Five Dozen Put FIRST in Gear
by Harry Hutchinson 

It’s March, so the regional elimination rounds for the FIRST Robotics Competition are in full swing, and according to the organizers of the games, each team has been equipped with a kit containing 422 parts from 59 suppliers.

This year, more than 1,500 teams representing almost 40,000 high-school students have used the kits to build robots for a game called FIRST Overdrive. The robots have to race around a track while they manipulate 40-inch inflated balls. The robots pass the balls either over or under a 6-foot, 6-inch overpass. Extra points are scored by robots positioning the balls back on the overpass before the end of a match, which lasts 2 minutes and 15 seconds. A computer-generated animation of the game is available online at http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/2008_frcwebcasts.php.

More than 300 teams will proceed to the international championship event April 17–19 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. According to FIRST, there are 41 regional competitions spread across the United States, Brazil, Canada, and Israel. There are teams in every U.S. state, and others in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

More than 70 percent of the items supplied in the 2008 kit of parts were donated. Suppliers who donate materials to the kit include Altium, Autodesk, FedEx (shipping), Gates Corp., intelitek Inc., National Instruments, SMC Corp. of America, ebm-papst, Parker Hannifin Corp., Analog Devices, Bimba Manufacturing, Diversified Systems Inc., igus Inc., PTC, Clippard Instrument Laboratories, FCI BURNDY Products, Norgren, Rockwell Automation, Tyco Electronics, AutomationDirect.com, BishopWisecarver Corp., Delphi, FESTO Corp., Freelin-Wade Co., Globe Motors, Kerk Motion Products, Monnier Inc., NASON, Taigene Electric Machinery Co. Ltd., BaneBots LLC, Bayer MaterialScience, Fisher-Price, General Electric Co., Keyang Electric Machinery Co. Ltd, Allegro Microsystems, Anderson Power Products, Denso International, Honeywell, HPE Automation Inc., Kent Elastomer Products, Mabuchi Motor Co., Seattle Fabrics, Vishay Intertechnology Inc., and WIKA Instrument Corp. Other suppliers listed on the FIRST website supply their materials to the Kit of Parts at generous discounts.

FIRST (It’s an acronym, by the way, for the phrase “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”) sent along a list of facts about the kit. FIRST says it distributed 1,501 kits that held a total of 126 tons of material. That included 18 tons of batteries. The kits represent 21,000 motors, more than 5.5 miles of 6AWG wire, and more than 14 miles of pneumatic tubing.

Wind Capacity Blows Away Records
by Alan S. Brown  

Wind energy had a breakout year in 2007, according to an annual survey by the American Wind Energy Association.

Producers invested $9 billion to install a record 5,244 megawatts of electrical generating capacity in the United States last year, boosting the country's total wind capacity by 45 percent to 16,818 MW. Wind accounted for 30 percent of all new generating capacity in 2007. In the fourth quarter alone, wind producers added 2,930 MW, more than the entire amount of capacity added during all of 2006.

Installed wind capacity now accounts for nearly 1.6 percent of the total U.S. nameplate generator capacity of 1,076 gigawatts at the end of 2006, the most recent data available from the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration. Of course, wind turbines don't operate at peak capacity all the time. Yet the association expects wind to generate 48 billion kilowatt-hours in 2008, just over 1 percent of all U.S. electricity and enough to supply 4.5 million homes.

The United States could have installed even more capacity last year, but it was limited by turbine capacity.

The American Wind Energy Association expects 2008 installations to equal those in 2007. The association says that wind turbine production is sold out for the remainder of 2008, even though 14 new wind-related manufacturing plants opened, expanded, or were announced in 2007.

Nor is the wind boom limited to the United States. According to another year-end report, this one from the Global Wind Energy Council, the world's wind energy capacity grew 27 percent to more than 94 gigawatts by the end of 2007.

The United States' 5.2 gigawatts accounted for about one-quarter of the world's 20 gigawatts of new capacity. This was followed by Spain (3.5 gigawatts) and China (3.4 gigawatts). China's wind capacity rose 134 percent in 2007 to 6 gigawatts, and more than 40 Chinese companies now make wind generation equipment. India installed about 1.8 gigawatts of new wind capacity, bringing its total to 8 gigawatts.

Europe, which installed 75 percent of the world's new wind capacity in 2004, accounted for less than half in 2007. European capacity grew 17 percent last year, to more than 57 gigawatts, and the continent now accounts for 61 percent of total world capacity. Germany remains the largest wind producer, but the United States could overtake it by the end of 2009 if it continues to add wind capacity at last year's rate

According to the Global Wind Energy Council, wind energy reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 122 million tons in 2007, roughly equivalent to 20 large coal-fired power stations.

Light Sponge
by Jeffrey Winters  

Ordinary black paint isn't all that black—some 5 to 10 percent of the light falling on a typical black surface is reflected. In January, researchers at Rice University in Houston and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., announced the development of a material that makes coal seem bright by comparison. The material (below), made up of loosely aligned carbon nanotubes, reflects just 0.045 percent of incident light.

Up to now, the least reflective material was a film of nickel-phosphorous alloy, which reflected three times as much light as the new nanotube-based sponge. The new material was also black across a broad spectrum of visible light.

The material isn't exactly uniform; a slight randomness in the length and alignment of the tubes seems to minimize reflectiveness and maximize absorption of light. The hope is that such material can be used in light-detecting sensors, such as those used in telescopes, as well as in solar cells.

Tire Plant for Georgia
by Peter Easton  

A Korean tire company has signed an agreement to build a $225 million manufacturing facility on a 127-acre site in Sofkee Industrial Park in Macon, Ga.

Executives of the company, Kumho Tire Co. Inc., said the plant will be built in two phases. The first phase will cost $165 million and will have an annual production capacity of 2.1 million tires. The plant's second phase will cost $60 million and raise annual capacity to 3.1 million tires. The plant will initially employ about 400 people in the first phase and a total of 450 people when the second phase is competed.

The company expects to break ground in May. The 5.5-million-square-foot plant will feature state-of-the-art automated equipment developed by Kumho's research and development center in Korea for quality control.

The plant will produce passenger car and light truck radial tires for the original and replacement equipment markets in the U.S.

Established in 1960, Kumho Tire Co. Inc. is based in Seoul. Its 2007 sales were $2.4 billion. Kumho has factories in Korea and China and operates technical centers in Birmingham, England, and Akron, Ohio.

Superconductor Security
by Harry Hutchinson  

Those exotic materials called superconductors—which carry electricity with no resistance at cryogenic temperatures—may be about to take on a new role as practical safety devices in U.S. electric transmission systems. Tests of surge-protection devices known as fault current limiters are about to get under way in various parts of the country. Even the Department of Homeland Security is getting into the action.

Superconductors are tricky to make and costly. Even high-temperature superconductors have to be kept around 75 kelvin or so to operate. That's a few dozen degrees above absolute zero. And that is why they can perform a unique function in surge protection.

Companies are studying different methods of using superconductors in fault current limiters. The plan is to place them in transmission lines, in much the same role as circuit breakers or inductors. Under normal operating conditions, electricity flows through the superconductors without losses. Conventional methods of surge protection—like an induction coil in a line, for example—exact power losses.

Under abnormal conditions, which can be caused by a lightning strike, a fallen pole, or a squirrel making a connection between two wires, a short circuit can create a fault current, which is a power spike in the line. The surge, which has the potential to burn out sensitive electrical systems, causes the temperature to rise in the superconductor, which instantly loses its conductive properties and becomes a resistor. The limiter can act like a circuit breaker, possibly even returning to service automatically when it cools again, or it can shunt the fault current to a conventional current-controlling device during an emergency.

Fault current limiters have been demonstrated by SuperPower Inc. of Schenectady, N.Y.; American Superconductor Corp. in Devens, Mass., and other companies.

American Superconductor has begun a project with Consolidated Edison, the supplier of electricity to most of New York City. Con Ed may place a superconductive fault current limiter in Manhattan sometime in 2010. That project is budgeted at $39 million over four years, and the Department of Homeland Security has pledged to cover $25 million of the cost. Homeland Security is charged with protecting the country from the effects of natural disaster, as well as the danger of terrorism.

The work with Con Ed has been given the code name Project Hydra, and it is part of a broader push that American Superconductor calls Secure Super Grids.

Con Ed's project manager, Steve Kurtz, said the company has conducted small-scale tests and is about to set up a 50-meter full-scale prototype for tests at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The results of those tests will determine if Con Ed goes ahead with the installation, he said.

Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, a spokesman for Southern California Edison says the company is waiting for a fault current limiter from SC Power Systems of San Mateo, Calif. Tests of the device could begin in May. If the system performs as expected, Southern California Edison plans to install in its Shandin substation part of a showcase system that it calls "the distribution circuit of the future" near San Bernardino, Calif.

In addition to the superconductive surge protector, the circuit of the future includes fiber optic communications and a variety of smart monitoring and control systems.

Southern California Edison has a separate project to test another fault current limiter, designed by American Superconductor. The Department of Energy is providing $12.7 million in support of the project.

The DOE is also contributing $5.8 million to a project in which SuperPower will design and demonstrate a fault current limiter to be installed in a substation operated by American Electric Power.

Superconductors for any purpose are still rare in the electrical grid. A transmission company, National Grid, has two sections of superconductive cable in service near Albany. One section of about 30 meters in length is on its second generation of cable, supplied by SuperPower Inc. of Schenectady, N.Y. In all, the company has about 350 meters of superconductive cable that has logged several thousand hours of operation.

Sebring to Run on Cellulose
by Peter Easton  

In a breakthrough for the renewable fuels arena and auto racing, KL Process Design Group of Rapid City, S.D., will supply the American Le Mans Series with cellulosic E85 racing ethanol for the 2008 season. The fuel, produced from waste wood, will be used for the first time during the season opener this month-the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring on March 15.

Consumer E85 is a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Cellulosic ethanol is produced from biomass such as wood waste, switchgrass, or citrus. Corvette Racing will be the first team to use the cellulosic-based flex-fuel ethanol in competition.

The plant providing the fuel is located one mile south of Upton, Wyo., and is the first commercially operational cellulosic ethanol facility in the United States. The plant is the result of six years of development efforts between KL and local universities.

Cellulose is the primary structural component of green plants, making up the primary cell wall. Special enzymes break down cellulose in biomass materials and turn it into sugars that are then fermented and processed into cellulosic ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol, like grain-based ethanol, is a renewable fuel source that can be used in today's cars. Unlike grain-based ethanol, it does not use a food resource.

According to a U.S. Department of Energy study conducted by the Argonne Laboratories of the University of Chicago, one of the benefits of cellulosic ethanol is that it reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent over reformulated gasoline. Cellulosic ethanol also yields roughly 80 percent more energy than is required to grow and convert it.

There are at least two automotive manufacturers that will run cellulosic E85 racing ethanol during the 2008 season— Corvette Racing and Aston Martin Racing.

Briefly Noted

Kenworth Truck Co. has entered an agreement to use Westport Innovations Inc.'s liquefied natural gas fuel system technology adapted for the Cummins ISX 15-liter engine in Kenworth T800 LNG trucks to be built in Renton, Wash., beginning next year.

Boeing mechanics have begun major assembly of the new 777 Freighter at the company's Everett, Wash., facility. The 777 Freighter will fly farther and provide more capacity than any other twin-engine cargo airplane, according to Boeing. The first 777 Freighter will be delivered to launch customer Air France in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Lockheed Martin was awarded a $35 million contract to deliver advanced, open-architecture combat systems that will modernize four Tupi-class submarines, one Tikuna-class submarine, and one shore-based trainer system for the Brazilian Navy. Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin will provide systems engineering, sensors, software, and electronics for the modernization of the diesel submarines' control, combat management, sonar and fire control and weapons launch systems.