I’ve started a number of companies in my career, in several different industries. While I took my Ph.D. in theoretical physics, I’m a pretty applied guy—I tend to look for new ways to solve problems. In addition to being a physicist, I’m also a private pilot with more than 7,000 hours of flying time. I’ve flown a number of different planes over the years. A multi-engine plane, of course, has the advantage of allowing a pilot to continue flying if one engine fails, but the vast majority of private pilots fly single-engine planes. I began to wonder if there was a way to design an engine that is both light and fuel efficient so that two could be ganged together to drive a single prop, Continue reading
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Reducing Fuel Consumption in Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles
Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles use 26% of all U.S. transportation liquid fuels. That’s expected to increase at least until 2035, according to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Also of concern are the greenhouse gases emitted by these trucks, begging the question: what can we do about it?
In 2008, I was asked, along with 18 other committee members from academia and industry, to participate in a study on how to improve fuel economy in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. Continue reading