This a follow up to prior article about re-inventing civil defense using simple and affordable defenses for residential buildings, such as better nails (hurriquake nails which you can buy from amazon.com.) This is not a plan to make buildings nuclear blast proof, but a lot more blast resistant. A direct hit would be too tough …
True strength properties of carbon nanotubes measured and they match with theoretical predictions. Previous measurements came up a lot weaker than theory. Not only do the new measurements show that defect free carbon nanotubes are as strong as predicted but the an irradiation strategy can fix defects and provide cross links to help carbon nanotube …
New nuclear plants constructed in the USA can provide electricity at about 5-9 cents/kwh Because of the large capital costs for nuclear power, and the relatively long construction period before revenue is returned, servicing the capital costs of a nuclear power plant is the most important factor determining the economic competitiveness of nuclear energy. The …
Dwave’s CTO Geordie Rose is showing a picture of a 200mm wafer made of 5mm superconducting adiabatic quantum computing chips. There are about 1000 of the 5mm chips on the wafer. The superconducting adiabatic quantum computing chips need dilution fridges for proper operationUsing a dilution refrigerator is the most powerful way to reach very low …
Current world nuclear power is 611 million tons of oil equivalent. (multiply by 7.1-7.4 for barrel of oil equivalent) This is from 64000 tons of Uranium per year being burned at about 5% efficiency. 3200 tons of Uranium if deep burn reactors were used. Deep burn (50-99%) burn of uranium and thorium for nuclear power …
DARPA today has a long-term, $3 billion program to help make such a “Metabolically Dominant Soldier.” In other words, the military is studying how to use technology and biology to meld man and machine and transcend the limits of the human body. Described the project director, “My measure of success is that the International Olympic …
Some people have criticized the technological Singularity and Transhumanism because of the upside being things that they do not believe can be achieved.Also, the primary technologies that are often described as enabling the Singularity and Transhumanism are Molecular Nanotechnology and greater than human intelligence general AI. There has been virtually no effort or money spent …
The Methuselah Foundation is having a major Aging conference at UCLA in Los Angeles June 27 through June 29, 2008 It is at Royce Hall in UCLA. The press release on the free June 27 event What: Aging: The Disease, The Cure, The Implications, hosted by Methuselah FoundationWhen: Friday, June 27, 2008, Drinks 4pm, Presentations …
Charles Barton has an informative interview with Ralph Moir posted at Nuclear Green and Thorium energy.Dr. Ralph Moir was an extremely distinguished scientist at Lawrence-Livermore Laboratory, and a personal associate of Dr. Edward Teller. He first discusses fusion/fission hybrid reactors and then molten salt fission reactors. Fusion holds the promise–yet to be fulfilled–of providing a …
Charles Barton reports that the US Geological Service will be announcing huge new reserves of Thorium in the United States. Charles also discusses the needs and issues of a comprehensive national energy policy. This information is crossposted at thoriumenergy “Thorium Power, Inc. has told me that they already have the technology to “switch over” from …
Dwave Systems closed a $17M financing round as of the end of January 2008. These funds will be used primarily to push the level of integration of our chips into the low thousands of qubits by the end of the year. In parallel with this central effort we will be working on running experiments on …