There has been an interpretation ruling on loan guarantees for 100% of the loan to a maximum of 80% of the total project for carbon dioxide reducing energy projects The loan guarantees make nuclear energy the cheapest option for energy. It pretty much guarantees that all 30 nuclear reactors that are in the planning stages …
Using enzymes from E. coli bacteria, Duke University chemists and engineers have introduced a hundred-fold improvement in the precision of features imprinted to create microdevices such as labs-on-a-chip. Their inkless microcontact printing technique can imprint details measuring close to 1 nanometer, or billionths of a meter, the Duke team reported in the Sept. 24, 2007 …
Two major steps toward putting quantum computers into real practice — sending a photon signal on demand from a qubit onto wires and transmitting the signal to a second, distant qubit — have been brought about by a team of scientists at Yale. They report that superconducting qubits, or artificial atoms, have been able to …
The USA is threatening 27% tariffs against China to force China to more quickly raise the value of the Yuan by 15 to 40% This supports my thesis that China’s economy will the pass the USA by 2020 15% appreciation in the yuan would move it from 7.6 to 1 US dollar to 6.6 to …
Scientists from Spectrolab, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing, have recently published their research on the fabrication of solar cells that surpass the 40% efficiency milestone—the highest efficiency achieved for any photovoltaic device. A pdf with levelized cost of electricity analysis for natural gas, coal and nuclear from 2006 Natural gas is 3.8 to 5.9 cents(US)/kwhCoal …
A company Wildhorse is going to study extracting Uranium from coal flyash. From the 50 million tons/year of flyash that is generated in Europe, there is 100 to 300 ppm uranium. This would be 5,000 to 15000 tons of Uranium that could be recovered. The US generates over 100 million tons of flyash each year …
Wired has an article by Gregg Easterbrook which discusses the problems of NASA I mostly agree with his analysis but his 4th place recommended priority Figure out a way to replace today’s chemical rockets with a much cheaper way to reach Earth orbit should be first. I also believe that laser arrays (preferrably with mirrors), …
Nanowerk has a spotlight on artificial adjustable nanofluid channels Flow of fluorescein molecules through an array of five tunable elastomeric nanochannels and their accumulation at an air-filled microscale compartment. Running horizontally at the top is an air-filled microchannel. The nanochannels are triangular and are 80 nanometers high from base to top corner and 600 nm …
Science Fiction author Charlie Stross talks about “Shaping the Future” He wrote Accelerando and Singularity Sky among other books. He notes how progress used to measured by top speed, but how that stopped between 1950-1970. I believe that speed will become a useful measure of progress again. I believe that we can and will burst …
A pdf discussing China’s statistics Here is a pdf from Carlsten Holz that examines different China economic growth projections The World Trade Organization data shows that China surpassed the USA in terms of trade in 2006. China’s global trade exceeded $1.758 trillion at the end of 2006.[12]. It first broke the 1 trillion mark ($1.15 …
Loss of only one of the genes, a gene encoding the protein PHA-4, negated the lifespan-enhancing effect of calorie-restriction in worms. And, when researchers undertook the opposite experiment—by overexpressing pha-4 in worms—the longevity effect was enhanced. “PHA-4 acts completely independent of insulin/IGF-1 signaling and turns out to be essential for CR-mediated longevity,” says Panowski. “We …