The World’s First Fully Solar-Powered Airport

As reported by the Telegraph: India has unveiled the first airport in the world to operate completely on solar energy.

A solar power plant with 46,150 solar panels has been installed across 45 acres of land near the cargo area of Cochin International Airport (CIAL). It supplies the airport with 50,000 to 60,000 units of electricity per day, making the airport “absolutely power neutral”, according to a statement by CIAL.

India's leading airport in sustainability had already been using solar energy from two smaller power plants installed in 2013. But the latest addition brings its solar energy capacity up to 12 megawatts (MW) of power per day, a sufficient amount to run all of the airport’s daily functions.

• Record-breaking airports

A fisherman on a boat in Cochin, India  Photo: Fotolia/AP

The new plant is expected to generate 18 million units of solar power annually, an amount that could charge around 10,000 homes in the country for one year. The sustainable project is expected to offset carbon emissions by more than 3 lakh (300,000) metric tons over the next 25 years, which is said to be the equivalent of planting three million trees or not driving for 750 miles, according to the airport.

Cochin International is the busiest and largest airport in the state of Kerala and the third busiest in India, according to international passenger traffic, having received more than 3,750,000 passengers between 2013 and 2014.

Its latest development is one of several ‘green’ initiatives currently in place or being planned at airports globally in the future.

Plans for Mexico City’s new international airport, which aims to be world’s most sustainable airport, were revealed last year. The Mexican capital's new airport will be designed by Norman Foster, the British architect responsible for the Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe) and the dome of Berlin’s Reichstag building. The new hub, expected to be completed by 2018, will use minimal energy and offer an efficient passenger experience with shorter walking distances.

A rendering of the future Mexico City International Airport  Photo: fosterandpartners.com

Heathrow’s Terminal 2, which opened last year, was the first airport terminal in the world to be certified by BREAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology), the world’s longest established building sustainability rating system.

T2’s eco-friendly features include “skylights and 10 metre-high, floor-to-ceiling windows that maximise the natural light” and “sophisticated lighting control systems that keep energy use down by switching off the LED lights when parts of the building are not in use”. The terminal’s close proximity to the runways also helps cut carbon emission by reducing aircraft taxiing times.

Last year, Denver International Airport in the US installed its fourth solar power array which can produce up to 2MW of electricity per year. It reduces around 2,200 metric tons of carbon emissions annually, which is said to be enough to supply energy to 500 homes in Denver for a year.

Slipstream, the sculpture by Richard Wilson that dominates Heathrow's Terminal 2  Photo: PA

Sustainability has been developed for several years at airports in North America, including Chicago O’Hare International which has been a founding figure in airport sustainability since 2003 when it created the Sustainable Design Manual to establish “greener airport development” within the industry. The manual was updated as the Sustainable Airport Manual in 2009 and has since been used as a standard for sustainability design by airports across the country.

In 2006, Terminal A at Boston’s Logan International Airport installed several sustainable features, including heat-reflecting roofs and windows, self-dimming lights and a storm water filtration system, making it the first airport terminal in the US to receive LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the Green Building Council.

A plane taxiing at Phoenix Sky Harbor International   Photo: Getty Images

Trudeau International in Montreal has been making ground-breaking developments in sustainability since 2004, including an underground car park heated by hot water and automated blinds in the airport jetties that respond to natural light, helping to save on heating and air conditioning costs.

Arizona’s Phoenix Sky Harbor International airport was given a 'gold rating' by LEED last year for its PHX Sky Train, an electric, automated transport system that reduced the airport’s carbon footprint by nearly 6,000 tons a year.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Integrated into iPhone 6 Powers it for a Week

As reported by Geek: Fuel cells have been promising to solve the rechargeable battery problem for years now. Rather than relying on a battery that takes hours to recharge once drained, you instead have hydrogen fuel cells that can be instantly topped up for hours more use. We haven’t seen such a fuel cell system make it into a mass-market device just yet, but a British company has now managed to hook one up to a modern smartphone.

The company in question is called Intelligent Energy. What they’ve managed to do is add a very slim hydrogen fuel cell to an iPhone 6. It doesn’t replace the need for a rechargeable battery, instead complementing it. However, the combination means that the iPhone can run for an entire week without need of a recharge.

Intelligent Systems is thought to be working closely with Apple on the prototype and importantly they’ve managed to integrate the fuel cell without needing to modify the iPhone. The only difference users will see is the back of the iPhone covered in vents. This is necessary to allow heat and water vapor to escape, but you’ll never notice it happening.

The fuel cell works by creating electricity from hydrogen and oxygen with the waste products being water vapor and heat. That electricity is then used to keep the iPhone battery topped up and powering the phone. When the fuel cell runs out of hydrogen it can be topped up with a cartridge.

Typically with fuel cell news it ends with “now they just have to make it small enough” or “they just need to find a commercial partner.” However, in the case of Intelligent Energy, the fuel cell is already small enough and Apple is thought to be on board. All they need to do now is design a disposable cartridge for the refills and decide on pricing.

Why It's Too Soon To Say If Audi’s All-Electric SUV Will Rival Tesla’s Model X

As reported by Manufacturing.net: This week the Internet has been abuzz with all the digital chatter about next month's big event: the Frankfurt Auto Show.

Not only is this 10-day event the world’s largest car show, but it also displays what just might be the future of the global car industry. This year, for instance, automakers will show-off fleets of electric and hybrid vehicles.

But the one car that has piqued everyone’s interest is Audi’s new, all-electric SUV called the e-tron quattro.This luxury vehicle isn’t just sleek and sporty in style, but it also happens to have a battery range of about 310 miles — an impressive start considering this is Audi’s first large-series electric car.

Like Tesla’s Model X, Audi designed the e-tron quattro SUV concept from the ground up as an electric vehicle. Audi’s version, however, will probably be driven by a trio of motors, all of which will be powered by a large lithium-ion battery pack.

But the real question dogging industry insiders: Has Audi built a true rival to Tesla’s gulf-winged Model X?

It’s too soon to say but, with the preordered Model X set to hit roads this fall, Tesla will have at least two years to gain some market traction before its Audi rival goes into production.

One thing’s for sure though: The global auto industry is definitely going green.

Japan Rocket Kounotori-5 "White Stork" Launches Cargo to the International Space Station (ISS)

As reported by Space.com: A robotic Japanese cargo vessel launched toward the International Space Station this morning, embarking on a five-day journey to the orbiting lab to deliver tons of supplies and experiment gear, including a rodent crew of 12 mice.

Japan's fifth H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5) blasted off atop an HII-B rocket from Tanegashima Space Center today (Aug. 19) at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT, 8:50 p.m. local Japanese time). NASA broadcast live video of the HTV-5 cargo ship launch direct from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which built and launched the spacecraft.

If all goes according to plan, the cargo ship will arrive at the space station early Monday morning (Aug. 24). Astronauts aboard the orbiting lab can then begin offloading HTV-5's 6 tons (5.5 metric tons) of food, water, scientific gear and other supplies. [Japan's Robotic Space Station Cargo Ship Fleet in Pictures (Photos)]

While HTV-5 is unmanned, it is carrying some live passengers — a dozen mice, whose experiences aboard the space station will help researchers better understand the effects of microgravity on the bodies of mammals.

Other scientific payloads include equipment for the ongoing "twins study" in which NASA astronaut brothers Scott and Mark Kelly are participating. Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are about five months into an unprecedented yearlong mission aboard the orbiting lab that is investigating how long-duration spaceflight affects astronauts psychologically, physiologically and genetically.

Mark Kelly is here on terra firma, serving as a control against which Scott can be compared. The two are identical twins, so they share the same genetic code.

HTV-5 is also carrying an instrument called the Calorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET), which will be mounted outside the International Space Station to hunt for signs of elusive dark matter. So named because it apparently neither absorbs nor emits light, dark mater is impossible to observe directly with telescopes. But studies of the stuff's gravitational effects suggest that dark matter is more than four times more common than "normal" matter throughout the universe.

CALET will also measure high-energy cosmic rays, which pose a radiation threat to astronauts in space, NASA officials said.

Also aboard the Japanese freighter are 14 tiny cubesats built by San Francisco-based company Planet Labs, which aims to provide low-cost but high-resolution Earth imagery to a variety of customers. The cubesats, called "Doves," will eventually be deployed from the space station to fly freely.

Today's successful launch brings the total number of Doves launched to orbit to 101, Planet Labs representatives said.

HTV-5 was originally supposed to launch on Sunday (Aug. 16), but bad weather forced several delays.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) HTV vehicle is also known as "Kounotori" — Japanese for "white stork," which refers to the delivery function it serves. Four previous HTV spacecraft have supplied the space station, one each in 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

The HTV vessel is designed to burn up in Earth's atmosphere when its space missions are done, just like Russia's Progress freighter and the Cygnus vehicle, which is built by American aerospace firm Orbital ATK. SpaceX's Dragon capsule is the only currently operating cargo craft that returns to Earth in one piece.

License Plates for Drones Could Help Make Operators Accountable

As reported by MIT Technology Review: So far this year commercial pilots in the U.S. have reported 650 sightings of drones near their aircraft to the Federal Aviation Administration. In only a tiny fraction of those reports was the operator identified—and complaints of drones causing danger or invading privacy will surely grow as the small aircraft get cheaper and more capable.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are now testing a kind of license plate for drones they think could help make drone operators more accountable. The project, called Lightcense, involves a rectangular array of bright, multicolored LEDs attached to the underside of a craft. The LEDs blink a unique pattern that could be looked up in a database by law enforcement to identify a drone’s owner.

The LED license plate is designed to be decoded by a smartphone app, specialized camera equipment in the hands of law enforcement, or even memorized by someone who spies a drone that’s up to no good. That would provide an urgently needed public accountability mechanism lacking today, says Aislan Foina, director of the Cal Unmanned Aviation Research Lab at the University of California, Berkeley.

The FAA is working to finalize rules for people and companies using drones commercially. Many U.S companies, including Amazon and Google, are making plans for services such as package delivery by drone, or drones for surveillance or crop inspection (see “10 Breakthrough Technologies 2014: Agricultural Drones”), but it is still unclear how safety and privacy will be enforced when flocks of drones surround us.

NASA is working on systems to track and manage drone air traffic (see “Air Traffic Control for Drones”). Some manufacturers program their craft with “no fly” zones, for example over central Washington, D.C. Others argue commercial drones should adopt radio locator beacons like those on conventional aircraft.

Foina says a license plate model would be more appropriate for the way drones are set to impinge on public space. “If a drone is bothering people, they’re going to call the police, not the Air Force or FAA,” he says. A visual tag also works better than a radio beacon in a situation where multiple drones are in the same area, Foina adds.

The Berkeley researchers first tested their idea by modifying a drone made by the manufacturer 3D Robotics with extra electronics and high-brightness LEDs (see image). In daylight, the license plate’s pattern could be identified by the naked eye from about 100 meters away, and at 150 meters using a custom app on a smartphone augmented with a cheap zoom lens.

The researchers are now working on a prototype of a special camera that could be used by police to read drone license plates. They are also finishing an improved license plate design, in the form of a tough box roughly the size and shape of a smartphone that packages together an LED license plate with a standard aircraft location beacon and a battery. This is intended as a standardized component that could be attached to any drone, and would keep operating even if it crashed. Foina says he has had talks with 3D Robotics about how it might modify its drone’s electronics to support the design, but the company has not committed to doing so.

Todd Humphreys, an assistant professor at the University of Texas, Austin, says the idea could help address what he calls the “urgent problem of tracking down the operators of misbehaving drones.” LED plates might be simple enough that drone manufacturers would accept them without fear of overburdening their customers, he says.

However, it would be relatively easy to tape over your license plate, remove the device, or build a drone without one, Humphreys notes. He thinks building always-on location beacon technology into the radio components used in the drone industry could be a more reliable way of ensuring that most drones, and their operators, are traceable.

Foina counters that the way car license plates work shows that it doesn’t necessarily matter if his LED plates are easily disabled. “If a drone’s not blinking you would know it’s not coӧperating with the system, and that’s suspicious,” he says.

Samsung Looks to Join the Satellite Internet Space Race

As reported by Wired: SAMSUNG IS THE latest company eyeing satellites as the best way to expand the reach of the internet to the billions of people without access. In a paper published this week, Farooq Khan, head of Samsung Research America, outlines an idea for using thousands of small low earth orbit (LEO) satellites to provide high-speed internet all over the planet.

Traditional satellite internet providers use geostationary satellites positioned much further from the earth’s surface to provide access. The problem is that these services tend to be slow, expensive and have high latency. By using a large number of smaller and cheaper satellites floating closer to the planet, Khan and company hope to speed connections up significantly while also cutting costs.

Some analysts are skeptical that delivering internet by satellite can be profitable.

So far it’s just a research paper, but Samsung is far from alone in exploring this idea. A company called OneWeb has received funding from , as well as backing from Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson. Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Space X is working on a similar scheme as well, complete with backing from Google.

Some analysts are skeptical that delivering internet by satellite can be profitable without requiring monthly fees that few in the developing world will be able to afford. Wireless spectrum availability is another ongoing issue for new satellite providers.  Facebook and Google have both decided to forgo direct development of satellite based technology for interfacing to the Internet.

But Khan’s paper proposes that a new technology that uses the extremely high-frequencies known as the millimeter wave spectrum could overcome some of these limitations and reduce the cost. Telecommunications companies, including Samsung, are already considering millimeter wave technologies as the basis for 5G, the replacement for the modern 4G wireless standard. Khan writes that a 5G-based standard could simplify internet-by-satellite and reduce its cost.

Tesla Will Be a Leader in Self-Driving Technology: Morgan Stanley

As reported by MarketWatch: Telsa Motors Inc. shares surged about 5% in premarket trade Monday, after Morgan Stanley raised its price target on the shares by 66% to $465 from $280 and said the company is uniquely positioned to dominate in the emerging world of autonomous technology and driving.

The business model of human-driven, privately owned internal-combustion vehicles is fundamentally changing, analysts wrote in a note.

“Given the pace of technological development both within Tesla and at rival technology and mobility companies, we would be surprised if Tesla did not share formalized business plans on shared mobility within the next 12 to 18 months,” they wrote.

That could be followed by a commercial launch some time after the launch of the Model 3, and could form the basis for a Tesla Mobility 1.0 urban transport PODS (Position on Demand Service) in 2018, said the note.

“We view this business opportunity as potentially additive to Tesla’s existing model of selling human-driven cars to private owners and see potential for this model to conceivably more than triple the company’s potential revenues by 2029,” said the note. “That is, selling miles in addition to selling cars.”

Tesla’s current fleet of cars are electric, connected and able to “learn” through over-the-air updates at any time, placing the company far ahead of the established car makers and others attempting to develop self-driving technology.

In addition, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick says his company would like to buy 500,000 self-driving Tesla cars by 2020 if Tesla can produce them.

The company is building unparalleled infrastructure for charging and other services, and can be quickly adjusted to a shared mobility model. The company is introducing sensor and software capabilities in the Model X next month that could set the standard for self-driving technology.

“These are early days, but it is the view of the Morgan Stanley global auto team that Tesla may be best positioned to advance the state of the art in shared autonomy,” said the note.

The price target of $465 represents the midpoint of Morgan Stanley’s new base of $319 and bull case $611 valuation, reflecting its expectation that a mobility app will be announced in the next 12 to 18 months. The target is about 81% above Tesla's current trading level.

Tesla shares have gained 9.3% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 is up 1.2%.