Posted on 03/25/2013 3:27:53 PM PDT by Kevmo
Can it fry an egg over easy?
This is vastly over-hyped. Always be careful of Chinese scientific literature. Much is good but much is not so good.
Ignite the hydrogen.
Sounds like with this wonder-material he should go for the Bill Gate’s Condom Award!
Always be careful of Chinese scientific literature.
***NTU is in Singapore, not China. But your bigotry is duly noted.
:-) Excellent! I’ll take two.
Sure.
But it’s over medium that’s difficult!
is it’s name “Ginger”?
It's called "Duct Tape".
This was first invented by cartoonist Al Capp in 1948. It is called a Shmoo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmoo
According to Capp, the US government rounded up all the Shmoo and put them on a guarded, high security reservation, noting that they would be bad for the economy, and while the people have a right to pursue happiness, they do not have a right to achieve it.
He wasn’t the only guy to think it was bogus because he thought it was Chinese. I did too. The Chinese aren’t world famous for original research and they have only recently begun to target desalination.
Singapore however is very different. They have a world class desalination program. Not only do their plants produce some of the cheapest desalinized water in the world—but their research is also first rate. So their guy might be on to something.
Desalination membrane research in the USA has been very hot lately. I’ve seen two published reports about world beating membranes. One from MIT
http://www.desalination.biz/news/news_story.asp?id=6791&title=MIT+engineers+tiny+graphene+desalination+membrane
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/smithsonian-nanoporous-graphene.html
The other is from Lockheed
http://www.pacetoday.com.au/news/lockheed-martin-awarded-patent-for-molecular-filtr
http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/lockheeds-better-faster-way-to-desalinate-water-15216615?click=pm_latest
Your guess is as good as mine as to what’s smoke and what’s fire. But the more announcements you see like this the greater are the chances that one will make the great breakthrough that allow fresh water to pass through a membrane without the need for great pumps pressure electricity and hugely added expense.
When that happens —the world changes in a very big way. Because then desalinized water becomes cheap enough for agriculture. You’re basically positioned to turn the world’s deserts green & double the size of the habitable planet.
(another invention will be need however to make this work. That will be something like thorium powered nuclear reactors which will collapse the cost of energy.)
Is it bullet-proof? Can I pound nails in with it? Does it taste good and can it sustain life indefinitely? Can I cut down a tree with it? Is it stronger than steel? Does it turn water to gold?
If so, I want some!
(another invention will be need however to make this work. That will be something like thorium powered nuclear reactors which will collapse the cost of energy.)
***LENR is on its way.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/coldfusion/index?tab=articles
I don’t care what it CAN do- if it can’t reach over a few inches to hit the up and down channel button on my remote for me, I don’t want it
Yeah, I’ve followed the LENR research. If that succeeds, the world really changes. They’ll make electricity 10-100 times cheaper than today. It would be on the order of fireboxes and steam power pushing trains in the early 19th century.
That’s really speculative but possible.
The liquid fluoride thorium reactor lftr reactors operate with already fairly proven technology. They’ll knock down the price of electricity to maybe 1/4 of current cheapest coal powered electricity. That’s cheap enough to push water cheaply quite a distance inland.
Pretty cool.
On a somewhat related side note, check this out. You can buy aerogel and other cool stuff like this.
http://www.buyaerogel.com/
I thought NASA was keeping this close to the chest but apparently it is available to the public, albeit expensive.
I am tempted to get some just for the heck of it (and rabid curiosity).
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