eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates

it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable( 5 billion barrels), at $107 a barrel,

we’re looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

“When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor.

They had no idea..” says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature’s financial analyst.

“This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years,” reportsThe Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

It’s a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the ‘Bakken.’

It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada.

For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end.

Even the ‘Big Oil’ companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago.

However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken’s massive reserves,

and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil,

those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL !!!!!!

That’s enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight.

And if THAT didn’t throw you on the floor, then this next one should – because it’s from 2006 !!!!!!

U. S. Oil Discovery – Largest Reserve in the World

Stansberry Report Online – 4/20/2006

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world.

It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction.

In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted.

With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off- shore drilling?

They reported this stunning news:

We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.

Here are the official estimates:

8 times as much oil as Saudi Arabia

18 times as much oil as Iraq

21 times as much oil as Kuwait

22 times as much oil as Iran

500 times as much oil as Yemen

and it’s all right here in the Western United States !!!!!!

HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy. WHY?

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we’ve got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East, more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That’s more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.

Don’t think ‘OPEC’ will drop its price even with this find? Think again! It’s all about the competitive marketplace, it has to.

Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?

Got your attention yet? Now, while you’re thinking about it, do this:

Pass this along. If you don’t take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time

you complain about gas prices, by doing NOTHING, you forfeit your right to complain.

Now I just wonder what would happen in this country if every one of you sent this to every one in your address book.

By the way, this can be verified. Check it out at the link below !!!!!!

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911 >

Curz Construction:
http://www.cruzconstruct.com/services..php >

by Carl Collins

As any architectural designer or design and building manager knows, working on a 3D CAD/BIM model can be extremely complex, with many parties contributing from a variety of platforms to a massively varying degree.

As a unified design, architecture, and structural and services engineering firm, we find this to be particularly true at Arup Associates.

The firm was a real pioneer in collaborative design and we have always felt that no one part of a design is more important than another. In a sense, we feel that the rest of the world is finally catching up to this approach.

Given the nature of our business and our design philosophy, it is not uncommon for us to have a geographically dispersed team of collaborators working simultaneously on large 3D CAD/BIM files for a project such as a structural design.

Sharing those files and transferring data can become a formidable challenge, especially when we begin to engage with remote team members who have disparate CAD/BIM software or no access to powerful workstations.

We therefore felt fortunate to be approached by the experts at CadFaster when they first started developing their CadFaster Collaborate 3D CAD/BIM collaboration software. They told us they really wanted the tool to be developed specifically for a user’s needs and asked us if we wouldn’t mind trying it out.

Appropriately enough, this turned into a true collaborative project. The Arup Associates design team became a collaborator on the collaborative software tool and helped fine-tune it for wider adoption. >>>

Discuss this article in the Architecture Forum…
When we first tried it out, we really hadn’t seen anything like it before. Certainly, the traditional way of looking at a design is to look at two-dimensional drawings. The more advanced software, such as Navisworks, will show you a 3D, or even a 4D model, but you need a powerful workstation and the ability to open big files.

What CadFaster Collaborate enabled us to do is look at our very complex models in a lightweight and nimble way. The 3D geometry was amazing and showed us so many details. The software operates as a plugin for our Autodesk Revit program. It can also work with SolidWorks and Bentley MicroStation platforms, and we’ve been told there are more plugins in the works. And now there is also an app for the iPad.

Early in our trial period, a fellow member of the London Revit User Group tried out the program and said it was like magic. He was using it to display a model from both a Mac and a PC. It was quite astonishing.

One person was on the PC looking at the 3D model and making annotations, someone else was sitting on the Mac signing off on the changes, and a third laptop was projecting the live conversation onto a screen. You could see people around the room looking for the wires — it was all done over a 3G connection.

The way it works is that models and assemblies are exported to portable, self-extracting, executable files that include a 3D viewer. CadFaster Collaborate compresses the original data so that huge files can be shrunk to a size that can be emailed or downloaded from a link. Files are even small enough to run on low-powered laptops.

This means virtually anyone working on a design can distribute, annotate, and view large 3D models quickly, without installing any additional software.

Everyone has the ability to make annotations in real time on the project that is being discussed. It provides a great way to control the view of the model and talk someone through aspects of the design without having to deal with a clumsy “meeting” aspect to the collaboration file.

The great thing here is that when our design team updates the master model view, all session members’ views are updated instantly. This is intrinsic to CadFaster Collaborate.

Typically, as one of our design projects progresses, the model we are working on becomes more and more involved. With this collaboration software, we can start to drill into the model live across an internet or 3G connection.

And we can use it to communicate live with team members far away. Arup has 160 offices around the world and we just opened three new offices in China. Using the CadFaster application, we were able to conduct online design review meetings among London, China and Qatar, with approximately 30 people involved at once.

When we work with parts of the world that are on different time zones, we also have the option to load the annotations and comments into the software so they can be quickly retrieved when our collaborators start their day (or at their leisure).

The collaborators don’t have to do anything, since the software uses cloud-based technology to publish data from one copy of the file to another. The notes are pushed to the model via the cloud by CadFaster Collaborate.

Personally, I also like using this program to work on projects solo. Because it’s a collaborative tool, this kind of usage isn’t as obvious. But I can cycle through components that I have put into one of my Revit models and react to them quickly.

Things tend to jump out at me when I’m looking at the big colorful 3D images that I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. I can do it right at my desktop and it’s quite easy.

Through the entire 12-month evaluation period, the team at CadFaster has been very helpful and responsive. Based on our working knowledge, we’ve given them a number of suggestions that are now incorporated into the tool, such as the commenting feature.

In the next version, I would also like the ability to bring comments into a new file from a previous version of that file. However, we’ve advised CadFaster not to make the tool too feature-heavy because that would go against its biggest advantages: it’s easy, fast, and intuitive.

We are continuing to work with CadFaster and will be conducting negotiations into licensing models for our global business.

Discuss this article in the Architecture Forum…

Carl Collins is a CAD manager for Arup Associates in London. He began using CAD in 1983 with the first commercial release of AutoCAD, having had experience in electro-optic instrument systems as a practicing mechanical design engineer. As well as being highly conversant with document control, QEMS, and IT systems, Collins is an experienced user and manager of all Autodesk products, including AutoCAD 2012, AutoCAD MEP, AutoCAD Architecture, Revit Architecture, and Revit MEP.

From: http://wardsauto.com/ar/thorium_power_car_110811/

A U.S.company says it is getting closer to putting prototype electric cars on the
road that will be powered by the heavy-metal thorium. Thorium
is a naturally occurring, slightly radioactive rare-earth element discovered in
1828 by the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the
Norse god of thunder. It is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils,
where it is about three times more abundant than uranium. However,
the use of thorium is controversial because, as with uranium, it is used as a
nuclear power source. Indeed, the internal heat of the Earth largely is
attributed to the presence of thorium and uranium. The key to the system developed by inventor Charles Stevens, CEO and chairman of
Connecticut-based Laser Power Systems, is that when silvery metal thorium is
heated by an external source, it becomes so dense its molecules give off
considerable heat. Small blocks of thorium generate heat surges that are configured as a thorium-based
laser, Stevens tells Ward’s. These create steam from water within
mini-turbines, generating electricity to drive a car.

A 250 MW unit weighing about 500 lbs. (227 kg) would be small and light enough to
drop under the hood of a car, he says. Jim Hedrick, a specialist on industrial minerals – and until last year the U.S.
Geological Survey’s senior advisor on rare earths – tells Ward’s the idea
is “both plausible and sensible.”

Because thorium is so dense, similar to uranium, it stores considerable potential
energy: 1 gm of thorium equals the energy of 7,500 gallons (28,391 L) of
gasoline Stevens says. So, using just 8 gm of thorium in a car should mean it
would never need refueling.

Stevens’prototype systems generate electricity within 30 seconds of firing a laser.
This can feed power into a car, without the need for storage. If
his technology were to become successful on a commercial scale, one advantage
would be that thorium is fairly common throughout the world. However, the
distribution of thorium resources is poor because of relatively low-key
exploration efforts arising out of insignificant demand.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s estimated thorium reserves in 2010 shows the U.S.
leading with 440,900 tons (440,000 t), followed by Australia with 333,690 tons
(300,000 t). However, several world organizations conclude India may
possess the lion’s share of the world’s thorium deposits, with estimates
ranging from 319,667 to 716,490 tons (290,000-1650,000 t). Natural
thorium has little radioactivity, Stevens says. What isotopes there are could
be blocked by aluminum foil, so the power unit’s 3-in. (7.6-cm) thick
stainless-steel box should do the trick. “The issue is having a customized application that is purpose-made,” he says, admitting that developing a portable and usable turbine and generator is
proving to be a tougher task than the laser-thorium unit. “How
do you take the laser and put these things together efficiently?” he asks
rhetorically. But once that is achieved, “This car will run for a million
miles. The car will wear out before the engine. There is no oil, no emissions –
nothing.” Stevens says his company should be able to place a prototype on the road within two
years. The firm has 40 employees and operates out of an in-house research workshop.

Hedrick, the industrial minerals expert, says 7,500 gallons is “way more gasoline than
an average person uses in a year. Switching to thorium-driven cars would make
the U.S.
energy self-sufficient, and carbon emissions would plummet.

“It
would eliminate the major need for oil,” he says. “The main (remaining) demand
would be for asphalt for roadways, natural gas, plastics and lubricants.”

Stevens’
research is part of growing efforts to develop thorium as an energy source.
Scientists in India,
for example, long have tried to heat thorium sufficiently to cause a
self-sustaining fission reaction that can run major power plants, without the
nuclear waste problems of uranium-based generators. Some North American
companies are doing the same thing.

Canon
Bryan, CEO of Vancouver, BC, Canada-based Thorium One, knows Stevens’ work and
agrees thorium-based fuel sources are “scalable and energy efficient. There’s
no reason why it should not be able to power cars.”

Thorium
has unique properties that make it useful as such a source, he says. For
instance, it has the highest melting point of all oxides.

So
if thorium would be a safe and abundant fuel source for vehicles, other devices
and even power stations, why is it not being utilized widely?

Stevens, Hedrick and Bryan all have the same answer: After World War II, a strategic decision was undertaken by industrialized nations to pursue uranium-driven energy instead, because its by-product – plutonium – could be weaponized. By contrast, it is almost impossible to make a bomb out of thorium.

However,
a recent International Energy Agency report accepts there is widespread
interest in thorium-power sources, with research being conducted in India, Russia,
Germany, France, the Netherlands and elsewhere.

The
IEA notes research from Switzerland-based physics institute CERN that proposes
“the use of thorium as the feed material in accelerator-driven systems, which
could serve as an energy source with minimum long-term waste production,”
although this is for power generation.

But
there still is skepticism in the nuclear-energy research world about using
thorium as a power source, especially in mobile applications.

Reza
Hashemi-Nezhad, director of the Institute
of Nuclear Science at the
University of Sydney, Australia, says nuclear power plants already run
submarines and could operate oil tankers, “but they are not small enough to fit
in the boot (trunk) of a car.”

And
amid widespread concerns about terrorism, would governments allow scores of
nuclear sources to roam the freeways? Processed thorium can produce uranium 233
as a byproduct. Would governments allow charging an electric vehicle using
radioactive material in private garages?

“Nobody
will allow that to happen,” Hashemi-Nezhad says.

Hedrick
thinks such concerns are overblown, stressing thorium’s by-products are very
hard to turn into weapons-grade material, requiring an immense amount of work
and energy.

Stevens
agrees, emphasizing his system is “subcritical.” This means no nuclear reaction
occurs within the thorium. It remains in the same state and is not turned into
uranium 233, which happens only if thorium is sufficiently super-heated to
generate a fission reaction.

“It’s
very safe,” he says.

August 4, 2011 by Editor.

Optimization of a search over subsets of a maximum model proceeds initially at a quick rate and then slowly continues to improve over time until it converges. The top curve (red) shows the optimum value found so far, while the lower, jagged line (green) shows the current average fitness value for the population in each generation (credit: Franklin University)

Esmail Bonakdarian, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Computing Sciences and Mathematics at Franklin University, has developed an evolutionary computation approach that allows researchers to search for models that can best explain experimental data derived from many types of applications, including economics.

Bonakdarian employed his evolutionary computation approach to analyze data from two well-known, classical “public goods” problems from economics: When goods are provided to a larger community without required individual contributions, it often results in “free-riding”; but people also tend to show a willingness to cooperate and sacrifice for the good of the group.

He cautioned that if the number of independent variables is large, and there is no intuitive sense about the possible relationship between these variables and the dependent variable, “the experimenter may have to go on an automated ‘fishing expedition’ to discover the important and relevant independent variables.”

As an alternative, Bonakdarian suggests using an evolutionary algorithm as a way to “evolve” the best minimal subset with the largest explanatory value.

“This approach offers more flexibility as the user can specify the exact search criteria on which to optimize the model,” he said. “The user can then examine a ranking of the top models found by the system. In addition to these measures, the algorithm can also be tuned to limit the number of variables in the final model. We believe that this ability to direct the search provides flexibility to the analyst and results in models that provide additional insights.”

The Glenn IBM 1350 Opteron cluster at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) was used for the project.

Ref.: Esmail Bonakdarian, The Use of Evolutionary Algorithms in the Analysis of Economics Experiments, The Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference of Genetic and Evolutionary Methods (GEM’11), 2011; [link]

Imagine if every mobile device had its own personal fat-pipe ethernet connection — without the CAT5 cable. That’s how Steve Perlman — inventor, entrepreneur, and CEO and founder of OnLive, the games-on-demand system — explains distributed-input-distributed-output (DIDO) technology, an experimental wireless communications system that could render cellular connections obsolete.

If a cell tower today broadcasts on channels that have a capacity of 100 megabits of bandwidth per second, and 100 people connect to that cell tower and share bandwidth equally, each person’s connection will measure roughly one megabit per second. If 1,000 people connect, each will get 100k bits per second. With DIDO wireless signals, everyone within range would get the entirety of the channel.

“I know that sounds impossible,” says Perlman, “but literally if you have a cell that has 100 megabits per second worth of bandwidth in it and you have 100 people, each person gets 100 megabits a second. It’s really pretty amazing; you don’t interfere with anybody else.”

Wired.com caught up with Perlman at the after-conference reception at NExTWORK when he began to describe his quest. There were cocktails — and we had other reasons to be skeptical of what we were hearing since it seemed to defy the laws of physics. But here’s the intriguing pitch.

Amateur radio licenses in hand, Perlman and his team at another of his startups, Rearden Companies, invented completely new radio technology, which he claims is simpler and cheaper than the innards of modern cell phones. DIDO’s feature list almost sounds too good to be true:

•Its “unlimited bandwidth” will eliminate dead zones and dropped calls, even in an urban jungle like New York City.
•The signals will pass through solid objects that block cellular signals at the same frequency and power.
•It doesn’t need tall cell towers — just modest base stations the size of an internet router.
•Those access points will broadcast a signal over a mile, while outdoor antennas can reach 30 miles or more in every direction — beyond the curvature of the earth, brags Perlman. Theoretically, that number will rise to 250 miles once Rearden’s engineers have time to test the tech at a longer range.
Naturally, this didn’t happen overnight — DIDO has been in the works for about 10 years. Everybody wins in this scenario — except perhaps current wireless providers, who, capitalizing on the “scarcity” of wireless bandwith, are all moving to tiered pricing models and only slowly rolling out 4G networks and depending on their data business to make up for their commoditized calling-plan business.

And then there is that whole pesky science thing.

In 1948, mathematician Claude Shannon formulated the concept of channel capacity. Shannon’s Law, as it became known, states that the maximum rate at which error-free data can be transmitted is a function of the bandwidth and the signal-to-noise ratio. No communications system has surpassed Shannon’s theoretical speed limit — until now, asserts Perlman. He says Rearden engineers presently run DIDO connections at 10 times the limit, know they can achieve 100 times the limit, and are optimistic they can push it to 1,000 times faster or more. It’s easily fast enough to run OnLive, the video game, and soon computing, streaming service that operates in the cloud.

“Everyone we called — you know, like professors and Ph.D students — were like, ‘You’re crazy, this’ll never work, we all know that wireless doesn’t work that way.’” says Perlman. “We had another person to whom I said, ‘Look, everyone’s been telling me this can’t possibly work. I just need to know why.’”

Tired of rejection without explanation, Perlman hired the researcher to disprove DIDO. He couldn’t. In fact, he discovered that not only had Perlman and his team at Rearden had done something that nobody else had thought of, but it worked remarkably well. “That was really the first time I got official confirmation that we were not rabidly insane,” laughed Perlman.

Some still doubt that Shannon’s theorem can be violated, given that it has been proved mathematically. “I think there is essentially no chance that there is a mistake there given that it is such a well-studied theorem,” says Kyle Cranmer, assistant professor of physics at New York University. “However, the assumptions that the theorem is based on may be violated, in which case it’s not applicable, not that it’s wrong.”

For others, overcoming Shannon’s Law is old news.

“Multiples of the Shannon limit have been achieved already using multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology … which is used in the latest WiFi (IEEE 802.11n) and 4G cellular wireless systems,” says Shivendra Panwar, electrical engineering professor at NYU Polytechnical Institute. “Of course, further innovation in this area is always possible. The multiples usually discussed, for practical cases, are like are like two, four or eight, not 10 or 100.”

Perlman hopes DIDO, which he has already patented, will be available to consumers in a few years time. In the long run, he envisions DIDO completely eliminating wired data connections altogether, bringing about a complete transition of computing to the cloud.

“I am as confident that [DIDO] is going to revolutionize communications as I’ve ever been confident in anything I’ve ever designed in my career,” says Perlman. “That doesn’t mean I’m right, but for example I was far less confident that OnLive or MOVA were going to work, and here we are.”

See Also:

•Pickpocketing or Voluntary Auctions? The Wireless Spectrum Standoff
•Panel OKs More Wireless Spectrum for Public Safety
•Obama Backs More Spectrum for Wireless
•Lawmakers, CEOs Tangle Over AT&T’s T-Mobile Bid, Spectrum ‘Crunch’
•Netflix Instant Accounts For 20 Percent of Peak U.S. Bandwith Use
•Google Joins Verizon, FCC Smackdown

Eric Blattberg, a journalism and cinema studies double-major at New York University, is a summer 2011 intern at Wired’s New York City office. Eric enjoys board sports, photography, video games, and eating excessive amounts of Thai food.
Follow @Eric2929 on Twitter.

June 7, 2011 by Editor.

A sample of “Cambridge crude,” a black, gooey substance that can power a highly efficient new type of battery. A prototype of the semi-solid flow battery is seen behind the flask (credit: Dominick Reuter)

Researchers at MIT have developed a radically new approach to the design of batteries that could provide a lightweight, inexpensive alternative to existing batteries for electric vehicles and the power grid.

The new battery relies on an innovative architecture called a semi-solid flow cell, in which solid particles are suspended in a carrier liquid and pumped through the system. In this design, the battery’s active components — the positive and negative electrodes (cathodes and anodes) — are composed of particles suspended in a liquid electrolyte. These two different suspensions are pumped through systems separated by a filter, such as a thin porous membrane.

One important characteristic of the new design is that it separates the two functions of the battery — storing energy until it is needed, and discharging that energy when it needs to be used — into separate physical structures.

Halving the size with ten times more energy density

This new design should make it possible to reduce the size and the cost of a complete battery system, including all of its structural support and connectors, to about half the current levels. The researchers said that this dramatic reduction could be the key to making electric vehicles fully competitive with conventional gas- or diesel-powered vehicles. This means a ten-fold improvement in energy density over present liquid flow-batteries, and lower-cost manufacturing than conventional lithium-ion batteries.

Another potential advantage is that in vehicle applications, such a system would permit the possibility of simply “refueling” the battery by pumping out the liquid slurry and pumping in a fresh, fully charged replacement, or by swapping out the tanks like tires at a pit stop, while still preserving the option of simply recharging the existing material when time permits.

Scalable at low cost, making intermittent wind and solar energy practical

The new battery system could also be scaled up to very large sizes at low cost. This would make it particularly well-suited for large-scale electricity storage for utilities, potentially making intermittent, unpredictable sources such as wind and solar energy practical for powering the electric grid.

The new technology is being licensed to a company called 24M Technologies.

Ref.: Yet-Ming Chiang, et al., Semi-Solid Lithium Rechargeable Flow Battery, Advanced Energy Materials, 20 May 2011 [DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201100152]

Authors de Jager and Duhau (2009) write that (1) “solar activity is regulated by the solar dynamo,” that (2) “the dynamo is a non-linear interplay between the equatorial and polar magnetic field components,” and that (3) “so far, in sun-climate studies, only the equatorial component has been considered as a possible driver of tropospheric temperature variations.”

In the present study, based on “direct observations of proxy data for the two main solar magnetic field components since 1844,” de Jager and Duhau derived “an empirical relation between tropospheric temperature variation and those of the solar equatorial and polar activities.”

When the two researchers applied the relation they derived to the period 1610-1995, they found a rising linear relationship for temperature vs. time, upon which are superimposed “some quasi-regular episodes of residual temperature increases and decreases, with semi-amplitudes up to ~0.3°C,” and they note that “the present period of global warming is one of them.”

Viewed in this light, it is easy to see, as de Jager and Duhau state, that “the amplitude of the present period of global warming does not significantly differ from the other episodes of relative warming that occurred in earlier centuries.” Why? Because the late 20th-century episode of relative warming, as they describe it, is merely “superimposed on a relatively higher level of solar activity than the others,” which gives it the appearance of being unique, when it really isn’t. Hence, there would appear to be no need to search for a unique cause of late 20th-century global warming (such as elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations), since this latest warming is merely a run-of-the-mill relative warming, sitting atop a solar-induced baseline warming that has been in progress for the past four centuries.

Increased solar activity over the past 4 centuries (top graph) corresponds to reconstructed NH temperatures (bottom graph)

de Jager, C. and Duhau, S. 2009. Episodes of relative global warming. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 71: 194-198.

by Tracey de Morsella, Green Economy Post. Tracey is the co-editor of The Green Executive Recruiter Directory. Follow Tracey on Twitter @greeneconpost

As the clean energy industry emerges from a challenging period caused by the global economic downturn, it is entering a stage of rapid change in which business models are being transformed against a backdrop of regulatory uncertainty. In several key sectors, the market is shifting back toward business structures and technologies that were once abandoned, but are now being revived. A new white paper from Pike Research identifies 10 key trends that are part of this transformation. The paper, which includes commentary and predictions about the state of the clean energy industry in 2011 and beyond, is available for free download on Pike Research’s website. [See Predictions for Cleantech in 2011]

“As the clean energy industry matures and as it simultaneously comes to grips with economic challenges, market leaders are experimenting with new business models, both at a large scale and on a distributed basis,” says senior analyst Peter Asmus. “At the same time, key industry players are utilizing an increasingly wider diversity of technology options, especially in the solar and wind sectors.”

1. Wind power steps up efforts to move offshore. Citing concerns, population density, limited available onshore sites, and concerns about wind power’s impact on birds and bats have often delayed and hindered many wind power projects. So, some developers, manufactures, governments, and investors, particularly in the United States and The United Kingdom have opted to move their wind power projects offshore, in spite of the potential additional costs associated with building long distance transmission lines. The biggest players in this market are Germany, the United Kingdom and Denmark, which obtains more than 25% of its electricity from wind power. However, in the long-term, Pike Research’s market forecast shows that China’s offshore wind market will be even with the UK and Germany by 2017.

2. Wave and tidal energy are about to take off. There is a growing interest lately in hydrokinetic technologies such as those that make use of wave and tidal motion, and it is expected that within the next five to eight years, these emerging technologies will become commercialized to the point that they will begin competing for a share of the growing renewable energy market. There is growing interest in these technologies in the United States, Ireland, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Portugal. The market is driven primarily by about 100 firms, however there a number of larger players including Lockheed Martin, Pacific Gas & Electric, Chevron, BP, and Shell are looking to deploy wave and ocean current devices. In the States, Maine leads on tidal, and Oregon leads in terms of wave power deployment. [See A Stacked Overtopping Wave Energy Machine… Pretty Cool]

3. DC-based microgrids may transform clean energy markets. The growing interest in DC-based microgrids stems from the following developments:

Advances in power electronics originating from electric drives, process plants, and mass transit traction systems have been adapted to the transmission and distribution (T&D) industry.
Some of the same kinds of power electronics innovations occurring with PCs, iPods, and other consumer gadgets have occurred within larger industrial systems.
AC transmission systems suffer lines losses that can range from 10% to 15%, while HVDC line losses lose just 2%.
AC systems sometimes flow in unpredictable ways, which contributes to rolling blackouts or brownouts, while HVDC systems are 100% controllable, with the power only going where you want it to go.
Ironically, today’s utility grid evolved to an AC-based grid because the technology could carry power better over long distances than low-voltage DC and the electric utility industry evolved into a monopoly-based business model. Both giant IT firms and emerging entrepreneurs are supporting the idea of switching back to direct current T&D systems. DC systems are already in the home– being used to power PCs, thermostats, refrigerators, gas meters, AC outdoor united, washing machines, and gas ranges, etc.

4. More utilities are underwriting new renewable energy power plants and cogeneration facilities. After decades of reliance on independent power producers as the primary developers of new renewable energy power plants and cogeneration facilities, in the wake of the recent Wall Street meltdown and resulting recession, new capital intensive projects are now relying more on utilities to underwrite these ventures. US utility firms are dominating in this arena, with investor-owned utilities financing an increasing share of large systems that feed directly into utility wholesale grids. While most of the action is taking place in California, these are a number of utility-owned generation (UOG) systems and utility-scale solar PV projects being developed in Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona.

5. Offshore wind power is seeking new sources of financing. Offshore wind power in Europe is financed by an umbrella of companies, which almost always include a government-owned financial institution, as well as unregulated arms of large utilities. As these wind projects move into the mainstream, it has become necessary for utilities to identify new sources of financing to remain sustainable. In the United States, where the off-shore wind market is drive by wind developers, those with ties to major utilities are in the best position to get through current economic setbacks.

6. Biomass facilities are getting smaller. With more focus on thermal energy services than on electricity generation, biomass facilities are starting to get smaller. However the cost of fuel collection from small sources in high, so small facilities are relying on regional sources of fuel to minimize fuel collection and transportation costs.

7. Geothermal is making a comeback in the United States. Western state renewable portfolio standards (RPS) laws are driving investment in new transmission. In US western states, geothermal power generation is seeing a period of tremendous growth, with California and Nevada being the strongest markets. There are 188 geothermal projects in 15 states being developed. Pike Research forecasts the the U.S. will add 2,313 MW of geothermal capacity by 2015.

8. China is becoming a leader in the waste-to-energy market. China’s surging population and waste generation are pushing it to the top of the global waste-to-energy market, while the United states stagnates in this sector as a result of the limited availability of cheap landfills. There has not been a new waste to energy plant built in the United States in a decade.

9. There is significant diversification in the solar sector. There is movement away from a focus primarily on polysilicon solar PV to an embracing of other solar technologies including thin film solar PV panels, concentrated solar power (CSP) also known as solar thermal electric, and concentrated solar PV (CPV). [See Is the Concentrated Photovoltaic Sector Heating Up? ] One of the most interesting developments in solar is the merging of CSP and solar PV concepts- known as concentrating solar PV. It achieves efficiencies than 40% while solar PV panels are only 20% efficient. The size of solar power generators is growing. The bundling of tax incentives and attractive leasing arrangements have enabled customers to install solar PV on large commercial complexes without and major up-front capital costs. Wind is not the only renewable energy to take to the water. A handful of firms are driving a new trend of floating solar arrays. In the United States, SPG Solar in Novato, CA has installed two projects on ponds for California wineries.

10. Wind power is undergoing diversification in both design and scale. Solar is not the only clean energy sector that is experiencing a period of diversification. Wind is undergoing diversification in both design and scale. While most commercial wind turbines are based on the classic Danish three-bladed upwind design, two-bladed designs are being promoted due to capital cost savings, and vertical axis designs are being used for offshore wind power generation and for the small-scale wind market. Because the cost to install as smaller wind turbine dose not difference significantly that the cost to install a larger wind turbine, there has be a push for larger machines.

11. On the verge of a comeback in the United States, the nuclear power industry faces the possibility of dying out as a result of the nuclear disaster in Japan. [See The Nuclear Power Resurgence] After hitting an all time high in acceptance by the public, the evolving calamity at the Fukushima nuclear power plant witnessed by the world as it happens is having a significant negative impact on perceptions of nuclear power around the world, that could ultimately doom the industry. [See Japan’s Once-Powerful Nuclear Industry is Under Siege] With the exception of the United States, most nations around the world are cancelling plans for expanding the use of nuclear power and some, most notably, Germany is planning on phasing out the use of nuclear power. For the most part the rest of the world is shifting the focus away from nuclear energy and to renewable energy.

Pike Research analysts suggest that in the United States, the politicization of renewable energy, and the nuclear power industry’s strategy of being linked it as a clean source of energy, may also serve to force President Obama to renege on his commitment to set aside $36 billion of federal tax payer money into loan guarantees designed to revive the nuclear industry. They suggest that the Tea Party movement in the Republican party will see the support of nuclear as socialist. While it is an interesting theory, the Tea Party has not been up in arms over the subsidizing of the oil, gas, and coal industries, and Republicans have for the most part supported the nuclear industry in the past. However, even before the earth quake in Japan, utilities in the US were expressing misgivings about nuclear power as a viable energy source because of the capital risks, sting concerns, and low natural gas prices.

12. China’s wind market is facing continued growing pains. Even though China is the largest wind power market in the world, it is facing several significant setbacks. The products of some of the nation’s smaller developers from have experienced some quality control issues and this has force the Chine to impose new quality standards to weed them out. They have been unable to generated the revenues that they anticipated due to increased competition from European manufacturers that have entered the market and the requirement that 70% of all components be manufactured by its domestic supply chain. China’s growth in wind power is slowing because it’s feed-in tariffs and mandatory grid access have not been enforced. Additionally, developers are having difficulties financing projects, as well as facing cash flow issues because if the policy of paying subsidies every six months, while in other countries subsidies are paid out on monthly basis.

Conclusions and predictions presented in Pike Research’s white paper, “Clean Energy: Trends to Watch in 2011 and Beyond,” draws from a broad array of Pike Research reports, with market forecasts included for key sectors. A full copy of the white paper is available for free download on the firm’s website.

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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 116, D10114, 11 PP., 2011

11:55 20 April 2011

Technology

Zena Iovino, reporter

In the future the news will find you – at least according to Futureful, a Finnish startup building a predictive discovery iPad app that will deliver personalised information. The company’s mission is to “give you what you want before you knew you wanted it.”

Hmm, this all sounds very Zeitgeist-y, no doubt. But isn’t Futureful just another wannabe start-up aiming to hoover up as much venture capitalist funding before it predictably sinks without a trace?

Its methods seem sound enough. Futureful’s algorithms glean information from social feeds, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Delicious, Tumblr and Flickr, to locate trending topics. Algorithms crunch users’ interests, behaviour and posts with those of friends and other users to suggest subjects for further exploration. Tapping one or more of these subjects on the touch-screen interface will generate a collection of web pages that can be swiped like a magazine.

But perhaps Futureful might be onto something here. For it seems unlikely that future web exploration will always involve typing queries into Google’s search box. Neither will it be purely social. Last autumn, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said:

the ability to tell me things I didn’t know but am probably very interested in is the next great stage of search

So has a tiny little Finnish startup that has only secured funding from a government-backed Finnish Technology agency and is in partnership with a local university stolen a march on the big boys?

“It’s unclear what exactly the next stage of search will be. Nobody has nailed it yet,” says Anderson.

Futureful says it is bringing serendipity into the game by proposing sites beyond users’ pre-defined interests, an idea intended to counter suggestions that a high degree of personalised information will inevitably narrow people’s worldview.

“What is the point of personalisation if it only reaffirms what you already know,” says Marko Anderson of Futureful.

Defining serendipity can be tricky. Robin Burke, a computer scientist at DePaul University in Chicago, points out that it doesn’t mean showing users random web pages.

“We’re not just suggesting things that people would be interested in, but we’re also helping them discover new stuff,” says Anderson, whose app relies on a combination of natural language processing and network mathematics. The more data the system has on a large number of people, the easier it becomes to find commonalities between individuals.

“Having a system be capable of understanding what’s a reasonable recommendation, that’s a challenge for sure,” says Burke, adding that Google is also increasingly acting as a recommender system, rather than just a web search engine.