Category Archives: Energy

NASA Presentation: Planetary Sustainability for Survival and Profit

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NRP event

Rose Grymes, Rama Nemani,  Stanley Herwitz,

The NASA Research Park (NRP) held “Planetary Sustainability for Survival and Profit”, a presentation and audience Q & A on the evening of December 3 at Moffett Field as part of its Exploration Lecture Series.

Speakers presented on several sustainability-related start-ups at the NASA Research Park, including Bloom Energy, Bio-Vessel (in stealth mode), and Oyokits. Panalists spoke about other endeavors such as the Space Portal,  NEX, a warehouse and collaboration platform for Earth data, the UAV Collaborative, and the Smart Energy Enterprise Development Zone (SEEDZ).

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Flywheels: Clean Energy Storage?

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Flywheel2

Flywheel2

A little known fact is that NASA has a flywheel program. The international Space Station (ISS) is periodically in the Earth’s shadow, so that its solar arrays do not work all of the time. A form of energy storage is required in order to operate the ISS while eclipsed and during peak loads. At one time, NASA had considered using flywheels to store electrical energy on the space station. Like many other NASA programs, the flywheel program has seen better days, but the technology still exists. Much of the research had centered around Glenn Research Center.

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