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Category: energy – Page 165

Human-powered aircraft: Gossamer Albatross made history

It accomplished this record-breaking feat in two hours and 49 minutes.

After aeronautical engineer Paul MacCready won the first Kremer Prize in 1977 for the flight of his human-powered Gossamer Condor over a closed circuit course, he decided to cross the English Channel by air on human-power only, according to a report by The Museum of Flight.

He thus built the Gossamer Albatross aircraft from the lessons learned with the Condor. “This light and fragile aircraft was pushed by a propeller connected through a series of gears to a constantly pedaling pilot,” explained an article in The Museum of Flight.

“A new class of ultralight designs which are characterized by low power requirements”

Using only human power to do anything is an amazing feat but this becomes exceptionally impressive when it pertains to flight. Aeronautical engineer Paul MacCready managed to achieve a human-powered only flight.

Survey: China is slowly diminishing US dominance over science

China has more than doubled the percentage of ‘highly cited researchers’ over the last five years.

China has a steady increase in the number of “high-impact scientists” than the United States, which is still the leader but has seen a steady drop over the years.

Research fuels the race for knowledge.

Andrea Nicolini/iStock.

The numbers are showing a steady expansion over the last five years, according to a survey published last week by Clarivate Analytics, a U.K.-based analytical research group, which assesses the academic influence of scientists.

Photovoltaic windows unlock goal of increased energy efficiency for skyscrapers

Skyscrapers dominate city skylines, but these massive glass-walled structures can be made more energy efficient through the addition of thermally efficient photovoltaic (PV) windows, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Their findings, published in the journal One Earth, outline building design rules that can yield a structure with net-zero or even net-positive energy consumption.

“There are preconceived notions of what an energy-efficient building looks like, and it usually is not highly glazed, and it probably isn’t very tall,” said Lance Wheeler, a scientist at NREL who specializes in integrating PV technology into . “We found that there are other ways to build high-efficiency buildings.”

Hackers breach energy orgs via bugs in discontinued web server

Microsoft said today that security vulnerabilities found to impact a web server discontinued since 2005 have been used to target and compromise organizations in the energy sector.

As cybersecurity company Recorded Future revealed in a report published in April, state-backed Chinese hacking groups (including one traced as RedEcho) targeted multiple Indian electrical grid operators, compromising an Indian national emergency response system and the subsidiary of a multinational logistics company.

The attackers gained access to the internal networks of the hacked entities via Internet-exposed cameras on their networks as command-and-control servers.

Orion moonship operating in near-flawless fashion, mission managers say

NASA’s unpiloted Orion moonship, sailing smoothly toward a remote lunar orbit after a spectacular low-altitude flyby Monday, is operating in near-flawless fashion, mission managers reported Monday, out-performing expectations on a flight to pave the way toward the first piloted mission in 2024.

An analysis of the huge Space Launch System rocket that boosted the Orion capsule on its way early Wednesday showed it performed almost exactly as expected, taking off atop 8.8 million pounds of thrust and producing a ground-shaking shock wave that literally blew the doors off launch pad elevators.

The core stage’s four upgraded space shuttle main engines and twin solid-fuel boosters propelled the 322-foot-tall rocket out of the atmosphere and into space almost exactly as planned. At main engine cutoff, the SLS was within 3 miles of its target altitude and within 5 mph of the predicted velocity.

Leading gas importer Japan says LNG is sold out until 2026, as energy-squeezed countries battle over dwindling supplies

“The LNG procurement environment has changed completely. Procurement can also be said to be in a state of war,” they told the ministry.

A dwindling supply of natural gas worldwide has sent countries racing to secure shipments of the key fuel. The squeeze is due to a lack of investment in LNG export projects, according to the trade ministry.

At the same time, European buyers are set to step up their imports of LNG from next year after Moscow cut off pipeline-borne gas flows to the continent in retaliation to Western sanctions. They have already been in “huge competition” with Asian buyers for exports from Qatar to replace the Russian supplies.

Algae-Powered Soft Devices Glow in the Dark When Squished or Stretched

The devices are so sensitive that even a soft tap is enough to make them glow. The researchers also made the devices glow by vibrating them, drawing on their surfaces, and blowing air on them to make them bend and sway—which shows that they could potentially be used to harvest airflow to produce light. The researchers also inserted small magnets inside the devices so that they can be magnetically steered, glowing as they move and contort.

The devices can be recharged with light. The dinoflagellates are photosynthetic, meaning they use sunlight to produce food and energy. Shining light on the devices during the day gives them the juice they need to glow during the night.

The beauty of these devices, noted Cai, is their simplicity. “They are basically maintenance-free. Once we inject culture solution into the materials, that’s it. As long as they get recharged with sunlight, they can be used over and over again for at least a month. We don’t need to change out the solution or anything. Each device is its own little ecosystem—an engineered living material.”

Researchers turn asphaltene into graphene for composites

Asphaltenes, a byproduct of crude oil production, are a waste material with potential. Rice University scientists are determined to find it by converting the carbon-rich resource into useful graphene.

Muhammad Rahman, an assistant research professor of materials science and nanoengineering, is employing Rice’s unique flash Joule heating process to convert asphaltenes instantly into turbostratic (loosely aligned) graphene and mix it into composites for thermal, anti-corrosion and 3D-printing applications.

The process makes good use of material otherwise burned for reuse as fuel or discarded into tailing ponds and landfills. Using at least some of the world’s reserve of more than 1 trillion barrels of as a feedstock for graphene would be good for the environment as well.

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