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NVIDIA scores $12.4 million contract from the DOE to help FastForward exascale computing
Sick and tired of waiting around for some exascale computing? So's the Department of Energy. The agency has offered up a $12.4 million contract to NVIDIA as part of its FastForward program, an attempt help speed up exascale development. The chipmaker will be using the two-year contract to help develop architecture for an exascale computer that operates at a "reasonable power level," in order to "advance the frontiers of science." Possible implications for exascale computing include the study of climate change, development of efficient engines, the search for disease cures, according to NVIDIA -- not to mention "reasons of national security and economic competitiveness."
Fisker's Project Nina exposed ahead of New York Auto Show debut
An unreleased gadget is pretty easy to conceal, but an upcoming automobile? Not so much. Thanks to some quick reflexes, you're looking at the first spy shots of Fisker's second and smaller plug-in hybrid sedan, heretofore known as Project Nina. Last we heard, the BMW-powered auto had been put on life-support, as the remainder of the company's DOE loan evaporated as it failed to meet timely deadlines in bringing its first EV, the Karma, to market. That could mean the above is a mere concept designed to woo potential investors -- but with less than a week before its supposed New York auto show debut, it won't be long until we know for sure. Until then, ogle at more eye candy of the beaut over at Autoblog in the source link below.
With federal loans blocked, Fisker halts work on Project Nina, lays off 66 workers
Fisker Automotive's bumpy 2011 appears to have given way to an even rockier 2012. A little more than a month after recalling 239 of its Karma plug-ins, Fisker has now stopped working on its second electric vehicle, following the US government's decision to suspend its federal loans. The manufacturer confirmed the news in an email yesterday, adding that a total of 66 workers in Delaware and California have been laid off, as a result. In 2009, the Department of Energy provided Fisker with $528.7 million in federal loans, but according to spokesman Roger Ormisher, access to those funds have been blocked since May. The money was supposed to be used to launch the Karma and Fisker's second, US-manufactured EV, known as the Nina. The Karma began rolling out to market in July, but did so well behind schedule, spurring the DOE to suspend its loan."Our loan guarantees have strict conditions in place to protect taxpayers," Department spokesman Damien LaVera explained in an email to Bloomberg. "The department only allows the loan to be disbursed as the company meets certain milestones and demonstrates results." Thus far, Fisker has drawn on only $193 million of federal funds and is looking to renegotiate the terms of the loan, in the hopes of accessing the remaining $336 million. The DOE, however, is still under intense scrutiny because of September's Solyndra debacle, so it's difficult to say what a renegotiated deal would look like. The manufacturer, for its part, says it's taking no risks, telling GigaOM that it "continues to pursue alternative funding sources." In the meantime, it'll continue to focus on the Karma for 2012, and hopes to revive Project Nina at a later date.
Aptera fresh out of greenbacks, closes up shop
Bummer for fans of teardrop shaped three-wheelers, as your favorite chariot, Aptera's 2e, will never see the light of day. Despite getting the ball rolling on a $150 million loan from the DOE, subsequent funding and time just weren't on the startup's side. An unfortunate prognosis, as CEO Paul Wilbur revealed the company had been working on a $30,000 mid-sized sedan that would have touted 190 miles of electrical range. He's still adamant the company had "never been closer" to realizing its vision, but hopes someone else can carry on Aptera's torch. Those nuggets and more await in what is possibly the company's final tell-all after the break.
Chevy Volt under 'formal safety investigation' by NHTSA due to post-crash fire concerns
The Chevy Volt's lithium-ion battery may be great for a lot of things -- like low gasoline-dependency, for instance -- but when it comes to government regulated crash tests, it's proving to be a fiery problem. As the story goes, back in May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration put a Volt through standard side-impact crash testing, and in doing so, "the vehicle's battery was damaged and the coolant line was ruptured." The big issue? The car went up in flames multiple weeks later, seemingly as direct result. That event prompted the NHTSA to further study the safety of the batts in the period after a crash, which culminated in more tests performed just over a week ago to find out if they would prove volatile again -- simply put, they did. The group recently explained that it's "concerned that damage to the Volt's batteries as part of three tests that are explicitly designed to replicate real-world crash scenarios have resulted in fire." Because of this development, the NHTSA (with assistance from the Department of Defense, Department of Energy and General Motors itself) has officially launched a formal investigation into the Volt to ensure that its current battery implementation isn't a safety defect. Despite the announcement, the agency notes that of all the Volts currently zipping along the streets, there has yet to be a to be a similar incident out on the open road. The NHTSA further clarified that there's not yet any reason for current owners to worry, so long as they haven't been in an accident with their vehicle. Overall, GM describes the whole investigation as "procedural" at this point, stating that both GM has been working with the NHTSA for over six months on a "broader program designed to induce battery failure after extreme situations." Seems a bit late at this point, but in any event, you'll find full details in the press releases from both parties just past the break.
Philips wins DOE's $10 million L Prize for 60W incandescent killer
Put your pig-tail light bulb aversions aside, because Philips has just won the DOE's $10 million L Prize Competition for the creation of a decidedly non-curlicue 60W equivalent LED lighting solution. The company was named the first winner in the 60W replacement bulb category at a Washington DC event, yesterday. It's taken three years to find a winner that could meet the high standards set forth by the DOE, specifically "ensuring that performance, quality, lifetime, cost, and availability meet expectations for widespread adoption and mass manufacturing." Requirements further stipulated that the 60W incandescent killer use less than 10 watts of power, and provide energy savings of 83 percent. If Americans replaced all of their 60W incandescents with Philips' little winner, the DOE estimates savings of $3.9 billion in a single year. The bulb is expected to hit shelves as soon as early 2012. Full PR after the break.
Patch 4.2: Pet collector achievements updated on the PTR
A few new achievements were for added pet collectors in the latest PTR patch today, according to Wowhead. The small patch on the test realms contains three new achievements for players who collect 100, 125, and 150 non-combat pets. Petting Zoo awards Nuts' Acorn. Menagerie awards Brilliant Kaliri. Littlest Pet Shop awards Celestial Dragon. Just as with previous pet collecting achievements (Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart, Lil' Game Hunter), our obsessive efforts will once again be rewarded with a unique pet. We've seen Nuts' Acorn in the patch 4.2 game files before, and the Celestial Dragon (pictured above) appeared in game files back in Wrath of the Lich King, but the Brilliant Kaliri is a new addition. Currently, there aren't any datamined pictures of the pet, but I can only assume it will be very similar to the Kaliri mobs found in Skettis and other zones from The Burning Crusade. One thing I'm curious about with these pets is if they'll have any special animations or Easter eggs like previous pets have. If you remember, the skunk pet from the 50-pet achievement pays tribute to Pepé Le Pew from Looney Tunes by chasing nearby Black Tabby and Bombay cat pets. The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!
Google helps electric car owners find battery charges, peace of mind
The biggest challenge of owning an electric vehicle aside from having to awkwardly pal around with Ed Begley Jr. all of the time? Finding a place to charge it, of course. The ever-green folks at Google have teamed up with the US Department of Energy and more than 80 companies to form the GeoEVSE Forum, an organization aimed at bringing diverse electric car resources under a single umbrella. Looking for one of those elusive Best Buy charging stations? Use the Google Maps database, helmed by the DOE, which currently offers some 600 alternative fueling stations, including electric charging, hydrogen, and natural gas. Now if only it could help us find a good deal on a Tesla.
TALON robot gets declawed, helps Japan sniff out radiation (video)
Robotics experts at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory just taught an old war machine some new tricks, namely radiation detection -- a timely acquisition of knowledge, for sure. Swapping out rocket launchers and machine guns for a suite of radiological sensors, digital cameras, and a GPS device, this modified TALON will be used to map the radiation levels (and create a visual output) surrounding the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The newly modified TALON landed in Japan just last week, joining an existing team of robot helpers already in use in the disaster area, including two additional TALONs equipped with sensors that can identify more than 7500 environmental hazards. Guns for Geiger counters seems like a good trade to us; check the video up top to watch the 'bot try out its treads. [Thanks, John]
AT&T and Verizon join National Clear Fleet Program, thumb their noses at petrol
Thought the Prez was just kidding about those alternative fuel initiatives? Think again. Just hours after stating that the US government fleet would be 100 percent alternative fuel, hybrid, or electric vehicles by 2015, Obama has announced the National Clean Fleets Partnership, an initiative of the Department's Clean Cities program. It's a rather unique public-private partnership, and it'll be assisting large companies to "reduce diesel and gasoline use in their fleets by incorporating electric vehicles, alternative fuels, and fuel-saving measures into their operations." A handful of Charter members have made themselves known, with AT&T, Verizon, FedEx, Pepsi-Co and UPS all committed to deploying over 20,000 advanced technology vehicles in the years to come -- an effort that should save over seven million gallons of fuel per year. Ma Bell in particular will be replacing over 15,000 rides with 7,000 hybrids and 8,000 compressed natural gas vehicles during the next decade, while Verizon looks to use a raft of cars (er, vans) that rely on biodiesel and ethanol. Whether or not such a program leads to the installation of more EV charging stations remains to be seen, but if it's good enough for Brown, surely it'll be good enough for your future Tesla. Vid's after the break, kiddos.
Fuel cells get stronger, potentially cheaper with graphene, ITO
As the sustainable Juggernaut of fuel cell vehicles (FCV) powers ever forward, a group of scientists are cooking up ways to make the alternative energy source more durable and even cheaper. By combining graphene -- think pencil lead -- and indium tin oxide (ITO) nanoparticles, the team produced a catalytic material that is both stronger and more chemically active than the usual catalytic combo. Fuel cells typically use a chemical catalyst like platinum, sitting atop a base of black carbon or metal oxides, to break down oxygen and hydrogen gases, creating water in the process -- thing is, carbon is easily eroded by the resulting water, and metal oxides, while more stable, are less conductive. Using graphene -- which because of its porousness erodes less quickly -- in combination with the stable ITO and platinum nanoparticles, researchers have created what could be referred to as a super fuel cell -- a stronger, longer lasting, and potentially cheaper version of the alternative energy source. Unfortunately, without enough hydrogen filling stations, these super fuel cells won't come to anyone's rescue anytime soon.
IBM's Mira supercomputer does ten petaflops with ease, inches us closer to exascale-class computing
Say hello to the Blue Gene/Q, or if you're looking for something a bit less intimidating, "Mira." That's IBM's latest and greatest concoction, a ten-petaflop supercomputer capable of running programs at ten quadrillion calculations a second. Hard to say who'd win between Mira and Watson, of course, but there's absolutely no question who'd come out on top if Mira were pitted against her predecessor Intrepid (hint: Mira's 20x faster). To put this all in perspective, IBM's chiming in with this: "If every man, woman and child in the United States performed one calculation each second, it would take them almost a year to do as many calculations as Mira will do in one second." Mira's next stop is at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, where it'll be used to tackle 16 projects in particular that were drawn from a pool of proposals to gain access to her capabilities. We're told that these include a range of initiatives -- from reducing energy inefficiencies in transportation and developing advanced engine designs to spurring advances in energy technologies -- and in time, it could lead to exascale-class computers "that will be faster than petascale-class computers by a factor of a thousand." And here we are getting excited about a 5GHz Core i7.
Aptera: no production vehicles until we get funding, from the government or elsewhere
Ah, funding. So necessary, yet so tedious to get. Aptera -- an automotive startup that has warmed our hearts with its eco-friendly, three-wheeled prototypes -- has been seeking government funding to take things "next level" ever since 2008. After being laughed out of the building at first, the company reapplied and managed to get its 2e certified as a "car" by the US Department of Energy. Unfortunately, miles (and miles) or red tape have held Aptera back ever since, and even today, they're still waiting to see if Uncle Sam will be shelling out to further their initiatives. Rather than putting its head down and realizing it's no GM, the company has pushed out a newsletter explaining the current situation. Essentially, it's dead-set on holding out for more funding -- be it from the DoE's coffers or elsewhere -- in order to maintain quality and keep the per-unit costs down to a reasonable level. According to Aptera: "We would obviously love to accelerate the process, but the government has to make sure they complete their comprehensive evaluation and we have to let the process run its course." Bummer.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: modernizing the US national grid, not to mention deserts and pyramids
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. This week at Inhabitat, we were thankful to be able to witness the long-awaited unveiling of the futuristic solar-powered Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi, and we also heard the exciting news that scientists are developing a project that could have us using the Sahara desert to supply 50% of the world's energy by 2050. We were also dazzled by the dynamic "dancing" facade of the Kiefer Technic showroom and this towering greenery-lined pyramid caught our eye with its modern take on ancient Mayan architecture. The world of green tech had a lot to be grateful for too as the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it would award $19 million to modernize the national grid and green transportation saw the first flight powered by jatropha-based biofuel. On a lighter note, this solar-powered wheelchair and its designer prepared to embark on a 200 mile journey to showcase its capabilities. For those of you on the hunt for Cyber Monday deals, don't forget to check out our Green Gadget Gift Guide with our picks for the hottest eco-friendly tech out there. We also spotted this ingenious wood speaker system that amplifies music using the properties of the material it's made of and needs no electricity at all.
DoE forecasts far cheaper, lighter, longer-lasting EV batteries by 2015
Dippin' in a Tesla is an expensive proposition, as we're sure you're well aware, but the US Department of Energy seems certain the cost of electric vehicles -- or at least their all-important rechargeable batteries -- will come down to reasonable levels. The government estimates a stack of cells good for 100 miles will drop to $10,000 by the end of 2015, and that 40-mile batteries for PHEVs will sink to $4,000 in the same timeframe -- both around one-third of what the containers presently cost. On the physical front, portly packages of Li-ion presently weigh 333kg (about 734 pounds) per 100 miles of range, but are expected to slim down to 222kg (489 pounds) by 2015, and shed weight precipitously in following years. Like any weather forecast, the figures are subject to the prevailing wind, but it's looking like average Americans may one day have use for all those free charging stations. Find the full report at our source link.
Fluidic Energy promises better, cheaper metal-air batteries, wins DoE grant
It's not the only company working on metal-air batteries, but Scottsdale, Arizona-based Fluidic Energy may be in a better position to deliver on its promises than most, as it's just managed to snag a $5.13 million research grant from the US Department of Energy to further develop the "breakthrough" technology. While that word's thrown around quite a bit these, in the case, it may actually live up to the hype, considering that breakthrough in question would be a battery that's able to deliver eleven times the energy density of the best lithium-ion batteries for less than one-third of the cost. The key to that, it seems, is the battery's use of an ionic liquid as its electrolyte, which is described as a "wonder fluid" since it's able to last significantly longer than other fluids because drying out isn't a problem, and because it brings with it a significant boost in energy density. Of course, the company still apparently doesn't have an actual battery to back up its claims just yet, and it's not making any promises about when it might deliver one either.
Aptera 2e three-wheeler deemed a car by the DoE, eligible for funding
For a time, it looked Aptera might be missing out on the US Department of Energy's funding bonanza for energy-efficient vehicles due to its car's three-wheeled nature, but it looks like President Obama has now had the final say on the matter, and signed legislation that makes both two-wheeled and three-wheeled vehicles eligible for the same funding as their four-wheeled counterparts. Of course, that doesn't yet mean that Aptera will actually receive any funding, and the legislation doesn't have anything to do with safety regulations, where the 2e is still classified as a motorcycle by the Department of Transportation. For its part, however, Aptera says that it'll be filing another application to meet the updated requirements, and it still insists that it'll hit "volume production" of the car sometime in 2010, and get it on the road for between $25,000 and $40,000.
Department of Energy lends Fisker $528.7 million for Karma and Project Nina
Well, it seems like that sex-on-wheels advert has done its job. Fisker's development of the oh so desirable Karma PHEV and its lower-cost sibling, now known as Project Nina (inspired by Christopher Columbus' escape from the Old World, no less), has been given a significant boost by the US government. Henrik Fisker himself has been quoted as saying that once the conditional loan is in, "it wouldn't take long to get the lower-cost plug-in hybrid on the road." If the company carries over the aggressive styling from the luxury model, it might have a real winner on its hands, though -- we know -- it's got to be cheap enough first. While waiting for that $528.7 million to work its magic, you can gawk at the solar paneled roof on the Karma, to be found after the break.
Sprint nabs $7.3M grant for hydrogen fuel cells at cell sites
The US Department of Energy is feeling generous with some $41.9 million worth of cold, hard cash in a round of grants aimed at advancing fuel cell tech, and Sprint ended up scoring some $7.3 million of it -- the only carrier to do so. Carriers and hydrogen fuel cells don't seem like a natural fit at first, but it turns out that backup power at cell sites is kind of a big deal, and fuel cells are a perfect fit for a reliable, long-running, zero-emission solution. Interestingly, Sprint has been really into this for a while now -- it's their third awarded grant, and it turns out that they've had fuel cells deployed at sites since way back in 2005 (and they've even got 12 patents under their belt to prove it). Most current sites offer up to 15 hours of power in the event of an emergency using low-pressure hydrogen tanks, and the carrier says that it'll use the latest cash infusion to work with its partners to boost that up to 72 hours. Probably worse ways for the government to spend $7.3 million, when you think about it (say, on no-bid contracts for surplus eraser heads for Number 2 pencils, for instance).
Lil' Game Hunter achievement now set to 75 pets
In patch 3.0.8 there is a new achievement call the Lil' Game Hunter, which you get upon collecting a very large number of pets. The achievement gets you the pet pictured above, a little fawn. He's cute, and hopefully won't stop in his tracks when he sees my motorcycle's headlight.Previously the achievement required getting a total of 100 vanity pets, however that total has now been lowered to 75. That is much more accessible for people to achieve, and really requires just a little bit of farming and AH watching. Definitely within the grasp of more people than when it was 100, which would have required more-or-less getting your hands on some super rare pets and/or ebayed TCG loot cards (a subject which some feel is borderline ethical).Click on the above image to get a better view of the fawn, and start collecting now!I plan on taking him for a walk through Elwynn Forest when I get him.For help with tracking your non-combat pet collection, head on over to the most excellent Warcraftpets.com.
