Tag: electrical engineering blog

Posted on

First Hybrid-Electric Plane Takes Flight Over Maui

Hybrid-Electric-Plane

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser – In a demonstration flight, the Electric EEL flew from Maui’s airport to Hana and back entirely on a single hybrid-electric charge. The company says the plane is like a Prius in the sky, and it’s the first of its kind. For the first time, a hybrid-electric plane has taken to the skies above Maui.

Ampaire Inc., a Los Angeles-based company focused on electric aviation, conducted its first, 20-minute demonstration flight in its Electric EEL—a hybrid-electric plane — from Maui’s Kahului Airport to Hana and back on Nov. 22 on a single charge.

Ampaire said it is the first to complete a demonstration flight of a hybrid-electric aircraft along an actual airline route. Ampaire is now flying the route regularly as part of a one-month demonstration program in partnership with Mokulele Airlines. Mokulele is one of 15 airlines around the world that signed a letter of interest with the company.

“We’re following the successful path of hybrid-electric automobiles in transforming ground transportation by taking that model to the sky, ” said Ampaire CEO Kevin Noertker in a news release. “By upgrading current aircraft with hybrid-electric propulsion we can enter the market quickly and take advantage of existing infrastructure for fixed-wing aviation.”

READ MORE….

Posted on

World carbon dioxide emissions drop 7% in pandemic-hit 2020

Climate-Change

Associated Press – A locked-down pandemic-struck world cut its carbon dioxide emissions this year by 7%, the biggest drop ever, new preliminary figures show.

The Global Carbon Project, an authoritative group of dozens of international scientists who track emissions, calculated that the world will have put 37 billion U.S. tons (34 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide in the air in 2020. That’s down from 40.1 billion US tons (36.4 billion metric tons) in 2019, according a study published Thursday in the journal Earth System Science Data.

Scientists say this drop is chiefly because people are staying home, traveling less by car and plane, and that emissions are expected to jump back up after the pandemic ends. Ground transportation makes up about one-fifth of emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief man-made heat-trapping gas.

READ MORE….

Posted on

Why The Healthcare Sector Must Demand Real Cybersecurity Change

Cyber-threats-to-healthcare

Forbes – Managing Director of Technology at Health2047 with a comprehensive understanding of the digital transformation of health care IT. We should be outraged and deserve better. 

In late October of this year, a joint cybersecurity advisory from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) warned of an uptick in ransomware activity targeting the healthcare and public health (HPH) sector, specifically hospitals and healthcare providers.

The advisory came just over a month after reports out of Germany documented the first patient death directly tied to a hospital ransomware attack. That’s right: The healthcare cybersecurity situation has now become a matter of life and death.

Healthcare cybercrime such as ransomware is especially egregious during a pandemic, as illustrated by Bitdefender data (via Security Boulevard). But it is now sadly all too commonplace. Also far too commonplace is the seeming inattention and inaction in the face of rising threats.

READ MORE….

Posted on

The price of solar electricity has dropped 89% in 10 years

Solar-Power

Fast Company – To curb our climate crisis, we need to end our dependence on fossil fuels and power the world with renewables. That may have seemed far-fetched a decade ago given the cost of installing wind and solar at the time, but the price of renewables has been falling fast. In 10 years, the price of solar electricity dropped 89%, and the price of onshore wind dropped 70%.

Clean energy has already passed its economic tipping point. A 2019 report from the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute found that it was cheaper to build and use a combination of renewables like wind and solar than to build new natural gas plants. A 2020 report from Carbon Tracker found that in every single one of the world’s energy markets, it’s cheaper to invest in renewables than in coal.

And now, graphs recently published on Our World in Data, an online science publication, in partnership with Oxford University, starkly visualize that decline. Comparing the price of electricity from new power plants in 2009 and 2019, one graph shows how the price of solar photovoltaic power (from solar panels) plummets from $359 per megawatt hour to $40, the cheapest of any of the power options on the chart and an 89% decrease. If housing prices declined at that same rate, Our World in Data researcher Max Roser writes, a home that cost $3,590 to rent in 2009 would cost just $400 in 2019. Over the same time period, the price of coal barely budged, from $111 per megawatt hour in 2009 to $109 in 2019.

READ MORE….

Posted on

The Importance of Protection & Controls (P&C) and IEDs

Power-Substation-P&C-IEDs
Protection and Controls (P&C) engineering and design is extremely important in power grid protection and coordination especially with the use of intelligent electronic devices (IEDs). Proper P&C designs and coordination with protective relaying and IEDs is an essential part of electrical power engineering for protecting large expensive power equipment such as: generators, transformers, transmission lines (TLs), power circuit breakers, electrical bus, etc.
Click here to continue reading….
Posted on

Funding boost to put Orbex on Scottish launchpad

Orbex-Space

The Engineer – Plans by Orbex to launch small satellites from Scotland have received a boost following a $24m funding round led by BGF and Octopus Ventures.

The latest investment puts the Forres headquartered company on course to the first launch from Scotland’s Space Hub Sutherland spaceport.

“Orbex is an impressive UK company which is developing a strongly differentiated and innovative launch solution for the rapidly-growing small satellite market,” saidKeith Barclay, investor at BGF. “In Europe, they are a recognised leader with an experienced team, substantial institutional support, a growing customer list and patented technology. The private space sector remains a key future industry for both Scottish and UK governments.”

Scottish space firm unveils world’s largest 3D printed rocket engine

Lockheed Martin to assist UK in developing vertical launch spaceport in Scotland

Orbex’s Prime rocket uses bio-propane that is claimed to cut CO2 emissions by 90 per cent compared to kerosene-based rocket fuels. Designed to be recoverable and re-usable, Orbex Prime is intended to leave no debris in the ocean or in orbit around the Earth. The company’s rocket vehicle for low-cost orbital launches is being built at factories in Forres, near Inverness, and Copenhagen in Denmark.

READ MORE….