HALF POWER ROOF: The roof of Blackfriars train station on a bridge over the River Thames in London will be covered in more than 4,400 photovoltaic solar panels. The bridge itself was built in 1886, but the station's being upgraded. The 6,000 square metres of solar panels will generate an estimated 900,000kWh of electricity every year, providing 50% of the station's energy. Shiny. More info at Panasonic.
LOCKED AND FLOATED: Quantum Locking is a new term to learn. It describes a phenomenon that will astonish you once you see its effects. Scientists at Tel Aviv University in Israel wrapped a thin superconductor around a crystal sapphire wafer and then froze it. Tiny imperfections allowed some magnetic forces through the superconductor in magnetic channels called flux tubes. The flux tubes lock the magnetic field in all three dimensions. That all sounds pretty dry, but what it means is a disc that can levitate in a locked orientation. Tilt it and send it on a journey floating above a magnetic disc and it will fly around without wobbling. Still sounds dull? Watch the video and you'll see why it's so amazing. It's OK to be smart. More details here and video here.
ZOMBIE ARRAY: With satellites crashing to Earth all over the place these days it's a good thing DARPA are thinking about cleaning up in space. Their idea is to turn some of the orbiting junk into a zombie antenna array. The Phoenix system will put a Tender satellite into the graveyard zone to pick apart dead satellites, focusing on the antennas. Once the antenna is free, the Tender will attach it to a Satlet that acts as a new controller. The device is then guided into a useful orbit as part of a communications farm. But what about the rest of the dead satellite? Does it just stay up there till it crashes too? Wired has more.
SQUARE SAIL IN SPACE: For a Demonstration Mission in a couple of years time NASA plans to launch the largest ever solar sail. They hope to use a solar sail for for missions such as advanced geostorm warnings, economic orbital debris removal, and deep space exploration. They plan to test a sail 38 metres by 38 metres, along with testing navigation features such as attitude control. At least if it all comes crashing back to Earth a sail should burn up on re-entry. Nasa has details.
COOL CARS: What colour's your car (if you have one)? The right colour could reduce the car's fuel consumption. The Berkeley Lab Environmental Energy Technologies Division in the USA studied the effects of car colour on heating from the sun. They found that using paint that reflected more of the sun's rays would keep a car cooler, meaning the air conditioner wasn't needed so much. A smaller air conditioner draws less power, increasing fuel economy and reducing CO2 emissions. You could also maybe try opening windows and putting shades on windows while the car's parked folks. More details at the US Environmental Energy Technologies Division.
