Lighter side of Life

A brilliantly funny sketch by Ronnie Corbett and Harry Enfield, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. See you in 2011.

Piezoelectrical Harvest

The New York Times has a brief article on a new way to draw electricity from the wind: oscillating wind panels. The initial premise is that wind turbines are noisy and dangerous to wildlife, however in each case there is conflicting evidence. Regardless, these are pretty cool:

Imagine wind blowing through trees, rustling the leaves. This idea is that by using piezoelectric materials you can turn the movement into a vibration, which in turn is converted to electricity. They are much smaller than a turbine, and can be placed on individual building roofs, so a whole community can benefit from wind power regardless of size or electrical grid constraints. One of the best innovations in energy production for 2010.

Google building an offshore Wind Farm

According to Google's blog they are about to build a massive 6GW wind farm 10 km from the Atlantic coastline, stretching over 500 km. The Atlantic Wind Connection as the project is known is planned to supply enough electricity for 2 million homes.

 "The Mid-Atlantic region is ideally suited for offshore wind. It offers more than 60,000 MW of offshore wind potential in relatively shallow waters that extend miles out to sea. These shallow waters make it easier to install turbines 10-15 miles offshore, meaning wind projects can take advantage of stronger winds and are virtually out-of-sight from land. With few other renewable energy options ideally suited for the Atlantic coast, the AWC backbone helps states meet their renewable energy goals and standards (PDF) by enabling a local offshore wind industry to deploy thousands of megawatts of clean, cost-effective wind energy."

World's Largest Fuelcell... 1 MegaWatt

FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) and Ballard Power Systems (TSX: BLD; Nasdaq: BLDP) are testing an innovative utility-scale fuel cell system designed to produce one megawatt of electricity. Considered the world's largest proton exchange membrane hydrogen-powered fuel cell, the 54-foot-long unit is mounted on a tractor-trailer for mobility and produces only heat and water as by products.
 

"Finding new sources of clean, renewable peaking energy is important for meeting our customers' energy needs and helping us meet increasingly stringent environmental requirements," said Gary R. Leidich, executive vice president and president of FirstEnergy Generation.  "This fuel cell system has the added benefit of being mobile, so it can provide peaking power when and where it's needed."

Read the details here: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/firstenergy-and-ballard-begin-demonstration-of-one-megawatt-mobile-fuel-cell-system-106463533.html

New Energy from Hydrogen

Take half an hour to listen to Dan Nocera talk about the future of energy on National Radio from Saturday Morning on 27th November.

Dan discusses the development of inexpensive catalyst materials that can be used to produce hydrogen fuel using only water and sunlight.

Play (Windows)
Play (Other)

Audi E-Tron update

An update on the recently covered Audi E-Tron R8:

The Audi E-Tron scores first place at the new, alpine electric car rally, Silvretta E-Auto in Austria. Check out the video below to see it in action:

Audi call this a 'technology platform', with a standard skin, the R8 shell. So what will the real thing look like? It has been revealed that the skin will be much more like a Spyder:

All the pic's can be found at world of cars.

Audi R8 E-Tron Electric Car

Check out the very real Audi R8 E-Tron, the sports version electric car. Each wheel has its own electric motor, to give 313 hp and 4,500 Nm (3,319 lb-ft) of torque, enough power to go from 0 to 100km/h in 4.8 seconds and a top speed of 200km/h.

The battery stores 53KWh of energy, taking up to 8 hours for a full charge on 220V/15amps, with higher voltage this decreases to as little as 3 hours. Distance on a single charge is around 240 kilometres.

Expected to cost around $200k USD when its released in 2012. Check out the video from Cruchgear below, I agree with the reviewer; the sound of all 4 motor's at speed is incredible!

Uncharted Territory

One of the speakers at this year's Web 2.0 conference was internet entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. In the talk below he discusses his vision for the company; developing a true social graph, which is an open* graph. He see's Facebook as a faciliator making rich data sets interoperable as one of the defining things that will allow for innovation over the next few years. (fast forward to 30:46s)

Some comments he makes:

"Over the next five years every vertical is going to be rethought as social. rethink verticals.

mindsets: enterprise software development versus personal software development "we need a feature checklist' vs 'what is really good to use?"

In essence he see's a space where they are building an internet enabled social engine. Everything is about to change all over again.
building a better energy future

Bill Gates on Innovation in Energy

Check out the talk by Bill Gates from TED earlier this year, he discusses a fantastic way forward for safe use and disposal of spent nuclear fuel as an energy source. The site is loaded with brilliant speakers talking about subjects they are passionate about, a great way to spend some downtime in front of the tube. www.ted.com/talks
building a better energy future

(if you see blankness apologies, video format is Flash and not available on Apple yet.)