Analyzing the Edge 2009 Question and Answers

The Edge 2009 Annual question was asked and answered by 150 noted people. The question was: What will change everything ? What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see? There are various interpretations of the question and the answers contained various interpretations. Variations on “change everything” and “game-changing”. 1. What …

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Carnival of Space Week 86

Carnival of space week 86 is up at collectSpace This site provided an article on experimental validation and measurement of a repulsive casimir force and what control of the casimir force could enable. The OrbitalHub looks at Orbital Corp.’s (no relation) Taurus II medium-lift launch vehicle and the Cygnus spacecraft, which NASA recently contracted to …

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IEC Fusion

The Navy is ordering another copy of WB 7 (Wiffle Ball Version 7 Unit) from EMC2 for modification and testing. This is the Bussard Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion Device. H/T to Schwinn who commented on the last article indicating that the WB7 tests had positive results.

Oil Supply, Demand and Price

Business Week has numbers of oil supply, demand and price which if accurate would indicate a continuation of relatively moderate oil prices through 2010. Beyond 2010, this site has noted a large supply of $35-65 oil and oil substitutes. 1. Petrobanks THAI/Capri and other oilsand and heavy oil processes could make over a trillion barrels …

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Petrobank Capri / Thai Processes for Upgrading and Recovering Oil Getting Closer

Haywood Senior Oil and Gas Analyst Alan Knowles is positive on Petrobank and its new Thai/Capri oil recovery processes: The Petrobank oil recovery technologies (Thai/Capri) is actually cheaper; for instance, the estimates are that this will cost $20,000 per producing barrel to put a project together, and it likely will be less, whereas your average …

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Cellulostic Ethanol and Then Bio-syntrolysis Fuel

Second generation cellulosic ethanol pioneer Verenium has started production of ethanol from non-food sources such as wood chips, grass straw, and trash at their Jennings Louisiana demonstration plant (PDF). This is the first such plant to begin operation in the US. The plant will produce 1.4 million gallons of ethanol a year. Although it’s not …

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Technology Blogger Roland Piquepaille has Died

Technology Blogger Roland Piquepaille has died He had his own blog, Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends and those articles were often contributed to zdnet as well and were often well featured at Slashdot. From his zdnet bio: Roland Piquepaille lives in Paris, France, and he spent most of his career in software, mainly for high performance …

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Choice of High or Low End Roving Teleconference Robots

$30,000 will buy a high end life-sized video conferencing system on wheels, giving users a feeling of tele-presence. It sports two 5 Mpixels eyes, full voice telephony to speak and hear and a laser pointer as a finger. Users can control the sleek five-foot, 35 pound robot remotely from any web browser using nothing more …

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Pennwest Using Horizontal Multi-Stage Frac Drilling Outside of Bakken Oil Formation

A presentation by Penn West, a Senior Canadian Oil Company, on its oil drilling plans. [34 pages] They are making a significant allocation to enhanced oil recovery. Horizontal multi-stage fracturing can be 44% of the cost of conventional oil drilling approaches for certain oil formations. Horizontal multi-stage fracturing should draw billions of barrels of oil …

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