Saskatchewan - More Lessons To Learn

I hate to sound negative and say "I told you so" but in fact I did. The fire at the pump station in Prud'homme Saskatchewan showed that not only electrical power grid is susceptible to failure with wide and costly impact, but the same with potentially more dangerous consequences applies to a gas and other pipeline grids.

And we still want to build more pipelines ... 

Innovation Today - Notes From The Road

I am back from Vancouver where attended the Cisco Connect Roadshow event where I was able to get a feel of what they think is innovation of today thanks to the excellent presentation of Victor Woo, General Manager, Industry Transformation at Cisco Canada: "Fueling Innovation with the Internet of Everything". Notes below are some thoughts arising from and illustrating Victor's talk and other sessions.

Thanks to widespread Internet adoption and over 10 billion connected devices around the world, companies today are more excited than ever about the Internet of Things. Add in the hype about Google Glass and the Nest Thermostat, and nearly every business, including those from traditionally low-tech industries, wants to get on the cloud, track a group of devices, and gather data. The question, however, is not if a device can be connected, but why the company is connecting a previously “dumb” product to the cloud. Or stated differently, if a company invests in making my toaster talk to my lawnmower, is that really a good business model and why?
Companies that are successfully adapting and innovating Internet of Things platforms are focused on identifying meaningful opportunities, not just technologies.

Various forms of post-implementation maintenance will become more common, and may change how you deal with your vendors. The Internet of Things (IoT) goes well beyond human Internet users. Some predict that by 2015, not only will 75% of the world population have access to the Internet, so will 6+ billion devices.
Traditional business models focused on the sale of an item, with post-sale revenue coming from maintenance. The maintenance was usually an on-call service without real-time monitoring. Many will still follow this business model, however this model is vulnerable to shrinking profit margins in very competitive markets.

The world we live in is becoming increasingly complex and increasingly connected.
More than 12 billion people and things are communicating today via the Internet; yet it is estimated that more than 99% of objects are still unconnected.
Advanced standardization of communication protocols and the consequent rapid global adoption of IP and the Internet is moving from the information age into the networking age. The Internet provides the technical and human network to connect people with processes with data and things. As the Internet of Everything (IoE) connects the unconnected, it is expected that more than 50 billion smart objects will communicate freely over the Internet by 2020 and early indicators show that it might be a conservative estimate.


Acknowledgement:  Victor Woo, Rick Huijbregts, Gary Audin

Electric Aircraft - Part 2. Solar

PC-Aero (see the previous post Electric Aircraft)  joined forces with SolarWorld  to build the first close-to-production solar electric aircraft SolarWorld e-One. Powered by the electric motor, which derives energy from  crystalline PV cells, mounted on the upper surface of the wings, which charge a lithium-ion battery.

SolarWorld e-One

Specifications:

MTOW	300 kg
empty weight (without batteries)	100 kg
battery weight	100 kg
payload	100 kg
wing span	13 m
wing surface	10 m
max. engine power	16 kW
max. range	up to 1,000 km
max. endurance	more than 8 hours
cruise	140 km/h
aspect ratio	16.9
best glide ratio	33
certification	Ultralight class Germany (LTF-UL)

The solar electric plane generates neither CO₂ nor other emissions, producing also no sound pollution.  This may be the beginning of a new era in aviation history – and along with electric cars and electric boats (see Solar Ship) is an important step towards an emission-free future of mobility.

While on the ground, the lithium-ion battery is charged of the solar hangar.

Solar Ship

Named Tûranor PlanetSolar, which means power of the sun in J.R.R Tolkien mythology, this unique vessel is powered and propelled exclusively by solar energy!

 

The length of the boat is 31 m 

The width is 15 m

 

The height is 6.30 m

Draft 1.55 m

Average speed 5 knots

Installed solar power 93.5 kW 
Average engine consumption 20 kW

 

Surface area of PV modules 516 s.m.

Module efficiency 18.8%

PlanetSolar Deepwater is a scientific expedition by the University of Geneva on the route of the Gulf Stream

More amazing images: Planet Solar Gallery

http://www.planetsolar.org/

Solar Powered high-speed train

Some time ago I posted a little blurb about the high-speed train in Taiwan:
Technology Connecting Places.

While I can't wait to take a ride on it in a couple of weeks, I am wondering what happened to our,
Canadian high-speed train ? 

 

From Space to Earth