Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published Employment Projections: 2008-2018, a fascinating report with all kinds of statistics to help provide occupational guidance for Americans (apologies to international readers, but who knows, you might learn something). Even though my current profession is included in the ”high growth” category, I still found the data to be depressing, but not for the reason you’d think.

If developed countries act now, a ‘climate-smart’ world is feasible, and the costs for getting there will be high but still manageable, says a new World Bank report released today. High-income countries also need to act quickly to reduce their carbon footprints and boost development of alternative energy sources to help tackle the problem of climate change.

Jack Lifton, a consultant, author and public speaker with more than 45 years of experience in sourcing and recycling minor metals (including the rare earths), shares his views on the current balancing act between technologies production and available natural resources. Mr. Lifton identifies these dwindling resources and the mining companies in which to invest, as he warns of the devastating effect production cuts will have on our everyday lives in "the age of technology metals."

From parallel to serial

Moving from parallel SCSI technology to serial attach SCSI (SAS) technology has changed cabling schemes dramatically. The older parallel SCSI ran either single-ended or differential at rates up to 320 Mbits/s over 16 lanes. The latest SAS differential cable assemblies need to handle up to 6 Gbits/s on a single differential pair.

The newest MiniSAS connector documented in the SAS-2 specification is even smaller for greater density. The latest mini-SAS connectors are half the size of the original SCSI connectors and 70% of the size of SAS connectors. Both SAS and Mini SAS have four lanes, compared to the original SCSI parallel cables.

But along with higher speed, greater density, and flexibility comes greater complexity for the cable assemblies. With smaller connectors, the raw cable manufacturers, cable assembler, and the system designer must pay closer attention to the signal integrity parameters of the entire cable assembly.

Aim-listed Nautilus is part of a tier of exotic exploration companies that has been badly affected by falling metals prices and an increasing aversion to risk. The company is adapting deep-sea drilling equipment used by the oil and gas industry to prospect for gold, copper and zinc deposits more than a kilometre below the surface of South Pacific seas.

The City Council voted unanimously to ban algaecides that contain copper, a pollutant that has been blamed for making its way into the bay from the city’s lake drainage system.

Assuming the tail doesn’t begin until term 18, the head and body together only account for 3.25% of all search traffic! In fact, the top terms don’t account for much traffic:

• Top 100 terms: 5.7% of the all search traffic

• Top 500 terms: 8.9% of the all search traffic

• Top 1,000 terms: 10.6% of the all search traffic

• Top 10,000 terms: 18.5% of the all search traffic

Existing approaches to reducing environmental impacts along the metal production and consumption chain are focused largely at the plant scale for primary production, rather than considering the whole metal cycle. As such, many opportunities for systemic improvements are overlooked. This paper develops an approach to designing preferred futures for entire metal cycles that deliver reduced carbon footprints. Dynamic material flow models in Visual Basic® are used to provide life-cycle-impact-assessment indicators, which help identify key intervention points along the metal cycle. This analysis also identifies which actors or agents along the value chain are responsible for, or can influence, behaviour which affects environmental performance. With this information, it is possible to evaluate different scenarios for transition paths to achieve reduced impact. These scenarios consider combinations of new technology, increased metal recycling and demand management strategies. A case study for the copper cycle in the USA shows that to meet a CO₂ reduction target of 60% by 2050, innovative technologies for primary processing of mined ore will play a limited role, due to their increasing impacts in the future associated with mining ever lower ore grades. To compensate for this whilst meeting demand projections, recycling of old scrap would be required to increase from 18% to 80%, requiring extensive collaboration between primary and secondary producers. An alternate scenario which focuses on demand reduction for copper by 1% per year, meets the CO₂ target whilst only requiring an increase in the recycling rate from 18% to 36%. Together, these suggest that there is merit in examining the 'metal-in-use' stage of the metal value chain more closely in order to achieve targeted reductions in CO₂. The approach also highlights the inherent trade-offs between different aspects of environmental performance which are required when pursuing CO₂ reduction targets.

Boston University's College of Engineering is launching a program, under a
National Science Foundation grant, to develop the next generation of wireless
communications technology based on visible light instead of radio waves.
Researchers expect to piggyback data communications capabilities on low-power
light emitting diodes, or LEDs, to create "Smart Lighting" that would
be faster and more secure than current network technology.

Nearly 50% of global electricity supplies must come from renewable energy sources in order to cut CO2 emissions in half by 2050, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in its latest study, “Deploying Renewables: Principles for Effective Policies.”

With input from people around the world -- much of it on this website -- an international group of leading technological thinkers were asked to identify the Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century.  Now their conclusions are revealed on this website.

Our society cannot survive without a cheap supply of minerals; so, it may not be too early to look for new sources.

If mines on land are gradually becoming depleted, could the oceans become our new mines? There have been several proposals for mining the oceans' floor, but that is just an extension of conventional mining and, besides, the task has proved to be complex and expensive. The real change of paradigm, instead, is in extracting ions dissolved in seawater.

The IAEA has revised upwards its nuclear power generation projections to 2030, while at the same time it reported that nuclear´s share of global electricity generation dropped another percentage point in 2007 to 14%. This compares to the nearly steady share of 16% to 17% that nuclear power maintained for almost two decades, from 1986 through 2005.

A company called M2E Power has announced plans today to release a charger that will powered by kinetic motion. The released date is expected to be next summer. The charger derives power from the motion of walking, jogging, cycling, or driving. Six hours of motion provides 30 to 60 minutes of charging power. It will be priced between $25 and $40.

Aluminium prices have fallen as the market worried about rising stocks and soft demand from auto makers, while fears of slowing demand from China pushed copper lower.

GE Digital Energy announces the Multilin HardFiber System which
eliminates the need for thousands of copper wires in a substation and
replaces them with a few fiber optic cables. By eliminating the need to
install and maintain thousands of copper wires, used for signaling and
monitoring in electrical substations, utilities can save up to 50% of
protection and control installation and maintenance costs, while at the
same time increasing worker safety and power system reliability.

It's called New Urbanism, and Christopher Leinberger, an urban planning professor at the University of Michigan, visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution   and author of The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream  , says the movement is changing the American dream: