In Brief The company that is tasked with running China’s power grid just proposed a $50 trillion global electricity network to help us tackle pollution and climate change.
It seems that China likes building big things. Take the Great Wall of China. The country has been constructing bigger (and sometimes better) things than the rest of the world for centuries.
Now, the Chinese are at it again, but this time it’s on a global scale. China wants to build a $50+ trillion power grid. For the entire world. And they want to have it in operation by 2050. Talk about ambitious.
Michigan State University scientists have engineered “molecular Velcro” into to cyanobacteria, boosting this microalgae’s biofuel viability as well as its potential for other research.
The findings, featured in the current issue of ACS Synthetic Biology, show how MSU researchers have designed a surface display system to attach cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, to yeast and other surfaces. The proof-of-concept may improve the efficiency of harvesting algae as well as open avenues to improve the construction of artificial microbial communities for sustainable biofuel production or other industrial projects.
“Inadequate cyanobacterial toolkits limited our ability to come up with biological solutions,” said Derek Fedeson, MSU graduate student and the study’s co-lead author. “So, we wanted to add another tool to the toolbox to expand the capacity of these bacteria, which can harness solar energy for the production of useful compounds.”
This is a BIG DEAL in QC, and Russian Scientists solved it.
Abstract: Scientists from the Institute of Physics and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and MIPT have let two electrons loose in a system of quantum dots to create a quantum computer memory cell of a higher dimension than a qubit (a quantum bit). In their study published in Scientific Reports, the researchers demonstrate for the first time how quantum walks of several electrons can help to implement quantum computation.
“By studying the system with two electrons, we solved the problems faced in the general case of two identical interacting particles. This paves the way toward compact high-level quantum structures,” comments Leonid Fedichkin, Expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vice-Director for Science at NIX (a Russian computer company), and Associate Professor at MIPT’s Department of Theoretical Physics.
In a matter of hours, a quantum computer would be able to hack through the most popular cryptosystem used even in your web browser. As far as more benevolent applications are concerned, a quantum computer would be capable of molecular modeling that takes into account all interactions between the particles involved. This in turn would enable the development of highly efficient solar cells and new drugs. To have practical applications, a quantum computer needs to incorporate hundreds or even thousands of qubits. And that is where it gets tricky.
Yes, renewable energy technologies exist. But solar power, the one with arguably the most promise for significant, scalable deployment, is intermittent. Although the sun provides more energy in one hour than humans consume in a year, we can only tap into this power when the sun is shining. At least, that’s been the predominant school of thought.
But since the 1960s, a group of researchers from NASA and the Pentagon have been thinking outside the box — or in this case, outside the atmosphere. Solar power captured in outer space would not be limited by nighttime hours or cloud cover. And — unlike 23 percent of current incoming solar energy — it wouldn’t be absorbed by water vapor, dust and ozone before reaching us. Finally, because space solar is constant, it wouldn’t need to be stored, which can lead to energy losses of up to 50 percent. In other words, taking our solar panels from the ground to the cosmos could be a great deal more efficient. It may also be key to humanity’s survival.
“In countries right now where they’re trying to deal with poverty, water scarcity, poor health, lack of education and political instability — these are all things you need energy in order to fight,” Paul Jaffe, PhD, spacecraft engineer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, said in a recent TakeApart story. Or, as John C. Mankins, founder of Mankins Space Technology and author of “The Case for Space Based Solar,” told Salon, “In the long run, renewable large-scale energy sources such as space solar power are essential to sustaining industrial civilization, and the long and increasingly high quality of lives that we enjoy.”
In Brief
Science once again reaches a milestone in technology by modeling it after nature. Researchers have devised a new type of highly efficient photocell by studying photosynthesis in plants.
Nathan Gabor, assistant professor for physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside, led research spurred by a simple question as to why plants are green. This eventually led to a quest to mimic plants’ ability to efficiently harvest energy from the Sun regardless of how erratic the sunlight is.
A University of California, Riverside assistant professor has combined photosynthesis and physics to make a key discovery that could help make solar cells more efficient. The findings were recently published in the journal Nano Letters.
Nathan Gabor is focused on experimental condensed matter physics, and uses light to probe the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics. But, he got interested in photosynthesis when a question popped into his head in 2010: Why are plants green? He soon discovered that no one really knows.
During the past six years, he sought to help change that by combining his background in physics with a deep dive into biology.