A first-of-its-kind, small-scale natural gas liquefaction facility designed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory was unveiled today by Pacific Gas and Electric Company officials in Sacramento, Calif.

Other significant partners in the pioneering liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility effort include the California Energy Commission, Sacramento Air Quality Management District, SoCal Gas Company and South Coast Air Quality M

When solving problems in the public transport sector, the standpoint taken is often too one-sided. These types of problems need an interdisciplinary approach. This is the conclusion of Wijnand Veeneman, who will defend his thesis at TU Delft on Monday 24 June. He researched four different cases in Switzerland, the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands. Veeneman: “An integral, gradual approach is needed.”

Scientists have many useful ideas about better public transport. Veeneman: “The content of the

Siemens Automation and Drives (A&D) presents new electronic components in the Delta switches and socket outlets range for the retrofit market in the area of lighting and shutters. The new products include universal dimmer and shutter control inserts, conventional and wireless operator pushbuttons, and a battery-operated wall-mounted transmitter.

The “sys universal dimmer insert” is suitable for all types of lighting to 420 watts/volt-ampere connected load. The dimmer can be easily retrofitt

A new way to assemble complex, three-dimensional structures from specially formulated colloidal inks could find use in advanced ceramics, sensors, composites, catalyst supports, tissue engineering scaffolds and photonic materials.

As will be reported in the July 9 issue of the journal Langmuir, scientists have developed colloidal, gel-based inks that form self-supporting features through a robotic deposition process called robocasting. A computer-controlled robot squeezes the ink out of a s

Machines not bigger than a molecule will one day surf our blood stream, search and destroy infected tissues, and heal our wounds. This is just one of the applications of nanotechnology. EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin will chair an information day on nanotech new frontiers in Grenoble, France, on 14 June 2002. Nanotech research is still in its start-up phase, and will be far more effective if co-ordinated and supported at EU level. The Commission will therefore allocate € 700 million to nan

Loughborough University’s Centre for Mobile Communications Research (CMCR) has made some major breakthroughs in its antenna technology that could enable safer communication for all.

Using their work associated with GPS (Global Positioning System) technology, researchers have managed to reduce emissions into the body by as much as 85%. The CMCR achieved its breakthrough in antenna designs through innovative laser technology and super computing modelling techniques. This puts the University i

Drilling for oil is expensive – and only too often unsuccessful: in 80 to 90 per cent of all attempts the drill head ends up in worthless sediment rather than hitting the black jackpot as intended. In this way, with every unsuccessful drilling, companies squander several million euros. Yet there is an alternative: the use of tiny fossilised single-celled organisms can reveal to the expert where prospecting for oil is worth while, a dying art at which only a few specialists worldwide still remain prof

Photovoltaics is a science that examines light-electricity conversion. Conversion of solar energy carried by photons is transformed by solar cells into direct-current electrical energy. Interest in the use of photovoltaic (PV) solar technologies is growing rapidly, as it will permit the direct production of electricity from solar radiation without any harmful emissions or noise. Rising energy costs, the finite nature of fossil fuels and worries about climate change has renewed interest in making the

Inks which cannot be photocopied – to confound bank-note forgers – are exciting printers of most of the world`s major currencies. A team from colour chemistry, led by Professor David Lewis and Dr Long Lin, has created an ink which changes colour when copied or scanned, to prevent forgers colour matching banknotes.

“There are already hundreds of security measures in place for banknotes,” said Professor Lewis. “But these don`t stop forgeries – some estimates put the number of forged banknotes

British consultants, Oakdene Hollins, have published a technical and commercial study of how an electrolytic production process developed at Cambridge University could transform prospects for the exploitation of rare-earth magnets. The process is already attracting development funds from the US Navy.

Rare-earth permanent magnets offer significantly improved performance characteristics over those of conventional magnets, but are more expensive. Although costs have fallen over recent years due

A new and economical technology for the separation and capture of carbon dioxide from industrial processes could lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions to the atmosphere. Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory are developing a new high-temperature polymer membrane to separate and capture carbon dioxide, preventing its escape into the atmosphere. This work is part of the DOE Carbon Sequestration Program’s mission to reduce the amount of c

An Australian research team has solved one of the world’s big industrial waste headaches – what to do with spent pot lining (SPL) from aluminium smelters.
In a major advance for sustainable mineral production, the “Alcoa Portland SPL Process” developed jointly by Portland Aluminium, Alcoa, Ausmelt and CSIRO renders the hazardous waste harmless and at the same time produces two commercial by-products.

Aluminium smelters worldwide produce about half a million tones a year of the tox

iver air bags offer relatively little benefit in road vehicle crashes compared with seat belts, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.

Researchers in the United States identified all passenger vehicles that crashed during 1990-2000 in which the driver or passenger, or both, died. A sample of 51,031 driver-passenger pairs was analysed to estimate the association of driver air bags with driver fatality.

Having an air bag was associated with an 8% reduction in the risk of death, whether the

Road vehicles may soon be fitted with pop-up bonnets, windscreen airbags and energy absorbing bumpers to improve pedestrian safety, according to researchers in this week’s BMJ.

Collisions between pedestrians and road vehicles are responsible for more than a third of all traffic related fatalities and injuries worldwide, yet research has so far concentrated almost exclusively on increasing the survival of vehicle occupants, argue researchers at the University of Virginia, USA.

Crash

Rollo, the home robot, has been developed by the Laboratories of Automation Technology, Information and Computer Systems in Automation and Control Engineering of the Helsinki University of Technology for seven years and is presently being adapted for home care and independent living at home. Rollo is part of the “Turning Well-Being Technology into a Success Story” – (iWELL) technology programme of the National Technology Agency Tekes.

“The reason why we arrived at a ball-shaped solution was

Walls and curtains could sport liquid-crystal digital displays.

Homes of the future could change their wallpaper from cream to cornflower blue at the touch of a button, says Dirk Broer. His team has developed paint-on liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that offer the technology.

Liquid crystals are peculiar liquids: their molecules spontaneously line up, rather than being randomly orientated as in a normal liquid. Passing a voltage across the molecules switches their alignment, b