Nissan Has Breakthrough Lithium Ion Battery Technology

 Emerging Technology  1 Response »
Apr 142011
 

There has been a long debate between electric car enthusiasts and hydrogen car enthusiasts as to which is better (tastes great or less filling). The electric car advocates what to plug in and stick it to the fuel companies. The hydrogen car advocates what to fuel up and stick it to the utility companies.

They both want to stick it to the phone companies but that’s different subject altogether. So, let’s get back on track and talk about Nissan for a second. They just put the word out on the street (whisper, whisper) that they have developed breakthrough technology for their lithium ion batteries. They have found a way to make them flat and fit under the floorboard rather than cylindrical and mount them like a deer on your front bumper.

According a guy named Nielson who is questionably part of that ratings family, “We have had a breakthrough in the technology allowing Nissan’s lithium ion battery to be put into mass production. We’ve had the size of the battery reduced and made more compact and also made it more powerful half the size of the previous generation.”

Now this is good news for electric car advocates and ironically hydrogen car advocates as well. You see most hydrogen cars are actually hybrid electric cars as well and a few are even plug-in hybrids.

Future Prediction

My future prediction is that the plug-in hybrid electric hydrogen vehicle will win the battle between battery electric vehicle advocates and hydrogen car advocates. Combining the best of both technologies, battery only for short drives and hydrogen fuel cells for longer drives gives drivers what they need (and I’m not talking golfers here, though I could be).

Before nuclear cars take over the landscape the future cars will be hydrogen plug-in hybrids on the road. Mark your calendars for “sometime in the future” so that you can look back in time a few years from now and say to yourself that hey this guy was right. Might want to give him a Nostradamus award or something.

Top 5 Future Technology Stories of the Week

 Emerging Technology  4 Responses »
Mar 272011
 

This week’s top 5 future technology stories feature a couple of articles about breakthrough medical technology, one breakthrough in computer technology, one about space tech, and a fifth story about a recent discovery that will bring down the price of hydrogen fuel cell cars of the future.

Some of the discoveries involve using GPS systems inside the human body to signal the exact location of cancer cells, combining neurons and computer wires, speeding up computers by replacing copper wires, NASA new mission that is not the moon and cheaper fuel cells for hydrogen cars.

Doctors Use New GPS System and Radiation to Zap Tumors

Like a car navigating a city street, a global positioning system guided a radiation beam directly to Gene Scallon’s prostate. Once there, radiation zapped the cancer cells into smithereens. And Scallon didn’t feel a thing … That’s important because breathing or coughing causes organs to move — and the prostate gland can move unpredictably on its own.

New Technology Mixes Neurons and Computer Wires

Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, led by Minrui Yu and Yu Huang, have published an ACS Nano paper, “Semiconductor Nanomembrane Tubes: Three-Dimensional Confinement for Controlled Neurite Outgrowth,” in which they show that they have been able to successfully coax nerve cell tendrils to grow through tiny tubes made of the semi-conductor materials silicon and germanium.

Researchers Speed Up Computer Using Advanced Thermal Material

Scientists in GE’s Global Research Center have demonstrated an advanced thermal material system that could pave the way to faster computing and higher performing electronic systems. Leveraging technologies developed under GE’s Nanotechnology Advanced Technology Program, they have fabricated a prototype substrate that can cool electronic devices such as a laptop computer twice as well as copper.

NASA Plans Mission to Near Earth Asteroid

NASA’s current goal of sending astronauts on an asteroid-bound mission by 2025 is one of the core ideas in the space exploration vision laid out by President Barack Obama last year. It represents a major shift from NASA’s earlier plan, which was aimed at returning astronauts to the moon.

Platinum Less Fuel Cell Expected to Drive Down Costs

Catalysts made of carbon nanotubes dipped in a polymer solution equal the energy output and otherwise outperform platinum catalysts in fuel cells, a team of Case Western Reserve University engineers has found.

 

Cool Future Technology Stories of the Week

 Emerging Technology  Comments Off on Cool Future Technology Stories of the Week
Mar 112011
 

Here are a few cool future technology stories that I’ve squirreled away (using real life squirrel plus a ferret) in the event that you my esteemed guest would also like to read them.

So be amazed, be enthrawled and be anything but benign (or ten) when it comes to this future tech that is right square in your peripheral vision.

 

Star Trek Tractor Beam Is Not Science Fiction Anymore

Another piece of Star Trek technology has become a reality. Captain Kirk would instantly recognize new blueprints developed by a team of Chinese scientists as plans for a tractor beam.

The proposed device hasn’t yet been built. But a similar one conceived by an American physicist was tested last year. Each device would fulfill the science fiction dream of reeling in objects using light — though neither could move anything bigger than a bacterium, much less a starship.

Traveling Wave Reactor Recycles Uranium Waste and Creates Energy

Any new business venture gains a little bit of clout when Bill Gates gets on board. Washington-based company TerraPower is developing a new form of nuclear power, and their efforts have attracted the investment of the billionaire Microsoft founder. The experimental nuclear technology that TerraPower is pursuing, called the traveling wave reactor, was first proposed in the 1950s, but has seen little in the way of research or development in the decades since.

Anti Laser Beams – Say What

Physicists have built the world’s first device that can cancel out a laser beam – a so-called anti-laser. The device, created by a team from Yale University, is capable of absorbing an incoming laser beam entirely.

Lunar X Prize Contest Teams Announced

Twenty-nine privately funded teams have thrown their hats in the ring, contest organizers announced Feb. 17, and entries are closed. The teams represent 17 nations spanning four continents, and the competitors range from non-profits to university consortia to billion-dollar businesses.

Google publishes facial recognition patent, could use social network photos

If you are out in public, you are fair game, but how would you like it if a stranger took your picture and then ran a search to find out your name, online aliases and all the information about you via that image? We are very nearly there with automatic face-recognition technology and social media aggregation.

NASA’S Chandra Finds Superfluid in Neutron Star’s Core

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered the first direct evidence for a superfluid, a bizarre, friction-free state of matter, at the core of a neutron star. Superfluids created in laboratories on Earth exhibit remarkable properties, such as the ability to climb upward and escape airtight containers. The finding has important implications for understanding nuclear interactions in matter at the highest known densities.

 

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