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Solar Industry: No Breakthroughs Needed

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Aug. 03 (News Report) - The solar industry says incremental advances have made transformational technologies unnecessary.

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Light Repels Light

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Anne-Marie Corley - Jul. 20 (News Report) - The repulsive side of an optical force could lead to ultra-fast telecommunications.

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Energy and Climate Bill Advances

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Apr. 14 (News Report) - Congress is moving forward on legislation that would address both energy efficiency and climate change in a single bill, creating requirements for the use of renewable energy and introducing a cap on carbon dioxide emissions.

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A Concrete Fix to Global Warming

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:07:05 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Tyler Hamilton - Jul. 24 (News Report) - "Battling global warming leads to fewer mental health beds," Nigel Hannaford, Opinion, July 12. Nigel Hannaford has weighed in again on global warming. He should have checked his facts first. Like Stephane Dion and a carbon tax, Hannaford has changed his opinion on whether people are causing global warming -- in Hannaford's case, from denial to acceptance to ambivalence. Hannaford's current position is that "climate change may be real and humanity may be part of the problem."

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The Secrets of Anti-Aging Genes

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Emily Singer - Jul. 17 (News Report) - An ambitious plan to sequence 100 genes in 1,000 healthy old people could shed light on genetic variations that insulate some people from the ailments of aging, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, allowing them to live a healthy life into their eighties and beyond. Rather than focusing on genetic variations that increase risk for disease, scientists plan to focus on genes that have previously been linked to health and longevity.

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Ethanol's Forecast

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Jun. 14 (News Report) - In recent months, demand for corn used to make increasing amounts of ethanol has driven up corn prices, and to some extent food prices. But now bad weather in the Midwest, which has delayed corn crops, could further drive up corn prices and lead to significantly more expensive food, particularly meats. The weather problems could also cause some ethanol plants to shut down.

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Scheduling Wind Power

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Peter Fairley - Apr. 18 (Special Report) - As wind power becomes more common, its unpredictability becomes more of a problem. Sudden drops in wind speed can send grid operators scrambling to cover the shortfall and even cause blackouts; unexpected surges can leave conventional power plants idling, incurring costs and spewing pollution to no purpose.

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Solar without the Panels

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By Peter Fairley - Feb. 29 (News Report) - This month, in the latest in a string of recent deals, Spanish solar-plant developer Abengoa Solar and Phoenix-based utility Arizona Public Service announced a 280-megawatt solar thermal project in Arizona. By contrast, the world's largest installations of photovoltaics generate only 20 megawatts of power.

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"You Don't Understand Our Audience"

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By John Hockenberry - Jan. 04 (News Analysis) - "One might have thought that the television industry, with its history of rapid adaptation to technological change, would have become a center of innovation for the next radical transformation in communication. It did not. Instead, the United States is arguably more isolated and less educated about the world than it was a half-century ago.

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Turning Carbon Dioxide into Fuel

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By Duncan Graham-Rowe - Dec. 17 (News Report) - Could concentrated solar energy be used to reverse combustion and convert carbon dioxide back into gasoline? That's what scientists at Sandia National Laboratories, in Albuquerque, NM, aim to find out by building a novel reactor that can chemically "reenergize" carbon dioxide.

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Stanford's New Driverless Car

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 05:10:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Kate Greene - Jun. 16 (News Report) - Junior the autonomous car passes an initial round of tests in preparation for DARPA's Urban Challenge, slated for later this year. ... Yesterday, a Volkswagen Passat drove around a parking lot in Mountain View, CA, made three-point turns ...

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A Fresh Start for the Internet

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 08:46:43 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Rachel Ross - Mar. 19 (Special Report) - Researchers at Stanford University are on a mission to completely revamp the Internet. Plans for their multipart program, called the Clean Slate Design for the Internet, will be presented to the public this Wednesday at the school's annual Computer Forum. Ultimately, the researchers hope to make the Internet safer, more transparent, and more reliable by reconsidering both private and public networks.

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New Clues to Global-Warming Dangers

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 12:05:00 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By Emily Singer - Mar. 05 (News Report) - Using novel genomic technology, marine biologists have found troubling clues that marine life could be extremely vulnerable to climate change. By mimicking future ocean climes and using gene chips to detect how marine organisms respond, the researchers can evaluate how well different organisms deal with environmental stress. The findings, while still preliminary and incomplete, are worrisome.

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216 Million Americans Are Scientifically Illiterate (Part I)

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 10:03:47 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By David Ewing Duncan - Feb. 22 (Special Report) - Okay, now let's talk (dare I say rant?) about the 200 million Americans out there who cannot read a simple story in, say, Technology Review or the New York Times science section and understand even the basics of DNA or microchips or global warming. This level of science illiteracy may explain why over 40 percent of Americans do not believe in evolution and about 20 percent, when asked if the earth orbits the sun or vice versa, say it's the sun that does the orbiting--placing these people in the same camp as the Inquisition that punished Galileo almost 400 years ago. It also explains the extraordinary disconnect between scientists and much of the public over issues the scientists think were settled long ago--never mind newer discoveries and research on topics such as the use of chimeras to study cancer, or pills that may extend life span by 30 or 40 percent.

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Data Centers' Growing Power Demands

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 11:47:32 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By Kate Greene - Feb. 15 (Special Report) - A report issued today estimates that the overall electricity used by servers--computers that make up the networks of organizations, from small businesses to giant financial institutions--doubled between 2000 and 2005. The reasons for this growth rate were an increase in the number of servers installed in data centers and the demands of auxiliary equipment such as cooling fans and facility lighting, says Jonathan Koomey, staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and author of the report. "I was surprised by the doubling," says Koomey. "I expected some growth, but not quite as large."

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Alternative-Energy Spending Fizzles Out

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:10:50 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Jan. 04 (News Report) - Despite the hype and numerous promises that began 2006, including President Bush's declared plans to curb the United States' addiction to oil, the 109th Congress ended the year without allocating funding for proposed increases in research spending for alternative energy.

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Cheap, Superefficient Solar

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 12:56:16 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Nov. 09 (News Report) - Technologies collectively known as concentrating photovoltaics are starting to enjoy their day in the sun, thanks to advances in solar cells, which absorb light and convert it into electricity, and the mirror- or lens-based concentrator systems that focus light on them. The technology could soon make solar power as cheap as electricity from the grid.

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