Electric planes do not have to be private (although things will start out that way.)Electric planes (with jumpjet type takeoff and landing) could form a virtual callable personal pod transportation (which have been proposed for cities) but without building the rails. One of the Personal pod transportation proposals is shown here. Current electric planes hold …
This technology news roundup has imminent testing of the Vasimr plasma rocket in space, twelve dollar personal computers, ten dollar dime sized microscopes and a plant that is 250% better than corn for biofuels and twice as productive as switchgrass. (the plant has not been modified yet and genetic modifications could vastly increase yields.) Nasa …
Ultra-strong, high-temperature, high-performance permanent magnet compounds, such as Samarium Cobalt, are the mainstay materials for several industries that rely on high-performance motor and power generation applications, including the Department of Defense (DOD) and the automotive industry. Until now, producing Samarium Cobalt has been a difficult and expensive multi-step process. Northeastern University researchers have broken new …
China has declared a new target of 5% of electricity by 2020 will be from nuclear power. This will be 70GW. About 500TWh. The target from 2007 was 60GW and the target before that was 40GW. 16% of power by 2030 (about 1400 TWh, 200+GW) A projected total generation of 8472 TWh and an installed …
This is a small prediction on a trivial topic. Dark Knight will earn more than the non-inflation adjusted total of Titanic. This Mondays numbers were 45% over the Dead Man’s chest numbers, which could be an indication of longer legs than Dead Man’s chest. An extra $4 million this week if the pattern holds throughout …
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 …
EEStor has manufactured materials that have met all certification milestones for crystallization, chemical purity, and particle-size consistency. The results suggest that the materials can be made at a high-enough grade to meet the company’s performance goals. The company also said a key component of the material can withstand the extreme voltages needed for high energy …
If buildings are built better then the blast pressure has less effect at each range from the blast. 5 PSI buildings can be made or upgraded by using Hurriquake nails on existing buildings. $15 of material for each house. If the building do not collapse then there would be fewer fires because of fewer natural …
Oil supply is running on a streak of positive news after a lot of negative news pushed oil prices up. Saudi Arabia apparently hit its target of 9.7 million barrels a day in July. There is a steady recovery in oil production from the Gulf of Mexico, where Hurricane Katrina demolished rigs and set back …
Scientists from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands harnessed energy from the wind by flying a 10-sq metre kite tethered to a generator, producing 10 kilowatts of power. An Italian company, Kitegen, has come up with a theoretical design for a system that could generate a gigawatt, as much power as a standard coal-fired …
Top: the ALS beamline 9.0.1 experiment used a uniformly redundant array (URA) 30 nanometers thick with scattering elements 44 nanometers square (left). At right is the lithograph of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. The scale bar is two micrometers long. Bottom: the FLASH experiment used a URA with 162 pinholes, next to a Spiroplasma bacterium. The …