Peter Fairley

Hub Motors: When EVs Smash Open Auto Design

Chrysler leapt back into relevance this week announcing no less than four EVs in development — at least one of which it promises to sell in 2010. Most intriguing for this fan of EV technology is its claim to be experimenting with permanent magnet in-wheel motors for an plug-in hybrid version of the Jeep Wrangler. That step would be an exciting leap in auto design where the electric drivetrain frees the automobile from its heavy and design-constraining mechanical transmission and driveshafts.

For a sense of the hub motor’s potential design impact, consider the experimental Reconnaissance Surveillance Targeting Vehicle that General Dynamics built for the U.S. Marine Corps. The “Shadow” is “a four-ton armored truck that has the payload of a Humvee and yet is svelte enough to deploy from a tactical aircraft.” The Shadow used a series hybrid design in which the engine serves only to keep the lithium battery charged in extended range use–much like GM’s vaunted Chevy Volt.

Unlike the Volt it transmits power to the wheels via power cables, rather than using its stored electricity to drive a central motor and mechanically distributing it to the wheels. The result is unprecedented traction thanks to the direct control of each wheel by its hub motor and the wheels’ freedom to range up and down almost half a meter.

Then there’s the Shadow’s metamorphosis when it rolls out of a V-22 vertical take-off tactical plane. Sizing for the V-22’s cargo hold constrained the Shadow’s chassis to just 150 cm side to side — way narrower than the 215-cm-wide Humvee. How to ensure stability in operation at that width? Upon exiting from the V-22 the Shadow extends its wheels sideways 20 cm beyond the chassis, achieving a total wheelbase of 190 cm. The key is a folding pneumatic suspension, something that’s all but impossible with a mechanically-driven wheel.

The Shadow was General Dynamics’ 2004 bid for what has since become the joint U.S. Army – Marine Corps Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program. Development contracts for the vehicles are expected to be announced next month.

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This post was created for Tech Talk – Insights into tomorrow’s technology from the editors of IEEE Spectrum.

September 25, 2008September 26, 2008 by pfairley

Flying the Rails at 360 kph

Call it a sign of the times: Air France-KLM, Europe’s leading air carrier, is going electric.

Forget about visions of battery-electric airplanes. EV technology has its work cut out just commercializing battery-electric cars, let alone trying to catapult hundreds of passengers into the air. Instead, Air France is recognizing the energy-efficiency and convenience of commuter trains and hitting the rails.

Last week the Paris-based airline launched a joint venture with European bus and train operator Veolia to offer high-speed rail service between London, Paris and Amsterdam beginning in 2010 — the year that EU laws will open international rail travel to competition. For technology they are eyeing a new generation of high-speed coaches that’s nearing completion: the Automotrice à Grande Vitesse or AGV under development by France’s Alstom.

The AGV is faster, more efficient and can haul more passengers than its predecessor, the TGV. In speed tests in 2007 the AGV hit 574.8 kilometers per hour — within spitting distance of the speed record set by Japan’s maglevs. Alstom expects the AGV to cruise at 360 kph in regular service — about 40 kph above the TGV’s limit.

Italy’s NTV is building rails for the first AGV’s, which are expected to begin rolling there in 2011.

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This post was created for Tech Talk – Insights into tomorrow’s technology from the editors of IEEE Spectrum.

September 16, 2008September 16, 2008 by pfairley

Electric Supergrids Gaining Traction

Incomplete and constrained transmission grids pose a serious impediment to the use of renewable energy sources such as wind power. Proposals launched over the past week show that support for more lines is going mainstream.

Last week none other than Greenpeace called for an underwater power grid criss-crossing the North Sea to accelerate the installation of dozens of new offshore wind farms. In “A North Sea Electricity Grid [R]Evolution”, Greenpeace Belgium and Brussels-based environmental consulting firm 3E map out an offshore network composed of 6,200 kilometers of undersea lines. According to their models, this grid extension could add 68 gigawatts of wind power capacity by 2020 — enough to meet 13% of net power demand of seven North Sea countries.

Yesterday the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Competitiveness, an alliance of corporate CEOs, university presidents and labor leaders, lent its support to grid expansion, urging the next U.S. president to create a “national transmission superhighway.” The proposal is part of a broader “100-Day Energy Action Plan”. The Council would empower the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to determine when and where expanded transmission capacity is needed, overriding state authorities. “As with the interstate highway system and the information superhighway, our leaders must knit together the current patchwork of regulations and oversight into a seamlessly connected electrical power highway,” states the plan.

Proposals that need to be debated.

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This post was created for Tech Talk – Insights into tomorrow’s technology from the editors of IEEE Spectrum.

September 10, 2008September 11, 2008 by pfairley

Wind and the Whale

Humpback whales are surprisingly agile, executing tight banking turns in spite of their 40-ton hulk. How? One factor may be ten or so fibrous ‘tubercles’ protruding from the leading edge of their pectoral flippers. These protruding, oversized knuckles (a humpback’s flippers are analogous to your arms, but most of the length is finger) alter the airflow over the flipper. The result is an airfoil that is largely immune to the sudden loss of lift or ‘stall’ can trip up fighter pilots when they try to carve into turns too aggressively.

What does all that have to do with our energy future? Toronto-based airfoil designer WhalePower Corp. thinks that the serrated profile of the humpback fin could hold the key to smoother-running pumps, fans and wind turbines. Find all that a bit much? Would you believe the scientist behind this novel airfoil design is Frank Fish?

Read more about the promise of this technology in the current issue of Discover Magazine (see “Wind Turbine That Imitates Flippers Could Increase Efficiency”).

A note of caution: Convincing risk-averse wind turbine builders and buyers to try something new will require some, “pretty hard test data,” according to Bob Thresher, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Wind Technology Center. In other words WhalePower has plenty more work ahead than the hopeful tagline on its website – “A Million Years Of Field Tests” – would suggest.

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September 8, 2008 by pfairley

Drilling the Media on Drilling

Food for thought on the power of repetition and omission from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington-based thinktank. Their report, Oil Drilling in Environmentally Sensitive Areas: The Role of the Media, asserts that major TV news outlets are selling Americans on John McCain’s new-found affinity for expanded domestic oil and gas drilling as a response to rising energy prices.

The study shows that most news coverage of proposed drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive zones in the U.S. ignores relevant data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency showing that such drilling would have no impact on the price of oil. It then asserts that this omission has contributed to increasingly widespread public support for expanded drilling.

Kudos to CNN, which stands out as the only broadcast outlet that presented the federal data this media critic thought most relevant.

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September 7, 2008September 21, 2018 by pfairley

Realistic Expectations for Renewable Energy

RenewableEnergyWorld’s Inside Renewable Energy podcast returned to the potential green bubble this week. Carbon-Nation readers will recall that in May this podcast reviewed our reporting on organic photovoltaics, and the allegations that researchers developing that very promising (but still quite nascent) approach to solar power had overstated their advances. This week’s entry, “Keeping the Industry in Check”, broadens the issue to take on overheated hyperbole coming from the renewables industry writ large.

Podcast Editor Stephen Lacey’s quotes from wind energy expert Mack Sagrillo capture the conversation’s overall message: Buyer beware. “It’s great that people are looking for alternatives, but it’s amazing how little people know when they seek them out. That leaves people open to purchasing a product that is less-than-reliable. We are a very gullible culture, we’re always looking for the magic bullet,” says Sagrillo.

Lacey brings me in to speak to media’s role. Some of my touchstones: Asking uncomfortable questions; providing caveats that make the story a little more messy but a lot more accurate; and letting readers know when technology advocates are providing only half the story.

The most important audience for the above? The editors that serve as the ultimate gatekeepers for the reader and, all too often in my opinion, underestimate their audience’s appetite for complexity.

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August 20, 2008August 30, 2008 by pfairley

Bikes Battle for Beijing Gold

Time for Carbon-Nation to take its annual summer hiatus, as its editor heads off to grid-free living on Eagle Island. We leave with this musing on the role bicycles may play in cleaning up Beijing’s act posted on MSN Green today.

Surfing over from MSN Green? Here’s an ironic addendum to the biking in Beijing piece: One of the key factors currently limiting China’s exports of electric bicycles is tight supplies of lead for batteries, caused in part by the air quality-inspired closure of Beijing-region factories!

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August 4, 2008October 23, 2008 by pfairley