In the transports and logistics world, there are few prospects as exciting as limitless free power. Thanks to Victor I. Klimov, who works as Team Leader at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, solar power generation could soon become a lot more efficient.

Imagine having solar cells as small as molecules and you get an idea of where Dr Klimov and his pals are taking the future of solar panels by taking advantage of today’s hottest nanotechnology advances.

On the one hand, you have an abundant amount of -largely untapped- solar energy which is available almost everywhere on Earth (during day time) and on the other, you have the latest nanotechnology shrinking techniques. For Dr Klimov, the fit made perfect sense.

Based in New Mexico, the research team has achieved something which may help shape the way we power stuff in the not-so-distant future and not just pocket calculators. Technically speaking, for one photon of sunlight, you get two electron’s worth of electricity. That’s a huge leap over today’s solar panel capabilities!

By shrinking the functional element of a solar cell to a few nanometers (that’s a millionth of a millimiter), each captured photon can be made to generate two -or even more- charge carriers, which makes it twice as efficient (or more) than today’s best solar panels.

The good news is that this hot technological prowess could, sooner than later, be available for all sorts of applications since the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, based in Golden, Colorado, has successfully replicated Dr Klimov’s experiment.

It’s natural to assume that for anything remotely located and needing a power source to function, this discovery paves the way for very efficient solar panels which can, for instance, power all sorts of electronic signage (especially LED-based)… or even satellites!

Now, more than ever, a sunny future awaits all T&L companies who can successfully integrate such engaging technologies in their operations or offerings.

Tags: nanotechnology, solar power, solar panels, lanl, klimov, energy

Transport companies all over the world may have noticed, space exploration is becoming a reality for more and more people therefore, countless new collateral business opportunities are emerging.

Virgin Galactic’s sales pitch is uplifting and targets the “Average Joe”, as long as “Joe” has boatloads of dispensable income:

“By the end of the decade, Virgin Galactic – the most exciting development in the story of modern space history – is planning to make it possible for almost anyone to visit the final frontier at an affordable price.”

Fortunately, the Virgin Galactic experts have prepared a little primer on space travel for regular folks just wishing to see the Earth from an exciting new perspective:

“The reason Virgin Galactic has become possible is thanks to the vision of one man, Paul G. Allen, who has taken the risk of funding the world’s greatest aviation designer of the modern era – Burt Rutan.

Rutan’s vision for mass space travel was born in the early years of interplanetary transport. The fathers of space exploration never planned sending man into space on what are basically large intercontinental ballistic missiles. They foresaw that people would somehow be taken up to a height and then launched into space. The Cold War forced the hand of space development. All the budget for space technology was usurped for military development, so the space programme became geared to what the superpowers were building – missiles.

Burt Rutan has gone back to basics and developed a number of things crucial to making Virgin Galactic and sub-orbital space tourism possible:

Firstly, the technology to get people into and back from space cheaply and simply, using an environmentally friendly aircraft that creates virtually no pollution.

The key to Rutan’s design is a craft, which on its return to earth turns from a beautiful sleek space plane into a ’shuttlecock’ – to gently drift back through the atmosphere without overheating. It then metamorphoses once again into a conventional aircraft shape ready for landing.

Cost is another factor to make space tourism of the moment not of the future. Burt adopted a much more efficient, and up to date approach to making his space craft, using composite materials as opposed to metals. The most important factor that brings us to the precipice of mass space exploration is safety. Burt has utilised a much safer fuel than ever before – nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and rubber. The two things separately are inert. Only when the nitrous oxide has been forced onto the rubber and then ignited will the motor start, producing its tremendous energy. This is much safer than liquid propulsion systems or solid fuel rockets.

All these elements would be useless without the final component to this breakthrough – the ability to carry people into space without first having to train them for half a year at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.

A few days of medical assessment and pre-flight familiarisation is all the space tourists of this decade will require prior to their real ET experience.”

If you’re not excited by the possibility of reaching for the stars perhaps the sheer technological armada destined to make Virgin Galactic possible will someday apply to terrestrial transport companies. Low polluting emissions, new ignition engine, amazing safety features, innovative materials and semi-automated navigation can all find echos in the T&L industry.

Although you can’t hop on this ship and say “beam me up, Scotty” already, there’s a cool web page describing what the flight would be like, including the famous 5-4-3-2-1-lift off countdown, NASA-style.

For the readers who still wonder why in the world we need to leave our blue planet, even for an instant, perhaps this page can shed some much needed light on the reasons going into space is so meaningful.

We’ll continue monitoring Virgin Galactic and similar projects for the fun of it, the technological breakthroughs and the somewhat reassuring feeling that the human race is making ways into brand new, virgin territory.

Tags: virgin galactic, space travel, breakthroughs, energy, propulsion system, sub-orbital tourism