Intro4u2u

Volkswagen is to adopt Mercedes-Benz’s Bluetec clean-diesel technology in a deal announced at the Los Angeles Auto Show, according to the Detroit News. The Bluetec system, appearing first in the Mercedes-Benz E320 CDI, and ML and GL off-roaders, combines particulate filters with a urea-injection system to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides to harmless hydrogen and water. It will be fitted to other DaimlerChrysler models, including the Dodge Durango and Jeep Grand Cherokee, and will appear in European-market cars by 2008. The first Volkswagen Group model to use Bluetec, however, is expected to be a US-market Audi. The Bluetec-equipped diesels will not go on sale throughout the USA in the immediate future, however, as despite achieving industry-leading emissions results, they do not as yet meet the ultra-stringent emissions regulations in California and four other states which follow the same guidelines.

DaimlerChrysler is further refining the technology, and aims to have Bluetec diesels on sale in all 50 states by 2008 - in time for the Californian legislation to be adopted nationwide in 2009. In the longer term, the Bluetec system will also form the basis of diesel-electric hybrid powertrains.

Nokia plans to offer e-mail and instant messaging from Yahoo on its phones, both companies announced Wednesday.

The rollout will begin with the new Nokia 6300, 5200 and 5300 XpressMusic phones, which will have the capacity to sync with Yahoo contacts, tasks and calendar items, in addition to Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger.

These services will soon be added to many of Nokia’s Series 40 phones as well, according to Nokia.

The announcement expands on an earlier partnership between the two companies. In January, they announced plans to make Yahoo Go Mobile, Yahoo’s mobile Web browser, available on Nokia phones for AT&T and Cingular Wireless customers.

Analysts have been predicting that e-mailing from regular cell phones will become prevalent as the technology and services required for mobile Internet becomes more affordable.

While Nokia remains the No. 1 manufacturer and brand worldwide, the Finland-based company, has not gained much traction in the United States, according to analysts.

Microsoft launched its new Zune portable music player early this month with great fanfare: parties attended by musicians, Zune fanatics, corporate execs and journalists. Maybe they should have invited more salespeople.

Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) launched Zune and its companion online media store on Nov. 14 to compete primarily with Apple Computer’s iPod music player and iTunes store. But an investor note sent Tuesday from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster had some good news for rival Apple: According to his survey of 40 retailers, only 8% recommended Microsoft’s Zune, while 75% recommended Apple’s market-leading iPod. Apple’s recommendation rate increased from 63% last June and 68% last November.

More alarming are some of the responses when Munster’s team asked salespeople about the Zune. “I’ve never heard of the Zune,” one clerk said. “Who makes that (the Zune)?” asked another. Other clerks promoted some of Zune’s features that Apple’s iPod lacks. “The Zune is the same price as the iPod, but it has Wi-Fi and a built-in FM tuner,” said one salesperson. “I love it; I have it and I love it,” another said.

But is it selling? The Zune has fallen on online retailer Amazon.com’s top sales rankings. On Nov. 16, the black Zune was the No. 7 best seller in Amazon’s MP3 player list, according to Munster. By Nov. 20, it fell to no. 13. Today, it ranks No. 21, behind devices from Apple, Creative and SanDisk (nasdaq: SNDK - news - people ); the top five selling devices are all iPods.

Microsoft’s public relations firm didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment on today’s report, but Cesar Menendez, a Microsoft employee working on Zune, posted a few thoughts about sales to his Zune Insider blog on Nov. 21: “I can tell you that we are exactly where we hoped we’d be. That is, without sharing specific numbers after the first week of sales. We’re all looking forward to a successful holiday retail season. We’re also thinking in long term here.”

Munster rates Apple “outperform” with a $99 price target.

The PID control algorithm is used for the control of almost all loops in the process industries, and is also the basis for many advanced control algorithms and strategies. In order for control loops to work properly, the PID loop must be properly tuned. Standard methods for tuning loops and criteria for judging the loop tuning have been used for many years, but should be reevaluated for use on modern digital control systems.

While the basic algorithm has been unchanged for many years and is used in all distributed control systems, the actual digital implementation of the algorithm has changed and differs from one system to another and from commercial equipment to academia.

We will discuss controller tuning methods and criteria. Also discussed will be the digital PID control algorithm, how it works, the various implementation methods and options, and how these affect the operation and tuning of the controller.

Thermodynamics is a branch of physics which deals with the energy and work of a system. Thermodynamics deals only with the large scale response of a system which we can observe and measure in experiments. Small scale gas interactions are described by the kinetic theory of gases. There are three principal laws of thermodynamics which are described on separate slides. Each law leads to the definition of thermodynamic properties which help us to understand and predict the operation of a physical system. We will present some simple examples of these laws and properties for a variety of physical systems, although we are most interested in the thermodynamics of propulsion systems and high speed flows. Fortunately, many of the classical examples involve gas dynamics. Unfortunately, the numbering system for the three laws of thermodynamics is a bit confusing. We begin with the zeroth law.

The zeroth law of thermodynamics begins with a simple definition of thermodynamic equilibrium . It is observed that some property of an object, like the pressure in a volume of gas, the length of a metal rod, or the electrical conductivity of a wire, can change when the object is heated or cooled. If two of these objects are brought into physical contact there is initially a change in the property of both objects. But, eventually, the change in property stops and the objects are said to be in thermal, or thermodynamic, equilibrium. Thermodynamic equilibrium leads to the large scale definition of temperature. When two objects are in thermal equilibrium they are said to have the same temperature. During the process of reaching thermal equilibrium, heat, which is a form of energy, is transferred between the objects. The details of the process of reaching thermal equilibrium are described in the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

The zeroth law of thermodynamics is an observation. When two objects are separately in thermodynamic equilibrium with a third object, they are in equilibrium with each other. As an illustration, suppose we have three objects as shown on the slide. Object #1 and object #2 are in physical contact and in thermal equilibrium. Object #2 is also in thermal equilibrium with object #3. There is initially no physical contact between object #1 and object #3. But, if object #1 and object #3 are brought into contact, it is observed that they are in thermal equilibrium. This simple observation allows us to create a thermometer. We can calibrate the change in a thermal property, such as the length of a column of mercury, by putting the thermometer in thermal equilibrium with a known physical system at several reference points. Celsius thermometers have the reference points fixed at the freezing and boiling point of pure water. If we then bring the thermometer into thermal equilibrium with any other system, such as the bottom of your tongue, we can determine the temperature of the other system by noting the change in the thermal property. Objects in thermodynamic equilibrium have the same temperature.Thermodynamics (from the Greek thermos meaning heat and dynamics meaning power) is a branch of physics that studies the effects of changes in temperature, pressure, and volume on physical systems at the macroscopic scale by analyzing the collective motion of their particles using statistics Roughly, heat means “energy in transit” and dynamics relates to “movement”; thus, in essence thermodynamics studies the movement of energy and how energy instills movement. Historically, thermodynamics developed out of the need to increase the efficiency of early steam engines.
Typical thermodynamic system - heat moves from hot (boiler) to cold (condenser) and work is extracted.
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Typical thermodynamic system - heat moves from hot (boiler) to cold (condenser) and work is extracted.

The starting point for most thermodynamic considerations are the laws of thermodynamics, which postulate that energy can be exchanged between physical systems as heat or work.[4] They also postulate the existence of a quantity named entropy, which can be defined for any system.[5] In thermodynamics, interactions between large ensembles of objects are studied and categorized. Central to this are the concepts of system and surroundings. A system is composed of particles, whose average motions define its properties, which in turn are related to one another through equations of state. Properties can be combined to express internal energy and thermodynamic potentials, which are useful for determining conditions for equilibrium and spontaneous processes.

With these tools, thermodynamics describes how systems respond to changes in their surroundings. This can be applied to a wide variety of topics in science and engineering, such as engines, phase transitions, chemical reactions, transport phenomena, and even black holes. The results of thermodynamics are essential for other fields of physics and for chemistry, chemical engineering, cell biology, biomedical engineering, and materials science to name a few

When the Suharto government announced plans to build Indonesia’s first nuclear reactor in 1993, researchers at the Australian National University began work.

They ran a meteorological model to study what would happen if a nuclear accident occurred at the proposed facility, which was to be located at the foot of Mount Muria on Java’s northern coast.

Their conclusion: countries in South-east Asia, particularly Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Thailand, would be swathed in radioactive fallout.

The north of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland would suffer the same fate.

Researchers John Taylor and Drew Whitehouse said that the release of a radioactive gas could reach northern Australia within days if it occurred during the summer months.

As it turned out, Jakarta shelved those plans.

But recent months have seen Indonesia and other Asian countries renewing their interest in nuclear power.

The nuclear renaissance is being driven by intense pressure worldwide to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy costs and secure stable supplies of energy.

Indonesia has an US$8 billion (S$12.4 billion) plan to build four 1,000 megawatt plants by 2016. Vietnam recently announced plans to install two nuclear reactors by 2020. Malaysia is also interested, according to a Bernama report.

Last week, a high-level panel in Australia proposed that nuclear power could be delivered to the national grid in 10 to 15 years.

Much of the interest centres around three advantages of nuclear power: it uses relatively abundant energy sources like uranium, it lowers the cost of electricity generation, and it slashes greenhouse gas emissions.

Nuclear plants entail massive financial investments, but once in operation, churn out electricity at much lower prices.

In Germany, for example, nuclear power from existing plants costs 1-1/2 US cents per kilowatt-hour - at least 50 per cent less than alternatives like natural gas and coal.

Indonesia has cited all these in its drive to go nuclear.

According to the Australian Uranium Association - a trade grouping - Asia is building 14 reactors and has more than 60 planned or proposed for coming years. The biggest growth is in South Korea, China, India and Japan.

In total, Asia now operates 107 reactors.

Its rush towards nuclear power was given official sanction recently.

In a report earlier this month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) - an advisory body to 26 industrialised nations - urged governments to build more nuclear plants to slow climate change and bolster energy security.

It was the first time that the agency had backed nuclear power in such strong terms.

‘The economics have moved in nuclear power’s favour,’ the report said. ‘Nuclear power offers considerable advantages in terms of avoiding greenhouse gas emissions and of energy security.’

Advocates are now rubbing their hands in glee.

Leading French nuclear firm Areva has forecast 130 new plants by 2030 - a huge jump over the 440 reactors in the world now.

‘The change in position of IEA is a very significant sign of a general renewed interest in nuclear power throughout the world,’ Professor Bertrand Barre, Areva’s scientific consultant, told The Straits Times.

He should know. Areva is building a cutting-edge reactor in Finland, touted to be much safer than existing nuclear plants. Only one other country, France, has similar plans for such a plant.

But with lingering memories of nuclear accidents such as the United States’ Three Mile Island incident in 1979 and the former Soviet Union’s Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the global nuclear industry still has some hills to climb.

In Asia, the concerns may be summed up this way: If accidents have happened there, how do less-developed countries like Indonesia and Vietnam prevent disasters?

Environmental groups have pointed out the danger of placing a nuclear plant at Indonesia’s Mount Muria - a dormant volcano located in an area subject to earthquakes.

Some Australian observers, citing experts from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, note that there have been safety breaches in Indonesia - though this has not been confirmed officially.

Dr Jim Green, of Friends of the Earth Australia, told The Straits Times: ‘There are serious, unanswered questions as to the safety standards applied in Indonesia’s nuclear industry, which is currently centred around the operation of a sizeable research reactor.’

Greenpeace campaigner Jan Vande Putte said countries like Indonesia and Vietnam lack the necessary industrial and technological base of existing nuclear states.

‘If newcomers want to join the nuclear club, there is a risk that they will be almost entirely dependent on foreign expertise and the state itself will have an almost non-existent capacity to control the industry,’ he told The Straits Times.

Vietnam and Indonesia would also face the tricky problem of nuclear waste disposal - an issue that continues to dog even more advanced South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

A key worry about nuclear power is proliferation.

Last month, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed El-Baradei said countries would be tempted to develop nuclear bombs.

Between 20 and 30 countries have the capacity to develop nuclear weapons fairly quickly, he told a Vienna conference.

In the restive Middle East, six Arab countries - Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates - have announced plans to go nuclear.

Analysts say the move could be a ’security hedge’ against Iran’s illicit nuclear programme - a situation which finds an Asian parallel in North Korea.

Speaking against nuclear power, former US vice-president and now green evangelist Al Gore said that proliferation risks were the most significant bugbear of the nuclear industry next to heavy investment costs and long construction times.

While the proliferation scenario sounds alarming, not all experts buy the idea.

Ultimately, they say, the decision to develop nuclear weapons is a political one.

Said Areva’s Professor Barre: ‘Proliferation is 99.9 per cent political. Countries develop nuclear weapons for status, security or competition.’

The draft of China’s first energy law, which will shape the country’s energy policies, will be completed by the end of the year, sources with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said yesterday.

The law will paint broad brush strokes and not delve into details of each sector in the industry, according to experts.

A team led by the NDRC and comprising 15 ministry-level departments was set up at the beginning of this year to frame the law.

It will override current industry laws such as the Electricity Law and the Coal Law, and serve as a guideline for the legislation of any future laws on a certain energy sector, said Zhou Dadi, a researcher with the Energy Research Institute affiliated to the NDRC.

“It will be like a ‘constitution’ for the energy industry,” Zhou said, adding that the preliminary draft will be completed by the end of next month.

Though the details of the draft are unknown, media reports have said that it would be a comprehensive law covering resource exploitation, production and transportation, consumption, and conservation.

At a recent discussion, energy experts called for the law, which may take up to two years to be passed, to define regulations for foreign acquisitions and set up an umbrella body to approve all energy projects, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Energy security will be an important component, experts said.

Chen Shouhai, a professor at China University of Petroleum, said the law will underscore the necessity of strategic reserves of important energy sources such as oil.

“The energy law will help facilitate promulgation of a series of new laws in the industry,” he said.

Han Xiaoping, president of the China Energy website (china5e.com), agreed. “The law, given its significance, will help break down the barriers between different interest groups in the energy field.”

Han suggested using the country’s huge foreign reserves, about US$1 trillion, to build up a strategic reserve.

China now has four energy laws, covering the coal, electric power, energy conservation and renewable energy sectors.

Guangdong’s economic output will exceed 2.5 trillion yuan this year, according to the latest official forecast, raising the possibility that annual gross domestic product growth will come in at 15.2 per cent, 2.7 percentage points higher than last year’s figure.

Governor Huang Huahua said the growth rate from January to October was 14.1 per cent and he predicted the province’s GDP would exceed 2.5 trillion yuan this year, with total imports and exports reaching US$500 billion - 30 per cent of the national total, the China Business News reported.

It also quoted Vice-Governor Zhong Yangsheng as saying that Guangdong’s economy might top Taiwan’s in 2008 then South Korea’s in 2015. Taiwan’s gross domestic product was about US$340 billion last year, or roughly 2.72 trillion yuan.

Experts said the growth was the result of strong fixed-asset investment, especially in rural eastern and western areas during the past few years.

“The government has continually invested in huge projects in the western, eastern and northern parts of the province, and those [projects] obviously supported the growth,” said Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences researcher Cheng Jiansan .

“In countryside cities such as Qingyuan and Heyuan the [GDP] growth rate is about 20 per cent to 30 per cent, which is much higher than the Pearl River Delta’s and the provincial average,” the researcher said. “But the final official GDP figure won’t be announced before the third quarter of 2007, so it will be no surprise if there is a change of one percentage point.”

Experts said there were no signs of serious overheating, although industrial and real estate investments were a little hot. However, they expressed doubts about the sustainability of the growth.

“I personally predict that the growth will be high, in the double digits for at least three to four years. But after 2010 it might stabilise and not grow as fast as these years,” Mr Cheng said.

He said the growth mainly depended on government control and he doubted that the market had a strong influence on it.

“The [Guangdong] government’s hand on the economy was strong while the market’s activities were not so clear,” he said. “So the key point is not how big the figures will be but what kind of growth we have now and whether it is sustainable or not.”

Experts have warned that environmental and energy restrictions as well as the shortage of labour might slow economic growth if Guangdong is unable to improve its industrial structure.

Wang Xi , a finance expert from Sun Yat-sen University, said the appreciation of the yuan might also be a threat. “Exports contribute a lot to [Guangdong's] fast growth, but the strengthening of the yuan will be a great disadvantage,” Dr Wang said.

Australian-based oil and gas exploration company Baraka Petroleum and its partner, Chinese state energy giant China National Petroleum Corporation, have hit gas at an exploration well onshore Mauritania, Baraka said on Tuesday. The Heron-1 well at Block 20 encountered gas shows at 1,857-1875 meters in interbedded sandstones and shales, the company said. The drilling of Heron-1 is expected to take approximately three months to complete to a depth of 3,800 meters and will include four casing strings. A local CNPC subsidiary is the operator of the block with a 65% stake, with Baraka holding the remaining 35%. Drilling began at Heron-1 in October. In late 2005, CNPC said it had seen “encouraging” seismic signs at the country’s coastal basins, 140km (85 miles) south of Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott. The exploration deal was signed between CNPC and the Mauritanian government in March 2005. According to Aly Ould Sidi Mohamed, the Mauritanian minister of oil, this is the first onshore drilling in Mauritania, which began producing oil from its offshore field at Chinguetti in February this year. At a formal ceremony to kick off the drilling boring in October, Ould Sidi Mohamed said prospecting “can open great development prospects for the country in the event of oil or gas discoveries”. CNPC has also three other prospecting permits in the country. Oil-hungry China was the first customer of Mauritania’s offshore oil produced by the Australia’s Woodside, last March, just a month after it started pumping crude oil.

Natural gas is the way forward for Southeast Asia to combat not only high oil prices, but a permanent decline in global oil output as well, said an executive at an oil and gas information and forecasting service.

The region should seriously look into building new and expanding existing logistics infrastructure required for gas transportation while at the same time reduce its dependence on oil as its main energy source, Michael R. Smith, chief executive of U.K.-based Energyfiles Ltd., said.

Regional oil production is expected to hit a plateau of 3.2 million barrels a day in 2012, or 3.6% of global oil production, before beginning its permanent decline.

“There are just fewer and smaller undiscovered oil and gas fields available, while the giant old fields that provide the bulk of the oil we use today are mature and depleting,” Smith said.

Gas production, on the other hand, will continue to rise, reaching around 90 million to 95 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2030 from “just over 50 million BOE a day” currently, he added.

Southeast Asia has increasingly turned to gas after oil prices continued to escalate before hitting a record high of $77 a barrel in mid-July.

But more has to be done.

The region, estimated to be consuming around 2.25 million BOE a day of gas in 2006, will only increase its consumption marginally, reaching 2.8 million to 2.9 million BOE in 2011, Smith forecasted.

One of the things the region lacks is pipeline infrastructure.

Pipelines aside, Smith also pointed out that the public and private transportation systems in the region have to reduce their dependence on oil as their power source.

He estimated that the regional transportation system could be consuming up to 85% of its total oil requirement at the moment.

Public transport will switch to gas-generated electricity, if it has not done so.

“Automobile transport in the short-term is unlikely to change, but in the long run, it will have to change.”

“Reducing oil vulnerability is essential for Southeast Asia, as it is for all oil importing countries,” said Smith, who will be speaking at the biannual Offshore Southeast Asia conference, better known as OSEA, in Singapore between Dec. 5 and 8.