Toyota Unveils the Future: NS4 Plug-In Hybrid Concept at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show Torrance, Calif., December 20, 2011 — Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. is set to make waves at the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit with the debut of the NS4, an advanced plug-in hybrid concept vehicle. This world premiere…
Researchers have reduced the preparation time of quantum dot solar cells to less than an hour by changing the form to a one-coat quantum dot solar paint.
How?
Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles are coated with cadmium sulfide (CdS) or cadmium selenide (CdSe.) The composite nanoparticles, when mixed with a solvent, form a paste that can be applied as one-step paint to a transparent conducting material, which creates electricity when exposed to light.
Although the paint form is currently about five times less efficient than the highest recorded efficiency for the multifilm form, the researchers predict that its efficiency can be improved, which could lead to a simple and economically viable way to prepare solar cells.
Taiwan imports 99 percent of its energy, which is vital to its rapidly industrializing economy.
The island nation’s electricity demand was recently growing at almost 5 percent per year, but this is slowing to about 3.3 percent per annum to 2013. Nuclear power has been a significant part of the electricity supply for two decades and now provides 17 percent of the country’s overall energy needs.
But this has come at a potential cost. The country’s three nuclear power plants (NPPs) comprise four General Electric boiling water reactors and two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors.
Taiwan launched its nuclear power project in 1972 with the construction of a General Electric boiling water reactor (BWR) at the Chinshan 1 Nuclear Plant in northern Taiwan. By 1985 Taiwan had a total of six reactors online at the Chinshan, Kuosheng and Maanshan NPPs, which provided nearly 20 percent of the island’s power that fueled Taiwan’s economic take off. The NPPs are operated by the Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) utility under the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Oceana, the largest international advocacy group working solely to protect the world’s oceans, applauded a decision made yesterday by the United States District Court in Washington, D.C. to establish annual catch limits and accountability measures for five fish species in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, ensuring that the species are not overfished. Below is a statement in response to the decision by Oceana’s New England representative Gib Brogan.
“Yesterday’s decision by the United States District Court is a win for ocean conservation in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. This ruling requires that protections are established for Atlantic halibut, ocean pout, windowpane flounder, Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic winter flounder and wolffish, some of which are currently overfished.
According to the AP and Shell, about 40,000 barrels of oil leaked on December 20 2011 during a routine operation to transfer oil from Bonga’s floating production, storage and off-take (FPSO) vessel to an oil tanker. Since the leak, teams from SNEPCo have worked around the clock with international oil spill experts, using a combination of dispersants and booms to tackle the leaked oil.
SNEPCo will continue to monitor the area using boats, aircraft and satellite imagery, and will take appropriate steps to disperse any further persistent oil sheens.
In addition to seeing how the oil from Bonga has largely dispersed, the journalists will be taken by helicopter to see where third party oil, believed to have been spilled from another vessel in the area, has hampered SNEPCo’s efforts to tackle the leak from Bonga. This oil has come ashore on short areas of coastline. SNEPCo will clean up this oil, both on and offshore.
