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POPS"Wireless" Electricity Next step: wireless calories, wireless memory inputs directly into our brains who knows... maybe that Demolition Man fantasy will someday come true and we'll have "wireless" sex
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POPSVulberability of the power grid It's incredible to me that more isn't being done to make the United States power grid more state of the art. That means the ability to transfer greater amounts of electricity over larger distances with more reliability and security. It seems to me that this is just a disaster waiting to happen.
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POPSFilling up your car with ELECTRICITY!! When we can fill up our cars with electricity instead of gasoline - and generate electricity through wind and solar power - and transmit more electricity over the grid - we will have truly changed global dynamics. The amazing thing is that it may not be more than a few years away! Any additional help we can get from Washington will make a huge difference. I hope to see this be a central issue in the upcoming election.
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POPSHow Electric Cars Could Save the Grid Benefits of the "Vehicle to Grid" project being developed by researchers at the University of Delaware "electric vehicles could do more than provide backup energy. If just a quarter of the nation's cars were electric -- about 50 million cars -- the power capacity of those batteries would be equal to 700 gigawatts, the entire power production capacity in the United States today" "For the system to have the most value, electric cars need to be equipped with a high, 80-amp/240-volt plug -- something a little more powerful than the plug on an electric dryer. (An electrician can install the corresponding outlet into any home.) But most of the existing electric hybrid cars come equipped with a low, 15-amp, 110-volt plug." "the low-amp plugs work...but if the electric car owner is selling electricity back to the grid, they want to sell as much as possible. A 15-amp plug could net a car owner about $400 year, whereas an 80-amp plug could net $4,000"
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POPS Robots and Humans: Intel say equal by 2050
Robots: From the Factory Floor to Your Kitchen - Robots today are primarily used in the factory environment, designed to perform a single task repeatedly and bolted down. To make robotics personal, robots need to move and manipulate objects in cluttered and dynamic human environments, according to Rattner. They need to be cognizant of their surroundings by sensing and recognizing movement in a dynamic physical world, and learn to adapt to new scenarios. Rattner demonstrated two working personal robot prototypes developed at Intel’s research labs. One of the demonstrations showed electric field pre-touch that has been built into a robot hand. The technique is a novel sensing modality used by fish but not humans, so they can “feel” objects before they even touch them. The other demonstration was a complete autonomous mobile manipulation robot that can recognize faces and interpret and execute commands as generic as “please clean this mess” using state-of-the-art motion planning, manipula
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POPSFixing it could improve our lives—and the planet: Batteries... It's an issue that goes beyond cars and mobile devices. To reduce carbon emissions, utilities are likely to shift more generating capacity from coal and natural gas to renewable sources like wind and solar. Solar cells and wind turbines require batteries because they provide power intermittently.
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POPSScience Never Stops :-) This is an entertaining and fairly level headed “what the future will bring” piece. It covers the promise and perils of a pretty diverse set of topics: nuclear power, space travel, power transmission, aviation, food production, urban growth, race relations and even (sort-of) outsourcing.
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POPS2016 Major Predictions Almost forgot: Prediction: 100 petaflop computer by the end of 2016, which will allow a huge further acceleration of all information dependent technologies (virtually all technologies as of today)
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POPSAL GORE: Global Warming HYPOCRIT! Gore Figure! Gore won't downsize his energy consumption and yet wants to preach about global warming. He's only into global warming for the attention. IF he really cared or believed what he said, WHY isn't he doing more is lead the way. Talk is CHEAP. Al Gore is big fat liar...and he's put on the pounds to go with it.
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POPSBreakthrough in Solar Energy: Scientists mimic plants' energy storage system 'GIANT LEAP' FOR CLEAN ENERGY Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year. James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale. "This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."
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POPS'Fuel battery' could take cars beyond petrol ts negative electrode, or anode, is made from vanadium boride, which serves double-duty as a fuel too. But unlike the flowing fuel of a fuel cell, the material is held internally, like the anode material of a battery. The vanadium boride reacts with a constant stream of oxygen, as in a fuel cell, provided by the positive electrode, or cathode. This brings in a supply of air from outside. The cell has a theoretical energy capacity of 27 kilowatt hours per litre, compared to 9.7 kilowatt hours per litre for gasoline. But both approaches are limited by practical factors to smaller figures.
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POPSPlug-in Prius Testing Begins in London Toyota and EDF Energy are using an innovative charging and invoicing system which is incorporated into the PHV. This system is compatible with a new generation of public charging stations, which aim to make electric power more accessible on public roads and car parks, and will reduce the cost to the customer. EDF Energy has helped to install the first of 40 charging posts in the UK, with plans to help install more in the coming months. A PHV uses Toyota's hybrid technology with the added benefit that the vehicle's batteries can be fully recharged using a standard electrical plug or an electrical charging post to extend its driving range in electric mode. For short distances, PHV can be driven as an electric vehicle, resulting in a silent, zero emissions drive. For longer distances, PHV works as a conventional hybrid vehicle.
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POPSWaste water plus bacteria make hydrogen Hydrogen at the moment, is generally produced from Hydrocarbons and can also produce greenhouse gases. The Bacteria produce hydrogen from vinegar in a way that is environmentally friendly,and is a method of using renewable organic material, It uses 10% of the energy that is used in Hydrolysis, where hydrogen is produced only using an electric current
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POPSFuture for clean energy lies in 'big bang' of evolution For humans now there is the tantalising possibility of tweaking the photosynthetic reactions of cyanobacteria to produce fuels we want such as hydrogen, alcohols or even hydrocarbons, rather than carbohydrates. Progress at the research level has been rapid, boosting prospects of harnessing photosynthesis not just for energy but also for manufacturing valuable compounds for the chemical and biotechnology industries. Such research is running on two tracks, one aimed at genetically engineering real plants and cyanobacteria to yield the products we want, and the other to mimic their processes in artificial photosynthetic systems built with human-made components. Both approaches hold great promise and will be pursued in parallel, as was discussed at a recent workshop focusing on the photosynthetic reaction centres of cyanobacteria, organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF).
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POPSThe market for plug-in cars is fast approaching Very exciting stuff. This is no longer the talk of what's ifs and hypotheticals...it's reality and it's coming soon. In my opinion, the introduction of plug-in cars will be a major catalyst for the development of additional sources of energy - including more wind and solar generated. It will also be the tipping point for allocating the massive resources needed to upgrade our nation's power grid.
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POPSNew thin-film solar panels easy to install These new solar panels look and sound easy to install. No price info here but links are provided for more info, including dealers and possible financial incentives available. With electricity prices going ever higher and solar power technology (and hopefully prices) improving, I hope to be able to go solar soon.
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POPSdynamic architecture those of you in Dubai - any thoughts on this? I must admit i know nothing about it, but am very intrigued by the concept!
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POPS"The Man Who Invented The Twentieth Century" Much of his early work pioneered modern electrical engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance. During this period, in the United States, Tesla's fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture, but due to his eccentric personality and unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist. Never having put much focus on his finances, Tesla died impoverished at the age of 86.
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POPSHow power-hungry are the Top500 supercomputers? But what might have surprised the authors of the list the most is that 301 of the 500 supercomputers on last November's list are nowhere to be seen. After seven months, they're simply not powerful enough to make the list. :-)
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