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Daily Archives: April 26, 2014

The Forever Battery – Brainchild of Older Gen Silicon Valley Team

Via Nextgov: “Imergy Power Systems’ headquarters in an office park in one of Silicon Valley’s less glamorous precincts is the type of place where the future used to be invented. There are no Beats headphones-wearing 20-somethings on scooters. No foosball tables, rooftop beer garden or ironically named conference rooms. No birdhouses. Just a sea of drab, blue-gray cubicles. The median employee age appears to be around that of the typical software engineer who files an age-discrimination lawsuit. There are scientists wearing white lab coats. Some have white hair. The chief executive is 61 – that’s 120 in Silicon Valley years. Needless to say, Imergy is not developing the next $19 billion app that Facebook will acquire, but the startup could end up powering Facebook. Imergy has spent years perfecting an energy storage device that, if it lives up to its billing, will help accelerate the big green future by allowing companies and homeowners to pull the plug on their local utility by banking electricity from solar arrays and wind farms for use when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. A 250-kilowatt battery system installed in a 40-foot container, for instance, could store solar energy from the rooftop arrays of a 40-home neighborhood for later use. This magic box is called a Vanadium redox flow battery. The heart of a flow battery are two electrolyte solutions – one positive, one negative – contained in separate tanks. When the solutions are pumped through a power cell containing a membrane, a chemical reaction takes place that generates electricity. When the process is reversed, the electrolyte stores energy…”

 

Banning Foreign Pharmacies from Sponsored Search: The Online Consumer Response

Chesnes, Matthew and Dai, Weijia and Jin, Ginger Zhe, Banning Foreign Pharmacies from Sponsored Search: The Online Consumer Response (April 16, 2014). Federal Trade Commission Working Paper No. 321. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2428990 “Increased competition from the Internet has raised a concern of product quality for online prescription drugs. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibits… Continue Reading

SIGAR Reports Calls Out 3 Largest Recipients of State Dept. Afghan Aid

Via POGO: “The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) just released a top-level analysis of State Department reconstruction funding in Afghanistan. SIGAR found that State has obligated nearly $4 billion for Afghanistan reconstruction between the beginning of fiscal year 2002 and March 2013, more than two-thirds of which ($2.8 billion, or 69 percent) will go to… Continue Reading

Global Thought Leaders 2013

“Who are the thought leaders shaping today’s discourse on the future of society and the economy? Whose ideas are defining and changing our lives? Where is the impetus for innovation and social change coming from? Working together with Peter Gloor, GDI now presents the second “Global Thought Leader Map“, and the resulting “influence rank”, which… Continue Reading

FCC Changed Course on Network Neutrality

By Barbara van Schewick on April 25, 2014    “Wednesday’s press reports of the new network neutrality rules proposed by FCC Chairman Wheeler have been met with anger and confusion. According to the Wall Street Journal, “[r]egulators are proposing new rules on Internet traffic that would allow broadband providers to charge companies a premium for access to their fastest… Continue Reading