Vermont Law School?s Institute of Energy and the Environment recently released a study listing Connecticut?s Millstone nuclear power plant as one of 12 at risk of being shutdown due to tax and economic conditions in the state, and one of 38 in the nation at risk of early retirement due to competition from other lower costs energy sources, such as natural gas, and increasing operating costs. Industry officials, however, are quick to dismiss the findings as conjecture and note that nuclear power remains an effective and important contributor to maintaining a viable and diverse energy portfolio. We agree. Having long supported the growth of nuclear power as a cost efficient and clean energy source, and as such, we found the report listing the Waterford plants being at risk of shutdown or early retirement as something to be taken quite seriously. Millstone produces roughly 45 percent of the electricity in Connecticut and is the largest electric generator in New England. Losing that generation capacity would result in a dramatic increase in electric rates, not only for Connecticut electric users, but all consumers throughout the northeast.
Electric supply
There is already insufficient electric generators online today to adequately provide all the electricity needed throughout the region year-round. During high-demand, peek periods, ISO New England, the regional independent, nonprofit that oversees New England?s electric grid, has to purchase electricity from outside the region which can impact rates. In order to maintain a sufficient electric supply, it is critical that every existing generating system in the grid remain operational, including the least efficient, costly fossil fuel burning facilities. Essentially, electric rates are based on insuring that, at a minimum, those ?dirty? plants are profitable and remain operational. The more efficient and cleaner generating plants, such as Millstone, greatly benefit financially as a result. The push in recent years to encourage renewables and convert fossil fuel burning plants to less expensive natural gas operations is an effort to lower electric rates by lowering the dependency on those ?dirty? plants. But even if every New England state were to succeed in achieving ? or even exceeding ? renewable energy goals and converting plants to natural gas, it would not be enough to offset the loss of the 17 million megawatt hours per year that Millstone generates.
Generation tax
Connecticut is the only state that taxes power plants on the electricity they produced. That tax was implemented two years as part of the $1 billion ?shared sacrifice? tax increase implemented to offset a $3.6 billion state deficit. It was to be a limited tax, due to expire June 30, but extended through Sept. 30 because of continuing deficit issues. Over the past two years, that tax raised roughly $70 million in revenue. Millstone, as the state?s largest electric generator, paid 60 percent of that. Millstone?s parent, Virginia-based Dominion Resources, did not pass that added cost on to consumers, thus cutting deeply into profits. In that sense, the Vermont Law School?s institute study is accurate and credible. Taxes, the conversion of fossil fuel power plants to less expensive fuels and more renewables sources resulting in lower electric rates ? and lower profits ? along with an economic climate that increases operational costs, are all factors that could lead Connecticut?s major electric generator to one day be forced to make a business decision. It?s an issue to be taken seriously. ?
President Barack Obama, second from right, leaves Andrews Air Force Base, Md., for a weekend in Camp David, Md., Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. The President turns 52 Sunday and will be spending his birthday at Camp David. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Barack Obama, second from right, leaves Andrews Air Force Base, Md., for a weekend in Camp David, Md., Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. The President turns 52 Sunday and will be spending his birthday at Camp David. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Barack Obama, second from left, jogs up the ramp of Marine One as he leaves Andrews Air Force Base, Md., for a weekend in Camp David, Md., Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. Sunday is the President's 52nd birthday. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Instead of "Hail to the Chief," President Barack Obama is most likely hearing strains of "Happy Birthday" this weekend.
Obama turns 52 on Sunday and is spending part of the day at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.
The White House said little about how he's celebrating. He played golf Saturday with friends from his days in Hawaii and Chicago. Some of them joined him at Camp David.
Obama is scheduled to return to the White House on Sunday afternoon. His week ahead includes travel to the West Coast to discuss plans to help homeowners, appear on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno and visit with troops at Camp Pendleton.
He also has a White House meeting Thursday with the prime minister of Greece.
Ken Anderson, vice president for sales and business development at Universal Synaptics, a company that manufactures computer systems to help the military do maintenance work on planes, vehicles and other equipment, is shown holding a Navy aircraft weapon replaceable assembly as he sits at a desk at his office Tuesday, July 30, 2013, in Roy, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
NEW YORK ? Uncle Sam isn?t as easy a customer to land as he used to be.
Even before $85 billion in federal budget cuts went into effect this spring, small business owners who contract with the government were finding that the cost of going after federal contracts had spiked. On average, small businesses spent more than $128,000 in labor costs and other expenses in 2012 to pursue government contracts, according to a survey by American Express. That?s up 49 percent from 2010.
Now that many of the budget cuts are in place, it?s become even harder and more expensive for small businesses to compete for contracts, which they often count on to generate a significant portion of their revenue.
Ken Anderson usually goes to 20 or more trade shows a year to meet with hundreds of Department of Defense employees who are interested in buying the technology made by his company, Universal Synaptics. But federal agencies? travel budgets were slashed in the so-called sequestration cuts that took effect March 1, so many of the shows were canceled. Now Anderson is spending more time and money flying to meetings at government facilities. Instead of going to one show, he has to make as many as 10 trips.
"One might be in Warner Robbins, Ga.; Cherry Point, N.C.; Patuxent River, Md., or Jacksonville, Fla.," says Anderson, vice president of business development at Universal Synaptics, which makes diagnostic equipment for military aircraft. "Instead of one trip to a show in Atlanta, now I?ve got to go all over the place."
Anderson says the extra trips he?s making aren?t guaranteed to result in a new contract for his Roy, Utah-based company. Meanwhile, his travel costs are up between 25 percent and 30 percent this year.
"You spend more time and money and energy in your business development and the process takes longer," he says. "As a taxpayer I say, this is really fantastic. But as a business owner, I say, this is tough and I have to figure out a way through it."
The cost of bidding on a federal contract can exceed 3 percent of the total amount of the contract, according to the House Small Business Committee. So on a contract worth $100,000, a business might spend more than $3,000 during the bidding process. Companies seeking federal contracts typically lay out costs for travel, product development and writing up proposals. That?s money spent up front, with no guarantee that a bid will be successful.
The extra trips that Shep Brown and his staffers are making to meet with defense employees translate into an enormous time and monetary expense, says Brown, CEO of Howell Instruments, a Fort Worth, Texas, maker of testing and monitoring equipment for airplanes. They too used to attend trade shows where they could meet with a lot of people at once.
"It takes a month to do what I did in three days," says Brown, "Our manpower costs go up 200 percent."
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The Small Business Administration, the government agency that advocates for small companies in other parts of the government, said it had anticipated that small businesses would get fewer contracts and fewer contract dollars because of the budget cuts.
"From the beginning, we have been clear that sequestration would have severe impacts across the government and for small business," says Emily Cain, a spokeswoman for the SBA. "We know that the economic uncertainty created by sequestration prevents small businesses from moving forward and pursuing new orders or opportunities to expand."
Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., the chair of the House Small Business Committee, declined to comment for this story.
The Commerce Department?s report Wednesday on second-quarter economic growth might offer some hope to small businesses. The report said federal spending fell only 1.5 percent between April and June, compared with an 8.4 percent drop in the first three months of the year. If spending stabilizes, contracts might be easier to get.
In the meantime, though, small businesses that rely on federal contracts for revenue continue to spend more time and money to get and keep business with the government. And there?s another hurdle: contracts are taking longer to be approved, forcing them to look elsewhere for revenue.
"The time that it takes from submitting a bid or a proposal to the award is strung out," says Bob Mander, owner of Ryan & Co., a company that writes technical documents for the government and nonprofit organizations. His Washington, D.C.-based business submitted a bid to the General Services Administration more than three months ago and he?s still waiting to hear the status of the bid.
"They?re not as far along as they should be at this point," he says.
In the past, federal agencies usually set a date for a decision in which a company would be awarded a contract, Mander said. But the GSA keeps pushing back the award date, and now it?s not expected until the end of September. A spokeswoman for the GSA, Mafara Hobson, said the complaint wasn?t related to the budget cuts.
While Mander waits, he?s seeking more business from non-government customers, including advocacy groups that represent health care and real estate interests.
Small businesses that partner with companies that work directly with the government also are contending with longer wait times and a drop in revenue.
Dulles Case Center has been busy the past few months working on bids with the federal contractors that it partners with. The government has been seeking price quotes on the carrying cases that the Dulles, Va., company manufactures for weapons, radios, computers, medical equipment and other items. Owner Donna Kulesza hasn?t heard anything beyond those requests.
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Small businesses spend more on federal contracts
Small business owners are spending more time and money to get federal contracts, but they?re also making fewer bids to get those contracts.
Those are some of the findings of a survey of small business owners released Wednesday by American Express. The survey, which questioned 684 owners, found that it?s getting more expensive to bid on a contract, and that a drop in government contracting dollars has contributed to a decline in the number of bids that small businesses make. As a result, companies are getting less of their revenue from federal contracts.
The survey was taken in February and March, and asked owners about their contracting activity in 2012. So it doesn?t reflect the decline in federal contracting expected to result from federal budget cuts that took effect on March 1. Those cuts are likely to further reduce bidding by small businesses.
AN INVESTMENT OF TIME AND MONEY
The survey found that small businesses spent an average of $128,628 in time and money seeking federal contracts in 2012, up 49 percent from $86,124 in 2010.
The largest companies in the survey, those with 50 or more employees, spent $257,098 seeking contracting opportunities in 2012, well above the $37,172 that businesses with fewer than 10 employees spent. That?s not surprising given that larger firms have more workers to devote to the bidding process, which can include product research and development along with formulating and writing bid proposals. And they have more people to execute the contracts.
The industries in which companies spent the most on bidding were construction, where the average outlay was $172,058, and information services companies, which spent an average $169,948.
Women owners are making a bigger investment in bidding than they did a few years ago. The survey found that in 2012, women-owned businesses invested $112,112 toward contracting opportunities, 82 percent of the $137,040 that firms owned by men spent. In 2009, women-owned firms invested 76 percent of the amount of money that their male counterparts put toward bidding.
THE PACE OF BIDDING IS DOWN, AND SO IS REVENUE FROM CONTRACTS
The number of bids that contractors have submitted has fallen sharply since 2007. The survey found that between 2010 and 2012, companies made an average 5.5 bids on contracts on which they would be the primary contractor, and 3.6 bids where they would be the subcontractor. That?s down from an average 19.5 bids as primary contractors, and 7.9 as subcontractors from 2007-09.
Over that time, the amount of money that the government spent on contracts also fell. After spending $540.9 billion on contracts in the 2008 fiscal year, the government spent less each year through fiscal 2012, when it spent $517 billion.
The slower pace of bidding might be a factor in the higher success rate that bidders have been having on primary contracts; with fewer bids, there?s less competition. Owners said their bids were successful 55 percent of the time, on average, up from 41 percent three years earlier. The subcontracting success rate was 86 percent, down slightly from 90 percent in 2007-09.
The drop in bidding is likely behind a drop in the percentage of revenue that companies get from contracting. Between 2009 and 2012, the amount of revenue that companies attributed to contracts dropped to 19 percent from 38 percent. Companies have been making up that shortfall by turning to other customers including state and local governments, non-profits and individual customers.
SUCCEEDING MORE QUICKLY
First-time contractors are winning that initial contract faster than their counterparts did in the past. In 2012, it took companies two years and 4.7 unsuccessful bids to score that first contract. Just a year earlier, contractors said it took them 16 months and 4.4 unsuccessful bids.
That might also be a function of the shrinking number of federal contracting dollars. Companies that have been contracting for 10 years or more say it took them 2.9 years and 5.6 unsuccessful bids before they landed their first deal with the government.
? The Associated Press
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If Ariel Castro?s hell is just beginning, as one of his victims told him, it?s going to be an especially lonely kind of damnation.
The Cleveland kidnapper will be isolated behind bars for his own safety ? most likely, Ohio criminal justice experts say, in a bleak, remote prison where his only contact will be guards and the inmates who bring his meals.
?He really doesn?t understand the gravity and horror of the offenses he committed,? said Lewis Katz, a professor of criminal justice at Case Western Reserve University. ?But he?ll have plenty of time to think about it.?
Castro, who admitted kidnapping three young women for a decade and raping them inside his horror house, was ordered Thursday to serve life without parole, plus 1,000 years.
He insisted that he was sick, not a monster, and addicted to masturbation and pornography. One of the women, Michelle Knight, told him at a dramatic sentencing hearing: ?I spent 11 years in hell. Now your hell is just beginning.?
The only decision made so far about Castro?s future home is that he will be isolated from the general prison population,?said JoEllen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Ohio prison system. That?determination was made in part for his own protection.
?Sex offenders and people who hurt women are at high risk of being killed within prison, especially in Ohio,? said Alana Van Gundy, who teaches courses on criminal behavior at Miami University of Ohio.
Castro pleaded guilty to aggravated murder for abuse that terminated the pregnancy of one of his captives, and the hierarchy of inmate-on-inmate violence places those who harm children ?at the very top of the list,? she said.?
In particular, she said, Ohio prisoners are more dangerous than they would be otherwise because of a higher rate of mental illness among inmates. The state has cut mental health services in recent years, and prisons have absorbed more of the mentally ill, she said.
Castro?s first stop on the way to his life sentence will be the Lorain Correctional Institution in the village of Grafton, a sort of clearinghouse for Ohio inmates. There he will be strip-searched, photographed, fingerprinted and checked for gang markings.
He will be allowed to keep his watch, provided it displays only the time and date, and a Bible if he wants one, but not much else. He?ll be given a medical checkup and a mental health evaluation before state authorities figure out where to send him.
Katz said Castro?s most likely future home is the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, a maximum-security lockup outside the town of Lucasville, which is about an hour and a half away from Cincinnati and near not much of anything else.
For the first time, Michelle Knight confronted the man who held her captive for 11 years, telling Ariel Castro she spent more than a decade in hell, and now "your hell is just beginning." Castro was sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus 1,000 years. NBC's Kate Snow reports.
The prison, drab and forbidding, has about 1,300 inmates. It was the site of what was described as the longest prison siege in American history ? a 1993 uprising that lasted 11 days and resulted in the deaths of one prison officer and nine prisoners.
On the bright side, it has a 1?-acre garden planted and cultivated by inmates. The crops ? sweet potatoes, zucchini, radishes, watermelon and beets, among others ? are donated to a nearby homeless shelter.
But it's unlikely that Castro will develop a green thumb. He will probably spend as long as 23 hours a day in a cramped cell with little more than a desk, toilet and bed, and the hour outside will be in an enclosed space, perhaps also by himself, Katz said.
?It?s exactly what you see on TV and in the movies ? unpleasant,? Katz said. ?It?s going to be as unpleasant as any penitentiary in the United States.?
He may get a modest television, and access to a limited prison library, the professor added.
Castro asked a judge at a previous hearing for permission to see the 6-year-old daughter he fathered with one of the captives, Amanda Berry. Instead, he was ordered to stay away from her.
As for other visits, they?ll be tightly restricted ? perhaps an hour a week if Castro is lucky, Katz said. And it?s just as well: His family has suggested they have little interest in visiting him in prison.
?I think that if he really can?t control his impulses and he really doesn?t have any value for human life, the way this case has shown, then behind bars is where he belongs for the rest of his life,? his son Anthony told TODAY earlier this week. ?I have nothing to say to him.?
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Whether you're going to see those annoying in-laws or are taking an Alaskan cruise, you want to enjoy the ride. Take the time to plan your vacation according to this advice for a truly relaxing experience.
Don't bring extra valuables that you don't need. The more you take with you, the higher your chances of losing the items. Even worse, they could be stolen.
If you are traveling with your child, carry a photo of your child just in case he or she gets lost. It can be a very scary thing to lose your child. However, it can occur. If you have a picture of your child on you then this can come in handy if they ever end up getting lost.
When vacationing in a foreign country, be careful what you eat. If you have had severe reactions to certain foods, learn all the foreign words for those foods. Doing this, you can tell restaurants what foods you can't eat or at least be able to tell medical professionals what's wrong.
When embarking on a cruise, find a hotel nearby that has free parking, and spend the night before the departure. Ask the hotel's staff when it comes to parking deals even though none are published.
Try taking a mild sleeping aid during your red-eye flight. With all the unfamiliarity and noise of an aircraft, many people are unable to sleep on planes. Take a mild sleeping pill to get you through the flight. Nothing too strong, but enough to make you drowsy. Don't take any pills until after the plan has taken off. If there is an issue or delay you would be sleeping in the terminal!
Find out if you need a visa to get into the country you need to go to. Sometimes visas can take a long time to process so it is best to apply for one a long time before you are due to travel. Most foreign countries will refuse to let you enter if you do not have the appropriate visa.
Consider purchasing a yearly National Park Pass if you plan to visit more than a couple times a year. While the initial outlay is $50, they are valid for a one year term and give you open access to all national parks.
It is customary to tip any hotel staff that makes your stay easier. Standard tips are generally $1 for each piece of luggage, and $2-$5 for the housekeeper each day of your stay. Tipping will show your appreciation for their work, and will help you maintain a good relationship with hotel staff.
To adjust to a new time zone faster, stay awake until at least 8pm local time. Going to bed too early can keep you set to your natural time zone; that will make jet lag worse. You can get rid of your jet lag quicker by adjusting as soon as possible to the current time zone.
Pack a few small candles for your hotel stay. Candles can make a room smell better. It is romantic, relaxing and could help you sleep easily. The majority of candle manufacturers have smaller sized candles available, making them convenient to bring along when you travel.
You can conveniently create almost all your vacation and travel plans online. You can plan your trip on a travel site with little effort. Booking flights, hotels or rental cars can all be done on the Internet. Pictures and reviews of hotels are right at your finger tips. Don't forget to look for discounts when booking travel at the last minute.
When traveling in a foreign country, don't change your money at an exchange. There are other, easier ways to exchange cash for foreign currency. You can go to a bank ATM and get foreign currency. Besides being more convenient, ATMs tend to have more generous exchange rates than brick-and-mortar exchanges.
If you need a rental car when going on a trip with small children, make sure the car seats are packed. Use your own car seats when you rent a vehicle, you won't know if you the rental company will have them and if so, what kind of quality they'll be.
A tight budget is no reason to give up the idea of traveling for fun. If you follow the advice listed here, you will soon figure out a way to make your travel plans budget-friendly.
A lot of people don't know that they can actually save money by knowing some insider information about how to get cheap flights. If you are interested in this information, then you should check this out
Related to: travel - leisure - Luxury - world - enjoy - life - plane tickets - insider secrets to cheal flight - secrets to cheaper flights
1: Turn This Year's Renter Into An Annual Vacation Rental Guest
In the business world, success depends on repeat customers and their referrals - the vacation home rental business is no exception. Which is why it is startling to note that repeat renters in this business account for only 10% of all bookings.
2: Palace On Wheels And Other Heritage Trains In India - Combining Extravagance With Holidays
If you want to discover India, the most convenient and pleasant way is to travel by one of the several luxurious trains of the Indian Railways.
3: The Latest News On Tibet Travel Permit 2013
Tibet Permits are issued to solo travelers in 2013. The regulation that a group must have two or five with the same nationality has been CANCLLED.
4: 5 Top Snow Boarding Destinations
Now let me tell you about some of the greatest places that there are to snow board in the world. I really mean I am going to tell you about the places, that if you are a snow boarder you simply must visit if you want to have experienced the greatest snow boarding that is out there.
5: Cirrus SR22: A Magnificent Demo Flight
Wow
Recently I enjoyed what has to be considered a "milestone day" in the life of an aviator, as myself and one of my best buds in Eugene got to go flying
APPLE - Les rumeurs vont bon train concernant les derniers produits Apple, et certaines d'entre elles se pr?cisent. Nos confr?res am?ricains du HuffPost ont laiss? tra?ner leurs oreilles du c?t? de la firme de Cupertino, pour glaner les derniers potins sur les prochains produits de la marque ? la pomme et voici ce qui en ressort:
Un lecteur d'empreinte digitale sur le bouton Home
Apple a diffus?e mardi 30 juillet, la derni?re version beta de son iOS 7, destin?e aux d?veloppeurs. Et l'un d'eux y a d?couvert des indices qui semblent confirmer la pr?sence d'un lecteur d'empreintes sur le prochain iPhone. Des lignes de codes laissent penser que le capteur se trouverait sur le bouton Home. Au contact du pouce, l'empreinte s'afficherait sur l'?cran, changeant de couleur au fur et ? mesure du scan et ce, jusqu'? la reconnaissance.
L'iPhone 5S dans un mois seulement?
Le prochain iPhone pourrait ?tre mis en vente d?s le 6 septembre, ? en croire une source dite "tr?s cr?dible", du blog allemand iFun et reprise par Cult of Mac. La date para?t assez cr?dible puisqu'en avance de deux semaines seulement par rapport ? la commercialisation de l'iPhone 5 l'an dernier. L'annonce devrait ?tre officiellement faite fin ao?t.
Des ?crans plus grands pour l'iPhone et l'iPad
D'apr?s le Wall Street Journal, Apple testerait actuellement des ?crans plus larges pour ses iPad et iPhone. Si la taille ne semble pas arr?t?e pour ces derniers, le WSJ assure qu'Apple aurait demand? ? ses fournisseurs des "?crans con?us pour une nouvelle tablette mesurant un peu moins de 33 centim?tres". L'?cran de l'iPad 2 mesure actuellement 24 centim?tres et celui de l'iPhone5 en mesure 12.
Une initiative qui r?jouit en tout cas Donald Trump, qui postait la semaine derni?re sur Twitter: "Apple envisage enfin un ?cran plus grand pour l'iPhone, ils feraient mieux de se d?p?cher. Quand je leur ai dit de faire ?a l'ann?e derni?re, ils en riaient."
Une coque en plastique pour l'iPhone low-cost?
On parle depuis des mois d'un fameux iPhone low-cost, mais cette fois-ci c'est une vid?o qui vient en r?v?ler un peu plus. Michael Kukielka de DetroitBORG, sp?cialiste des nouveaut?s technologiques, pr?tend avoir mis la main dessus la coque de cet iPhone et en a fait une vid?o. Premi?re information: cette coque serait en plastique. Ensuite, l'iPhone pourrait ?tre une fusion entre le 3GS et l'iPod Touch: plus ?pais que ce dernier, un peu plus large que l'iPhone 5 et dot? du m?me ?cran 4 pouces.
L'iOS du futur se trouve dans votre voiture
Ce n'est pas un secret, Apple souhaite concentrer ses efforts sur l'automobile. En juin, la firme de Cupertino a annonc? un "iOS in the Car". Il doit permettre de connecter un iPhone ? son v?hicule (via AirPlay, le wifi ou un branchement) et d'en contr?ler les actions par la voix (acc?der aux cartes, ?couter de la musique, dicter des messages). Une douzaine de fabricants travailleraient actuellement aux c?t?s d'Apple pour concevoir cet iOS.
Mais cela ne pourrait ?tre qu'un d?but. Au d?tour d'une conf?rence, Tim Cook a confi? que se positionner sur le march? de l'automobile ?tait "tr?s, tr?s important" et semble poursuivre sa d?marche. Apple a d'ores et d?j? d?pos? un brevet pour la conception d'un tableau de bord "r?volutionnaire", avec des capteurs, des cam?ras, un ?cran tactile ou encore des boutons personnalisables.
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? Empreinte digitale, iWatch, Apple TV... les rumeurs des nouveaut?s 2013
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AMSTERDAM (AP) ? ArcellorMittal SA, the world's largest steelmaker, has reported a fall in year over year steel production, shipments and earnings due to continued weak demand and raw material prices. But the Luxembourg-based company says that the worst of a market downturn is behind it now and it expects a stronger second half.
Net loss was $780 million (585 million euros), worsening from a loss of $345 million, and revenues fell from $20.2 billion from $22.5 billion.
Chief executive Lakshmi Mittal said the impact of restructuring at the company's European operations was evident, and cash flows were improving. He said that a major new mine in Canada is largely complete and will ramp up production in the second half.
He forecast operating earnings before special items of $6.5 billion this year.
Oregon lab changes game for synthesizing new materialsPublic release date: 31-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jim Barlow jebarlow@uoregon.edu 541-346-3481 University of Oregon
Nano compounds with ultra low thermal conductivity can be made with stable and predictable structures
EUGENE, Ore. -- University of Oregon chemist David C. Johnson likens his lab's newly published accomplishments to combining two flavors of ice cream -- vanilla and chocolate -- and churning out thousands of flavors to appeal to any taste bud.
In reality, though, he is referring to his game-changing approach to synthesize thousands of new compounds with ultra low thermal conductivity and other unusual properties quickly instead of the traditional and time-consuming preparative approach that is limited to just a few thermodynamically stable compounds.
In a paper placed online ahead of print publication by the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), Johnson's eight-member team documented their design of layered elemental precursors that when lightly warmed self assemble into 18 new nano-sized and metastable compounds with predictable nano-architectures and specific crystallographic orientations.
Until recently, the design and synthesis of crystalline materials in solid-state inorganic chemistry has been very limited because creating them has required heating at high temperatures for long periods, with little control of the reaction pathway. Johnson's new approach is a paradigm change.
"We can now make 20,000 compounds where there used to be three," Johnson said. "We've gone from thermodynamic control to kinetic control. In this particular case, we've taken two compounds, and we can take these solids and interweave them -- put them together however we want by rearranging the layers. We can make specific structures that have subtle differences in their physical properties."
The key to the success of the new approach, he said, involves controlling the local compositions and diffusion distances of the precursor to guide the formation process so the constituent layers come together predictably.
"We design and calibrate the repeating unit of the precursor such that the relative and absolute amounts of atoms of each element within each region of the precursor corresponds to the number of atoms needed to form complete structural units of each component on annealing," the researchers wrote in their paper. "If too much or too little material is present, we found that the resulting partial layers disrupt the desired ordered structure."
Another challenge also emerges when working at nano sizes; as crystals get smaller the ratio of bulk to surface atoms decreases, leading to changes in their structure. Due to the distributions of sizes resulting from other synthesis techniques, the exact structures of nano-sized crystals have not been determined.
Earlier this year, in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Angewandte, another Johnson-led team described how his lab's synthesis technique produces precisely defined structures, which permit distortions in structure to be experimentally determined as a function of size. This structural knowledge, he said, is key to predicting how properties change with nanoarchitecture.
Just how the new technology will be utilized isn't clear, said Johnson, who holds the Rosaria P. Haugland Foundation Chair in Pure and Applied Chemistry at the UO. "We're making lab-scale sample films that are only a fraction of a hair's thickness," he said.
Their ultra-low thermal conductivity makes insulation a most-likely early scenario for application, he said, but his lab in the Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry -- a National Science Foundation-funded center involving the UO and Oregon State University -- is now looking at how to possibly increase production by way of a cost-effective solution route to create coatings that self-organize into one of these low thermal conductivity solids.
"They are fantastic insulators," said Johnson, who also is a member of the UO's Materials Science Institute. "Most solids like window glass have a thermal conductivity of about 1 watt per meter kelvin. Air, on the other hand, has a thermal conductivity of about .03 watts per meter kelvin. Our materials have a thermal conductivity of about .05-0.10, which means that if the material was at about 500 degrees Celsius, I could touch it. There wouldn't be enough energy transferred per unit time to burn my hand."
"UO researchers are helping to create a more sustainable future by re-engineering the science, manufacturing and business processes related to critical products,' said Kimberly Andrews Espy, the UO's vice president for research and innovation and dean of the graduate school. "This approach by Dr. Johnson and his team, which enables the quick synthesis of thousands of new compounds, holds enormous potential for the creation of new materials."
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The seven co-authors with Johnson on the JACS paper were: Colby L. Heideman, who earned a doctorate in chemistry at the UO and is at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande; Sara Tepfer, who earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the UO; Qiyin Lin, who earned a doctorate in physics at the UO and is at the University of California, Irvine; Raimar Rostek, a doctoral student at Germany's University of Freiburg who completed his master's degree thesis while working in Johnson's lab; Paul Zschack of the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago; Michael Dale Anderson, who earned his doctorate in chemistry from the UO and was at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md.; and Ian M. Anderson, also of NIST.
The National Science Foundation supported the research primarily through grants DRM-0907049, MRI-09233577 and CHE-1102637. Heideman and Michael Anderson were supported by an NSF IGERT Fellowship grant to the UO (DGE-0549503). Some of the research also utilized the U.S. Department of Energy-supported Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Laboratory.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
Source: David C. Johnson, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, 541-346-4612
davej@uoregon.edu
Links:
Johnson lab: http://sustainablematerialschemistry.org/dave#.Ue13pFNpFtZ
Department of Chemistry: http://pages.uoregon.edu/chem/
Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry: http://sustainablematerialschemistry.org/
Follow UO Science on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UniversityOfOregonScience
UO Science on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UO_Research
More UO Science/Research News: http://uoresearch.uoregon.edu
Note: The University of Oregon is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. In addition, there is video access to satellite uplink, and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Oregon lab changes game for synthesizing new materialsPublic release date: 31-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jim Barlow jebarlow@uoregon.edu 541-346-3481 University of Oregon
Nano compounds with ultra low thermal conductivity can be made with stable and predictable structures
EUGENE, Ore. -- University of Oregon chemist David C. Johnson likens his lab's newly published accomplishments to combining two flavors of ice cream -- vanilla and chocolate -- and churning out thousands of flavors to appeal to any taste bud.
In reality, though, he is referring to his game-changing approach to synthesize thousands of new compounds with ultra low thermal conductivity and other unusual properties quickly instead of the traditional and time-consuming preparative approach that is limited to just a few thermodynamically stable compounds.
In a paper placed online ahead of print publication by the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), Johnson's eight-member team documented their design of layered elemental precursors that when lightly warmed self assemble into 18 new nano-sized and metastable compounds with predictable nano-architectures and specific crystallographic orientations.
Until recently, the design and synthesis of crystalline materials in solid-state inorganic chemistry has been very limited because creating them has required heating at high temperatures for long periods, with little control of the reaction pathway. Johnson's new approach is a paradigm change.
"We can now make 20,000 compounds where there used to be three," Johnson said. "We've gone from thermodynamic control to kinetic control. In this particular case, we've taken two compounds, and we can take these solids and interweave them -- put them together however we want by rearranging the layers. We can make specific structures that have subtle differences in their physical properties."
The key to the success of the new approach, he said, involves controlling the local compositions and diffusion distances of the precursor to guide the formation process so the constituent layers come together predictably.
"We design and calibrate the repeating unit of the precursor such that the relative and absolute amounts of atoms of each element within each region of the precursor corresponds to the number of atoms needed to form complete structural units of each component on annealing," the researchers wrote in their paper. "If too much or too little material is present, we found that the resulting partial layers disrupt the desired ordered structure."
Another challenge also emerges when working at nano sizes; as crystals get smaller the ratio of bulk to surface atoms decreases, leading to changes in their structure. Due to the distributions of sizes resulting from other synthesis techniques, the exact structures of nano-sized crystals have not been determined.
Earlier this year, in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Angewandte, another Johnson-led team described how his lab's synthesis technique produces precisely defined structures, which permit distortions in structure to be experimentally determined as a function of size. This structural knowledge, he said, is key to predicting how properties change with nanoarchitecture.
Just how the new technology will be utilized isn't clear, said Johnson, who holds the Rosaria P. Haugland Foundation Chair in Pure and Applied Chemistry at the UO. "We're making lab-scale sample films that are only a fraction of a hair's thickness," he said.
Their ultra-low thermal conductivity makes insulation a most-likely early scenario for application, he said, but his lab in the Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry -- a National Science Foundation-funded center involving the UO and Oregon State University -- is now looking at how to possibly increase production by way of a cost-effective solution route to create coatings that self-organize into one of these low thermal conductivity solids.
"They are fantastic insulators," said Johnson, who also is a member of the UO's Materials Science Institute. "Most solids like window glass have a thermal conductivity of about 1 watt per meter kelvin. Air, on the other hand, has a thermal conductivity of about .03 watts per meter kelvin. Our materials have a thermal conductivity of about .05-0.10, which means that if the material was at about 500 degrees Celsius, I could touch it. There wouldn't be enough energy transferred per unit time to burn my hand."
"UO researchers are helping to create a more sustainable future by re-engineering the science, manufacturing and business processes related to critical products,' said Kimberly Andrews Espy, the UO's vice president for research and innovation and dean of the graduate school. "This approach by Dr. Johnson and his team, which enables the quick synthesis of thousands of new compounds, holds enormous potential for the creation of new materials."
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The seven co-authors with Johnson on the JACS paper were: Colby L. Heideman, who earned a doctorate in chemistry at the UO and is at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande; Sara Tepfer, who earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the UO; Qiyin Lin, who earned a doctorate in physics at the UO and is at the University of California, Irvine; Raimar Rostek, a doctoral student at Germany's University of Freiburg who completed his master's degree thesis while working in Johnson's lab; Paul Zschack of the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago; Michael Dale Anderson, who earned his doctorate in chemistry from the UO and was at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md.; and Ian M. Anderson, also of NIST.
The National Science Foundation supported the research primarily through grants DRM-0907049, MRI-09233577 and CHE-1102637. Heideman and Michael Anderson were supported by an NSF IGERT Fellowship grant to the UO (DGE-0549503). Some of the research also utilized the U.S. Department of Energy-supported Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Laboratory.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
Source: David C. Johnson, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, 541-346-4612
davej@uoregon.edu
Links:
Johnson lab: http://sustainablematerialschemistry.org/dave#.Ue13pFNpFtZ
Department of Chemistry: http://pages.uoregon.edu/chem/
Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry: http://sustainablematerialschemistry.org/
Follow UO Science on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UniversityOfOregonScience
UO Science on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UO_Research
More UO Science/Research News: http://uoresearch.uoregon.edu
Note: The University of Oregon is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. In addition, there is video access to satellite uplink, and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Shanghai. The economy is shrinking, but the government says not to worry. ?The second half will grow "steadily". ?That's better than growing weaker. But the government in this case is more bullish than the market, which expects a weaker second half. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Chinese economy will remain ?steady? in the second half of the year, Communist Party leadership said on Tuesday. If you believe them.
Despite what they called ?extremely complicated domestic and international conditions?, the key word here was ?steady? rather than ?weaker?. ?That puts the Chinese government a head of the market, which is a bit more bearish on China overall.
By now, most analysts are forecasting weaker growth in the second half. Zhiwei Zhang, a senior economist for Nomura Securities in Hong Kong, is forecasting a 30% chance that growth will fall under 7%, the first time since the crisis of ?08.
One of the bigger problems on the mainland is excess capacity at Chinese factories. Whether it is in the property sector or automotive or solar panels, China built up too much, too fast, and doesn?t have the customer base to soak up supply. With Europe still growing under 1%, or in recession in some countries, China is counting on U.S. demand and local demand. Neither have been enough to solve China?s problems with excess capacity.
The government said over the weekend that it was considering plans to eliminate outdated industrial production capacity, especially in the steel, cement, and shipbuilding sectors.
To ease those problems in affected industries, the Ministry of Industry recently told around 1,400 companies in 19 sectors to eliminate outdated production capacity by September and eliminate excess capacity by the end of the year.
Local Local investors sold out of Chinese stocks on Monday, reacting to discouraging news about first-half earnings growth and Beijing beating the drums over maxed out credit at the municipal level. Investors are worried that states have overspent and will either default, spend less, or spend nothing in the months ahead, thus slowing the economy even more.
The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.72% to 1,976.31 points, the largest single-day fall since July 8.
In New York, the popularly traded iShares FTSE China Xinhua 25 (FXI) exchange traded fund is marginally higher on Tuesday, up just 0.3%.
In WSJ?s China Real Time report on Monday, former World Bank chief economist Justin Yifu Lin said something that not even the Chinese government or the biggest bull in the China shop would say: that China can grow at 8% for the next 20 years.
?Many people are pessimistic about the Chinese economy,? said Lin, who was speaking at a press conference with several reporters organized by the Chinese government?s International Press Center. ?So far none of the doomsday predictions have been realized.?
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Public release date: 31-Jul-2013
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