Nuclear waste battery to last hundreds of years

Nuclear waste from nuclear power plants is a huge problem for humanity. In current practice, although it is produced in industrial quantities, it is also stored at huge cost, usually in bunker-like underground reinforced concrete sarcophagi. A company is now producing batteries from this hazardous waste to be used in all kinds of vehicles, cars, electric aircraft, etc.

New solid state battery is cheap and energy-rich

The new energy storage combines two subgroups of battery development: solid-state electrolyte with an anode made entirely of silicon. The result is a highly energy-dense, cheap and durable battery that can be used as a grid storage device in the same way as in electric cars and the electric aircraft that are being developed.

Airbus tests auxiliary electric drive

Airbus Helicopters has started trials of a backup electric propulsion system on the H130, which serves as the company’s flight laboratory. The project, which is supported by the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC), aims to improve the flight safety of single-engine helicopters in the event of a power failure.

Special-purpose flying car

A company has developed a flapping fan to power flying cars. A special turret fan has been developed by Volerian to prove that propellers are not the only way to power a flying car. From Airbus to NASA to Germany’s Volocopter, there are many companies and organisations aiming to modernise aviation. This is what the US company Volerian is trying to do, but the company is thinking of a very unique solution.

The world’s smallest flying structure

The “winged microchip” is the smallest flying device built by humans and has a wide range of applications. One of the properties of plants is that they cannot move. However, they need to find a way to spread their seeds over as large an area as possible, and evolution has developed many ways of making them fly – just think of the dandelion’s flying hairs or the maple leaf.