Per Peterson, Prof at Berkeley provides information on construction material for energy. 95% of construction inputs are steel and concrete. This article looks at the most recent wind turbines and finds that wind power’s need for a lot of steel and concrete is not substantially changed from the 1990 figures. 700-1000 tons (not including all …
Calera is a company funded by Vinod Khosla which is trying to make concrete that pulls carbon dioxide from the air instead of emitting it. This would have a huge reduction in greenhouse gases when fully deployed. Concrete manufacturing is a primary source of carbon dioxide. For each ton of Calera concrete one ton of …
Carnival of Space week 60 is up at slacker astronomy This site submitted an article with a preview of the space elevator and lunar lander games. The article heavily focused on the space elevator. Centauri Dreams talks about really big and slow space colonization ships (multi-generational Arks with 10 thousand year travel times). There is …
Although China’s economic size on an exchange rated basis has passed Germany this year and will pass Japan in 2009 and will probably pass the United Statesin 2016, China is still classifed as a lower middle income country by the World Bank. This means that using a 3 year average of exchange rates and looking …
Vernor Vinge wrote about “Signs of the Singularity” However, some of the signs will be more obvious when they are actually occuring. Robin Hanson talks about the economics of the Singularity where economic growth rates accelerate 60-250 times. This site has talked about Singularity Lite where the 2-3 times increase in economic growth rate from …
Many in the media have been claiming that the race for the Democratic nomination is over. It likely may be, but it could be far closer than is currently believed. It could still turn the in favor of Hillary Clinton. Realclearpolitics makes the scenario where Hillary makes the race far closer with wins in West …
Canada has had several new natural gas finds that seem to more than double the 57 trillion cf of reserves previously recorded. Plus some of the oilsand methods are burning some of the oilsands to get the rest flowing (THAI/Capris) Bruce power has applied to build 4 nuclear reactors in Alberta (4000MW). First power could …
Side and top views of the NIST molecular resistor. Above are schematics showing a cross-section of the full device and a close-up view of the molecular monolayer attached to the CMOS-compatible silicon substrate. Below is a photomicrograph looking down on an assembled resistor indicating the location of the well. NIST team demonstrates that a single …
Electron transport through a structure of nanoparticles (left) and more ordered nanotubes (center) is shown. At right, different wavelengths of light can be absorbed by different-sized quantum dots layered in a “rainbow” solar cell. Image credit: Kongkanand, et al. ©2008 ACS. Solar cells made of different-sized quantum dots, each tuned to a specific wavelength of …
Here is a research paper that discusses using adiabatic quantum computation using liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computers for pattern recognition. UPDATE:Pattern recognition is a critical aspect of artificial intelligence. I have a new article “Artificial Intelligence: You are soaking in it”, which discusses mostly ignored penetration of artificial intellience and its future with …
Harvard has a new protein array lab on a chip. The system could produce any desired protein from synthesized DNA placed on the chip. It is another step in making protein production and engineering and biotechnology in general faster and cheaper. Schematic representation of screening protein-protein interactions with NAPPA. (A) On each spot, a target …