Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world

Special Dispatch November 28, 2009

We’re running BATT’s every day during Thanksgiving week.

There’s an app for that?:

Smartphones
Could Form Chemical Detection Networks

Smartphones already stream YouTube videos and surf Facebook, but they might
also double as chemical sensors that can transmit alerts to first responders
about the release of dangerous chemicals.

A NASA scientist has unveiled a postage-stamp-sized sensor that can plug
into an iPhone and convert Apple’s beloved product into a mobile chemical
detector.

The tiny device can sniff out low amounts of ammonia, chlorine gas and
methane, and send alerts to other phones or computers over regular phone
networks or a Wi-Fi connection.

"Ours is the smallest in the world that can do complete sensing work,"
said Jing Li, a physical scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California.
Her prior work gave the device a strong NASA pedigree that includes air
quality sensors tested on the International Space Station.

Li also hopes to someday see prototypes in the hands of firefighters or
other first responders, although Homeland Security has yet to decide on
such testing. Regular consumers won’t see the devices anytime soon as smartphone
accessories, but the sensors could sneak into phones down the road – and
they might just save some lives.

The age of the tricorder
is fast approaching. Handheld devices are great for texting, playing music,
gaming and — we’re seeing increasingly — putting critical information into
the right hands in real-time. Equipment that once could fill a suitcase (or
a room) now fits in the palm of your hand. Doctors, law enforcement, firefighters,
and first responders will soon be equipped in ways scarcely imaginable a decade
ago.

If you’re interested in learning more, or in helping to bring this rapidly
approaching future about, check out the Open Source Sensing initiative.

Live to see it!

Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world

Special Dispatch November 27, 2009

We’re running BATT’s every day during Thanksgiving week.

Wow:

Blind
man fitted with ‘bionic’ eye sees for first time in 30 years

A blind man who thought he would never be able to read again has had his
vision partially restored after being fitted with a ‘bionic’ eye.

Peter Lane, 51, is one of the first people in the world to have electronic
receivers implanted into his eye which send signals mounted in a pair of
glasses to the brain.

The technology has allowed Mr Lane, from Manchester, to see the outline
of objects, such as doorways and furniture, and to read letters through
a series of dots of lights for the first time in almost 30 years.

As I have noted before both here at the blog and on the podcast, good news
stories such as these are much more common than they used to be. With no intention
of catching any back-to-back action, four days ago I published another
piece of good news related to blindness in which I said:

One day soon, blindness will be a thing of the past.

Looks like that day is coming sooner than expected! If I may continue quoting
myself…

In the mean time, it is encouraging to see how emerging technologies (and
the resulting emerging possibilities) continue to chip away at the barriers
the visually impaired have always encountered when trying to interact with
a world that assumes vision.

There are sound reasons to be discouraged and even fearful about some of
the things that are happening in our world. But we shouldn’t losesight of
the fact that we are living in the most astounding era in human history. We
have more to be hopeful about than any previous generation. That is something
to remember during a season of giving thanks.

Live to see it!

Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world

Special Dispatch November 26 , 2009

We’re running BATT’s every day during Thanksgiving week.

The title is perhaps a bit overstated, even in the more modest form that
Esquire
used, but the idea the man is supporting is an excellent one:

The miracle solution goes by different names: the sodium fast reactor,
the integral fast reactor, the liquid-metal-cooled reactor. It burns nuclear
waste, emits no CO2, and shuts itself down in an accident. We have enough
fuel to power the whole world for tens of thousands of years. It will end
global warming, and even if global warming is just another paranoid Armageddon
fantasy, it will save us from the dying oceans and starvation and resource
wars that are inevitable as the world’s energy supply dwindles. It will
unleash new industries and revitalize America’s manufacturing industry.

Turning nuclear waste into nuclear fuel, eliminating the problem of what
to do with waste, coupled with smart shut-down technology, ensuring that a
melt-down simply can’t occur, allows us to see the nuclear power in a new
light. Actually, it allows us to see nuclear power in the old light, the light
in which it was originally pitched to us: cheap, clean, limitless energy.
It’s exciting that we can now consider a new technology that will help realize
that promise without the dreaded downsides.

What is even more exciting is that the sodium fast reactor isn’t
the only option we have for doing that:

Hyperion Power Generation Inc. revealed the design for the first version
of the Hyperion Power Module (HPM) that it intends to have licensed and
manufactured at facilities in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

The HPM is a safe, self-contained, simple-to-operate nuclear power reactor,
which is small enough to be manufactured en masse and transported in its
entirety via ship, truck, or rail. Euphemistically referred to as a "fission
battery," the HPM will deliver 70 megawatts of thermal energy, or approximately
25 megawatts of electricity. This amount of energy is enough to supply electricity
to 20,000+ average American-style homes or the industrial/commercial equivalent.
"In response to market demand for the HPM, we have decided on a uranium
nitride-fueled, lead bismuth-cooled, fast reactor for our ‘launch’
design," said John R. Grizz Deal, Hyperion Power’s CEO. "For those
who like to categorize nuclear technologies, we suppose this advanced reactor
could be called a Gen IV++ design."

We’ve written about Hyperion here on the blog and discussed it on the podcast
a couple of times. The idea of the portable power plant that can be carried
o the back of a truck certainly has its appeal. In addition to the environmental
and economic benefits already discussed, such a model would allow power to
be sourced locally, not subject to the vulnerabilities of a national grid.

So now we’re talking about cheap and clean energy which is "safe"
in more than one sense of the word.

Should we proceed cautiously when putting these new technologies in place?
Absolutely.

We should proceed cautiously. Which not only means that we are cautious, by
the way.

It means that we proceed.

Live to see it!

Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world

Special Dispatch November 25, 2009

We’ll be running daily BATT’s all Thanksgiving week.

We’re seeing a lot of progress in biofuels development, which is good news for the environment, but what about progress with bioplastics? So glad you asked:

Bioengineers
succeed in producing plastic without the use of fossil fuels

A team of pioneering South Korean scientists have succeeded in producing the
polymers used for everyday plastics through bioengineering, rather than
through the use of fossil fuel based chemicals.

Polymers are molecules found in everyday life in the form of plastics
and rubbers. The team, from the prestigious KAIST University and the Korean
chemical company LG Chem, led by Professor Sang Yup Lee focused their
research on Polylactic Acid (PLA), a bio-based polymer which holds the
key to producing plastics through natural and renewable resources.

“The polyesters and other polymers we use everyday are mostly derived from fossil oils made through the refinery or chemical process,” said Lee. “The idea of producing polymers from renewable biomass has attracted much attention due to the increasing concerns of environmental problems and the limited nature of fossil resources. PLA is considered a good alternative to petroleum based plastics as it is both biodegradable and has a low toxicity to humans.”

Cleaner production of plastic will make for a cleaner planet. Excellent.

 

Two potential issues, here:

 

1. Some approaches to biofuel have competed with, and interefered with, food production. We don’t want clean plastics at the cost of people starving.

 

2. I don’t read here that these plastics will break down any faster than the petroleum-based kind, which means that bioplastics will need to be recycled, same as the dirty kind.

 

The good news is that we have yet another way to clean up our act where materials production is concerned. That we know what pitfalls to avoid is even better news — as long as we do avoid them. 

 

Live to see it!

Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world

Special Dispatch November 24, 2009

We’ll be running daily BATT’s all Thanksgiving week.

We’ve talked a lot over the last couple of months about what (if any) role hydrogen has to play in our energy future. Recognizing that hydrogen is best viewed as an energy transport mechanism rather than a fuel source — think of it as one option for the future of battery technology — the question then becomes one of whether hydrogen can be made easy to store and transport.

 

What we see here may be the beginning of a yes:

High-Pressure Diamond Anvil Creates a New Solid from Xenon and Hydrogen

 

The useful noble gas may provide a breakthrough way to store hydrogen for fuel

Science under pressure can produce marvelous results, such as an entirely new way to store hydrogen fuel. Researchers combined the noble gas xenon with molecular hydrogen (H2) to make a never-before-seen solid that opens the doors to an entire new family of materials for hydrogen storage.

Researchers used a diamond anvil device to squeeze together xenon and hydrogen, and create high pressures reaching 41,000 times the normal pressure at sea level. The hydrogen atoms formed a lattice structure embedded with loosely bonded xenon pairs, which eventually formed tightly bound xenon pairs under even greater pressures ranging up to 225,000 times the atmosphere at sea level.

The unusually stable solid may clue scientists in on a new method of storing hydrogen. Vehicles from automobiles to aerial drones could run on hydrogen fuel, but only if researchers can figure out how to store enough of the low-density gas within a small enough space to make it cost-effective.

This is still a step or two away from being a solution. Getting hydrogen into a compact and stable form is a big step in the right direction, but the linked article goes on to point out that Xenon makes for a good proof-of-concept, but probably wouldn’t cut it as a real-world hydrogen stabilizer. Back to the old Drawing Board Periodic Table, I guess.

 

The other issue is how to produce the power that you’re storing with hydrogen. Fortunately, there are many options available.

 

 

Live to see it!