A better biodiesel process has been developed with no waste products and lower costs. Raw fats and oils of any type are combined with an alcohol. This mixture is run through a sulfated zirconia column heated to 300 degrees Celsius. Easy Fatty Acid Removal (EFAR) system recycles any unreacted raw material back through the reactor. …
Breeder reactors: A renewable energy source by Bernard L. Cohen, American Journal of Physics, 1983 (H/T Crowlspace Uranium can last for 5 billion years with a withdrawal rate of 6,500 tonne per year from the oceans [with breeder reactors this would be double current world electricity usage]. This estimate does not include using Thorium which …
Carnival of space 65 is up at 21st century waves Music of the spheres talks about solar power satellites This site contributed an article about the latest and future thermoelectrics which has a space related angle for better RTGs Colony Worlds talks about likely iron on Mars There is a LOT more. Go check out …
PET scans could detect Alzheimer’s as early as 10 years before people show symptoms of the disease, allowing them to begin treatment earlier. If the disease is detected ten years in advance it provides a lot of time for treatment and lifestyle change to slow or possibly prevent the occurence of the disease. Plus more …
SUNRGI’s “concentrated photovoltaic” system relies on lenses to magnify sunlight 2,000 times, letting it produce as much electricity as standard panels with a far smaller system. They say they’ll start producing solar panels by mid-2009 that will generate electricity for about 7 cents a kilowatt hour, including installation. Update: Very cool: Dilbert blog [Scott Adams] …
Short-term exposure to current levels of ozone in many areas is likely to contribute to premature deaths, says a new National Research Council report, which adds that the evidence is strong enough that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should include ozone-related mortality in health-benefit analyses related to future ozone standards. The Full text of the …
Idaho National Lab Strategic plan for improving light water nuclear reactors This plan has not been adopted and funded yet, but recently released with INL’s Utility Advisory Board and EPRI’s Nuclear Power Council as the authors. I think the plan can and should be adopted, while parallel work is ongoing with uranium hydride reactors, molten …
As previously mentioned on this site Nanodynamics will IPO on the Dubai stock exchange Nanodynamics will have a trading symbol of NDMX (when it gets crosslisted on Nasdaq. Google finance has a page for tracking Nanodynamics stock Other views of the Dubai marketMiddle east financial site: zawya Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader …
The $80 billion european wind powered electrical supergrid would make wind energy more practical I think this project makes sense and a similar power grid build out would be good for North America as well. It would work in combination with nuclear power and anything that is not coal or oil. The average price of …
First Solar is the Google of solar companies. The Phoenix, Ariz.-based maker of cadmium telluride solar cells and panels has soared past the $200 a share mark. It was up to $230 today and is currently trading at about $219. They IPOd at $20 back in Nov 2006. Analysts expected revenues of $120 million and …
Hitachi is making current perpendicular-to-the-plane giant magneto-resistive heads (CPP-GMR) for hard disk drives to enable 4 terabyte drives in 2011 and/or 1 terabyte notebook drives. The CPP-GMR drive essentially changes the structure of drive heads. Current drives come with a tunnel magnetoresistance head. In these, an insulating layer sits between two magnetic layers. Electrons can …