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The American Physical Society says it will be pushing congressional leaders to increase research investments in energy-efficiency technologies.

The APS says that having a broad portfolio of energy-efficiency options is the fastest, easiest way to ending the United States’ reliance on foreign oil and domestic drilling, not to mention meeting the 2030 greenhouse gas targets.

“The U.S. House cap-and-trade (Waxman-Markey) bill shortchanged long-term research in energy efficiency. The Senate must do better. Legislators should start by including in the bill the president’s Clean Energy Technology Fund, an investment of $15 billion per year over 10 years to develop affordable, low-emission energy technologies,” APS says in a new press release.

“Energy efficiency reduces demand, and energy we do not use costs nothing, emits nothing and does not pollute the Gulf,” said Nobel Laureate Burton Richter, who chaired an APS efficiency study and authored the newly released book, “Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Change and Energy in the 21st Century.”

Some of APS’s recommendations include:

• Broadening current federal R&D and demonstration program particularly in the area of Increased research  batteries for conventional hybrids, plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles, and in various types of fuel cells.
• Set federal goals for achieving significant levels of construction of cost-effective residential zero energy buildings — buildings that use no fossil fuels — by 2020.
• Increase federal funding for building R&D  to $250 million (currently about $100 million)l during the next 3 to 5 years, and expand existing demonstration program for construction of low-energy residential
  buildings, along with associated research.
• Have the DOE take steps to fold long-term applied research into its science and technology programming in “a more serious way than it currently does.” It suggests that DOE’s Office of Science provide responsibility and funding in a way that establishes new programs without endangering current basic research programs APS also suggests DOE create a new structure to support long-term applied research or adapt ARPA-E to this effort.

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The San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) drill rig near Parkfield, Calif. in 2004. Credit: Ben van der Pluijm

Geologists say they have discovered that an ultra-thin layer of smectitic clay on rocks along deep, older fault lines in the San Andreas fault region provide important lubrication that permits gradual movement rather than earthquake-producing jumps.

Geologist from the University of Michigan and the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität Institut für Geographie und Geologie (Germany) say the smoother “creep” ability occurs over time as the fault creates its own lubricants. Newer faults, which are always being added, lack this lubricating layer and are, therefore, more prone to generating significant seismic events.

Scientists have speculated for some time that a lubricant in the form of fluids or talc (from serpentine) might be easing rock movements. However, when this research group analyzed two-mile-deep rock obtained from the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth project, they found that fractured rock surfaces were coated with smectitic clay less than 100 nanometers thick.

“For a long time, people thought you needed a lot of lubricant for creep to occur,” says Ben van der Pluijm, UM’s Bruce R. Clark Collegiate Professor of Geology and Professor of the Environment. “What we can show is that you don’t really need a lot; it just needs to be in the right place. It’s a bit like real estate: location, location, location. . . The clays are growing in the fault zone, and the fault is coating its own pieces of fragmented rock. At some point there’s enough coating that it begins to drive the behavior of the fault, and creeping kicks in.”

Van der Plujim explains that newer features of a fault line lack the lubrication system. He says the San Andreas fault is actually a network of faults, with new strands being added all the time. Because it takes some time for the slick nanocoatings to develop in a new strand, the unlubricated, new strand “gets stuck” for a time and then shifts in a violent spasm that results in an earthquake.

The findings are reported in the July issue of Geology.

Also, here is a video on this story:

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Credit: SunPower

Good for SunPower. This 24% efficiency was reached in a large silicon PV wafer, not just a test unit a lab.

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The ubiquitous rise in teamwork. Credit: B.F. Jones and NBER

While paging through a recent edition of Newsweek, I ran across two articles I recommend as good reading material.

The first is by columnist Ezra Klein, “How much does a gallon of gas cost? A whole lot more than you think.” What’s remarkable is not the concept that gas is underpriced and/or subsidized, but Klein reports on research that comes close to pinning some of the costs down:

“Some of the best work on this subject has been done by Ian Parry, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future. His calculations suggest  that adding all the quantifiable costs into the price of oil would increase the cost of each gallon by about $1.23. If you’re worried about global warming, kick that up to $1.88. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average price of a gallon of gas.”

Klein adds that Parry’s more realistic price point for gas – about $4.60 a gallon – of course still underestimates the true cost, perhaps by a very large amount, because it doesn’t factor in non-quantifiables such as how gas price considerations distort military and foreign policy, environmental impacts on oil-producing nations and oil spill damages. Klein’s point, of course, is that raising the price of gas or oil to something closer to its truer value would make other energy sources more attractive, and if taxes were used to get to the higher price point, then the funds could be reinvested in the alternative energy sources.

The second article I want to highlight is one by Benjamin J. Jones, “Why science needs a nudge from Washington, D.C.” (no link available). Jones, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, raises two important concerns: The amount of time it takes new scientists to absorb the previous work in their field is growing, and group work is becoming more important in the sciences:

“. . . each new generation of scientists has to wade through so much more preexisting work before making an original contribution that it now takes measurably longer – roughly an additional hear per generation – for a researcher to win a major prize or secure a patent. . . . most papers, projects and patents have become team endeavors because individuals simply can’t grasp all there is to know.”

Jones has some fairly radical solutions:

1. Grad programs must advance the most promising grad students through a quicker, more streamlined process.
2. To stop defections of science students to other fields, the NSF must provide more money to grad students.
3. The Obama administration or Congress needs to establish a new set of distinguished science prizes – something on the order of the Nobel prizes – that reward group science efforts.

Jones’ Newsweek piece is actually an extreme condensation of a 32-page paper he authored under the auspices of the National Bureau of Economic Research. The full-length paper has some fascinating data that looks at the boom in the number of technical papers being published, the number of published papers (and citations) written by  team authors versus solo authors comparisons of patent production trends of individuals versus groups and the average age of principle investigators.

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Credit: Fraunhofer ILT

Researchers at Fraunhofer’s Institute for Laser Technology say they are getting excellent results from a bone replacement system that uses a paste of polyactide (PLA) and tricalcium phosphate that is melted by a fine laser to build up layers of material that can provide a strong and precise fit.

This new approach was developed under the aegis of federal ministry “Resobone” project in Germany.

Researchers say the laser-treated paste develops precise microchannels in the PLA, creating a lattice structure which the adjacent bones can grow into. “Its precision fit and perfect porous structure, combined with the new biomaterial, promise a total bone reconstruction that was hitherto impossible to achieve,” says Ralf Smeets of the University Medical Center of Aachen.

Both PLA and TCP are tolerated well by the body. Many consumers have unknowingly run into PLA, the major component of biodegradable packaging material and clear disposable cups that are becoming commonplace. While the PLA provides the framework, the TCP resides in more or less a granular form in it and acts as a stimulus for bone growth. The body can catabolize both substances as natural bone grows through the lattice.

Fraunhofer says the PLA/TCP Resobone system isn’t really suitable for bones that experience high stress, such as in limbs or joints. Instead, it is ideal for certain low-stress bony areas such as cranial, facial and maxillary bones. For example, a five-centimeter large replacement piece of cranium can be completed in an overnight process that uses data from CT imaging to guide a thin laser beam to melt the PLA/TCP mix layer by layer. The precise, customize-sized implants that results from this “Selective Laser Melting” process can be as thin as 80 micrometers and as large as 25 square centimeters.

Fraunhofer gives much of the credit for developing the manufacturing process to its Institute for Laser Technology in Aachen.

“No custom-fit, degradable implants ever existed before now. During the operation, the surgeon had to cut TCP cubes, or the patient‘s own previously removed bone material, to size and insert it into the fissure,” explains Simon Höges, project manager at ILT. “We have achieved our project goal: a closed process chain to produce individual bony implants from degradable materials.

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