Evatran’s Plugless Power System Gets An Upgrade, Looks More and More Attractive
One of the issues that is under constant discussion when talking about renewable energy use in cars is how they will be refueled or recharged. While there are gas stations virtually on every other corner in the country, there isn't a nationwide infrastructure for electrical vehicles (EVs) or hydrogen power vehicles. Part of this is due to the fact that no one form of renewable energy has beaten out all others definitively. Nobody wants to invest all of their money in creating charging or refueling stations for a technology that will be replaced in a year or two. It would be a living nightmare to try to switch the wires, plugs, adapters, and all the other little doodads and parts that the new technology would need. A recharging technology that doesn't have too many moving parts, is simple to use, and effective would be ideal, both in terms of catching on in the EV industry, and in terms of ease of replacement.
Enter Evatran, a company that has developed a system of recharging the batteries in electric vehicles without any physical contact like plugs or adapters. Evatran's Plugless Power charging system take advantage of inductive charging, a method of energy transfer that uses an electromagnetic field, without any physical contact of materials (as is necessary in conductive charging, which we all know and love).
The Plugless Power system uses a disc that is slightly smaller than an hubcap that is anchored to the ground and another plate that is fastened to the underside of your car. When you need to recharge your electric vehicle's battery, just drive over the disc on the ground, and the Plugless Power system will begin to transfer energy to the plate under your car, which in turn is connected to you EV's battery. The ground plate can be anchored just about anywhere there is adequate power, so it wouldn't be restricted to recharging station use - you could install it in your own garage! About a year ago, Evatran's ground-anchored disk was actually a rectangular mat that was about as long and wide as a car's underside, mustered only 80% efficiency, and required you to line up accurately if you wanted it to charge properly. Today, the mat is smaller than a tire, boasts 97% efficiency, and has a little bit of wiggle room in terms of aligning the plates up to charge.
Testing is beginning on Chevy Volts and will expand in January, but you can get your own car retrofitted and buy your own charging station for your home if you are willing to pay. An indoor charging station will run you $2,000, an outdoor station will cost $3,000, and retrofitting your car will cost an additional $2,000.
Source: Autobloggreen via Engadget
Solar Bike Fujin Combines Two Green Techs in One
Although they are not very common in the United States, powered bikes (not motorcycles, mind you) are used in other countries around the world as an alternative to the traditional bicycle as a means of transportation. Many of them use small electric motors, or some sort of gas, however, so they are not totally environmentally-friendly.
However, a Japanese engineer who worked on the rover that was a part of the Hayabusa probe has come up with a new design that can drastically reduce the carbon footprint of these vehicles. Credited only as Mr. Yamawaki, he works for a company called Hama Zero , which showed off the bike at Electric Vehicle Development Technology Exhibition (EVEX for short).
He brings to the design some of the technology he used in designing the rover, including wheels that spin with incredibly low levels of friction. So little friction is created when the wheels spin, that with a gentle spin with the hand, they will allegedly spin for 20 minutes without stopping!
The bike is capable of speeds up to about 45 mph, and can travel 137 miles with a fully charged battery. If you ride it to work and leave it in the sun for 8 hours, you'll be able to travel 31 miles, which is pretty impressive, especially since you'll be riding to and from work for free!
Check out the video for a demonstration and more information.
Source: Engadget
Special Solar Cell Inventor Wins Millennium Technology Prize
Every other year, Finland's Technology Academy awards the Millennium Technology Prize to an individual who, according to their website, "assist[s] and enrich[es] our everyday lives today as well as in the future" with their invention. It is the largest technology prize in the world, and is presented to the recipient by the President of Finland.
This year's winner is Michael Gratzel, a German-born chemist who works at the esteemed Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland. His contribution to the people of the world? Specialized solar cells that mimic the process of photosynthesis. Aside from the process by which they harvest the sun's rays to generate electricity, they are also very light and thin, such that they can be used for electricity-generating windows or mobile solar cells.
Using cells that are so small that they don't scatter light, the specialized solar cells can gather solar energy from all sides. On top of all of their benefits, the cells can be made using dye from berries, drastically decreasing their overall cost. They have already found use in some products, such as battery-charging backpacks, but Gratzel envisions a world where the skyscrapers of the world all use these special windows to generate green power.
Gratzel says that he will use the $960,000 prize to invest in more research.
Source: Gizmodo
Solar Powered Nokero Light Bulbs Give Hope to Impoverished Areas
It's official. The "world's only solar-powered light bulb" has been invented! Or at least, that's what the company that makes it, Nokero, claims.
Designed for use in impoverished countries where electricity is intermittent or even non-existent, the N100 is a heavy duty light bulb made from durable plastic, five LEDs, four solar cell panels, and a nickel metal hydride battery. It can last for up to two hours if left in the sun all day, and when fully charged can provide four hours of illumination. As you'd expect, it's rainproof and designed to survive the roughest of conditions.
Based in Hong Kong, Nokero is offering the N100 at $15 a pop individually, but bulk orders could bring the price down to $6. From what can be gathered from the video below and their name, it seems that Nokero puts a strong emphasis on eliminating the need to use kerosene for light, which is dangerous, polluting, and considerably more expensive than their product. Check out the promotional video below for more information, or the source link to check out their site.
Source: Engadget, Nokero
Audi Tests Out Travolution System to Improve Driving Efficiency, Safety, and Driver Sanity
On Wednesday, German car manufacturer Audi put out a press release regarding their Travolution system, a glimpse at what the future of automotive efficiency could hold.
The system, which is being tested out in Ingolstadt, Germany, is made up of 2 major components. The first component is located in the vehicles themselves. Fifteen Audis (13 Audi A4 allroad Quattros and two Audi Q5s) were outfitted with transmitter/receiver units. These units were designed to communicate with the second component of the Travolution system - similar transmitter/receiver units located in traffic lights. What kind of information are these units communicating to each other? Surprisingly, more than you would think.
The first goal of this project was to improve efficiency of automobiles, so Audi decided to ditch the method of trying to improve the efficiency of the car and try to improve the efficiency of the drive. Using the Travolution system, traffic lights can tell drivers how long it will be until a light turns green, calculate the precise speed at which they should travel to avoid having to stop at the intersection, and even set the car in cruise control to stick to the suggested speed. This eliminates the need to idle at an intersection unless it is totally unavoidable, and consequently saves gas and exhaust.
But that's not all. Apparently, the Travolution system will warn you when you are going run a red light, or a light that is about to change. It will give you a visual and auditory warning, and if it is not heeded, will brake lightly to further suggest to the driver that they should stop. If you do happen to be stopped at a red light, the system will give show a countdown timer that tells how much longer the light will be red.
Although it isn't quite feasible with just 15 Travolution-equipped cars on the road, a large population of them could help compile accurate, up-to-date information on traffic on different parts of a city, giving drivers a heads-up as to where they should avoid or which route would be best to take on their journey.
It even includes a method of paying for gas or parking (and even telling you how many empty spots are left in a parking garage) through an online account that is linked to the display in the car.
Even though it's only being tested, it makes you wish you could fast forward to the future when this sort of technology will (hopefully) be standard-issue.
Sources: Engadget
The F800 Offers Three Methods of Propulsion – Gas, Electricity, and Hydrogen
It looks like the Mercedes-Benz F800 Style that was announced back in February has gotten a bit of an update since we last saw or heard from it. What was once merely a plug-in hybrid sedan now boasts not one, not two, but three options for fuel.
In addition to gasoline, the original F800 could also be powered by electricity, simply by plugging it in and charging the onboard batteries at a special charging station. The F-cell variant of the F800, which has just recently been unveiled, now adds the option of hydrogen power (just to clarify, however, you can either have a gas-electric hybrid F800, or a hydrogen-powered one. Not all three in one package).
Because of its unique design (hydrogen cells below the seats, for instance), it is a little larger than your normal sedan. You can see in pictures that it looks a bit more long and wide than average, yet still manages to look very sleek. Other details include the addition of sliding rear doors and weight-cutting techniques to compensate for the F800's alternative energy systems.
Look for it in 2012, with a base price of at least $43,000 for the gas-electric hybrid, and even more for the F-cell variant.
Source: Gizmodo
Powering Your Car with Potholes
A new type of suspension called the GenShock will be able to use the bumps and potholes you encounter on the road into energy that will power your car, increasing efficiency by up to 6%.
Made by Levant Power, GenShock looks much like the typical hydraulic suspension you might find on any car on the road right now. However, they have attached an interesting addition to one end, which uses the flow of hydraulic fluid to power a small electric generator. The generator that harnesses this energy then transfers it to a "power management device" which reroutes the energy to things like electric motors or to provide power for secondary functions of the vehicle, like the radio or interior lighting. This device can also distribute power from other regenerative automobile technologies, such as regenerative braking. The shock absorbers can be used as replacements for existing ones, or can be outfitted on the factory floor, and are straightforward to install.
In addition to the regenerative aspect of the shock absorption, GenShock also functions as a sort of advanced suspension, which can adjust itself automatically to improve the performance and safety of your car/truck/armored assault vehicle while turning or moving over bumpy terrain at high speeds. Since it is not being manufactured yet, there isn't a price quote to go by, but Levant Power claims that the system will pay for itself in 18 months. The nature of the technology makes it most effective in heavier vehicles moving over rough ground, so unless you are a trucker or drive a military-grade vehicle, this might not be what you are looking for, yet. But it certainly could pave the way for an increasing number of technologies developed to help consumers squeeze all the power they can out of each gallon of fossil fuels they consume.
The video below seems to be one of Levant Power's "Invest-In-Us" type of informational blurbs, but gives a good overview of just what the product is.
Source: MIT Technology Review via Engadget
Poseidon Floating Power Plant Works Above and Below Water
One of the oldest ways to harvest energy from nature is the windmill. Using the never-ending (yet inconsistent) supply of wind power, human beings learned to construct mills that would grind up their grains or perform other labor-intensive jobs for them. Other mills used river currents to power their machinery. Through time, these technologies became antiquated, replaced by gasoline-driven engines.
Now, in an effort to save the environment which we have been so ruthlessly exploiting for so many years, human beings are returning to the same technologies that first gave us the power to build civilization into what it is today. Windmills and other alternate types of energy generating technologies are become more prevalent, and many companies are coming up with new concepts on how to modernize what is essentially a centuries-old idea.
Denmark based Floating Power Plant is one such company. Using the same sort of stabilizing technology that can be found in oil rigs, they have designed a floating contraption that harvests both wind energy and the energy of sea currents. Called the Poseidon, it is a 230-meter (754 foot) platform that floats offshore, generating both wave and wind energy. Aside from using the aforementioned technology that keeps oil rigs afloat, the platform weighs about 350 tons, so it would be difficult to move or jar in any way.
It's estimated to provide 50 gigawatts of power per year, and will only use up about 11 cents per kilowatt hour.
So history does repeat itself in this case, although it's obvious that this is a vast improvement.
Source: Inhabitat via Engadget
GE Announces Advanced LED with 17-Year Life
GE Consumer Products issued a press release detailing a new LED bulb that they hope to put on the market sometime within the next year, and boy does it sound impressive. They call it the Energy Smart LED bulb, and with an estimated lifespan of 17 years (given 4-hour per day usage) it stands to destroy the existing LED, fluorescent, and incandescent competition.
GE claims that it will only consume 9 Watts, while providing the same light output as a 40 Watt CFL, at a 77% cost savings for users who are willing to shell out the $40-$50 for it. Those who do, however, will also benefit from a design change that allows the bulb to radiate light in all directions, as opposed to most current LED bulbs than direct their light in a more-or-less single direction. Not to mention it's super cool looking fins.
Source: GE Consumer Products via Engadget
Portable, Durable Solar Chargers from Japan
SolarFold and SolarFan are two new solar cell chargers offered by a company called AmbienTec. The Japanese company has differentiated themselves from other manufacturers by emphasizing portability and durability in their chargers. Apparently, the photovoltaic cells AmbienTec uses are spherical in shape, as opposed to the majority of other cells used in solar cell panels. This makes them slightly flexible, which is a good selling point if you are trying to get people to use these while they're on the move. In addition, both products fold up to take less space, making them even more attractive for say, people who want to throw them in a backpack and go hiking or camping. Each cell uses 1,900 spherical cells to charge devices at 2 Watts via a USB connection. To put that in perspective, a 10 minute charge time would allow an iPhone to make a 3 minute call. They're priced at ¥22,050, which equates to $243.99. DigInfo featured a video of the CEO of AmbienTec explaining the products at the PV Expo 2010. Beware the monotonous digitized female voice if you do choose to watch, however.