China is home to 60 of the world’s 100 tallest buildings now under construction. But the skyward aspirations of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, have inspired incredulity tinged with hostility. Broad Group, a manufacturer based here in Changsha, has been planning to erect the world’s tallest building here this winter, and in record time. …
There is a congressional report on China’s economy. China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the U.S. (43 pages). China’s economic rise has significant implications for the United States and hence is of major interest to Congress. On the one hand, China is a large (and potentially huge) export market for the United …
What explains the growing class divide between the well educated and everybody else? Noted author Brink Lindsey, a senior scholar at the Kauffman Foundation, argues that it’s because economic expansion is creating an increasingly complex world in which only a minority with the right knowledge and skills–the right “human capital”–reap the majority of the economic …
1. Entergy plans to close and decommission its Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station. The station is expected to cease power production after its current fuel cycle and move to safe shutdown in the fourth quarter of 2014. Cheap Natural Gas and subsidized wind The decision was driven by sustained low power prices, high cost structure …
Communication will account for $4.5 trillion in economic activity globally in 2020. But if we have only half the spectrum we need to conduct business like we are used to doing, it could negatively impact the U.S. economy by about $750 billion. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) projects a spectrum shortage for broadband services in …
On Aug.13, Lawrence Livermore’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) focused all 192 of its ultra-powerful laser beams on a tiny deuterium-tritium filled capsule. In the nanoseconds that followed, the capsule imploded and released a neutron yield of nearly 3×10^15, or approximately 8,000 joules of neutron energy — approximately three times NIF’s previous neutron yield record for …
What McKinsey’s Gordon Orr has learned from five years of making annual predictions about China. New Year forecasting is a widely practiced business art in most areas of the world, but in China it carries particular risks and rewards. Here are a few reflections to help leaders trying to plan ahead in this fast-changing land: …
McKinsey is forecasting a worsening shortage of university educated and vocationally trained people in China by 2020. According to new McKinsey research, at the lower end of the labor market, in 2020 there will be 23 million more people than jobs suited for their limited education (primary school or less). At the upper end, we …
New metamaterial has been developed exhibiting hundreds of times greater strength than pure metals. Professor Seung Min, Han and Yoo Sung, Jeong,Professor Seok Woo, Jeon have developed a composite nanomaterial. The nanomaterial consists of graphene inserted in copper and nickel and exhibits strengths 500 times and 180 times, respectively, greater than that of pure metals. …
China Shipbuilding Industry Corp said its Wuhan Institute of Marine Electric Propulsion finalized its integrated electric propulsion technology in mid-July. It said the in-house development will help the nation wean itself off the longstanding dependence on imported parts in manufacturing ships. Most surface vessels in China use mechanical transmissions and are propelled by a motor …
HyperSolar, the developer of a breakthrough technology to produce renewable hydrogen using sunlight and any source of water, announced that its artificial photosynthesis technology is now capable of producing 1.0 volt open circuit voltage for use in direct solar hydrogen production. This achievement represents a dramatic voltage increase over the previous 0.2 volt just 8 …