The proposed sustained 10 petaflop and 200 peak petaflop tensilica computer is based on 2008 technology. Over the next few years, Tensilica will have 45 nanometer and 32 nanometer chips with improved energy usage and performance, which would enable affordable supercomputers that are more powerful than 10 petaflops. Other proposed, in development or completed supercomputers …
Bakken Oil North Dakota UpdateIn October, 2008 North Dakota had an average of 203785 barrels of oil per day, with most of that from the Bakken Oil Formation. In spite of reduced oil prices drilling is continuing in 2009 in North Dakota but drilling budgets will be down about 30% Better and Cheaper Oilsands CAPRI, …
Nikkei Electronics is reporting that Qimonda will be revealing research success with carbon based memory that could scale to 3-4 nanometer dimensions. Qimonda developed a technology to switch those allotropes by applying an electric current. Specifically, the technology can switch among CNT, conductive carbon such as graphite and insulating carbon like diamond. At this point, …
297 page pdf that discusses a lot of the issues around making exaflop supercomputers The latest petaflop supercomputers use 3-7 megawatts of power. Managing power issues is one of the key challenges for future exaflop supercomputers. The energy challenges to exascale computers were discussed at the recent SC08 conference There are four challenges where current …
On Nov. 14, 2008, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics(LPP) initiated a two-year-long experimental project to test the scientific feasibility of Focus Fusion. The funding is sufficient to pay for experiments that would ideally prove the viability of this approach. The goals of the experiment are :1. To confirm the achievement of the high X-ray energies first observed …
1. The process for getting Unit 2 of the Watts Bar nuclear plant up and running by 2012 is on track. TVA is still holding to its August 2007 estimate of $2.49 billion for total capital costs to finish the project. Construction, including work on the high- and low-pressure turbines, already is under way and …
MNB technologies has an FPGA mini-board that runs Linux called turboRTAG. This would fit in the desired form factor but would need to be upgraded with a more powerful configuration. MNB Technologies Inc., is in the process of developing a wearable superworkstation with the capacity of 12 Gflops (six dual core processors) in a gadget …
BlackLight Power (BLP) Inc. today announced its first commercial license agreement with Estacado Energy Services, Inc. in New Mexico, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Roosevelt County Electric Cooperative, (Estacado). In a non-exclusive agreement, BLP has licensed Estacado to use the BlackLight Process and certain BLP energy technology for the production of thermal or electric power. Estacado …
The technological and other developments to watch is expanding to four parts:1. Computers, robots, electronics and communication2. Energy and transportation – this section3. DNA/biotech/synthetic biology, nanotechnology4. Medicine, life extension, space, manufacturing and anything else that was not covered 1. Candidates for nuclear fusion breakthroughsInterial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) Fusion (EMC2fusion, inc/Bussard) Still awaiting results from 2008 …
Steven Chu, nobel prize winning physicist, has been named Energy Secretary Steven Chu is pro-nuclear and has a deep understanding of all the technical issues around energy. This is a great choice. It is definitely an example of real change from the previous Bush administration in selecting extreme competence. It is not in any way …
Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, has written a review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security which examines all energy sources. The Jacobson analysis is very biased in favor of wind and against nuclear and biofuels. Nuclear power is burdened with CO2 from “burning cities in …