Technology

Solar Plane Soars Into Record Book

- Adam Clare

Plane
A solar plane that flew without a human to control it stayed aloft for 54 hours. That’s right a plane that relies on energy from the sun continued to operate overnight. The plane, the QinetiQ’s Zephyr, broke the previous record for a solar plane staying the air.

The Zephyr, developed by UK based QinetiQ, is a lightweight unmmaned aircraft which uses a combination of a solar array and batteries to power its flights. The plane weights a relatively low 31kg and has a wingspan of about 16 metres. The total flight lasted for a total of 54 hours, which, if you do the math, is a very impressive number for a solar powered vehicle. The Zephyr went for two straight nights without stopping or refueling relying on its solar powered batteries for flying. It made it all the way up to 18,000 meters (58,000 ft).

Green Computing is Open Source

- Adam Clare

Using opensource technology is better for the environment. Yay for free stuff and protecting that thing I love!

Free software is often usable on older hardware, more secure, more easily customized, less expensive, and available in more languages. These are substantial benefits, but they are all a natural result of the most important considerations—freedom and independence. The celebrated power of the Internet as a tool for political action depends on the ability of ordinary people to have uncensored control over the tools they use to participate in society. If the tools used by activists are proprietary, they will be inherently limited in what they can challenge and change by those who make and exclusively own the tools.

Cable to Research the Depths

- Adam Clare

While I’m in Vancouver, British Columbia, I want to find more good news coming from the west side of North America (I live in Toronto). To get the ball rolling, here’s a news report on how they are wiring the oceans to learn more about the depths of the seas. Some scientists are going to drop a huge cable to monitor ocean life via the internet.

“They are so important to our understanding of our planet and the understanding of the consequences of changes in our planet for our everyday lives.”

Taylor Neptune stands for North-East Pacific Time-series Undersea Networked Experiments. Eventually the B.C. cable loop, which can support up to 700 sensors, will be joined by, and to, another loop in U.S waters, for a total of 3,000 kilometres of cabling covering most of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, the smallest of the major plates that make up the surface of the planet.

Solar is Hot in Germany

- arvin

A german co-worker told me how it rains practically everyday in his native town. So how does the country become the world’s top solar power producer?

Apparently, what’s good for the planet is also good for the German economy:

There are now 250,000 jobs in Germany in the renewables energy sector… jobs in solar power alone to double to 90,000 over the next five years and hit 200,000 in 2020.

As with any new development, there are critics who want to slow down government incentives for solar power use, but the government has other plans:

So far just 3 percent of Germany’s electricity comes from the sun, but the government wants to raise the share of renewables to 27 percent of all energy by 2020 from 13 percent.

But why in Germany and not anywhere else in the world? Frank Asbeck of SolarWorld AG explains:

Germans have a fondness for inventing and developing technologies — especially when it might lead to big export rates. Helping fight climate change is a bonus.

Those Crafty Japanese!

- arvin

First it was paper cranes, now it’s bridges. Architect Shigeru Ban is moving us along the twenty-first century by using very old technology: paper! Ban has created an cardboard bridge in France.

Weighing 7.5 tonnes, the bridge is made from 281 cardboard tubes, each 11.5 centimetres (four inches) across and 11.9 millimetres thick. The steps are recycled paper and plastic and the foundations wooden boxes packed with sand.

It’s environmentally friendly, can be rebuilt and totally cool.

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