell can only focus on one well at a time, and it cannot penetrate potential oil- and gas-bearing zones some 8,000 feet underground, at least until a damaged company-contracted icebreaker returns from repairs in Oregon.

That ship, the MSV Fennica, is meant to keep ice from encroaching on Shell’s drilling operations and is designed to install critical equipment on top of a damaged well in an emergency.

Shell had hoped to exploit multiple wells at the same time during the short July-to-September window when drilling is viable in the Arctic. It had also hoped to drill multiple wells within nine miles of one another, but the Department of the Interior decided that wells would have to be 15 miles apart, in the interest of wildlife protection.

Then, earlier this month, one of Shell’s two icebreakers, the MSV Fennica, ended up with a crippling gash in its hull and had to dock in Portland, Ore., for repairs. It was a setback for the company, and environmental groups argued it was proof that Shell is not competent enough to manage the task of extracting oil in harsh Arctic conditions.

Shell’s past exploits in Arctic drilling have been a less-than-humorous comedy of errors. One of the company’s contractors ended up being fined $12 million after one of its ships ran aground in 2012. Environmental groups suggested that this year’s renewed efforts would lead to a similar outcome, and, when the MSV Fennica ended up hitting an uncharted rock, they redoubled their argument. The ship was carrying equipment to help the company deal with an oil spill — an eventuality that, according to DOI, is not unexpected. A February analysis found that there’s a 75 percent likelihood that Shell’s efforts in the Arctic will result in one or more spills of more than 1,000 barrels of oil during its 77-year lease.

“Today’s approval ignores Shell’s dismal record of safety violations and undermines President Obama’s pledge to combat climate change,” said Marissa Knodel of Friends of the Earth. “With this decision, President Obama has given Shell an open invitation to turn the Chukchi Sea into an energy sacrifice zone, threatening both the resilience of the American Arctic Ocean and his climate legacy.”

Even though the company will not be able to drill as many wells as it had hoped, any drilling at all is bad news for the climate. A January paper in the journal Nature concluded that, if the world is to avoid the nastier effects of global warming that come with a rise in average global temperatures of more than 2 degrees Celsius, then all of the oil in the Arctic will have to stay put. Shell, however, has different ideas — and now the company has the go-ahead to act on them.

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Shell gets the final go-ahead to drill in the Arctic

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, Monterey, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, wind energy, wind power | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Shell gets the final go-ahead to drill in the Arctic

Here’s more evidence that cutting CO2 pollution can be good for the economy

by AlejandYdp Posted on July 14, 2015

Here’s more evidence that cutting CO2 pollution can be good for the economy

By on 14 Jul 2015commentsShare

The Northeast’s cap-and-trade program generated $1.3 billion in economic benefits for participating states over the last three years. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) also created an estimated 14,200 years’ worth of full-time employment between 2012 and 2014, and it cut residents’ electricity and heating bills by a total of $460 million. That’s according to a new analysis by a group that is creatively named Analysis Group, one of the largest economic consulting firms in the country.

In addition to spurring the economy in the participating states — Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont (Chris Christie pulled New Jersey out) — the system is succeeding at its primary goal: fighting climate change. CO2 emissions in participating states have fallen by about a third since 2009, when the carbon-trading system went into effect

So much for the argument that cutting greenhouse gas emissions hurts the economy.

Here’s more from the report:

We found lower costs to electric consumers throughout the region, decreases in revenues to the owners of certain power plants, and positive economic impacts across all states, totaling approximately $1.3 billion in economic value added (in 2015 dollars) as a result of RGGI’s second three years (2012-2014). This is on top of what we found for the first three years (2009-2011) of the program: $1.6 billion of economic value added (in 2011 dollars). Thus, considering results found in both our studies, the first six years of RGGI program implementation has continuously generated significant economic value for the RGGI states, while achieving the region’s collective objectives in terms of reducing emissions of CO2.

This research comes out just as debate is heating up over Obama’s Clean Power Plan, to be finalized this summer, which will limit CO2 emissions from power plants around the country. The Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity claims Obama’s plan will cost $41 billion per year, while the Union of Concerned Scientists contends that it will have a net economic benefit of up to $50 billion per year by 2020. Considering the new figures about RGGI’s impact, the UCS analysis looks to be more on the mark.

“We hope regulators across the country — along with policy-makers, utilities, and other stakeholders — are able to draw useful lessons from this report, as they evaluate Clean Power Plan options in their individual states,” report coauthor Andrea Okie said.

So, Analysis Group has the numbers in the Northeast to prove that state lawmakers don’t have to approach the Clean Power Plan with dread. Other groups have similar numbers for the West Coast, where other carbon-pricing schemes are in place. Will these reports be enough to begin shifting the debate? We can hope, but maybe don’t hold your breath.

Source:
Cap & Trade Shows Its Economic Muscle in the Northeast, $1.3B in 3 Years

, InsideClimate News.

Carbon-Trading Program Generates $1.3 Billion in U.S. Northeast

, Bloomberg.

Study: Northeast states benefit economically from carbon cap program

, The Associated Press.

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Here’s more evidence that cutting CO2 pollution can be good for the economy

Posted in alo, Anchor, eco-friendly, FF, GE, InsideClimate News, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here’s more evidence that cutting CO2 pollution can be good for the economy

Methane from fracking is probably more of a problem than EPA thinks

by DarleneFarleigh Posted on July 8, 2015

Methane from fracking is probably more of a problem than EPA thinks

By on 8 Jul 2015commentsShare

America’s natural gas boom might be generating a lot more greenhouse gas emissions than the EPA has estimated, according to a new study spearheaded by the Environmental Defense Fund.

Eleven teams of researchers looked at fracking operations in one oil- and natural gas-rich area in North Texas, the Barnett Shale, and discovered that at least 50 percent more methane was escaping from drilling operations there than the EPA has suspected. That means the EPA’s estimates for other operations are probably off as well.

A lot of the concern about fracking’s contribution to climate change focuses on methane, a greenhouse gas that is the main component of natural gas and that can leak during the drilling and transport processes. Though escaped methane stays in the atmosphere for a shorter amount of time than CO2, its contribution to climate change over a 20-year period is 86 times greater.

Like other studies before it, this one, which was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, found that most of the escaped gas came from a small percentage of the sites studied. If the EPA wants to better estimate methane emissions, it needs to take these leaky outliers into account and not just assume that all sites are operating as expected, David Allen, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Texas, told The Dallas Morning News. “Clearly what needs to be done is to better account for these super emitters,” he said.

The EPA is working out the specifics for new rules that aim to minimize methane leakage from yet-to-be-built wells, part of an agenda announced last January as the final big piece of Obama’s Climate Action Plan. The forthcoming rules, however, ignore the more than a million wells currently in operation — an omission that has inspired a good deal of angst among climate hawks. The agency hasn’t yet made clear exactly what’s in these upcoming regulations, but, last January, the administration set a goal of eventually reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 to 45 percent from 2012 levels. That, however, is going to be difficult if the EPA’s estimation of how leaky wells can be is far off the mark.

Source:
Methane Emissions in Texas Fracking Region 50% Higher Than EPA Estimates

, Inside Climate News.

Methane emissions underestimated by EPA, study says

, The Dallas Morning News.

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Methane from fracking is probably more of a problem than EPA thinks

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Farmed fish are breaking out of their pens at an alarming rate

by DomingaArce Posted on June 25, 2015

Farmed fish are breaking out of their pens at an alarming rate

By on 25 Jun 2015commentsShare

If you’re a child of the 90s, you might feel something like this when it comes to sea creatures escaping from captivity. But it’s now 2015, and we farm fish on the reg, so it’s time to grow up. Wired explains why:

Aquaculture is fast becoming the main way that humans get their seafood fix. But fish aren’t cattle; they don’t turn passive when cooped up. Every year, hundreds of thousands of salmon, cod, and rainbow trout wriggle through damaged or defective cages and flee into the open seas, never to be recaptured. In addition to costing farmers millions in lost revenue, these escapees can wreak havoc on their wild brethren by polluting gene pools and spreading pathogens.

Trine Thorvaldsen, a researcher in Norway, where it’s a criminal offense to let farmed fish out of captivity, has been studying how these fish escape. Turns out, it often comes down to human error:

“There was one instance in which fish were being pumped from one cage to another, but the workers didn’t realize there was no net to keep them,” says Thorvaldsen, who is a cultural anthropologist by training; by the time anyone noticed the silly mistake, 13,000 salmon had swum away. Most of the fateful miscues that lead to mass “fishbreaks,” however, are less spectacular in nature. Workers sometimes have difficulty operating equipment, for example, and brush the vessels’ destructive propellers against the containment nets. Or they inadvertently tear those nets while using cranes to adjust the weighted tubes that maingtain the shape of underwater cages. Farmers are often unaware of these small fissures until hours later, at which point it’s often too late to dispatch recovery teams to the site.

Scroll down to the end of that Wired article if you want to read about a few of the more “spectacular fishbreaks of recent vintage” — like the time 30,000 rainbow trout escaped captivity in Scotland after otters ate through their net.

Fish escapes are an especially big concern when it comes to farming genetically modified salmon, like those that Massachusetts-based company AquaBounty Technologies designed to grow faster and bigger than normal Atlantic salmon. AquaBounty has been trying to get FDA approval to sell its fish for more than two decades, NPR reports, but many are concerned about what would happen if the modified salmon make their way into the wild:

Robert H. Devlin, a scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, led a team that reviewed more than 80 studies analyzing growth, behavior and other trait differences between genetically modified and unaltered fish. The scientists used this to predict what might happen if fish with modified traits were unleashed in nature.

Genetically modified salmon contain the growth hormone gene from one fish, combined with the promoter of an antifreeze gene from another. This combination both increases and speeds up growth, so the salmon reach a larger size faster.

Altering a fish’s genes also changes other traits, the review found. Genetically modified salmon eat more food, spend more time near the surface of the water, and don’t tend to associate in groups. They develop at a dramatically faster rate, and their immune function is reduced.

It seems like a fat, immunocompromised, anti-social fish wouldn’t last a day in the wild, but as one of Devlin’s colleagues told NPR, that’s not a given — there are plenty of examples of invasive species thriving where they weren’t supposed to.  Fortunately, AquaBounty farms on land in tanks, and according to the FDA, the company has screens, filters, and nets blocking off the drains and pipes that might otherwise offer an escape route.

Still, humans are so good at messing things up, so maybe we should just move all this fish farming to — I don’t know — Nebraska? Better yet, let’s just make these giant salmon so fat that they couldn’t fit through those pipes even if they tried!

Source:
KEEPING FARM FISH LOCKED UP KEEPS ECOSYSTEM CALAMITY AT BAY

, Wired.

Genetically Modified Salmon: Coming To A River Near You?

, NPR.

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Farmed fish are breaking out of their pens at an alarming rate

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NASA wants to get rid of that flying pollution factory you took to Florida

by JerrodMccallist Posted on June 23, 2015

NASA wants to get rid of that flying pollution factory you took to Florida

By on 23 Jun 2015 3:29 pmcommentsShare

NASA, the earnest, dimple-cheeked do-gooder of government agencies, wants to revolutionize the flying pollution factories that we call airplanes, confirming what Neil deGrasse Tyson has been telling us all along: NASA is the coolest.

The agency announced yesterday that it will fund research into six futuristic airplane ideas over the next two years. The goal of the so-called Convergent Aeronautics Solutions (CAS) project is to create a new type of aircraft with “maximum efficiency and minimal environmental impact” that can “demonstrate the feasibility for urgent medical transportation from the wilderness of Alaska to the Mayo Clinic without human interaction” … which raises the question: What’s NASA got going on in the wilderness of Alaska?

Here are the six ideas from the agency — along with the re-naming suggestions from yours truly that make the theoretical planes sound as cool as they are:

Multifunctional Structures with Energy Storage [The Flying Battery]
A challenge with electric propulsion is the mass (volume and weight) of the batteries that must be carried inside the aircraft. But what if the aircraft structure itself could serve as the battery? Advances in materials, chemistry and nanotechnology might make this possible.

Autonomy Operating System for UAVs [Robo-plane]
A concern about UAV’s is how their internal logic/software might respond to unforeseen situations – such as a sudden worsening of weather, or another aircraft flying too close – that would prompt the need for a sudden change in its programmed course and behavior. The question is can advances in programming and artificial intelligence result in making it possible for a UAV to respond to those situations on its own, without remote human interaction, in ways that are as sure and predictable as would be made by a certified human pilot?

Mission Adaptive Digital Composite Aerostructure Technologies [The Shape Shifter]
In recent years there have been advances in making and using composite materials in aircraft structures, as well as advances in designing future aircraft that can adapt to changing flight conditions by such techniques as changing the shape of their wings. The question is, what if those technologies could be combined such that super strong, lightweight composite structures also are able to be flexible and change their shapes as needed during a flight?

High Voltage Hybrid Electric Propulsion [Self-healing Aero Light, a.k.a. SAL]
A challenge in implementing electric propulsion on airliners (where electricity drives the engine fan to produce thrust, rather than petroleum-based fuel being burned in a traditional jet engine) is how to make the whole power distribution system as efficient and lightweight as possible.

A potential solution may be found in advances in high voltage, variable frequency drives now used on the ground, which significantly reduces the size and weight of the required equipment.

At the same time, researchers will investigate the use in the power distribution system of “self-healing” insulation. The idea is that if any deterioration in a high voltage electrical line begins, the resulting exposure of the electricity to chemicals bonded in the insulation would automatically repair the line – reducing in-flight problems and costly ground maintenance.

Learn to Fly [The Virtual Flyer] 
Historically, the process for designing, building, testing and certifying new aircraft for flight can take years and cost a lot of money. The question is, are we advanced enough in our understanding of flight and the use of computer tools where we can safely enable new airplane designs to be more rapidly flown by skipping ground-based testing.

Digital Twin [The Digital Twin — that’s pretty good, actually]
The question here is can a computer model be built that accurately simulates and predicts how an aircraft or its individual components are affected by aging and ongoing operations such that a “digital twin” of a particular airplane can be created. This could help predict when problems might arise in order to prevent them from developing.

Go ahead, pick your favorite. Just don’t get your hopes up. Even NASA admits that these ideas are pretty far-out:

Of course, it’s very possible that after the studies are completed, the researchers may find that for whatever reason – technology, cost, the laws of physics – the answer is no, it’s not feasible. At least not right now.

Right on, NASA — challenging the laws of physics since 1958.

But as crazy as these ideas sound, this is the agency that put humans on the moon in the 1960s, so they could probably make a pretty sweet airplane … as long as the powers that be give them the money to do it.

Source:
NASA Aero Teams to Study if Wild Ideas are Possible

, NASA.

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