For any energy source, the cooling water can be waste-water or salt-water if the siting of the power plant has those non-fresh water sources available. Coal and solar-thermal can have more siting issues. Coal needs to be nearer to coal resources because millions of tons/year of coal is needed per plant. Solar thermal needs to …
Iran said it launched its first domestically produced satellite, an event likely to prompt new Western concerns about its development of technology with possible military applications. Sputnick was launched October 4, 1957 by the Soviet Union. The surprise launch of Sputnik 2, coupled with the spectacular failure of the United States’ first two Project Vanguard …
Over the past two decades, nuclear power plants have achieved increasingly higher capacity factors with the same or greater levels of safety. The average capacity factor for U.S. plants in operation in 1980 was 56.3 percent; in 1990, 66 percent; and in 2007, 91.8 percent. A 1994 analysis as the capacity factors were being improved …
China’s BYD E6, a pure electric vehicle GM announced on Jan. 12, 2009 that it would buy lithium ion cells from LG Chem of Seoul, South Korea. The cells will be manufactured in Korea and assembled into battery packs at a new facility that GM will build in Michigan. Robert Lutz, a GM vice chairman, …
The uranium mining forecast was from the Uranium 2008 report (joint report of the IAEA and OECD). The forecast and expected mine openings are on page 48, 49 of the report. Anticipated New Mines 2007 China Qinlong 100tU/year Kazakhstan Appack LLP-West Mynkuduk 1,000 tU/year in 2010 Kazakhstan Karatau LLP-Budennovskoye 1,000 tU/year in 2009 South Africa …
There has been recent discussion of a possible way to travel faster than light using dark energy, but that to move a 1000 cubic meter object it would take 10**45 joules (convert Jupiter into energy). However, it makes no sense to assume being able to convert a planetary mass into energy without having increased control …
The US state department reports Iraq oil production for second week of May, 2008 at 2.52 million bpd. (slide 22 of the 35 slide report) Iraq exporting 1.88-2.04 million bpd, since Sept 2007. The May, 2008 projection is for 2.04 million bpd. Vitol, Anadarko, and Dome oil companies have formed a consortium currently negotiating with …
Some people scoff at mind uploading, human level or greater artificial intelligence or nanorobots that are able repair all damage to the human body Here is a review of the current state of brain computer interfaces, brain simulation, and nanomedicine related medicine (cellular repair and rejuvenation) and science. I do not see anything stopping zettaflop …
In a world with 100 cores on a single chip, how do you get enough data onto the chip to keep all those cores fed? Rambus is working on technology that does 32 data transfers per clock beat, so that each line can transmit 32 bits per clock cycle. That’s a ton of per-pin bandwidth, …