Reflected Light Nano Materials and Better Solar Panels

Fig 1:  Albedo Values of materials
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_roof

                    Human built environments have a nasty habit of becoming too hot in the summer time.  A combination of materials that love to convert visible light into heat, large blocks of materials like concrete retaining said heat, and air conditioners dumping their heat into the air around residents.  One solution for mitigating the thermal gain of urban environments is to increase the albedo, or the ability to reflect sunlight (this should not be confused with libido).  Increasing the albedo of an area can be done in a myriad of ways the most popular being painting rooftops a reflective color such as white.  An extremely cool (no pun here) version of the white roof has been developed by graduate students and faculty at Stanford University, they have created a material made out of intricate nano-structures that pull double duty for cooling.  First the material works as an extremely reflective material increasing the albedo of the region that it is placed.  The second and by far more sci-fi sounding feature of this composite is that it is designed to emit thermal radiation in a frequency that our atmosphere is generally transparent to (for people who like thermal dynamics this is really impressive.)

                Other members of Stanford's faculty believe that it is more worthwhile to install solar panels, as the solar cells are generally more reflective than traditional black tar rooftops found on many large buildings and allow for electricity production.  To them I ask ----------------------->

             Recent research has indicated that the snows of winter can actually improve the performance of a solar panel, so long as it isn't covered in snow.  The snow acts as a reflector concentrating more sunlight onto a solar panel, while the cold temperatures of winter can increase the overall efficiency of the system.  Merging this thought with the properties of the Stanford nano-material, which I will call Silver-Surfer for the remainder of this post, one potential design solution came to mind.  Place a solar panel on an easily mounted structure that has Silver-Surfer placed in such a way to suck heat away from the solar cell and reflect a certain amount of incident radiation back towards the solar cell.

Fig 2:  Straight on view of Collector Reflector

The initial configuration would operate as an angled trough with the solar cell at the bottom and Silver-Surfer angling out in such a way that the reflective/emissive surface is maximized without interfering with the ability of the panel to gain sunlight.

Figure 3: Θ and the panel

One critical consideration, if this approach is considered a rational choice, would be determining the angle at which the solar cell and the Silver-Surfer are mounted relative to each other (assuming a non-tracking array). Figure 3 Highlights the angle of interaction, in the case of the quick model Θ (theta) was set at 30 degrees arbitrarily.  The actual angle would be a balancing act of potential shadows cast during day time operations (particularly early morning and evening), increased solar reflection onto a given area of solar panel, and cooling benefits as a result of the area of the Silver-Surfer sub assembly. The trump considerations, deserving their own sentence, would be the impact of cost of materials, installation, and maintenance.  A lower theta value would most likely indicate a lower life time cost of operation relative to net energy production/savings.

Fig 4: Panels on roof top

As an installed platform the array could look something like figure 4, where the collectors create a direct route for precipitation to slough off.  Placing the panels horizontally is possible and may make sense in regions with accommodating climates, it would also allow for the panels to have much larger theta value, increasing the cooling surface.  Other panel orientations should not be ruled out as they could find a sweet spot between dealing with local weather and maximizing the cooling energy generating/saving potential of the system.

One final note, it should not be ignored that in addition to working as a passive generating platform there is the potential for adding piping or ducts into the system.  During the day the system would most likely operate in a similar fashion to the more passive design suggested above, but at night the Silver-Surfer elements could be used to help chillers to produce ice to further offset day time HVAC needs.  This kind of approach would be targeted at facilities like server farms that tend to produce tremendous amounts of heat, even before thermal gain is considered.  Domestic installations would be unlikely to benefit from a more active system as the Gizmag article on Silver-Surfer stated that an average 1 family 1 floor home could achieve a 35% reduction of air conditioning needs by installing Silver Surfer on 10% of the area of a house's roof top.

The Ultimate Travelers Backpack

          Keeping track of chargers is a hassle, keeping track of your chargers while traveling can be down right maddening.  Avid travelers will worry about making sure all of their devices have the right charger.  Even if you bring all of your chargers with you, there is no guarantee that you will be able to grab one of the few outlets.  What modern wanderers need is a travel bag that keeps your chargers in a single location.  Current consumer brands like PowerBag are starting to fill that niche by providing a built in 3000mAh battery pack designed to allow for charging of USB devices on the go, what is missing is the ability to connect devices that might not have the ability to charge by USB.  The backpack shown to the right is an over engineered solution for a traveler's power needs.

          This design is intended to allow a traveler to internally charge 3 AC powered devices and 4 USB compatible devices. To bring power to the distribution system the backpack has a 114 inch extension cord built into the frame of the backpack.  Aiding in locking the cable is an external 3 prong outlet intended to allow the pack owner to share electricity with others.

         As this is a concept design, the backpack emphasizes flexibility over such silly constraints as reasonable weight and pack size.  The large brick at the bottom of the design is a stand-in volume to represent a multipurpose power supply, containing a battery for supplying power to the USB ports, a DC to AC adapter (intended to plug into a car electric outlet), and an AC to AC converter, to ensure the user can power their devices anywhere on the planet.

Walking Off a Moon

One of the challenges of any space mission is getting into orbit.  While writing the entry "Mining the Moons of Mars" an idea emerged that has some interesting academic potential.  One of the "non-traditional" suggestions for placing objects in orbit is to construct a space tower, although most sci-fi series prefer using a space elevator, by creating a tall enough structure a civilization can avoid much of the energy expenditure required of more traditional rocket launches.  For the planet Earth building such a structure would require tremendous advances in science and engineering, a space tower on a Martian moon is a far more straightforward affair.  

Imagine for a moment that for some small rocky bodies in our solar system the song "Stairway to Heaven" isn't just some song that everyone who picks up a guitar has the urge to play.  Under the right circumstances a small body with enough rotation could be altered to allow for the construction of a series of stairs or a ramp that would allow denizens of a planet to walk up into orbit around there world.

Phobos has the most data on its Wikipedia entry and as such will be the source of the general calculations.  

(For reference I am using the equation found here and relevant data from the Phobos Wikipedia entry)  

r is the unknown variable being solved
G is the Gravitational Constant =6.67428e-11 m^3/kg*s^2M represents Mass of Phobos=1.072e16 kg 

ω is the angular velocity of Phobos along its equator and will need to be solved for.
To do this the length of a Phobian day must be estimated.  (As Phobos isn't a proper sphere some liberties have been taken.)
Mean Radius of Phobos=11.1 km =Rmean

Equatorial Rotational Velocity=11km/hr=V
Length of Day=Rmean*π*2/V

Phobian "Day" 6.34 hrs 

From the length of the Phobian day we can then calculate the angular velocity
ω=[2*π*radians]/[6.34hrs*3600(s/hr)]= 2.75*e-4 radians/second

Now for the epic plug and chug

r=[{(6.67428e-11 m^3/kg*s^2)*(1.072e16 kg)}/{(2.75e-4rad/s)^2}]^(1/3)
unit reduction (radians are unit-less and are being dropped)
r=[{7.15482816e5 m^3}/{7.5625e-8}]^(1/3)
MOAR REDUCTIONS!!
r=[9.4609298e12 m^3]^(1/3)=[9.4609298e12]^(1/3) meters

r=21,135 meters or 21.135 km from the center of Phobos

From all that it was calculated that Phobosynchroneous orbit should be achieved 21.135 km from the
center of Phobos, or roughly a little over 10 km from the average surface altitude.  As a point of reference 
the tallest man made tower on Earth is the Burj Khalifa at 829.8 meters, a little less than 1/12 the height
of this sci-fi structure.  Now here's the fun bit, the force of gravity on Phobos is 1166 times weaker than
on the Earth's surface, drastically reducing the challenge of building this tower.  What is even cooler, but
much harder to solve for (read I'm still looking in to how to do the math), is that the tower components 
would weigh less at higher parts of the tower.  I will try to follow up with some basic tower design
approaches.

The potential practical applications for building a space elevator on a small moon deal mostly with

fuel delivery and development of space craft construction.  As mentioned in previous entries and on the
linked Wikipedia articles, there is a distinct possibility for finding large deposits of water on Phobos, 
providing the fuel delivery argument.  As to space craft, that is further off, consider the ability to have a 
construction platform that is within a few miles of its source materials, impossibly close by interplanetary
standards, but is still capable of building in a micro-gravity environment.  That is the potential of a tower
on Phobos.  The coolest part, would be the ability to climb a 6 mile tall building and step off into the
expanse of space.

Editorial Note (April 24) After getting some notes from my friend Andrew Tremblay, I have made some
mild revisions.

Follow Up 10/1/2015  A cool suggestion from NASA to look into landing on Phobos before a fully
 fledged Mars mission, while the ramp makes little sense, building a small scale space elevator, or ideally
 a series of elevators around Phobos would allow future mission planners extremely high flexibility on
future missions.

Hyper Rugged Cameras

One of my personal favorite consumer electronics genres has to be the rugged digital camera, when you're dragging yourself through mud, diving on a remote coral reef, what have you, this technology means you can cost effectively record your memories, totally awesome.  What is slightly less awesome is that the current approach to the ruggedized cameras doesn't go far enough to make them life proof.  The need to have access to the camera's battery and memory modules makes it necessary to rely on some type of ruggedized gasket to, hopefully, keep the elements at bay, a rather large point of potential failure.  In the era of incredibly cheap memory and wireless data modules combined with the adoption of inductive charging for home electronics we have a solution for a stronger camera.

Instead of selling a camera to home consumers where they must supply the memory card, why not have the camera have the memory capacity embedded, general consumers can already buy flash memory at well under $1/GB of storage capacity electronics manufacturers can comfortably add a large memory system to a mid-level compact camera without harming the bottom line too much.  Additionally when you look at developments to create smarter point and shoot platforms whereby photos can automatically be uploaded not only by WiFi but over cellular networks, it is surprising to see that integrated camera memory isn't exploited more.

The battery question is a little fuzzier depending on how a business wants to treat its target markets.  From the perspective of creating a rugged compact camera, having a removable battery causes more problems than it solves.  As mentioned earlier the ability to remove the battery pack requires an opening within the case of the camera that increases the likely-hood of moisture and dust coming into contact with more sensitive components.  Instead of a removable battery design the camera to have a built in inductive charging module, with wireless charging there is no need for the case of the camera to have any openings.  To allay consumer concerns about their inability to change batteries mid trip, product developers could compensate in a range of ways, making the camera as energy efficient as possible (this would minimize hardware costs over larger production runs), expanding the battery system to take advantage of the volume that would have been needed for housing a removable battery system, and finally (at least as far as I can think of) having some kind of solar/battery operated inductive charger unit sold separately (device manufacturers love this kind of thing anyways).  

Wise Welding Warriors

As rapid prototyping technology has become more popular and affordable over the last decade, there has been a range of chatter and in some cases experimentation with integrating rapid prototyping technology into front line applications.   Think tanks associated with the Department of the Navy have put forth more long term suggestions, including the development of autonomous manufacturing facilities capable of filtering source materials for manufacturing war material from sea water.  On a more practical front the US Army is already beginning to test small scale platforms intended to operate at Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) in Afghanistan. These shipping container sized facilities, called Expeditionary Lab Mobile (ELM), house a range of tools for creating solutions to problems encountered by airmen/marines/sailors/soldiers serving on the front lines and are budgeted to operate with trained engineers who will design and fabricate what ever is needed.
While I am a huge fan of rapid prototyping technologies, I think that the Army's current approach to front line manufacturing facilities doesn't go far enough for the war-fighter.  It is one thing to shorten the development cycle for new tools for the front line, it is another thing entirely to have servicemen and women be the individuals developing that new technology.
In countless commercials recruiting for the US Armed forces the audience is told that the skills they gain while serving their country overseas.  With developments like the ELM the Department of Defense has a unique opportunity to provide our war-fighters with an invaluable skill that will last a life time.  In addition to having professional engineers on staff the armed forces should work to provide direct access to those serving.  War-fighters could be trained in the use of the entire fabrication facilities tools, with a certification program that would have published standards so that civilian employers would have a clear understanding of what skills had been gained during an individuals service.  Ideally the certification program would emphasize flexibility, any serviceman or woman would have the option of learning how to use the tools of the fabrication facilities, either while deployed or while working on base.  To promote participation in the Fab-Lab certification program the Department of Defense could sponsor a myriad of design competitions, and for challenges encountered on the front lines.   Officers serving combat duties should also be able to provide a cash bounty for the most effective solutions to their particular needs (preferably the creators of design solutions would receive both monetary compensation and active recognition by their command superiors) .
There is no guarantee that such a program would be perfect, but if the maker movement is any indication, the more talent we unleash to solve problems the better future we can create.

Mining the Moons of Mars

In previous posts I have talked about the resource potential of mining the Earth's moon for resources that would be incredibly useful for larger scale exploration of our solar system.  While the lunar surface has a ready abundance of oxygen in its regolith the availability of elements like hydrogen is far less impressive generally less than .1% of lunar regolith containing water.  While a range of project proposals have been put forth as to how we might still produce water on the moon, including simply shipping hydrogen from the Earth,  few publicly available papers discuss utilizing a multi-celestial body resource exchange.  The papers that do generally concern themselves with mining resources on the Martian surface.  If the intent of your program is to send a return mission from the Martian surface, by all means establishing some kind of Martian fuel refinery makes sense.  

        

If you simply want components for rocket fuel there is no need to land on the surface.  The moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, have tremendous potential for resource mining.  Two key properties make them extremely attractive for export oriented mining operations soil and gravity.  The soil composition of both moons include Carbonaceous chondrites (a category of minerals that can be rich in compounds like water and amino-acids).  The availability of carbonaceous chondrites alone would not make the Martian moons more appealing than their parent world as Mars has a range of potential compounds that could serve just as well as rocket fuel source materials, this is where the pull of gravity becomes a major factor.  Escaping the bonds of the Earth requires a space craft achieve a speed of 11.2 km/s (about 45X faster than a passenger jet plane's cruising speed) on Mars a spacecraft would need to achieve a speed of 5km/s.  For an explorer on the surface of Deimos launching into orbit would simply require that they be able to run at speeds over 20km/h (roughly 13 mph) on Phobos only Olympic athletes would be able to achieve escape velocity on foot (40km/h), so long as the spacesuit didn't interfere too much with their running technique (I'm ignoring any clever use of taking advantage of rotation).  

A mining operation working on the Martian moons would be able to launch materials into orbit with a standard baseball pitching machine (so long as they were only sending up small volumes).  Moving the material from orbits of the moons to locations that would be useful for spacecraft, refining facilities, construction platforms, etc...would still require a certain degree of fuel and that fact should not be ignored.  

If the resources found on Phobos and Deimos a viable quantity of high water content minerals, there would be relatively little need for a complex inter planet exchange of resources, water could "simply" be extracted from the rock and used as needed, spacecraft refueling upon arrival in Martian orbit.  That being said it would not be unreasonable to form a trade network between the Earth, its moon, and the moons of Mars, to provide a range of resources.  The Earth providing complex components, the moon generally providing oxygen, and Phobos and Deimos supplying organic compounds.  At this time there is no guarantee that we possess the necessary technologies to make this idea financially viable, but as more firms enter the fray to make a profit in our final frontier it is important to enter a point of paradigm blindness, where only free floating asteroids or the Lunar surface are considered for establishing humanities foothold among the stars.

Update July 8 2013, so it turns out that this idea was proposed at least as early as 1985 with the title 

"Phobos and Deimos (PhD): Concept for an Early Human Mission for Resources and Science" on the upside it turns out this idea warranted a PhD, so that's cool.

An Overly Grandiose Scheme for Climate Change

Of the wide array of ambitious geoengineering projects intended to fight global climate change, one of my favorites suggests using robotic ocean going vessels to produce seed clouds intended to increase precipitation and general cloud cover.  The underlying logic behind this proposed idea is to increase the Earth's overall albedo and as a result mitigate some of the effects of the greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere.  While theoretically a decent idea, there currently is no financial incentive to develop these vessels, which are estimated to cost between one point five and three million dollars (I'm converting from British pounds from the source article).  Government bodies may eventually decide that geoengineering programs will be part of their climate change portfolio, but as it stands now only anti-desertification programs  are being applied on a large scale (as far as I know, there may be other geo-engineering projects actively  being done, I just don't know them.  Please note I am ignoring the weather modification program of the Chinese government and other groups.)  Without international support how might we develop these seed ship technologies to promote the preservation of polar ice caps and mitigate changes in sea level rise?

One, long shot, solution for promoting ice production in polar regions would be to take advantage of the frequently mocked notion of shipping icebergs to the world's deserts as a source of fresh water.  The direct economics are questionable (but this is for fun so who really cares), according to one article the price of desalinated water is roughly $1/cubic meter, providing an excellent reference for what the cost structure should look like.  Most publicly available information appears to strongly suggest that shipping icebergs is not cost effective, at least when considered as a single product.  What I would like to suggest is a more complete package where a business(es) would develop a series of technologies intended to produce large quantities of  both water ice and liquid atmosphere as products intended for sale.
Imagine large artificial islands, possibly made from pykrete, in the Indian Ocean covered in wind turbines, solar panels, and possibly wave generators, growing every winter to massive proportions and slowly shrinking as the extra ice is shipped to water poor regions.  In addition to the water ice production the islands turn any surplus electricity into refrigerating gases like oxygen and nitrogen into their liquid states, storing energy for a later day.  The liquid gases and ice could be used in concert with intelligently designed regional distribution centers intended for both water and power production.  The liquid gases could also be moved via pipeline to nearby factories where waste heat could be more effectively used for localized co-generation plants. To help ensure cost efficacy (maybe) and improve long term sustainability (probably) the liquid gases and ice would be moved by some kind of smart sailing technology.
The selection of the Indian Ocean is not arbitrary, the region is currently at risk for both energy and water consumption matching ever increasing demands, in tandem with relatively few sea routes occurring below the 60th southern parallel.  Providing a reasonably underused volume of water that is relatively near its target markets.  I have no misconceptions that if my proposed addition to the ocean seeding concept would immediately or fully alleviate the challenges facing our planet, I do believe that by finding an economic benefit that a business could take advantage of trying to increase the Earth's albedo, without government incentives is paramount to long term sustainability.