China spends about $440 billion per year on transport infrastructure and $240 billion per year on the military in 2018. China’s official military budget is $175 billion but Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and others estimate China has a larger military budget. The base US military budget for 2018 is about $599 billion but …
Boring Company will show a two-mile tunnel in LA in December and has started work on an 18 mile tunnel in Chicago from downtown to the airport. Successfully completing the airport tunnel will make the tunneling company worth as much as $16 billion. This valuation will be before any full speed hyperloop implementation. In June …
The Government of Canada has made a new C$49.3-million investment in General Fusion, a clean technology company seeking to transform the world’s energy supply with safe, sustainable and economical fusion energy. The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, together with the Honourable Harjit Singh Sajjan, Minister of National Defence, announced the …
China has carbon nanotube bundles in the lab that are 20 times stronger than kevlar. They are trying to scale them up for mass production. If they succeed in mass producing tons of this material then what has been impossible become possible engineering. Superstrong materials were the key part of molecular nanotechnology speculation. Carbon nanotube …
In the lab, China has small quantities of carbon nanotube bundles 20 times stronger than Kevlar. These are ultralong (several centimeters) carbon nanotube fibers have been made into stronger bundles. The tensile strength of CNTBs (Carbon nanotube bundles) is at least 9–45 times that of other materials. If a more rigorous engineering definition is used, …
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) believes wind and solar will be equal or cheaper than fossil fuels by 2020. Prices could be as low as three cents per kilowatt-hour for onshore wind and solar photovoltaic projects over the next two years. The average by 2020 is expected to be around five cents for onshore …
Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased 3.5 percent in the third quarter of 2018, according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter of 2018, real GDP increased 4.2 percent. The Bureau emphasized that the third-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete …
Lightweight parabolic mirrors for solar concentrators have been fabricated using carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) and a nanometer scale optical surface smoothing technique. The smoothing technique improved the surface roughness of the CFRP surface from ~3 micron root mean square (RMS) for as-cast to ~5 nm RMS after smoothing. The surfaces were then coated with …
Fisker and electric car company has gotten an investment from Caterpillar Venture Capital. Fisker is developing solid-state batteries. Caterpillar is the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives. Fisker Flexible Solid-State Battery will be faster charging, safer and enable more range and costs …
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is planning to create a carbon pricing plan for four of the provinces in Canada. Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and New Brunswick do have carbon pricing plans. Those provinces have nearly half the population of Canada. Trudeau leads the Liberal Party. Polling in 2018 has been mixed. The Liberals have generally been …
Elon Musk talked about Tesla reaching 500,000 to 1 million cars per year. Tesla could start producing cars in China in 2019. Maintaining the third quarter production level would mean 340,000 cars per year. Tesla should have 100,000 cars per year in the fourth quarter which would be 400,000 cars per year annually. The Model …