3) The Biggest Jolt to Power Since Franklin Flew His Kite

By BARNABY J. FEDER , New York Times , April 27, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/science/27COND.html?ex=1084084012&ei=1&en=569cc70f67f089a5

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. - In a onetime printing plant on the edge
of this tattered manufacturing city, a small company named
Superpower churns out sample after sample of what looks
like shiny metal tape.

The tape has five layers. The middle one, a ceramic film
one-tenth as thick as a human hair, exhibits one of
nature's most tantalizing tricks. At very low temperatures,
the ceramic abruptly loses all resistance to electrical
current.

That free-flowing current generates a strong magnetic
field, a feature that Superpower technicians demonstrate by
showing visitors how a thumbnail-size magnet floats half an
inch or so above a ribbon of chilled tape.

Superconductivity, as the phenomenon is known, has
fascinated and baffled scientists since its discovery in
1911. Even now, they have yet to develop a comprehensive
theory to explain its appearance in materials as diverse as
metal and ceramics.

Such scientific conundrums are of only passing interest at
Superpower, a four-year-old subsidiary of Intermagnetics
General, and at other companies like it. After years of
false starts and setbacks, these companies say they are
closing in on the goal of producing relatively inexpensive
superconducting wire for power generators, transformers and
transmission lines.

Success requires making yard after yard of wire, and
eventually mile after mile. The focus at the companies, at
national laboratories and at many universities is on
questions that call for a genius more like Edison than
Einstein.

"We are finding out what works and going with that," said
Dr. Jodi L. Reeves, a senior materials scientist at
Superpower.

Success could spring superconductivity from the modest
niches that it has occupied in fields like medical
diagnostics and give it wide commercial applications. In
addition to cutting costs and raising reliability in
generating and distributing electricity, superconductive
wire could replace copper wire in motors to save space and
cut energy costs in factories and on ships. Railroads might
finally embrace maglev technology, which allows high-speed
trains to ride magnetic fields above superconductive rails.


The alloys used in medical imaging superconduct only at
supercold temperatures, about 450 degrees below zero
Fahrenheit. To reach that point, they have to be cooled by
liquid helium, which is expensive to make and manage.

By contrast, ceramic superconductors work at temperatures
above minus 321 Fahrenheit, allowing them to be cooled by
liquid nitrogen, an inexpensive industrial refrigerant. For
that reason, they are called high-temperature
superconductors, though they are still far from the dream
of a room-temperature superconductor.

The first reports of ceramic superconductors, in 1986,
touched off a global research race to understand them and
find others. The excitement peaked at the annual meeting of
the American Physical Society in March 1987, when thousands
of researchers crowded into a hastily organized midnight
presentation.

That session, later called the Woodstock of physics, ran
for hours as research groups from around the world reported
their successes, sometimes with data updated to include
results just hours old.

For some who were there, it was a life-altering experience.
Dr. Gregory J. Yurek, a professor of materials science and
engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
founded a company called American Superconductor in his
kitchen in Wellesley, Mass., and resigned his tenured
position the next year to work full time on his fledgling
business. Experts from Intermagnetics General, a
manufacturer of superconducting metals that was spun out of
General Electric in 1971, immediately began work on the
materials.

"Superconductivity was guaranteed to be a field where
everything you did would be new," said Dr. Venkat
Selvamanickam, who joined the first wave of research as a
graduate student at the University of Houston, home to one
of the leading high-temperature superconductivity research
groups. He was hired by Intermagnetics in 1996 to lead the
development work that it handed off to Superpower.

Although the United States and other countries have poured
hundreds of millions of dollars into the area, success has
not been quick. Unlike metal superconductors, the ceramic
ones are naturally brittle and powdery. There was no simple
process to transform them into wire.

Moreover, superconductivity in ceramic tape is easily
disrupted by magnetic flux, in which changes in the
magnetic field drift through the superconducting layers of
the tape like swirling weather systems through the
atmosphere. Figuring how to immobilize the magnetic
vortices, an atomic-scale process called pinning, has
emerged as a crucial area for research.

Early ceramic compounds were based on bismuth. The
complexity of manufacturing and the need to rely on silver
substrates to provide a workable mix of strength and
stability to the bismuth compounds kept costs so much
higher than standard copper wires that companies lost
confidence that they could compete in mass markets.

Although bismuth-based wires have been useful for research
and in a few products that help stabilize power grids, the
spotlight has shifted to another compound, a mixture of
yttrium, barium, copper and oxide generally called YBCO
(pronounced IB-co).

YBCO tape cannot yet match bismuth's performance. But it
uses nickel instead of silver as a wire strengthener and
"thin film" technology borrowed from the semiconductor and
photovoltaic industries to deposit the layers of the tape,
which then can be made into wire.

The technology will cut the cost of production up to 80
percent from the first-generation technology, said Dr.
Yurek, whose company is the leading producer of the
bismuth-based wire.

The last steps will not be easy. While the semiconductor
industry works on improving technology to produce ever
thinner films, superconductivity companies chase the
opposite goal, making thicker films to carry more current.

The best available process for depositing YBCO involves
blasting a chunk of it in a vacuum chamber with high-energy
laser pulses and running the tape through the resulting
plume. But pulsed lasers use too much time and money to
produce large quantities of wire. So companies are looking
for other methods.

"There's probably a dozen ways to deposit the
superconductor," said Dr. Dean Peterson, head of the
research program at the Los Alamos National Laboratory,
which has been researching the alternatives and how to
improve them.

As an added complication, technologies under development
are competing to create the substrate under the
superconducting ceramic. Although that material is less
sexy, research indicates that the uniformity and alignment
of the substrate are as crucial to obtaining useful wire as
a foundation is to a house.

As they race toward commercialization, the same question
that attracted materials scientists to the field lurks in
the background. Are better superconductors out there,
waiting to be discovered?

Other links: www.eren.doe.gov/superconductivity/update11_22_02.html

http://techvalleytimes.homestead.com/September-Superpower.html
http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r1/schenectady/nov21_2003.html

4) Artificial photosynthesis for energy production
Prof Stenbjörn Styring, http://www.biokem.lu.se/people/styringstenbjorn.htm

The May 1-7, 2004 issue of New Scientist www.newscientist.com magazine has an article entitled
"Flower Power" on page 28 focusing on Prof Stenbjörn Styring's work.

"A breakthrough in the mystery of how plants derive energy from sunlight
could hold the key to solving the world's energy problems. Researchers are
getting closer to being able to mimic the water-splitting reaction in
photosynthesis. Achieve artificial photosynthesis and you have an unlimited
supply of cheap, clean energy."
-------------------

We try to synthesize metalorganic super complexes that mimic the function of
the natural photosynthetic system. The idea is to use solar energy to take
electrons from water (a never ending electron source) and use these
electrons to produce a valuable reduced fuel like hydrogen or an alcohol.
Our strategy is to use principles from natural Photosystem II and to
synthesize organic, stable compounds that can oxidize water using the energy
in solar light.

A class of complexes is synthesized around the central metal ion Ruthenium
(II) which can be excited by light. These Ru-complexes are linked to
multinuclear Manganese complexes that are built on principles from natural
Photosystem II. We hope to develop chemistry where light oxidizes Ru(II) to
Ru(III) which in its turn shall oxidize the Mn-ions.

The synthesized complexes are studied by EPR spectroscopy at Lund university
and by fast optical spectroscopy at Dept of Physical Chemistry, Uppsala
university. The synthetic work is carried out at the Dept of Organic
Chemistry, KTH Stockholm. The three groups constitute the Consortium for
Studies of Artificial Photosynthesis which is firmly held together by
regular meetings and a large collaborative effort.

Prof Stenbjörn Styring
Dept of Biochemistry, Lund University
P.O. Box 124, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Phone: +46-46 222 8195
Phone: +46 46 222 0108
Fax: +46-46 222 4534
Visiting address:
Kemicentrum, Getingevägen 60, Lund
Stenbjorn. Email: Styring@biokem.lu.se

5) U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in the Sciences

By WILLIAM J. BROAD, New York Times, May 3, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/03/science/03RESE.html?ex=1084597311&ei=1&en=14552e740d254604

The United States has started to lose its worldwide
dominance in critical areas of science and innovation,
according to federal and private experts who point to
strong evidence like prizes awarded to Americans and the
number of papers in major professional journals.

Foreign advances in basic science now often rival or even
exceed America's, apparently with little public awareness
of the trend or its implications for jobs, industry,
national security or the vigor of the nation's intellectual
and cultural life.

"The rest of the world is catching up," said John E.
Jankowski, a senior analyst at the National Science
Foundation, the federal agency that tracks science trends.
"Science excellence is no longer the domain of just the
U.S."

Even analysts worried by the trend concede that an
expansion of the world's brain trust, with new approaches,
could invigorate the fight against disease, develop new
sources of energy and wrestle with knotty environmental
problems. But profits from the breakthroughs are likely to
stay overseas, and this country will face competition for
things like hiring scientific talent and getting space to
showcase its work in top journals.

One area of international competition involves patents.
Americans still win large numbers of them, but the
percentage is falling as foreigners, especially Asians,
have become more active and in some fields have seized the
innovation lead. The United States' share of its own
industrial patents has fallen steadily over the decades and
now stands at 52 percent.

A more concrete decline can be seen in published research.
Physical Review, a series of top physics journals, recently
tracked a reversal in which American papers, in two
decades, fell from the most to a minority. Last year the
total was just 29 percent, down from 61 percent in 1983.

China, said Martin Blume, the journals' editor, has surged
ahead by submitting more than 1,000 papers a year. "Other
scientific publishers are seeing the same kind of thing,"
he added.

Another downturn centers on the Nobel Prizes, an icon of
scientific excellence. Traditionally, the United States,
powered by heavy federal investments in basic research, the
kind that pursues fundamental questions of nature,
dominated the awards.

But the American share, after peaking from the 1960's
through the 1990's, has fallen in the 2000's to about half,
51 percent. The rest went to Britain, Japan, Russia,
Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and New Zealand.

"We are in a new world, and it's increasingly going to be
dominated by countries other than the United States," Denis
Simon, dean of management and technology at the Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, recently said at a scientific
meeting in Washington.

Europe and Asia are ascendant, analysts say, even if their
achievements go unnoticed in the United States. In March,
for example, European scientists announced that one of
their planetary probes had detected methane in the
atmosphere of Mars - a possible sign that alien microbes
live beneath the planet's surface. The finding made
headlines from Paris to Melbourne. But most Americans,
bombarded with images from America's own rovers
successfully exploring the red planet, missed the foreign
news.

More aggressively, Europe is seeking to dominate particle
physics by building the world's most powerful atom smasher,
set for its debut in 2007. Its circular tunnel is 17 miles
around.

Science analysts say Asia's push for excellence promises to
be even more challenging.

"It's unbelievable," Diana Hicks, chairwoman of the school
of public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology,
said of Asia's growth in science and technical innovation.
"It's amazing to see these output numbers of papers and
patents going up so fast."

Analysts say comparative American declines are an
inevitable result of rising standards of living around the
globe.

"It's all in the ebb and flow of globalization," said Jack
Fritz, a senior officer at the National Academy of
Engineering, an advisory body to the federal government. He
called the declines "the next big thing we will have to
adjust to."

The rapidly changing American status has not gone unnoticed
by politicians, with Democrats on the attack and the White
House on the defensive.

"We stand at a pivotal moment," Tom Daschle, the Senate
Democratic leader, recently said at a policy forum in
Washington at the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, the nation's top general science group. "For
all our past successes, there are disturbing signs that
America's dominant position in the scientific world is
being shaken."

Mr. Daschle accused the Bush administration of weakening
the nation's science base by failing to provide enough
money for cutting-edge research.

The president's science adviser, John H. Marburger III, who
attended the forum, strongly denied that charge, saying in
an interview that overall research budgets during the Bush
administration have soared to record highs and that the
science establishment is strong.

"The sky is not falling on science," Dr. Marburger said.
"Maybe there are some clouds - no, things that need
attention." Any problems, he added, are within the power of
the United States to deal with in a way that maintains the
vitality of the research enterprise.

Analysts say Mr. Daschle and Dr. Marburger can both supply
data that supports their positions.

A major question, they add, is whether big spending
automatically translates into big rewards, as it did in the
past. During the cold war, the government pumped more than
$1 trillion into research, with a wealth of benefits
including lasers, longer life expectancies, men on the Moon
and the prestige of many Nobel Prizes.

Today, federal research budgets are still at record highs;
this year more than $126 billion has been allocated to
research. Moreover, American industry makes extensive use
of federal research in producing its innovations and adds
its own vast sums of money, the combination dwarfing that
of any other nation or bloc.

But the edifice is less formidable than it seems, in part
because of the nation's costly and unique military role.
This year, financing for military research hit $66 billion,
higher in fixed dollars than in the cold war and far higher
than in any other country.

For all the spending, the United States began to experience
a number of scientific declines in the 1990's, boom years
for the nation's overall economy.

For instance, scientific papers by Americans peaked in 1992
and then fell roughly 10 percent, the National Science
Foundation reports. Why? Many analysts point to rising
foreign competition, as does the European Commission, which
also monitors global science trends. In a study last year,
the commission said Europe surpassed the United States in
the mid-1990's as the world's largest producer of
scientific literature.

Dr. Hicks of Georgia Tech said that American scientists,
when top journals reject their papers, usually have no idea
that rising foreign competition may be to blame.

On another front, the numbers of new doctorates in the
sciences peaked in 1998 and then fell 5 percent the next
year, a loss of more than 1,300 new scientists, according
to the foundation.

A minor exodus also hit one of the hidden strengths of
American science: vast ranks of bright foreigners. In a
significant shift of demographics, they began to leave in
what experts call a reverse brain drain. After peaking in
the mid-1990's, the number of doctoral students from China,
India and Taiwan with plans to stay in the United States
began to fall by the hundreds, according to the foundation.


These declines are important, analysts say, because new
scientific knowledge is an engine of the American economy
and technical innovation, its influence evident in
everything from potent drugs to fast computer chips.

Patents are a main way that companies and inventors reap
commercial rewards from their ideas and stay competitive in
the marketplace while improving the lives of millions.

Foreigners outside the United States are playing an
increasingly important role in these expressions of
industrial creativity. In a recent study, CHI Research, a
consulting firm in Haddon Heights, N.J., found that
researchers in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea now account
for more than a quarter of all United States industrial
patents awarded each year, generating revenue for their own
countries and limiting it in the United States.

Moreover, their growth rates are rapid. Between 1980 and
2003, South Korea went from 0 to 2 percent of the total,
Taiwan from 0 to 3 percent and Japan from 12 to 21 percent.


"It's not just lots of patents," Francis Narin, CHI's
president, said of the Asian rise. "It's lots of good
patents that have a high impact," as measured by how often
subsequent patents cite them.

Recently, Dr. Narin added, both Taiwan and Singapore surged
ahead of the United States in the overall number of
citations. Singapore's patents include ones in chemicals,
semiconductors, electronics and industrial tools.

China represents the next wave, experts agree, its
scientific rise still too fresh to show up in most
statistics but already apparent. Dr. Simon of Rensselaer
said that about 400 foreign companies had recently set up
research centers in China, with General Electric, for
instance, doing important work there on medical scanners,
which means fewer skilled jobs in America.

Ross Armbrecht, president of the Industrial Research
Institute, a nonprofit group in Washington that represents
large American companies, said businesses were going to
China not just because of low costs but to take advantage
of China's growing scientific excellence.

"It's frightening," Dr. Armbrecht said. "But you've got to
go where the horses are." An eventual danger, he added, is
the slow loss of intellectual property as local
professionals start their own businesses with what they
have learned from American companies.

For the United States, future trends look challenging, many
analysts say.

In a report last month, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science said the Bush administration, to
live up to its pledge to halve the nation's budget deficit
in the next five years, would cut research financing at 21
of 24 federal agencies - all those that do or finance
science except those involved in space and national and
domestic security.

More troubling to some experts is the likelihood of an
accelerating loss of quality scientists. Applications from
foreign graduate students to research universities are down
by a quarter, experts say, partly because of the federal
government's tightening of visas after the 2001 terrorist
attacks.

Shirley Ann Jackson, president of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, told the recent forum
audience that the drop in foreign students, the apparently
declining interest of young Americans in science careers
and the aging of the technical work force were, taken
together, a perilous combination of developments.

"Who," she asked, "will do the science of this millennium?"


Several private groups, including the Council on
Competitiveness, an organization in Washington that seeks
policies to promote industrial vigor, have begun to agitate
for wide debate and action.

"Many other countries have realized that science and
technology are key to economic growth and prosperity," said
Jennifer Bond, the council's vice president for
international affairs. "They're catching up to us," she
said, warning Americans not to "rest on our laurels."