finance

China did not turn on some of the pollution control technology that was already built until recent air pollution protests. It adds over $16 billion/year to electricity prices

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Cleaning up the air pollution from coal, still leaves the mining deaths, solid and liquid waste, and the transportation deaths. Plus the mitigation technologies increase the operating costs and lower the efficiency of the plants. There are 84 different pollutants in coal pollution so there is a lot of different technology needed to control the …

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The World Competition for skilled workers

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Canada is in fifth place among OECD members for attracting immigrants, based on data collected up until 2012, even though it attracted 258,000 new permanent residents, or a gain of 4%, in 2012 alone. Compare that to the U.S., which drew in 1.03 million more people in the same year, although 3% fewer than in …

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Space Based Solar power need robotic assembly in space and reusable rockets for viability

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Aviation Week has a review of Space Based Solar power projects. IEEE spectrum indicates that Japan’s Space Agency has a roadmap for a 1 Gigawatt space based solar power system in 2031. All of the old space based solar power designs are not workable. They are too big and too heavy. Reusable rockets and the …

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Terrestrial Energy successfully closed its final seed round of financing

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Terrestrial Energy (TIEs) has the objective of commercializing its proprietary Molten Salt Reactor technology in Canada by 2021. Molten Salt Reactor technology represents a revolution in nuclear safety, waste and proliferation resistance, and in energy cost-competitiveness. TEI’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) is a small modular design, with models ranging from 29 MWe to 290 …

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China Family Planning Commission of Guangdong Province going through audit and anti-corruption ringer which could signal eventual more speedy moves away from One Child Policy

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A court in Guangzhou ruled that the Family Planning Commission of Guangdong Province — China’s most populous — must disclose the specifics of its own accounting data within 15 days. Across China an estimated 2 trillion yuan ($320 billion) in social maintenance fees have been paid since 1980, according to one study. Family Planning Commission …

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High-resolution blueprint for how to build a human brain with genetic details and timing

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Researchers at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have generated a high-resolution blueprint for how to build a human brain, with a detailed map of where different genes are turned on and off during mid-pregnancy at unprecedented anatomical resolution. This is the first major report using data from the BrainSpan Atlas of the Developing Human …

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DNA origami make sturdier polyhedra with struts to get them 400 times larger than DNA bricks

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Scientists at the Harvard’s Wyss Institute have built a set of self-assembling DNA cages one-tenth as wide as a bacterium. The structures are some of the largest and most complex structures ever constructed solely from DNA. The cage could be modified with chemical hooks that could be used to hang other components such as proteins …

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Room Temperature graphene light detector could enable contacts for seeing infrared, ultraviolet and visible light spectrum

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The first room-temperature light detector that can sense the full infrared spectrum has the potential to put heat vision technology into a contact lens. Unlike comparable mid- and far-infrared detectors currently on the market, the detector developed by University of Michigan engineering researchers doesn’t need bulky cooling equipment to work. “We can make the entire …

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NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts 2014 Conference – Update on nuclear fusion for propulsion and more

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Watch live streaming video from niac2014 at livestream.com Watch live streaming video from niac2014 at livestream.com Direct fusion is going to produce neutrons and will publish yield, but they will not get to breakeven in the NIAC project. 90% of the energy will be put out as kinetic energy. Also, molecular actuators using photoactivation ==> …

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Volgograd aka Stalingrad hit by two terrorist bombings while concerns rise for Sochi Olympics

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Volgograd—a city of about one million—is Russia’s closest major metropolis to the North Caucasus. It is also a key transit center connecting the south of the country—including the Caucasus region—with the rest of Russia. After Monday’s attack, city authorities mobilized cadets from a local police academy and announced plans to bring in Cossack patrols to …

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Japans Space Based Solar Power Schedule

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Japan has a target for a large scale 1 gigawatt space based solar power system in 2030 Currently, four major research activities associated with the SSPS are conducted by JAXA. The first floor is the demonstration of wireless power transmission by microwave and laser. JAXA will test technologies including training and pointing of a beam …

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