John Powell of JP Aerospace fame has opened a second company that is dedicated to a much more down to earth product: an improved sandbag: Sand Brick Technologies. Check out the image gallery. Here is a message about the firm:

The Sandbag Reimagined

Rancho Cordova, CA., August 31, 2010 -- Flooding is one of humanities oldest scourges. The first line of defense has been the lowly sandbag.

With major deluges in Pakistani, Afghanistan, Chad, France and right here in the USA, this year is being dubbed 'The Year of the Flood'. With the increased threat has come the overhaul of the sandbag.

Emergency workers hate sandbags. Traditional sandbags are heavy, they make weak walls and are hard to fill. Sandbags haven't gotten any better in hundreds of years, till now. Sand Brick Technologies, a California company, has redesigned the sandbag.

The opening in normal sandbag is two inches smaller than a shovel blade. This makes sandbags very hard to fill. "It was one of those 'Oh Duh' moments", says John Powell, CEO of Sand Brick Technologies, LLC, "We made the opening two inches wider than a shovel, I don't know why nobody thought of it before".

Starting with the wider opening the sandbag went through a series of overdue upgrades. The ends of the bags are angled like a cornerstone. This causes all the bags to interlock forming an incredibly strong wall. However you don't need to be an architect to use them. The bags are color coded, one side blue the other yellow. All an emergency volunteer needs to remember is: "blue, yellow, blue, yellow" and the wall locks in place.

The bag is made from a solid sheet of plastic, not woven plastic like regular bags. This prevents flood water, a particularly nasty combination of sewage, industrial and farm runoff, from getting into the bags. This solves of the problem of getting rid of contaminated sand when the flood is over. The new sandbag is called a Sand Brick because of its cross section. The new bag forms a rectangle or brick shape. Tradition sandbags form a cylinder causing them to wobble. A Sand Brick sits, well, like a brick. Lastly, the surface of the bag was textured to grip the bags around it. Images of the bags are at www.sandbricktech.com

All these improvements results in a bag that only needs twenty pounds of sand vs. forty pounds of sand in a conventional bag. On top of that, fewer bags are needed to build a stronger wall.

All this results in using fewer bags and less half the amount of sand to block the same flood.

Emergency workers can put up sandbags walls up faster, with few back injuries, saving more lives and property. The new bags have been well received in the emergency community. "They make a really strong wall" says Carl Whaley, Chief of the Carrabelle, Florida Fire Department after a training exercise with Sand Bricks.

As long as there are floods there will be sandbags. This is the 21st century it's about time we had a better sandbag.

For more information, call 916-858-0184 or visit http://www.sandbricktech.com

John Powell
CEO, Sand Brick Technologies, LLC
jmpowell [at] sandbricktech.com

A thorium reactor driven by an accelerator has a number of advantages over a conventional nuclear reactor:
/-- UK Telegraph supports new Thorium Energy Amplifier Subcritical Accelerator Driven Reactor Project - Next Big Future

/-- Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium - Telegraph - Aug.29.10.

NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) is investigating an interesting technique that provides 3D television on a flat screen without the need for the viewer to wear special glasses: 3D Television without the Glasses - Next Big Future - Aug.27.10.

DARPA has apparently selected two finalists in its Transformer (TX) plan to develop a four-person vehicle that is both roadable and flyable: Flying Car News in the Army - The Pentagon's Flying Car - Popular Mechanics - Aug.27.10.
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Transonic Combustion claims a big boost in mileage with their "Ultra-high Efficiency Fuel Injection Systems": AutoblogGreen Q&A with Transonic Combustion: Can supercritical fluids give a 30% mpg boost? - Autoblog Green - Aug.26.10 (via Transterrestrial).

Another chance for airships to take a big step towards practical application in both military and civil applications: Airship Industry Prepares for Liftoff - WSJ.com - Aug.26.10

This sort of energy density for a Tesla Roadster would mean almost a 500 mile (800 km) range, which is a good 7-8 hour drive on US freeways: NEI Corporation and UC San Diego Expect 1000 Watt-hour Per Kilogram Energy Density Lithium Batteries by Mid-2011 - nextbigfuture.com - Aug.26.10.
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I expect that more drivers would prefer that their cars sound like this one, but a space ship does have its appeal: Toyota mulls space-ship sound for Prius hybrid to warn walkers - Drive On/SATODAY.com - Aug.26.10

Gee, also sorts of constants are moving around these days. First radioactive decays and now the Gravitational Constant: G-whizzes disagree over gravity - Nature News - Aug.23.10

Update Aug.27.10: Some resistance builds to this proposition: Scientist Smackdown: Are Solar Neutrinos Messing With Matter? - 80beats/Discover Magazine - Aug.26.10

Alan Boyle gives an overview of progress with fuel cells: Can fuel cells power the future? - Cosmic Log

I hadn't heard much about holograms lately but did not realize that work in the field had slowed so much: Doctor Laser: Inside the Wondrous Lab of One of the World's Last Holographers - Motherboard - Aug.17.10.

The Canadian General Fusion firm has revamped its website. Somewhat better presentation of their approach to fusion power generation, which derives from research at Los Alamos Lab. The firm has raised about $20M from private and government sources.
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Using lasers to compress pellets of D/T to produce fusion has been a multi-billion dollar effort in the US, culminating in the huge National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore Lab in California. Despite all that investment, laser fusion is still a long way from practical power production even if the NIF exceeds its goals.

I remember attending a physics colloquium in the late 1970s given by a researcher from Los Alamos Lab in which he discussed the use of heavy ions instead of laser light for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF). The presentation was quite impressive and indicated an optimistic future for this approach. Massive particles seemed to be much better at compressing fuel pellets than light and particle accelerators were well understood and well used systems, especially compared to high energy lasers at the time. However, in subsequent years heavy ion fusion (HIF) got left behind in the hunt for funding despite many positive reviews of its potential.

A company called Fusion Power Corporation, whose leaders include people involved in HIF research in the 1970s at major national laboratories, are trying to revive it as a viable power production system: American Scientists Lead the Way to Carbon Free Energy - EIN Presswire - Aug.17.10.

As explained in this letter to Physics Today magazine, HIF lost out due to the fact that the research was spread thinly over several agencies and labs and none of these championed it. "HIF has been an orphan—as [Nobel Prize winner] Burton Richter put it, 'starved and virtually ignored'."

The need for a good sized accelerator to produce the beams to drive the fusion production also was a big hurdle because of the high initial investment. The Fusion Power Corp. tries to turn this into a plus rather than a minus by offering a design for a power plant that would produce up to 100GW rather than the usual 1GW range for conventional power plants.

For more about HIF and the Fusion Power Corp, see White Paper by Fusion Power Foundation - Nov.2009.

Update: Via the Talk-Polywell.org forum comes a link to this HIF educational site: Heavy-Ion Fusion Tutorial.

Alan Boyle summarizes a big review in Science magazine of a wide spectrum of alternative energy sources: The new green-energy landscape - Cosmic Log - Aug.16.10.

The founder of A123 Systems, a leader in advanced Lithium-ion batteries, will lead a new spin-off company, called 24M, that will develop a high energy density battery based on proprietary technology related to flow batteries:
/-- New Battery for Cheap Electric Vehicles: Founder of A123 Systems starts a new company to commercialize the technology - Technology Review - Aug.16.10
/-- A123 Systems spawns another alphanumeric battery company: 24M Technologies - Boston.com
/-- 24M Technologies Launches Based on Technology from A123 Systems and MIT; Secures $10... - 24M Technologies/PRNewswire

Check out the latest pictures of the Fanwing UAV in flight posted on the Fanwing News page.

Here are some electric motorcycle items:
/-- Electric Motorcycle Racing Comes of Age - Autopia/Wired.com - Aug.13.10
/-- Gallery: Brammo Empulse Unveiled - Popular Science
/-- Gallery: The 2010 MotoCzysz E1pc - Popular Science

This item includes several interesting videos of bi-pedal robots displaying various movements and maneuvers: Check Out Kawada's Humanoid Walking HRP-2 Robot (video) - Singularity Hub.

Examples:

A reader points to this article about efforts in Oregon to boost the energy capacity and power output capabilities of ultracapacitors: Oregon Frozen-Pea Processor Inspires High-Tech Battery Firm - OPB News - Aug.10.10.

The possibilities for significant declines in the prices for lithium ion batteries:
/-- Lithium Battery Prices on Slow Decline - Greentech Media - Aug.3.10
/-- Electric Car Battery Price Declines Expected - FuturePundit
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A review of fast charging challenges and options for EVs: For Electric Cars, 30-Minute Recharges - Greentech/NYTimes.com

Here's an update on the Dragonfly SwissCopter, a hydrogen peroxide rocket tip powered one-person rotorcraft from Innosuisse Corp.: Rocket-Powered Personal Helicopter Emits Only Water - Autopia/Wired.com.

A video from 2008;

A futuristic project for sure: Mind-Controlled Artificial Arm Begins the First Human Testing - Singularity Hub - Aug.3.10.

A couple of tech items:

/-- An update on efforts to expand the use of superconducting materials: Details on How Superconducting Wire Will Achieve Widescale Commercialization by 2015 - nextbigfuture.com - Aug.3.10

/-- A neat camouflage technique with cameras and video projection: Augmented Reality Renders Concrete Block Invisible - Popular Science - Aug.3.10