Federal Aviation Administration awards $125 million in green technology contract
Quieter jets and greener airplanes? With the $125 million in contracts awarded Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration hopes to start making it so.
The agency doled out funds to Boeing Co., General Electric Co., Honeywell, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce North America to speed development of clean technology for aviation.
As part of the FAA’s Continuous Lower Energy, Emissions and Noise program – also known as CLEEN – the companies will study and try out tactics to reduce commercial jet fuel consumption, cut down on emissions and scale back noise levels.
The companies are expected to match or exceed the FAA’s funds, meaning that the CLEEN program could be worth more than $250 million. The technologies could show up in commercial fleets as early as 2015.
Among other innovations in greener aviation GE Aviation is the TAPS II Combustor is intended for an engine core. If it works as predicted it could improve jet fuel efficiency by 16%. The CLEEN program has set a total aviation goal of reducing fuel consumption by 33% and cutting nitrogen oxide emissions by 60%.
At a former industrial site on Chicago’s South Side, more than 32,000 solar panels slowly tilt every few minutes, following the sun as it moves across the sky.
Operated by Exelon Corp., the 40 acres of panels in West Pullman is the nation’s largest urban solar plant, generating 10 megawatts of clean power and hope for an Illinois industry that has long waited for its moment in the sun.
One of the great side benefits of new alternative energy manufacturing and installation is the re-invigoration of old industrial sites.
On a Different Track: Can some out-of-work car-racing engineers save the planet?
Creating a highly efficient car is a problem of social engineering as much as of physics. Americans buy big, heavy cars thinking they’re safer than lighter, more agile cars; we want a car to have an unlimited range when two-thirds of us commute 15 miles or less each way to work (PDF at link); we prefer to pay for our cars on the back end, in fuel costs, instead of up front at the car lot. One way for an innovative automaker to overcome these perceptions is to short-circuit them with sex appeal and speed, which are, of course, the very qualities that racers know how to engineer. You see this strategy at work in the swooping curves of the all-electric Tesla Roadster, and in the lesser known Tango, an electric car that looks like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon but drives like a demon. Designed by a former Porsche dealer to solve the world’s traffic jams, the Tango takes advantage of the fact that electric motors actually have more low-end torque than gas motors; they don’t have to “spin up” before generating power. At a preliminary X Prize event in April, the Tango accelerated from zero to 60 in five seconds.
This rather long article which includes a lot on the history of car racing doesn’t lend itself to a neat summary.
Freshwater’s Technology Provides Superior Energy Efficiency & Environmental Benefits
Freshwater’s Water Devices replace the use of chemicals while eliminating encrustations and reducing corrosion. Chemical treatment methods require a permanent annual need to buy, store and handle chemicals that introduce hazardous material into the environment. The Company believes that the FW activation device offers a less expensive method of treating encrustations and corrosion in heating and cooling systems. It is the existing water supply flow interacting with the inner elements in FW Water Devices that eliminates and prevents the recurring build up of scale and corrosion. Even 1mm of encrustation buildup in boilers and refrigeration systems causes an 8 percent increase in energy useage. In hot weather countries, significant refrigeration and cooling costs place a premium on energy efficiency which FW water treatment can provide.
Child drownings this year are on track to meet or exceed lasts years. Child Advocacy Center Works to Reduce Drowning
Each day ten people drown somewhere across the United States. The Centers for Disease Control reported last week 3,582 drowning deaths in 2009 as well as the startling fact that drowning was the second leading cause of unintentional fatality for children aged newborn to 18 for the past 15 years.
Why Aren’t Tea Parties Demanding That The Government Hold BP Accountable On Behalf Of Taxpayers?
tangledwing 