The Mandelbear's Musings

Just a couple of pointers to posts I flagged a while ago on the subject of power. No, not that kind of power -- all you superhero fans can go back to sleep now. All you political pundits, too. I'm talking kilowatts here. Lots of them, in some cases.

First of all there's this post about Stanford's use of silicon nanowires to build Li-ion batteries with 10 times the current capacity. Just don't short them.

Moving up the power curve, we have this techdirt post about recent advances in nuclear power. It has the potential to be cheap, safe, and environmentally friendly -- with no greenhouse gasses to worry about. No less than two companies have announced small reactors: Toshiba, and a new company called Hyperion (found via this post in Gizmodo). The Hyperion reactor promises 27MW for five years maintenance-free (after which you presumably dig it up and ship it back to the factory for refueling and refurbishment). The Toshiba reactor is said to be only 200KW, designed for, say, a large building or a house full of gamers.