An optical transistor that uses one laser beam to control another could form the heart of a future generation of ultrafast light-based computers, say Swiss researchers.

Conventional computers are based on transistors, which allow one electrode to control the current moving through the device and are combined to form logic gates and processors. The new component achieves the same thing, but for laser beams, not electric currents.

A green laser beam is used to control the power of an orange laser beam passing through the device.

This offers another possible route to light-based rather than electronic, computing. Such "photonic" computing is desirable because components using optical fibres carrying light could be much faster than those using wires to carry electricity.

However, previous attempts to make optical transistors for such circuits only produced very weak effects. The new device could change that.

Crystal matrix

To make their device, Vahid Sandoghdar and colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, suspended tetradecane, a hydrocarbon dye, in an organic liquid. They then froze the suspension to -272 °C using liquid helium – creating a crystalline matrix in which individual dye molecules could be targeted with lasers.

When a finely tuned orange laser beam is trained on a dye molecule, it efficiently soaks up most of it up – leaving a much weaker "output" beam to continue beyond the dye.

But when the molecule is also targeted with a green laser beam, it starts to produce strong orange light of its own and so boosts the power of the orange output beam.

This effect is down to the hydrocarbon molecule absorbing the green light, only to lose the equivalent energy in the form of orange light.

"That light constructively interferes with the incoming orange beam and makes it brighter," says Sandoghar's colleague Jaesuk Hwang.

Chilly problem

Using the green beam to switch the orange output beam from weak to strong is analogous to the way a transistor's control electrode switches a current between "on" and "off" voltages, and hence the 0s and 1s of digital data. And doing it with a single molecule means billions could be packed into future photonic chips.

It's a neat trick, but the Zurich team's work is a long way from commercially viable, says Malcolm Penn, CEO of UK electronics market researcher Future Horizons. The costs of operating at such low, cryogenic temperatures are high, he says.

But Moore's law, which describes how the number of components on a chip roughly doubles every two years, cannot go on forever while computing is based on silicon, he acknowledges, making any novel ideas of value.

"In research labs, silicon chips with features just 15 nanometres wide are already misbehaving as quantum randomness makes devices depart from the way they should work," he explains, "so we need new ideas like this for sure."

from NewScientist …

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A team in the southwest German city of Darmstadt first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 120-meter-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target.

"The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table," the scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research said in a statement late on Wednesday.

The zinc and lead nuclei were fused to form the nucleus of the new element, also known as Ununbium, Latin for 112.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), confirmed the discovery of 112 by the team led by Sigurd Hofmann at the Helmholtz Center. IUPAC has asked for an official name for the element to be submitted.

John Jost, executive director of IUPAC in North Carolina, told Reuters that creating new elements helped researchers to understand how nuclear power plants and atomic bombs function.

The atomic number 112 refers to the sum of the atomic numbers of zinc, which has 30, and lead, which has 82. Atomic numbers denote how many protons are found in the atom's nucleus.

Scientists at the Helmholtz Center have discovered six chemical elements, numbered 107-112, since 1981. The remaining five elements have already been recognized and named.

In 1925, scientists discovered the last naturally occurring element on the periodic table. Since then researchers have sought to create new, heavier elements.

Proving the existence of atoms with such a high mass, the so-called superheavy elements, is a complex procedure because they exist for only tiny fractions of a second and then decay radioactively into other elements.

from Yahoo News …

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Anaconda, a giant rubber "snake" that floats offshore and converts wave energy to electricity, is a step closer to commercialization. An 8-meter long, 1/25th scale version is currently undergoing tests in a large wave tank in Gosport, UK, and a full-size working version could be a reality in five years.

Harnessing the power of waves is an attractive proposition because they are much more energy dense than wind. But wave power remains the poor relation of the renewable energy sector due to the difficulties of cheaply operating machinery in the harsh marine environment. The world's first commercial wave farm only began operating last year, off the northern coast of Portugal.

A variety of other designs are in testing around the world, but none are as unusual as the Anaconda. The rubber snake is filled with freshwater – to help deter sea creatures from setting up a home inside – and sealed at both ends to create a semi-rigid balloon that floats at the sea's surface.

Wave pulse

The tube is anchored at one end and as waves wash along its length they exert pressure on the snake that is transmitted by the water inside. This forces Anaconda's walls to expand outwards into the wave troughs where they are under less pressure, forming "bulge waves" that travel along the Anaconda's length.

These waves are similar to those that pass through the human circulatory system and can be felt as the pulse in the wrist and neck, says Rod Rainey of Atkins Global, co-inventor of the Anaconda. When each bulge wave reaches the end of the snake it keeps a turbine spinning to generate electricity.

The snake is made from a rubber-based material similar to that used to make dracones – flexible containers that are filled with diesel or water and towed behind ships for quick and cheap transportation.

Other than the turbine, Anaconda has no moving parts and unlike other wave power devices it needs only one tether to the ocean floor. That lowers construction costs and reduces the need for maintenance – an expensive undertaking in offshore settings where corrosion and accessibility are problems, explains Rainey.

 

Des Crampton, CEO of Checkmate Seaenergy, the firm commercializing the flexible wave harvester, says a full-size Anaconda 200 meters long could generate enough energy to power 1000 average homes. "Anaconda captures more energy than all existing wave energy devices," he says.

Rainey and retired physicist Francis Farley began work on the concept in 2007, and tested mini Anacondas last year. The first full-size Anacondas could become operational in 2014.

from New Scientist …

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There’s a wonderful article in the current issue of Insight, the energy journal published by Platts, called “The Unbearable Lightness of Wind.”

  The author, Ross McCracken, tackles the question that nobody has posed yet – what are the economic consequences going to be of putting up all these wind turbines with government subsidies, mandates and “feed-in tariffs” that tell the utilities, “Buy it whatever it costs”?

“The conundrum,” McCracken writes, “lies in the fact that wind does not directly displace fossil fuel generating capacity, but will make this capacity less profitable to maintain.”

What’s likely to happen, McCracken argues, is that windmills – which generate electricity only 30 percent of the time – will replace some peaking power and some base-load power:

As wind provides neither baseload nor peaking plant it has no impact on reserve capacity. . . [I]t increases redundancy in peaking plants and reduces the profits of baseload generation; potentially good for consumers but bad for investment in non-intermittent sources of power, and presenting the risk of a decline in reserve capacity. . . . [P]eaking plants would be used much less and baseload plant would see sustained period of potential below cost prices – a particular nightmare for the nuclear industry.

So without contributing any reliable capacity, wind will nonetheless make nuclear, by far our most practical and reliable form of zero carbon energy, less profitable. Existing plants will be caught in a trap and new construction will be discouraged entirely. Already the British Nuclear Group is complaining that it can’t build any new reactors if they have to compete against subsidized wind farms. Anti-nuclear activists are turning handsprings, claiming joyously that wind is finally replacing nuclear. But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, nothing will be replacing existing capacity–namely, the coal burning plants that are one of the largest sources of carbon emissions–as demand increases in years ahead. That means carbon emissions won’t be meaningfully reduced, since coal plants will have to stay on line to provide backup.

 

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If you don’t know about The Blue Book … then you must be from Kashyyyk … ( err… sorry for being starwars fan … ) … but still if you didn’t get it .. then let me make your life easier by explaining about the Blue Book … its Standardization Book / Website for Autos .. whenever you go for car ( new or used ),and if you have referred the KBB , then it makes your life easies when it comes to final price … in general its Bible for cars … … and the prices are standard based on various factors, which even car dealers can’t disallow …

 

 

Recently KBB announced its 2009 picks for the Top 10 Green Cars. Hybrid gas-electric cars top the list that also includes two small cars and two diesel engine vehicles.

The top three “greenest” models are new models. The 2010 Toyota Prius, offering a combined 50-mpg, has more power, a slicker design, and more features than its predecessor. The 2010 Honda Insight, rated at 41 mpg, has a price advantage over all other hybrids. And the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, with city mileage at 41 mpg, arrives with new exterior styling.

The editors not only considered fuel economy and price, but also characteristics like comfort, performance, utility and technology. The winners represent a range of vehicle sizes from small cars like the Honda Fit to the Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid, a gas-electric pickup truck.

Other winners include the Volkswagen Jetta Sportwagen TDI and BMW 335d, both diesels; the 2009 Mini Cooper; and two hybrid SUVS, the Ford Escape Hybrid and Toyota Highlander Hybrid.

"Despite the decline in auto sales and the stabilization of gas prices in recent months, we still think many new-car shoppers are interested in buying vehicles that are more fuel-efficient and better for the environment," said Jack R. Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book. In a press release, KBB notes, “2009 is shaping up to be a banner year for fuel efficiency." Unfortunately, the economic downturn that has affected all auto sales has also hurt sales of green models. Yet, , many consumers expect the current reprieve from last year's high gas prices to be short-lived.

I liked that at least these cars are affordable …

from ..  Hybrid Cars ..

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Streetlights were the first big users of electricity. Now, they are being re-engineered to improve efficiency, but at a cost that today's municipalities might have a tough time covering.  

San Jose, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley, is testing a concept called "adaptive lighting," in which streets can be made brighter, darker or even be illuminated with flashing strobes upon command. By summer, the city will have installed 125 streetlamps using LED technology, in one of the biggest urban tests of the science so far in the U.S. The city hopes to cut down on energy use, and, hopefully, lower its utility costs, by tapping LED lighting's greater flexibility.

The test in San Jose coincides with a broad push by federal and state agencies to modernize the nation's lighting infrastructure. Many homes and businesses have replaced incandescent bulbs with more efficient compact fluorescent lights. Now cities, faced with tighter budgets, are looking for ways to cut street-lighting costs and to reduce emissions from power plants.

Raley's supermarket in West Sacramento, Calif., recently had LED lights installed with funding from the Department of Energy.

But the cost savings will take time to materialize. Street and highway lights use about 2% of the nation's electricity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Many cities have LED traffic signals, but because of the high cost of producing white light with LED, local governments have been reluctant to install them in streetlights. The effort is further complicated not only by strapped municipal coffers, but resistance from star-gazers and others who object to LEDs brighter glare.

LED, or light-emitting diodes, are electronic lights based on semiconductor technology. They use less energy and last longer than the sodium vapor-powered lights typically used in urban street lighting. LED technology has been around for decades, and is often found in electronic gadgets. It is used in streetlamps in some European cities.

Unlike regular streetlamps, LED lights can be programmed to respond to specific commands. For example, a city could dim the lighting on commercial strips after business hours, or turn up the lights after bars close, says Jim Helmer, director of San Jose's transportation department. Streets around Little League baseball diamonds could be made brighter as people walk to their cars, and then turned down afterward. By regulating the lights based on activity, the city hopes to cut down on "light spillage" -- city planners' term for light that shines where it isn't wanted, creating an urban nuisance.

San Jose expects to spend $150,000 to $200,000 on a pilot project in its Hillview North neighborhood, and it is seeking an additional $2 million in federal stimulus funds to enlarge the test.

The LED streetlights being tested in San Jose could save anywhere from 10% to 60% on energy use, depending on their brightness. The white LEDs will have a range of between one and 82 watts and will replace 55-watt, yellowish sodium-vapor lamps. The lights will be controlled under a system developed by energy-software company Echelon Corp. of San Jose, the general contractor in the pilot program. But for now, many cities see little financial advantage to switching their lighting systems.

It can cost $600 to install a single LED streetlight, compared with $200 for a sodium-vapor lamp. What's more, utilities often charge cities a flat rate based on the number of streetlamps they operate, regardless of use.

Currently, San Jose pays Pacific Gas and Electric Co., a unit of PG&E Corp., a flat rate for electricity, about $300,000 a month. The utility has proposed a new rate program that would lower costs for LED streetlights; the plan is awaiting review by state utility regulators. The Department of Energy has been funding lighting tests, such as a recent retrofit of a Raley's supermarket parking lot in West Sacramento, Calif., with 16 LED lamps and motion sensors. They run at 49 watts, unless they sense activity, when they power up to 149 watts. They could pay for themselves in energy savings in four to five years.

Fourteen miles east of San Jose on Mount Hamilton, the astronomers at the Lick Observatory have another concern: The bright white light of LEDs illuminate the night sky and obscure views of planets and stars. The scientists helped San Jose select its sodium lamps in the 1980s because the observatory can filter out yellow light. "Going to any other kind of lighting is detrimental," says Burt Jones, the observatory's assistant director.

But Dr. Jones says scientists are working with city officials to make LEDs benign, suggesting they dim after midnight or eliminate near-infrared and ultraviolet light from the LED color spectrum. "In those colors, the sky would still look dark to us," explains Dr. Jones.

from The WallStreet Journal

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Eleven Ugandan college students believe they can bring affordable transportation to rural Africa with a home-grown, dirt-cheap car assembled from farm equipment.

The prototype of the "Poor Man's Car" isn't much to look at, fashioned as it is from sheet metal, wood seats and a diesel engine pulled from a corn mill, but the design and materials would be refined should the car ever see production. Moses Sebulime and his classmates at Makerere University believe the utilitarian runabout could bring mobility to the masses, much like the Tata Nano.

"The maintenance cost of the Poor Man's Car would be minimal as the parts are all locally produced," Sebulime told Wired.com. "It also will be a perfect alternative in rural settings as the engine can be reattached and used for other activities, such as accessories to agricultural machinery."

It's no coincidence that Sebulime wants to do for Africa what the Nano could do for India. He came up with the idea after finishing an internship at the Indian automaker.

The car made its debut at last month's Makerere University Stakeholder's Conference, and the students spent about $4,500 building it. Mechanical engineering professor Dr. Yasin Naku Ziraba said the car "is in its very infancy" and the cost would come down significantly should it see mass production. The university is looking to the government for help getting the car built sometime next year, arguing it could improve the lives of countless people.

"Our people in rural areas have been suffering with transport (problems)," Sebulime told the audience at the stakeholders' conference, according to the Daily Monitor newspaper. "We have now provided the solution. All we need is the government to support us and we start the second stage of sophisticating this technology before we can hit the market."

Hitting the market won't be easy, but Sebulime and his classmates are gaining support. The Monitor praised their innovation and entrepreneurial spirit in an editorial that said the students "have given us reason to retain some faith" in the university. "Either the university or government or both should come to the aid of these students," the paper wrote. "We should not let innovation suffer a stillbirth."

from wired …

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The new economic stimulus package set aside $11 billion in federal funding  for creation of a so-called "smart grid." But it's not clear what this national electricity delivery system will look like, how it will function or who will manage the information required to make the grid intelligent. Local power utilities can install the smart meters in homes that provide data about energy usage and constitute an integral part of the overall smart grid, but it's the cable and telephone companies that have the broadband infrastructure to send this info back to the utilities.
Over the next three years, Progress Energy, a Raleigh, N.C., power company, and the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg plan to equip some 5,000 homes and businesses in west St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach with special meters, sensors and switches to create one of the U.S.'s largest smart grids, according to Tampa Bay Online. If  the $15 million experiment is a success, Progress plans to incorporate smart-grid technology over the next 10 years in its most populated service areas, including Orlando and areas of Pinellas County in addition to St. Petersburg.
Intamac Systems Ltd., a U.K.-based maker of home alarm and monitoring systems, last week said it's negotiating with "major" U.S. telecom carriers to deliver energy metering services to broadband customers in the U.S.,Greentechmedia.com reports. Intamac is already working with Bell Canada (which in 2007 started a pilot project to test its ability to deliver energy metering services to some of its broadband customers) and British Telecom, which is planning to add a similar capability to the Home Hub wireless router it offers BT broadband customers.
Of course, utilities might not want to share the smart-meter market with other service providers. Recognizing this,AT&T last week announced a slightly different approach—the company plans to take its wireless network along with "smart grid" sensors and software from SmartSynch, Inc., directly to the utilities themselves, enabling the utilities to monitor their own energy consumption as well as their customers' energy use.
The model for utilities managing their own smart meter information is working for Austin Energy in Texas, which in 2003  became one of the first U.S. utilities to set up a smart grid.  Some 65,000 of the utility's one million customers  are now on its smart meter system, GDS Publishing Ltd. reported on its Power & Energy Web site. Unlike the current electrical grid, where large amounts of energy are produced whether people need it or not, the smart grid would rely on information from energy consumers to determine how much energy to generate; such a grid could even purchase energy from consumers who produce their own power (via solar panels, wind or other means).
Given the wide open market that smart metering represents, even technology service providers are trying to get in on the action. Online search engine Google last month announced that it's developing software calledPowerMeter, that will let consumers check out their home energy use in near real-time on their computers. No word on how long the testing will last before PowerMeter will be available for download.
Regardless of how individual homes and businesses are metered, the ideal national clean-energy smart grid would use long-distance, extra-high-voltage transmission lines to move remote clean-energy resources to power load centers and connect to a distribution system that delivers energy and detailed, real-time information about the use of such energy to consumers, the Center for American Progress (CAP)  said in a report released last month. The D.C. think tank (headed by John Podesta, former President Clinton's chief of staff and co chairman of President Obama's transition team) recommended that the grid be run like a national enterprise rather than by a patchwork of utilities, that is, that a central federal authority approve clean-energy projects across multiple states simultaneously (to keep construction of any one piece from being held back).

from Scientific American …

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The two prototypes, which will be exhibited next week at Detroit's Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress, are designed to provide walking assistance for people with weakened legs or those who need to perform a lot of fatiguing leg work. We gathered in a room at a Times Square hotel, met the Japanese engineers who invented the devices (the company holds more than 130 patents on the technologies involved) and got to try them on.

The first, which looks a bit like an industrial-strength garter belt, is called "Stride Management Assist" (there will doubtless be a renaming process before the devices come to the U.S. market). It secures around the user's waist and grips each thigh. Then, by monitoring the angle of the hips, it calculates the wearer's stride and provides helpful force -- not exactly moving your legs for you, but what the makers call "cooperative control," lengthening the stride and regulating the pace of walking.

In motion, it feels like the machine doesn't want you to amble, pressing instead for a high-stepping march. Wearing it, I climbed a set of steps, feeling like I could climb forever without tiring, and then stopped at the top to pose for a photo -- or rather, tried to stop, while the device walked me onward a few paces. It must take some getting used to.

The second device, "Bodyweight Support Assist," consists of a motorized, articulated frame, with a pair of shoes at one end and a bicycle-style saddle at the other. You switch on the device -- each strut's servomotor starts to whir individually -- zip on the shoes, and then lift the padded saddle up into place between your thighs, where it exerts an upward force of 3 kilograms to help support the wearer's body weight. Not the most comfortable place to experience 3 kilograms of upward force, it turns out.

When you bend your knees to crouch down, the force is increased up to 17 kilograms, making it very easy to hold a crouching posture for long periods of time. Proposed users of the device include factory workers who crouch to lift and look under things, as well as, according to the presentation we were shown, sightseers.

Honda's reps were unable to offer specific information as to when the devices might come to market, or what exactly the market might be. The versatile technology promises to be very helpful, even life-changing, for people who need mobility assistance, assuming that the triple barriers of price, availability, and fear of strapping robots to your legs can be overcome.

from PopScience ….

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Scientists have created a "Eureka machine" that can work out the laws of nature by observing the world around it – a development that could dramatically speed up the discovery of new scientific truths.

The machine took only hours to come up with the basic laws of motion, a task that occupied Sir Isaac Newton for years after he was inspired by an apple falling from a tree.

Scientists at Cornell University in New York have already pointed the machine at baffling problems in biology and plan to use it to tackle questions in cosmology and social behaviour.

The work marks a turning point in the way science is done. Eureka moments, which supposedly began in Archimedes' bath more than 2,000 years ago, might soon be happening not in the minds of geniuses, but through the warm hum of electronic circuitry.

"We've reached a point in science where there's a lot of data to deal with. It's not Newton looking at an apple, or Galileo looking at heavenly bodies any more, it's more complex than that," said Hod Lipson, the computer engineer who led the project.

"This takes the grunt out of science by sifting through data and looking for the laws that govern how something behaves."

Details of the machine are described in the US journal Science. The study appears alongside a report from scientists at the universities of Aberystwyth and Cambridge describing the first discovery of new scientific knowledge by a laboratory robot.

The robot, called Adam, devised and performed experiments to investigate the genetics of bakers' yeast. When scientists did their own experiments, they came to the same conclusions. Ross's team is already working on a second robot called Eve.

Together, the papers raise the question of how the role of scientists will change over the coming decades. For now, scientists believe the new technology will work alongside them rather than relegate them to technicians who tap in data and perform maintenance tasks, but leave the real thinking to the machines.

The Cornell machine uses a computer program that can search through huge amounts of data and look for underlying patterns. For example, a falling apple will abide by Newton's second law, which is often stated as F=ma, where F is the force acting on an object, m is its mass, and a is its acceleration. When fed information on the mass of the apple and its velocity as it falls, the machine would be able to work out the equation.

Lipson tested the machine by giving it information from basic lab experiments, such as swinging pendulums and tiny cars that moved up and down tracks on a cushion of air. After crunching through the data, the machine pinged and displayed several laws of motion and conservation of momentum.

The system runs its own checks to decide whether the laws it has found are likely to be interesting. In the pendulum test, for example, the tip of the pendulum is always the same distance from the pivot, but this does not shed any light on the underlying physics.

After proving that the machine worked, Lipson's team set it to work on the complex problem of metabolism in biological cells. The computer produced some equations, which the scientists are still trying to make sense of.

"It's like going to an oracle and asking what's going on. You are given an equation, but you need to work out what it means before you can understand what's really going on," said Lipson.

The team say they also plan to look at problems in cosmology and even social behaviour, which could reveal the underlying laws at play when people form social networks on the internet.

"The real test now is whether it can discover new laws of nature and I believe it will. There's no way forward in a lot of sciences without tools like this," Lipson said.

from .. the guardian ..

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For millenniums, microbes have been a staunch technological ally. They have leavened our bread and cured our cheeses. Now, engineers are asking them to convert carbon dioxide into fuel and to build a new generation of batteries. Some of the smallest life forms with which we share the planet are helping us cope with the energy challenges of the 21st century.

Forget about the so-called hydrogen economy for a moment. The much-discussed plan to use hydrogen as a major power source has serious problems, such as how to deliver the fuel to consumers.

Bruce Logan at Penn State says methane could be a much more appealing candidate. Through the study of how microbes produce methane in swamps, bogs, and landfills, he and his colleagues believe they have found a perfect source for the gas.

They found certain microbes that use electricity to convert CO2 and water into methane. These hydrolysis cells convert electrical energy into energy stored in methane with 80 percent efficiency.

Technical details of this research appeared in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, and Professor Logan emphasized the potential environmental benefits in a separate statement. No extra carbon has to be added to make methane, he writes. When the gas is burned for fuel, it only lets off as much CO2 as originally went in, saving utilities from pumping more greenhouse gases into the environment. Furthermore, if the electricity used in the process comes from solar or wind power, the entire fuel cycle would not add any extra CO2 to the environment.

“The process does not sequester carbon, but it does turn carbon dioxide into fuel,” Logan explains. “If the methane is burned and carbon dioxide captured, then the process can be carbon neutral.”

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Angela Belcher and colleagues are adopting viruses as engineering partners. With a little genetic tweaking, they have enabled what’s called an M13 virus to self-construct a wiring network for an improved lithium-ion battery. The technical details published in the April 2 online edition of Science described virus-produced batteries that MIT says “have the same energy capacity and power performance as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries being considered to power plug-in hybrid cars.”

The MIT announcement explains that the viruses “first coat themselves with iron phosphate, then grab hold of carbon nanotubes to create a network of highly conducting material.” The batteries can’t be recharged as many times as regular lithium-ion cells. However, Dr. Belcher says that, as development progresses, “we expect them to be able to go much longer.”

The term “virus” often has a negative connotation. Yet they are part of the biology of our planet. The viruses used in this work are harmless to humans, according to the MIT announcement. As engineers face this century’s technical challenges, we can expect to see more knowledge from biology joining traditional, physical know-how in their tool kit.

from CSMonitor …

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Problem  Establishing local-scale power near end users ranks high on everyone's spec list for Grid 2.0. That's one reason Obama's stimulus plan contains a grant that will reimburse property owners for 30 percent of the cost of a solar energy system. But utilities—former monopolies, after all—are reluctant to give up control over their antique, accident-prone grid. And people with enough rooftop real estate to squeeze out serious juice balk at the hassle.

Solution  Create a new class of energy service providers that act as middlemen between power companies and large commercial facilities with big rooftops. For instance, SunEdison builds and maintains solar plants on the rooftops of operations like Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, and Kohl's in eight states. It's a win-win arrangement: Electric companies get a trusted partner in power generation, and businesses get green energy at a fixed, competitive rate—without additional investment. The secret sauce isn't photovoltaic panels; it's the networking gear, sensors, and software that let a SunEdison control room in California manage hundreds of solar sites cost-effectively. And that means it's suited for scaling up. Says Mark Culpepper, a veteran of Cisco Systems who is now CTO of SunEdison: "Generating power anywhere you can fit a panel totally changes the dynamic of the energy market."

from wired …

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A robotic future holds the promise of providing tireless workers and companions for humans, but it can also evoke worries about an armed machine insurrection along the lines of the "Terminator" movies.

Experts consider that dark vision to be on the distant horizon, although they now point to other ethical issues that arise from the growing presence of battlefield bots and their potential to decide to attack autonomously, possibly as soon as in the next 20 years .

Most current military robots have human handlers, but some can pull the trigger on their own. The U.S. Navy and Army use anti-missile systems resembling R2-D2 toting a Gatling gun, which can go into full-automatic mode to track and shoot down incoming missiles. Israel and South Korea have deployed robotic sentries along their borders that may shoot first and ask questions later.

Such defensive systems could give way to robots that make attack decisions "within this century if not in the next decade or two," said Patrick Lin, a researcher at California State Polytechnic University who compiled a report for the U.S. Navy on the ethics and risks of military robots. And that raises questions of how to keep robots in line during confusing battlefield situations.

"Yes, a robot does not feel anger or revenge but neither does it feel empathy or compassion," said Noel Sharkey, a robotics expert at the University of Sheffield in the UK. Sharkey noted situations that may require decision-making beyond current robotic intelligence, such as civilians wandering into the field of fire or child soldiers forced into battle.

There are workaround solutions. Militaries will probably not replace humans entirely with robots, said Ronald Arkin, a robotics researcher at Georgia Tech. Instead, robots will operate and fight alongside humans in specialized roles. Their tireless presence may even end up saving lives, when weary human fighters might make bad decisions and end up abusing prisoners or killing civilians.

However, robotic perfection may not be feasible or ideal in all situations. And it is unclear if humans should demand more of robots than they do of themselves, in some ethical situations.

"It is not my belief that an autonomous unmanned system will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield, but I am convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are capable of," Arkin told LiveScience.

And that question could become irrelevant as new technologies blur the line between robot and human.

from LiveScience …

for me … at present i am more afraid of humans then machines

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A new technique developed by scientists at UC Berkeley and University of Massachusetts Amherst may drastically increase the ability of devices to store things.

The method lets microscopic nanoscale elements precisely assemble themselves over large surfaces. Scientists said the technique could soon open doors to dramatic improvements in the data storage capacity of electronic media.

"I expect that the new method we developed will transform the microelectronic and storage industries, and open up vistas for entirely new applications," said co-lead investigator Thomas Russell, director of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at UMass Amherst and one of the world's leading experts on the behavior of polymers. "This work could possibly be translated into the production of more energy-efficient photovoltaic cells, for instance."

Russell conceived of this new approach with co-lead investigator Ting Xu, a UC Berkeley assistant professor. They describe their work in the Feb. 20 issue of the journal Science."The density achievable with the technology we've developed could potentially enable the contents of 250 DVDs to fit onto a surface the size of a quarter," said Xu.

How it Works…

Xu explained that the molecules in the thin film of block copolymers - two or more chemically dissimilar polymer chains linked together - self-assemble into an extremely precise, equidistant pattern when spread out on a surface, much like a regiment of disciplined soldiers lining up in formation.

For more than a decade, researchers have been trying to exploit this characteristic for use in semiconductor manufacturing, but they have been constrained because the order starts to break down as the size of the area increases.

Once the formation breaks down, the individual domains cannot be read or written to, rendering them useless as a form of data storage. To overcome this size constraint, Russell and Xu conceived of the elegantly simple solution of layering the film of block copolymers onto the surface of a commercially available sapphire crystal.

When the crystal is cut at an angle - a common procedure known as a miscut - and heated to 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Centigrade (2,372 to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit) for 24 hours, its surface reorganizes into a highly ordered pattern of sawtooth ridges that can then be used to guide the self-assembly of the block polymers.

With this technique, the researchers were able to achieve defect-free arrays of nanoscopic elements with feature sizes as small as 3 nanometers, translating into densities of 10 terabits per square inch (One terabit is equal to 1 trillion bits, or 125 gigabytes ) .

Because crystals come in a variety of sizes, there are few limitations to how large this block copolymer array can be produced, the researchers said.They also noted that the angle and depth of the sawtooth ridges can be easily varied by changing the temperature at which the crystal is heated to fine-tune the desired pattern.

"We can generate nearly perfect arrays over macroscopic surfaces where the density is over 15 times higher than anything achieved before," said Russell. "With that order of density, one could get a high-definition picture on a screen the size of a JumboTron."

"It's one thing to get dozens of soldiers to stand in perfect formation in an area the size of a classroom, each person equidistant from the other, but quite another to get tens of trillions of individuals to do so on the field in a football stadium," Xu added. "Using this crystal surface as a guide is like giving the soldiers a marker so they know where to stand."

Other research teams across the country are engaged in similar efforts to break the size barrier of self-assembled block copolymers, but this new project by the UMass Amherst-UC Berkeley scientists differs in that it does not rely upon advances in lithography to achieve its goals.

In the semiconductor industry, optical lithography is a process in which light passes through a mask with a desired circuit pattern onto a photosensitive material, or photoresist, that undergoes a chemical change.

Several steps of chemical treatment are then used to develop the desired pattern for subsequent use.To keep up with Moore's Law and the demand for increasingly smaller features for semiconductors and microprocessors, industry has turned to nanolithography and the use of ever-shorter wavelengths of light at greater cost.

"The challenge with photolithography is that it is rapidly approaching the resolution limits of light," said Xu. "In our approach, we shifted away from this 'top down' method of producing smaller features and instead utilized advantages of a 'bottom up' approach. The beauty of the method we developed is that it takes from processes already in use in industry, so it will be very easy to incorporate into the production line with little cost."

Njoy …

 

Some biofuels cause more health problems than petrol and diesel, according to scientists who have calculated the health costs associated with different types of fuel.

The study shows that corn-based bioethanol, which is produced extensively in the US, has a higher combined environmental and health burden than conventional fuels. However, there are high hopes for the next generation of biofuels, which can be made from organic waste or plants grown on marginal land that is not used to grow foods. They have less than half the combined health and environmental costs of standard gasoline and a third of current biofuels.

The work adds to an increasing body of research raising concerns about the impact of modern corn-based biofuels. Several studies last year showed that growing corn to make ethanol biofuels was pushing up the price of food. Environmentalists have highlighted other problems such deforestation to clear land for growing crops to make the fuels. The UK government's renewable fuels advisors recommended slowing down the adoption of biofuels until better controls were in place to prevent inadvertent climate impacts.

Using computer models developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency, the researchers found the total environmental and health costs of gasoline are about 71 cents (50p) per gallon, while an equivalent amount of corn-ethanol fuel has associated costs of 72 cents to $1.45, depending on how it is produced.

The next generation of so-called cellulosic bioethanol fuels costs 19 cents to 32 cents, depending on the technology and type of raw materials used. These are experimental fuels made from woody crops that typically do not compete with conventional agriculture. The results are published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The dialogue so far on biofuels has been pretty much focused on greenhouse gases alone," said David Tilman, a professor at the department of ecology, evolution and behaviour at the University of Minnesota. "And yet we felt there were many other impacts that were positive or negative not being included. We wanted to expand the analysis from greenhouse gases to at least one other item and we chose health impacts."

The health problems caused by conventional fuels are well studied and stem from soot particles and other pollution produced when they are burned. With biofuels, the problems are caused by particles given off during their growth and manufacture.

"Corn requires nitrogen fertilizers and some of that comes on as ammonia, which is volatilized into the air," said Tilman. "The ammonia particles are charged and they attract fine dust particles. They stick together and form particles of the size of 2.5 micron and that has significant health impacts. Some of this gets blown by prevailing winds into areas of higher population density – that's where you have the large number of people having the health impact which raises the cost."

Health problems from biofuels and gasoline include increased cases of heart disease, respiratory symptoms, asthma, chronic bronchitis or premature death. The team has calculated the economic costs associated with these. "For the economy, it's the loss of good, productive workers who might otherwise have been able to contribute," said team member Jason Hill, an economist at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment.

"These costs are not paid for by those who produce, sell and buy gasoline or ethanol. The public pays these costs," said Dr Stephen Polasky, an economist at the University of Minnesota, also part of the team.

A report published last year by Ed Gallagher, the head of the government's Renewable Fuels Agency, suggested that the introduction of biofuels to the UK should be slowed until more effective controls were in place to prevent the inadvertent rise in greenhouse gas emissions caused by, for example, the clearance of forests to make way for their production.

His report said that if the displacements were left unchecked, current targets for biofuel production could cause a global rise in greenhouse gas emissions and an increase in poverty in the poorest countries by 2020.

Gallagher also suggested the government should introduce incentives to promote the production of next-generation biofuels of the type studied by the Minnesota researchers. So-called cellulosic ethanol can be made from plants such as switchgrass or jatropha that can grow with very little fertilizer on poor land, but the technology to convert these plants into fuels is in its early stages.

Tilman said society needed to make the transition away from corn-based ethanol as soon as possible.

"We've gone one step further than the work that only looked at greenhouse gases and found some surprisingly large effects. Before we dedicate major resources to new biofuels, we should be trying to quantify other likely impacts to society – water quality, biodiversity and so on – and put all of those into our analysis." He hopes this will encourage society to make "a long-term commitment to the right biofuel".

Njoy …

Now a days it seems like everybody are into business of solar cells and just want to make $$$ out of it !!! ... yesterday i was browsing internet , and i came across this site ... they are selling Solar Messenger Bags !! ...





This bag is having solar panel mounted on it so it generates power even when you are walking around !! ... it was nearly 200$ !! compared to an avg. good looking messenger bag from circuit city or staples or even macy's about 30-40$ ... well , this is what they say for their bag ...

"The front flap features a light-weight, flexible, integrated solar charging module which can be utilized by using a common 12V automotive charging adapter made specifically for the brand and type of personal electronics you own. Using a cell phone as an example, you can trickle charge the cell phone battery during casual commutes to work or on campus. This solar panel is not designed to charge a laptop computer."

so ... if have nothing to do or your mobile is out of power , then you can charge your mobile by walking around in campus .... say for couple of hours !!! ... so i guess this bag is nothing but a fancy junk ... right ??

I am not saying that solar cells have no hope .. infact , i would like to use them for my house ... but for this bag ... i would rather buy psp ...

may the force be with us ...

Heyyyyy ... sori for being absent for long time ....i think , being social ... means lots of waste of time , and worst thing is we can't escape from people !!! anyways ... this time i am gonna blurp about alternative sources of energy ...

The sources of energy are divided in to two parts , renewable energy source and non-renewable energy source ... former one means , energy source which can be generated/retrieved after very short period of time , for example ... wind / water ... etc .. and later one means , energy source which can not be generated in short period of time , it can take millions of million years to get it again ... for example , coal / fossil fuels ...

Now like we know , these non-renewable fuels are making our earth the worst place to live , more over they are not gonna last for ever right ?? But these non-renewable sources are gonna be here for ever !!!! ... i mean , can you believe that , after couple of years we will not be having air ?? or water ?? or sun ?????? no .. right ?? ... so,in short they will be here till earth it self doesn't get explode in space ....... ( not yet the time for ,intergalactic travel for star wars lovers ... sigh sigh ?? )

In recent years , people really got aware about environment and clean energy .... researches are carried out worldwide and even governments are also getting involved in these researches ... and patriotism plays one of the driving factor !!! .... yup , many countries in this world want to get free from the clutches of OPEAC , and make their economy an " oil-free" economy ... because " oil " itself takes a bigger portion of national budget ... and European countries seem to be more serious about it then rest of the world !!!

We have plenty of renewable energy sources available for example ... WIND ...

Wind is used to drive wind mills , which runs wind turbines to produce electricity ... but major problem is , we can't place wind mill at our home right ?? for that we need plenty of open space .. ( this place is called "wind farm" ) .. and sufficient wind flow ... but main advantage is , its green energy ... means not a bit of pollution , no risk of any kind of hazard or side effects to humans !!!




here is screenshot of off shore wind farm at Delaware ...







another example is ... Water ...

Well, actually water has been used to produce electricity from many decades and it has proven to be the best source of clean energy ... but this sort of hydro electric plant requires massive space to store water ... a space to make reservoir ... and its the only problem ... and again advantages ?? ... same .. clean green energy ...


guess the name ?? ........... yaa.. its hoover dam !!!



another example is ... to use Power of Tides !!!

I bet most of us have never thought tide can be used to generate power !!! well , it is very true that some countries , having great seacoast are working to figure out to put this idea in a working plant ... for example ... france and russia !!! ... its a bit of same technology they use in panama canal to move ships !!!





the energy in which i am interest the most ....from SUN !!!

Sun .... it is vital part of civilizations from ancient times , sun is considered as an almighty god , weather its , Mayans or Egyptians or Indian or Roman civilization ... it gives life to every living thing on earth ... and perhaps the most researched field of alternative energy is solar cells .... Solar cells were originally developed for space expedition space crafts , because it is the only " known " form of energy to us in space ... ( others are still under research , like "dark matter " ) ... and now a days we have seen very good examples successful use of Solar Cells to produce electricity that can be used commercially !!! .... some countries like Germany are very aggressive for this technology development and implementation ...




And , as an engineer i see very bright future for this technology compared to any other alternative energy ... its mainly because it is relatively cheaper and easy to install ... yaaa ... we can't install wind mill at our rooftop .. but in case of solar cell , its possible to install sufficient number of panels to feed whole house ... and if more , then ... can even sell back produced power !!! ... also many states of USA , provides loan and subsidies for this kind of installations and many electric companies provide " net-metering " feature .... so i can say it has good future !!!


Another source is ... a bit of tale from science fiction ... energy from fuel cell !!!

Bacially in fuel cell, hydrogen and oxygen are used to produce electricity with help of special membrane ... ( ... i really liked that study in my class of alternative energy sources ) ... Just like solar cells , fuel cells were too developed initially for space crafts , but during last decade , there were attempts to make them work for our personal use too !!! we have even seen cars running from fuel cells from Honda, GM and Toyota !!! state like OHIO has invested lots of $$$$ for fuel cell companies and they even have one plant working at present !!!! and like all other alternative energy ... is clean green .. and by product is ???... just a steam of water !!!





Hmm ... i think this much information is enough for basic ... i just wanted to show you guys how we can change our world and make is world a more good place for coming generations !!!

May the force be with us ...

It was my first day of Alternative Energy Class of Spring '08 ... my professor showed us this "line" as a first introduction to Alternative Energies ... It was not just a simple line ... it mean lot more then that ... It says, we all are responsible for better future for next generation ... or can say for bad future ???

We all know that , the fossil fuels are about to end .. may be withing 20-30 years ... but before they end , we want to utilize them upto its maximum capacity ... we want our plants or factories or any other installations to work for 24 X 7 continuously , right ?? but we have never realized the consequences ...

Like we know , when we burn any fossil fuel , it generates "Green House Gases" , like CO2, these gases have one funny property ... they simply tend to store heat within their atom, so higher the gases higher the stored heat , well its good for plants to grow quickly but not good it these gases raised above certain limit ... it has been highest CO2 level measure at present time , and we have seen results , in form of drastic climate changes , or say increased frequency of tornadoes and their intensity .. ( its like , you can say , we are responsible less or more for Ike or gustav or katrina !!! , believe it or not , its very true ) or increased earth temperature and lots of others effects ...

We can not even think to live without electricity for a minute, right ?? have you ever thought from where it comes ?? its mainly from thermal power plants ... and as an electrical engineer i know , these plants have many effect of environment , in which , disposal of ash generated from combustion of coal is major problem ... ash is something that we can't easily get rid of , and so it effects our environment ... these plants also play major part in increasing CO2 and SO2 gases , the later one is responsible for "acid-rain" !!! ...

In developed countries like USA , they have thinner ozone layer compared to developing nations ... reason ?? again , these green house gases ... don't blame only industries , your car also emits these gases ... and it is the reason why we need to check UV index before we go out at beach .. right ?? because these Ozone , or O3 for short, gas acts as a filter for Ultra Violet rays that comes from sun ... but now this layer got thinner , it can't filter properly these UV rays ... you might be knowing that , these UV rays are deadly for humans if they remain in its contact for long time ... ( ...remember the day when you go out without suncream ?? )

Do you remember movie " Day after Tomorrow " ?? perhaps they have picturized the perfectly , what's gonna happen if we don't care about our deeds !!! obviously not so fast but it will happen for sure ... i guess , we have more chances of killing our self by making nature unstable then being destroyed by any asteroid from space !!!

As a resident of earth ... i DO CARE for her ... We always aware of our RIGHTS , but we never think of our DUTIES ... i personally believe that , saving earth ... saving our only home ... is our foremost duty ...

I want to write more about it ... may be some other time ....

May be force be with us ...