Free Republic

In the superheated market for batteries, promising lab developments often get overhyped by startups. ‘Liar, liar, battery supplier.’ Given what’s at sake, it’s easy to chalk up exaggerated claims about new battery breakthroughs to the tech industry’s propensity for hyperbole and grandstanding. A typical example: Researchers invent a tweak to a type of battery that has long shown promise but has never come close to commercialization. That gets spun into claims that an electric car with a 2,000-mile range is within reach. “People like a breakthrough, but when we write papers we try to avoid using these kinds of words,”...

Battery Wars: is Japan about to beat China in race for the energy game changer of the decade? Japan once supplied the world with the most advanced Li-Ion batteries. China and Korea now dominate the market, and Japan wants it back The search for the holy grail of batteries may be over. After a multi-year industry-wide effort, Japan solves the elusive solid-state technology

ScienceDaily (Mar. 18, 2008) — Engineers harnessing the same physical property that drives silent household air purifiers have created a miniaturized device that is now ready for testing as a silent, ultra-thin, low-power and low maintenance cooling system for laptop computers and other electronic devices. The compact, solid-state fan, developed with support from NSF's Small Business Innovation Research program, is the most powerful and energy efficient fan of its size. It produces three times the flow rate of a typical small mechanical fan and is one-fourth the size. Dan Schlitz and Vishal Singhal of Thorrn Micro Technologies, Inc., of Marietta,...

DOWN THIS tiled corridor, light does muscular, noisy work. Lasers dig dirt and weld metal. They pound aircraft parts into shape. In Bob Yamamoto's lab, light devours. He straps on emerald green goggles. A technician stabs a fire button and calls out the computer countdown. "Three ... two ... one ..." Then ... nothing. Just a buzz of electronics and an ephemeral glow in this darkened room at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. But inside Yamamato's target chamber, a block of steel spits flame and molten metal. In those two seconds, 400 blasts of light poured into slabs of clear, manmade garnet....

One of the biggest challenges facing Lockheed Martin in its efforts to install a high-energy laser on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the question of what to do with all the excess heat generated by the system, according to the company's lead for directed energy programs. Laser systems use electricity to produce highly focused beams of light, as well as considerable amounts of waste heat that must be dissipated. Lockheed Martin believes that a 100-kilowatt laser is the minimum power level needed to be an effective weapon for a fighter. However, "to get 100 kilowatts of light out,...

When McVeigh smiled a content grin before he was killed, could it be it was because he knew 9/11 was coming. It was a grin saying I know something you don't. Thoughts?