Feb

26

The Economic Impact of the Oil and Natural Gas Industry

February 26, 2010 | 13 Comments

While I’m under the weather Jane Van Ryan has graciously provided content for today. For many years, this nation has been debating its energy future. Speeches have been made and legislation has been passed, but on balance the United States is less energy secure today than it was 35 years ago after the oil embargo. [...]

Feb

25

The Exploding Bloom Box

February 25, 2010 | 17 Comments

With much coordinated anticipation Bloom Energy revealed their Bloom Box  (BB) fuel cell to the press yesterday. With working units sold and operating on sites in California naysaying has to be a real hard task. There are articles and blogs rich in interesting details and after an hour or so of looking through them I [...]

Feb

24

Another Nuke To Burn Used Fuel

February 24, 2010 | 15 Comments

Or technology can be in the wrong hands. Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold, old pals at Microsoft are going after nuclear power.  I’m not surprised.  We had a look last year followed by the PR folks of Mr. Myhrvold shopping for more postings here about TerraPower. Publicity can be hard to get when you have [...]

Feb

23

Bloom Fuel Cell Booms Tomorrow

February 23, 2010 | 8 Comments

With a setup blitz of media coverage from Fortune and Business Week in the business section to CBS on the political left and much of the green crowd in between, Bloom Energy and their “fuel cell” or very close approximation of one is having a media event Wednesday February 24th, 2010.  That’s when some answers [...]

Feb

22

DARPA Cracks the Oil Out of Algae

February 22, 2010 | 14 Comments

Late last week saw Suzanne Goldenberg return from her visit with the new special assistant for energy at DARPA, Barbara McQuiston with news DARPA has solved the algae oil production problem.  If you saw the original piece at The Guardian, my contact at Darpa is saying it’s accurate other than the timeline.  DARPA expects to [...]

Feb

19

The Most Abundant Fuel in the World

February 19, 2010 | 12 Comments

Email can consume a lot of time.  But some gems pop up, like a simple question from an .edu address that must be from a youthful person with an earnest need to know.  The question seems small, what is the most abundant fuel in the world?  I’m having an Art Linkletter moment, “Kids ask the [...]

Feb

18

A Better Lithium Ion Battery Technology

February 18, 2010 | 7 Comments

Boston College Assistant Professor of Chemistry Dunwei Wang’s paper about web-like nanonets developments has been published in Nano Letters. The development suggests a major breakthrough for lithium ion battery technology. The ‘nanonets’ are tiny scaffold-like structures that are built like a web.  Wang’s nanonets are made with titanium disilicide, and coated with silicon particles that [...]

Feb

17

A Light to Electricity Molecule

February 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Professor Dawn Bonnell the director of the Nano/Bio Interface Center at the University of Pennsylvania and her colleagues have demonstrated the transduction of optical radiation to electrical current in a molecular circuit.  The system uses an array of nano-sized molecules of gold that respond to electromagnetic waves by creating surface plasmons to induce and project [...]

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