Hyperion Power Generation (HPG) plans to build hot-tub-size reactors that can generate 25 megawatts of electricity, or enough juice to power 20,000 homes. HPG’s uranium hydride reactor has been covered extensively on this site. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission had indicated in a December, 2008 memo that the NRC does not plan to authorize …
New Scientist has a 3 page online review of CO2 capture from the air technology. Capturing CO2 gas is not difficult. In fact, in the near future we are likely to be extracting quantities of the stuff from the flue gases of power plants and factories, and stashing it deep underground. In 2005 a special …
Business Week has numbers of oil supply, demand and price which if accurate would indicate a continuation of relatively moderate oil prices through 2010. Beyond 2010, this site has noted a large supply of $35-65 oil and oil substitutes. 1. Petrobanks THAI/Capri and other oilsand and heavy oil processes could make over a trillion barrels …
Haywood Senior Oil and Gas Analyst Alan Knowles is positive on Petrobank and its new Thai/Capri oil recovery processes: The Petrobank oil recovery technologies (Thai/Capri) is actually cheaper; for instance, the estimates are that this will cost $20,000 per producing barrel to put a project together, and it likely will be less, whereas your average …
China has officially broken ground on six domestically engineered CPR-1000 pressurized water reactors, generating around 1080 MWe each. The total investment in Yangjiang’s six reactors is to be 69.5 billion reminbi ($10.1 billion), giving a construction cost of 10,700 reminbi per MWe ($1565 per KWe), according to Zhang Guobao, head of the National Energy Bureau. …
1. The process for getting Unit 2 of the Watts Bar nuclear plant up and running by 2012 is on track. TVA is still holding to its August 2007 estimate of $2.49 billion for total capital costs to finish the project. Construction, including work on the high- and low-pressure turbines, already is under way and …
Eric Drexler, the visionary of molecular nanotechnology and mechanosynthesis, has started a new blog Metamodern: The Trajectory of Technology. Metamodern isn’t intended to be “a blog about nanotechnology”; its scope includes broader issues involving technologies with world-changing potential. For example, looking well downstream in technology development, I will sketch the requirements for large-scale systems able …
Joe Bonometti, gave a Google Tech talk on liquid fluoride thorium reactors. 11MB of powerpoint slides “ Besides the low amount of waste and almost complete burning of all Uranium and Plutonium, another big advantage of liquid fluoride reactors is fast and safe shutoff and restart capability. This fast stop and restart allows for load …
Dramatic enhancement in energy harvesting for a narrow range of dimensions in piezoelectric nanostructures around the critical size of 20-23 nanometer thick beams. Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) material employed in the form of cantilever beams, our results indicate that the total harvested power peak value can increase by 100% around 21 nm beam thickness (under …
The AMD Firestream setup from Aprius could be better with eight of the $1499 boards ($12000 plus some amont for the 4U box and backplane.) It will outperform the Nvidia setup and be out in about 4-6 months. Of course Nvidia could go through another rev from its current setup. The FireStream 9270 uses a …
The Economist estimates China’s past and current growth. They also examine China $600 billion stimulus effort. Any analysis of China’s growth prospects is clouded by the widely held belief that the government smoothes its GDP numbers and always overstates growth during economic downturns. The chart plots China’s official growth rate against an alternative estimate calculated …