Caltech has disclosed that in 2013, Donald Bren, chairman of Irvine Company and a lifetime member of the Caltech Board of Trustees, donated over $100 million to form the Space-based Solar Power Project (SSPP). Space-based solar power will generate solar power in space and beaming it back to Earth. Donald Bren made his fortune with …
Caltech and Northrop Grumman are continuing to make research progress towards space-based solar power. In 2018, the aerial density of the 1-meter solar tiles in 600 grams. This is an improvement from 1500 grams per square meters in 2017. They are actually targeting an areal density of 160 grams per meter squared. They believe they …
China maintained its No. 1 ranking on the 47th edition of the TOP500 list of the world’s top supercomputers, but with a new system built entirely using processors designed and made in China. Sunway TaihuLight is the new No. 1 system with 93 petaflop per second (quadrillions of calculations per second) on the LINPACK benchmark. …
NATO Defence Ministers agreed on 15 June 2016 to boost NATO’s support for Ukraine with a Comprehensive Package of Assistance. The Package aims to help Ukraine strengthen its defences by building stronger security structures. In a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, Allied ministers also exchanged views with Ukrainian Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak on the current …
Air pollution is a killer, and it’s getting worse. All forms of air pollution is causing the premature death of ten million people per year Outdoor air pollution increased by 8% from 2008 to 2013 Outdoor air pollution is still increasing and current trends would see it double by 2050 Air pollution levels in many …
A seed ship is an interstellar spacecraft which is able to transport embryos or gametes over long distances. In order to keep them save and healthy it acts most of its flight like a huge fridge, because the unborn humans can only survive such long travel times in a frozen state. Close to the target …
A solar research team at the University of New South Wales has converted over 40 per cent of sunlight into electricity, with an innovative take on Australian-designed solar tower technology. This is a follow up to an article yesterday about record outdoor solar power conversion efficiency. The team achieved 40.1 per cent efficiency in outdoor …
The 2012-2013 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness report has insightful information It uses 2011 data but it is useful for undertanding global competitiveness and the broad strengths and weaknesses of nations. Here are the twelve pillars of competitiveness. A country can still be competitive with some weakness in different pillars but crippling deficiencies can break …
Texas researchers used surface oxygen to grow centimeter-size single graphene crystals on copper. The crystals were about 10,000 times as large as the largest crystals from only four years ago. Very large single crystals have exceptional electrical properties. One of the world’s strongest materials, graphene is flexible and has high electrical and thermal conductivity that …
Techcrunch describes the situation where technology is now destroying jobs faster than it’s creating them. Some propose a basic income or negative income tax as updated versions of the communist iron rice bowl. There are strategies for individuals for creating more sources of income – 1. Purchase stocks and other investment instruments which will provide …
Lloyd Alter at Treehugger reports that Broad Group has gotten permission to proceed with the construction of the 220 story Sky City skyscraper starting in June, 2013 in Changsha. Broad Sustainable Construction informs Lloyd Alter and Treehugger that a long and arduous approval process has been completed, and that they are starting excavation and construction …
