Mike Wall wrote on research at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to harness plasma, the fourth state of matter. Peter Kong, technical lead for plasma processing at INL, has built a career of putting plasma to work. He’s using it to mass-produce nanoparticles, a project that in August received $1 million in federal stimulus funding. He’s …
Carnival of Space 126 is up at Gish Bar Times This site provided an article noting that the Space Elevator beaming competition is finally set for this coming weekend. Nov 2-6, 2009 The Planetary Society blog discusses the discovery of a cave on the moon A probable cave skylight on the Moon. This dark hole, …
China is expecting to have 1400-1500 GW of electrical generation capacity in 2020 China has announced plans to double its nuclear power generation goal from 4% to 8% of total installed power capacity by 2020. China’s Ministry of Finance and its State Administration of Taxation already implemented a 15 year tax preference policy for the …
Magnifye, a Cambridge University spin-out, would increase the power density of magnets used to produce energy in electric motors. The magnets, which are 10 times stronger than conventional magnets, are so powerful that a 1 inch sample could potentially support the weight of a seven-ton truck. (H/T Talkpolywell) * Stronger magnets that are 7-17 tesla …
California department of health information on H1N1 locations in California For other US states check your state department of health information page. State department of health list via CDC page The retailers that are making H1N1 shots available are likely making it available in other states. Check your national or provincial department of health for …
Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers have devloped an acoustic hyperlens which provides an eightfold boost in the magnification power of sound-based imaging technologies. Clever physical manipulation of the imaging sound waves enables the hyperlens to resolve details smaller than one sixth the length of the waves themselves, bringing into view much smaller objects and …
1. Cameco trying to drain Cigar Lake again. Hope to drain the water in 6 months and then assess mine. Cigar Lake is a big mine with about 176000 tons of uranium reserves and under full production would be expected to produce 9000 tons/year. This would be about 20% of current natural uranium production and …
The Economist has positive coverage of dense plasma focus fusion. Mr Lerner’s machine is called a dense plasma focus fusion device. It works by storing charge in capacitors and then discharging the accumulated electricity rapidly through electrodes bathed in a gas held at low pressure. The electrodes are arranged as a central positively charged anode …
An analysis showed that low cost materials are needed to scal solar power and Pyrite (FeS2) is a leading candidate. Solar photovoltaics have great promise for a low-carbon future but remain expensive relative to other technologies. Greatly increased penetration of photovoltaics into global energy markets requires an expansion in attention from designs of high-performance to …
The antimatter rocket described in Walter’s paper can achieve a specific impulse of about0.58c (after correcting for a missed Lorentz factor). This is much higher than Walter’s figure of 0.21c, and it agrees with some calculations previously published by Vulpetti. Even better efficiency and even higher specific impulses could be achieved if a way to …
Are Black Hole Starships Possible? (20 page pdf) By Louis Crane and Shawn Westmoreland, Kansas State University (H/T Crowlspace) The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether it is possible to build artificial Black holes of the appropriate size, and to employ them in powerplants and starships. The conclusion we reach is that it …