Oilsand taxes will pay for Molten Salt Reactor development. MSR will provide steam for $200 billion per year of oil. MSR will free us from oil for better energy future

December 12, 2020April 13, 2013 by Brian Wang

Canadian David LeBlanc is an expert on molten salt nuclear reactors. Nextbigfuture covered a talk he gave on denatured molten salt reactors. Terrestrial Energy Inc. (“TEI”) was founded in late 2012, and is domiciled in Ontario, Canada. Its mission is to commercialize its patent-pending Molten Salt Reactor technology in Canada. The company has been formed …

Speculation on the Future of Quantum Computers

September 6, 2018March 23, 2013 by Brian Wang

Geordie Rose has recently discussed Computional Universality and the Dwave Quantum computers. There’s another concept that has been recently introduced which is called a universal quantum computer. Such a machine is capable of simulating all quantum physics, which presumably includes as a subset all of classical physics. D-Wave’s current processor architecture is classically universal (can …

Dynamic Soaring and Riding Rising Thermal Air Currents for Super Endurance Robotic Gliding

December 30, 2022March 15, 2013 by Brian Wang

Wandering albatrosses exploit the vertical gradient of wind velocity (wind shear) above the ocean to gain energy for long distance dynamic soaring with a typical airspeed of 36 mph. In principle, albatrosses could soar much faster than this in sufficient wind, but the limited strength of their wings prevents a much faster airspeed. Recently, pilots …

Solve for X: Sustainable, scalable 3D printed meat

November 14, 2020March 6, 2013 by Brian Wang

Problem: 8% of the world”s water supply and one third of the world’s non-ice landmass is used for raising livestock for meat and leather. At least 18% of the greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere are from the livestock industry. Solution: Fundamentally change the way meat is produced by growing the meat directly instead of raising …

PBS shows off 1.8 gigapixel video feed and analysis from a DARPA drone

October 8, 2023February 4, 2013 by Brian Wang

From an altitude of 17,500 feet a drone with a 1.8 gigapixel video camera can monitor half of Manhattan. The interface shows the wide field of view all at once but 65 windows can be opened up showing zoom in views of different spots. They can see things as small as 6 inches like birds. …

Friedlander On The Wang Bullet, And On Boiling Down To Bedrock With The Tsar Bomba: A Conversation With Goat Guy

January 25, 2023January 31, 2013 by Joseph Friedlander

A guest post by Joseph Friedlander for Next Big Future The reader known as Goat Guy is a regular in the talkbacks at Next Big Future, many have been entertained by his opinions, backed up by hard engineering calculations. I had a correspondence with him about, among other subjects, the Wang Bullet and Tsar Bomba …

NASA makes prototype ice and water mining lunar robot

September 14, 2018January 30, 2013 by Brian Wang

NASA has developed a water and ice mining robot for the moon and it is called RASSOR RASSOR, for Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot and pronounced “razor,” the autonomous machine is far from space-ready, but the earliest design has shown engineers the broad strokes of what their lunar soil excavator needs in order to …

Holland makes EFTE domed floating buildings that cover 4 tennis court area and plans 13000 floating buildings by 2040

June 17, 2020January 19, 2013 by Brian Wang

In the Rijnhaven in Rotterdam, a new, eye-catching structure has been erected: a complex consisting of three floating half-spheres. The structure is 12 metres tall, with a total floor area the size of four tennis courts, and is fully relocatable. The floating pavilion is remarkable not only because of the spheres floating on the water, …

50 Tesla and Other Superconducting Possibilities

October 7, 2019January 16, 2013 by Brian Wang

1. Charging superconductors will get a lot more efficient and cost effective 2. Superconducting magnets could achieve 50 tesla in about 5 years 3. Superconducting wire should cost about 4 times less on a price performance basis in three years 4. Superconducting motors should be in a few hundred or a few thousand vehicles by …

New study shows that Soot is twice as bad for the Environment

October 10, 2018January 16, 2013 by Brian Wang

A new study indicates that the role in climate change for soot is twice as large as previous estimates. Soot has 66% of the impact of carbon dioxide. Mitigating soot would cost about $6 per ton of CO2 equivalent. CO2 mitigation costs about $100 per ton. Nextbigfuture has frequently written that soot is the most …

Roadmap to Photon Propulsion for Interstellar Flight

November 18, 2017December 30, 2012 by Brian Wang

Here are steps to Photon Propulsion for Interstellar Flight. First we have to develop photonic laser thrusters (amplifying laser propulsion by bouncing between mirrors to recycle photons). Photonic laser thrusters are described in a previous nextbigfuture article. There has been experimental work that indicates that it is feasible. The systems described here are an improvements …