Cloud computing will add 1 trillion in productivity over the next five years and cloud services enable streaming of games like world of warcraft to smartphones

1. Cloud computing will boost job creation in the European union, and add 763 billion euros ($1,019 billion) in productivity to the top economies over the next five years, according to a study from the Centre of Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

"We believe cloud computing will impact to tune of 177 billion euros (a year) by 2015," said Andrew Moloney, a director at U.S.-based IT firm EMC Corp. (EMC.N), which commissioned the study.

A 360° camera that sees in 3D like the eye of a fly

Surround sight has come to the camera. Inspired by the eye of a fly, EPFL scientists have invented a camera that can take pictures and film in 360° and reconstruct the images in 3D. Over one hundred cameras, similar to those used in mobile phones, are crowded onto a metallic hemisphere the size of an orange. Because they are so close together, their range of vision overlaps slightly. A second, miniature prototype has also been developed. It’s about the size of a golf ball and has 15 cameras.

It will be the ideal tool for videoconferences, video surveillance, movie making, and creating backgrounds for video games. Researchers from two EPFL laboratories have invented a revolutionary camera that can film everything around it, simultaneously and in real time, and then reproduce the images in three dimensions, distortion-free. A patent application has been filed.

Graphene and other Ultracapacitors

Researchers at Nanotek Instruments in Dayton, Ohio, have now made graphene electrodes that could lead to ultracapacitors with more than five times the energy density of commercial devices. By using graphene--atom-thick sheets of carbon--Nanotek increases the surface area of the electrodes in the ultracapacitors, boosting the amount of charge that they can store.

Shanghai 15 year olds score highest in math, science and reading but China needs education and immigration reforms to maximize needed talent

The province of Shanghai, China, took part in a OECD eduction study for the first time and scored higher in reading than any country. It also topped the table in maths and science. More than one-quarter of Shanghai’s 15-year-olds demonstrated advanced mathematical thinking skills to solve complex problems, compared to an OECD average of just 3%

Korea and Finland top the OECD’s latest PISA survey of reading literacy among 15-year olds, which for the first time tested students’ ability to manage digital information.

ABC news reviewed the international eduation rankings.

The 2009 PISA data demonstrate the rise in the quality of education in Asia -- among the top performers were Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and Korea

The full report is here

A Forbes article indicates that China needs better higher education to cement superpower status

What those scores represented, though, was not Chinese educational superiority but an unhealthy focus on standardized testing.

To cement its superpower status, China needs to improve its educational system so it doesn't just produce great academic research and innovation but also attracts the world's top students. All great powers draw in the world's best and train the future leaders of their allies and vassal states. That is soft power at its finest. The British have had Eton and Oxford, the U.S. St. Paul's and Harvard. China needs its own global centers of learning.

What should be done? China should continue to encourage students to go abroad to gain expertise to bring back, but it also needs to strengthen its education system internally. Aside from introducing more liberal arts at the university level, as I have written before, reform needs to start at the primary school level.

25 most valuable blogs in America according to 24/7 Wall Street

24.7 Wall Street has an updated estimate of the 25 most valuable blogs in America

Blogs that were on previous lists that were sold include Ars Technica and PaidContent.org. Last year we ranked TechCrunch as the fifth most valuable blog with a value of $32 million. Based on recent media reports, AOL acquired the blog for $25 million to $40 million. 24/7 had estimated its revenue at $9.5 million and operating profit at $3 million.

1. Gawker value $240 million
The sites have about 235 million pageviews a month, and CPMs average $19 per page. This means the company’s revenue is $53.6 million.

2. The Huffington Post.
Valuation: $150 million.

The large news and information blog has more than 20 million unique visitors and 24/7 estimates pageviews per month of 180 million. Attempts by the company’s new management and sales staff to raise the quality of the site have worked. Average CPMs on each page is up to $13. Huffington’s revenue for 2010 will be close to $28 million. Expensive business model with 150 employees.

3. Drudge report - Value $50 million
Drudge revenue in 2010 will be nearly $13 million. The site’s unique visitors are higher than last year, up about 30% to 13 million.

Using new diamond-like materials to make more reliable nanoelectromechanical systems

Researchers at Northwestern University, the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies at Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories, and Binghamton University have found a way to dramatically improve the reliability of carbon nanotube-based nanoelectromechanical (NEMS) systems. Their results are published in the journal Small.

* NEMS have a tendency to stick shut, burn or fracture after only a few cycles.

* To date, carbon nanotube-based nanoelectromechanical devices have ubiquitously used metal, thin-film electrodes

* They replaced these electrodes with electrodes made from diamond-like carbon (an electrically-conductive and mechanical robust material), which suppressed the onset of failure

Bristol University Developing the real life Sonic Screwdriver which is a key Dr Who Gadget

Ultrasonic engineers at Bristol University and The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair are uncovering how a real life version of the fictional screwdriver - which uses sonic technology to open locks and undo screws - could be created.

Professor of Ultrasonics, Bruce Drinkwater, who is working with The Big Bang to inspire young scientists of the future, says the answer lies in ultrasonic sound waves. Ultrasonics can be used to apply forces to objects.

World Economic Trends through 2100 and Quadrillion dollar economies

Currently the world economy is $74 trillion on a purchasing power parity basis. the IMF is forecasting about 6% per year growth through 2015 for a world economy of $99 trillion.

Goldman Sachs has projected a world economy of over $200 trillion in 2050

Robert Fogel, nobel prize winning economist has projected China to have 123 trillion GDP in 2040 China's share of global GDP -- 40 percent -- will dwarf that of the United States (14 percent) and the European Union (5 percent) 30 years from now. So the World economy he is projecting is $307 trillion in 2040.

A world economy ten times larger will be a quadrillion dollar economy. Inflation and using future dollars will accelerate that milestone.

Increasing growth every 20 years
Year    flat 6% 6-11%   6-18%
  
2015    100     100     100    (trillions of dollars, World GDP PPP)
    
2020    134     134     134  
  
2030    241     241     241    2.5 times energy
                               30K per cap  
    
2040    431     474     571    3-4 times energy
                               50-70K per cap 
    
2050    770     940    1390    5-10 times
                               80K-140K per cap 
    
2060    1380   2000    4300    10-20 times energy
                               140K-430K per cap
    
2070    2500   4500   13700    15-40 times energy
                               250k-1.37 Million per cap
    
2080    4400  11600   56000    20-80 times energy
                               440K-5.6 M per cap  
   
2090    8000  30000  230000    35-200 times energy
                               800K-23 M percap     

2100   14000  86000 1200000    60-500 times energy
                               1.4M - 120 Million per cap

OECD report compares nuclear, gas, coal, solar and wind costs

The bottom third shows the costs in China and Korea and Asia where most of the construction of new power generation of any kind is happening.

An OECD report compares nuclear, gas, coal and wind costs.

The whole OECD energy cost report is here

The executive summary has the LCOE (levelised cost of electricity) of solar photovoltaic at $215 to 600/MWH and solar thermal $136-243/MWH.

For nuclear $43-54 /MWH for the main asian (China and South Korea) countries that are building most of the new reactors (10% discount rate) and $68/MWH for russia.

New nuclear build in South Korea and China and Russia are very cheap. That is where most of the reactors (nuclear and other new power) will be built. China will also build almost twice as much hydro from 2010-2020 (almost 200 GWe of hydro and a lot of coal.)

Interview of Gene Sequencing expert William Andregg of Halcyon Molecular by Sander Olson

Here is the William Andregg interview by Sander Olson. Mr. Andregg is the CEO and founder of Halcyon Molecular. Along with his brother, Michael, William invented the core polymer placement technology which allows rapid and inexpensive sequencing of DNA. Mr. Andregg is confident that by 2015 complete human genomes will be sequenced for only $1,000. He believes that DNA sequencing will eventually become sufficiently sophisticated, automated, and inexpensive that scientists will be able to sequence every tree in a forest, and may lead to advanced nanotechnology.

In a recent episode of TechCrunch TV’s “Speaking Of..”, Halcyon Molecular CEO William Andregg spoke about his dream to extend human lifespans long enough to travel to other star systems. William explains how his early focus on astronomy and physics eventually gave way to intense study of biology for that reason. In the video, he says how he is fascinated by long-living creatures like the Galápagos tortoise and bowhead whale, and expresses optimism about how advanced biotechnology could determine their longevity-relevant molecular differences and use that knowledge to develop life-extension therapies for humans.

Question: How much does it currently cost to sequence ones genome?

Answer: Depends on what you mean by “sequence ones genome”. If you want a truly complete sequence, you can’t get that now. You could spend millions of dollars and you still wouldn’t have even a single truly complete human genome. There are much cheaper options to get something far less accurate and useful- getting down to about $10,000 currently. But we’re hoping that in five years when people talk about “sequencing ones genome”, they really mean it- really sequencing the whole thing, not just seeing part of it.

Using the Tobacco mosaic virus to self assemble lithium ion battery components and increase energy capacity by ten times

Engineers have discovered that they can harness the characteristics of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) to build tiny components for the lithium ion batteries of the future

The rigid, rod-shaped Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), which under an electron microscope looks like uncooked spaghetti, is a well-known and widespread plant virus that devastates tobacco, tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetation. Engineers can modify the TMV rods to bind perpendicularly to the metallic surface of a battery electrode and arrange the rods in intricate and orderly patterns on the electrode. Then, they coat the rods with a conductive thin film that acts as a current collector and finally the battery's active material that participates in the electrochemical reactions.

The researchers can greatly increase the electrode surface area and its capacity to store energy and enable fast charge/discharge times. TMV becomes inert during the manufacturing process; the resulting batteries do not transmit the virus. The new batteries, however, have up to a 10-fold increase in energy capacity over a standard lithium ion battery.

One acre of tobacco can be used to produce one pound of TMV.

ReWalk robotic exoskeleton to go on sale January 2011 to help parapalegics walk

ReWalk can help paraplegics to stand and walk - using crutches for stability - when they lean forward and move their upper body in different ways.

Regular usage of the device, which costs about $100,000, would prevent costly complications that often arise in people who can't walk, including pressure sores and urinary, digestive, circulatory, and cardiovascular problems.

The ReWalk weighs 15 kg (33 lbs.) and is designed to serve as a physical training device for those undergoing rehabilitation. By maintaining users upright on a daily basis it also helps alleviate many of the health-related problems associated with long-tern wheelchair use such as urinary, respiratory, cardiovascular and digestive problems.

The ReWalk has been undergoing clinical trials in Israel and the U.S. for several years and Argo Medical Technologies now plans to start selling the device to rehabilitation centers around the world from January 2011 for a cost of around US$100,000.

Personalized Vaccine for Lymphoma Patients Extends Disease-Free Survival by Nearly Two Years

A personalized vaccine is a powerful therapy to prevent recurrence among certain follicular lymphoma patients (University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine).

Vaccination with IgM but Not IgG Idiotype (proteins) Prolongs Remission Duration In Follicular Lymphoma Patients.

Individuals who responded to initial chemotherapy and remained in remission for at least six months were eligible to continue in the trial, and received either a personalized idiotype vaccine plus an immune-stimulating agent called GM-CSF, or placebo vaccine plus GM-CSF. When researchers analyzed the patients who received at least one dose of personalized vaccine, they saw a 14-month improvement in disease-free survival, compared to those who received the placebo. The 76 patients treated with the vaccine had a median disease-free survival of 44.2 months, compared to 30.6 months for the 41 patients treated with the placebo.

Medieval England had $1000 per capita income and an earlier ramp up for the Industrial Revolution

New research led by economists at the University of Warwick reveals that medieval England was not only far more prosperous than previously believed, it also actually boasted an average income that would be more than double the average per capita income of the world’s poorest nations today.

In a paper entitled British Economic Growth 1270-1870 published by the University of Warwick’s Centre on Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) the researchers find that living standards in medieval England were far above the “bare bones subsistence” experience of people in many of today’s poor countries.

This new figure of $1,000 is not only significantly higher than previous estimates for that period in England – it also indicates that on average medieval England was better off than some of the world’s poorest nations today

The research shows that the path to the Industrial Revolution began far earlier than commonly has been understood. A widely held view of economic history suggests that the Industrial Revolution of 1800 suddenly took off, in the wake of centuries without sustained economic growth or appreciable improvements in living standards in England from the days of the hunter-gatherer. By contrast, we find that the Industrial Revolution did not come out of the blue. Rather, it was the culmination of a long period of economic development stretching back as far as the late medieval period

This relates to technology singularity economics.

Robin Hanson has a theory related to shifts in economic growth rates.

Mode      Doubling   Date Began   Doubles  Doubles  Transition
  Grows     Time (DT)  To Dominate  of DT    of WP    CES Power
----------  ---------  -----------  ------   -------  ----------
Brain size   34M yrs    550M B.C.     ?       "16"      ?
Hunters     224K yrs   2000K B.C.    7.3      8.9       ?
Farmers      909 yrs    4856 B.C.    7.9      7.6      2.4
Industry     6.3 yrs    2020 A.D.    7.2     >9.2      0.094   

The Medieval England (1500-1730) doubling period was 100 years.
From 1730-1910 doubling period was 58 years.
From 1910-2010 there has been a doubling period of about 15 years.

The 15 year doubling time is 4.7-4.8% GDP growth. An improvement of doubling time by 3-5 times would indicate another level of progress that is line with the long term historic trend.

A pre-singularity phase with two doublings at a more modest improvement level would be to the 9-12% per year growth level that China is experiencing. Technology could enable that level for the entire world. Then 15% for 3-4 doublings and then 20-25% for the singularity level.

Sea Based Launch Option for the Nuclear space launch cannon

Joseph Friedlander had a brainstorm on how to launch the Wang Bullet (project Orion pulsed propulsion variant) from under the sea. The core idea for the nuclear verne launch gun 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 lowered into place, layer by layer enclosing its internal payloads with external structures (such as a supporting sabot) and sealing the unit to flight-ready status. Place sets of guide rails around the perimeter of the shaft with ‘slippers’—metal contact shoes—touching the rails from the edges of the Wang Bullet. Finally, after all is in readiness, pump reaction mass through an access shaft under the sabot into a prepared chamber and place a thermonuclear explosive device in the midst of the reaction mass.

The reaction mass (in our conceptual model, water, but many other substances would work) not only becomes the propulsive hypersonic plasma and impulsive gas but also serves as an accelerative, radiation (boron included against neutron flux) and impact shield relative to the extreme violence of the blast chamber. So it is not the nuclear blast that directly accelerates. The blast acts on the propellant and filler.

Terms -
Nuclear Verne BlowGun - the entire system, the hole, the nuclear device, the cistern of propellant and the projectile
Wang Bullet - the projectile being launched
Friedlander Sabot - the base of the projectile

One of the biggest objections to the nuclear cannon concept has to be the idea of a radioactive hole left behind. It is an emotional feeling.

Suppose the launch tube and setup at sea costs $75 million, and the Wang Bullet and thermonuclear device all together, including launch and payload costs $200 million. That is less than a shuttle launch. But instead of 15 tons to orbit (the equivalent of 3 tons to the Moon) we are talking probably 1000 tons to the Moon. That is $200000 a ton to the Moon, or $100 a pound. The benefit would remain very low cost to launch material and payloads that are resistant to high G forces and no radiation in the atmosphere and no radiation in the ground. The sea would disperse the radiation from the underwater explosion. The underwater explosion will make it easier to prevent radiation from getting to the atmosphere.

* Nuclear bombs exist and there is no question that they work and there are thousands that have built, paid for and in storage
* There were tests which showed that nuclear bombs can launch heavy metal objects at high speed and the objects survive
* The system is taking material and using a nuclear bomb to provide the energy to make it into more energetic propellent. Chemical propellant maxes out at lower speed and energies. Nuclear take the same chemicals and ups the heat (100 million degrees instead of a few thousand) for more speed and energy
* the Ocean already contains 3.5 billion tons of Uranium

The current space capability versus the proposed system is the difference between starting a colony and industry with the supplies you can put in a pickup truck or what you can put into a container ship.

Nuclear effects would not get into the air, what will be in the water is safe, hundreds of times more supplies at one hundred times lower cost for space using technology that exists.

Carbon Nanotubes enable a rubbery material over a tempurature range from –196° to 1000°C

Journal Science - Carbon Nanotubes with Temperature-Invariant Viscoelasticity from –196° to 1000°C The material seems like it will be great for things like O-rings (a part that failed in the Space Shuttle).

Viscoelasticity describes the ability of a material to possess both elasticity and viscosity. Viscoelastic materials, such as rubbers, possess a limited operational temperature range (for example, for silicone rubber it is –55° to 300°C), above which the material breaks down and below which the material undergoes a glass transition and hardens. We created a viscoelastic material composed from a random network of long interconnected carbon nanotubes that exhibited an operational temperature range from –196° to 1000°C. The storage and loss moduli, frequency stability, reversible deformation level, and fatigue resistance were invariant from –140° to 600°C. We interpret that the thermal stability stems from energy dissipation through the zipping and unzipping of carbon nanotubes at contacts.

High-Temperature Rubber Made from Carbon Nanotubes

Sprint will modernize its network to integrate wimax and CDMA and phase out Nextel

Sprint has separate equipment for its 800 megahertz and 1.9 gigahertz bands, and for the 2.5 gigahertz band it uses through its relationship with Clearwire Corp. for fourth-generation service. The upgrades will allow the carrier to use all three technologies and others on a single band. The improvements open the possibility for Sprint to incorporate a competing fourth-generation technology, known as Long-Term Evolution, that both AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless will use.

Sprint at wikipedia

Sprint will spend as much as $5 billion to upgrade its network in the next three to five years.

Lasers let scientists watch red blood cells in living mice and an alternative to biopsies

Seeing Red: A new imaging technique produces video-quality images of red blood cells in living tissue. Researchers used the technology to observe red blood cells (shown) moving through the capillaries of live mice.
Credit: Sunney Xie/Harvard University

MIT Technology Review reports that scientists at Harvard University have developed a noninvasive imaging technique that captures images at the molecular level so quickly that they can "watch" red blood cells move through the capillaries of a live mouse. The team is working to adapt the techniques to MRI which would enable scans of the surface of deeper tissues and organs to enable for screening for colon cancer and other diseases.

The system uses two laser beams set at different frequencies to excite specific types of molecules in the skin. A custom-designed detector picks up the excited molecular signal and translates it into an image.

Sunney Xie, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard, says the technique could be a noninvasive alternative to often painful and time-consuming skin biopsies.

China is considering investments of up to $1.5 trillion over five years in seven strategic industries

China is considering investments of up to $1.5 trillion over five years in seven strategic industries, sources said, a plan aimed at accelerating the country's transition from the world's supplier of cheap goods to a leading purveyor of high-value technologies.

1. Alternative fuel cars

China's vehicle fleet has turned to many other power sources, including fuel cells, compressed natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas and even liquefied natural gas, which is most commonly associated with huge storage tanks aboard ocean-going tankers.

In June the government launched a pilot program in five cities to subsidize electric and hybrid cars

China has over 200 gigawatts of hydropower now and targets 325 Gigawatts for 2015 and 390 gigawatts for 2020

Normal hydropower capacity would grow to 284 gigawatts (GW) and pumped storage hydropower capacity to 41 GW by 2015, and to 330 GW and 60 GW, respectively, by 2020, Ouyang was quoted as saying by the 21th Century Business Herald.

China's wind and solar power sectors could see their expansion moderating in the coming five years as the government focuses on cheaper hydropower, Ouyang Changyu, deputy general secretary of the China Electricity Council was quoted as saying by local media.

Because of wind and solar power's high generating costs and weak competitiveness, their development would be curtailed, Ouyang was quoted as saying by Caixin Media at an event on Tuesday organised by the influential industry association.

Coal-fired power capacity will reach 933 GW by 2015 and nuclear power is set to rise to 42.94 GW by 2015 and 90 GW by 2020, the newspaper reported, citing Ouyang.

Ouyang headed a research project on the next five-year power industry plan that was expected to be published in the second half of this month after government approvals, the newspaper said.

Development of clean energy including wind and solar power would leap forward after 2020

Foodtubes wants to make an internet of things - success would fulfill the Series of Tubes quote

Automatically routed canisters could replace lorries (truck) with an Internet of things, says Foodtubes.

The late Senator Ted Stevens had a quote about the internet

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material

The Foodtubes group wants to put goods in metal capsules 2 meters (6 feet) long, which are shifted through underground polyethylene tubes at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour, directed by linear induction motors and routed by intelligent software to their destinations.

The group, which includes an Oxford physics professor and logistics experts, wants £15 million to build a 5 mile test circuit, and believes the scheme could fund itself if used by large supermarkets and local councils, and could expand because it uses an open architecture.

China has an 850 meter long tube maglev system for moving coal. Magplane Technology also wants to move people and freight.

Eni achieves key production milestone in the Zubair field, in Iraq by increasig 18,000 barrels per day to 201,000 barrels per day

The Zubair field production rate has increased from approximately 183,000 barrels of oil per day, the initial production rate on the TSC effective date of 18 February 2010, to a sustained rate of appreciably over 201,000 barrels of oil per day (the minimum required production rate to trigger cost recovery)

Previously we had reported about an increased production target for the West Qurna oil field.

West Qurna should get to 750,000 barrels per day by 2014

The latest state department iraq status report still shows no gains in production and exports for the country over 2010.

70 Online Databases that Define Our Planet

MIT Technology Review - 70 Online Databases that Define Our Planet If you want to simulate the Earth, you'll need data on the climate, health, finance, economics, traffic and lots more. Here's where to find it.

Arxiv - From Social Data Mining to Forecasting Socio-Economic Crisis

Socio-economic data mining has a great potential in terms of gaining a better understanding of problems that our economy and society are facing, such as financial instability, shortages of resources, or conflicts. Without large-scale data mining, progress in these areas seems hard or impossible. Therefore, a suitable, distributed data mining infrastructure and research centers should be built in Europe. It also appears appropriate to build a network of Crisis Observatories. They can be imagined as laboratories devoted to the gathering and processing of enormous volumes of data on both natural systems such as the Earth and its ecosystem, as well as on human techno-socio-economic systems, so as to gain early warnings of impending events. Reality mining provides the chance to adapt more quickly and more accurately to changing situations. Further opportunities arise by individually customized services, which however should be provided in a privacy-respecting way. This requires the development of novel ICT (such as a self- organizing Web), but most likely new legal regulations and suitable institutions as well. As long as such regulations are lacking on a world-wide scale, it is in the public interest that scientists explore what can be done with the huge data available. Big data do have the potential to change or even threaten democratic societies. The same applies to sudden and large-scale failures of ICT systems. Therefore, dealing with data must be done with a large degree of responsibility and care. Self-interests of individuals, companies or institutions have limits, where the public interest is affected, and public interest is not a sufficient justification to violate human rights of individuals. Privacy is a high good, as confidentiality is, and damaging it would have serious side effects for society.

Dirk Helbing is the driving force behind a European project to simulate the Earth and the man who will lead it if he gets the EUR 1 billion he needs from the European Commission.

It turns out that there are already numerous sources of data that could provide the necessary fuel to power Helbing's Earth Simulator. "In the past, collecting data of human activity has been largely obstructed by financial, technological and ethical issues," say Helbing and Balietti. That is no longer the case.

Carnival of nuclear energy 30

The Carnival of nuclear energy 30 is up at Yes Vermont Yankee

Dan Yurman had looked at China's increasing nuclear build.

Other savings advantages (beyond low labor costs) are possible by simplifying reactor design, and lowering materials input. Building a reactor with less materials and fewer parts lowers nuclear costs directly and indirectly. Decreasing core size per unit of power output also can contribute a cost advantage. Direct saving relate to the cost of parts and matetials, but fewer parts and less material also means less labor is required to put things together, since there is less to put together. In addition a small reactor core structure, would, all other things being equal, require a smaller housing. Larger cores mean more structural housing expenses.

In order to keep the American and European economies competitive, the United States and Europe must adopt a low cost, factory manufactured nuclear technology. Molten Salt nuclear technology represents the lowest cost approach, and is highly consistent with factory manufacture and other cost lowering approaches. Couple to that the outstanding safety of molten salt nuclear technology, the potential for dramatically lowering the creation of nuclear waste, and the obstacles to nuclear proliferation posed by molten salt nuclear technology, and we see a real potential for keeping the American and European economies competitive, at least as far as energy costs are concerned.

Charles Barton at Nuclear Green discusses American and European begin to develop low cost innovative nuclear plans in order to compete with the lower nuclear construction cost in China and asia

I also had written an article about China's nuclear build and the exporting of cheap reactors and how that could solidify the high end projections of the WNA for 2030.

A Feb 2009, McKinsey report (234 pages) that suggested what China could do for a greener economy. It looks like China will move even faster on several aspects of electrical generation than the report recommends. China is building out nuclear, hydro and wind power faster than the report talked about. The McKinsey plan does suggest making all cars in China electric by 2020.

ilookforward.com has 11 predictions for 2030

ilookforward.com has 11 predictions for 2030

1. By 2030, learning a second language will no longer be necessary.

A tiny computer that fits in your ear, and translates what you hear into your own language? It’s not farfetched at all. In fact, all the requisite technology exists today, and all that’s missing is for someone to connect the dots.

NBF - Google is doing a lot with real time voice translation and displays in glasses could provide additional augmented information. Need to clarify how good this will get in a prediction. A gold standard would be as good as UN translators or actually replacing or supplementing UN translators.

2. By 2030, thousands, perhaps millions, of people will have a life expectancy of 150 years.

Aubrey de Grey says: I think we have a 50% chance of achieving medicine capable of getting people to 200 in the decade 2030-2040. Presuming we do indeed do that, the actual achievement of 200 will probably be in the decade 2140-2150 - it will be someone who was about 85-90 at the time that the relevant therapies were developed.

NBF - funding dependent. A lot more money has to go towards true life extension.

Printable Quantum dot LED Displays

QD Vision and LG Display have just announced a joint development agreement focusing on electroluminescent quantum dot LED (QLED) nanotechnology, which promises to sweep all display technologies before it, including OLED. QLED promises energy efficient displays that offer brighter, richer colors, can be printed on ultra-thin, transparent or flexible substrates and manufactured cheaply.

QD Vision and Solvay are pursueing printable quantum dots

A printable electroluminescent platform based on quantum dot technology from QD Vision could enable new general-illumination and pixelated-display products. OLED, as an industry, is looking at a $1 billion market this year. QD Vision is several years away from commercial EL products. The company did demonstrate a 4-inch-diagonal monochrome display at the SID conference this year. But the company needs to add more partners to the QLED ecosystem and further refine the efficiency of the emissive material before commercial products debut.

QD Vision has been more publicly focused on photoluminescence (PL) or optical stimulation of its quantum dots in LED-based solid-state-lighting (SSL) applications, the company is also working on electroluminescence (EL) or electrically-stimulated applications. The company is partnering with plastics and chemistry specialist Solvay to develop a printable platform for EL display and general illumination applications.

QD calls the EL concept a quantum dot LED (QLED), and the similarity to the organic light-emitting diode acronym (OLED) is probably no coincidence. Long term, QD Vision believes that quantum dots make a better choice in planar lighting than the organic emissive material in OLEDs – in terms of better light output, a richer color gamut, and a simpler manufacturing process.

QD Vision is in the earliest of stages of commercial products based on quantum dots. The company is supplying the technology to Nexxus Lighting for use in an LED retrofit light bulb. But the company has been working on EL applications behind the scenes primarily driven by government contracts.

MIT Technology Review reviewed Quantum dot display technology

Juniper predictions on wireless for 2011

Juniper's top 10 wireless predictions for 2011.

1. Surging Mobile Data Traffic
2. Augmented Reality to Enhance Mobile Games and Retail
3. Cloud-Based Operating Systems are Launched
4. Mobile Banking will become a “must-have” when opening a new account
5. Mobile Devices Begin to Replace Credit Cards
6. Mobile Handsets Become Even More Sensitive
7. Mobile Lottery Tickets Sales to Soar Fueled by Deployments in US, Europe, and China
8. Mobile-Specific Threats Lead to Demand for Mobile-Specific Security
9. Buyouts take Social Purchasing to a New Level (NBF Note the Groupon buyout by Google did not happen)
10. More Vendors Develop a “GreenHeart”

Cleantech predictions for 2011

Dallas Kachan predicts Greentech for 2011

1. Sustained worldwide VC investment in cleantech in 2011
* Kleiner Perkins may be looking to scale back its cleantech investing
* plenty of capital being allocated for cleantech in 2011. Another $500 million has just been announced from the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS). Hony Capital in China is closing in on a new 10 billion RMB ($1.5 billion) fund, and there’s a new €9b ($12.4b) NER300 fund for cleantech in the EU. And that’s just three of dozens announced in the last month.

Heartland Robotics still promising to revolutionize manufacturing gets $20 million in more funding

Heartland Robotics has raised $20 million in funding

Heartland Robotics was founded in 2008 by iRobot co-Founder and former Director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Rodney Brooks, with the goal of introducing a new generation of robots to improve productivity in manufacturing environments. “Our robots will be intuitive to use, intelligent and highly flexible. They’ll be easy to buy, train, and deploy and will be unbelievably inexpensive. Heartland Robotics will change the definition of how and where robots can be used, dramatically expanding the robot marketplace,” explained Dr. Brooks.

Paul Maeder, General Partner at Highland Capital Partners, said “Heartland’s vision for improving the competitiveness of American manufacturing through innovative robotic technology is compelling for manufacturers and important for America.

Brooks has spoke of how a world dominated by the Wal-Mart style of business (which he says relies heavily on cheap Chinese labor) might assimilate new types of robotics into the workforce and eliminate the need to outsource. Brooks was the key technical innovator behind the Roomba

Heartland Robotics is believed to be making robots that are more dexterous and have better vision recognition than the Obero robot while also making them much more cheap and reliable

Tata reveals Indica Vista electric car with 150 mile range on one charge with a price around $10,000 and an electric truck

Tata Motors used the Thailand International Motor Expo 2010 as the venue to introduce an electric car based on its Indica Vista and a variant based on the Ace pickup.

The Indica Vista EV is powered by a super-polymer lithium-ion battery that promises 200 km on a single charge and an acceleration of 0 to 100 kph in 10 seconds. The EV is the first product from the Tata Motors European Technical Centre (TMETC) and Mijo Grenland/Innovation of Norway — TMETC has a 70 per cent stake in the Norwegian company. This is the first time the EV has been seen in the Southeast Asian market.

Gizmag - The Tata Indica Vista EV hits the market early in 2011, carries four people, has excellent performance and can run 150 miles on a charge. Most importantly, the EV is based on a best-selling, mass-market car from the Indian market where it sells for less than US$9000 and its performance in the recent Future Car Challenge verifies its extreme energy efficiency.

This kind of car has the range and cost and carrying capacity to make proposed plans for India and China to go all electric vehicles by 2020 feasible. The remaining hurdles are to be able to make enough batteries or capacitors with comparable cost for about 500 million cars and trucks and to build out the charging system.

Iraqi oilfield target is raised and production should have significant ramping within 3 years

ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell have raised their target for oil production from Iraq's West Qurna-1 oilfield by about 22 per cent to more than 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd), a volume equal to the total output capacity of Abu Dhabi.

If all the oilfields for which Iraq has awarded contracts were developed according to plan, its production capacity could reach 13 million bpd "some time after 2017", Mr Ciszuk calculated. That would exceed Saudi Arabia's 12 billion bpd capacity to pump crude.

But most analysts predict the path of Iraqi oil development will be much slower than the ministry's plans, not least because of construction bottlenecks. IHS Global forecasts a "best-case scenario" of 6 million bpd by 2020.

The adjustment follows extensive reservoir appraisal and surveying work on the oilfield in the year since the Iraqi oil ministry awarded a 20-year contract to the companies to develop the field, which is among the largest in the Middle East.

The resulting increase in estimated reserves at West Qurna contributed a large portion of the 24 per cent upward revision in Iraq's total oil reserves to 143 billion barrels that the oil ministry announced in October. A reappraisal of reserves at another field, Zubair, contributed most of the rest.

Production from Iraq´s prized West Qurna Stage 1 oil field should more than triple to 750,000 barrels a day in three years time. The US State department report shows that so far Iraqi oil production has fallen about 100,000 barrels per day from the best levels of 2010. Oil production in November was 2.31 million barrels per day and exports were 1.79 million barrels per day. Exports were off 200,000 barrels per day from the best levels of 2010.

Carbon nanotube polymer stronger than Kevlar

Researchers at Northwestern University have nanoengineered a new kind of fiber that could be tougher than Kevlar.

The group have created a high performance fiber from carbon nanotubes and a polymer that is remarkably tough, strong, and resistant to failure. Using state-of-the-art in-situ electron microscopy testing methods, the group was able to test and examine the fibers at many different scales — from the nano scale up to the macro scale — which helped them understand just exactly how tiny interactions affect the material’s performance. Their results were recently published in the journal ACS Nano.

“We want to create new-generation fibers that exhibit both superior strength and toughness,” said Espinosa said. “A big issue in engineering fibers is that they are either strong or ductile — we want a fiber that is both. The fibers we fabricated show very high ductility and a very high toughness. They can absorb and dissipate large amounts of energy before failure. We also observed that the strength of the material stays very, very high, which has not been shown before. These fibers can be used for a wide variety of defense and aerospace applications.”

Previous work by Espinosa in 2008 was to use irradiation to strengthen carbon nanotubes and to precisely measure the strength of fibers

Rewriting Moores Law with faster improvement in computer speed using IBM silicon photonics

Jason Perlow claims that Moore’s Law is going to have to be completely re-written — instead of microprocessor technology doubling its performance every two years, we’ll be looking forward to ten to twenty fold increases in computational power, at a bare minimum, every five years.

This would mean over ten years that computer speed would improve 100 to 400 times instead of 32 times.

Onchip photonics at very low power are what is required to enable zettaflop computing with systems that are relatively similar to what exists today. After that another re-architecting will be required to achieve more speed. Memristors for faster memory and memory that is beside the logic at a low level will also provide faster computing over this period. Memristor computing could also enable more gains from three dimensional computing structures. Memristors and photonic communication could enable yottaflop computing.

10 Megawatt wind turbines 2011-2013 and 15 Megawatt wind turbines by 2020

There are two major efforts to push conventional horizontal wind turbine technology to its limits.

The Norwegian company Sway will build a 10 Megawatt wind turbine (533-feet tall) capable of powering 2,000 homes all by itself by 2011 and then test it for two years before building more. Enova, a public agency owned by Norway’s petroleum and oil industry ministry, is helping fund the project, which is expected to cost $67.5 million to build.

Eleven Spanish companies join forces on the Azimut Project to develop a 15-MW offshore wind turbine using 100% Spanish technology by 2020

A 7 MWe wind turbine is 413 feet tall.

A 15 MWe relatively conventional horizontal wind turbine would then be expected to be about 688 feet tall.

Two World financial center in New York is 645 feet tall

The Trump tower is 664 feet tall

China spending $511 billion to build up to 245 nuclear reactors

According to Michael Kruse, consultant on nuclear systems for Arthur D. Little, the Chinese are ready to spend $511 billion to build up to 245 reactors.

American Competitiveness - Stephen Chu and Others Sound the Alarm

Stephen Chu (energy secretary) sounded an alarm with Is the Energy Race our new “Sputnik” Moment? (30 page presentation)

For over a century, America has led the world in innovation.
Today, that leadership is at risk.

In the last 15 years, Chu said, China has gone from 15th place to 5th in international patents and from 14th place to 2nd place in published research articles. Of fifty or so nuclear reactors under construction around the world, thirty are in China. China just surpassed the U.S. with the world's fastest supercomputer, has a 220-mph rail line that is the fastest in the world, and has broken ground on a rail network almost four times larger than the next most developed rail country, France

China has installed the highest voltage and capacity, lowest loss HVDC (800kV) and HVAC (1,000 kV) lines, and plans an integrated HVDC/HVAC backbone.
• Broken ground on 30 nuclear reactors out of ~ 50 world-wide.

Recently China is raising its 2020 nuclear generation target to about 114 GWe. This would be more than the United States unless the united states builds (or uprates) about 14 GWe of new nuclear power.

There are many more figures from a report-
Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 (2010) a report on American Competitiveness by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)

Thirty years ago, ten percent of California’s general fund went to higher education and three percent to prisons. Today, nearly eleven percent goes to prisons and eight percent to higher education.

China is now second in the world in its publication of biomedical research articles, having recently surpassed Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Canada and Spain.

The United States now ranks 22nd among the world’s nations in the density of broadband Internet penetration and 72nd in the density of mobile telephony subscriptions.

In 2009, 51 percent of United States patents were awarded to non-United States companies.

The World Economic Forum ranks the United States 48th in quality of mathematics and science education.

Of Wal-Mart’s 6,000 suppliers, 5,000 are in China.

There are sixteen energy companies in the world with larger reserves than the largest United States company.

Carbon nanotubes Blacker Than Black for better planet searches

NASA engineers now developing a blacker-than pitch material that will help scientists gather hard-to-obtain scientific measurements or observe currently unseen astronomical objects, like Earth-sized planets in orbit around other stars.

"This is a technology that offers a lot of payback," said engineer Leroy Sparr, who is assessing its effectiveness on the Ocean Radiometer for Carbon Assessment (ORCA), a next-generation instrument that is designed to measure marine photosynthesis. "It's about 10 times better than black paint" typically used by NASA instrument designers to suppress stray light, he said.

The technology works because of its super-absorption abilities. The nanotubes themselves are packed vertically much like a shag rug. The tiny gaps between the tubes absorb 99.5 percent of the light that hits them. In other words, very few photons are reflected off the carbon-nanotube coating, which means that stray light cannot reflect off surfaces and interfere with the light that scientists actually want to measure. The human eye sees the material as black because only a small fraction of light reflects off the material.

Blacklight Power announces independent replications of energy generation and a light emission that they claims confirms hydrinos

Blacklight Power announced three replications of their work and claims regarding hydrinos. Blacklight Power still is not generating any commercial electricity and has not widely distributed any test systems for more open verification of extraordinary claims.

Greentechmedia - the latest extraordinary claim of Blacklight Power

BlackLight Power is back, and it says it can generate electricity for $25 a kilowatt (capital cost for the system, versus $800-6000/kw for natural gas and nuclear power plants). A public demo is slated for 2011

1. BlackLight Power announced that CIHT (Catalyst-Induced-Hydrino-Transition) technology has been independently confirmed by Dr. K.V. Ramanujachary, Rowan University Meritorious Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

2. An expanded team of scientists and engineers at Rowan University completed a thorough year-long series of additional testing of the thermal systems following the announcement and release of their validations in October 2008 and August 2009. Using BLP’s proprietary solid-fuel chemistry capable of continuous regeneration, independently formulated and tested fuels generated on-demand energy greater than that of combustion at power levels of kilowatts. Furthermore, when using BLP’s chemical process, Rowan University professors reported a net energy gain of up to 6.5 times the maximum energy potential of these materials from known chemical reactions.

3. Blacklight Power announced the replication of the extraordinary high-energy light emission below 80 nm from hydrogen at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). These results, previously thought to be impossible based on past theory, are predicted to be from the formation of hydrinos.

How long to hit the Verizon LTE extra charges for mobile data ? And LTE compared to Wimax and HPSA+

PC Magazine - Verizon's new 4G LTE network is so fast that you can use up your entire 5GB, $50 monthly allotment in 32 minutes

PC Mag tests maxed out at an impressive 21Mbps. If you were downloading 5GB at that speed, it would only take you 32 minutes. Since the LTE network currently has almost nobody on it, I got average speeds around 15Mbps; Verizon estimates you'll be able to get around 8.5Mbps with a loaded network.

DARPA funds non-volatile logic and bioagent detection chip and brings in Terrafugia on the flying Hummer

1. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a $65M program to develop a four person flyable and roadable vehicle. Terrafugia, Inc., developer of the Transition® Roadable Aircraft, or “Flying Car”, is the largest subcontractor to one of two winning teams, led by AAI Corporation and comprised of other Textron companies.

The vehicle will be able to travel 280 miles by land and air, using vertical take-off and landing to increase access to difficult terrain, and automating flight controls to enable operation by non-pilots.

Phase I of the five year, three-phase program will focus on conceptual design of both a prototype and a production vehicle. Phases II and III will focus on the design and manufacture of the prototype, which could be ready as early as first quarter 2015.

The work calls for Terrafugia's expertise in drive and flight integration, deployable flight surfaces, and automotive crash safety for an aircraft.

Direct Writing of Sub-5 nm Hafnium Diboride Metallic Nanostructures and an all electric single molecule motor

1.

ACS Nano -Direct Writing of Sub-5 nm Hafnium Diboride Metallic Nanostructures

Sub-5 nm metallic hafnium diboride (HfB2) nanostructures were directly written onto Si(100)-2 × 1:H surfaces using ultrahigh vacuum scanning tunneling microscope (UHV-STM) electron beam induced deposition (EBID) of a carbon-free precursor molecule, tetrakis(tetrahydroborato)hafnium, Hf(BH4)4. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy data confirm the metallic nature of the HfB2 nanostructures, which have been written down to lateral dimensions of 2.5 nm. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of sub-5 nm metallic nanostructures in an STM-EBID experiment.

The Future of Metabolic Engineering – Designer Molecules, Cells and Microorganisms

Metabolic engineering - the practice of altering genes and metabolic pathways within a cell or microorganism – could one day be used to mass-produce biofuels, pharmaceuticals and other chemical products from inexpensive and renewable starting materials. (Image by Flavio Robles, Berkeley Lab Public Affairs)

In a paper published in the journal Science titled “Manufacturing molecules through metabolic engineering,” Jay Keasling discusses the potential of metabolic engineering – one of the principal techniques of modern biotechnology – for the microbial production of many of the chemicals that are currently derived from non-renewable resources or limited natural resources. Examples include, among a great many other possibilities, the replacement of gasoline and other transportation fuels with clean, green and renewable biofuels.

Keasling is the chief executive officer for the Joint BioEnergy Institute, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) bioenergy research center. He also holds joint appointments with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), where he oversees that institute’s biosciences research programs, and the University of California (UC), Berkeley, where he serves as director of the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, and is the Hubbard Howe Jr. Distinguished Professor of Biochemical Engineering.

Wimax still increasing revenue and coverage

Sprint, Clearwire (the brand name of the service provided by Clear) and Time Warner Cable will roll out versions of the Clear service Wimax under their own branding by the end of the year

Clear Wimax si in New York as of November 1, Los Angeles on December 1 and will be in San Francisco before the end of the year.

Infonetics Research: WiMAX market continues to defy TD-LTE doom-sayers: 3Q10 revenue up 8% The WiMAX market is battling through a tough year, with perceptions of the technology dented by the promise of TD-LTE.

*Service providers have stated publicly (including KDDI recently in Japan) that LTE is not sufficient to address capacity issues and they intend to adopt a broad 4G strategy that includes WiFi and WiMAX as complementary technologies.

* In 12 months, from 2009 to 2010, the number of WiMAX subscribers worldwide is more than doubling, from just under 3 million to more than 7.5 million

Taiwanese skyscraper with blimps and wind power to start construction in 2012

Gixmag - Dorin Stefan's 'Floating Observatories' tower; construction begins in 2012 in Taechung, Taiwan

Dorin Stefans website

Floating Observatories" is Stefan Dorin's (from Romania) winning entry in the recent Taiwan Tower Conceptual International Competition – and in return for his US$130,000 first prize, now he has to actually build the thing. The new tower, standing more than 300 meters tall with its helium-filled observatory "leaves", will be the crown jewel of Taechung, the third largest city in Taiwan.

Standing somewhere around 390 meters tall, Stefan's "Floating Observatories" features geothermal heating and water heating in the basement, natural ventilation through the "chimney" effect, solar cells and axially mounted wind turbines around the building's core for power, fiber optic lighting for its basements, and a rainwater collection and purification system.

Scaling up world nuclear construction and uranium supply

Dan Yurman discusses China's ambitious nuclear energy program

Dan discusses the issues around scaling the workforce, supply chain and uranium.

I will review the scale of the build and the scaling up of world Uranium supply. The increase in nuclear construction is mostly not happening in Europe or the United States. Europe and the US have nearly flat energy generation growth because of slow growing economies.

I also had written an article about China's nuclear build and the exporting of cheap reactors and how that could solidify the high end projections of the WNA for 2030.

114GWe may be 7% of the 1600GWe that China should have in 2020 but China is forecast about 6500TWH (terawatt hours) for 2020 and 114 GWe would be about 800 TWH or about 12% of generation.

Bactera made with arsenic instead of phosphorous

Bacteria made from Arsenic. (H/T the Speculist)

NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.

BBC News - Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life

The first organism able to substitute one of the six chemical elements crucial to life has been found.

The bacterium, found in a California lake, uses the usually poisonous element arsenic in place of phosphorus.

The find, described in Science, gives weight to the long-standing idea that life on other planets may have a radically different chemical makeup.

Economist on China and India GDP growth race from 2010-2016

Although only a handful of economists think India’s growth will outpace China’s next year, a larger number believe it will do so this decade. The reasons are largely demographic. China’s economy cannot go on rapidly expanding once its labour force starts shrinking. Thanks to its one-child policy, introduced in 1978, the number of young Chinese (15-29-year-olds) will fall quite sharply after 2011, depriving the country’s factories of nomadic, nimble-fingered workers. Within a couple of years, Chinese youngsters will be outnumbered by their Indian peers, even though India’s population will not match China’s until about 2025.

India may also outpace China this decade for the simple reason that it is poorer, giving it more scope to catch up. India’s income per head would have to grow at 8% a year for 17 years to match the level China enjoys today. One year of faster growth does not, then, mean that India is somehow overtaking China. Rather, it is like a 5,000-metre runner doing a faster lap than the frontrunner, who is five laps ahead.

A summary of Dr. Bruce Cordell's 21stCenturyWaves.com Maslow Window Model for readers of Next Big Future by Joseph Friedlander

Hi, This is Joseph Friedlander on a guest post for Next Big Future.

Here we discuss long wave theory (56 year cycles involving booms, busts, wars, exuberance expeditions and scientific and engineering adventurism). I have spent a few days on and off looking at the 21stCenturyWaves.com site and wanted to give a digest for Next Big Future readers-- but also, to give an idea on a slight modification to the theory.

What is long wave theory?
Often called Kondratieff cycles, they are lifetime length sinusoidal waves charted against hundred year calendars. IF you believe in them you can see many correlations that otherwise are remarkable but unexplained—others dismiss them entirely.

Dr. Bruce Cordell (more on him below) has given a series of predictions concerning a potential space activity boom from 2015-2025. A 56 year energy source displacement cycle (also more on that below) may set the stage for thorium power or space solar power soon...

Dr. Cordell briefly comments on this 56 year cycle here 21st Century waves is often a participating website in the Carnival of Space.

Brian Wang on Blog Talk Radio with the Speculist Tonight talking Life Extension

Phil, Stephen, and special guest Brian Wang discuss the possibility of average life expectancy jumping up to 100, 200, or 500 -- or even older

Fast forward radio at blogtalkradio

The show starts at:

11:00 Eastern/10:00 Central/9:00 Mountain/8:00 Pacific.

An Even Bigger Century of Nuclear Energy

China is targeting 112 to 120 GW of nuclear power by itself for 2020. McKinsey indicated that China is targeting 120 GW for 2020. So the combined China, India and Vietnam target for the next 15 years is probably over 250 GW of new build.

There is a mention in the Wall Street Journal article that 46 countries could build 1000 reactors by 2030

1000 reactors for 2030 would be the high-2030 scenario from the World Nuclear Association (WNA) - Nuclear Century. The WNA lists nuclear generation targets by country. Even the high targets for China from the WNA are likely to be too low if China hits 120 GW or more by 2020, then 2030 could be 300-400 GW. If China is exporting nuclear reactors for half the price of France (40% lower for the latest reactors and even cheaper for older models) starting in 2013 then other countries could buy and build more reactors than if cheap reactors were not coming from South Korea and China. China will probably also not be as picky about which countries they build reactors.

China has been able to maintain Walmart like costs for its nuclear reactor build.

China and South Korea (and Russia) will be exporting what is currently an Asian nuclear boom around the world. Cheaper reactors that are built on time could solidify the orders that are currently the high end case.

Korea is developing MIT uprating technology that can increase the generation from existing and future reactors.

Imaging cells and inside cells and directly imaging atoms

1. Kurzwelai reports that a European consortium has developed the Megaframe Imager, an ultrafast camera capable of recording images at one million frames per second. It allows for cellular and sub-cellular imaging, neural imaging, biosensing, DNA and protein microarray scanning, automotive collision studies, and high-sensitivity astronomical observations.

Fluorescence lifetime biosensing with DNA microarrays and a CMOS-SPAD imager

Fluorescence lifetime of dye molecules is a sensitive reporter on local microenvironment which is generally independent of fluorophores concentration and can be used as a means of discrimination between molecules with spectrally overlapping emission. It is therefore a potentially powerful multiplexed detection modality in biosensing but requires extremely low light level operation typical of biological analyte concentrations, long data acquisition periods and on-chip processing capability to realize these advantages. We report here fluorescence lifetime data obtained using a CMOS-SPAD imager in conjunction with DNA microarrays and TIRF excitation geometry. This enables acquisition of single photon arrival time histograms for a 320 pixel FLIM map within less than 26 seconds exposure time. From this, we resolve distinct lifetime signatures corresponding to dye-labelled HCV and quantum-dot-labelled HCMV nucleic acid targets at concentrations as low as 10 nM.

the full paper 7 page pdf

Carnival of Space 179

The Carnival of Space 179 is up at Weird Sciences

This site provided :

What was the best way to use the Saturn V to reach the moon in retrospect ? Lunar Surface Rendezvous and other methods would have enabled 3 times more payload to be landed on the moon and if what was landed was mining and processing equipment a facility 100 times larger could have been built than what was landed.

* The key thing is-- the Moon will stop an incoming impactor for you, give you free radiation shielding if you pile it on, and give you mine-able resources—and those resource piles and all your scrap landed boosters do not need to have their orbit maintained at the expense of fuel.

* The second expedition might land at the same site, with another module for expansion (the LASS booster) and perhaps a rover; the third might carry a small foundry kit to melt down one of the boosters (each with 13 tons of metal) and using the motors and bearings from the rover, make a much more comfortable and larger rover. Six lunar landings (the same as actually happened) would have built up quite a lunar infrastructure

* we could have brought to orbit nearly one hundred 30 ton External Tanks of the Space Shuttle to make a station 6 times the size of the ISS.

* It is not difficult to imagine mining and processing 10 to 100 times what you landed with even in the early stages.

The Vasimr 200 kilowatt plasma rocket achieved its full power milestone


Centauri Dreams looks at Brown Dwarf's

The WISE mission has received a lot of press in terms of discovering nearby brown dwarfs, but it’s clear that finding low-temperature objects is a major investigation at many Earth-bound sites as well. That includes the UKIRT (United Kingdom Infrared Telescope) Deep Sky Survey’s project to find the coolest objects in our galaxy, an effort that has paid off in the form of a unique binary system. One of the stars here is a cool, methane-rich T-dwarf, while the other is a white dwarf, the two low-mass stars orbiting each other though separated by a quarter of a light year.

My God its three times more full of stars

Astronomers have used powerful instruments on the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to detect the faint signature of red dwarfs in eight massive, relatively nearby galaxies called elliptical galaxies, which are located between about 50 million and 300 million light years away. They discovered that the red dwarfs, which are only between 10 and 20 percent as massive as the Sun, were much more bountiful than expected.

The team discovered that there are about 20 times more red dwarfs in elliptical galaxies than in the Milky Way.

The new estimate for the number of stars in the universe is 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. (300 sextillion)

Nature - A substantial population of low-mass stars in luminous elliptical galaxies

Around one billion chinese living in cities by 2025 and almost 600 million Indians by 2030

McKinsey forecasts that China will have over one billion people living in cities by 2025 and India will have 590 million people in cities by 2030

Mckinsey Indian city report is 234 pages

* Indian cities will create 70 percent of new jobs, and these will prove a powerful magnet. MGI projects that the urban population of India will increase from 340 million in 2008 to 590 million by 2030.

* If India pursues a new operating model for its cities, it could add as much as 1 to 1.5 percent to annual GDP growth, bringing the economy near to the double-digit growth to which the government aspires.

* If India continues to invest in urban infrastructure at its current rate—very low by international comparison—gridlock and urban decay will result.

* From 2002 to 2007, India invested 5.7% of GDP on infrastructure while China invested 9.3%

TAU uncovers muscle-stem cell mechanism in aging

New research from Tel Aviv University has found that "endurance exercises," like a Central Park jog or a spinning class, can make us look younger. The key, exercise, unlocks the stem cells of our muscles.

Prof. Dafna Benayahu and her team at Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine say their findings explain for the first time why older people who have exercised throughout their lives age more gracefully. They have discovered how endurance exercise increases the number of muscle stem cells and enhances their ability to rejuvenate old muscles. The researchers hope their finding can lead to a new drug to help the elderly and immobilized heal their muscles faster.

Worms achieve longer life through more efficient energy extraction from food

Long-lived mitochondrial (Mit) mutants of Caenorhabditis elegans utilize a novel metabolism

The secret to a long life comes from how we extract energy from our food. Scientists compared one class of long-lived C. elegans, called the Mit mutants, with non-mutant wild type C. elegans. Their comparison showed significant metabolism changes, suggesting that their cellular engines had been reconfigured to run on new fuels and to make new waste products, leading to increased lifespans. The worms achieved long life through changes in how their cells extracted energy (metabolic state). Although C. elegans often is used as an animal model for human biology, more research is needed to determine if an equivalent metabolic state could be created in humans with the same results.

McKinsey Proposes a green revolution development plan for China

McKinsey - China's Green Revolution (140 pages) Feb 2009

Recommendations -
1. Get coal generated power down to 34% of electrical generation or less (costs increase to 50 billion euros per year)
2. Go 100% electric cars and vehicles by 2020 (cost 70 billion euros/year)
3. Manage waste in high emission industries (steel, cement, chemicals, coal, waste management) (15 billion euro per year cost)
4. Green Buildings and lighting (will cost 50 billion euros per year but savings will pay for upfront costs)
5. Green Ecosystem (manage agriculture and forestry)
6. Green mindset (urban and consumer behavior)
more high rises which are 10-15% more efficient and promote more public transportation

China appears to be going for a more aggressive buildout of nuclear power and hydro power than the McKinsey 2009 proposal. China is targeting 112-120 GW for 2020 for nuclear power and the 2030 target could be 300-400 GW for nuclear.

Barrons - If China boosted its goal for that year to 112 gigawatts, that would mean that the Chinese would need 64 million pounds of Uranium by then, nearly 50% of the 132 million pounds that will be produced this year, based on methodology used by consulting firm McKinsey, which thinks that the real capacity goal is higher: 120 gigawatts.

Quantum-dot-induced transparency in a nanoscale plasmonic resonator

Optics Express - Quantum-dot-induced transparency in a nanoscale plasmonic resonator (13 pages)

We investigate the near-field optical coupling between a single semiconductor nanocrystal (quantum dot) and a nanometer-scale plasmonic metal resonator using rigorous electrodynamic simulations. Our calculations show that the quantum dot produces a dip in both the extinction and scattering spectra of the surface-plasmon resonator, with a particularly strong change for the scattering spectrum. A phenomenological coupledoscillator model is used to fit the calculation results and provide physical insight, revealing the roles of Fano interference and hybridization. The results indicate that it is possible to achieve nearly complete transparency as well as enter the strong-coupling regime for a single quantum dot in the near field of a metal nanostructure.

XM25 smart gun will be deployed one per squad in Afghanistan

After years of development, the U.S. Army has unleashed a new weapon in Afghanistan -- the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, a high-tech rifle that can be programmed so that its 25-mm. ammunition detonates either in front of or behind a target, meaning it can be fired just above a wall before it explodes and kills the enemy.

It also has a range of roughly 2,300 feet -- nearly the length of eight football fields -- making it possible to fire at targets well past the range of the rifles and carbines that most soldiers carry today.

The first XM25s were distributed to combat units in Afghanistan this month. The 12-pound, 29-inch system, which was designed by Minnesota's Alliant Techsystems, costs up to $35,000 per unit and, while highly sophisticated, is so easy to use that soldiers become proficient within minutes.