Further Up Yonder

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Boeing 787 Dreamliner Demo Flight

Kurion Helping The Cleanup in Japan

In a follow-up to a recent post, here is a good story of how Kurion came to the rescue to help clean up radioactive water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northern Japan.  Apparently they were amazing fast on getting the equipment together, shipping everything over the water, and getting everything tested and up and running to begin pumping water through a proprietary filtration system that initially handled the equivalent of 50 Olympic sized swimming pools.

Ready For Prime Time

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner is now beginning to make domestic flights in the USA.  It has been in service for All Nippon Airways (ANA) for the last year with over 2 million lucky passengers having the privilege of enjoying luxurious rides over the Pacific.  The widows are 30% larger and the engines are 20% more efficient.

A New Approach to the Weapons Complex Nuclear Waste

The technology of vitrifying nuclear waste has been a difficult task for the Dept. of Energy.  Vitrification involves encasing wast in molten glass.  A project at the Hanford Reservation in WA has been a budget buster and is way behind schedule with all types of safety and design problems.

A startup company called Kurion has used some of its own innovation to lead the way for a workable and cost effective taylor-made vitrification process.  The Dept. of Energy is starting to take a look.  I think this is great news.  Kurion's VP and Chief Technology Officer hired me at SAIC about 20 years ago, so that makes me all the more happy about this success.  Let's hope this leads to a breakthrough for all the nuclear waste issues that have been plaguing the DOE sites for years.

Tesla Has Made It Through the "Valley of Death"

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors, is hanging in there with the production of the Model S sedan by meeting scaled-back production and deliver goals.  If they can increase production and get the cost of the can a bit lower, things may get even better for the fledging electric auto company.

It seems to me like Musk has a strong enough vision and drive that he is starting to look something similar to Steve Jobs.  I think it takes this kind of drive and commitment to have any success in this type of technology to the market place endeavor.  Go Elon go!