Los Angeles-based Ampaire unveiled its prototype electric-powered plane, the Ampaire 337, in a test flight above Camarillo Airport in California on June 6. This is the largest a hybrid-electric aircraft that has flown. The twin-engine plane will be able to carry seven to nine passengers and boasts a range of up to 100 miles (160 …
Elon Musk indicates that electric motors and batteries with over 400 Wh/kg will be able be a cross over point for electric planes against jet fuel planes. Israeli startup Eviation is making a nine-passenger all-electric regional passenger aircraft by 2021. It will take 9 passengers up to 650 miles at a cruise speed of 240 …
John D Rockefeller created Standard Oil, which built up the modern oil and refining industry. Standard Oil created massive price advantages and scale beyond its competitors. It grew by increasing sales and through acquisitions. In 1868, the Lake Shore Railroad, a part of the New York Central, gave Rockefeller’s a transportation rate of one cent …
U.S. crude oil production reached a new all-time daily average high of 12.2 million barrels per day (MMbpd) in May. In May, Texas crude oil output was over 5 MMbpd for the first time. Texas is only behind Russia, Saudi Arabia and the USA in crude oil output. U.S. crude production would hit 13.4 MMbpd …
Iran shipped over 2.5 million barrels per day of crude oil in April 2018, the month before Trump withdrew the US from the nuclear deal but monthly oil exports were down five times to 330,000 to 500,000 barrels per day in May, 2019. Oil made up 80% of Iran’s exports. Ongoing estimates are that Iran …
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC on Wednesday the U.S. and China were close to a trade deal, and he’s optimistic that progress can be made during weekend talks between President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping. Mnuchin says they are 90% of the way to a deal with a path to completion. The G20 …
China’s Belt and Road nuclear projects could earn Chinese firms as much as 1 trillion yuan ($145.52 billion) by 2030. This would be 30 large nuclear reactors built in countries that are part of the Belt and Road plan. Forty-one Belt and Road nations already had nuclear power programs or were planning to develop them. …
There are three major competing Quantum computer technologies for qubits. They are nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond lattices, trapped ions, and superconducting qubits. The benefit of trapped-ion systems is that the ions are inherently going to affect one another. They’re easily entangled, plus scientists can turn that interactivity on and off easily so that individual …
Startup First Light Fusion (FLF) claims it is on target to achieve fusion gain (more energy out than goes in) by 2024. They are not using lasers or intense magnetic fields which can prove to be very complicated and costly to build. Pulsed power is their main technology. They hope to have reduced the cost …
The Universe is 13.7 billion years old. About five billion years ago, an energy field that we call dark energy became important. Dark energy is a repulsive form of gravity, which means that the expansion of the universe isn’t slowing down, it’s accelerating. After 9 billion years of the expansion of space slowing down, it’s …
Direct Fusion Drive, is a unique fusion engine concept based on the Princeton Field-Reversed Configuration (PFRC) fusion reactor under development at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. The truly game-changing levels of thrust and power in a modestly sized package could integrate with our current launch infrastructure while radically expanding the science capability of these missions. …