IBM Research announced that it has teamed with EKZ, the electricity utility provider of the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland, on a new pilot project that will allow consumers to conveniently charge electric vehicles and monitor their energy costs, using mobile devices. This near real-time information will also help utility providers better manage power grid …
The Carnival of nuclear energy 74 is up at at ANS Nuclear cafe Atomic Power Review shows the now enclosed first reactor at Fukushima Daiichi. TEPCO press photo showing the final roof panel unit being lowered. Nextbigfuture – Thorium power start-up Summary of the Introduction to Flibe energy presentation. Flibe energy is working towards liquid …
IEA has reported the energy statistics for July 2011 for the OECD For the year to date, nuclear generation is down 2.5% or about 15 Terawatt hours for the OECD. For July it was down about 10 Terawatt hours for the same month in 2010. For the remaining 5 months the expectation would be similar …
Researchers announced new artificial muscles that twist like the trunk of an elephant, but provide a thousand times higher rotation per length. These muscles, based on carbon nanotubes yarns, accelerate a 2000 times heavier paddle up to 590 revolutions per minute in 1.2 seconds, and then reverse this rotation when the applied voltage is changed. …
Kirk Sorensen presented an Introduction to Flibe Energy at the Thorium Energy Conference 2011 (55 pages) Flibe Energy will initially design, develop and demonstrate a small modular liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (SM-LFTR) for the US military. * Desired first demonstration at a military site to be determined. * Design power level of 20-50 MWe. The SM-LFTR …
Researchers have turned off a life-threatening allergic response to peanuts by tricking the immune system into thinking the nut proteins aren’t a threat to the body, according to a new preclinical study from Northwestern Medicine. The peanut tolerance was achieved by attaching peanut proteins onto blood cells and reintroducing them to the body — an …
A team of Northwestern University scientists has learned how to top nature by building crystalline materials from nanoparticles and DNA, the same material that defines the genetic code for all living organisms. Using nanoparticles as “atoms” and DNA as “bonds,” the scientists have learned how to create crystals with the particles arranged in the same …
Technology Review – Scientists corrected a genetic error in stem cells from patients with liver disease, and implanted those cells in the livers of mice. The research combines several techniques, including cell reprogramming and gene editing, that scientists hope will make gene therapy and cell replacement therapies a reality. While safety testing is needed before …
1. WSJ – The inspectors sent to Athens by Greece’s top creditors have recommended that the Greeks get the next payment of €8 billion from its 2010 bailout agreement. The decision was never in doubt because there wasn’t any other choice. If it buys time to fix Greece’s €350 billion debt disaster and save the …
Scientists at Carnegie’s Geophysical Laboratory are part of a team that has discovered a new form of carbon, which is capable of withstanding extreme pressure stresses that were previously observed only in diamond. The experiment started with a form of carbon called glassy carbon, which was first synthesized in the 1950s, and was found to …
Harvard University – Engineers and physicists at Harvard have managed to capture light in tiny diamond pillars embedded in silver, releasing a stream of single photons at a controllable rate. The advance represents a milestone on the road to quantum networks in which information can be encoded in spins of electrons and carried through a …