By George Webster for CNN
December 27, 2010 2:14 a.m. ESTLondon (CNN) -- With its long hull, towering masts and expansive sails, it resembles a schooner from the 19th century. But fitted with a series of high-tech features, this so-called "sail ship" is designed to cut carbon emissions on the high seas today.
Part of a fleet of carbon-neutral, wind-powered sail ships planned by Britain's B9 Energy, it's just one example of how companies are looking to the past for greener alternatives to the gas-guzzling vessels that transport the world's cargo.
When it comes to wind power replacing fuel in shipping vessels, "it's not a question of if, but when," according to David Surplus, the chairman of B9 Energy, Britain's largest windfarm operator.
"By most people's estimates, we have reached peak oil -- sooner or later the fuel will run out and there will simply be no alternative," said Surplus.
Roughly 87% of international trade is carried out by the shipping industry, figures from the International Maritime Organization show.
With the majority of world trade traveling by sea, the shipping industry is responsible for around 4% of global carbon emissions, according to the latest figures available from the United Nations.
B9 claims its vessel will be the first commercially produced merchant ship to harness alternative energy, but it certainly isn't alone in using old-fashioned sail boats to move goods.
"At the moment it's happening on a fairly small, fairly local scale," said Jan Lundberg, founder of Sail Transport Network, a group that promotes sailing as a means of eco-friendly, cost-efficient trade.
But the trend is growing, he said, pointing to examples like El Lago Coffee Company, which uses traditional sail boats to ship Guatemalan coffee beans to the United States, and the Sail Transport Company, a Seattle-based group that uses sailboats to deliver "petroleum-free organic produce."
B9's new eco-friendly ships, planned to be in production by 2012, signify a return to a much more traditional form of merchant shipping. Before diesel-powered steel tankers came to dominate the seas, international trade was conducted on vast, wooden sail ships.
The 100% carbon-neutral freighter will feature automated, self-adjusting sails that respond to minute changes in the wind to maximize propulsion. The boat will also take advantage of "skysail" technology -- a kite-styled towing system currently used on some cargo ships to improve fuel efficiency. …
Monday, February 7, 2011
Age of sail boats inspires green solutions for ocean cargo
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Why did Google bet $1 million on Shweeb?
By Kyle Almond, CNN
October 12, 2010 8:59 a.m. EDT | Filed under: Innovation(CNN) -- Living in Tokyo, Japan, during the late '90s, Geoffrey Barnett found it extremely difficult -- even dangerous -- to ride his bicycle to work every day.
"The traffic is incredible, and there's so much pollution," said Barnett, an Australian who worked in the city as an English teacher.
His students shared his frustration, and they would often talk about Tokyo's jam-packed streets during class.
"It was always a topic of discussion that motivated the students to talk, because it was a part of their life as well," Barnett recalled.
Out of those frequent discussions evolved Barnett's idea for Shweeb, a system of personal, pedal-powered monorail pods that he hopes can one day become an alternative form of urban transit. With Shweeb, pods hang from an elevated track that, theoretically, would stretch to destinations throughout a city.
"Cumbersome, jammed-up cities of today should be rendered into completely accessible worlds once you've got a way to shoot over the traffic," said Barnett, who derived the name Shweeb from the German word "schweben," which means to hang, hover or float. He left Tokyo in 2000 to design a prototype.
Barnett's vision received a significant boost last month when Google awarded Shweeb $1 million for research and development. Shweeb was one of five winners of Project 10^100, Google's "call for ideas to change the world." …
Why did Google bet $1 million on Shweeb?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Solar powered bike sharing system proposed for Copenhagen
Already one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world, Copenhagen is used as the setting for an interesting conceptual bike sharing system. Termed “Bicyclus” by Italian designer Stefano Marchetto, the new eco-friendly plan would reuse some 8,000 bikes that are abandoned every year and further facilitate easier commutes for residents through the city.
The Bicyclus idea intends to upgrade the city’s current world-famous bike system run by Bycykelservice. Since 1995, the city has systematically expanded the number and accessibility of bicycle lanes and routes, making bicycle travel more efficient than using cars or buses.
With Bicyclus, each recycled bike would receive a touchscreen display with information about the city, while the on board computer system would also be equipped to allow Bicyclus bikers to interact. …
A Solar Powered Bike Sharing System
Monday, June 21, 2010
Northrop Grumman wins contract to build US Army's long-endurance hybrid airship
MELBOURNE, Fla., BETHPAGE, N.Y., and LONDON, Jun 14, 2010 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) -- A new hybrid airship weapons system, just larger than the length of a football field, will take to the skies in just 18 months to provide an unblinking, persistent eye for more than three weeks at a time to aid U.S. Army troops in Afghanistan, according to Northrop Grumman Corporation officials.
The company today announced it has been awarded a $517 million (£350.6 million) agreement to develop up to three Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) systems for the U.S. Army. Northrop Grumman has designed a system with plug-and-play capability to readily integrate into the Army's existing common ground station command centers and ground troops in forward operating bases--the main objective to provide U.S. warfighters with persistent ISR capability to increase awareness of the ever changing battlefield.
"This opportunity leverages our longstanding leadership positions in developing innovative unmanned air vehicles, C4ISR weapon systems, and leading edge systems integration, and moves Northrop Grumman into this rapidly emerging market space of airships for the military and homeland defense arenas," said Gary Ervin, corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems sector.
Under the agreement, awarded by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, Northrop Grumman will design, develop and test a long-duration hybrid airship system within an 18-month time period, and then transport the asset to the Middle East for military assessment.
"It is critical that our warfighters are equipped with more enabling integrated ISR capability to tackle today's and tomorrow's conflicts," said Alan Metzger, Northrop Grumman LEMV program manager. "Our offering supports the Army's Joint Military Utility Assessment that this disruptive innovation must meet the Army's objective of a persistent unblinking stare while providing increased operational utility to battlefield commanders. Part of our innovative offering includes open architecture design in the payload bay to allow sensor changes by service personnel in the field."
LEMV will sustain altitudes of 20,000 feet for a three-week period, and it will operate within national and international airspace. It will be forward-located to support extended geostationary operations from austere operating locations using beyond-line-of-sight command and control. …
Northrop Grumman Awarded $517 Million Agreement for U.S. Army Airship With Unblinking Eye
Sunday, January 31, 2010
High speed rail finally coming to the US: A look at the plans (video)
But where’s the LA-to-New York line?
Image via Wired
Yes, high speed trains are finally coming to the United States. It's been a long time coming, but thanks in part to funding from last years stimulus bill, 13 high speed rail lines may be up and operating as soon as 2025. Yes, in less than fifteen years, you may be able to take a bullet train from San Diego to San Francisco, or from St. Louis to Chicago. It's about time.
Nearly an entire year ago, we first reported on Obama allotting $8 billion for rail funding in his stimulus bill, and some $5 billion more in his budget. Now, working with states, which are often matching those funds, Obama has finally unveiled how he plans on bringing the US up to speed (I refuse to apologize for that pun, btw).
Wired has a must-read feature that goes in depth into the future of American high speed rail, both in its current issue on the stands, and online. It's called Superfast Bullet Trains are Finally Coming to the US, and it's right. The graphic above shows the map of where the planned lines are going. …
High Speed Rail Finally Coming to the US: A Look at the Plans (Video)
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Electric Icarus: NASA designs a one-man stealth plane
Could the Puffin, an electric-powered flying suit, change the way we use the sky in war and peace?
By Charles Q. Choi
A super-quiet, hover-capable aircraft design, NASA's experimental one-man Puffin could show just how much electric propulsion can transform our ideas of flight. It looks like nothing less than a flying suit or a jet pack with a cockpit.
On the ground, the Puffin is designed to stand on its tail, which splits into four legs to help serve as landing gear. As a pilot prepares to take off, flaps on the wings would tilt to deflect air from the 2.3-meter-wide propeller rotors upward, keeping the plane on the ground until it was ready to fly and preventing errant gusts from tipping it over. The Puffin would rise, hover and then lean over to fly horizontally, with the pilot lying prone as if in a glider. When landing, the extending spring legs would support the 3.7-meter-long, 4.1-meter-wingspan craft, which is designed with carbon-fiber composites to weigh in at 135 kilograms, not including 45 kilograms of rechargeable lithium phosphate batteries.
In principle, the Puffin can cruise at 240 kilometers per hour and dash at more than 480 kph. It has no flight ceiling—it is not air-breathing like gas engines are, and thus is not limited by thin air—so it could go up to about 9,150 meters before its energy runs low enough to drive it to descend. With current state-of-the-art batteries, it has a range of just 80 kilometers if cruising, "but many researchers are proposing a tripling of current battery energy densities in the next five to seven years, so we could see a range of 240 to 320 kilometers by 2017," says researcher Mark Moore, an aerospace engineer at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. He and his colleagues will officially unveil the Puffin design on January 20 at an American Helicopter Society meeting in San Francisco. …
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Robin Chase on the birth of Zipcar and the future of transportation
To Robin Chase, parked cars and solo drivers just look like a great big mess of wasted capacity. It’s this kind of thinking that inspired her to start Zipcar (now the world’s largest carsharing company), and GoLoco, the Facebook of ridesharing. It’s also the kind of thinking that got her invited to speak at TED and put her on TIME’s 100 list for 2009. Chase took some time from her frenetic life to tell us about the birth of Zipcar, the progress of GoLoco, and where she’s headed next (hint: cars that talk to each other).
Listen to the podcast of this interview via iTunes, or just click here to listen, right-click to download. Music comes from Nightmares on Wax.
TreeHugger: Since starting Zipcar you've moved on to other things, but for the uninitiated, how do you describe Zipcar?
Robin Chase: This is the elevator pitch that I have probably given close to 1, 000 times, so here we go: Zipcar parks cars throughout dense metropolitan areas and university towns for people to use by the hour and by the day instead of driving their own cars. You make a reservation online or by telephone for a very specific car in a specific location and that reservation gets sent wirelessly to the car. You walk up to a car and you hold your membership card on a spot in the windshield and that unlocks the door, enables the ignition, and opens the billing record.
People drive round trip and park back in that same reserved parking space when they are done. The billing record is closed and you are all done. …
Robin Chase on the Birth of Zipcar and the Future of Transportation (Part One)
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