---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: FeedBlitz <feedblitz@mail.feedblitz.com>
Date: Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 3:09 PM
Subject: Next Big Future - 11 new articles
From: FeedBlitz <feedblitz@mail.feedblitz.com>
Date: Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 3:09 PM
Subject: Next Big Future - 11 new articles
 Here are the latest updates for jorgeus.george@gmail.com
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
Sharp Develops Concentrator Solar Cell with World's Highest Conversion Efficiency of 43.5%
Sharp Corporation has achieved the world's highest solar cell conversion efficiency of 43.5% using a concentrator triple-junction compound solar cell. These solar cells are used in a lens-based concentrator system that focuses sunlight on the cells to generate electricity.
Compound solar cells utilize photo-absorption layers made from compounds consisting of two or more elements, such as indium and gallium. The basic structure of this latest triple-junction compound solar cell uses Sharp's proprietary technology that enables efficient stacking of the three photo-absorption layers, with InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide) as the bottom layer.  Read more »                  China approves new nuclear safety plan
China has approved a nuclear safety plan and says its nuclear power plants meet the latest international safety standards, though some plants need to improve their ability to cope with flooding and earthquakes.
China's nuclear supply and construction companies have extra construction capacity and are now aggressively looking overseas for growth opportunities The Chinese Academy of Engineering is pushing for the 70 Gigawatt target. Read more »        Paralyzed Rats Walk Again
Technology Review - Spinal stimulation combined with assisted walking therapy generates new neural circuits and restores voluntary leg movement.
Rats paralyzed by spinal-cord injury can learn to control their hind limbs again if they are trained to walk in a rehabilitative device while their lower spine is electrically and chemically stimulated. A clinical trial using a similar system built for humans could begin in the next few years.  After training in a supportive robotic device while receiving spinal stimulation, a rat paralyzed by a spinal-cord injury regained enough control of its hind limbs to climb stairs. EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) Read more »        China Buys Spanish Assets in Brazil
WSJ - A debt-laden Spanish construction firm became the latest European company to unload assets onto eager Chinese buyers, as Europe's debt woes force firms to look to China for cash.
State Grid Corp., China's government controlled power-grid operator, said Tuesday it would buy high-voltage electricity transmission assets in Brazil from Spain's Actividades de Construccion y Servicios SA for 1.86 billion reais ($938.2 million), including debt. The deal is State Grid's second investment in Brazil and its fourth major investment overseas, and is the most recent in a string of deals in which a European company has looked to exit an investment. China has already bought resource related assets in Africa and Canada. China has also been buying cheap assets in Greece China is also buying all assets in North and South America Read more »        Japan Appears Likely to Being Restarting Nuclear reactors in 3 to 4 Weeks and Germany will take longer to phase out Nuclear
1. WSJ - After an uncertain couple of weeks, more and more signs are now suggesting that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will give a formal order to restart two nuclear reactors at the Oi plant in western Japan next week. It would then take two or three weeks to get each one up and running.
A key turning point came Thursday morning, when Toru Hashimoto — mayor of Osaka and Japan's most popular politician — effectively backed down from his previous position of opposing the Oi restarts, and gave his "approval" to bringing the reactors back on line — albeit, he said, just "temporarily." One week ago, I had laid out my odds for the Japan restart of nuclear reactors I think the two Oi reactors have a 40% chance to start in June and 65% chance to start by the end of July Read more »        Wireless Power Transfer to a Quadcopter UAV
The purpose of a Nimbus Labs project is to develop a wireless power transfer system that enables unmanned areal vehicles (UAVs) to provide power to, and recharge batteries of wireless sensors and other electronics far removed from the electric grid. We do this using wireless power transfer through the use of strongly coupled resonances. We have designed and built a custom power transfer and receiving system that is optimized for use on UAVs. We are investigating systems and control algorithms to optimize the power transfer from the UAV to the remote sensor node. In addition, we are investigating energy usage algorithms to optimize the use of the power in networks of sensors that are able to be recharged wirelessly from UAVs.
When everything works perfectly, the quadrotor can wirelessly transfer about 5.5 watts of power with an efficiency of 35 percent, which is easily enough to power a light.  IEEE Spectrum - The type of wireless power that these quadrotors are beaming out is based on what's called "strongly coupled magnetic resonances." Basically, you've got two coils of wire: one on the quadrotor, and one on whatever you want to power or charge (we'll call this the receiver). The quadrotor drives a current in its coil, which generates an oscillating magnetic field. When the quadrotor gets close enough to the receiver, the receiver's coil starts to resonate with the magnetic field transmitted by the quadrotor. That resonance induces a voltage in the coil, which the receiver can use to power its electronics or charge its battery.  Read more »        Geoengineering: Whiter Skies?One proposed side effect of geoengineering with stratospheric sulfate aerosols is sky whitening during the day and afterglows near sunset, as is seen after large volcanic eruptions. Sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere would increase diffuse light received at the surface, but with a non-uniform spectral distribution. We use a radiative transfer model to calculate spectral irradiance for idealized size distributions of sulfate aerosols. A 2% reduction in total irradiance, approximately enough to offset anthropogenic warming for a doubling of CO2 concentrations, brightens the sky (increase in diffuse light) by 3 to 5 times, depending on the aerosol size distribution. The relative increase is less when optically thin cirrus clouds are included in our simulations. Particles with small radii have little influence on the shape of the spectra. Particles of radius ~0.5 µm preferentially increase diffuse irradiance in red wavelengths, whereas large particles (~0.9 µm) preferentially increase diffuse irradiance in blue wavelengths. Spectra show little change in dominant wavelength, indicating little change in sky hue, but all particle size distributions show an increase in white light relative to clear sky conditions. Diffuse sky spectra in our simulations of geoengineering with stratospheric aerosols are similar to those of average conditions in urban areas today.  Carnegie Institution for Science - Using advanced models, Kravitz and Caldeira—along with Douglas MacMartin from the California Institute of Technology—examined changes to sky color and brightness from using sulfate-based aerosols in this way. They found that, depending on the size of the particles, the sky would whiten during the day and sunsets would have afterglows. Read more »        If the US Economy Could Keep Up with the Canadian Economy
Is it too high a standard for the United States to try to keep up with the Canadian economy ?
Index Mundi keeps track of the GDP for countries based on the average real exchange rate in that year. Index Mundi has that information for the United States and for Canada. The GDP and GDP growth for 5 Year Intervals for the last 30 years USA 5yr growth Canada 5 year GDP growth 1980 2788.2 268.9 1985 4217.5 51% 355.7 32% 1990 5800.5 38% 582.7 64% 1995 7414.6 28% 590.5 1.3% 2000 9951.5 34% 724.9 23% 2005 12623.0 27% 1133.7 56% 2010 14526.6 15% 1577.0 39% USA Canada Last 30 yrs 421% 487% Last 25 yrs 244% 343% Last 20 yrs 150% 171% Last 15 yrs 96% 167% Last 10 yrs 46% 118% Last 5 yrs 15% 39%If the USA kept up with Canada the GDP in 2010 would have been (instead of 14.5 trillion) Last 30 yrs 16.35 trillion (1.8 trillion more) Last 25 yrs 18.7 trillion (4.2 trillion more) Last 20 yrs 15.7 trillion (1.2 trillion more) Last 15 yrs 19.8 trillion (5.3 trillion more) Last 10 yrs 21.6 trillion (7.1 trillion more) Last 5 yrs 17.6 trillion (3.1 trillion more) The Canadian dollar was basically on par with the US dollar in 2011. Canada's GDP in 2011 was $1.72 trillion. The US had 15.1 trillion in GDP at the end of 2011 Canada moved up 8.9% on a real GDP basis and the US went up 3.9%. So Canada had another 5% increase over the US in 2011. Read more »        Boulder Ionics liquid electrolytes could double storage of ultracapacitors and improve batteries by up to ten times
Boulder Ionics' ionic-liquid-based electrolytes enable a new generation of energy storage devices with superior performance, improved safety and lower costs. The company's novel high-throughput synthesis process produces electrochemical-grade materials in minutes rather than days. This dramatic reduction in processing time enables a very low capital cost for the production equipment, minimizes labor costs, and improves safety.
Boulder Ionics' patent-pending intellectual property covers novel reactor designs, methods of synthesis, synthetic routes and compositions of matter. Our synthesis platform technology scales from kilograms to hundreds of metric tons.  Technology Review - Boulder Ionics—is developing a type of electrolyte that would enable high-performance batteries. The electrolyte, made from ionic liquids—salts that are molten below 100 C—can operate at high voltages and temperatures, isn't flammable, and doesn't evaporate. Ionic liquids are normally expensive to produce, but Boulder Ionics is developing a cheaper manufacturing process.Read more »        South Korea Funds Graphene Commercialization
South Korea has approved a roadmap for graphene commercialization with $200 million budget for the next 6 years.
They are also looking at a research institute that they would fund with $200-300 million per year. Korean government has approved a plan for commercializing graphene technologies, including; 1) graphene-based touch panels 2) organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) 3) electro-chromic smart windows 4) secondary batteries for electronic vehicles 5) high-voltage high-power supercapacitors 6) ultra-light and strong composites 7) high-performance gas barrier films, 8) electro-magnetic interference shielding, and 9) environmentally friendly anti-oxidation steel plates. These items have been carefully selected considering economic efficiency and technological feasibility. In addition, Korea is also planning a "Korean Graphene Hub" project that is focusing on the fundamental sciences of graphene and related 2D materials, separately. $200 million budget for 6 years. (Part private and part government money) Europe is currently in a pilot project for graphene which could become a 1 billion euro over ten year flagship project. 40 page presentation (looking at major revenue in the 2019-2025 timeframe)  Read more »         Fixing the US and Getting to Higher GDP Growth
The US economy should have 4-5% GDP growth.
Matching Korea's Broadband would be a 2.5% GDP boost Arthur D. Little and Chalmers University of Technology study shows that doubling the broadband speed for an economy increases GDP by 0.3%. A 1000 times increase in broadband speed should mean a 3.0% boost in GDP. If the US were to build out 1 gigabit per second internet, there should be a one time boost of about 2.5% in GDP. This would be $375 billion each year and increasing with further GDP increases. The US has an average broadband speed of about 4-5 mbps. Since 1991 to 2010, the telecom companies have pocketed an over $320 billion --- that's about $3,000 per household. This money was supposed to be used to keep the communications network up to date. In 2009, the FCC's National Broadband plan claimed it will cost about $350 billion to fully upgrade America's infrastructure. South Korea, a country of 48 million people, spent $24 billion to rollout gigabit per second internet that is completing this year. It is gbps in large cities while rural areas have 50-100 mbps. Other Infrastructure The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates the U.S. needs $2.2 trillion dollars of infrastructure spending during the next 5 years, of which $1.18 trillion has not been budgeted.  Read more »        More Recent Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Click here to safely unsubscribe from "Next Big Future." Click here to view mailing archives, here to change your preferences, or here to subscribe • Privacy 
| Your requested content delivery powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 9 Thoreau Way, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA. +1.978.776.9498 |
0 comments:
Post a Comment