Is that ALON glass can not only, with a nominal thickness (I'm thinking half an inch?) stop 50 caliber armor piercing rounds, AND (not covered in the wikipedia article) due to it's higher hardness is highly resistant to scratching, which is beneficial when driving around in a desert with a lot of sand.. Due to ALON's significantly higher strength, it also means that the windows can be less thick. I also believe that ALON might have better optical properties than normal bullet proof glass, though I have nothing to substantiate my claims.
This might seem like a slightly absurd assumption, but wouldn't it be possible for an SSD (which uses about 5 watts max read) to be fitted with a 5w lithium ion battery, which charges off the power rail, that will refresh cells that haven't been read in a while, which (at the current read/write speeds of SSD's) will probably keep them good for at least 20 cycles? That would extend the minimum data retention time from 10 years to about 200 years, for corporate customers?
At the consumer level, you can merely have the hard drive refresh old cells that haven't been read in a while (oldest to newest) in idle time. This doesn't seem like a huge problem.
If you refresh old cells even 3 or 4 times during the life of the drive, you'll have more than enough refreshing to endure the life of the drive.
This may be an absolutley crazy idea, but why not bring in small (50mw) nuclear reactors into afghanistan, and wireup a small, perhaps microwave grid, with backup generators. Bury it and pour concrete over it to make it terrorist proof.
That will take care of electrical.
And as for liquid fuels, it might be possible to setup a plant based around the fischer tropsch process which takes hydrogen and carbon monoxide to create gasoline. Run it off an electrolysis station and a carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide converter. Then generate it in the field. It should be more economical than paying hundreds of dollars a gallon to truck fuel in.
If you made each fischer tropsch module about the size of a semi trailer, that's a fairly simple thing to drag into a base camp, which could then produce liquid fuels from the nuclear powered grid fairly easily.
However, as a more reasonable stopgap, research could be done into hybrid electric turbines. Being able to turn the turbine off in low power would save drastically on fuel. Having enough power to get going under a combat load and still have enough juice to start the turbine might be a bit tricky, but I think it can be done and would probably double if not triple the mileage of those tanks.
You could do even better by putting a good part of the maglev track in a vacuum. This would allow frictionless acceleration and possibly allow you to achieve ludicrous speeds. Possibly subjecting the package to be launched to hypersonic wind fronts for a lesser period of time.The trick would be the transition zone though. Maybe an airlock that's programmed to open at the correct time?
"The 12 south side generators are also in operation. No. 22 began operation on June 11, 2007 and No. 15 started up on October 30, 2008.[3] The sixth (No. 17) began operation on December 18, 2007, raising capacity to 14.1 GW, finally surpassing Itaipu (14.0 GW), to become the world's largest hydropower plant.[32][33][34][35]"
Actually, isn't the largest power station in the world the three gorges dam? Currently they're missing about 4GW of the 22GW max installed capacity, but that should still put it over itaipu.
I would not, necessarily, consider this a non starter for cars.
For instance, if we were using a battery pack made of these batteries in the volt, per se.
The volt's battery is 170kg and has 8.8kwh of real capacity. If you were using an equal amount (170kg) of Toshiba SCiB batteries, and use their FULL range, they would provide 8.5kwh of capacity. In the example application of the Chevy Volt, the difference is almost nothing.
On the contrary, if you were to use SCiB batteries in a laptop, it would probably add 1 pound and double the bulk of the battery, and to achieve your 5 minute quick charge, you would need to have a power supply that, for a normal 80wh battery, would have to provide ~900 (!!) watts of power. I have an inkling that the charging circuitry for this battery would also be significantly more bulky.
Energy density of these batteries is approximatley 50wh/kg. Lead acid is 40. NiMH is 80. Regular lithium ions range from 100-150.
However, for electric vehicle applications, these will be comparable, because regular lithium ions in vehicles, to maximize life, are generally only used from 30-80%. Lithium ions degrade more quickly if brought outside this narrow range. Since this battery does not seem to suffer adverse effects from full charge/discharge cycles, it will be able to use all of it's capacity. Which means it will be comparable with lithium ion tech in vehicles like the volt, which use a narrow range to extend battery lifespan.
I dont' see anywhere in the actual article that says that once the pressure was taken off, the material spontaneously exploded. So it's possible that no containment vessel was needed.
In which case, it would make a rather powerful conventional explosive. Even if it has 1/10th the energy of nuclear material, if you pack 400kg of it into a bomb, and find a way to release it easily, you could handily have a 'pseudo nuke' which had no fallout consequences.
Or some wickedly powerful jet fuel. I imagine planes would be much more efficient if they weren't carrying half their weight in fuel, and would have significantly longer ranges.
Goods can be scarce on the global market but still have a production excess in the local economy. If i'm not mistaken, this would produce high profits for the people producing the excess.
A good example might be nickle mining in say, Canada. Canada produces significantly more nickle than it can use domestically, so an increase in the price of nickle due to global shortages will help nickle producers in Canada.
Simply apply the same theory to agricultural production. Like, for example, the coffee production in Brazil, which vastly outstrips domestic consumption.
It'd seem to me that any country that could make a surplus on staple crops could actually benefit from higher prices. Excess produce can be sold for higher prices, bringing higher income. The problem comes when you're importing food to survive, like haiti. Or when you're not a farmer and the higher food prices produce a significant impact on your life.
It's always a bit of a balance between the farmers, who want higher prices, and the people, who may or may not be able to afford them. In countries where a LARGE proportion of the people are employed in agriculture, and their main exports depend on it, then it could be beneficial. Nothing's simple.
What part of this aircraft's electrical generation systems could not be replaced by a bigger lithium battery pack and ground charging? If it's flying through a significant portion of night, i'd imagine a bumped up battery pack would be able to power this thing on charge alone for atleast 6-7 hours.
1. It is, partly, space for the animals to inhabit. Without animals, we cannot have our current Eco-system. we are not the only animal on the planet, and if we squeeze out all other animals to serve our own needs, many other animals might die off, leading to cascading effects.
For instance, if we squeeze off wolves, hawks, and other animals that eat rabbits, it's possible one day rabbits will become a significant threat to our agricultural output. If we kill off bees, then pollination will become difficult for many many plants, again killing our agricultural output. I'm willing to bet that the attrition rate of human caused traffic accidents and territory loss against mid level predators significantly outstrips
2. It is arable land. A quote from a study published by a guy Cornell and a guy in Rome.
(link: http://dieoff.org/page40.htm) # At the present growth rate of 1.1% per year, the U.S. population will double to more than half a billion people within the next 60 years. It is estimated that approximately one acre of land is lost due to urbanization and highway construction alone for every person added to the U.S. population. # This means that only 0.6 acres of farmland would be available to grow food for each American in 2050, as opposed to the 1.8 acres per capita available today. At least 1.2 acres per person is required in order to maintain current American dietary standards. Food prices are projected to increase 3 to 5-fold within this period. # If present population growth, domestic food consumption and topsoil loss trends continue, the U.S. will most likely cease to be a food exporter by approximately 2025 because food grown in the U.S. will be needed for domestic purposes.
This is a BIG problem
Especially for all of the people dependent on US agricultural exports. 'Screw them, we need food' is a valid opinion. But by 2100, the birthrate will have either gone down, or the starvation rate will have gone up. Current population growth rate is unsustainable with CURRENT agricultural technology. This may change when it becomes economical to build greenhouses and desalinate water in the desert because food prices have risen above the cost of growing them in said environment.
It, in my opinion, is a foolhardy argument to say 'we have plenty of space, so we will never reach a population crisis.'
What a lot of people don't know is that even if they only live in a 2000 square foot house, their net resource footprint, put into the perspective of how much land worth of resource production is necessary to sustain them, is significantly larger than what they can immediately see. Farm land, factories, roads to bring factory goods to the people, highways to move places, land to dedicate to bio fossil fuel production once petro fossil fuels runs out (or alternatively, build new renewable or non-exhaustible fuel (nuclear) powered plants), transmission lines to get them their electricity, etc... etc..
Right now, it would appear that Cuba is actually one of the most efficient providers of standards of living per hectare of land used per capita. We might all live like Cubans one day, if our population keeps spiraling out of control. Which wouldn't be bad, but would be much different than the world you know at the moment.
What would really make this light a leap forward, is if they also provided a USB port for recharging phones.
Alot of people in rural areas have to go far away to recharge their cellphone. Being able to do it at home, on the cheap, rolled into an item they already buy, would make a sweet deal even sweeter. And it's likely that one day's output of this device would equate to several days of standby.
In other news, a large population of very confused looking bears has congregated at the base of the billboard. No damage has been caused to the billboard... yet.
Perhaps. But sometimes the most amazing discoveries are the lower ones on the tree.
Rocket powered drug mules anyone?
Wouldn't be too hard to jump over the border, drop a kg of cocaine in a discreet location, and run back before the police knew what hit them. With the price of cocaine, it might just be economical.
And permeates the printed media in Japan. Even the burgers at McDonalds have QR codes on them linking to nutrition information about the product.
The QR code is roughly the size of a postage stamp and can actually encode about 4000 alphanumeric characters, or about a page of text. not just limited to hypertext.
Best part would be most charachters wouldn't need actual actors. Would probably make the movie cheap to make, especially since the 3d models are already there and done and it's mostly in CG.
Which have full torque at 0RPM, eliminating the need for starters. With lower pollution, and comparable to gasoline engines in efficiency to boot. Oh, and throw out that ancient transmission.
Slashdot Mirror
Transparent aluminum is actually a misnomer.
I believe what he is in fact being propositioned is the same aluminum compound the military is working on for armored vehicles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_oxynitride
What that wikipedia article fails to mention that is covered in this wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet-proof_glass
Is that ALON glass can not only, with a nominal thickness (I'm thinking half an inch?) stop 50 caliber armor piercing rounds, AND (not covered in the wikipedia article) due to it's higher hardness is highly resistant to scratching, which is beneficial when driving around in a desert with a lot of sand .. Due to ALON's significantly higher strength, it also means that the windows can be less thick. I also believe that ALON might have better optical properties than normal bullet proof glass, though I have nothing to substantiate my claims.
Can they also prove that in a vehicle certified in crash tests?
This might seem like a slightly absurd assumption, but wouldn't it be possible for an SSD (which uses about 5 watts max read) to be fitted with a 5w lithium ion battery, which charges off the power rail, that will refresh cells that haven't been read in a while, which (at the current read/write speeds of SSD's) will probably keep them good for at least 20 cycles? That would extend the minimum data retention time from 10 years to about 200 years, for corporate customers?
At the consumer level, you can merely have the hard drive refresh old cells that haven't been read in a while (oldest to newest) in idle time. This doesn't seem like a huge problem.
If you refresh old cells even 3 or 4 times during the life of the drive, you'll have more than enough refreshing to endure the life of the drive.
This may be an absolutley crazy idea, but why not bring in small (50mw) nuclear reactors into afghanistan, and wireup a small, perhaps microwave grid, with backup generators. Bury it and pour concrete over it to make it terrorist proof.
That will take care of electrical.
And as for liquid fuels, it might be possible to setup a plant based around the fischer tropsch process which takes hydrogen and carbon monoxide to create gasoline. Run it off an electrolysis station and a carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide converter. Then generate it in the field. It should be more economical than paying hundreds of dollars a gallon to truck fuel in.
If you made each fischer tropsch module about the size of a semi trailer, that's a fairly simple thing to drag into a base camp, which could then produce liquid fuels from the nuclear powered grid fairly easily.
However, as a more reasonable stopgap, research could be done into hybrid electric turbines. Being able to turn the turbine off in low power would save drastically on fuel. Having enough power to get going under a combat load and still have enough juice to start the turbine might be a bit tricky, but I think it can be done and would probably double if not triple the mileage of those tanks.
You could do even better by putting a good part of the maglev track in a vacuum. This would allow frictionless acceleration and possibly allow you to achieve ludicrous speeds. Possibly subjecting the package to be launched to hypersonic wind fronts for a lesser period of time.The trick would be the transition zone though. Maybe an airlock that's programmed to open at the correct time?
Well, wikipedia contradicts itself then, with this excerpt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_gorges_dam#Generator_installation_progress
"The 12 south side generators are also in operation. No. 22 began operation on June 11, 2007 and No. 15 started up on October 30, 2008.[3] The sixth (No. 17) began operation on December 18, 2007, raising capacity to 14.1 GW, finally surpassing Itaipu (14.0 GW), to become the world's largest hydropower plant.[32][33][34][35]"
Apparently the Itaipu article is out of date...
Actually, isn't the largest power station in the world the three gorges dam? Currently they're missing about 4GW of the 22GW max installed capacity, but that should still put it over itaipu.
im in ur hotspot
sniffin' ur pornz
Not as expensive as the PS3's $4.68/bit.
Or my laptop's $15/bit.
I would not, necessarily, consider this a non starter for cars.
For instance, if we were using a battery pack made of these batteries in the volt, per se.
The volt's battery is 170kg and has 8.8kwh of real capacity. If you were using an equal amount (170kg) of Toshiba SCiB batteries, and use their FULL range, they would provide 8.5kwh of capacity. In the example application of the Chevy Volt, the difference is almost nothing.
On the contrary, if you were to use SCiB batteries in a laptop, it would probably add 1 pound and double the bulk of the battery, and to achieve your 5 minute quick charge, you would need to have a power supply that, for a normal 80wh battery, would have to provide ~900 (!!) watts of power. I have an inkling that the charging circuitry for this battery would also be significantly more bulky.
Energy density of these batteries is approximatley 50wh/kg. Lead acid is 40. NiMH is 80. Regular lithium ions range from 100-150.
However, for electric vehicle applications, these will be comparable, because regular lithium ions in vehicles, to maximize life, are generally only used from 30-80%. Lithium ions degrade more quickly if brought outside this narrow range. Since this battery does not seem to suffer adverse effects from full charge/discharge cycles, it will be able to use all of it's capacity. Which means it will be comparable with lithium ion tech in vehicles like the volt, which use a narrow range to extend battery lifespan.
I think, logically, his post is sound. When helium leaves the surface, it rises into the atmosphere and is blown away. Thus, it is non recoverable.
He's not arguing that helium is not formed, it's that once it has escaped, it's unrecoverable.
Er... so according to this link
(energy information administration: http://www.eia.doe.gov/ask/electricity_faqs.asp)
Residential refrigeration accounts for 8% of residential power.
According to this chart
(same source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec2_6.pdf)
Residential accounts for about 20% of energy usage.
Putting those figures together, residential refrigeration accounts for 2% of total energy usage.
This seems like a rather insignificant proportion.
A far larger energy hog is residential AC and lighting. At about 6% of national energy consumption.
I dont' see anywhere in the actual article that says that once the pressure was taken off, the material spontaneously exploded. So it's possible that no containment vessel was needed.
In which case, it would make a rather powerful conventional explosive. Even if it has 1/10th the energy of nuclear material, if you pack 400kg of it into a bomb, and find a way to release it easily, you could handily have a 'pseudo nuke' which had no fallout consequences.
Or some wickedly powerful jet fuel. I imagine planes would be much more efficient if they weren't carrying half their weight in fuel, and would have significantly longer ranges.
Goods can be scarce on the global market but still have a production excess in the local economy. If i'm not mistaken, this would produce high profits for the people producing the excess.
A good example might be nickle mining in say, Canada. Canada produces significantly more nickle than it can use domestically, so an increase in the price of nickle due to global shortages will help nickle producers in Canada.
Simply apply the same theory to agricultural production. Like, for example, the coffee production in Brazil, which vastly outstrips domestic consumption.
It'd seem to me that any country that could make a surplus on staple crops could actually benefit from higher prices. Excess produce can be sold for higher prices, bringing higher income. The problem comes when you're importing food to survive, like haiti. Or when you're not a farmer and the higher food prices produce a significant impact on your life.
It's always a bit of a balance between the farmers, who want higher prices, and the people, who may or may not be able to afford them. In countries where a LARGE proportion of the people are employed in agriculture, and their main exports depend on it, then it could be beneficial. Nothing's simple.
What part of this aircraft's electrical generation systems could not be replaced by a bigger lithium battery pack and ground charging? If it's flying through a significant portion of night, i'd imagine a bumped up battery pack would be able to power this thing on charge alone for atleast 6-7 hours.
The issue is not space to inhabit, perse.
1. It is, partly, space for the animals to inhabit. Without animals, we cannot have our current Eco-system. we are not the only animal on the planet, and if we squeeze out all other animals to serve our own needs, many other animals might die off, leading to cascading effects.
For instance, if we squeeze off wolves, hawks, and other animals that eat rabbits, it's possible one day rabbits will become a significant threat to our agricultural output. If we kill off bees, then pollination will become difficult for many many plants, again killing our agricultural output. I'm willing to bet that the attrition rate of human caused traffic accidents and territory loss against mid level predators significantly outstrips
2. It is arable land. A quote from a study published by a guy Cornell and a guy in Rome.
(link: http://dieoff.org/page40.htm)
# At the present growth rate of 1.1% per year, the U.S. population will double to more than half a billion people within the next 60 years. It is estimated that approximately one acre of land is lost due to urbanization and highway construction alone for every person added to the U.S. population.
# This means that only 0.6 acres of farmland would be available to grow food for each American in 2050, as opposed to the 1.8 acres per capita available today. At least 1.2 acres per person is required in order to maintain current American dietary standards. Food prices are projected to increase 3 to 5-fold within this period.
# If present population growth, domestic food consumption and topsoil loss trends continue, the U.S. will most likely cease to be a food exporter by approximately 2025 because food grown in the U.S. will be needed for domestic purposes.
This is a BIG problem
Especially for all of the people dependent on US agricultural exports. 'Screw them, we need food' is a valid opinion. But by 2100, the birthrate will have either gone down, or the starvation rate will have gone up. Current population growth rate is unsustainable with CURRENT agricultural technology. This may change when it becomes economical to build greenhouses and desalinate water in the desert because food prices have risen above the cost of growing them in said environment.
It, in my opinion, is a foolhardy argument to say 'we have plenty of space, so we will never reach a population crisis.'
What a lot of people don't know is that even if they only live in a 2000 square foot house, their net resource footprint, put into the perspective of how much land worth of resource production is necessary to sustain them, is significantly larger than what they can immediately see. Farm land, factories, roads to bring factory goods to the people, highways to move places, land to dedicate to bio fossil fuel production once petro fossil fuels runs out (or alternatively, build new renewable or non-exhaustible fuel (nuclear) powered plants), transmission lines to get them their electricity, etc... etc..
Right now, it would appear that Cuba is actually one of the most efficient providers of standards of living per hectare of land used per capita. We might all live like Cubans one day, if our population keeps spiraling out of control. Which wouldn't be bad, but would be much different than the world you know at the moment.
What would really make this light a leap forward, is if they also provided a USB port for recharging phones.
Alot of people in rural areas have to go far away to recharge their cellphone. Being able to do it at home, on the cheap, rolled into an item they already buy, would make a sweet deal even sweeter. And it's likely that one day's output of this device would equate to several days of standby.
In other news, a large population of very confused looking bears has congregated at the base of the billboard. No damage has been caused to the billboard... yet.
Perhaps. But sometimes the most amazing discoveries are the lower ones on the tree.
Rocket powered drug mules anyone?
Wouldn't be too hard to jump over the border, drop a kg of cocaine in a discreet location, and run back before the police knew what hit them. With the price of cocaine, it might just be economical.
This tech has been in Japan for about 16 years in the form of the QR code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
And permeates the printed media in Japan. Even the burgers at McDonalds have QR codes on them linking to nutrition information about the product.
The QR code is roughly the size of a postage stamp and can actually encode about 4000 alphanumeric characters, or about a page of text. not just limited to hypertext.
Best part would be most charachters wouldn't need actual actors. Would probably make the movie cheap to make, especially since the 3d models are already there and done and it's mostly in CG.
We could gradually switch to cyclone engines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_regenerative_cyclone_engine
Which have full torque at 0RPM, eliminating the need for starters. With lower pollution, and comparable to gasoline engines in efficiency to boot. Oh, and throw out that ancient transmission.
I can type faster on T9 than I can type on my iPhone. With no grease smear.
Newer is not necessarily better. This tech is no exception.
I imagine this tech will primarily be used for obscene pictographs. :p