Page 23 - Aruba Today

Utilities see a huge potential in TECHNOLOGY A23
drones to inspect lines, towers Thursday 28 January 2016

Scientists:

“Doomsday Clock” reflects threat to world

BY MARY ESCH S. THANAWALA and uncertainty that the jury is out as to whether the
ASSOCIATED PRESS Associated Press Paris accord will lead to Paris agreement will make
BLENHEIM, N.Y. (AP) -- U.S. utilities see great potential in STANFORD, California (AP) concrete action to reduce a significant difference,”
the use of remote-controlled drones to do the often- — Rising tension between greenhouse gas emissions. he said. “The key is wheth-
dangerous work of inspecting power lines and trans- Russia and the U.S., North The scientists behind the er countries over the next
mission towers but strict regulations have so far slowed Korea’s recent nuclear test bulletin adjusted the clock couple of years are able to
adoption of the technology. and a lack of aggressive from five minutes-to-mid- agree on some important
The remote-controlled devices make the work of line- steps to address climate night to three minutes-to- details that were left out.”
men safer, more efficient and less expensive, accord-
ing to the Electric Power Research Institute, which re- Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, second from left, speaks next to former U.S. Secre-
cently held workshops to help nearly a dozen utilities tary of State George Shultz, from left, Gov. Jerry Brown, and Jerry Seelig after the unveiling of the
choose the best machines for the job. Miniature heli- “Doomsday Clock,” which measures the likelihood of a global cataclysm, at Stanford University
copter-like drones, some equipped with cameras and in Stanford, Calif.
other sensors, conducted demonstration inspections of
transmission lines at a hydroelectric plant in the Catskill (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Mountains.
“We want to start using drones this spring when the in- change are putting the midnight last year. They Michael Shermer, publisher
spection season begins,” said Alan Ettlinger, research world under grave threat, cited climate change, of Skeptic magazine ex-
and technology director for the New York Power Au- scientists behind a “Dooms- modernization of nuclear amining social and scien-
thority, who attended the workshop. day Clock” that measures weapons and outsized tific controversies, said in
Utilities spend millions of dollars inspecting power lines, the likelihood of a global nuclear weapons arsenals an email that the Dooms-
which are often in hard-to-reach places. The industry cataclysm said this week. as “extraordinary and un- day clock is “an exercise in
has been interested in the potential use of drones for The Bulletin of the Atomic deniable threats to the pessimism and PR with little
years, but has been slower than European companies Scientists announced that continued existence of hu- connection to the reality of
to adopt the technology because of U.S. regulatory re- the minute hand on the manity.” The clock was pre- moral progress made in the
strictions. metaphorical clock re- viously at three minutes-to- past half century.” Sherm-
While hobbyists can fly drones without certification, mained at three minutes- midnight in 1984, when the er cited reductions in the
the Federal Aviation Administration requires special to-midnight. bulletin said talks between number of nuclear weap-
certification for commercial users. There are numerous The clock reflects how vul- the U.S. and Russia virtually ons since the 1980s and the
conditions and limitations: The drone operator needs nerable the world is to ca- stopped. absence of war between
a pilot’s license, the aircraft must weigh less than 55 tastrophe from nuclear From a climate change Europe’s great powers
pounds, flights can go no more than 200 feet above weapons, climate change perspective, if midnight since World War II.
the ground, and the drone must be operated in the and new technologies, on the clock represents California Gov. Jerry Brown
pilot’s line of sight. with midnight symbolizing the disappearance of hu- joined former U.S. Secretary
The FAA treats the operation of drones like any other apocalypse. manity, three minutes-to- of State George Shultz and
aircraft for safety reasons and commercial operators “Unless we change the midnight is overly dire, said former U.S. Secretary of
face strict rules for getting permission to use them, ac- way we think, humanity re- Michael Oppenheimer, a Defense William Perry for a
cording to the agency. mains in serious danger,” professor of geosciences discussion at Stanford Uni-
Seven U.S. utilities were granted FAA approval for test- said Lawrence Krauss, chair and international affairs at versity after the unveiling of
ing drone technology in 2015. Consumers Energy in of the bulletin’s Board of Princeton University who is the clock.
Michigan conducted a series of tests over the summer Sponsors. not affiliated with the bul- Perry raised concerns
using its own eight-rotor drone and unmanned aerial Krauss said the Iran nuclear letin. On the other hand, about rhetoric from Russia
vehicles operated by outside vendors to inspect wind agreement and Paris cli- Oppenheimer said if mid- about the use of nuclear
turbines, utility poles and transformers. The utility is part mate accord were good night means humans have weapons and said the
of a UAV task force under the Edison Electric Institute, news. But the good news emitted so much green- threat of nuclear disaster
the association representing U.S. investor-owned elec- was offset by nuclear house gas that dangerous was greater today than
tric companies. threats, including tension climate change is inevi- during the Cold War. Shultz
“When you look at the amount of information we can between nuclear-armed table, then three minutes is said the U.S. needs to en-
gain to make accurate decisions about our systems, states India and Pakistan, a “fair analysis.”“I think the gage Russia and China. q
and look at the cost and time savings, this is a huge
opportunity for us,” said Andrew Bordine, a Consumers
Energy executive.
The UAV system Consumers Energy uses starts at about
$10,000, Bordine said. Sensor attachments range from
a few thousand dollars to upward of $100,000, he said.
But the cost savings are far greater than the invest-
ment.
Consumers Energy spends several hundred thousand
dollars a year to send people out in the field to do
mapping and measuring of its electrical system, Bor-
dine said. A UAV equipped with “lidar,” the sensor
technology used to develop driverless cars, can col-
lect the same data and more at a small fraction of the
cost and time.
“With wind turbines, you’ll have a couple of guys hang-
ing off the blades by a rope a couple hundred feet in
the air to do inspections visually, at a cost upwards of
$10,000 per site,” Bordine said. “We can get the same
results with a UAV for $300, without putting workers in
danger.”q