The computer industry has become almost fixated on power issues. Power-per-watt is the new metric for CPUs and GPUs, and everything from chips to data centers are now power-limited. The Tilera corp. has developed a series of multicore processors which could dramatically reduce power consumption for certain computing tasks. For tasks not requiring floating-point performance, …
The Nextbigfuture nuclear launch gun has been described several times. It is a one pulse variant of a project orion external pulse propulsion system. It is simple though dramatic: Dig a kilometers deep shaft—a salt layer would be easiest to penetrate (some exist 3.5 kilometers thick) —build at the bottom a giant shell, from components …
NY Times – Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas. Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked in February. Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest. It isn’t …
BBC News – Last week BBC News asked readers for their predictions of life in 100 years time. Inspired by ten 100-year predictions made by American civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins in 1900, many readers wrote in with their vision of the world in 2112. I will review those predictions. A common problem to many …
John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. made 29 predictions in 1900 of what may happen in the next 100 years. Here we will review what was right, what was too optimistic and what was too pessimistic. Prediction #20: Coal will not be used for heating or cooking. It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted. The earth’s …
THE ECONOMIST’s Big Mac index is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity: in the long run, exchange rates should adjust to equal the price of a basket of goods and services in different countries. This particular basket holds a McDonald’s Big Mac, whose price around the world we compared with its American average of …
Food security is an increasingly critical global issue, affected by a complex and inter-related set of variables that influence the availability and access to food in each country. The political and economic stability of countries with a large proportion of the population living on less than US$1-a-day are particularly affected by food price inflation and …
Carnival of Nuclear Energy 87 is up at the ANS Nuclear Cafe Atomic Insights – Rod Adams writes that David Owen’s book, “The Conundrum” comes to the conclusion that there is no way for people to sustain a high energy consumption life-style. He ignores the incredible store of energy inside of uranium and thorium. Nuke …
Vintage Space has the Carnival of Space 232 Top ten space trends for 2012 from 21st century waves 1. Wildcards and tipping points A few well-known wildcards – and potential tipping points — that face the U.S. and the world in 2012: a. A major recession in the Eurozone could trigger a global depression. b. …
1. Namibia’s competition commission said on Wednesday it had cleared a Chinese nuclear company to take over an Australian mining firm with rights to the world’s fourth-largest uranium deposit. The go-ahead would allow Taurus Mineral, a subsidiary of state-owned China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Company (CGNPC), to buy a controlling share in Australia-based Extract Resources, …
No less than one third of a car’s fuel consumption is spent in overcoming friction, and this friction loss has a direct impact on both fuel consumption and emissions. However, new technology can reduce friction by anything from 10% to 80% in various components of a car, according to a joint study by VTT Technical …