Fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are huge priorities in the aviation industry. Take the Boeing 747, which guzzles somewhere around a gallon of jet fuel per second - it's clear that even a small improvement in fuel consumption can make a huge difference to costs at the end of a long-haul flight. In fact, 6% improvement would be about 600,000 gallons of fuel per year, per 747 aircraft.

The Minix device sits at the tip of an aircraft's wing as a replacement to the vertical or tilted winglets now common on many craft. Its primary purpose is to smooth out and negate the high-pressure spiral vortices that form when a plane is in motion as the high-speed airflow struggles to deal with the complex pressure differences in the area where the wing terminates.

These vortices not only create a significant amount of drag on the aircraft, they create a turbulent and occasionally dangerous pressure wake that can interfere with other planes that pass through the same airspace.

The Minix wing tip can be retrofitted to any aircraft wing and the developer claims that prototype testing has shown a 6% gain in drag efficiency at Mach 0.8 - the typical speed of an airliner.

The concept is to create a bond like a family member by naming the car something familiar like "Ben".

The vehicle is smaller than a Fiat 500 and packs space for four adults. The vehicle is propelled by in-wheel electric hub motors that get their juice from a 300V lithium-ion battery. The 30KW electric motors are coupled with in-wheel active shockers to make your green ride more comfortable.

For a few more pictures and not much more information, follow the related link below.

As you can tell, it has been a slow news week for environmental goodies. As for the oil spill, it is very disheartening and you don't need me re-posting all the updates available web wide.

As for this title, I just read an article that makes the statement that an iPhone can charge an electric vehicle and read the article to try and figure out what they really meant. Clearly this title is misleading.

From the article:
"Take it with you, and it can provide information on your car's battery state of charge, expected completion time, and location of charging stations. Forget where your car is parked, and it can find it for you."

Nowhere does that imply the transfer of power from the iPhone to the car for the sake of "charging" the car. Has iPhone become such a buzzword that people feel a need to use it in descriptions of everything? I really think a stretch like this is evidence to the need for better communication. The device is a phone, the name is to make it personal. I personally carry a my-phone and so do 99% of the people I know. Just because my-phone can give me directions turn by turn, look up charging or filling stations and a host of other good stuff doesn't mean it is a magic device.

Lets focus on getting electric cars, solar power, wind power, geothermal and tidal power as mainstream. These are worth pursuing without any need to squeeze the name of a phone into the mix.

Well, it has come up again. Solar panel efficiency is claimed to have jumped a big step forward. I will simply give you the link to the article I read and prepare you with the following thought:

This particular statement in the article is very important; "The next step is to construct solar cells with quantum dots and study them. But one big problem still remains: "Hot" electrons also lose their energy in titanium dioxide. New solar cell designs will be needed to eliminate this loss, the researchers said."

Note the statement identifies the loss of all of the gained energy into the titanium dioxide.

Follow the related link below to read more.

I think the media is quick to sensationalize anything they can, even at the detriment of the environment, society and economy. They are a big "for profit" business after all. I spent some time finding out about the invention and I think this linked video will be the most revealing.

Kevin Costner did not invent the tech. He had vision and made it better. His passion inspired him to spend $25MM on the project. Listen closely to the first 30 seconds of the video for the bulk of information.

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