March 2019 – Sustainable Benefits by Emerald Skyline Corporation

By Megan Nichols
View the original article here.

The Internet of Things is transforming the modern world in manifold ways. It’s making our homes smarter, our stores more connected and informed, our vehicles more powerful, and our equipment — especially the industrial variety — more capable.

“IoT” is a blanket term that refers to the entire network of connected devices, from smartphones to household appliances. IoT devices have the ability to connect with local or public networks to transmit, receive and process data streams. This means that, as a society, we can collect a lot more information about how our devices are operating. It also means we can interface with them remotely to do things like open a garage door or turn on a light from hundreds of feet or even miles away.

This technology offers a variety of benefits, including more efficient use of resources and improved sustainability practices. That’s especially true of the transportation sector and modern travel.

Airports and Air Travel

The IoT provides an added layer of convenience for customers and better sustainability for parent companies.

For customers, the technology can be used to improve their travel experience. Miami International Airport, for example, relies on connected smartphone applications to provide real-time information to passengers about campus events and locations, baggage claim info, boarding instructions and more.

As for airports themselves, the technology can help eliminate excess waste produced as a result of high energy use. Smart bulbs and connected light fixtures, for instance, can turn off lights in empty areas of the campus. Efficient thermostats can better regulate and coordinate air temperatures within the facility — not just for keeping people more comfortable, but also to use less power in the process.

Logistics and Public Transportation

Whether you’re talking about buses, above-ground trams, or high-speed trains, the logistics involved are incredible. A transport company must consider how much room they have, how many people have booked a trip, what’s changed — such as who’s canceled or joined — and even how much luggage or storage space is available.

But it doesn’t stop there. Vehicles need fuel, supplies, and maintenance — and they’re all directly tied to a strict and comprehensive schedule. Like you see with flights, if a bus or other transport is late, it affects the entire day’s schedule.

IoT technology can help with this by providing more nuanced and real-time details about the goings-on within a facility or transport. This provides much more oversight for transportation managers and planners, if not automating the entire field outright.

GPS modules can be used to track each transport with up-to-date stats like speed, fuel levels and arrival times. Bluetooth beacons can be used to deliver local information to customers’ phones and devices, with real-time alerts about delays or on-time schedules.

There’s incredible potential here, and the industry is definitely starting to catch on.

Smart Roads

As you’d expect, smart and connected roads can help manage traffic patterns, accident response, and other related problems. Imagine receiving traffic updates on your phone directly from the very road beneath your vehicle’s tires. Highways and street surfaces can be outfitted with advanced sensors to collect usage information, which is then fed into a municipality’s traffic infrastructure. The system would be connected to traffic lights, security cameras, smart roads and much more.

It’s essentially a comprehensive modern and smart traffic management system. Sensors could pick up the impact of an accident, for example, and report that information to a remote agency or even take action via the network. As a result, nearby drivers are informed of the crash, traffic lights are changed to reflect the issue, and vehicles are rerouted until the area is cleaned up.

The technology can also be used for public road services like tollway, bridge and tunnel management — and even parking meters in urban areas.

Smarter Parking

Imagine pulling up to a parking meter, paying your fee on a mobile app, and then exiting your vehicle to be on your way. Upon your return, you simply hop in your car, tell the meter you’re leaving and away you go. The system registers the open space and alerts other drivers nearby looking for a space. As a result, the nearby roadways remain clear and less congested.

In urban areas and bustling cities, parking can be a real problem for the entire community. It can cause traffic disruptions and delays, accidents, and even dangerous scenarios — like when a vehicle is parked in front of a fire hydrant or unauthorized area.

Disney’s new parking garages in Disney Springs, Orlando, are a great example of how parking is getting smarter. Each parking row has a series of lights that turn red or green depending on whether or not space is available. As the end of each row is a digital display that shows the number of open spaces. It’s all updated in real-time so drivers can find a space quickly without driving around aimlessly. The system can also be used to locate vehicles for guests who are lost.

Supply Chain Management

In addition to self-driving transport vehicles and fleets, various other forms of transport in the supply chain are being outfitted with IoT technologies. This includes shipping trucks, containers, boats and ships, planes and more.

This provides a great deal of insight for management crews about travel times and external factors such as traffic or weather events. As with public transport, technology can be used to make more efficient use of resources like fuel as well as cut down on overall waste. More importantly, it can be used to identify new routes, transport solutions and even operational improvements.

Smart, Connected Technologies Are the Future

In the consumer market, IoT devices can help homeowners use their power supply more efficiently by cutting down on consumption, making better use of it in general and offering several new functions. Smart thermostats, for example, can auto-regulate heating and cooling in the home to make the space more comfortable and also eliminate excess use of electricity.

The same thing is happening in transportation, only on a much greater level. When an entire public transport operation is outfitted with more efficient vehicles and fuel-measuring sensors, for instance, the impact is much larger.

This shows that IoT and related connected technologies are not just a fad confined to modern-day operations — they are absolutely going to shape the future of the world. Backed by powerful data and insights, the organizations of tomorrow will be more efficient, more sustainable and much less impactful on the environment.

Space-based solar power is seen as a uniquely reliable source of renewable energy. NASA / Artemis Innovation Management Solutions LLC

China wants to put a solar power station in orbit by 2050 and is building a test facility to find the best way to send power to the ground.

By Denise Chow and Alyssa Newcomb
View the original article here.

As the green enery revolution accelerates, solar farms have become a familiar sight across the nation and around the world. But China is taking solar power to a whole new level. The nation has announced plans to put a solar power station in orbit by 2050, a feat that would make it the first nation to harness the sun’s energy in space and beam it to Earth.

Since the sun always shines in space, space-based solar power is seen as a uniquely reliable source of renewable energy.

“You don’t have to deal with the day and night cycle, and you don’t have to deal with clouds or seasons, so you end up having eight to nine times more power available to you,” said Ali Hajimiri, a professor of electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology and director of the university’s Space Solar Power Project.

Of course, developing the hardware needed to capture and transmit the solar power, and launching the system into space, will be difficult and costly. But China is moving forward: The nation is building a test facility in the southwestern city of Chongqing to determine the best way to transmit solar power from orbit to the ground, the China Daily reported.

REVISITING AN OLD IDEA

The idea of using space-based solar power as a reliable source of renewable energy isn’t new. It emerged in the 1970s, but research stalled largely because the technological demands were

thought to be too complex. But with advances in wireless transmission and improvements in the design and efficiency of photovoltaic cells, that seems to be changing.

“We’re seeing a bit of a resurgence now, and it’s probably because the ability to make this happen is there, thanks to new technologies,” said John Mankins, a physicist who spearheaded NASA efforts in the field in the 1990s before the space agency abandoned the research.

Population growth may be another factor driving the renewed interest in space-based solar power, according to Mankins. With the world population expected to swell to 9 billion by 2050, experts say it could become a key way to meet global energy demands — particularly in Japan, northern Europe and other parts of the world that aren’t especially sunny.

“If you look at the next 50 years, the demand for energy is stupendous,” he said. “If you can harvest sunlight up where the sun is always shining and deliver it with essentially no interruptions to Earth — and you can do all that at an affordable price — you win.”

MAKING IT A REALITY

Details of China’s plans have not been made public, but Mankins says one way to harness solar power in space would be to launch tens of thousands of “solar satellites” that would link up to form an enormous cone-shaped structure that orbits about 22,000 miles above Earth.

The swarming satellites would be covered with the photovoltaic panels needed to convert sunlight into electricity, which would be converted into microwaves and beamed wirelessly to

ground-based receivers — giant wire nets measuring up to four miles across. These could be installed over lakes or across deserts or farmland.

Mankins estimates that such a solar facility could generate a steady flow of 2,000 gigawatts of power. The largest terrestrial solar farms generate only about 1.8 gigawatts.

If that sounds promising, experts caution that there are still plenty of hurdles that must be overcome — including finding a way to reduce the weight of the solar panels.

“State-of-the-art photovoltaics are now maybe 30 percent efficient,” said Terry Gdoutos, a Caltech scientist who works with Hajimiri on the space-based solar research “The biggest challenge is bringing the mass down without sacrificing efficiency.”

For its part, the Caltech team recently built a pair of ultralight photovoltaic tile prototypes and showed that they can collect and wirelessly transmit 10 gigahertz of power. Gdoutos said the prototypes successfully performed all the functions that real solar satellites would need to do in space, and that he and his colleagues are now exploring ways to further reduce the weight of the tiles.

THE ROAD AHEAD

China hasn’t revealed how much it’s spending to develop its solar power stations. Mankins said that even a small-scale test to demonstrate the various technologies would likely cost at least $150 million, adding that the swarming solar satellites he envisions would cost about $10 billion apiece.

Despite its exorbitant price tag, Mankins remains a staunch advocate of space-based solar power.

“Ground-based solar is a wonderful thing, and we’ll always have ground-based solar,” he said. “For a lot of locations, rooftop solar is fabulous, but a lot of the world is not like Arizona. Millions of people live where large, ground-based solar arrays are not economical.”

Mankins hailed recent developments in the field and said he is keen to follow China’s new initiative. “The interest from China has been really striking,” he said. “Fifteen years ago, they were completely nonexistent in this community. Now, they are taking a strong leadership position.”

Sustainable Benefits by Emerald Skyline Corporation

Month: March 2019

How IoT Plays A Role In Developing Sustainable Transportation