Up and away! World's largest airship lifts off for the first time

By Claire Bates

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

More than 70 years after the Hindenburg disaster ended the golden airship era, giant blimps will take to the skies again with the launch of the world's largest inflatable craft.

The pioneering Bullet 580 is a 235ftlong and 65ft in diameter ship that can lift payloads of 2,000lbs up to 20,000ft in the air.

It was inflated this week inside the Garret Coliseum in Alabama - one of the few facilities large enough to host the ship. The process took the developers at E-Green Technologies just over six hours.

The model 580 Bullet airship is 230ft in length and covered with a thin material that is 10 times stronger than steel

The £5.5million craft can be flown remotely or with a crew. The company plan to build a fleet of hire vehicles that they will rent out for between £200,000 and £550,000 a month.

Chief Executive of E-Green Technologies, Mike Lawson, said: 'It's slow enough to be used for sightseeing, large enough to carry heavy cargo and enough volume of lifting capability to be flied 20,000ft unmanned. So you have a gift of all different technologies.'

Lift is provided by a system of seven bags filled with helium, while the inner hull is full of ambient air. Hydrogen was used in the 1920s and 1930s because helium was considered too expensive at the time.

How the Bullet will look in the air. The blimp will run on algae fuel

The airship will cruise at a speed of 35MPH, which will allow plenty of time for sightseeing for any passengers

A brief history of airships...

In 1852 the French engineer Henri Giffard made the first engine-powered flight in a steam-powered airship. A year later the American Dr Solomon Andrews created the first lighter than air airship. He flew one over New York city in 1865.

The first fully controllable airship flight was made in 1884. The 170ft airship La France covered 5miles in 23 minutes with an electric motor.

The first Zeppelin was launched in 1900. These had a rigid skeleton and passenger compartment.

During WWI the Germans, French and Italians operated airships but they were abandoned by 1917 due to unreliability.

Britain developed the R33 and R34 rigid airships, which flew from 1919. The R34 was the first to make an east to west Atlantic crossing.

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In 1929 the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin made the first round the world flight. British journalist Grace Marguerite, Lady Hay Drummond-Hay was on board and became the first woman to circumnavigate the world by air.

Airships were poorly equipped to deal with adverse weather and crashes and fatalities were common.

By the mid-1930s Germany was the only country pursuing airships. The Hindenburg disaster in 1937, which killed 37 people was the death knell.

The U.S used airships during WW2 for military purposes but post-war they have mainly been restricted to advertising.

The payloads are carried inside the outer envelope of the balloon, which is only one sixteenth of an inch thick yet 10 times stronger than steel. It is made from a type of Kevlar, which is the tough material used to make bulletproof vests.

Mr Lawson, said:'If you hit a hard landing, the airship is just going to kind of bounce.'

Although the airship only has a top speed of 80MPH it can take-off and land vertically. The craft is also able to hover over an area for up to a week at a time - something neither airplanes or satellites cannot manage.

The craft could therefore keep a close watch on oil spills like the one in the Gulf of Mexico or monitor pirates off the coast of Somalia.

It could also serve as a near space satellite for broadcast communications, missile defense warnings, weather monitoring and geophysical surveys.

In fact its first mission planned for later this year, will be a joint project of Nasa and Old Dominion University, which will measure moisture content in soil.

Mr Lawson said he was confident that airships had a future in the 21st century, despite their bad press in the past.

His business acquired '21st Century Airships' in November 2009, which was the world's leading airship research and development company.

The merged firm has already built and flown 14 prototypes, but the Bullet is their first commercial craft.

'Airships have undergone surprisingly little evolution throughout their more than 150-year history, and this is what makes our E-Green proprietary designs so desirable to government and commercial customers,' he said.

'Our airships are radically different designs that move beyond the performance limitations of traditional blimps or zepplins by combing advanced technology with simple construction and the ability to fuel with algae, protecting our environment.'

Algae is the latest biofuel exciting scientists. It draws carbon dioxide from the atmosphere when it grows and when the derived fuel is burned this same CO₂ is released, making the fuel theoretically zero-carbon. Algae farms can also be created using brackish and waste water.

The Bullet also has a Water Condensate Recovery System, which reduces the need for helium replenishment.

The Bullet's first test flights are planned for this summer and the ship will be piloted by Captain Allan Judd who has been at the helm of smaller airships since 1986.

The airship took six hours to fill with helium gas

Inside Jesse James’ Record-Breaking Hydrogen Racer

• By Chuck Squatriglia

Motorcycle madman Jesse James has broken the land speed record for a hydrogen-powered vehicle, and he did it in a car that packs modern technology into a vintage racer more than 40 years old.

The guy behind West Coast Choppers blazed across El Mirage Dry Lake Bed at 199.7 mph in a car he claims he spent “a couple million bucks” building. He’d been toying with the idea of an alt-fuel racer, but rather than start from scratch — as BMW did with the slick H2R racer that previously held the record — he modified a ’60s-era streamliner to run on gaseous hydrogen.

“I think it’s way cooler to take an old hunk of shit that many considered useless and make it haul ass,” James told Wired.com. “It has built-in soul and history. Plus, it’s recycling.”

That hunk of shit is a somewhat historic machine called the Dees Milodon Engineering - Davis B streamliner, and it is no stranger to the salt. The car once hit 237 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats using a Chrysler engine, and James says it set a record for a front-wheel-drive vehicle. It hadn’t seen action for awhile, and when James first saw the car it was hanging in a friend’s shop.

“I always loved the way it looked,” James said. “Kinda like an evil flying saucer.”

After getting some design help from renowned land speed racer Mike Cook, the crew at West Coast Choppers lengthened the car 24 inches and brought the frame and suspension up to modern safety specs. James handled all the bodywork himself, then called on engine expert Kurt Urban to help develop the powerplant.

They went a bit nuts, building a 572-cubic-inch twin-turbo Chevrolet engine that produces prodigious power.

“BMW set the record with liquid hydrogen, which is way easier to make a motor run on but it will never be practical for everyday cars,” James told us. “The engine produces 780 horsepower and 900 foot-pounds of torque. That’s some serious power from the world’s most plentiful resource.”

A Liberty airshifted 5-speed transmission and a Winters quick-change differential round out the drivetrain. The hydrogen is stored at 5,000 PSI in three tanks built by Quantum Technologies — the same outfit developing the plug-in electric drivetrain for Fisker Automotive.

“It sounds like an iron lung when it’s working,” James said.

James fired up the engine for the first time at 12:45 a.m. on June 8. He says sounds “like a real race car, just done in a non-ozone-killing way.” (Judge for yourself by watching a video posted here.)

By that point, the only thing left to do was suit up, get in and hold on. James made his record-setting run on Tuesday and taped it for his TV show “Jesse James Is A Dead Man.” He fell just short of his goal of 200 mph, but it was enough to top the 186.52 mph record BMW held. The speed was confirmed by the Southern California Timing Association, a sanctioning body for land speed racing .

So why did a guy known for building customized motorcycles decide to go alt-fuel racing?

“I’m not so blinded by the things I build that I can’t see change is needed,” he said. “I’m in love with anything with wheels and a big engine. I hope my son will be able to love the same things. They’ll just be running on a different kind of gas.”

The episode featuring James’ record run will air Aug. 9.

UPDATE, 12:10 p.m. ET June 19: Roy Creel, president of the Southern California Timing Association, sent this note to correct a point in the original post:

The SCTA (Southern Calif. Timing Association) was neither involved in, nor did we confirm Mr Jame’s “record.” In fact, Mr James did not set any record. What he did accomplish was to exceed an existing record speed previously set by BMW. His private timing event was timed by the same folks that time SCTA events and the course was set up by the same folks who set SCTA courses.

Main photo: Hildie Katibah for Spike TV. Second photo: Jesse James.

New Way To Split Water Into Hydrogen And Oxygen Developed

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3-D rendering of H₂O molecules. (Credit: iStockphoto)

ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2009) — The design of efficient systems for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, driven by sunlight is among the most important challenges facing science today, underpinning the long term potential of hydrogen as a clean, sustainable fuel. But man-made systems that exist today are very inefficient and often require additional use of sacrificial chemical agents. In this context, it is important to establish new mechanisms by which water splitting can take place.

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Now, a unique approach developed by Prof. David Milstein and colleagues of the Weizmann Institute’s Organic Chemistry Department, provides important steps in overcoming this challenge. During this work, the team demonstrated a new mode of bond generation between oxygen atoms and even defined the mechanism by which it takes place. In fact, it is the generation of oxygen gas by the formation of a bond between two oxygen atoms originating from water molecules that proves to be the bottleneck in the water splitting process. Their results have recently been published in Science.

Nature, by taking a different path, has evolved a very efficient process: photosynthesis – carried out by plants – the source of all oxygen on Earth. Although there has been significant progress towards the understanding of photosynthesis, just how this system functions remains unclear; vast worldwide efforts have been devoted to the development of artificial photosynthetic systems based on metal complexes that serve as catalysts, with little success. (A catalyst is a substance that is able to increase the rate of a chemical reaction without getting used up.)

The new approach that the Weizmann team has recently devised is divided into a sequence of reactions, which leads to the liberation of hydrogen and oxygen in consecutive thermal- and light-driven steps, mediated by a unique ingredient – a special metal complex that Milstein’s team designed in previous studies. Moreover, the one that they designed – a metal complex of the element ruthenium – is a ‘smart’ complex in which the metal center and the organic part attached to it cooperate in the cleavage of the water molecule.

The team found that upon mixing this complex with water the bonds between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms break, with one hydrogen atom ending up binding to its organic part, while the remaining hydrogen and oxygen atoms (OH group) bind to its metal center.

This modified version of the complex provides the basis for the next stage of the process: the ‘heat stage.’ When the water solution is heated to 100 degrees C, hydrogen gas is released from the complex – a potential source of clean fuel – and another OH group is added to the metal center.

‘But the most interesting part is the third ‘light stage,’’ says Milstein. ‘When we exposed this third complex to light at room temperature, not only was oxygen gas produced, but the metal complex also reverted back to its original state, which could be recycled for use in further reactions.’

These results are even more remarkable considering that the generation of a bond between two oxygen atoms promoted by a man-made metal complex is a very rare event, and it has been unclear how it can take place. Yet Milstein and his team have also succeeded in identifying an unprecedented mechanism for such a process. Additional experiments have indicated that during the third stage, light provides the energy required to cause the two OH groups to get together to form hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which quickly breaks up into oxygen and water. ‘Because hydrogen peroxide is considered a relatively unstable molecule, scientists have always disregarded this step, deeming it implausible; but we have shown otherwise,’ says Milstein. Moreover, the team has provided evidence showing that the bond between the two oxygen atoms is generated within a single molecule – not between oxygen atoms residing on separate molecules, as commonly believed – and it comes from a single metal center.

Discovery of an efficient artificial catalyst for the sunlight-driven splitting of water into oxygen and hydrogen is a major goal of renewable clean energy research. So far, Milstein’s team has demonstrated a mechanism for the formation of hydrogen and oxygen from water, without the need for sacrificial chemical agents, through individual steps, using light. For their next study, they plan to combine these stages to create an efficient catalytic system, bringing those in the field of alternative energy an important step closer to realizing this goal.

Participating in the research were former postdoctoral student Stephan Kohl, Ph.D. student Leonid Schwartsburd and technician Yehoshoa Ben-David all of the Organic Chemistry Department, together with staff scientists Lev Weiner, Leonid Konstantinovski, Linda Shimon and Mark Iron of the Chemical Research Support Department.

Prof. David Milstein’s research is supported by the Mary and Tom Beck-Canadian Center for Alternative Energy Research; and the Helen and Martin Kimmel Center for Molecular Design. Prof. Milstein is the incumbent of the Israel Matz Professorial Chair of Organic Chemistry.

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Journal reference:

1. Stephan W. Kohl, Lev Weiner, Leonid Schwartsburd, Leonid Konstantinovski, Linda J. W. Shimon, Yehoshoa Ben-David, Mark A. Iron, and David Milstein. Consecutive Thermal H₂ and Light-Induced O₂ Evolution from Water Promoted by a Metal Complex. Science, 2009; 324 (5923): 74 DOI: 10.1126/science.1168600

Adapted from materials provided by Weizmann Institute of Science.

California Planning for Alternative Fuel Highway

Biofuels, electricity and hydrogen will all feature on California's highway of tomorrow

By Colin Sullivan

Delayed: California's hopes for a hydrogen-fueled highway don't appear to be on track to materialize by 2010.
FLICKR/DRB62

SAN FRANCISCO – Soon after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) took office in 2003, he set in motion a campaign promise to build, by 2010, a "hydrogen highway" composed of 150 to 200 fueling stations spaced every 20 miles along California's major highways.

Schwarzenegger's "Vision 2010" plan promised that every California motorist would have access to hydrogen fuel by the end of the decade. He has since repeatedly mentioned the highway in a standard stump speech on his environmental accomplishments.

But the program has fallen short of expectations. With less than 10 months until the end of the decade, only 24 hydrogen fueling stations are operating in California, most of them near Los Angeles.

The vision of a hydrogen infrastructure, with fueling stations dotting the interstates, has not materialized, partly because the eager governor may have set unrealistic targets.

Gerhard Achtelik, manager of the hydrogen highway program at the Air Resources Board, admitted in an interview that the state would not hit its 150-station goal by 2010.

"That was a very optimistic guess," Achtelik said. "It's certainly been a learning experience."

The state's hydrogen-highway experience points to a fundamental question confronting any effort to build an alternative car market, be it powered by hydrogen or electricity: What comes first, the vehicle or the infrastructure?

Of the hydrogen effort, Achtelik conceded that the public has "not received the vehicles as quickly as we hoped."

Automakers have developed test models and advanced fuel-cell technology in labs around the world, but this test phase has not yet resulted in anything close to a commercial hydrogen car market.

"If all the cars were there that would be needed for the infrastructure, then the stations would be there," Achtelik said.

Vision with 'hiccups'

Roy Kim, of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, also said developing hydrogen stations when there are not enough cars to serve them does not make sense. The most likely candidates to build the stations in the private sector -- the oil companies -- still see the infrastructure as a questionable investment, while public dollars, especially in cash-strapped California, have been scarce.

But Kim sees reason for optimism, with General Motors Corp., Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Daimler AG moving closer to putting hydrogen cars in the hands of customers. Once the Honda Clarity or GM Equinox catches on, the stations will come, he argued.

"It has had its hiccups," said Kim of the hydrogen highway program. "But this is characteristic of any emerging new technology. It takes time to realize a vision, and it takes patience to get there."

Kim compares the hydrogen fuel cell to the personal computer and likes to reference Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates' famous prediction that he would one day see a personal computer in every household. Hydrogen fuel cells are getting slimmer and safer, he said, and commercial pilot projects have shown promise.

Catherine Rips, managing director of the California Hydrogen Business Council, puts it another way. She said the alternative car market in the United States – with hydrogen matching up against plug-in electrics, hybrids and biodiesels, to name a few – has spread itself outward rather than imitating the internal combustion engine's more linear path. This means the highway concept, which was adopted early in the decade, may not apply, at least for the time being.

"What sounded like a good idea in 1999 doesn't necessarily match up with reality a decade later," Rips said. "New technology doesn't follow a straight path."

Joan Ogden, director of the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways program at the University of California, Davis, says the 150-station idea was a "broad-brush vision" that experts quickly realized was unlikely to be fulfilled after the governor launched his program.

Transportation planners and policymakers, Ogden said, several years ago stopped taking the highway concept literally. They came up with a new image – the cluster – and decided a more doable pilot program would be to create a network of 10 to 20 stations in a specific region, to fuel the cars where they reside.

Shell Hydrogen BV, an industry leader, and GM soon advocated the same concept in a study that called for the creation of station clusters in three locations, including Los Angeles. So now you have, in theory, a developing network in a region where automakers can directly market their cars.

"GM has repeatedly said the development of such a cluster is what is needed to take their learning to the next level," Rips said.

Zero-emissions rule

Crucial to the emergence of the cluster, in Ogden's view, is California's zero-emissions vehicle rule, which goes into effect in 2012. Under the regulation, which was advanced by the state's Air Resources Board, automakers will be required to make 7,500 "pure ZEVs" in the 2012-14 time frame, and 25,000 in 2015-17.

Because pure ZEVs emit no greenhouse gas emissions from their tailpipes, that means fuel-cell cars powered by either hydrogen or electricity. "I'm actually pretty encouraged," Ogden said. "When I started watching this 15 years ago, it took the whole back of a minivan to hold a fuel system. You have a very attractive car now."

The market for the vehicles and the infrastructure, Ogden added, should "really be driven by this ZEV regulation." The automakers have announced plans to introduce hundreds of fuel-cell vehicles into Southern California in the years ahead, in hopes that a cluster would emerge.

"Clusters make a lot more sense at this point," agreed Achtelik, who predicted "bridge stations" to Las Vegas and Santa Barbara, Calif., from the Los Angeles region by 2014 or 2015.

But just who will build the fueling stations beyond the experimental stage is still an open question.

Ogden said the oil companies, unlike the carmakers, are not regulated to build the infrastructure or participate in the fledgling market. Shell Hydrogen and Chevron Corp. are involved in demonstration stations, but they have been resistant to all-out investment for a reason.

"There's some question as to how this is going to take place," Ogden said. "What we really need is a network demo."

'It's in the mix'

To the automakers, the bumps on the hydrogen highway are emblematic of the state of the alternative car market and the difficulties associated with building cars during the economic downturn.

The manufacturers are developing a number of models to meet increasing fuel economy standards, with an eye on greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies like the one adopted in California under A.B. 32. That means flex-fuel, compressed natural gas and biodiesel vehicles in addition to hydrogen and electric fuel cells.

What are lacking, said Charles Territo, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, are clear signals on stations and how drivers will be able to drive long distances. "Our industry is committed to offering the vehicles," he said, "but the reality is there needs to be a very significant effort to expand the alternative fuel infrastructure."

Ultimately, Territo added, consumers will likely decide on a region-by-region basis what technology they prefer. Some regions in the Midwest could see ethanol-85 networks emerge, while more urban areas could see electrification.

And hydrogen? "It's in the mix," Territo said. "Our goal as manufacturers is to provide as many different technologies as possible."

In the short term, hydrogen advocates have applauded the federal stimulus package, which has billions set aside for research into fuel cells and $300 million earmarked specifically for alt-vehicle infrastructure projects. In the long term, they would like to see more public dollars to build the stations, possibly alongside state and federal facilities in highway rest stops.

"There's not yet a commercial case for an infrastructure provider," Rips said. "It's going to take public support, or a mandate."

Back in California, state officials say all this is part of what they now view, in the words of ARB spokesman Dimitri Stanich, as a "retooled" hydrogen highway.

"It's very much alive," Stanich said of the program. "This vision is still there. It's just being groomed."

Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500

Honda FC Sport: Hydrogen Sports Car Concept Of The Future

By Matt Hardigree,
Honda surprised the motoring world today with the release of the radical and futuristic Honda FC Sport, a three-seat Hydrogen-powered design study that hints at the future of Honda sports cars to come. Using the Honda V Flow fuel cell setup already found in the Honda FCX Clarity, the FC Sport is the supercar to the FCX's stately sedan. The stunning design is meant to invoke the concept of a high-performance, low-weight hydrogen sports car. Press release and more details below the jump.

Honda FC Sport Live

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Honda FC Sport

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Honda FC Sport Design Study Suggests Hydrogen Sports Car Future

Innovative fuel cell packaging demonstrates green performance potential

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 19, 2008 – Honda today revealed the Honda FC Sport design study model, a hydrogen-powered, three-seat sports car concept, at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show.
The FC Sport emphasizes the design flexibility and potential of Honda’s V Flow fuel cell technology – already deployed in the Honda FCX Clarity sedan – and reconfigures it into a lightweight sports car design with an ultra-low center of gravity, powerful electric motor performance and zero-emissions. The design study concept is inspired by supercar levels of performance through low weight and a high-performance, electrically driven fuel cell powertrain.
“The Honda FC Sport explores how to satisfy automotive performance enthusiasts in a world beyond petroleum,” said Dan Bonawitz, vice president of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. “People who love sports cars will still have a reason to love in a hydrogen-powered future.”
The high-output Honda fuel cell powertrain and a sleek, aerodynamic body contribute to the vehicle’s performance potential. A modular approach to fuel cell component packaging and the electric drivetrain contribute to the FC Sport’s low center of gravity with the majority of vehicle mass distributed between the axles, creating the balanced weight distribution sought after in sports cars.

UK Hydrogen House Connected to Grid

Written by Ariel Schwartz

Hydrogen power is usually associated with vehicles, but a house in the UK is showing that there are a multitude of uses for fuel cells. The grid-connected West Midlands home is powered by hydrogen as part of a £2 million University of Birmingham and Black County Housing Group (BCHG) project.

The grid-connected house generates all its energy from a fuel-cell unit in a shed behind the house, which converts bog-standard natural gas into hydrogen. A 600 liter tank placed next to the fuel cell unit stores hot water, and excess electricity from the unit is sent to the grid.

The house’s fridge-sized fuel cell unit can generate 1.5kW of electricity and 3kW of heat—including hot water and space heating.

Apparently, the team behind the house believes that everyone will have hydrogen fuel cell units in their homes at some point in the future. But much more research needs to be done before fuel cells are energy and cost-efficient enough to be worth a switchover from natural gas.

Photo Credit: SmartPlanet