Prospects for district heating in the United States

Large-scale district heating, using waste heat rejected by electric power plants and other sources, is presented as a means of reducing significantly the amount of fossil fuel consumed for residential and commercial space and water heating in the United States. Analysis of the technical and economic aspects of model district heating systems for nine U.S. urban areas shows that district heat service to residential and commercial consumers would be economically attractive. Projections of national service levels show that up to half of the U.S. population could be served by district heating at costs that are competitive with the present costs of imported oil and also with projected costs of new energy forms. An advantage of district heat over the latter is that it is a proved, simple technology.     

Liquid fuels from coal: from R & d to an industry

On the basis of current U.S. oil imports, room now exists for a U.S. coal liquids industry. Unfortunately, technology is not available which can produce coal liquids at a price competitive with imported oil. Direct liquefaction technology is under development, but the prospects are that the technology will not be economic at the time the pioneer commercial plant should be constructed to provide the foundation for a possible coal liquids industry in the 1990's. Government support of coal liquefaction R & D has created the conditions that make possible the development of the technology, and probably government incentives for pioneer plants will be needed. With the proper incentives pioneer plants will lead to lower costs, and this, plus rising prices, will create the conditions necessary to develop a multiplant industry.     

Science's Role in the World Health Organization

One hears often of the financial contributions made by the United States to the support of activities within the U.N. system, but much less frequently about benefits obtained. A particular instance of the latter is worth citing. An analysis was recently made by N.W. Axnick and J.M. Lane (3) of the costs associated with the protection of the United States against smallpox in 1968. This was estimated to be $153.8 million, of which $0.7 million was contributed to WHO specially earmarked for its smallpox eradication program, and $3 million in U.S. bilateral assistance to 19 countries in West Africa. Ihe success of the WHO-directed smallpox eradication program throughout the world has resulted in a 1972 decision by U.S. authorities to discontinue routine vaccination of the general population and of smallpox vaccination requirements for international travel to smallpox-free countries, which was estimated to involve economic costs of $135.7 million during 1968. The total current U.S. contribution (1972) to all activities of WHO is $27.6 million. Thus it will be seen that very substantial savings, probably exceding $100 million annually, wili accrue to the United States from the work of WHO on smallpox alone.     

Genomics. Public-private project to deliver mouse genome in 6 months

Research on the mouse genome lurched into the fast lane last week, as private donors joined the U.S. government to step on the gas. A public-private consortium announced on 6 October that it's kicking $58 million into a new fund that will pay to sequence the DNA of the "black six" (C57BL/6J) strain of laboratory mouse. The consortium aims to produce a draft version of the genome by the end of February.     

Production of feedstock chemicals

Renewable raw materials may be converted by biological means to feedstocks for the chemical industry. Glucose from cornstarch is the current choice as a substrate, although advances may enable the use of less expensive lignocellulosic materals. The production of oxychemicals and their derivatives from renewable resources could amount to about 100 billion pounds annually, or about half of the U.S. production of organic chemicals. Ethanol produced by fermentation is now cost-competitive with industral ethanol produced from fossil fuel. Biological routes to other oxychemicals exist and are expected to be important in the future. Several product recovery methods may be used, but new energy-conserving methods will be needed to make the engineering-biology combinations economical.     

Impending United States energy crisis

The U.S. oil and gas industry has been dramatically weakened by the recent oil price collapse. Domestic drilling activity reached a new post-World War II low during the summer of 1986. Given a weak, unstable oil price outlook, U.S. capability will continue to deteriorate. In the last year U.S. imports of foreign oil have risen significantly, and if market forces alone dominate, U.S. dependence is expected to rise from 32% in 1983 to the 50 to 70% level in the not-too-distant future. The 1973 oil embargo and the subsequent attempts to improve U.S. energy security vividly demonstrated the huge costs and long periods of time required to change our energy system. These facts, coupled with the nation's generally short-term orientation, suggest a strong likelihood of a new U.S. energy crisis in the early to middle 1990s.     

美国农产品补贴新机制与展望

2014年美国实施新《农场法》,改革后的农产品补贴和作物保险政策对稳定农产品生产和农民收入具有决定性意义。预计今后美国农产品补贴制度将继续表现出稳定性、机制化、政治化的特征。同时,美国农产品补贴制度改革将继续维持补贴资金总量维持高位、补贴结构从价格支持向作物保险补贴转变、注重提高补贴效率的趋势。美国农产品补贴政策对于世界农业补贴制度与农产品价格的影响不容忽视。     

The economic impact of AIDS in the United States

This analysis of several previous studies of the cost of AIDS suggests that the lifetime cost of medical care per patient will not exceed +80,000, an amount similar to the cost of treating other serious illnesses. If current projections of future AIDS cases are accurate, the cumulative lifetime costs of 270,000 cases diagnosed between 1981 and the end of 1991 will not exceed +22 billion. This amount is small compared with total U.S. medical spending. The economic impact of AIDS on San Francisco, New York, and some other cities, however, is likely to be more serious. The AIDS epidemic will also highlight the financial problems of Americans who face large medical bills without adequate insurance.     

SCIENCE EDUCATION: Ehlers Bill Wins Bipartisan Backing

A House panel has unanimously endorsed a major bipartisan initiative to improve math and science education in U.S. elementary and secondary schools. The bill would authorize nearly $100 million a year for several new programs to be run by the National Science Foundation, a sizable addition to its current $275 million budget for precollege education.     

Human food from ocean and land

The figures in Table 1 yield some interesting results. The total annual value of food and mineral resources taken from the ocean is $8.3 billion, in contrast to $309 billion from the land. Using the land value as the yardstick, if the annual value of produce from the ocean were in ratio to the area relationship of ocean and land, the ocean potential would be $750 billion; the actual recovery for 1964 was only 1.1 percent of that potential. This very low percentage is the basis for either great optimism for the future development of the ocean (on the basis of unrealized potential), or great pessimism (on the basis of high costs compared with further development of land resources, or present exploitation to near the limit of productivity).     

MATERIALS SCIENCE: Armenia Wants Second Mideast Synchrotron

Middle Eastern scientists who for years have been yearning for a synchrotron may wind up with two. Last spring, SESAME (Synchrotron Radiation for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East), an 11-nation consortium formed to install and operate a first-generation synchrotron now mothballed in Germany, selected Jordan as the site of the 0.8 giga-electron-volt BESSY-I synchrotron, disappointing Armenian officials who had hoped to snare the prize. But this month Armenia moved to the head of the line for a second, brand-new synchrotron after securing a $15 million down payment from the U.S. Congress as part of a foreign-aid spending bill that would funnel $90 million to the country.     

未来5年中国猪肉市场形势展望

受2013年能繁母猪存栏保持高位影响,2014年上半年猪肉产量和进口量分别增3.0%和9.2%,同时消费低于预期,导致生猪和猪肉价格连续4个月下跌并创近3年来新低,未来猪价将进入新的周期。未来5年中国猪肉产量年均增速为2.1%,到2018年猪肉产量将达到6 080万t,消费量将达到6 130万t。受生产成本上涨和生产周期影响,未来2年猪肉价格将处于上涨周期。猪肉进口量将稳中有增,到2018年达到70万t左右。养殖效率、疫病、国际市场和生态环境等因素将影响未来猪肉市场形势。     

Policy. OPV cessation--the final step to a "polio-free" world

The 20-year, U.S. $4 billion-dollar international effort to eradicate wild polioviruses now includes monovalent oral poliovirus type 1 vaccine (mOPV1), which was first given to 40 million children in India in April 2005. As this vaccine is being introduced to eliminate some of the last poliovirus reservoirs, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative is planning for the eventual synchronized worldwide cessation of the routine use of all oral poliovirus vaccines (OPVs) because of their capacity to cause, rarely, outbreaks of paralytic poliomyelitis. This Policy Forum reviews the feasibility and implications of eventually stopping the use of live polio vaccines.     

Food production and the energy crisis

The principal raw material of modern U.S. agriculture is fossil fuel, whereas the labor input is relatively small (about 9 hours per crop acre). As agriculture is dependent upon fossil energy, crop production costs will also soar when fuel costs increase two- to fivefold. A return of 2.8 kcal of corn per 1 kcal of fuel input may then be uneconomical. Green revolution agriculture also uses high energy crop production technology, especially with respect to fertilizers and pesticides. While one may not doubt the sincerity of the U.S. effort to share its agricultural technology so that the rest of the world can live and eat as it does, one must be realistic about the resources available to accomplish this mission. In the United States we are currently using an equivalent of 80 gallons of gasoline to produce an acre of corn. With fuel shortages and high prices to come, we wonder if many developing nations will be able to afford the technology of U.S. agriculture. Problems have already occurred with green revolution crops, particularly problems related to pests (57). More critical problems are expected when there is a world energy crisis. A careful assessment should be made of the benefits, costs, and risks of high energy-demand green revolution agriculture in order to be certain that this program will not aggravate the already serious world food situation (58). To reduce energy inputs, green revolution and U.S. agriculture might employ such alternatives as rotations and green manures to reduce the high energy demand of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. U.S. agriculture might also reduce energy expenditures by substituting some manpower currently displaced by mechanization. While no one knows for certain what changes will have to be made, we can be sure that when conventional energy resources become scarce and expensive, the impact on agriculture as an industry and a way of life will be significant. This analysis is but a preliminary investigation of a significant agricultural problem that deserves careful attention and greater study before the energy situation becomes more critical.     

Biomaterials. New Chinese biochip center straddles business, academe

Last month, U.S.-trained entrepreneur and researcher Cheng Jing was named head of a new, two-pronged biochip venture here that will be highly unusual even for China, which has been experimenting with academic-industrial arrangements in recent years. One part is a for-profit company backed by $48 million from a combination of national and academic partners and overseas venture capital. The second piece is a nonprofit national center with nearly $10 million in research funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology.     

Steel recycling and energy conservation

The potential for energy conservation through increased use of steel scrap by the U.S. steel industry is examined. It is concluded that increased use of scrap would reduce energy use, but it is not economical, due mainly to volatile scrap prices. Other energy-saving technologies exist, but it is likely that energy will be conserved through reduced use of steel as rising energy costs are passed through to consumers.     

Solar energy utilization by physical methods

On the basis of the estimated contributions of these differing methods of the utilization of solar energy, their total energy delivery impact on the projected U.S. energy economy (9) can be evaluated (Fig. 5). Despite this late energy impact, the actual sales of solar energy utilization equipment will be significant at an early date. Potential sales in photovoltaic arrays alone could exceed $400 million by 1980, in order to meet the projected capacity buildup (10). Ultimately, the total energy utilization equipment industry should attain an annual sales volume of several tens of billion dollars in the United States, comparable to that of several other energy related industries. Varying amounts of technology development are required to assure the technical and economic feasibility of the different solar energy utilization methods. Several of these developments are far enough along that the paths can be analyzed from the present time to the time of demonstration of technical and economic feasibility, and from there to production and marketing readiness. After that point, a period of market introduction will follow, which will differ in duration according to the type of market addressed. It may be noted that the present rush to find relief from the current energy problem, or to be an early leader in entering a new market, can entail shortcuts in sound engineering practice, particularly in the areas of design for durability and easy maintenance, or of proper application engineering. The result can be loss of customer acceptance, as has been experienced in the past with various products, including solar water heaters. Since this could cause considerable delay in achieving the expected total energy impact, it will be important to spend adequate time at this stage for thorough development. Two other aspects are worth mentioning. The first is concerned with the economic impacts. Upon reflection on this point, one will observe that largescale solar energy utilization will not cause a greater impact than other new energy sources, based on the reasoning that a self-consistent set of conditions will have to be fulfilled in order to achieve such large-scale use. Without cost competitiveness, other energy resources would fill the requirements, or, if their resource and cost structure also would create severe problems, the economic forecasts simply cannot be fulfilled. We also should not think of a "solar-only" energy future. First, there is still enough coal to last for several hundred years. Second, there should be enough fissionable fuel available to operate breeder reactors for a similar time span, and geothermal energy could satisfy some requirements for a long time. And finally, there may be fusion. It would be unlikely that any one of the available options should play a really dominant role. Rather, we should expect to be using an energy mix, just as we do now, with each energy source supplying the requirements which it can satisfy in the most suitable way, and solar energy should play an important role in this long-range future.     

RESEARCH COSTS: Canada to Begin Funding Overhead on Projects

Last week federal Finance Minister Paul Martin announced a $268 million outlay for future equipment awards provided by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), a $1.3 billion entity created in 1997 to rejuvenate labs in universities and research hospitals. The money is the first direct federal outlay for overhead costs, which up to now have been met by a combination of provincial operating grants to universities and federal transfer payments for postsecondary education. School administrators say it meets a desperate need.     

性诱剂监测邵阳烟区斜纹夜蛾的发生动态

为探明邵阳烟区斜纹夜蛾的为害规律及影响诱蛾效果的关键气象因子,2015~2017 年在湖南省邵阳县利用性诱剂对斜纹夜蛾进行了三年的诱捕监测,并对诱蛾量与气象因子进行了相关性分析。结果表明,在邵阳烟区斜纹夜蛾发生高峰为5月上旬至7月下旬,6月中下旬达到最大值。诱蛾量与气象因子相关因子分析表明,斜纹夜蛾诱蛾量与日平均气温、日最高气温、日最低气温极显著相关,即斜纹夜蛾诱蛾量随气温的升高而增多。因此,在邵阳烟区斜纹夜蛾的防治最佳时期在5至7月,在此期间如遇干旱高温天气,斜纹夜蛾繁殖生长速度将加快,群体数量将增加,应当加强对斜纹夜蛾的防治力度,一方面增加性诱剂安置密度,另一方面科学的使用化学农药,从而达到防治目的。     

十九世纪后半叶的美国农业

十九世纪后半叶是美国近代农业发展的前半期。本文从史学和农业经济学的角度分析了美国农业在这一时期所发生的一些重要变化、促进这些变化的因素和我们可以借鉴的一些经验。