Electronix Express Newsletter

December 2008 Issue

Welcome to the December 2008 Issue of the Electronix Express Newsletter

STORIES

A Micro Nuclear Reactor in Your Garden?

TI Execs Ramp Up Green Tech Contributions, at Work and at Home

At Home With Robots: The Coming Revolution

Using Lasers to Watch Electrons in Action

Taking Steps to Greener Mail

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1. A Micro Nuclear Reactor in Your Garden?

Hyperion Power Generation, a U.S. company based in New Mexico, has designed mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes. The company has already received firm orders and expects to deliver about 4,000 individual plants between 2013 and 2023. It also said that it has a six-year waiting list. So if one wants such a micro nuclear reactor, don't expect to receive it by 2014. The HPM will have multiple applications. Some of them include industrial ones, such as oil shale and sands drilling and processing or powering U.S. Military facilities. But the one that would offer the most basic and direct positive impact on populations in need, is that of providing a power source to remote communities, both for electricity and to pump and process water.

How much will such micro nuclear reactors cost? John Deal, the Hyperion CEO, says that such micro nuclear reactors should cost about $25 million each. In the U.S., where people spent more energy than in other parts of the world, such a reactor should be able to deliver power to only 10,000 households, for a cost of $2,500 per home. But in developing nations, one HPM could provide enough power for 60,000 homes or more, for a cost of less than $400. This is quite reasonable if you agree with Hyperion, which states that the energy from its HPMs will cost about 10 cents/watt. Hyperion power modules are about the size of a hot tub - approximately 1.5 meters wide. That means they are small enough to be transported on a ship, truck or train. Hyperion power modules are buried far underground and guarded by a security detail. Like a power battery, Hyperion modules have no moving parts to wear down, and are delivered factory sealed. Further, due to the unique, yet proven science upon which this new technology is based, it is impossible for the module to go supercritical, melt down or create any type of emergency situation. The waste produced after five years of operation is approximately the size of a softball and is a good candidate for fuel recycling."

So, what do you think of a micro nuclear reactor buried inside your neighbor's lawn? Would you feel safe?

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2. TI Execs Ramp Up Green Tech Contributions, at Work and at Home

For starters, the company has put together a blog of its own, called TInergy, that goes beyond what a typical corporate green site does. It talks about what TI is doing to make its corporate infrastructure and facilities more environmentally sensitive, such as its work to make its fabrication sites compliant with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) guidelines. For one thing, the way a company treats water at a fabrication facility is very different than it would be handled at another type of corporate building.

TI has also introduced a couple of products in the second half that could serve as the lower-powered brains for applications such as energy harvesting or automatic metering. The latest, called the CC430 platform, is a single-chip radio frequency solution that can be applied to battery-powered wireless networking applications. The device is about 50 percent smaller than alternatives, and TI is positioning the new technology as the industry's lowest powered alternative: able to operate with servicing for 10 years or more, even in hostile environments such as crop fields, forests or wineries. The technology can also be used battery-free, running off solar power, the heat of a human body or vibrations from movement along the sensor line.

Speaking of practical efficiency, TI's Paul Westbrook actually lives what he preaches. His home in Fairview, Texas, is a completely sustainable home. Both passive and active solar technology is featured on the site, as well as wind turbines. It's also worth mentioning that Westbrook's house is close to 12 years old, so this wasn't just some shameless publicity stunt taken up to get more attention for his employer. In fact, the reverse is true. Westbrook used his house to help show other TI executives what was practically possible in the green tech world.

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3. At Home With Robots: The Coming Revolution

You might not think you have robots in your house, but think again. There's your dishwasher, for instance; you put dishes in it, walk away, and a half hour later they're clean. Same thing with your washing machine or your programmable coffeemaker. Though these everyday mechanical devices aren't humanoid, they are on the robotic spectrum, in the sense that they perform functions with minimal human involvement. "People use the word 'robotics' a lot, and it means a lot of different things," comments Rich Hooper, a robotics consultant who develops and designs computer-controlled machines for Austin, Texas-based Symtx. "Robotics has gotten so loosely defined that it means almost anything with movable parts." Steve Rainwater, a robot technologist and editor of the Robots.net blog, agrees. "'Robot' is a word that's almost impossible to define; it has come to be used for too many different things these days." Rainwater said, "Personally, I think of robots as autonomous machines that evolved initially with the help of humans. I also tend to think of the word robot as an ideal that we haven't really achieved yet, rather than just a description of the artifacts that have resulted from trying to realize that ideal."

Whether they're called robots or just smart machines, these devices are quickly becoming an everyday feature of our lives. In fact, according to a study done by the International Federation of Robotics, there were 3.4 million personal domestic service robots in use at the end of 2007, and it predicted another 4.6 million domestic service robots will be sold between 2008 and 2012. Robots continue to fascinate people, if only because they see themselves reflected in these machines. And as they become more common, questions of the ethics of this kind of labor might come to the fore. "If you're doing something that a human can do, you might as well have a human do it," Hooper said. "As much as I like robots, I don't really identify with them." Rainwater argues the other side of this debate, suggesting that robots might eventually have something akin to basic human rights. "Robots are fascinating because, unlike all the other machines we humans have invented, they're the first that may someday have the capacity to be our friends and companions," Rainwater said. "In a sense they're our children. Some people think robots may even eventually become our evolutionary successors.

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4. Using Lasers to Watch Electrons in Action

Canadian and U.S. scientists have used ultrafast lasers to take snapshots of electrons in action. The tools they've used work at a femtosecond time-scale - a femtosecond lasts 10-15 seconds. But they want to observe the electron recollision process which occurs in the attosecond time-scale - an attosecond is just 10-18 seconds. The researchers are approaching these somewhat incredible limits. As said one of the lead researcher, 'The Holy Grail in molecular sciences would be to be able to look at all aspects of a chemical reaction and to see how atoms are moving and how electrons are rearranging themselves as this happens. We're not there yet, but this is a big step toward that goal.' This research project has been led by CU-Boulder physics professors and JILA fellows Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn who manage the Kapteyn-Murnane Research Group and are president and vice-president of KMLabs Inc.. They also worked with colleagues in their lab and with scientist Albert Stolow of the Canadian National Research Council's Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences.

And here is a short description of what they did. "they shot a molecule of dinitrogen tetraoxide, or N2O4, with a short burst of laser light to induce very large oscillations within the molecule. They then used a second laser to produce an X-ray, which was used to map the electron energy levels of the molecule, and most importantly, to understand how these electron energy levels rearrange as the molecule changes its shape."

"This is a fundamentally new way of looking at molecules,' Kapteyn said. 'This process allowed us to freeze the motion of electrons in a system, and to capture their dizzying dance.' The researchers describe their process of stretching the N2O4 molecule as being similar to pulling on a Slinky toy and then letting it go and watching it vibrate. The research team said that understanding how electrons rearrange during chemical reactions could lead to breakthroughs in materials research and in fields like catalysis and alternative energy.

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5. Taking Steps to Greener Mail

In the United States over six million trees and more than 300 million pounds of paper are wasted each year on undeliverable-as-addressed mail (UAA) Standard class mail, as reported by UAA Clearinghouse. It costs the post office over $2 billion annually to process this true junk mail and the cost to mailers is over $6 billion a year.

What role does technology play in taking steps to greener mail? The first step in greener mail is for companies to correct and standardize addresses before they enter a database or CRM to help ensure they don't waste money later on sending mail to incorrect and undeliverable addresses. The second step is keeping a company's address up to date as customers are a constantly moving target. The third step is to remove duplicate customer records as the average customer database contains 10 per cent duplicate records which means customers receive multiple mailings from the same company.

Step four is about being able to accurately locate customers, best prospects and competitors. Affordable geo-coding services and products are available to help organizations put their customers on the map. Step five is about combining promotional materials with must-send/must-read documents like bills, statements and invoices. The sixth step involves combining direct mail with the web via pURLs, or personalized URLs that allow companies to provide relevant messages to each and every one of their customers or prospects. The final step is about organizations realizing huge savings through more efficient design of their mailings such as downsizing them to make them more cost effective to send via regular mail. All these steps should work toward sustaining a company's business while lessening the impact on the environment.

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