Meta-materials (MM: materials beyond the imagination) have been largely confined to tricks in the lab because the required components of silver and gold are not well adapted to semiconductor manufacturing processes and too much of the material is lost. These MM have the ability to bend narrow wavelengths of light, sound, and seismic waves. They have been used to make objects seem to “disappear.” […]
In perhaps a little over a year Nautilus Minerals will begin mining operations in the deep ocean off Papa New Guinea. New tools, ships and techniques are anticipated to yield copper, gold and silver.
Are wind turbines that produce electricity “bad” and contributing to global warming or is it all just hot air? (Hint: the answer has something to do with the air, but not the global climate.)
Our world is warming. Just a little, but it is enough to cause considerable and catastrophic climate changes. We know that for anything to warm there must be a source of energy. Wind turbines produce electricity. That is energy. Couldn’t that be a source? Archimedes solved one problem by jumping out of a bath and running through the streets naked, exclaiming “Eureka!” (“I have found it” in ancient Greek). We can also understand the wind turbine effect by thinking of being naked in a bath. […]
Paul Stenquist of the New York Times attempted to educate us last Sunday by suggesting that pollution from electric cars is as clear as a sixth grade math problem. However, by 9th grade, we should begin to understand that although we can add any numbers together, it is the relationship between those numbers and something in the real world which gives us sensible results.
They are at the entrance to the 2012 New York International Auto Show, their first auto show, with only one vehicle, but what a vehicle. Terrafugia is a Massachusetts company sure to become increasingly known as the people who make vehicles that can fly to more than 5000 public airports and then be driven home to a garage. Foul weather can ground the pilot of a light aircraft but with the “Transition” the sport pilot’s license gives way to a driver’s license and the journey continues. […]
I traveled to Atlantic City recently for the 63rd Annual Atlantic Builders Convention to answer a question: “What technical innovations are being discussed and seen at the ‘street level?’” We were told that consumers are the biggest factor in a home’s efficiency but, unfortunately, modern homes do not tend to come with an owner’s manual.
We have had high oil prices before and I expect that, as before, we will complain about the prices as they increase. They will reach a high point that we begin to accept. And that peak will be followed by a recession and a price decline for months or a year before they once again begin their upward trend. It is as if we are being tested and slowly being acclimated to the new price. This is not to suggest that this is a conscious process or someone is manipulating prices. But in a world where only a handful of major oil companies control almost all the market share, some cooperation is possible and, to some extent, might be expected.
The US military is a consumer with different priorities. They make their own assessments and have determined as far back as 2010 that there is likely to be shortages of fuel by 2015. If by one war or embargo or a well placed weather event, supplies of oil are interrupted their tanks, ships, aircraft and supplies will have limited mobility.
Electric vehicles can already be fuel-efficient, however in very cold or very hot weather, when air conditioning or heating requires the same energy used for driving the vehicle, range can suffer. “A 5-pound EMOF-based heat pump [electrical metal-organic framework] the size of a 2-liter bottle could theoretically handle the heating and cooling needs of an electric vehicle.”
There are many who recognize our Seas contain a vast yet, largely unknown world: mankind’s new frontier that is far closer, with a long history, requiring less investment and perhaps more immediate returns than space. Offshore Wind development is not only a major development into that frontier but a test to see how we may limit or enhance that development with regulations.
