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Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research (HYPER) Laboratory Cool. Fuel.

Seattle is waking up to hydrogen’s future in the Northwest

The Seattle Times recently posted a user testimony of the Hyundai Tucson hydrogen fuel cell vehicle:

http://blog.nwautos.com/2015/05/hydrogen_headway_roadblocks_to_fuel-cell_cars_are_vanishing.html#.VV7e4zIPTuk.mailto

Sadly, the closest fueling station to Seattle is in San Francisco. Let’s take this moment and think about Seattle’s commute and the zero-emission options.

Seattle's Electrified buses

Downtown Seattle is extensively electrified for trolley buses. Aside from the mountain of copper it took to run the wires, that’s great for the environment, not so great for tourism or the pocket book. Electrification of just Seattle … » More …

Spread the word!

Last Friday I sent the following message to all students, faculty, and staff in the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture at WSU:

It is my pleasure to announce the formation of WSU’s H2Refuel team. The team is competing for a Department of Energy $1 million prize competition to develop an in-home or community based hydrogen vehicle refueling system.

We will leverage our prior win in the 2014 Hydrogen Student Design Competition to develop a drop-in hydrogen refueling station, 2nd place in the 2012 Hydrogen Student Design Challenge to generate heat, hydrogen, and power for the local … » More …

HYPER lab partners with Ultramet to win NASA 2015 SBIR Phase 1 award

NASA announced the winners of the 2015 SBIR Phase 1 competition. We partnered with Matthew Wright of Ultramet, an advanced material solutions company based in Pacoima CA, to win the Cryogenic Fluid Management for In-Space Transportation sub-topic with a proposal titled, “Parahydrogen-Orthohydrogen Catalytic Conversion for Cryogenic Propellant Passive Heat Shielding.”  As stated in the citation abstract, “The Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research (HYPER) laboratory at Washington State University (WSU) recently demonstrated a Cryocatalysis Hydrogen Experiment Facility (CHEF) to characterize parahydrogen-orthohydrogen catalysts for passive heat shielding.” This work builds off of Ron Bliesner’s graduate work during his Master’s Thesis that eventually built CHEF.

A hydrogen economy for Jefferson County Washington

Jefferson County Washington is embracing their sustainable energy future. I recently gave a presentation at their Clean Energy luncheon in Port Townsend and was both proud and amazed by the level of engagement combined with a sense of urgency from the community. Video from the full talk starts at 5:00 here: http://porttownsendmedia.com//energy/Leachman.php A major part of humanities sustainable energy future will rely on local county and community efforts to work together for mutual benefit. Good luck Jefferson County!

UK report quantifies need for cryogenics research

A report by the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom was just released that emphasizes and quantifies the benefit of cryogenics to the UK economy. Here are a few statistics from the full report:

-Total direct and indirect annual contributions to UK economy is $492 million.

-Between $2.4-$5 billion generated in next 10 years.

To place this into context, the US economy is 2.5 times the size of the UK’s. If it scales, that could mean $1.5 billion/year generated in the US from a field that produces less than a handful of graduate engineers/year across the US. NASA and other … » More …

My opinion on great AND informative poster design

I was a first year Ph.D. student when I created my first original research poster. In engineering we’re always surrounded by these posters attempting to communicate our research as they are akin to wallpaper in the common hallways. That’s why I spent way too much time on it. I was so frustrated with how typical and common the legalistic design meme of these posters was that I wanted to break the mold. I wanted to create a visual that would stop people in their tracks outside the lab and stand alone, i.e. would tell the story without … » More …

The performance of the instructor is…

… increasingly a difficult question to answer.

I’ve flipped both of my classes to varying degrees this semester. As one of my seniors in Applied Rocket Design put it, “Many professors say they’ve flipped a class, but most of what we students actually do remains the same. You’ve forced things to be very different and that in itself has been valuable.”

I replaced faculty structured lectures with student team originated design reviews… let’s be clear, the students decide what aspect of their rocket designs to present about for ~40 minutes, examples are posted under the teaching link. Feedback/scores come from their peers via an online … » More …

The TFRB renovation begins!

We kicked off the renovations of TFRB suites 113 and 108 began yesterday. The spaces previously held a wood shop and furniture studio. While it’s difficult to imagine the future from the pictures below, let me just say we’re excited! We’ll definitely give the cryogenics labs at Wisconsin and MIT a run for their money on low-stakes innovation spaces.

Remember the plan is to merge an outdoor hydrogen testing area with high bay fab area, helium liquefier, student design space, and library.

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