Science

SBP017 The Role of New Technologies in a Sustainable Energy Economy is a very interesting podcast about what will be required to keep up the standard of living currently enjoyed in the U.S.A. It's a recording of a lecture held at MIT in late 2006.. the scientist talking is a "solar energy guy" and one of the aspects he presented is the energy requirements for society in 2050. If you project forward current growth rates of people and energy use, it will mean global society will require 30 terawatts of energy (equating all the energy into one unit. the Watt).

Ignore global warming.. ignore peak oil.. ignore illegal wars in the middle east. Current energy use is 12 terawatts, in 2050 it will be 30 terawatts by current growth rates. An increase of 18 terawatts is required.

He went through a laundry list of ways that global society could get there. For example adding 8 terawatts of nuclear power would mean building one new nuke plant every 1.6 days. He went through a longish list..

He made a few assumptions I think are incorrect. For example he said "Gross Domestic Product (GDP) scales 1:1 with energy use". To increase GDP, he claims, has to increase energy use. I disagree. I think there is a lot of inefficient machines around us, and that we could do more with less energy input. But I think he's generally right, and that increasing efficiency isn't a cure-all. He even said something similar, he just called it 'conservation'. Hurm..

A solution direction he's pointing in is a form of solar energy deriving from plants. Plants are themselves solar energy systems. And he thinks there's a lot of potential to fine tuned plants who can directly produce useful materials for energy production. He gave one figure about if you take all available land and turn it into producing biomass for energy production .. we wouldn't have food to eat .. it would account for 2 terawatts of energy. Clearly not enough. But he also said currently known plants are about 1% efficient at converting sunlight to energy. Bioengineered plants could easily do a better job.

http://media.libsyn.com/media/sbpradio/SBP017.mp3

I've been hearing about these guys for a while. Without knowing much about their product I found myself silently rooting for them,... that is until yesterday when I learned some more specifics. They were using algae to create biodiesel. I'm not a huge fan of liquid fuels, but if you have to make them this might be a good way to go about it. Then I heard Solazyme bragging that their process is better because "it works in the dark." Now hold on one cotton picking minute. I thought the algae were using photosynthesis.

This question is for another project I'm doing, but I post it here to see what cool ideas you all can come up with.

I'd like to find a way to charge batteries using static electricity. Please don't tell me about eStatic charges not moving, I've heard all that and they do.

Arctic vault takes shape for world food crops.

Quote:LONGYEARBYEN, Svalbard (Reuters) - In a cavern under a remote Arctic mountain, Norway will soon begin squirreling away the world's crop seeds in case of disaster.

Dynamited out of a mountainside on Spitsbergen island around 1,000 km (600 miles) from the North Pole, the store has been called a doomsday vault or a Noah's Ark of the plant kingdom.

Unmanned Vehicle 'Bored Out Of Its Mind'

PASADENA, CA—NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists overseeing the ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission said Monday that the Spirit's latest transmissions could indicate a growing resentment of the Red Planet.

"Spirit has been displaying some anomalous behavior," said Project Manager John Callas, who noted the rover's unsuccessful attempts to flip itself over and otherwise damage its scientific instruments. "And the thousand or so daily messages of 'STILL NO WATER' really point to a crisis of purpose."

Hi, I had many electric ride. Do you know quantum physics? What is the nature of matter? What if you could learn about the stuff we haven't discovered yet? Like the very smallest particle, which makes up the atoms , and every single bit of physical matter in the universe. What is infinity? Ghosts? Spirits? Psychic? You've heard of all this stuff. Is it real? CAn all this stuff be explained scientifically? Is energy a force? No! Only when we embrace this new science, will we be able to travel the universe. This is a really good book!

- Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times
Friday, January 26, 2007

(01-26) 04:00 PST Los Angeles -- Children living near busy highways have significant impairments in the development of their lungs that can lead to respiratory problems for the rest of their lives, University of Southern California researchers have found in the largest and longest study of its kind.

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Technology creates hydrogen-on-demand from water. 100 days from market. Battery management system that will double or triple battery output. Expert urges caution about "absurd claims." :jawdrop:
http://tinyurl.com/yjmjqt