While most current coal power stations have 33% efficiency it is possible to make them 50%+ ( up to 57% efficient ) with the use of supercritical co2 turbines ( or 40-50% improvement of ratio energy/co2 ) see about this technology http://www.echogen.com/documents/TMISept_Oct12_000.pdf with few percents of efficiency going into 70% capture of co2 ( which are noticeable with 33% efficiency but much less with 50% efficiency ) co2 capture turns to be quite feasible even for china

I see few of those who thinks a little broader - that the question is not about panels on aircraft, but solar powered aircraft The practical approach might be to use satellite solar power, beamed with lasers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power to aircraft. In fact for aircraft in flight there could be less obstacles than for any place on earth, so beaming solar power to aircraft might be a closer aim, than beaming solar power to earth stations. Thus - 24 hours flight, the only catch - to have enough power to get out of clouds ( usually they do not obstruct much of sun light below 10 000 meters ) and then the whole flight might be powered by solar power

from article Students asumed "A series of assumptions must be made due to limited information in the film. First, the asteroid is approximated as a spherical object 1000km in diameter " and the biggest asteroid has just 1000 km size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet) and we know this asteroid does not pose threat. - all others are much less in size http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_asteroids#Largest_by_diameter and these too do not pose threat too. and no known big asteroid larger than 1000 meters threatens earth in near future http://www.newser.com/story/129849/nasa-weve-ided-most-killer-asteroids-out-there.html so there is not only a such a bomb exists - there is no such a threat. and for real asteroids the humanity might encounter - the existing bombs are more than enough to destroy them

solution to fix all things ( and maybe even improve climate variability ) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222114546.htm to change 'local' climate - there is need for much less area. I think that mass produced aluminum foil on some substrate could be used as well ( will be easy to scale back reflection if needed )

greenhouses produce 6+ times compared to out of doors cultivation. Africa has suitable climate for greenhouses ( see Israel greenhouse projects ), then using hydroponics, there is no need in rich soils. of cause there is question of money - there is need in quite a bit of them to start. But this is another question. Africa can produce enough crops, and 'poor' soils do not prevent Israeli deserts to produce a lot of food.

no cells do not warm up, they are kept warm all the time using insulation ( consider that on the other temp range is a liquid hydrogen and it it stored for quite a while in cars ), the insulation adds cost, but less, than difference between lithium and molten salt cost. for that reason molten salt vehicles work ok at - 40 C while lithium cars just stop working. also molten salt does not explode, though can splash, but in buses it is situated such that it is last thing to be hit from outside. li ion batteries actually is a sort of relatively recent breakthrough, that is why so much hype around. but there are other alternatives, btw, such as aluminium air or zink air batteries (and even li air batteries). there are still problems with them - but at the cost/weight side - they are the only batteries which can compete with gasoline, so it is really strange that instead of attempts to improve in a way which can finally resolve gasoline dependance relatively scarce lithium is wasted.

from press release it is clear, that the plant is not for plug in hybrids market ( and the possible answer - is low quality,which in below the current plugin batteries ). For buses and for grid storage - molten salt batteries are preferred ( because materials are much more abundant and cheaper and for these applications the biggest problems of molten salt batteries ( high temperature ) could be of less significance than in cars ). There are examples of such uses http://asmoronurhadi.blogspot.com/2011/03/tindo-worlds-first-solar-electric-bus.html and http://engineering.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2011/03/11/so-what-battery-technology-powers-our-electric-bus/ etc, there are new developments http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/low-temperature-molten-salt-battery-ten.html http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/11/sumitomo-2011111.html in this field, which could make molten salt batteries even more attractive. and if to consider, that lithium reserves are quite limited - mass production of low quality batteries seems a strange idea. I can't say for any good reasons for RUSNANO except they need to spend huge money on something ( they have a big budget and just few mostly idiotic projects )- it is moronic organization which is run by the man who put Russia into poverty in 90s due to badly designed reforms and any degree of idiotism could be expected, but what drives Chinese in this venture is an intresting question. It might turn out, that both sides are driven by bureaucratic logic and thus the project has no real value.

Maybe this arduino app with be of some use http://b.leppoc.net/2011/04/23/operation-lo-jack/

What is interesting that for authors of the article from CSM( quote: The 6-ton UARS satellite — the biggest piece of space debris to fall from the sky since Sky Lab in 1979 ) the deorbited Mir station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_space_station has never existed - because only Skylab and this satellite existed as space debris.

The Fukushima-Daiichi Incident, Dr. Matthias Braun, AREVA, March 29, 2011 (3.7 MB Powerpoint show) can be viewed with free LibreOffice

few links for you http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20030022661_2003025516.pdf http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/aerospike/compensation.shtml

and our entire atmosphere isn't much better. no, practically low earth transfer orbit starts at 150 km at this altitude a satellite will not decay into atmosphere for quite a while. and while at space station orbit there is also atmosphere - it does not change much - they just fix orbit every few days with quite a few amount of fuel. As for higher altitude start - it is actually already exploited in air launch. and building launch from mount will increase payload several times ( just check for existing projects ). the things I describe are not money wise - they really would require too much money to be spent relative to possible outcome - so currently it just make no sense. but not only rocket system are proposed - there are about a dozen of different future space launch proposals,

Rockets are no nearly perfect - given new fuel http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/12/swedish-researchers-have-discover.html shuttles could have 4-8 times more payload. And this is actually huge step. Next - launch could be performed from towers few kilometers hight or even mountains - it will take money - but still will make quite a change. There are other possibilities such as quad airship launch (walrus was designed for 500 -1000 tonnes - so the rocket could be 4000 tonnes of weight and could be launched, say from 15000 meters hight ), there are other, non rocket ways to launch things into space - but even rockets could be times more effective, than now.

because after I seen the statement on gap, I searched and immediately got an article - graphene not only can be equipped with gap, but tunable one. just make double layer graphene: http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/graphene-makes-transistors-tunable