Could this personal helicopter represent a cleaner, greener future for the aviation industry?

There’s almost nothing eco-friendly about flying (bad news with the holidays coming up, I know). And that’s with planes full with more than 100 people all flying together. When you get to the realm of private jets and personal helicopters, the green factor plummets even further.

Despite the shocking amount of fossil fuel it takes to move even a small plane through the air, people aren’t going to stop flying any time soon. So the aviation industry has been working on alternative fuels and smarter designs that will allow flying to be as efficient as possible.

According to a German company called E-Volo, the future of efficient transportation might not be planes, but helicopters. The team recently unveiled the Volocopter, a personal helicopter they say is safer, simpler, and cleaner than normal helicopters because of the unique way it moves through the air: instead of one combustion engine, Volocopter uses 18 electrically driven rotors to propel itself through the atmosphere with zero emissions (technically this makes it an octodecacopter, but who’s counting?).

“For power, six battery blocks power the rotor drives for about twenty minutes of emission-free flight time, with an hour anticipated in the future,” reports Gizmag. “E-volo emphasizes the redundancies in the battery system. Each rotor arm is powered by three batteries, so two nonadjacent batteries could fail and the Volocopter could still land safely. In even more dire straits, a ballistic separation system deploys a parachute.”

“Rich and incredibly quiet sound, absolutely no noticeable vibrations in the flight, convincing structure with a great, new spring strut landing gear, and an extremely calm rotor plane,” concluded E-volo’s managing director after one of several successful test flights. Such vibrations, in addition to a high level of external noise, have discouraged people from utilizing helicopters.

Due to elaborate simulations at the Stuttgart University, they already knew that the Volocopter was much more quiet than a helicopter. However, the pleasant low, rich sound and the lower-than-expected noise level caused great cheering among the E-volo team during the first flights.

Related on Ecosalon:

10 Travel Infographics To Spark Your Wanderlust

Fly The Green Skies: 4 Eco-Friendly Airlines

Solar Impulse Plane Completes First Cross-Country Trip

Image: E-Volo

The post Meet Volocopter: The World’s First Eco-Friendly Personal Helicopter appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’ve all had flying dreams—where you aren’t in a plane or a helicopter, or even attached to a glider, but where you are just somehow able to fly (you’ve had those right?). Well, turns out in my dreams, I must have been a bird of prey, because they are exactly like this amazing POV eagle’s flight camera footage. Yes, this is real film taken from small cameras attached to bald eagles. Sometimes, technology does not suck.  

Enjoy these two videos, which—even if you’ve never dreamed of flying, but have watched birds and wondered what it’s like to be them—are just amazing. Oh, and be sure to go full-screen with them, because the perspective deserves more than a tiny box inside other boxes on your screen. After watching a few times, it started working as a meditation-relaxation video for me. 

Related on Ecosalon: 

Geena Davis is a Total Badass: Proof that Women Over 50 Are Awesome (video)

Facing Fear: National Geographic Photographer Teaches Us How in Scary Encounter with Leopard Seal (video) 

The post POV Eagle’s Flight Will Blow Your Mind and Zen You Out [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

The Solar Impulse could be the plane of the future; powered purely by the sun’s energy, the machine, developed by a cadre of corporate partners (and two determined pilots) has completed several long-flight tests proving its technology. 

Imagine flying up the coast, the sun glistening on the deep blue ocean far below, and hearing…nothing. Instead of a jet-engine roar, you discern just the wind whistling by. The Solar Impulse plane gives just that experience for its pilot; like an almost-silent electric car, this plane runs on the power of the sun, no dirty fossil fuels required. It can fly for 26 straight hours (yes, even at night!) and just this week completed its first-ever flight across the United States, touching down at New York City’s JFK airport.

Ten years ago, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg launched a daunting project: to build a plane that would run on the power of the sun alone. Meant to carry a message about sustainability, challenge the orthodoxy of flying, and bring together technology and sustainability (not to mention some serious engineering) success has come with the vision of a few and the sweat of many.

The project cost over the past decade is, according to Piccard, “About half the cost of a Hollywood blockbuster movie,” a detail that’s both accurate (they’ve spent about $150 million so far) and a comment on what current society finds valuable enough to invest in. It’s also, all things considered, pretty cheap as far as world-changing experiments go.

So how does the plane actually work? Flying during the day when it’s sunny is simple; the plane’s giant wings (about the size of a 747 to carry the weight of a 3,500-pound plane body) are covered in solar panels; enough to get the electric engines up and running for takeoff. The plane is so light that it alights with just 500 feet of runway. And no matter how overcast the day, once it reaches 30,000 feet, above cloud cover, there’s solar power galore. While flying during the day, the plane continues to gather energy and store it in batteries; as the day fades, gliding comes into play. It takes about four hours to glide down to 5,00o feet, using no power (gravity is free). Then the plane can run on the stored solar energy in its batteries. Piccard explains, “There are two ways to store energy: there’s potential energy we can harvest at altitude and the other is chemical storage. Together, that gives us 12 hours of flying time, enough so you can fly through the night.” By the time you need more solar energy, the sun is rising. The Solar Impulse team has proven this experiment by flying for 26 straight hours.

One thing that’s not sustainable about this plane? “The pilot,” says Borschberg. “A person can fly a maximum of about 26 hours; but the plane is almost limitless,” he says, since it doesn’t have to stop to refuel (unlike a human being, who needs to rest, as well as eat—oh biology).

Putting together such a lightweight plane was a task that required all 79 corporate partners to dig deep into their R&D departments. Note that they aren’t sponsors; the companies identified on the plane, including Bayer, Swiss Re, Omega, and Schindler all contributed newly developed materials as well as cash. Since even regular glue was too heavy, Bayer MaterialScience developed one that has carbon tubes of nanofiber, and since temps at 30K feet are consistently -40C, extremely light insulating materials were developed (which will now be used in refrigerators and other more terrestrial applications). Due to the high degree of engineering (this is a Swiss project after all), the plane runs at 94 percent efficiency.

Next for the project is a second plane (this one will have a bathroom!) and be able to carry 3-4 people. When asked about the project’s next iteration Piccard said, “We’re going around the world; 500 hours of flying in April and June of 2015. [Let’s] get rid of limits and fly forever.”

Main Image courtesy Solar Impulse.

The post Solar Impulse Plane Completes First Cross-Country Trip Powered by the Sun appeared first on EcoSalon.

1. Paper Files

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Guilty! It’s tough to break the tactile filing habit when it comes to bills, work, pets, life. Sure, many have adapted to online banking but still feel the need to keep hard copies of tax-related documents, invoices, receipts (you can turn them down, now) and other proof we disorganized, overwhelmed consumers paid up, signed up, renewed and gave.

2. Non-recycled Tissues

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Your ass is not grass and your nose knows. Sand paper won’t go there, happily. It’s too bad they cannot make a softer, gentler toilet paper or Kleenex, and until they do, I pick the less prickly of the varieties – paper products that don’t give me a rash and turn an already bumpy nose into a Rudolph shiner.

3. Leather Goods

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

While we have increasing evidence that it isn’t good to eat anything with a face, it is the year of the boots – thigh high, equestrian, chunky heeled, wedged. And leather jackets are cool, way more cool than fleece and hemp but perhaps not as functional and certainly more destructible. It seems easier to say no to fur than to the hide. Sorry. I like belts that are wide.

4. Camera Wizard

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Are you a walking, breathing Kodak ad? I seem to go through my HP ink too fast for comfort – and it costs a bundle. But it is very tempting to print out images that connect us to memories, photographs and scanned artwork. Digital photography and Microsoft technology has made all of us little Annie Liebovitzes. Download off Facebook or your camera, crop, re-size, print and frame. Oh, and don’t forget the holiday cards you customize.

5. Gas in the Tank

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Commuters are on bikes, everywhere, risking life and limb to save on gas and stay in shape, while others hop on public transit. Even so, we can’t stop filling the tank in our own machines for those times when it is simply too complicated to ride: Carpooling to school, late night parties, camping or other sporting trips, and places where we shouldn’t drive but are just too tired or lazy to opt for the alternative.

6. Buying Books

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

No pulp is just too cold for many of us. This, despite the fact Kindle ereaders are a mega hit with users who enjoy being able to download dozens of reads for that commute to work or time off on the beach. Authors and publishers make money, either way, but we cannot let go of that romantic attachment to the hard cover or paperback in its classic form.

Yes, the commercial airline industry has taken a hit but we continue to fly business and first class as write-offs when just about any meetings and conferences can be done via telecommuting in the year 2010. No one wants to see jets grounded for good, but there was a time when flying was a privilege, a luxury. But now, with the frequency of boarding a Greyhound bus, we round-trip it on Southwest, figuring the fuel cost outweighs a six hour drive, any day. Meanwhile, we await that cost-effective jet biofuel the Pentagon announced it is developing.

8. Non Organic Meat

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Restaurants, markets and diners cite every excuse in the book for preferring Midwestern prime over free-range, grass fed beef. And surprisingly, America’s top-notch steak houses are still serving up factory cow to their discerning customers, saying it’s a matter of taste and access over health and humane conditions. Sorry, Temple Grandin and Michael Pollan – but humanely raised local organic is not what’s for dinner in a majority of kitchens.

9. Replacing Worn Running Shoes

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

The sports shoe industry is designed like the cell phone trade; the product becomes unattractive, unhealthy and useless to us over time, so we do the all-American thing and replace it. I moan each time my tread gets worn down while the canvas and leather and rubber or whatever else makes a running shoe seems to be in great shape. Until we can just replace the treads, we keep getting new ones.

10. Using Conventional Beauty Products

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

It’s the other green thumb, the one that has icky smelly trendy polish glossing it. It’s not like we don’t know the dangers of nail polish exposure and other beauty products we use religiously, but we do get lazy about picking stuff up when and where we can, such as buying mascara at the drugstore and undergoing a quick and dirty mani-pedi at the hood’s micro spa. I feel pretty but my health could be worse for the wear from all the chemicals. Guess we all could use a cleaner foundation!

Images: ibjorn; Katie@!, theimpulsivebuy, Thai Chu, 365mayhem, riza, Ben+Sam, Binder.donedat, Don Hankins, Mindsay Mohan

The post 10 Things We Just Can’t Give Up for Green appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’m not married to an SUV and don’t recognize the sound of a garbage disposal any longer. Still, there are some impure, clumsy little things that are hard to totally relinquish in my quest to qualify as a steward of the planet.  You might recognize some of these attachments as ones you are struggling to let go of, as well.

1. Paper Files

Guilty! It’s tough to break the tactile filing habit when it comes to bills, work, pets, life. Sure, many have adapted to online banking but still feel the need to keep hard copies of tax-related documents, invoices, receipts (you can turn them down, now) and other proof we disorganized, overwhelmed consumers paid up, signed up, renewed and gave.

2. Non-recycled Tissues

Your ass is not grass and your nose knows. Sand paper won’t go there, happily. It’s too bad they cannot make a softer, gentler toilet paper or Kleenex, and until they do, I pick the less prickly of the varieties – paper products that don’t give me a rash and turn an already bumpy nose into a Rudolph shiner.

3. Leather Goods

While we have increasing evidence that it isn’t good to eat anything with a face, it is the year of the boots – thigh high, equestrian, chunky heeled, wedged. And leather jackets are cool, way more cool than fleece and hemp but perhaps not as functional and certainly more destructible. It seems easier to say no to fur than to the hide. Sorry. I like belts that are wide.

4. Camera Wizard

Are you a walking, breathing Kodak ad? I seem to go through my HP ink too fast for comfort – and it costs a bundle. But it is very tempting to print out images that connect us to memories, photographs and scanned artwork. Digital photography and Microsoft technology has made all of us little Annie Liebovitzes. Download off Facebook or your camera, crop, re-size, print and frame. Oh, and don’t forget the holiday cards you customize.

5. Gas in the Tank

Commuters are on bikes, everywhere, risking life and limb to save on gas and stay in shape, while others hop on public transit. Even so, we can’t stop filling the tank in our own machines for those times when it is simply too complicated to ride: Carpooling to school, late night parties, camping or other sporting trips, and places where we shouldn’t drive but are just too tired or lazy to opt for the alternative.

6. Buying Books

No pulp is just too cold for many of us. This, despite the fact Kindle ereaders are a mega hit with users who enjoy being able to download dozens of reads for that commute to work or time off on the beach. Authors and publishers make money, either way, but we cannot let go of that romantic attachment to the hard cover or paperback in its classic form.

7.  Flying

Yes, the commercial airline industry has taken a hit but we continue to fly business and first class as write-offs when just about any meetings and conferences can be done via telecommuting in the year 2010. No one wants to see jets grounded for good, but there was a time when flying was a privilege, a luxury. But now, with the frequency of boarding a Greyhound bus, we round-trip it on Southwest, figuring the fuel cost outweighs a six hour drive, any day. Meanwhile, we await that cost-effective jet biofuel the Pentagon announced it is developing.

8. Non Organic Meat

Restaurants, markets and diners cite every excuse in the book for preferring Midwestern prime over free-range, grass fed beef. And surprisingly, America’s top-notch steak houses are still serving up factory cow to their discerning customers, saying it’s a matter of taste and access over health and humane conditions. Sorry, Temple Grandin and Michael Pollan – but humanely raised local organic is not what’s for dinner in a majority of kitchens.

9. Replacing Worn Running Shoes

The sports shoe industry is designed like the cell phone trade; the product becomes unattractive, unhealthy and useless to us over time, so we do the all-American thing and replace it. I moan each time my tread gets worn down while the canvas and leather and rubber or whatever else makes a running shoe seems to be in great shape. Until we can just replace the treads, we keep getting new ones.

10. Using Conventional Beauty Products

It’s the other green thumb, the one that has icky smelly trendy polish glossing it. It’s not like we don’t know the dangers of nail polish exposure and other beauty products we use religiously, but we do get lazy about picking stuff up when and where we can, such as buying mascara at the drugstore and undergoing a quick and dirty mani-pedi at the hood’s micro spa. I feel pretty but my health could be worse for the wear from all the chemicals. Guess we all could use a cleaner foundation!

Images: ibjorn; Katie@!, theimpulsivebuy, Thai Chu, 365mayhem, riza, Ben+Sam, Binder.donedat, Don Hankins, Mindsay Mohan

The post 10 Things We Just Can’t Give Up for Green appeared first on EcoSalon.

Aviation and space exploration suck – fossil fuel that is. Not to mention clean air, and quiet habitat. Can these industries, so essential to global scientific and economic progress, go green? The race is definitely on.

Offering hope, inspiring blog posts and tweets-a-plenty over the past two weeks were the test flight of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, which burns 20% less fuel than other passenger planes of its approximate size, and the unveiling of the world’s first, commercial passenger space craft, the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) by Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites. SS2 is reportedly more fuel efficient than NASA’s spacecraft.

But such breakthroughs are just the start of what’s possible, in terms of fuel efficiency and other environmental advances, says Joe Parrish, vice president of research and development for Aurora Flight Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Aurora makes innovative aerospace products, including unmanned space vehicles, planes that can fit in your pocket, and planes with a 500-foot wingspan that can stay aloft for five years.

Working on the NASA N+3 “future commercial flight program” with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), and the engine technology firm Pratt & Whitney, Aurora Flight Services’ research showed, in preliminary results, “that as much as 40% fuel reduction can be achieved through reduced cruise speed and redesign of aircraft,” Parrish reported.

In other words – a makeover and taking it easy!?

“You can’t take an existing aircraft and just reduce its speed to realize these environmental benefits. It’s not a matter of pulling back the throttle. But the redesigned aircraft does not look totally different from the old,” Parrish notes.

The more fuel efficient flying machine Aurora researchers envision (illustration, above) would be designed to cruise at mach 0.72 instead of the industry standard of mach 0.8. It would not have to use composite materials (which are lighter weight and used in the newly tested Boeing 787 Dreamliner) but it could use conventional aluminum and manufacturing technology, while still saving substantial amounts of fuel.

25% of costs for a typical airliner are spent on fuel, studies show. So the environmental benefits should deliver economic benefits, too.

Can the same efficiencies apply to space travel and space ships? As an industry, commercial space travel is too nascent to “go green,” Parrish says. But it is starting with a very ecological-minded entrepreneur, Richard Branson, along with pioneering spacecraft designer Burt Rutan. Branson famously supported and financed the development of alternative, renewable energy and signed the Clinton Global Initiative in 2006.

A report out on Wednesday (Dec. 16, 2009) from the American Lung Association showed “sixty percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels,” even with new laws in place attempting to regulate and improve air quality. Every little bit of petroleum saved, and greenhouse gas emission avoided, helps.

Read up on the Boeing 787, and the SpaceshipTwo, and make your wishes for greener commercial and space flight known.

Basic Reading:

“With more than 300 future passengers already putting up the $200,000 for a seat on SpaceShipTwo, there appears to be a strong demand for the rides to the blackness of space…” – Wired.com

“Boeing’s first new aircraft for ten years represents a radical departure for the manufacturer, eschewing traditional aircraft materials in favour of composites, in the pursuit of efficiency and lightness. If the composites, comprising 50% of the aircraft by weight, do not perform as expected, major headaches could emerge.”- Center for Asia Pacific Aviation

“The [Boeing 787] Dreamliner will offer greater efficiency for airlines”¦ The plane [should] use 20% less fuel than today’s aircraft of comparable size, provide up to 45% more cargo capacity and include a new interior environment with cleaner air, larger windows, more stowage space, improved lighting and other conveniences.”- AviationRecord.com

Further Resources:

A NasaWatch blog entry in anticipation of the roll out of SpaceShipTwo, entitled “Big Party in the Mojave Tonight”

A blog entry at UniverseToday that includes photos and a video tour of the six-passenger vehicle, the SpaceShipTwo

A story in the New York Times entitled “A Takeoff and Hope for Boeing”

The official home page of N.A.S.A., the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the U.S. Government

Image: Aurora

This is the latest installment of EcoMeme, a column featuring eco news, tech and business highlights by columnist Lora Kolodny.

The post EcoMeme: The Future of Flight, Fuel Efficient? appeared first on EcoSalon.