A group called Solar Impulse is working hard on a solar power airplane that could (in the future) dramatically reduce the fuel needed for commercial air travel. The zero-emission plane can only hold one person in it’s prototype design, but they are hoping that advancements in solar cell technology and battery storage technology that the concept could carry over to more useful passenger jets that would hold up to 300 people.

Check out this video to get some more details…

Even as a single passenger plane it’s an interesting idea, but even before it’s viable for commercial airliners I think it could be more easily adapted to smaller personal aircraft. There are a LOT of smaller airplanes out there that could seriously benefit from this sort of technology. Heck, I’m hoping to get my pilot’s licence at some point (hopefully before I’m retired, but who knows…), and would LOVE it if I could get a little solar powered plane comparable in size to a Cessna 172 or something similar. Planes cost enough without all the fuel, especially these days.

I’ll be watching these guys to see what sort of progress they make with their future test flights and advancements. If anyone catches someone building 2-4 passenger planes that run on solar before I do, drop me a line!

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ScienceDaily.com has a great article on some work being done by the Finnish Meteorological Institute on solar-wind sails, which could be used to power spacecraft in the near future.

From the article…

The electric solar wind sail developed by Dr. Pekka Janhunen might revolutionise travelling in space. The electric sail uses the solar wind as its thrust source and therefore needs no fuel or propellant. The solar wind is a continuous plasma stream emanating from the Sun. Changes in the properties of the solar wind cause auroral brightening and magnetic storms, among other things.

The main parts of the device are long metallic tethers and a solar-powered electron gun which keeps the tethers positively charged. The solar wind exerts a small but continuous thrust on the tethers and the spacecraft.

Basically since the friction on the ship in space is so little, the force that could be exerted through the use of solar-wind and power generation could be enough (or more) to power the ship continuously for an indefinite amount of time. Pretty cool stuff.

That’s not all though. The solar-wind sails could also be used in the construction of satelites, say those used for telecommunications and such, and could actually generate a surplus of energy that could be quite literately beamed to earth (by microwave) regardless of cloudiness or other weather conditions that obstruct earth based solar power cells from effectively generating power. That’s pretty sweet.

It’s been in development for around 2 years so far, and it’s getting close to implementation. They are starting to plan their first test mission. Alpha Centuri here we come? Who knows…but no matter what it’s a very interesting area of research that’s sure to get even more intriguing and useful in the next few years.

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