THE MAGAZINE OF TECHNOLOGY INSIDERS 03.09 Disappearing Deterrent THOUSANDS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL SOON BE TOO OLD TO COUNT ON. HERE’S WHY FIXING THEM MAKES MORE SENSE THAN REPLACING THEM

BRINGING PROSTHETIC ARMS INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

YOUR PLUG-IN CAR: NOT SO GREEN AFTER ALL

THE LASER KITTY TEASER AND OTHER PATENT NONSENSE

www.spectrum.ieee.org volume 46 number 3 north american 03.09

UPDATE 11 FUSION FACTORY STARTS UP The US $4 billion National Ignition Facility opens for business. By Willie D. Jones

12 WILL WASHINGTON KICK-START THE U.S. BATTERY BIZ?

14 GAMING IN THE CLOUDS

15 A STOWAWAY MISSION TO THE MOON

16 SIGN LANGUAGE BY CELLPHONE

18 THE BIG PICTURE Here’s a big shocker!

OPINION 7 SPECTRAL LINES In hard times, Google has lots of money for tilting at windmills.

10 FORUM Readers offer feedback on our January Winners & Losers—and a solution to RepRap’s self-reproduction problems.

18 25 REFLECTIONS Upgrading to a new computer is A LITTLE COVER STORY a necessary evil. By Robert W. Lucky TURBULENCE: By zapping model aircraft, 26 WHAT ABOUT DEPARTMENTS Lightning 4 BACK STORY Technologies is THE NUKES? An article in this issue has roots in the helping engineers The United States has added no new warheads to its nuclear arsenal meeting of two geeky kids 30 years ago. protect electronic in more than two decades. As the existing stockpile ages, a debate now systems on 6 CONTRIBUTORS real aircraft rages over how best to maintain its safety, reliability, and effectiveness from storms. as a deterrent. By Francis Slakey & Benn Tannenbaum 20 HANDS ON Building your own fusion reactor is 32 THE DEATH OF easier than you think. By Paul Wallich COVER: BUSINESS-METHOD PATENTS CAREERS BRYAN CHRISTIE 22 Working abroad can make you A U.S. appellate court has ended the decadelong run of the business- DESIGN a better engineer. By Susan Karlin THIS PAGE: method patent, and none too soon. By Steven J. Frank BOB O’CONNOR 23 It’s time for baseball—and 36 OPEN ARMS aerodynamics. By Susan Karlin Prosthetic-arm development needs to go open source. BOOKS By Jonathan Kuniholm 23 Technology is changing our brains. By Susan Karlin 42 HOW GREEN IS MY PLUG-IN? 24 How upstart IBM came to rule the The carbon footprint of a plug-in hybrid or a purely electric car video-game market. By Steven Cherry depends on the grid used to recharge it. By John Voelcker 24 TOOLS & TOYS The modern laser is the perfect stylus for 46 STOP THAT TRAIN your old vinyl albums. By Mark Anderson A simple electromechanical braking system is ready to replace the 68 THE DATA Rube Goldberg brakes that have been in use on freight trains for more In the rush to develop green technologies, than a century. You’d think the transition would be quick and easy. let’s not forget old-fashioned You’d be wrong. By Robb Mandelbaum cogeneration. By Prachi Patel-Predd

WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG MARCH 2009 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 1 volume 46 number 3 north american 03.09

WWW.IEEE.ORG/ THEINSTITUTE AVAILABLE 6 MARCH ON THE INSTITUTE ONLINE IEEE MEDAL OF HONOR GOES TO DRAM DEVELOPER IEEE Life Fellow Robert H. Dennard is this year’s recipient of the IEEE Medal of Honor, for his invention of single- transistor dynamic random-access memory and for developing scaling principles for integrated circuits. DRAM has become the standard for RAM and is used in most computers today.

LEFT: KIM SHIFLETT/ NASA; RIGHT: MATTHEW NAGER WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG AVAILABLE 1 MARCH ON SPECTRUM ONLINE SEEKING “TREASURES HIDDEN IN THE HEAVENS” The quest to answer the age-old question of whether there are other planets like ours will continue this month. NASA’s Kepler spacecraft [above] is scheduled to launch on 5 March from Cape Canaveral. The new planet hunter, which can observe 100 000 stars simultaneously, BUZZ PATROL will explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems and seek IEEE Member Alan Eynon is a mild- Earth-like planets in or near the habitable zone—the distance from a mannered signal-processing engineer, star where liquid water can exist on a planet’s surface. but his beekeeping hobby keeps people abuzz. PUBLIC VISIBILITY ONLINE FEATURES: ALSO ONLINE: PICKS UP STEAM PROGRAMMING FOR THE CLOUD: • Webcasts Ten months into IEEE’s Public Visibility Game developers are excited about • Podcasts Initiative, the program has attracted the possibilities of off-loading graphics • News news coverage in 10 countries and rendering to a supercomputer. • Blogs unveiled a revamped newsroom. Plus, • Videos THE THREE-WAY BATTLE: more and more members are signing • Jobs Texas Instruments, 3M, and Microvision are up to be IEEE technical experts. • Career Accelerator all vying to put a pico projector in the palm • IEEE Xplore® digital library of your hand. • Interviews DREAM ON: Listen every Thursday in March • Opinions Contains over 25% Renewable Resources for a new Dream Jobs profile podcast. • More!

IEEE SPECTRUM (ISSN 0018-9235) is published monthly by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. © 2009 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5997, U.S.A. The editorial content of IEEE Spectrum magazine does not represent official positions of the IEEE or its organizational units. Canadian Post International Publications Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 40013087. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Department, IEEE Spectrum, Box 1051, Fort Erie, ON L2A 6C7. Cable address: ITRIPLEE. Fax: +1 212 419 7570. INTERNET: [email protected]. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS: IEEE Members: $21.40 included in dues. Libraries/institutions: $399. POST MASTER: Please send address changes to IEEE Spectrum, c/o Coding Department, IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Canadian GST #125634188. Printed at W224-N3322 Duplainville Rd., Pewaukee, WI 53072-4195, U.S.A. IEEE Spectrum circulation is audited by BPA Worldwide. IEEE Spectrum is a member of American Business Media, the Magazine Publishers of America, and the Society of National Association Publications.

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O back story back iEEE mEdiA Staff Director; PubliSher, IEEE SpEctrum James a. Vick, [email protected] aSSociate PubliSher, SaleS & aDVertiSing Director Marion Delaney, [email protected] STEVEN J. FRANK, ROBB recruitMent SaleS DeVeloPMent Manager a graduate of MANDELBAUM, Michael buryk, [email protected] buSineSS Manager robert t. ross Harvard Law School originally from Iowa, Marketing & ProMotion Manager blanche Mcgurr, and an intellectual- has a thing for trains. [email protected] interactiVe Marketing Manager ruchika anand, [email protected] property attorney in Naturally, he had to liSt/recruitMent Marketing Manager ilia rodriguez, Boston, wrote “The Death of experience railroad braking for him- [email protected] rePrint SaleS +1 212 221 9595, ext. 319 Business-Method Patents” [p. 32]. self, so for “Stop That Train” [p. 46] DePartMent aDMiniStrator faith h. Jeanty, [email protected] His turn-ons are Italian Barolo he left his Brooklyn, N.Y., home for aDVertiSing SaleS +1 212 419 7760 wines, bicycle touring, and Appalachia and caught a ride with telePhone aDVertiSing/SaleS rePreSentatiVe John restchack +1 212 419 7578 Mediterranean travel. Turn-offs the Norfolk Southern Railway. The aDVertiSing ProDuction Manager felicia Spagnoli include mean people, air pollution, route is one of the first where Senior aDVertiSing ProDuction coorDinator nicole evans and cruelty to animals. Frank’s electronically controlled braking aDVertiSing ProDuction +1 732 562 6334 ieee Staff executiVe, PublicationS anthony Durniak latest book is Intellectual Property for has since been deployed. “You’d iEEE BoArd of dirEctorS Investors and Technology Managers think 6 hours in a locomotive cab PreSiDent & ceo John r. Vig (Cambridge University Press, 2006). would wear thin after a while,” he +1 732 562 3928 fax: +1 732 465 6444 [email protected] PreSiDent-elect Pedro a. ray says. “But I loved every minute of it.” treaSurer Peter W. Staecker JONATHAN Secretary barry l. Shoop KUNIHOLM is a FRANCIS SLAKEY and BENN PaSt PreSiDent lewis M. terman veteran of the Iraq TANNENBAUM, authors of VicE prESidENtS teofilo ramos, Educational Activities; Jon g. rokne, Publication war, an engineering “What About the Nukes?” [p. 26], Services & Products; Joseph V. lillie, Member & Geographic Activities; W. charlton adams, President, Standards Association; researcher at Duke are Ph.D. physicists who now work harold l. flescher, Technical Activities; gordon W. Day, President, University, and an amputee. You on science and technology policy IEEE-USA might remember him from the in Washington, D.C. Slakey is diViSioN dirEctorS giovanni De Micheli (i); robert e. hebner Jr. (ii); cover photo of our January Winners the Upjohn Professor of Science curtis a. Siller Jr. (iii); roger W. Sudbury (iV); & Losers issue, in which he wears and Public Policy at Georgetown Deborah M. cooper (V); Mark i. Montrose (Vi); John D. McDonald (Vii); Stephen l. Diamond (Viii); a prototype of the (winning) University and associate director frederick c. Mintzer (ix); richard a. Volz (x) Revolutionizing Prosthetics arm. In of public affairs for the American rEgioN dirEctorS howard e. Michel (1); William P. Walsh Jr. (2); William b. ratcliff “Open Arms” [p. 36], he talks about Physical Society. Tannenbaum (3); Don c. bramlett (4); David J. Pierce (5); leonard J. bond (6); what it will take to keep prosthetics is the associate program ferial el-hawary (7); Jozef W. Modelski (8); enrique e. alvarez (9); yong Jin Park (10) technology advancing long after the director of the Center for Science, government funding has stopped. Technology and Security Policy dirEctorS EmErituS eric herz, theodore W. hissey at the American Association for iEEE StAff HOLLY LINDEM, the Advancement of Science. huMan reSourceS betsy Davis, SPhr

+1 732 465 6434, [email protected] or based in Texas, G PublicationS anthony Durniak Gre created photo- JOHN VOELCKER +1 732 562 3998, [email protected] c m eDucational actiVitieS illustrations for two didn’t expect to delve Douglas gorham ike +1 732 562 5483, [email protected] m features in this issue. into energy policy StanDarDS actiVitieS Judith gorman

+1 732 562 3820, [email protected] indem, For “Open Arms” [p. 36], “I decided when he became l MeMber & geograPhic actiVitieS cecelia Jankowski to blend maps with the building IEEE Spectrum’s +1 732 562 5504, [email protected] blocks in the arm to show the global automotive editor, but it may have corPorate Strategy & coMMunicationS Matthew loeb, cae +1 732 562 5320, [email protected] nature of the project,” she says. been inevitable. The push for electric buSineSS aDMiniStration richard D. Schwartz +1 732 562 5311, [email protected] ilberman (2), Holly

“Maps are beautiful, and the roads vehicles addresses global warming s technical actiVitieS Mary Ward-callan +1 732 562 3850 are reminiscent of veins.” The and energy security, so designing , [email protected] andi r Managing Director, ieee-uSa chris brantley

car-shaped metal grid she built for future cars requires more knowledge +1 202 530 8349, [email protected] ter, C

“How Green Is My Plug-In?” [p. 42] of the energy sector than before. For ro iEEE puBlicAtioN SErVicES & productS BoArd p “took many hours of measuring, Voelcker, the best part of writing Jon g. rokne, Chair; tayfun akgul, tariq S. Durrani, Mohamed e. el-hawary, gerald l. engel, gerard h. gaynor, cutting, and filing,” she says. “How Green Is My Plug-In?” [p. 42] Marion o. hagler, Jens hannemann, lajos hanzo, hirohisa kawamoto, Michael r. lightner, lloyd a. Morley, “Adding the outlets and the color was learning that he was asking William W. Moses, adrian V. Pais, Saifur rahman, Sorel reisman, green helped provide an immediate questions at the same time research- edward a. rezek, barry l. Shoop, W. ross Stone, robert J. trew, leung tsang, karl r. Varian, Stephen yurkovich read.” As a finishing touch, Lindem ers were. “That made me confident iEEE opErAtioNS cENtEr glued on bits of rust from a cache of that my coverage was headed in the 445 hoes lane, box 1331, Piscataway, nJ 08854-1331 u.S.a. kwise fromleft: Goodwintop the stuff she keeps in her studio. right direction,” he says. tel: +1 732 981 0060 fax: +1 732 981 1721 C Clo  NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org Annie Collinge/getty imAges W And then there’s the new new the there’s then And Witness the company’s recent recent company’s the Witness www.spectrum.ieee.org worst economic crisis in a lifetime lifetime a in crisis economic worst which Latitude, Google as well is company The domination. world NASA’s Ames Research Center, not not Center, Research NASA’sAmes (http://www. survey 100 R&D new the was it month Last California Dreamin’ 000 (the Corporate Founder level), it’s it’s level), Founder Corporate (the 000 Ocean and Google Mars, as as Mars, Google and Ocean less than a thousandth of one of thousandth a than less was it November In itself. unto Google’s investment in R&D— in investment Google’s Clearly, Web browser. Chrome spectral lines flush, with US with flush, investment in Ray Kurzweil’s Kurzweil’s Ray in investment fruit. lucrative, potentially and luscious, some bearing is Earth Google maps interactive the Google Android cellphone. cellphone. Android Google the far from Google’s headquarters headquarters Google’s from far happen. to waiting joke a to to $2.1 billion in 2007, according according 2007, in billion $2.1 be less trivial. less be new and existing projects projects existing and new benevolent for plan its out mapping Singularity University. The amount amount The University. Singularity line punch a it’s Sometimes came word that Google and NASA NASA and Google that word came the of middle the In it. of chutzpah to prove might name good company’s the on effect The hand. on cash of Google’s by insignificant is money of run. home a is Google of out anywhere. anytime, other each package economic-­stimulus miniature a constitutes are bankrolling the “university” at “university” the bankrolling are locate to subscribers allows in investment its and time, press at spectrum.ieee.org/rndcalc)— standards—at a minimum of $250 $250 of minimum a standards—at Part of this column appeared in our our in appeared column this of Part IEEE Spectrum IEEE But not every idea coming coming idea every not But Still, you’ve gotta admire the sheer sheer the admire gotta you’ve Still, hile archrival archrival hile hemorrhages cash and and cash hemorrhages employees, Google is is Google employees,

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percent percent t ech ech t alk blog on 3 February 2009. February 3 on blog alk As Diamandis says, anything is in in is anything says, Diamandis As Vegas. And Ray Kurzweil might help help might Kurzweil Ray And Vegas. X Prize Foundation, told the the told Foundation, Prize X Times vice The sun might explode tomorrow. tomorrow. explode might sun The www.spectrum.ieee.org/singularity]. www.spectrum.ieee.org/singularity]. Kollege and chairman and CEO of the the of CEO and chairman and Kollege Osama bin Laden might start doing doing start might Laden bin Osama usher in a beneficent singularity, singularity, beneficent a in usher in the future,” Peter Diamandis, Diamandis, Peter future,” the in are “We Calif. View, Mountain in in in the lab today, with an understanding understanding an with today, lab the the realm of possibility in the future. future. the in possibility of realm the coverage the of much as part, crazy the idea.” it’s acrazy abreakthrough, truly of what’s in the realm of possibility possibility of realm the in what’s of anchoring the university in what is is what in university the anchoring stand http:// [see clear makes singularity Spectrum We’re right with you, Peter, at least least at Peter, you, with We’reright -­ chancellor of Kurzweil’s Klown Klown Kurzweil’s of chancellor . “The day before something is is something day before “The . -­ up comedy routines in Las Las in routines comedy up ’s special report on the the on report ’sspecial Financial Financial Anti Vinge once said, like pets. pets. like said, once Vinge writer and singularity theorist Vernor Vernor theorist singularity and writer can we than smarter machines where

One of our editors has volunteered to 30 live long enough to live forever, and imagine treat us, as science as us, treat imagine institution, what would you want your your want you would what institution, throwing billions, if not trillions, of notif billions, trillions, throwing they’re at it, we’re wondering Google if $1 million to bestow on an educational educational an on bestow to million $1 money to fund? Tell us at http://www. at us Tell fund? to money might throw our limited budget.our limited consciousness upload, is going to stress a few of worth years’ Ray & Terry’s dollars at an economic mess in part atdollars economican part in mess do something worthwhile. If you had had you If worthwhile. something do quest to deny Death due.his But while spectrum.ieee.org/milliondollarideas. spectrum.ieee.org/milliondollarideas. -­ Hey, why not? We’re already Or we could take that money and and money that take could we Or day supply), plus cost ofthe hefty the march 2009 • IEEE Sp IEEE • 2009 march -­ Aging MultiPack ($86.75 per per MultiPack ($86.75 Aging Enough to Live Forever with a faculty graced by asomegraced faculty with Leaving asideLeaving NASA’s Kurzweil and obsessiveKurzweil his Let’s add a few more to the sad Peter and Vinton Norvig like medical doctorlike medical Terry Grossman, Kurzweil’sGrossman, coauthor Cerf—as well as non partner in expensive dietary expensivein dietary partner research interdisciplinary facilitated by financial tally of good human minds of minds tally good human that, Kurzweil’sin vision, will $25 000 for weeksnine 000 of study.$25 blow money on of the kind make him immortal. And And makeimmortal. him our future machine overlords. machine our future eager postdocs will forkeager postdocs will over on of Google’s heavy like hitters, to is free Google enterprise, algorithms, the crazy uncles ofuncles the crazy algorithms, questionable role whole this in sucked of intoMr. the thrall supplements—no doubt a few Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Spectrum Spectrum some cash, too. —Harry Goldstein E ctrum • N • ctrum -­ -­ fiction fiction Googlers Googlers and and -­ risk risk a

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(grimacing is more among journalists and but other boaters as well. like it) and winking readers but whose And don’t say he was with his left eye or his contributions to the in Canadian waters— right—all extracerebral world are far more all of Lake Michigan is and muscular inputs! fruitful than those of U.S. territory. I couldn’t have written dozens of Nobel Prize Marc Hurwitz the article better myself. laureates. If Mills said IEEE Member he did the experiments Baltimore Christopher J. James IEEE Fellow and that the device Southampton, England works, then let time ControL or Be be the judge. Don’t put ControLLed s vice president the guy in the Losers fter I read the Aat Zyvex Labs, category, because he Aarticles about I am familiar with might be doing great the RepRap, the self‑ Geoffrey Ling’s Defense things, and we just don’t replicating machine Advanced Research fully understand them [Hands On, January], Projects Agency right now. Even if the and “Sound Waves program for artificial author is speculating, it for Brain Waves” arms [“The Revolution is too early to state that [Update, January] Will Be Prosthetized,” the project is a loser. In within minutes of one Winner, Robotics/ science there is no such another, the solution to Neurointegration]. thing as “impossible.” self‑assembly seemed Letters do not You Win Some, Zyvex was working on Everything is possible. obvious to me. If a represent opinions You LoSe Some an ancillary program focused ultrasound of the Ieee. short, Predrag Milovac concise letters are ell done on the of peripheral nerve IEEE Member device were attached preferred. they Wlatest Winners & interfacing, but it did Fremont, Calif. to the machine, it could may be edited for Losers [January]. The not get integrated. I control the host (read space and clarity. bit on Emotiv Systems am proud to have been was disappointed “human”), inducing him Additional letters [“Mental Block,” involved even in that by your neglect of or her to assemble the are available online I in “And More Forum” Loser, Interfaces] was small way. Your article fundamental safety replicated parts into at http://www. spot‑on. That is my was an excellent over‑ procedures in your the second RepRap— spectrum.ieee.org. area of research [see view. I wholeheartedly article on the Aquada possibly against the Write to Forum, the clip of “James agree that this is a [“That Sinking Feeling,” host’s free will. IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th May’s Big Ideas” at technology winner. Loser, Automotive]. All joking http://uk.youtube.com/ Were James Bond to aside, however, Floor, New York, NY John N. Randall 10016-5997, U.s.A.; watch?v=Uyrd0uOuyms], IEEE Member be drinking anything this scenario does fax, +1 212 419 7570; and all the evidence Richardson, Texas alcoholic—dry martini offer an interesting e-mail, n.hantman points to the fact that or beer—while piloting thought experiment @ieee.org. Emotiv’s Epoc headset ’m afraid that jour‑ a water vehicle on Lake in the ethics and is not purely a brain‑ Inalists are making Michigan, he would moral hazards of computer interface. a quick judgment be violating U.S. Coast artificial autonomy In itself that is not a regarding Randell Guard regulations and and reproduction. problem, if the headset Mills, founder of endangering not only Jason Billing works. However, the BlackLight Power himself and his bikini‑ IEEE Member company’s claim is [“Hot or Not?” Loser, clad waterskiing beauty Lubbock, Texas misleading if the device Power & Energy]. There is purely motor or are many examples muscle based! Emotiv’s in human history of CorreCtionS Web site has a video journalists using poor In “Multicore Made Simple” [Winners & Losers, [http://emotiv.com/ judgment in putting January], Andy Keane was misquoted as saying, INDS_2/inds_2_1.html] world‑class scientists “Nvidia has already sold hundreds of thousands of showing a man using into the same basket its CUDA-enabled GPGPUs.” The number should an Emotiv system to as “losers.” On the have been more than 100 million. move a wheelchair. The other hand, there are The images accompanying “Europe Replaces Old occupant controls it many great scientists Wind Farms” [Update, January] should have been by allegedly grinning who may not be liked labeled as photo-illustrations.

10 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG more online at www.spectrum.ieee.org

fire that will burn through the on target: The pellets, ultimately releasing up National Ignition Fusion Factory Starts Up Facility is nearing to 20 times as much energy as completion. The $4 billion U.S. National Ignition Facility that introduced by the lasers. photo: Lawrence Livermore nationaL opens for business When the project first got off Laboratory/Department of energy the drawing board in 1996, the ater this month in their energy on 3-millimeter- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) California, construction wide pellets of deuterium and had high hopes that NIF would L will be completed at tritium. Together, the lasers will strike three licks with the same Lawrence Livermore National produce a 500-terawatt bolt of stick. NIF’s lasers, any one of Laboratory’s National Ignition energy that will turn the surface which would alone be the world’s Facility, or NIF, the world’s most of a target capsule to plasma. most powerful, would help the powerful laser system—12 years The plasma will then explode, DOE’s National Nuclear Security and roughly US $3.5 billion compressing the hydrogen and Administration to safely maintain after it was begun. The plan creating shock waves that will the United States’ cache of nuclear is for NIF’s 192 neodymium squeeze the fusion fuel even weapons. Without any test lasers to create controlled further. The expected result is detonation, NIF would validate moments of fusion by focusing ignition, the start of a nuclear supercomputer-generated three- www.SpecTrUm.Ieee.org March 2009 • IEEE SpEctruM • Na 11 dimensional simulations of problems triggered an a thermonuclear burn. The avalanche of construction project’s champions also delays and cost overruns. So insisted that the 30-meter- in 1999, the DOE swept the tall behemoth would decks of NIF’s management. help scientists to better The facility finally came inspector gadget: An optics inspection system looks for trouble in understand how to turn in at about $3.5 billion the target chamber. photo: Lawrence Livermore nationaL Laboratory/Department of energy water into limitless amounts and has met all its of carbon-free energy. And construction and spending Moses, principal associate ever been done before.” the project would advance targets since 2001, when director in charge of NIF. Moses is confident that basic astrophysics research, its budget was adjusted “We just did an experi- NIF will reach ignition for example by simulating to reflect what it would ment with the lasers when experiments aimed the explosion mechanisms actually cost to complete. running at 500 kilojoules,” at achieving it begin in inside supernovas. By last December Moses says, though he won’t 2010. By 2012, he expects The project, which small-scale experiments discuss the specific aims the Lawrence Livermore broke ground in 1997, was had already begun, with of the work scientists were team to be able to start supposed to be completed researchers working two doing prior to the facility’s fusion reactions on demand in 2002, at a cost of shifts a day, seven days official opening. “That’s and get 20 times as much $1.07 billion. But technical a week, says Edward 20 times more than has energy as they put in.

Korea, because lithium-ion cells aren’t manufactured in volume anywhere Will Washington Kick-start in the United States. “It’s important to be able to manufacture cells here, the U.S. Battery Biz? to control our own destiny,” says Wynne. If electric drive takes off in The United States will need a domestic lithium-ion other regions, he says, U.S. carmakers manufacturing industry to meet its plug-in goals could be frozen out of limited supplies. To build enough plants to supply uring his presidential 1 percent of the entire U.S. vehicle cells for 1 million Volt-style plug-ins a campaign, Barack Obama prom- fleet of 250 million, but they would year—16 plants at, say, US $300 million D ised to put 1 million plug-in be more than 1000 times as much as each—might cost $5 billion. But first, hybrids and electric vehicles on U.S. the number on U.S. roads today. cell makers need “a big customer roads by 2015, one of several steps toward The biggest impediment to Obama’s contract,” says Mary Ann Wright, CEO energy independence. But getting there, goal is an insufficient supply of lithium of lithium battery supplier Johnson say auto industry analysts, will require cells, whose high energy density Controls-Saft. Beyond that, “we need a heavy dose of government interven- will enable viable plug-in vehicles, a sane and rational energy policy” to tion and, crucially, the rapid construction says Brian Wynne, president of the stabilize gas prices, giving predictability of a domestic industry to manufacture Washington, D.C.–based Electric Drive to an industry that now makes billion- advanced batteries. U.S. industry groups Transportation Association. Global dollar bets years before cars go on sale. are pushing strongly for both. capacity is tight for all automotive Such an energy policy, she says, would Widespread penetration of electric-drive components—motors, include low-interest loans to viable plug-in cars remains far in the controllers, inverters—but especially manufacturers, outright grants to future. A Boston Consulting Group so for large lithium-ion cells. jump-start the industry, and aggressive study predicts that under current Automakers prefer nearby suppliers, conversion of government fleets to trends, just 5 percent of new cars to reduce risk and cut shipping costs. electric drive, to stimulate demand. sold in the United States in 2020 But while General Motors will build As it happens, Johnson Controls-Saft (roughly 750 000 vehicles) will be battery packs for its plug-in Chevrolet owns the closest plant to the United plug-ins. Even 1 million plug-ins Volt in Michigan, the cells inside them States that produces automotive-grade would still be less than one-half of will come all the way from South lithium cells; it’s in Nersac, France.

12 Na • IEEE SpEctruM • March 2009 www.SpecTrUm.Ieee.org the value of intellectual property lost to data theft by 800 companies in 2008, $4.6 bIllIoN according to a survey by Mcafee, a security-technology company in Santa clara, calif.

But some scientists both Administration’s Stockpile with NIF still not operational, produced by fusion into the inside and outside the DOE Stewardship Program is inherently unsafe?” he thermal energy required grumble that NIF will make projects. The report asks. “If not, then what to turn a turbine. Another only a marginal contribution asserts that NIF’s funding do we need [NIF] for?” experimental facility capable to the understanding of how would have been better Moses is dismissive of of producing just as much best to maintain the United spent on smaller, targeted the Federation of American laser energy—and containing States’ existing nuclear research projects at the Scientists report. “Ever some expensive, as yet weapons stockpile [see national laboratories or at since I was brought in to unproven additions—will “What About the Nukes?” in dozens of universities. manage this project, it has need to be built. Work aimed this issue]. “There is some “This is a case of better been under intense scientific at taking that next step is science you can learn from never than late,” says one and policy review and already proceeding through NIF, but after you’re done DOE nuclear weapons oversight from Congress,” a project called Laser Inertial and you’ve spent upwards scientist, who spoke on the he says. “In every case, its Fusion-Fission Energy, or of $4 billion, the question condition of anonymity. validity has been reaffirmed LIFE, which is now running you have to ask is whether “We were told that we and it has been re-funded.” in parallel with NIF. it’s worthwhile,” says Ivan couldn’t live without NIF Moses says he is confident The DOE scientist thinks Oelrich, vice president for because ‘How else are we that fusion-based electricity the 10- to 15-year time frame strategic security at the going to make sure that generation will be achieved is overly optimistic. “It takes Federation of American we know how the material within the next 10 to 15 years, about eight years to build Scientists, which issued inside the warheads will but not at NIF. The facility is a nuclear power plant, and a report in 2007 critical degrade?’ Does this mean not designed to allow for the we already know how to of NIF and two other big that the nuclear stockpile, addition of fissile material put those together,” he says. National Nuclear Security more than a decade later and needed to turn the neutrons —Willie D. Jones

Although the United States is home to of low-interest loans for producers and director for the Chevrolet Volt, and a attention-getting lithium-ion start-ups, tax credits for consumers contained man who is intimately enmeshed in the including venture-funded A123 Systems, within recent finance and energy bills. politics of electric-car manufacturing, these firms currently lack the domestic Asked to handicap the chance that smiles broadly. “I think from April to manufacturing capacity to supply the United States will get lithium-cell June you’ll see a lot happening,” he says. automakers. But cell makers understand plants, Tony Posawatz, vehicle line —John Voelcker the importance of manufacturing near their customers; A123 Systems promises plants in southeast Michigan if it receives funding. And in October, 14 U.S.-based battery makers formed the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacturers, joining a chorus of other advocates for policies that will build a local cell supply base. “We have a perfect window of opportunity to create a U.S. infrastructure,” says Wright. “We have the technology, we will have the customers, and we know how to make cells.” Cell manufacturing plants take two to three years to come onstream, so plants funded this year might supply cars for model year 2013. But, Wright says, it has to happen now. “I don’t think we even have a year” to ensure that U.S. plants are built on the same timeline as those now planned in other regions, she says. Already, advocates can point to french factory: The nearest manufacturer to the United States of lithium-ion batteries for pending government help in the form hybrids is Johnson controls-Saft’s plant in Nersac, France. photo: regis Duvignau/reuters www.SpecTrUm.Ieee.org March 2009 • IEEE SpEctruM • Na 13 Cloud Computing’s Killer App: Gaming AmD’s proposed online supercomputer will handle gaming graphics so your cellphone won’t have to

n recognition of the huge Cloud computing makes it importance of graphics ridiculously easy for potential I and gaming to the future of customers to try out a game computing, Advanced Micro and get hooked—all they have Devices (AMD), of Sunnyvale, to do is go to a Web site and slaying dragons: online fantasy games are just a phone call away. Calif., is building the fastest start playing. Another plus photo: chris stein/getty images commercial supercomputer is that by off-loading most in the world and selling of the computational guts, run 800 concurrent compu- The Fusion Cloud is its use to makers of online cloud computing puts game tational tasks, or threads. At happening now because games. When it’s ready, in software out of the reach of two chips per graphics card, three things fell into place the second half of 2009, it pirates. And it economizes that means 1600 threads at only recently. Rapid-access will manage a thousand on computation time by a pop. About a quarter of memory reached the gigabyte million million floating-point supplying users with only the chips will compress or range; a way of getting GPUs operations per second— as much graphical detail as decompress data, and the to perform floating-point a petaflop. That will put it on the available bandwidth can rest will render the graphics. operations—long the domain a par with Roadrunner, the handle, when it can handle it. That’s more than enough of CPUs—was found; and the U.S. Department of Energy’s “We’ll be able to render muscle, AMD says, to serve rendering of subtle shades most powerful machine. 30 to 50 frames per second the players in any existing of light got much easier to The idea is to compute a remotely and stream it to any massively multiplayer game. program. “Graphics cards game’s graphics, compress modern Web browser,” says The company says it can originally had no shaders,” them, and send them out Jules Urbach, chief executive scale up the machine simply explains Urbach. “Then over the Internet so that of Otoy International, the by adding more cards. they got geometry shading online gamers can run the game technology company AMD says the Fusion and then pixel shading, an results on platforms, such that’s writing the software. Cloud will consume only enormous leap. Finally, since as cellphones, that are too “If you’re on a low-band 150 kilowatts running full tilt, June of last year, we’ve had computationally puny to phone, we’d send less data compared to Roadrunner’s a general-purpose shader.” render the graphics on their per frame—for a lower- 2.35 megawatts. AMD says AMD’s plan is merely a own. Game makers would res image—but you’d still it will be able to perform as battle in a larger war being write their software for the get 30 to 50 frames per many operations per second fought by Intel, AMD, and supercomputer—rather second.” The system tests as Roadrunner with less Nvidia Corp. over the advan- than for a PC, smart phone, the connection throughout power, because its GPUs, tages of graphics processing. or other platform—and a session, so if the user with their hundreds of “We compete against Intel on then rent computer time changes to a more capacious cores, can do far more things the CPU side—they’re trying and bandwidth on AMD’s network—say, by switching at once than can central- to get their CPUs to be more machine. It’s a particularly from a cellphone to a hard- processing units (CPUs), parallel—and against Nvidia striking example of the wired desktop—the system which have only a handful on the GPU side—they’re shift in the balance of power responds by adding detail. of cores. That allows GPUs trying to get their GPUs away from the platform and The supercomputer to better render graphics, to be more flexible,” says into the network, or cloud— will consist mainly of 1000 a task best handled by AMD spokesman David hence the computer’s name, graphics-processing units dividing it up and working Nalasco. “We have both.” the Fusion Render Cloud. (GPUs), each of which can on the pieces in parallel. —Philip E. Ross

14 Na • IEEE SpEctruM • March 2009 www.SpecTrUm.Ieee.org the record-setting bandwidth of an optical receiver chip 640 gigabits per second developed at the australian National university, in canberra

with the LRO, and go from risk of failure, they relied a stowaway concept to flyable spacecraft on redundancy. When the in less than 30 months. empty rocket-stage belly Mission to NASA’s missions of oppor- flops onto the soft surface, its tunity normally involve add- shepherding spacecraft will ing an additional instrument, be watching with five cam- the Moon not building an entirely new eras, three spectrometers, and NASA’s LcroSS lunar impactor mission spacecraft. So when NASA one high-speed photometer. comes in on time and on budget selected the LCROSS pro- To keep LCROSS as sim- posal by Northrop Grumman ple as possible, the engi- everal months “This was probably and NASA Ames Research neers designed the satel- from now, the empty the ultimate mission of Center in April 2006, the lite so that it would be free of S upper stage of an opportunity,” says LCROSS agency designated it a class D moving parts. To point the Atlas V rocket will slam project manager Dan mission—one that’s allowed antenna, for example, tech- into a shadowy crater near Andrews. “Frankly, it was a “medium or significant risk nicians will simply turn the the north pole of the moon, never supposed to happen.” of not achieving mission suc- entire body of the craft. And tossing a plume of debris LCROSS owes its cess.” The LCROSS team soon LCROSS has no onboard stor- up into the sunlight. By existence to the ballooning realized that their classifica- age devices, so all data will then, the Atlas V will have size of the US $500 million tion, tight schedule, and sig- be streamed back to Earth delivered its main payload, LRO, a lunar-mapping nificant constraints actu- live, including a video feed the Lunar Reconnaissance satellite that will scout future ally freed them from typical available to the public. Orbiter (LRO), and a smaller landing sites and requires a NASA methodology, which So far, doing things dif- stowaway. That stowaway bigger rocket than originally tends to be risk averse. “We ferently has paid off: When satellite will watch the specta- planned. Even with a larger decided that this mission is the original launch date of cle unfold from above, looking LRO, the new rocket has not about ultimate perfor- October 2008 rolled around, for telltale signs that there’s more than 1000 kilograms mance,” says Andrews. “It’s LCROSS was on budget and water in the lunar soil, before of payload capacity to spare. about cost containment.” ready to go. (Problems with it, too, crashes into the moon. So, back in January 2006 To that end, the LCROSS the Atlas V rocket motor have NASA’s current plan NASA began canvassing the team leveraged proven parts, held up the launch.) The agen- for manned exploration agency for ideas. Proposed off-the-shelf components, cy’s ability to stick to sched- calls for establishing a base missions had to cost less than and previously flight-tested ule and budget is a rare feat near a lunar pole, where $80 million, not interfere instruments. To reduce the that’s generated excitement indirect evidence suggests within the space community. that frozen water is trapped “If LCROSS is successful, in permanent darkness. I think it’s likely that you’ll Scheduled to launch in late see more of this,” says Bruce April, the Lunar CRater Betts, the project director for Observation and Sensing the Planetary Society. But Satellite mission, or LCROSS, extra launch capacity is a rare aims to explore the nature of luxury, and space explora- lunar water and determine tion is inherently hard and whether it’s concentrated expensive, he says. “You in small pockets or spread can’t take this idea too far.” diffusely throughout the Andrews agrees that shadowed regions. Although there will always be a place these findings will help at NASA for big projects. guide the strategy of lunar Without them, he says, the exploration, LCROSS is not facilities and equipment a typical NASA mission—it that made LCROSS possible wasn’t even on the drawing wouldn’t exist in the board three years ago. first place. But he hopes LCROSS will prove to the agency that other types Moonbound: LcroSS is set to smack into the moon. of missions are possible. iLLustration: nasa —Joshua J. Romero www.SpecTrUm.Ieee.org March 2009 • IEEE SpEctruM • Na 15 works with video, but there face of the power-draining Sign Language was an added twist. Most compression and decompres- compression algorithms sion that conversing by video don’t focus on the aspects requires. They tackled this by Cellphone of video that would make problem by implementing a Software tricks will let the deaf ASL easily understandable, variable frame-rate system sign over smart phones says Riskin, an electrical that oscillates between engineering professor at the high and low frame rates University of Washington. depending on whether the n the past, engineers minted IEEE Fellows, felt Hemami studies how user is signing or watching working on technology to the time seemed right to the human visual system the other person sign. I aid the deaf had focused develop a sign-language- understands video at Cornell Now, nearly four years primarily on hearing capable phone. “Today’s University. To help solve the after they began, the devices, such as hearing aids world is more connected by problem, she has been work- researchers are finally close and cochlear implants, but cellphones than by any other ing on integrating an intelli- to a functional prototype. A recently they’ve been getting few months ago, Riskin and into what’s known as deaf her lab at the University of technology: applications Washington figured out how designed to make the day- to increase the frame rates to to-day lives of the deaf more than 10 frames per sec- and hearing-impaired ond, a critical step for making easier. Now engineers mobile video conversations from the University of clear and realistic. The mobile Washington, in Seattle, phones they were work- and Cornell University, in ing with weren’t capable of Ithaca, N.Y., have taken a processing full-size images at big step toward developing that rate, but by sampling only a mobile phone that allows a quarter of the pixels in each real-time conversations in frame, the group was able to sign language. make the video-compression Of course, many in the process about four times as deaf community already fast. Fortunately, the interpo- use mobile phones to lation feature in the Microsoft communicate via text sign of the tiMes: mobileASL brings signing to the cellphone. Windows Mobile operating messaging and e-mail, but photo: university of washington system automatically deaf people almost always expanded the resulting videos prefer sign language: It’s device,” says the University gibility metric into the team’s back to full size without a faster and more natural, just of Washington’s Ladner, video-compression software significant decrease in quality. as speaking is easier than whose parents were deaf. that would enable mobileASL The team still faces one writing for most hearing From the beginning, the phones to maximize com- big challenge, which is find- people. Laptops are getting researchers knew that their prehension. It accomplishes ing the best way to get the smaller and more portable, project, which they named this, in part, by recognizing mobileASL software into the making video chats outside mobileASL (for mobile which areas of the image hands of the people who want the home possible, but American Sign Language), need to be in high resolution— it. The group wants the appli- Wi-Fi–enabled cellphones would be a challenge. The such as the signers’ hands cation to be as broadly usable would provide even more low bandwidth available and faces—and which areas, as possible. They are testing freedom. When cellphones on wireless networks in such as the signers’ torsos, it over a Wi-Fi connection became capable of video the United States forced can be in low resolution. but are also experiment- sharing a few years ago, Eve them into the balancing act The team also had to ing with the data services of Riskin, Sheila Hemami, and between speed and quality figure out how to preserve several wireless carriers. Richard Ladner, all newly that’s familiar to anyone who the phone’s battery life in the —Erica Westly

16 Na • IEEE SpEctruM • March 2009 www.SpecTrUm.Ieee.org 18 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 the big picture

In FrankensteIn’s Laboratory At the cavernous lab of Lightning Technologies, in Pittsfield, Mass., you first hear a horn’s warning blast, then a huge kapow. That’s the sound that electrons make when 2.4 million volts send them burning a zigzag path through the air. The bolt proceeds from the hanging double corona ring to a model supplied by one of the lab’s clients, in this case an airline that needs to test how lightning affects its planes’ ever more pervasive electronic control systems. (If you’re a frequent flier, you’ve surely been zinged by Zeus several times already.) The blue tower consists of a stack of capacitors separated by spark gaps. It takes five or 10 minutes to charge all the capacitors, but when they’re ready, a single spark jumping a single gap is all it takes to start the avalanche of electrons. Photo: BoB o’Connor hands on

Fusion on “fusioneers” congregate to swap equipment and advice: a Budget “Find two stainless steel half- Building your own spheres, seal them together nuclear fusion around a wire grid, suck the reactor is easier than air out of it, apply some high you think voltage to the grid, inject a bit of deuterium into the o you have a few chamber, and sit back and thousand dollars to count the neutrons.” Don’t D spare, some basic expect to reach energy machining and welding skills, breakeven, Schatzkin and the ability to follow direc- says, but at least you’ll be tions without getting finger- failing to achieve practical prints inside your equipment? fusion at only a millionth Then you, too, can build a the cost of a tokamak. energy, use a magnetic field with Robert Hirsch, baby fusion reactor, or fusor, Tokamaks, the to confine a plasma heated built his first fusor in in your garage. multibillion-dollar fusion to about 100 million kelvins the mid- to late 1960s. In fact, it’s pretty simple, reactors that have occupied and compressed so that the Since then, professional according to Paul Schatzkin, physicists’ attention for deuterium nuclei inside will and amateur researchers who runs Fusor.net, a more than 50 years in their collide and fuse. A fusor alike have found more than Web site where amateur quest for limitless clean is even simpler: Just make enough other problems a very deep electrostatic to make personal fusion potential well for your reactors a matter of research nuclei to fall into, and make interest only. The list of it radially symmetrical so issues under discussion by that they wallop into each participants in the online other when they reach the community at Fusor.net middle [see “Fusioneering” is well-nigh endless: not and “Tabletop Fusion”]. enough ion density, too Nuclei at a temperature much energy spent in of 100 million kelvins creating ions, ion and have the same energy as electron collisions with the those that have traversed a charged grids that create potential drop of only about the potential wells, grids 9000 volts, so getting your melting under the resulting nuclei to travel fast enough current, vacuum systems will not be a problem. that won’t evacuate, and The idea comes from so on. Still the fusioneers Philo Farnsworth, the press onward, motivated inventor of the modern by both the simple love of television, who, along tinkering and the dream

Fusioneering: richard Hull [above] hosts an annual gathering of fusioneers at his lab in richmond, Va. eric stroud’s 30-centimeter fusor [left, top] is typical of reactors built by amateurs. the brown stalk at far left is the high-voltage ballast resistor. the glowing bulb next to it is a hot cathode gauge for measuring deep vacuum. the vacuum meters indicate high-vacuum conditions approaching 1 x 10-6 torr. if fusors aren’t energy-efficient, they can at least be beautiful. A star-mode plasma [left, bottom] is not only visually spectacular, it also indicates good vacuum, gas control, and neutron production. photos: ABoVE, RichARd hull; lEFt, ERic stRoud (2)

20 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org veteran fusioneer Richard What is the fusor Five easy Hull. For example, fusion good for, other than the steps containers need only achieve smugness of knowing that pressures of about one you’ve turned hydrogen into to Home millitorr; vacuum pumps helium in quantities almost Fusion with that capability make too small to detect? Nothing chooSE your their way to eBay for US $10 at all, says Hull. Although fuSor dESigN: to $100. High-voltage some amateur fusioneers 1 hirsch-farnsworth feedthroughs are in the same write as if their work might [see “tabletop fusion”], range—or free, if you build eventually lead to useful Elmore-tuck-Watson, your own from microwave- power generation, he’s or some variant of your oven salvage. The most convinced that this quest own creation. expensive items, according is well beyond the horizon. to Schatzkin, are neutron And although neutron ASSEmblE your detectors, which have to be activation of other elements, fuSor with a of contributing in some purchased new. But a cheap such as aluminum, iodine, 2 fanatical attention small way to solving the workaround is available, or gold, is a neat parlor to cleanliness. you will world’s energy problems. Hull says: You can prove trick, if you actually got need a vacuum-tight shell, a high-voltage grill, Building a fusor is simple your fusor is working by enough of some longer-lived various feedthroughs, enough for amateurs to irradiating a piece of silver isotope to do something a valve to admit deute- contemplate because of the and watching the decay of the useful with it, you’d need a rium, a vacuum pump, enormous global inventory Ag-108 and Ag-110 isotopes federal license, pronto. and power supplies. of used lab equipment, says with a simple Geiger counter. —Paul Wallich pump thE fuSor down to a millionth of an atmosphere or - Current 3 Power limit so, fire it up to 10 or supply High voltage 15 kilovolts (or whatever TV monitor + levels your design A V requires), and see what kinds of discharge it makes without deuterium in it. there are images Grid Camera view port on fusor sites to suggest what you ought to be Electronic pressure Pressure sensor seeing; if you aren’t, readout debug until you are.

AcquirE SomE Neutron detector dEutErium 4 (either as a gas or as heavy water that you Gas line can split by electrolysis), Valve some sensors for detecting neutrons or charged particles, and Deuterium gas Needle valve Vacuum pump or calibrated leak Trap Valve some shielding.

turN oN your TableTop Fusion: to make a fusor work, the deuterium feed. the neutron detector is the final fusor, admit trace vacuum chamber and high-voltage accelerating arbiter of when atoms have fused, but a view port 5 quantities of deute- grid inside it must be augmented with both a may be crucial for observing the behavior of gas- rium from a safe distance, vacuum system [lower left] to remove air and a es inside the chamber while debugging the fusor. and collect your data. —P.W. www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 21 careers

Foreign aFFair Foreign postings often offer based in Reading, Pa., and now more autonomy and responsibility, part of the Australian engineering working abroad can make a faster pace, higher pay, and tax conglomerate WorleyParsons. you a better engineer breaks, as well as the adventure of “Job insecurity is one of the dangers everywhere foreign lands and languages. The of being abroad,” concedes Jaime H. posts can also improve your skills. de Sola, an MIT-educated chemical n his 14-year career as an industrial “I believe working abroad exposes engineer who runs an energy industry and electrical engineer, Carlos Founaud you to new technologies and creative consultancy from his native Curaçao, I has worked or done business in Austria, approaches, and working with an island in the Netherlands Antilles in Switzerland, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, multicultural teams makes you more the Caribbean. He spent years in India, Britain, Australia, and Italy before flexible,” Founaud says. “You have to the Netherlands, Russia and Eastern returning to his native Spain. cope with ways of thinking that you Europe, Venezuela, and the United States “I called myself a multicultural could never imagine”—like thinking working for Shell, Hess, and Amoco. But, interface,” he laughs. “If something ahead to your next gig. “Nobody is he says, “if you do a good job in a difficult broke down, the Spanish way was to going to promise you a job when you place, the company will be grateful.” He focus on the problem—let’s have a look, return,” he notes. “Things change so says oil companies in particular are make a decision, and do it. The Austrian quickly in engineering; companies go accustomed to sending people abroad, way was to find out who’s guilty. The up and down. Decisions promised today “so I’ve seldom heard of their employees British way was to open the manuals are not valid tomorrow, and contracts coming back to no job position.” and find the different procedures for don’t mean anything. You have to look The engineering sector determines fixing it—and afterward go to the pub.” at going abroad as an adventure.” the prestige of the post, says Founaud. Founaud has found that this Robert Brems, a mechanical For electrical engineers working on multicultural approach to problem engineer based in Coshocton, Ohio, electronic clocks, a Geneva firm is solving, while maddening at times, has agrees: “Out of sight, out of mind. You prestigious. There’s San Jose, Calif., for also made him better at his job. Now might miss advancement opportunities IT, Qatar for gas, and Austria for gas general managing director of iA Soft and become vulnerable to layoffs if your engines, while Germany, Switzerland, Aragón, a Saragossa firm that develops position ends.” Before retiring four London, and New York City have public administration software, he years ago, Brems worked on nuclear cachet for managers. But Brems notes seeks out foreign programmers power plants in Korea, Yugoslavia, that as more countries develop local specifically to challenge the procedural and Slovenia for engineering firm engineering capabilities, overseas mind-set on his home turf. Gilbert/Commonwealth, formerly posts are increasingly located in rural parts of developing nations, which raises concerns about substandard health care and living conditions. Companies generally provide assis- tance looking for houses and schools. It helps if you have an adaptable spouse and younger children, as education may be less stable with changing posts. Founaud returned home because he wanted educational stability for his children once they entered grammar school. But it was his multinational work experi- ence that landed him his current job. “That experience working as a cultural interface is what brought me to this IT company,” he says. “The owner wanted someone who could deal with different cultural mind-sets. That lst experience was my ‘value added’—not E n A the knowledge of the customer, sector, A in V EV

or technology.” —Susan Karlin K

22 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org tHrowing on the Apollo and Skylab space programs, and serves as the pHysics a curve McDonnell-Douglas Professor of David peters studies the Engineering at Washington University aerodynamics of baseballs in St. Louis. But he’s best known and helicopters for the Pitt-Peters model, which helicopter flight simulators use to t’s March, and that means two describe rotor-induced airflow in things for David Peters—the start of real time. And he brings the same I the baseball season and appearing on high-tech creativity to the ballpark. television. Ever since his hometown “Modern computational fluid St. Louis Cardinals won the 2006 World dynamics codes can successfully Series, he’s appeared regularly on local predict the pressures and resultant news to explain the mechanics behind motions of a baseball, just as they curveballs and suchlike. can for a F-18 fighter,” Peters says. “I’m a ham—I don’t mind being the “The codes can predict the different some Japanese aerospace engineers center of attention,” he says, laugh- motions of a curveball, fastball, have been trying to use aerospace the- ing. “And it gives us a hook for knuckleball, slider, or changeup, since ory to develop a brand-new pitch.” explaining science to the public.” each has a different spin that results —Susan Karlin Peters holds a Ph.D. in aeronautics in a different pressure and flow field. and astronautics from Stanford, These types of predictions were not See Peters in action at http://news-info.wustl. worked for McDonnell-Douglas possible until recently. Based on this, edu/tips/page/normal/12487.html.

iBrain: Surviving changing our brains,” says Small. the technological Here are some suggestions Small books alteration of the offers to ward off techno-overload: Modern Mind 1) Vary tasks at a reasonable pace. By Gary Small & Gigi Vorgan; Switching tasks too often slows tHis is your Collins Living, 2008; Brain on 256 pp.; US $24.95; down brain efficiency over time, ISBN: 978-0-06-134033-8 while continuing a single task for google too long can fatigue the brain. For attention deficit disorder, example, instead of tackling all your sychiatrist and social isolation, and e-mail at once, take a break after neuroscientist Internet addiction. 20 or 30 minutes, and complete the P Gary Small, of the University Small, the director rest later in the day. Although you of California at Los Angeles, invented of the UCLA Memory and Aging may feel as though you are getting the first brain scan that showed Center, used functional MRI scans more done, rapidly alternating tasks physical evidence of brain aging and to track brain blood flow in middle- is less efficient and leads to errors. Alzheimer’s disease in living patients. aged and older adults surfing the 2) Set boundaries. Limit the time He’s since focused his research on Web. He noted that Internet searching you will spend using cellphones, young and old brains, revealing that stimulates frontal lobe circuits, which computers, and video games. technological overexposure causes are responsible for decision making. 3) Balance on- and offline time.

W significant changes in neural circuitry. Other studies suggest that video Tackle business and creative A shington In his 2008 book iBrain: Surviving gaming both increases and decreases issues both technologically the Technological Alteration of the activity in the frontal lobe and the and socially through in-person u ni

VER Modern Mind, he reports that Web amygdala, which handles emotional and online collaborations. sity in in sity surfing, multitasking, and information response, thereby decreasing 4) In other words, go outside. Hang bombardment can accelerate learning social interactivity. “Technology out with your friends and colleagues— s t. l ouis and creativity but may also increase is not only changing our lives; it’s in person. —Susan Karlin

www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 23 tools & toys

elP laSer turntaBle US $10 990–$14 990 http://www.elpj.com

an external on-the-fly “declicker” signal processing box, which itself books costs about $2800. Little wonder the race for then, that with starter kits running a new gaMe into five figures, the laser turntable Machine: creating the is a high-end boutique item that chiPS inSide won’t be sold at your neighborhood the XBoX Best Buy anytime soon. 360 and the The laser turntable was PlayStation 3 originally patented in 1988 as By David Shippy & Mickie Phipps; the Finial by Stanford engineers Citadel Press, 2009; Robert Stoddard and Robert 256 pp.; US $21.95; Stark. A year later, they sold the ISBN: 978-0- rights to electronics company 8065-3101-4 CTI Japan. After some further handoffs, ELP began selling its LT series of turntables in give your Dances, an LP he had sought for 1991. Eighteen years later, a decades. Because the record mere 1500 have been purchased records had broken into two pieces, the worldwide, mostly in Japan. The a Break store’s owner let him have it for more expensive models play at old Lps can sound as free. He took the pieces home, 78 revolutions per minute, as good as new—even laid them on the laser turntable’s well as 33 and 45, and can handle when cracked in half platter, and pressed play. “It was a greater variety of disk sizes. One of the great thrilling being able to play a But as CD sales plummet business stories of ast year, vinyl record broken record,” he says. and vinyl enjoys its own small our young century sales rose 15 percent while Proponents claim bounce, ELP’s American lies buried within the the rest of the music that these devices— vice president, Jim 74 million video-game L machines sold in industry kept on tanking. Like bearing hefty price Peek, hopes to the past three years. Converse sneakers, the LP has a tags of US $10 990 capitalize on the IBM began by mak- way of sticking around long after to $14 990—can old medium’s ing microprocessors obsolescence—and even, somehow, capture the resurgence. only for Nintendo, but now it also supplies maintaining an aura of cool. warmth of vinyl Twenty percent the ones inside the Now another old technology, while still hitting of ELP queries, Sony PlayStation 3 the laser turntable, is making every frequency he says, come and the Xbox 360. a comeback too. Manufactured and harmonic from the A new tell-all by ELP Corp., in Saitama, Japan, preserved in the twentysomething business book, The s

Race for a New Game it uses five lasers instead of a groove’s ridges with generation of E g A m

Machine, documents physical tone arm and stylus, and a CD’s cold precision. vinyl enthusiasts. i

that industry transfor- it can do something no stylus Unfortunately, the Hora, who boasts 38 000 LPs tty gE mation. The authors— / can: play a broken record. turntable’s sophisticated optics in his collection, says what draws R David Shippy, chief nto architect of the John Hora, a retired will also pick up dust and grime him to high-end turntables—both A n K microprocessor core, cinematographer and lifelong too small to move a stylus needle. laser and mechanical—is his deep A th and project manager classical music buff who owns two So to reduce vinyl’s trademark love for the music and his desire A Mickie Phipps—cast laser turntables, saw this firsthand. pops and crackles, the listener to reproduce it as perfectly as blame and credit One day, in a Los Angeles thrift has to clean the record carefully, technology will allow. “I mostly

equally, letting the Jon Bottom: p.; R

store, he found violinist Albert typically with a special device talk to other record collectors,” o

chips, so to speak, fall c

where they may. Spalding’s performance of that can cost upwards of $500. he says, “and I don’t have to lp op: E

—Steven Cherry Johannes Brahms’s Hungarian Further noise reduction mandates explain myself.” —Mark Anderson t

24 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org reflections By roBert w. lucky

So I sit at my old computer, all those interconnections while over in the corner is a onboard the chips! The half-opened box. My whole backplane has hundreds of life—hundreds of apps tiny mechanical connections. holding together more than The hard drive has a head that a terabyte of data—is in this floats less than a micrometer familiar old machine. I don’t above a spinning disk, which even know what’s in there in turn has magnetic domains anymore. I’m trying to save of similar minute size. everything to external drives There are literally billions and DVDs, but even if I suc- of single points of possible ceed, all the applications will failure. There is no way that have to be reinstalled. I may this new computer will work. not be able to find the origi- I’m doomed. nal disks, and they may not Amid such thoughts, my work with the new operating finger hesitates on the power system. What a nightmare! button. There is already a With what I hope is all little light glowing inside my data in hand, I crawl the new machine. At least into the dark confined it knows it’s connected to space behind my computer, power. Big deal. where lies a rat’s nest of I hold my breath and push dusty, tangled wires coming the button. I hear the roar of from unknown places and a fan. That’s a start. Nothing leading to other unknown yet on the screen. Suddenly, places. This is it—the point there is life! I see the manu- of no return. I start to facturer’s logo on the screen! The Dreaded unplug everything. I’m still scared, but probably Now I get to my main irrationally so. Although I’m worry. This is an irrational only looking at an output Computer Upgrade worry—or maybe too from the motherboard’s rational, being a worry basic input/output system, very techie’s heart but so far we haven’t done that I think only a techie for this logo to appear on the beats a little more much to use them. And how would have. Or perhaps I’m monitor, almost everything E quickly at the thought of many cores do you need to the only one in the world in the computer has to work. a new electronic gizmo. In the run a word processor or a who thinks this way, but From a hardware standpoint, case of a computer, however, Web browser anyway? I’m worried that the new only the hard drive has yet to this anticipation is muted by This present hiatus is machine won’t work. I have prove itself. several dark thoughts. a grave problem for the visions of having to box Now the screen goes First, the new computer industry, and by implication, the thing back up and take blank. This is the most isn’t really going to do for all us electrical it back to the store, where frightening time of all. Is anything different than the engineers. Nevertheless, they’ll look at me like I’m a it going to come back to beloved old one, just the it isn’t my concern today; klutz who doesn’t know how life, or is this the end? The same things a little faster. eventually, an old computer to plug in a computer. And blankness lasts forever— And that modest increase in must be replaced, if for no I’ve already committed to maybe longer. But after an speed is going to come at an other reason than that the the new lemon. The prospect eternity I see the welcome enormous cost in worry— only operating systems of going back to the old screen from the operating and the work of switching it can run are no longer machine is now unbearable. system. I collapse in over to the new machine. supported. What I want to I can’t help but think about relief. All I have to do now Fortunately, we don’t replace talk about is that dreaded all the things that have to is to re-create my entire

jonathancarlson computers very often these cutover. Just the thought function perfectly for this computing environment. days. Processor speeds have of having to transfer new computer to work. The This will be arduous, but at plateaued. We’ve improved everything from the old processor has hundreds of least I will be in control. performance through machine takes the shine off millions of transistors—even I don’t know how many multiple processing cores, my glittering new one. more in the memory. And more times I can do this. o

www.spectrum.ieee.org March 2009 • IEEE SpEctruM • Na 25 What about the nukes? the u.s. nuclear stockpile is shoWing its age, but building neW Warheads isn’t the solution by & francis benn slakey tannenbaum

STILL WAITING: Warheads for peacekeeper missiles sit at Warren Air Force Base, Wyo. 26 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 Photo: Paul Shambroom he United States’ thousands of nuclear warheads have the explosive equivalent of over 1 gigaton of TNT. It’s an amount of energy that could literally move mountains, reroute rivers, alter climate, and result in the deaths of hun- dreds of millions or even billions of people, tthrough fire, radiation, and starvation. Like everything else on Earth, those warheads are getting older. But unlike anything else on Earth, that reAdy or NoT: mere aging may have profound consequences for the Nuclear gravity bombs national security of the United States. at Barksdale Air Force Most of the nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal Base, La., are among the date from the late 1970s and the 1980s, with antici- 5200 warheads in the u.S. nuclear stockpile. pated lifetimes of 20 to 25 years; the most recent ones, Photo: Paul Shambroom the submarine-launched W88s, were added in 1988. Most of the warheads, in other words, are now past or nearing their estimated expiration dates. If noth- ing is done to maintain these hugely complex systems, they will in time fail, leaving the United States with no nuclear arsenal at all. In fact, U.S. President Barack Obama has expressed an interest in eliminating all nuclear weapons— eventually. But he has also stated that the United States still needs a nuclear deterrent and that nuclear weap- ons should remain a key part of its security strategy for the time being. Officials in the United States and the other seven declared nuclear powers are now grappling with a tricky and essentially unprecedented problem: What is the best way to sustain their nuclear deterrents? The question is particularly urgent in the United States, which has some 5200 functional nuclear war- heads, about the same number as Russia, and several thousand more than the sum total of the world’s other nuclear arsenals combined. Since the early 1990s, the prevailing view of nuclear weapons is that they are like other manu- factured systems, such as cars and commercial jets. Their various components grow old, and eventually they will become nonfunctional. But that fate can be staved off by routine surveillance and maintenance and occasional replacement of parts or software. Such techniques have successfully extended the life spans of commercial airliners by decades. But over the past several years, some high-placed U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have come around to a different view—that even with diligent inspection and maintenance, the current arsenal will soon become unreliable and will no longer have much deterrent value. The only solution, they say, is to design and build new

www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 27 warheads. These new weapons would be produced Not surprisingly, nuclear weapons quickly gained a using state-of-the-art industrial methods that central role in U.S. national security policy. A vast and would vastly simplify manufacturing and mainte- secretive nuclear-weapons complex arose, with the U.S. nance and also drive down costs. Department of Defense dictating the military require- Such arguments for new warheads are compelling— ments that guided each new warhead design. Designing, but also controversial. Critics note that under the building, testing, and stockpiling those warheads fell to Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the laboratories now operated by the U.S. Department or NPT, the United States and other nuclear nations of Energy (DOE)—namely, Lawrence Livermore, are obligated to work toward eliminating their nuclear Sandia, and Los Alamos—and the weapons-production arsenals. Some even argue that U.S. modernization facilities, including Hanford, Oak Ridge, Rocky Flats, efforts, though confined so far to paper studies, have Y-12, Argonne, Savannah River, and Pantex. encouraged North Korea, Iran, and other countries Typically, the labs would produce competing to redouble their efforts to produce nuclear arsenals designs for a new warhead, of which one would be of their own. Proponents of building new warheads selected. Los Alamos National Laboratory led the counter that these systems would simply be replac- field: Warheads designed there now make up more ing antiquated weapons and that over time the total than 80 percent of the active stockpile [see table, arsenal would continue to shrink. “Warheads Produced at Los Alamos”]. Geopolitics is an inexact science, to put it mildly. After a design was selected, the first prototypes But physics is not, and as physicists who’ve been would be assembled and tested; based on the test results, involved in science and national security policy for nuclear designers would refine their creations. Once a many years, we believe that science and technology design was finalized, the weapons would be built in can, in this case at least, tell us all we need to know to quantity at one or more of the DOE production facili- decide this issue. Based on the available data, we are ties, with the final assembly taking place at the Pantex confident that the current program of stockpile stew- plant, near Amarillo, Texas. ardship, with some modifications, can preserve the The weapons would be deployed to the services U.S. arsenal for the foreseeable future and that it isn’t for a typical lifetime of 20 years. (Although the U.S. necessary—and may even be counterproductive—to Army no longer has nuclear forces, the Navy and pursue new warheads. Air Force still do.) At any given time, the number of BIG BANG: An What we’re not saying is that extending the life span weapons deployed or held in reserve depended on atomic bomb of the arsenal is going to be easy. To understand why, the U.S. government’s assessment of threats as well blast near Bikini you’re going to need a quick refresher in nuclear his- as its international treaty obligations. For nearly five Atoll, one of tory and technology. decades the United States continued to design, build, 1054 nuclear tests the and test nuclear weapons, routinely replacing older united states he United States invented nuclear weap- warheads with newer, more advanced ones. conducted ons during World War II and used the first ones As in any engineering enterprise, the testing phase between 1945 toward the end of that war, in August 1945, when was considered crucial. From July 1945 through and 1992. t Photo: courtesy U.S. forces dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese September 1992, the country performed 1054 nuclear of NatioNal Nuclear security cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They remain the tests. Initially, the detonations occurred above ground, admiNistratioN/ Nevada site office only nuclear weapons ever used in combat. at the Pacific atolls of Bikini and Enewetak and also at the Nevada Test Site in the western United States. After November 1962, U.S. testing moved under- ground, at the Nevada site. Then, in 1992, the U.S. government imposed a mora- torium on all nuclear testing, which has since been extended indefinitely. Three years earlier, production of the plutonium pits that are at the heart of a warhead had been shut down at the Rocky Flats facility, in Colorado. Because Rocky Flats was responsible for the plutonium pits used in all U.S. warheads, its closure effectively ended the production of new weapons. That left nuclear weaponeers with a difficult engineering challenge: Maintain a reliable U.S. arsenal, but do it without building or testing new warheads. The strategy they came up with is called stockpile stewardship.

urveillance, assessment, and refurbishment are the cornerstones of the Stockpile Stewardship s Program, which began in 1993. A sprawling endeavor with activities spread over facilities in seven states [see map, “Stewards of the Stockpile”], the program cost U.S. taxpayers about $6.5 billion last year. Compared

28 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org nevada test site steWards oF the stocKpIle Bases and facilities North of Las Vegas Kansas citY plant with active n Weapons testing Kansas City, Mo. nuclear weapons n Nonnuclear components and/or nuclear production propulsion missions

lawrence livermore national laboratorY Livermore, Calif. n Weapons research, development, and testing Y-12 national securitY complex Oak Ridge, Tenn. n Nuclear components production

sandia national laboratories savannah Livermore, Calif., and river plant Albuquerque Aiken, S.C. n Research, development, n Tritium production and testing of nonnuclear and recycling components los alamos national laboratorY pantex plant Los Alamos, N.M. Amarillo, Texas n Weapons research, n Evaluation and refurbishing SourceS: brookiNgS iNStitutioN, development, and testing of stockpiled weapons Natural reSourceS defeNSe couNcil, u.S. goverNmeNt accouNtability office

Warheads produced at los alamos

Year of first number in active Birth defects End-of-life wear-out Weapon production tYpe stockpile (estimated) THE WEIBULL CURVE B61-3 1979 Gravity bomb 200 Decreasing Increasing B61-4 1979 Gravity bomb 200 Increased failure rate Normal life failure rate failure rate B61-7 1985 Gravity bomb 215 Low failure rate B61-11* 1996 Gravity bomb 20 (earth penetrator) Time W76 1978 submarine-launched 1712 IN THe TUB: the weibull, or bathtub, curve indicates where a product is in its ballistic missile life span. Nuclear warheads, like other manufactured systems, are believed to W78 1979 Intercontinental 785 follow this curve. ballistic missile 6 W80-0 1983 submarine-launched 100 Number of age-related significant cruise missile findings (SFIs) recorded in nuclear components of 5 W80-1 1981 air-launched 1450 Los Alamos–produced systems cruise missile 4 W88 1988 submarine-launched 404 ballistic missile

* the B61-11 is a variant of the older B61. changes were made to its case and some 3 of the electronics, but the plutonium pit is the same as those used in other B61s. So most nuclear weapons experts consider the W88, not the B61-11, to be the newest u.S. warhead. Source: adaPted from “Nuclear Notebook,” BuLLEtiN oF 2 thE Atomic SciENtiStS, JaNuary/february 2007; See alSo httP://www.Nrdc.org/ Nuclear/Nudb/datab12.aSP

1 * *

to other important infrastructure programs, that’s not 7 10 15 20 25 30 35 out of line. The U.S. government spent $195 billion to Years after first production of unit fix roads and bridges that same year. The program’s simple-sounding name, Stockpile oLd BUT oKAy: Age-related significant findings (sFis) seen in nuclear components from Los Alamos–produced systems indicate that even the oldest Stewardship, doesn’t begin to capture the enormity systems are experiencing few problems. [Asterisks indicate weapons that are no of the task. Very few systems are engineered to sit longer in the active stockpile.] source: mark domzalski, los alamos NatioNal laboratory inactive for years or decades and then be ready to deploy at just a few moments’ notice. Bear in mind, too, that each weapon is extremely complex, incor- Every year, workers in the Stockpile Stewardship porating chemical explosives, radioactive materials Program systematically inspect 20-plus samples such as plutonium and tritium, an array of electrical of each type of warhead in the active stockpile. and electronic components, and metal casings, sup- When a problem is spotted, inspectors then decide port structures, and more. The failure of any of these whether a fix needs to be applied across all similar would degrade the weapon’s performance. warhead types. Inspections include destructive test- www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 29 Reentry vehicle

ing a plutonium core was detonated, compressing How Nuclear the core and increasing its density. the compression caused the critical mass to be exceeded and, again, Neutron generator a fission reaction resulted. both bombs used a neu- weapoNs work tron generator, which releases enough neutrons to Primary Tritium (plutonium he critical component of any nuclear kick-start the chain reaction. and fission bomb) weapon is the fissile material. this can be a key advance in warhead design came in the early deuteride Thighly enriched uranium or plutonium. For 1950s through the addition of a small amount of a High explosives gases the uranium in particular, the material’s isotope is light element, such as lithium or tritium. Known as crucial. (recall that the number of neutrons in an boosting, this addition causes the plutonium or ura- Plutonium pit atom’s nucleus determines the isotope.) For a fission nium fuel to burn more completely, increasing the bomb, the most suitable uranium isotope is u-235. yield of the weapon. For plutonium it’s pu-239. today’s nuclear warheads are known as thermo- Lithium-6 deuteride in a fission reaction, the isotope’s nucleus is struck nuclear devices and operate in two stages. in the by a neutron and splits into two smaller pieces, primary stage, implosion of the boosted plutonium releasing both energy and additional neutrons. generates enough x-ray energy to ignite a second, Radiation case with enough fissile material in a sufficiently com- much more powerful boosted weapon in the sec- (uranium-238) pact volume, those additional neutrons will strike ondary stage. Plastic foam other nuclei, causing them to undergo fission and throughout the cold war, the goal for each suc- start and sustain a chain reaction. cessive generation of warheads was always to Secondary

the nuclear bomb dropped on hiroshima was a increase the destructiveness of the weapon—known, N ig gun-type device, which shot a subcritical mass of ura- perhaps euphemistically, as the yield and measured Tritium reservoir S nium into another subcritical mass of uranium; the in equivalent tons of tnt—using the same war- tie de combination of the two created a supercritical mass. head mass. the two weapons used in world war ii, Uranium-235 S

sphere (filled chri the warhead dropped on nagasaki, by contrast, was for example, had yields of 13 to 21 kilotons of tnt N with lithium-6 a somewhat more sophisticated implosion device. in equivalent. in the 1960s the soviets tested war- deuteride) brya this bomb, a conventional high explosive surround- heads equal to 50 megatons of tnt. —F.S. & B.T.

ing of some of the nonnuclear components and non- yield of the bomb comes from [for further details, see destructive testing of other components. The exact sidebar, “How Nuclear Weapons Work”]. components inspected and the exact tests performed Scientists used to worry that radioactive decay of are classified. But in general, the inspectors look for the plutonium pit would shorten its useful lifetime. signs of aging, such as cracks or corrosion. They also A half-life measured in tens of thousands of years use supercomputer simulations to assess the possi- would seem to preclude immediate concern, but the ble impact of any such deterioration on the weapon’s sample does sustain very slight damage each time a safety and reliability. plutonium atom decays. That decay releases an alpha As you might have guessed, measuring and particle that slightly displaces a few thousand other combating the effects of radiation on the warhead’s plutonium atoms from their original locations. The components is a primary focus of stockpile steward- concern was that these relocations would change ship. All the components in a warhead are of course the grain structure of the plutonium metal, thereby designed to withstand a radioactive environment; diminishing its explosive power. the computer chips, for example, which control the But extensive studies of pits using high-resolution bomb’s fusing, triggering, and detonation, among imaging techniques, such as transmission electron other things, are all radiation hardened. microscopy and X-ray photography, and accelerated A warhead’s radioactive materials are also subject aging studies using shorter-lived isotopes of pluto- to decay. For instance, tritium, a radioactive isotope nium have revealed no significant aging problems. of hydrogen used in warheads to boost the explosive Indeed, based on these findings, a 2007 report by power, has a half-life of 12.3 years and so must be JASON, a distinguished and high-level defense advi- replaced at regular intervals. sory group, concluded that “most primary types have Plutonium-239, the isotope used in nuclear weap- credible minimum lifetimes in excess of 100 years.” ons, is a little more hardy; it has a half-life of about Think of an aging weapon as an aging car. 24 000 years. In a weapon, the plutonium is arranged Several weapons experts already have, including in a grapefruit-size “pit.” When a thermonuclear Stephen M. Younger, president of National Security weapon is detonated, chemical high explosives pro- Technologies, which oversees the Nevada Test Site. duce a collapsing shock wave that physically com- In a 1999 paper, he wrote, “Cars age. Materials need presses the hollow spherical pit. The pit achieves to be replaced and batteries wear out. You need to do critical mass and, with the help of a neutron gener- all sorts of things. Each component has a finite life, ator, begins a runaway fission reaction. The chem- although with proper attention the whole system may ical explosives, the pit, and the initiator are collec- last for a long time. We have the same situation with tively known as the weapon’s primary. The primary’s nuclear weapons.” fission reaction, in turn, produces the extreme tem- Much like an aging sedan, aging warheads perature and pressure needed to trigger the thermo- undergo regularly scheduled refurbishments and nuclear (fusion) reaction, in the part of the weapon upgrades to correct any problems spotted during called the secondary, where virtually all the explosive the inspections.

30 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org In some cases, a replacement part that no longer stockpile. Congress also mandated that the RRW ful- exists may need to be remanufactured. Or the manu- fill only current mission requirements, as defined by facturing processes used to produce the part may now the Defense Department, contain improved safety be considered too hazardous, such as those involv- and security attributes, and save money. ing beryllium, which can cause skin and lung dis- But adhering to those restrictions hasn’t been ease. In those instances, specialists need to design a enough to guarantee the future of the RRW. For new component and then fabricate it using safer tools the past two years, Congress has refused to fund it. and techniques. Still other aging components may be Meanwhile, the Obama administration has stated replaced with modern parts. To this day, some weap- that it will not pursue new nuclear weapons. Even ons still contain vacuum tubes; workers replace these so, Defense Secretary Gates has repeatedly voiced his with solid-state electronics. strong support for the program’s continuance, most But not everyone is convinced that the Stockpile recently in an article in the January/February 2009 Stewardship Program’s annual inspections are issue of Foreign Affairs. effective. Especially in the last three years, a num- ber of people at the weapons labs and the National ith a decision still pending, it is worth ask- Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the ing: Is a new nuclear weapon necessary? We stewardship program, have raised concerns about its W think the answer is no. long-term viability. The associate directors of the Los To understand why, first consider how defects Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories and accumulate in a complex system. Most such systems, the vice president of Sandia National Laboratories including nuclear warheads, follow a Weibull curve, have all called for a return to design- also known as a bathtub curve, that ing and building new nuclear weapons, characterizes the rate of defects it will under a program they call the Reliable wHile tHe suffer over time [see graph, “In the Replacement Warhead (RRW). Tub”]. The curve has three distinct stockpile parts: 1) a high rate of “birth defects,” echnology has come a long way is uNdoubtedly which gradually decrease over the since the last U.S. nuclear weapons early period of the system’s life; t were designed in the mid ’80s. For that agiNg, it doesN’t 2) a quiescent, relatively trouble-free and other reasons, new weapons built period as the system matures; and under the RRW effort would be vastly appear to be 3) an “end-of-life” wear-out period superior to the current stockpile, propo- close to marked by a rise in defects, requiring nents argue. Their designs would empha- parts to be fixed or replaced fre- size safety, security, and reliability, rather tHe eNd of its quently. When a system is in its end- than just maximum explosive power. The useful life of-life phase, the amount of mainte- new warheads would also be simpler and nance and repair required to keep it cheaper to construct and maintain, and operational becomes burdensome. they would allow for the use of modern In nuclear weapons circles, these manufacturing techniques, rather than the compara- defects are referred to as findings, with more serious tively costly and dangerous processes used during the defects called significant findings, or SFIs. Under Cold War. The RRW program would also train a new Stockpile Stewardship, SFIs are closely monitored. generation of U.S. weapons designers. When an SFI is first identified, it is referred to as After considerable debate, the Nuclear Weapons open; the SFI is considered closed when a solution Council, which consists of senior officials from the has been determined, although not necessarily imple- departments of Defense and Energy and the Joint mented. In general, most findings are due to aging in Chiefs of Staff, threw its weight behind the concept the nonnuclear part of the warhead and are relatively in 2005. It authorized a design competition between easily fixed. Some, though, require more involved a New Mexico–based team (with members from Los intervention, including the design and manufacture Alamos and Sandia’s Albuquerque division) and of replacement components. a California team (from Lawrence Livermore and The best way to track the aging of warheads is to Sandia’s California division). Of the two prelimi- chart the SFIs over time. The weapons labs do this, nary RRW designs, it selected the California one, and of course, and their data show that for the arsenal Lawrence Livermore was tapped to prepare a final as a whole, the failure rate is still low. For example, design, called the RRW-1. The RRW-1 warhead is the graph “Old but Okay” shows that only a few age- intended to replace the W76, a thermonuclear device related SFIs have been reported in nuclear compo- carried by submarine-launched ballistic missiles; the nents over time, even in the oldest systems. Other last W76s entered the stockpile in 1987. The plan also data for 2005 and 2006, the most recent years for called for a full-scale engineering design of the new which data are publicly available, indicate that the warhead, with initial operational capability by 2012. number of new SFIs had declined to the lowest level From 2004 to 2007, Congress funded the RRW since the start of the stewardship program. But it’s concept but imposed a number of restrictions. It also taking longer to resolve open SFIs; in 2006, it required that the RRW be developed without any took an average of 70 months to close an SFI, com- nuclear testing and that it lead to a smaller overall pared to 40 months in 2005. Continued on page 50 www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 31 fig. 1 Reading a Magazine Article

fig. 1a Start with headline The Death of Business-Method Patents From now on, you can get a U.S. patent only fig. 1b on a mousetrap—not on the idea of catching mice Enjoy deck

fig. 1c Who wrote this? by steven j. frank

n 30 october 2008, the much-maligned ogy as something you cooked “business method” patent died at the hand or cranked. The exclusion was fig. 1d of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal later justified by the notion that Circuit, the very court that had given birth to free competition was so effec­ Admire it a decade earlier. The occasion was the case tive in encouraging new ways large of In re Bilski, and although the U.S. Supreme to do business that there was letter OCourt has yet to utter the last word, the overwhelming likeli­ no need to add further incen­ ‘O’ hood is that you will no longer be able to patent the newest way tives through the patent system. of making a buck. If you want to protect new modes of shop­ For decades, business methods ping, delivering legal services, reserving a rest room on an air­ stood outside the patent system plane, or settling futures contracts, don’t ask the U.S. Patent because no one had made a case and Trademark Office (PTO) for help. for their inclusion. To critics of the business­method craze, the end could not have The problem was that even come soon enough. They’d complained that the patent system, as the courts perpetuated designed to protect technology, was now spreading like a weed the ban on business methods, into all areas of life. Patents were being issued for using a laser they never really articulated pointer to tease a cat and for a way of playing on a child’s swing. exactly what business methods (No joke—the patents were actually issued, in 1995 and 2002.) By were. This deficiency irked the covering almost any conceivable activity, the patent system was Federal Circuit when it decided threatening to crush the very innovation it was meant to foster. State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. The system’s sudden expansion was almost accidental. For Signature Financial Group in nearly a century, in fact, business methods had been expressly 1998. Faced with a request to excluded. Patents, as the U.S. Supreme Court put it in 1980, invalidate Signature’s patent were meant for “anything under the sun that is made by man.” on a data­processing system for Made, that is, of stuff—not ideas for doing things not involving calculating the best way to allo­ stuff. That accorded with European patent guidelines, which cate the assets of a mutual fund, provide that “technical character is an essential requirement the court ultimately decided to for patentability of an invention,” and with a similar Japanese let the patent stand. The court’s restriction to technical subject matter. primary concern was whether The original exclusion of business methods from the pat­ software and data­processing ent system may have stemmed from a quaint view of technol­ techniques should be patent­

fig. 1e Look at artwork, turn page mckibillo

32 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org 10A

11 10B

fig. 2 Method of Exercising a Cat 43 U.S. Patent No. 5,443,036

42

fig. 2e fig. 2b 39 fig. 2c 40 41

fig. 2d 16

36 38 35 13 15 37

14

fig. 2a 34 33

12

www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 33 able. Along the way—almost as an afterthought, as we’ll see— That wasn’t a bad middle ground, actually, and the it threw out the ban on business methods. Federal Circuit probably didn’t really mean to disturb it when The patentability of software was an old and thorny ques­ it decided, in the State Street case, that a mutual­fund man­ tion. The operations of a computer program might be too agement system was patentable. Signature’s system was no mathematical, too close to basic laws of nature. Where do you mere abstraction or equation but rather an obviously use­ draw the line between math and its application? ful approach to managing specific business functions. So in In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court had tried three times to its decision, the court welcomed into the patentable fold any draw that line, most recently in the 1981 case of Diamond v. “practical application” of an algorithm, formula, or calculation Diehr, which involved a patented rubber­curing operation that produces “a useful, concrete and tangible result.” based on a mathematical formula known as the Arrhenius Unfortunately, this test itself is neither concrete nor tangi­ equation. The court upheld the patent, saying that although ble. What the court probably intended was to broaden patent math can’t be patented, an otherwise patentable process eligibility beyond software that controls physical stuff, like doesn’t become ineligible simply because it involves math. baking rubber, while precluding patents on computing mere The Arrhenius equation might be no more patentable than numbers, such as pi or a Fourier transform. But the Federal gravity, but everyone agrees you can patent new ways to cure Circuit thought its new patentability rule eminently clear— rubber, and their reliance on math shouldn’t matter. so clear, in fact, that it could revoke the ban on business meth­ The problem is that all software ultimately reduces to ods. That way, a poorly defined category of exclusion would be mathematical operations, yet only some software controls eliminated, leaving the lawyers one less term to fight over. The

21 A Rising Tide u.s. business-methods patent* filings, thousands 12 22 10 8 20 6 4 fig. 3 2 0 Method of Swinging on a Swing ’97 ’98 ’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 ’07

U.S. Patent No. 6,368,227 source: United States Patent and Trademark Office *Class 705 patent mckibillo illustration:

actual stuff, like the baking of rubber. If the rest is merely idea was that every invention would stand or fall on whether math and therefore unpatentable, does that mean we must it produced something useful, concrete, and tangible. deny patents to all software that runs nothing but itself? This approach might have worked, had the PTO and the legal community given a modest scope to those words. But back in the 1990s, courts were uncomfortable the late 1990s did not favor modesty. The explosion of Web going that far. Computers were infiltrating more and more applications and new service models planted the Internet’s traditional bastions of patent protection—consumer products, footprint over vast tracts of unexplored (and unpatented) telecommunications, medical devices, automobiles—and com­ business territory. Meanwhile, software development was puter software itself had become a distinct technology indus­ surging, spurred on by plummeting prices for hardware and try. It seemed wrong to read Diamond v. Diehr so broadly as to the proliferation of Web­based distribution channels. Web deny patent protection to new enterprises, thus leaving the and software entrepreneurs feared their equally nimble com­ rising tide of software technology outside the system—along petitors as much as they dreaded discovering their creations with the dreaded business method. So the lower courts found in the next version of Microsoft Windows. The rush was on themselves caught between the Supreme Court’s antipathy to use the patent system to fend off competition. toward excessively mathematical inventions and the prolifer­ Fatefully, the State Street court did not declare expressly ating reality of computer software. Searching for a single prin­ that patents should be confined to technological subject mat­ ciple that would exclude equations from patentability without ter. Perhaps the judges thought it implicit in their concept crippling innovation, the courts experimented unsuccessfully of “practical utility.” The foundations of the patent system, with one patentability test after another. after all, lie in the U.S. Constitution’s mandate to “promote By the mid­1990s, the PTO, attempting to maintain con­ the progress of science and useful arts.” But because the sistent examination practices despite the shifting legal sands, court failed to articulate what it meant by “practical utility,” reached an uneasy truce with the courts. The patent office it removed a key restraint on patenting abstract ideas— paid lip service to the latest court decisions, but its practice such as business methods—without introducing a counter­ boiled down to rejecting claims that didn’t involve technol­ balance. Maybe you couldn’t patent overnight delivery, but ogy and demanding more from data­processing applications what about computing fees based on how far a package trav­ than simple number juggling. els and when it arrives? fig. Keep reading, not done yet 34 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 4 The floodgates flew open. Under relentless pressure from US $1 billion for discovering and developing each new drug patent applicants, and lacking a clear legal basis to keep the treatment, for example, no one would get into the pharmaceu­ door shut against almost anything, the PTO started admit­ tical business without a guarantee of exclusivity. ting all comers. Filings for business­related ideas surged But that’s an impossible standard to implement. No one, fivefold between 1998 and 2000. Actual grants for computer­ and certainly no governmental institution, can reliably implemented business patents rose fivefold from 1997 to 2006. assess whether patents help or harm particular forms of innovation. The U.S. Congress often drowns in the conflict­ the party ended this past october, when the ing analyses supplied by partisan players, as recent expe­ Federal Circuit upheld the PTO’s decision to deny a patent rience with patent reform amply demonstrates. The courts, to Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw for a method of for their part, aren’t supposed to make social policy, which hedging risks in a commodity trading system. The court thus partly explains why they prefer to reason by analogy, decid­ summarily ended its own State Street soiree, casting abstrac­ ing what can be patented by comparison to what is or isn’t tions like legal relationships and marketing schemes into the already patentable. same dustbin as equations and gravity: You can’t patent them. But reasoning by analogy doesn’t always work well To qualify for a patent, said the court, a process must either for new forms of innovation. Software, for example, is on transform one kind of stuff into another kind or it must be one level just zeroes and ones. Yet it transforms a general­ fig. fig. tied to a “particular machine.” purpose computer into a specialized, task­specific machine.

Both options cry out for greater clarity, and the judges did Indeed, a program’s very ability to run on any suitable 5 not supply it. And they compounded the ambiguity with an platform means that protecting that program can affect an here begins End arbitrary distinction, holding that mere numbers can qualify entire industry. as stuff as long as they represent stuff:­ X ray data correspond­ The upshot is that these endless debates about whether ing to a patient’s anatomy, for example, is equivalent for pat­ software is more like a patentable machine or an unpatent­ ent purposes to the anatomy itself. Yet all data is ultimately able abstraction are completely beside the point. What we generic: It can just as easily represent something tangible as really need to know, but lack the tools to reliably assess, is something abstract. What a byte represents hardly seems rele­ whether software patents help or hinder innovation. vant to the objective of protecting commercially useful inno­ vation while leaving pure science free to all. if that question is obvious to ask but impossible Also, the court did not explain what it meant by a “particu­ to answer, then how are we to decide whether to admit a new lar machine.” That failure left open the question of whether candidate into the pantheon of patentable subject matter? a general­purpose computer can qualify. If the answer is yes, Perhaps the best place to begin is where the world’s various then in effect, an equation is patentable—as long as you solve patent systems tend to agree. One common feature is the focus it on a computer, which is how most people solve them now. on what’s made (as opposed to merely thought) by man. Other If that reasoning seems so excessive as to invite pure math well­established boundaries include the universal unpatent­ back into the world of patents, consider the alternative: If the ability of laws of nature, physical phenomena, abstract or dis­ answer is no—that a general­purpose computer cannot qualify embodied ideas, and pure math. Maybe we should exchange as a particular machine—then Bilski has gone far beyond rein­ lofty expressions of legal principle for practical standards troducing a technology requirement into the patent system. based on these recognized exclusions. Perhaps if patent Virtually all of commercially useful computer science, includ­ claims call for hardware and operations that don’t reduce to ing Google’s search methods and IBM’s techniques for secure “numbers in–crunch numbers–numbers out,” we should con­ data storage, will be ineligible for patent protection (unless sider the subject­matter eligibility bar cleared. they run only on special­purpose hardware). Vast technol­ Qualifying as patentable subject matter, after all, is only ogy industries will now be excluded from the patent system. the first hurdle that any invention must clear. The invention Either way—with too much math or too little computer science must also be different from past efforts and, critically, suf­ in the patent system—the results are untenable. So the notion ficiently innovative beyond them to merit the distinction of of a particular machine only confuses matters. a patent. This latter requirement of “nonobviousness” is a Unfortunately, what makes sense often gets obscured in tough standard, and the courts have been making it tougher. the Talmudic dissection of legal principles and the cacoph­ Even the most creative way of teasing your pet or playing on ony of competing commercial interests. In the wider debate a swing would surely fail to meet this standard today. over patent reform, big industrial incumbents lobby to trim Let’s also not forget the system’s existing capacity for self­ the scope of patents and thereby spare themselves tiresome correction. Competitors who feel (or fear) a patent’s sting can and expensive lawsuits. Opposing them are pharmaceutical ask the PTO to reconsider its decision to grant the patent, companies and technology upstarts, which rely more heavily challenge the patent’s validity informally or in court, design on patents and champion the status quo. Each side claims to around it, or pay a license fee. While none of these options seek only a level playing field (and to safeguard our children’s may seem attractive to the party on the receiving end, their future, of course). All too rare is the dispassionate, empirical very existence ensures that most patents ultimately hinder analysis of how well the patent system is performing or of the rather than destroy competition. Legislatures will also act economic effect of providing patent protection to specific cat­ when the social costs seem too high, imposing restrictions egories of innovation. on patents for surgical procedures, for example. In an ideal world, patents would be available only when In fact, if judges conceived of themselves as practical sur­ the social benefits of encouraging innovation through the geons rather than visionary healers, excising the dangerous grant of exclusive rights outweighed the innovation­stifling outliers with a fine scalpel but otherwise doing no harm, then effects of withholding them. At an estimated average cost of the system they preside over might well be healthier. o www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 35 holly lindem holly

36 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org Open

Awhat prosthetic-armrm engineering iss learning from open source, crowdsourcing, and the video-game industry By jonathan kuniholm

n the first day of 2005, Our meeting was cut short around 9 a.m. i was living inside the haditha when a report came in that one of his riverine hydroelectric dam on the boat patrols had been attacked from the shore. euphrates river in iraq, four i joined the group that went out to respond. and a half months into a deploy- We got off the boat and started patrolling the O ment as the engineer officer for 1st Battalion, shore on foot, but all we found was evidence 23rd Marines, in northern anbar province. the of the previous firefight.t he Marines began night before, i had rustily fingerpicked my way to secure the area. through a bluegrass song on the guitar in the i was on the ground before i was even new year’s eve talent show. i went to bed look- aware of the sound of an explosion. the ing forward to an easy day, a welcome change. blast from the improvised explosive device— i’d been on a long patrol over Christmas—sleep- explosives and scrap metal hidden in an ing little, getting shot at. in the morning, i made olive oil can—broke my M4 carbine in two some of the starbucks coffee my wife had been and nearly severed my right arm. Before sending in her care packages, wrote an e-mail the Blackhawk helicopter took me away, to a friend back home, and headed out to a plan- i remember telling the executive officer, ning meeting with another officer. “i guess my guitar-playing days are over.”

www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 37 i stayed conscious until we reached and once my incisions had healed i would the first myoelectric prosthetic arm was the U.s. navy alpha surgical Company get a state-of-the-art myoelectric arm. demonstrated in 1955. that benchtop pre- at al asad airbase. then i was anes- Myoelectric arms have joints powered sentation included a powered hook that thetized and sent to the operating room, by electric motors. they are controlled by looks remarkably like one i got from Walter where i joined the hundreds of amputees electrical signals on the surface of the skin, reed. in 1965, a New York Times headline pro- who have lost limbs in the two wars we which are produced by the remaining mus- claimed “new Process Will help amputee are currently waging. cles in the arm. according to a 2005 article, to Control Limb With thought.” in 2007, a the latest and greatest myoelectric pros- Popular Science article described an early mprovised explosive devices (ieds) like thetics allowed a wearer to move the limb prototype robotic hand as “mind controlled” the one that got me had become, by mid- just by thinking about it. Many articles and “dexterous enough to play the piano.” I 2004, our enemies’ weapon of choice, and have anticipated robotic arms that func- there was even a video of the hand play- we had spent a lot of time preparing for the tion as well as or better than their human ing “frère Jacques.” the headlines have threat. We were all to some extent prepared analogues—letting an amputee shave, hold stayed the same, but as i discovered, so has for the possibility of death, but i hadn’t a knife or fork, button a shirt, or turn an the technology. these prosthetic “concept given much thought to how my life might ignition key. cars”—even the ones that live up to their change if an ied took one of my limbs. ever i went to see Glen hostetter, a pros- claims—have historically had little effect on since the first few amputees returned from thetist at duke. i was telling him how what most arm amputees actually wear. afghanistan in 2001, they have been the excited i was about the arm i would get Let me be clear: no expense has very public face of modern warfare as it is at Walter reed Medical Center when he been spared on providing military waged on the ground—a little different from stopped me. “have you ever seen a myo- arm amputees with the most cutting- the sterile video output of a laser-guided electric hand?” he asked quietly. edge technology available for replac- bomb or unmanned drone. the media cov- i had never seen a real one up close. ing their limbs. amputees at Walter erage often emphasizes the medical care that he dug around the back of his office and reed get the works—myoelectric and saves their lives, and the advanced prosthet- brought back a demonstration model of a body-powered prosthetic arms with ics they wear, with phrases like bionic arms child’s myoelectric hand. all i could say any attachments we might want, sports and thought control. was, “that’s it?” and other task-specific arms, cosmetic arms painted with the tattoos we used to have, you name it. in 2006, the Veteran’s administration spent Us $1.1 million the most important thing that can Be on prosthetic devices and services. it’s done right now to push prosthetics the best insurance and the best care in into the 21st century is to open the the world, but that doesn’t change what technology to the world there is to buy or what it can do. the body-powered prosthetic split hook i chose instead of the myo arm has been characterized by some as lit- Lying in a hospital bed in Landstuhl, instead of the lifelike motion of indi- tle more than a rubber band and a stick. Germany, i only knew that i had sur- vidual fingers i had expected, i was But the surprisingly useful mechanical vived and that a young Marine named looking at a rigid, hand-shaped electric design has endured for close to a cen- Brian Parello had not. the doctors clamp. the creepy “flesh tone” vinyl glove tury. it has been improved incrementally had saved my right elbow and part of encasing it seemed to be designed more since 1912, when it was patented by d.W. my forearm. i talked to my wife on the to make other people feel better than to dorrance, who lost his arm to an indus- phone. i got a Whopper from the hospi- restore function. the arm i eventually got trial accident. Body-powered prosthet- tal’s Burger King. On the way back to the at Walter reed wasn’t much better. the ics have cable controls that you move by United states, in a morphine haze, i took socket offered a limited range of motion. shrugging and tensing your shoulders, pictures as we flew overi celand. i made the beautiful cover, painted by an art- an action that opens and closes a sim- my first, totally unintelligible attempts ist, was too fragile for everyday use. the ple hook or hand appendage. after try- to write with my left hand. i already felt hand couldn’t even turn a doorknob, and ing everything else, i opted to wear this worlds away from anbar province, and it was useless for what prosthetists clin- arm exclusively. i immediately began to feel guilty about ically call the “activities of daily living”— the kind i wear, made by hosmer the early ticket home, despite its price. the same activities the popular science dorrance Corp., is indistinguishable i arrived in the United states on coverage had talked about. it was not from those worn by amputees after January 5 and was home a week later on what i expected it to be, nothing like what World War ii, except in materials: convalescent leave. Before i deployed, i i’d been promised by the media, and defi- silicones and plastics in the socket, car- was a biomedical engineering graduate nitely not what i wanted. bon fiber instead of wood or fiberglass student at duke University, in durham, in the frame, titanium instead of steel n.C., so i did what any engineer would he chasm between what people in the hook, spectra (a type of strong, do with the time: i began scouring the think is out there and what is actu- lightweight synthetic fiber) instead of internet for articles on prosthetic tech- T ally available to an amputee has steel cable for control. despite two cor- nology, trying to envision what my future existed for years. the hype isn’t limited to porate acquisitions, dorrance’s name would look like. My doctor told me i would the popular press: scientific research and remains stamped on every hook the have to go through a few more surgeries, even scientific literature repeat these claims. company makes.

38 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org AFTER IRAQ: veteran jonathan kuniholm [far left], who lost his right arm in an ied attack, opted for the body- powered hook prosthesis, which has changed little since it was patented in 1912. much the same design was worn by harold russell [left], a world war ii veteran who became an actor after the war. in the photo, russell shows why the u.s. army felt compelled to add a “cigarette notch” to the basic design. Photos: left, mike mcGreGor; riGht, bob coburn/ the kobal collection

the hook retains the rubber grip and sands of potential customers would be Because of its ambitious goals and “cigarette notch” added by the army in the laughed out of the room. the govern- compressed schedule, revolutionizing 1950s. in fact, you’ll find most of the parts ment is, and will remain, the only game Prosthetics has often been compared to the of my arm described in a January 1954 in town as far as research and develop- Manhattan Project. But let me stress that article by M.J. fletcher about the pros- ment in prosthetic arms. unlike the Manhattan Project, the entire thetic state of the art titled “the Upper- revolutionizing Prosthetics program bud- extremity Prosthetics armamentarium” he same year i lost my arm, the get could fit inside the cost of a single Joint in the journal Artificial Limbs. the same defense advanced research strike fighter—with room to spare. parts and pictures appear in the current T Projects agency (darPa) began it’s important to talk about the money hosmer dorrance online catalog. the revolutionizing Prosthetics pro- because, given the scale of the funding imagine this pace of development gram, whose costs now total nearly and the task, what both darPa projects for other everyday products. We would $100 million. the program was split into have achieved so far is nothing short of make our calls on big black rotary-dial two parts: the 2007 project, headed by incredible. But it’s far short of the mira- Ma Bell telephones (lightweight carbon dean Kamen’s new hampshire–based cles that have been reported in the press, fiber body!), add up to 28 columns of fig- deka research and development Corp., which have exceeded even the ambitious ures using the punch cards of the iBM 650 was given a two-year deadline to make goals of the entire program. (improved 56-column design!), and we an advanced prosthetic arm with the remember the Popular Science arti- could go zero to 60 in a Corvette in almost world’s best existing technologies. cle about the mind-controlled hand 10 seconds (updated color selection!). if the 2009 program is spearheaded that was dexterous enough to play the this seems preposterous for other indus- by Johns hopkins University’s applied piano? that article conflated two proto- tries, why is it the unfortunate reality of Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, Md. aPL’s type hands developed by the aPL team: the prosthetic arm industry? Where’s goal is to create prosthetics that would, the extrinsic Prototype 2 hand and the Moore’s Law for prosthetic arms? as the hype had it, be “thought con- intrinsic Prototype 2 hand. the former the problem is the size of the mar- trolled.” But the team wanted more than is powered by one of the most fiendishly ket for prosthetic arms, which is just too control for amputees; they also wanted to complex mechanical devices i’ve ever small to provide any real incentives for restore the ability to feel heat, cold, pres- seen—it was an early exploration into innovation. in the modern conflicts in sure, and surface texture. i found out a possible strategy for controlling indi- iraq and afghanistan, 862 U.s. troops about the program at Walter reed when i vidual fingers. the intrinsic hand was have become amputees, of which only was first being fitted for prosthetics, and physically capable of all the individual 186 have lost arms as of february 2009. i was anxious to get on board. now i’m movements necessary to play the piano, the total arm amputee population in the one of over 300 engineers at over 30 insti- but it could not be controlled by a per- United states is under 100 000. anyone tutions worldwide working on the aPL son in real time. there was no muscle who approached a venture capitalist with project. at duke, i’m helping with sus- twitch or electrical signal being decoded a business plan with significant tech- pension (attaching the arm to the body), by signal-processing algorithms in real nical challenges and only tens of thou- grasping control, and system design. time. the hand was preprogrammed, www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 39 like a player piano. dexterous to use the components the com- manipulation—the cooperation pany designed for the first aPL of two hands and 10 fingers to prototype arm. Otto Bock plans achieve a complex control goal— to use these same components is the holy grail of prosthetic in its next-generation “intelli- hand function, but we’re not gent arm,” which could be on there yet. the difference between the market as early as 2010. that grasp and dexterity is the dif- itself would not be a problem, but ference between picking up a in 2008 the company announced rubik’s Cube and solving it. that the arm would use a propri- at this point, no one is even etary and encrypted digital com- trying to make a hand that will munication standard, called the let a user win a rubik’s Cube axon bus, for its new systems. competition or play the piano. this will create a tectonic shift it’s just not yet possible to per- in the industry. Previously, all form tasks that require such dex- companies—be they 800-pound terity in real time. gorillas like Otto Bock or smaller, though both darPa proj- niche providers like Liberating ects come very close to living up technologies, which makes the to the hype that surrounds them, Boston elbow—used the same they must become real products mechanical and electrical compo- in order to help anyone. We need InnovATIon sTAgnATIon: d.w. dorrance patented the nents originally created by Otto dorrance hook in 1912. his name is still stamped on body- to push the arm that last mile to powered prosthetics worn today. u.s. Patent and trademark office Bock. all the parts spoke the the consumer. and that’s where same language. But now the next we run into the biggest chal- generation of commercial pros- lenge. the most important thing we can One major lesson from the Open thetics will communicate in a code no one do right now to push arm prosthetics Prosthetics Project is that shar- else will be able to crack. Marginal com- into the 21st century is to work around ing a design isn’t necessarily enough. petitors like Liberating technologies— the tiny market size and break down the Consider the story of the trautman hook. along with Motion Control, which makes barriers to innovation. edgar Kulcas, a longtime trautman user, the Utah arm, and touch Bionics, which needed a new hook, but it had long since makes the ihand—make individual parts s I discovered the difference gone out of production. so we improved that plug into the most widely used sys- between the science fiction and the old design and made it available on tems, the only real spot of innovation in a A the reality of prosthetic arms, i the internet. you’d think that would static landscape. if these companies can tried to come up with a solution. i came mean someone like Kulcas could now no longer make these individual parts up with some ideas for simple improve- simply download the design and have it without creating an entirely new arm to ments to the body-powered arms i prefer, made by a local machinist. But that’s not go with them, they won’t survive. that but i quickly realized that there wasn’t what happened. translates into yet another narrowing of much of a business case for commercial- We had the hook made by a rapid options available to amputees. ization. so some friends and i started prototyper and sent it, along with several Otto Bock’s decision is not a unique the Open Prosthetics Project in durham others, to prosthetists whose patients, development. deka research has as an online clearinghouse for sharing like Kulcas, were eager for replace- declared that it has no intention of par- prosthetic arm designs. the project ments. they were “well pleased,” as Mr. ticipating in any open standard for com- attacks the most obvious barrier to inno- Kulcas put it, and i’m still getting e-mails munication. however, the wrist rota- vation by giving people a forum in which requesting these hooks. the problem is tor on deka’s arm remains too large for to share their ideas. We want to start a that no manufacturer is going to jump up below-elbow amputees like me to use. dialogue among all the stakeholders. We and start making that design again. the addressing the specific needs of below- want users and technicians to improve long-expired 1925 patent doesn’t obvi- elbow amputees was not a darPa and tweak the technologies they use ate dubious and expensive trademark requirement, but most arm amputations instead of being stuck with whatever claims. Beyond that, many people are are below the elbow. the ability to swap one-size-fits-most device they get (for nervous about the prospect of manufac- different manufacturers’ components example, there is a section on our Web turing an fda-regulated device. would have solved that problem. site called “Pimp My arm”). a techni- and the future doesn’t look much it’s worth looking at this in terms cally inclined amputee or technician can better. Otto Bock healthCare, one of the of the current economic stimulus or download our computer-aided design largest prosthetics manufacturers in the recovery packages. We’re spending a (Cad) files, modify them, and send them world, is also the transition partner for lot of government money doing some- to a machinist. the four-year project. that means the thing that industry has failed to do, We hoped that we could disrupt the company, which is based in Germany, so we need to ensure that we’re get- stagnant commercial market, as Linux will turn aPL’s revolutionizing ting our money’s worth. Col. Geoffrey has for software. We thought openness Prosthetics research into next-generation Ling, the program manager on the was the solution. But it turned out not to commercial prosthetics. But Otto Bock revolutionizing Prosthetics project, be that easy. is not waiting for the close of the project made it clear from the start that this

40 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org wouldn’t be just another science proj- he best way to really move pros- and home-service or hobby robotics, for ect—this project would have real ben- thetics research forward is to hitch a example. if the communication standards efits in the real world. T ride on a real market. if we can find developed for the darPa project were so in the middle of the four-year an application for a myoelectric human adopted by one of these industries, then project, the aPL team decided to open interface in the $32 billion worldwide video- terminal devices like individual joints and up the framework of its project. the game market, for example, we can tap into hands could see much wider use. in turn, steps it is taking are virtually unheard a massive reserve of people who might the devices would benefit from much of: first, aPL is making its virtual envi- not otherwise get involved in the effort. more r&d. ronment open source. the aPL team any tool they develop could be repurposed dean Kamen is famous for found- has created a virtual integration envi- for prosthetics, allowing that small mar- ing the first (for inspiration and ronment, a training simulation in which ket to benefit from the economies of scale recognition of science and technology) signal processing and control tech- that are usually available only to much mentoring program, which inspires niques can be tested and an amputee larger ones. the MyOpen project on the young people to get involved in science can watch him- or herself drive a vir- Open Prosthetics site is working on ways and engineering. an open architecture tual arm. second, the team also plans to to create a product that can serve both a for the deka arm could be the basis for a publish an open control communication niche and a mass market. MyOpen, an first competition with dexterous tasks— architecture for the limb. finally, aPL open-hardware signal-processing board think darPa Grand Challenge or a piano intends to publish the mechanical inter- that will be compatible with aPL’s arm, sight-reading competition. i’ve served as faces for each physical component, such will also serve as a universal controller a mentor to first robotics team 900 as the wrist rotator or the finger joints. for video games. We want creative peo- at the north Carolina school of science (Opening the architecture for mechani- ple to get their hands on this device and and Math. Based on my experience with cal and electrical interfaces, by the push it to the limits. We want this device these students, i think they would relish way, should not be confused with open- to enhance the experience of playing video the opportunity to work on a problem that source software; adhering to a common games, and in doing so, push prosthetics significantly affects lives. interface doesn’t require a manufac- innovation into the 21st century. the greatest revolution of all may be turer to publish trade secrets about how another possible application is robot- apparent only after the frenzy of pros- its improvements were made.) ics. Prosthetic arms aren’t the only devices thetics research spending has evapo- these innovations will give any com- that require centrally controlled powered rated. the design evolution for which pany—or individual—access to the phys- joints. the compact and powerful motors darPa is laying the groundwork could ical specifications of thea PL arm as well designed for the aPL project—less than a come from any quarter, inside or out- as parts of the control software. they’ll centimeter in diameter and capable of pro- side the prosthetics industry. and who even have a virtual environment in ducing 8 watts—could be useful in bomb knows—someone might even make which to test their adaptations. disposal, hazardous waste inspection, money doing it. o

no longer have access to service WhAT or support. hAppEnEd let’s not waste the govern- To ThE iBoT? ment’s $100 million investment in prosthetic arms on some- n canada, the national thing that will meet the fate of health service will supply a the iBot. —J.k. i myoelectric prosthesis to anybody who needs one, but in the united states, body- hoW CAn powered prosthetics are more I hElp opEn prevalent. that’s because myo pRosThETICs? devices can cost between us $35 000 to $100 000, and hile it’s most natural the insurance companies are to want to help within often not likely to pay. wyour area of expertise, the recent demise of the iBot it’s not a requirement. we’ve got balancing wheelchair could prove challenges like improving the instructive. the $100 million mechanics of a basic body- privately funded iBot wheelchair powered device like the t-hook seemed poised to revolutionize or designing the manufacture mobility for a potential customer for one. you can also help AIR guITAR hERo: the applied physics lab will open the architecture base 50 times as large as with software or circuit-board for its virtual integration environment, an unprecedented move. that for prosthetic arms. the design for our myoelectric signal product cost one-tenth of what processor, the myopen. if you’re functionality of our multiple wikispot.org. you can connect the darpa arms will cost, yet looking for something soothing, web sites into one, develop the with others on the open faced identical insurance and you could quarry some mental true open collaboration hub that prosthetics social network at reimbursement issues. But rocks by filling in the gaps in our we imagine at openprosthetics. http://openprosthetics.ning. now johnson & johnson has patent database. if you’re a web org, or help me get google com. that said, the way to help m ike ike pulled the plug on the iBot designer or programmer, maybe friend connect working. these is probably not to call or e-mail m

c after having sold only about you’d like to help us redesign projects are described on our me. we figured out early on that Gre 1000 units. those few users will our web site to incorporate the wiki, http://openprosthetics. my inbox is a choke point. —J.k. G or

www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 41 How green is my plug-in? thE cArboN impAct of thE millioNS of ElEctric vEhiclES SooN to hit thE roAd will dEpENd oN thE gridS thAt Supply thEm

“our goal is to remove the car from the environmental debate,” says larry burns, vice president for R&D and strategic planning at General Motors. His vision is that one day cars will emit no harmful pollutants from their tailpipes—or perhaps they’ll have no tailpipes at all. And if the beleaguered automaker survives that long, GM may be able to achieve that goal. but no company can ever remove cars from the environmental equation. Public impressions are fleeting and malleable, but the laws of physics and chemistry are immutable. Cars require energy to move, and that energy—even if it’s stored in a battery pack rather than in fuel sloshing around in a tank—has to come from somewhere. and therein lies the problem. Odds are those batteries won’t be recharged with solar or wind energy. In most places, grid power is for many decades going to come from the burning of fossil fuels, which generate their own emissions. So the question becomes: If you power a vehicle with electricity from the grid rather than with fuel from the tank, is that better or worse for the environment, particularly with respect to greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide? it’s a question that dogs not just automakers but also policymakers all over the developed world. Companies and governments are already spending billions of dollars engineering the vehicles and infrastructures to kick off the transition from gasoline and diesel to electricity. Plug-in hybrids even became a mantra during the 2008 U.S. presidential election—with both candidates citing them as an environmental panacea.

by johN voElckEr

42 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org hollylindem

www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 43 a few analysts forecast that by 2020, plug-in vehicles, includ- another 480 km (300 miles) ing plug-in hybrids and purely electric cars, will make up almost a or more on a tank. Even third of new-car sales in the United States. And by 2050, plug-ins without the engine, the Volt could account for most of China’s burgeoning vehicular travel. But would still function as a limited-range electric car. the environmental implications of such a massive shift are hardly Finally, there are models built as straightforward. purely electric cars, also known as battery- The complexity stems from the multiplicity of vehicles, electricity- electric vehicles, whose main drawback generating technologies, and assumptions behind future projec- at present is the high cost of the battery tions for both. Imagine that two years from now you’re comparing pack. Analysts expect mass-produced a newly available hybrid model that can recharge from wall current electric cars with reasonably affordable with a conventional gasoline car that consumes, say, 9.4 liters per lithium-ion batteries—and consequently 100 kilometers (25 miles per gallon). In this case, using grid power with ranges of 160 km or less—to enter the to drive electrically emits fewer greenhouse gases per kilometer— market by 2012. Nissan Motor Co. and its under any circumstances. partner Renault have already announced But if you compare the plug-in with an ultraeconomical European one such compact sedan. diesel or a conventional hybrid-electric like Toyota Motor Corp.’s calculating the green credentials of Prius—either of which burns just 4 to 5 L/100 km—the picture is these different drivetrains is not at all a more complicated: The plug-in emits fewer greenhouse gases in straightforward exercise. But let’s start some circumstances, but more in others. with the simplest, and for many the most The balance hangs on just what sort of power plants are being pertinent, yardstick: how much climate- used to generate the electricity. So before you decide what to buy, you warming carbon dioxide is generated will need to answer a second question: How green is your grid? for each kilometer driven—whether it’s delivered by gasoline or electricity. To figure out the amount of CO2 electric vehicles have been around tion of electric motors and a combustion that might result from running on grid for decades, although their limited engine working in parallel is valuable, power, the first thing you need to know is ranges have made them impractical for though, because it allows the Prius (and how much electricity a plug-in car uses. most people. But now, with automakers similar parallel hybrids) to use its fuel That, of course, depends on the vehicle preparing to introduce the first vehicles much more efficiently. in question. Tesla Motors has claimed with automotive-quality lithium-ion bat- The next step in modern automotive that its sporty Roadster consumes just teries, the situation is about to change electrification will be to add grid charg- 110 watt-hours per kilometer, although dramatically. Lithium-ion cells can ing to hybrid-electric vehicles, turning some real-world measurements show store roughly four times as much energy them into plug-in hybrids. Toyota, for its usage can be more than twice that— as lead-acid cells and twice as much as example, plans to offer a plug-in ver- for reasons that may be unique to this nickel-metal hydride, the kind used in sion of its Prius in 2010, but it will prob- specific high-performance car. For some- the Toyota Prius and most other cur- ably have a limited range in pure-electric thing like a plug-in version of a Toyota rently available hybrid cars. mode—up to 20 km (12 miles). Other pro- Prius, a more reasonable number to use In the near term, lithium-ion offers duction vehicles of this sort may go some- might be 150 Wh/km, although more the promise of plug-in hybrids that can what farther on battery power. (Their data are needed to know for certain. achieve about 15 to 65 km (10 to 40 miles) quoted electric ranges, however, are The next key factor is how much car- of all-electric range, along with purely not necessarily continuous—at highway bon dioxide is released while the electric- electric vehicles that can go about 160 km speeds or under heavy loads, the engine ity is generated. For that, the U.S. electric (100 miles) or more before recharging. may switch itself on.) grid provides a convenient benchmark. And as battery costs diminish, the maxi- A further move toward full electri- According to the U.S. Department of

mum ranges may improve considerably. fication is the series hybrid. Assuming Energy, roughly 600 grams of CO2 were The advances in electric drive General Motors is still with us in late emitted for each kilowatt-hour of elec- are unfolding in stages. The Prius, 2010, it will begin selling such a car: tricity generated in the United States in launched in Japan in 1997, was the first the Chevrolet Volt, which GM calls an 2006. The transmission and distribution mass-production car since the 1930s “extended-range electric vehicle.” The of electricity is thought to incur losses of with an electric traction motor. It has a Volt supplements a 16-kilowatt-hour about 9 percent, and charging a car’s bat- 1.5-L combustion engine, supplemented battery that provides 65 km (40 miles) tery pack is about 90 percent efficient. by two electric motors and a battery pack, of pure-electric range with a 1.4-L com- So the actual amount of carbon dioxide which can provide only short bursts of bustion engine. But as with all series emitted is probably closer to 700 grams— pure electric travel—1 to 2 km at most. hybrids, the engine isn’t mechanically or 0.7 gram for each watt-hour in an elec- But the Prius can’t use grid power to connected to the wheels. Instead, the tric vehicle’s battery pack. charge its battery: It generates all its own Volt’s engine spins a generator that pro- The plug-in’s 150 Wh/km therefore electricity using both engine power and vides enough current to the battery to translates to 105 grams of CO2 per kilometer, regenerative braking. Having a combina- sustain its charge and run the car for assuming the car is charged on the U.S.

44 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org hoW green is your grid? Electric driving’s carbon dioxide output (grams per kilometer)

bad: 125 or more

Not good: 100 to 125

okay: 75 to 100 Good: 50 to 75 an electric car’s Great: Less than 50 carbon footprint Source: Based on data from Even an electric car (or a plug-in hybrid on electric power) can cause co CARMA (http://carma.org) 2 to be released from the power station that supplies its electricity. the power grid, averaged across all its many results shown above indicate how much, based on each country’s average generation mix. in actuality, emissions would vary at a finer scale.t he different generating sources. Remarkably chart below compares overall co2 emissions caused by different types of enough, the standard Prius available today vehicles, assuming that the plug-in travels half its distance on gasoline. emits almost exactly the same amount of Well-to-Wheels greenhouse-gas emissions CO2: 104 g/km. And it’s possible to go even (grams of c0 per kilometer) lower: a few small, ultraefficient European 2 300 200 100 diesels emit less than 100 g/km.

But don’t jump to conclusions: The TyPICal CaR full analysis needs to be done on a “well to wheels” basis. That’s because the fuel for the car must be pumped from the CoNvENTIoNal hybRId ground, transported, refined, and trans- ported again to the filling station—steps PluG-IN hybRId that add about a third more CO2. And you also need to consider how much car- Typical coal-fired power plant bon dioxide would come from plugging a Combined-cycle natural-gas-fired power plant car into your local grid, with its particu- lar mix of generating technologies. Nuclear Renewables the impact of electric-drive cars on the grid has been most thoroughly analyzed for Gasoline: well-to-tank Gasoline: tank-to-wheels Electricity: well-to-wheels the United States, whose citizens buy the Source: EPRI-NRDC most hybrid vehicles. In 2007, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and an drivers recharging their vehicles at dif- not to charge until after cheaper night- unlikely partner, the Natural Resources ferent times of the day. In general, power time rates kick in—at 11 p.m., say.) Defense Council (NRDC), released the companies want consumers to charge at Finally, the EPRI-NRDC study results of an 18-month, two-volume study, night or at other off-peak times to take assumes a gradual rollout of electric-drive aptly titled Environmental Assessment of advantage of unused capacity when vehicles, which only makes sense. It took Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles, the first part of demand is lowest, and the companies hybrid cars eight years to surpass 2 percent which considers greenhouse gases. will be willing to provide strong incen- of the U.S. market, reaching 347 000 vehi- The EPRI-NRDC study accounted for tives to make that happen. (Electric car- cles out of 16.2 million sold in 2007. While many factors, including losses through- makers anticipate as much: The Volt, for plug-in hybrids may be adopted slightly out the cycle of fuel production, genera- instance, will allow delayed charging, faster than conventional hybrids—espe- tion, transmission, and distribution. so a driver can plug in the car when she cially if spurred by tax incentives— It also evaluated the consequences of returns home from work but instruct it the United States Continued on page 54 www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 45 Stop that train Electronically controlled railway brakes may finally displace a 150-year-old technology By roBB MandelBauM

GEoRGE WESTINGhoUSE’S many inventions rank him with Thomas A. Edison and Werner von Siemens as founding fathers of our electrified world. Yet, iron- ically, Westinghouse’s first invention, a railroad brake he patented in 1869, was actuated not by electrons but by air. To this day, most railroads rely on that sys- tem’s principle of releasing air from a pressurized pipe that runs the length of the train and brakes the cars one after the other, at a rate of 152 meters per second.

To compound the irony, some of pany, Wabtec Corp., headquartered including southern Africa, Brazil, Westinghouse’s early competitors pro- in Wilmerding, Penn., and the suc- Australia, even China. posed electrical mechanisms, but cessor to the Westinghouse Air Brake But will ECP, in fact, catch on? Believe Westinghouse himself rejected these Company, is one of two American it or not, its ultimate victory is not a fore- as unreliable. In the past decade, how- companies bringing electronic- gone conclusion. Standing in the way ever, the idea has reemerged in a hybrid pneumatic train brakes to market. The of implementation are steep up-front system that uses an electronic system to other is New York Air Brake (NYAB), a investment costs and disagreements over control a pneumatic one, so as to set the subsidiary of Germany’s Knorr-Bremse, who should shoulder them. Such imped- brakes in all the cars simultaneously. So in Munich. iments appear whenever an insurgent obvious are the advantages of the new Two major U.S. railroads have technology challenges an incumbent— technology—called electronically con- recently begun running the first trains for example, digital projectors in movie trolled pneumatic braking, or ECP for equipped with versions of the tech- theaters and digital TVs in living rooms. short—that its manufacturers are opti- nology, one using Wabtec’s, the other And of course, market forces are not the mistic it will eventually sweep the field. NYAB’s. If ECP brakes catch on here, only actors here. Railroads are heavily “We believe that the benefits of ECP they’ll likely appear on heavy-haul regulated—and regulation can make will be clearly proven,” says Robert railroads around the world, espe- all the difference. Bourg, vice president and general man- cially in regions that adhere ager of Wabtec Railway Electronics, in to American Association of he Westinghouse air brake, Germantown, Md. The parent com- Railroads (AAR) standards, t though updated periodically, 46 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org WHOA! A Norfolk Southern railway freight train equipped with a new electronically controlled pneumatic (Ecp) braking system comes down a mountain. it is the second such train that the company has equipped with Ecp brakes. photo: New York Air BrAke

retains the basic character it’s had since “We’ve had long trains where the dles the crest of a low mountain, so that the 1870s, even as trains have grown engineer released the brake and started cars unhitched from the locomotive will much longer and heavier. The locomo- pulling a little bit too early, while the roll down to switches where they can be tive forces air into a pipe that runs the brakes were still set on the rear of the shunted onto the desired tracks. length of the train and connects to a tri- train,” explains Dana Maryott, direc- Today, arriving engineers still drape ple valve in each car; that valve connects tor of locomotive and air-brake systems their trains over the crest so that half the both to the car’s auxiliary air tank and at the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train is parked on each side of the hill. to its brake cylinder. The relative pres- (BNSF) Railway. “And coming around a “once you start heading down,” says sure of the air in the three devices deter- sharp radius, we’ve literally pulled the Mike Allran, a senior engineering spe- mines the action. train off the track.” cialist with Norfolk Southern, “gravity’s To activate the brake, the engineer Taking a freight train down a long really going to start pulling on that train drains air from the pipe, causing a dis- incline is particularly complicated good. That’s what makes it tough getting equilibrium of pressure in the valve because air brakes cannot be gradu- off the mountain out here.” that moves a piston, which opens a pas- ally released, the way they are in an Sometime after 1 p.m., Train 762— sage from the reservoir tank to the cyl- automobile, for example. If you try to two long black locomotives pull- inder; this opening, in turn, allows the increase the pressure in the air pipe just ing 110 shiny aluminum cars, each air to rush in and set the brake. This is a little, the signal will decay after about heaped with over 90 000 kilograms a fail-safe design, because if the train 600 meters, and it will never reach the of West Virginia coal—arrives at the were somehow to break in two, the rup- brakes in the rear. Bluefield crest. The train, bound for ture in the pipe would automati- the power plant at hyco Lake, N.C., cally apply the brakes. To release o get a feel for the old stretches nearly 2 km and weighs the brake, the engineer sends air Westinghouse system, I’ve come nearly 18 million kg. I climb aboard down the pipe once again, which t to Bluefield, W.Va., at the east- Engine 9191, along with Allran, road fills each car’s reservoir in sequence. ern end of the Norfolk Southern foreman Chuck Peters, and engineer But all this takes time—a 100-car Railway’s Pocahontas Division, 167 km Jeff hayslett, while conductor Norris train traveling at 80 kilometers an hour uphill from Roanoke, Va., and another Kasey takes his brake stick and walks would require at least 1 km to stop. It also 450 km from the great shipyards of alongside the train setting air retainer takes time to undo the process and get Norfolk and Newport News. Bluefield is valves on 10 cars. The valves reserve the train moving again. America’s oldest “hump yard”; it strad- about 62 kilopascals of air in each brake www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 47 6 5 4

cylinder, just in case; those cars will be eral miles later, at the start of a very long a portable computer that stored the car’s slightly braked all the way to Roanoke. stretch of flat running. unique ID and some performance char- A few minutes later, hayslett radios his Eventually, after a long slog up a acteristics, such as its empty and loaded dispatcher and then turns to the rest of 16-km hill, we approach the entrance to weights. The car control devices, as they us. “Everybody ready to roll?” he asks, the Merrimac Tunnel. Burrowing down came to be called, were in turn controlled and he begins ringing the engine’s bell. for 1.5 km, with a grade of just over by a computer in the locomotive. hayslett eases into his throttle to pull 1 percent, the tunnel presents an unusual In 1995, the AAR, which was sepa- us over the hump, but it isn’t long before braking challenge. Without braking, the rately investigating alternatives to air he turns to the brakes. The Norfolk train will gather momentum quickly. But brakes, convened a committee of rail- Southern, like most U.S. railroads, hayslett can’t apply the air brakes while roaders and brake suppliers to write the teaches engineers to control the train as he’s in the tunnel. standards that would govern the new much as possible with the locomotives’ “Anytime you put the air on, you’re system’s performance and interopera- dynamic brakes, which slow the engines subject for something to go wrong,” bility. They soon faced a fundamental by reversing the electric current that explains Peters. Peters is thinking spe- choice: Should the electronic signal to powers their traction motors. cifically of what’s called a kicker, a stick- the computer on each car be transmit- In practice, this means hayslett ing valve so sensitive to a reduction in ted by wire or radio? uses the air brakes to set a base level brake-pipe pressure that it begins emer- A wire, like a conventional brake of braking and the dynamic braking to gency braking and “kicks” the train pipe, would need to run uninterrupted modulate it. But here the air requires swiftly to a halt. Braking miscues like the length of the train, meaning that its own precision: If you’re short a cou- this are called undesired emergencies, every car would need to be equipped ple of pounds per square inch, the train and they’ve grown more irksome for with the new system—a potential logis- might get away. (one pound per square railroads in the last 20 years. tical quagmire for American railroads, inch is just under 7 kPa.) But if you’re Traveling at 32 km/h, our train could which constantly swap equipment with a couple of pounds over the mark, the stop in as little as 20 seconds if the brakes one another. But a wireless system train will stall, and you’ll have to fully were applied at full force, Allran sup- posed its own problems. Not only would release the brakes (or “knock off the poses. But then the forces acting on the a radio-controlled system require more air”) and then set them up again, prob- train might be severe enough to cause it power (to support the radio in addi- ably before the reservoirs are fully to derail. “You don’t want to do that in tion to the control circuits), but each charged. In the cab it’s known as “piss- the tunnel,” Allran says. It’s a matter of car would have to have a power source ing away your air.” fine judgment, notes Peters, who adds of its own robust enough to withstand “If you get your train set up the first that of the 94 engineers he supervises, a rugged moving environment. “We time right, it means when you go down “there are three or four I wouldn’t want looked at axle generators, air genera- the mountain you ain’t gotta fight the to go down the mountain with.” tors, and solar power,” recalls Bryan train,” hayslett explains. otherwise McLaughlin, who led the ECP team “the train’s gonna be working you ny system dependent on con- at New York Air Brake, “and none of instead of you working it.” tinual human intervention can that technology was reliable and cost- he applies the dynamic A only be refined so much. In 1991, effective enough to put on the cars.” brake, and we can feel a great Dana Maryott and his col- Ultimately, the AAR did it with cable, number of gentle bumps as each leagues at Burlington Northern choosing a power line transceiver by hopper rolls into the one that preceded approached TSM, a small company based Echelon Corp., a San Jose, Calif.–based it. A few minutes later, with the train in Kansas City, Mo., to develop electroni- supplier of network control equipment, bunched up and the speed approach- cally controlled air brakes. A 65-car coal to thread the signal protocol through the ing 21 km/h, hayslett grips a lever with train, known as a unit train because the train. The locomotive power supply is two hands and reduces the brake pipe cars stay together over many runs, made 230 volts, based on a 150-car train up to air by 8 pounds. his plan is to knock the its debut in october 1993. 12 000 feet (3658 meters) long, consum- air off at milepost N350, a flat spot in the Within two years, the line began ing 10 watts per car. grade where he’ll have time to recharge experimenting with four more such Additional experiments on other the system before setting the brakes up ECP trains. Each car had a manifold roads followed. But as the AAR team again. Next he’ll release the brakes again that outwardly resembled the old triple finished its first draft in 1997, a funny at oakvale, W.Va., and then again sev- valve, but the system took its cues from thing happened: The railroads started to

48 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org 3 2 1

lose interest. At first, “they were pretty service facilities.” Where the aCtion iS: the locomotive’s much all on board. They wanted a new Saddled with a hard sell in the open compartments [1] reveal the electronically controlled braking system’s system, not necessarily interchange- United States, the ECP manufacturers power supply (white box) and the central able with the old,” says Fred Carlson, a gamely turned their attention to other control unit (yellow); the red handle in retired AAR research engineer who led markets. In 1998 New York Air Brake the cab controls the freight car brakes, the team. “And then of course, after we outfitted a single train in Quebec’s far while the black handle controls the developed it, problems began because it northeast for Quebec Cartier Mining, locomotive brakes [2]; and pneumatic and electric cables run from car to car [3]. wasn’t interchangeable with the old.” which hauls ore on a treacherous the microprocessor-based car-control You might think interchangeabil- route down a mountain 418 km to the device [4] replaces the old triple-valve ity wouldn’t be a problem in the United St. Lawrence River. Wabtec won a con- system; the cables hang loose at the end States, where today seven major carri- tract to field ECP on a mining train of the train [5], and then terminate in a junction box (red panels), which can ers handle 90 percent of the industry’s for Spoornet, South Africa’s national be opened for cable replacement [6]. business. But there are 560 railway com- freight railway company. panies in all, operating on short lines and in terminals, and most ately the FRA has been laud- braked exclusively by ECP. The BNSF trains are still strung together ing ECP for the safety advan- and the Southern Company, whose flir- and broken apart by turns. In tages it makes possible by tation with ECP a decade ago came to theory, a single incompatible car L keeping the auxiliary reservoirs grief when they tried to overlay the ECP could thwart an entire train’s filled with air so that gradual systems on conventional air brakes, now braking system, and a single release can be managed prop- have retrofitted 260 train cars to use stubborn company could foil implemen- erly. “ECP brakes are to trains what only ECP. Norfolk Southern has upped tation across the entire network. antilock brakes are to automobiles— its order for New York Air Brake ECP An eye-popping price tag for brake they provide better control,” then- systems to equip 600 rather than just conversion compounds the problem. administrator Joseph Boardman 400 cars. Norfolk Southern’s vice presi- In a 2006 study commissioned by the declared in August 2006. ECP, he dent, Gerhard Thelen, says that the com- Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), added, “offers a quantum improvement pany will have to replace the majority of Booz Allen hamilton estimated conver- in rail safety.” The electronic system its coal fleet—over 20 000 cars—in the sion costs at roughly US $40 000 per reduces the distance needed to stop a next 10 years. locomotive and an average of $4000 per train by 40 to 60 percent, and the per- It took roughly a half century for the freight car; converting the entire North formance improves as the train grows air brake to become standard equipment, American 2006 fleet would run to about longer and heavier. trusted to halt freight trains loaded to $7.5 billion. (In 2006, the total capital Among the follow-on benefits are the brim. But Cliff Eby, the FRA’s for- investment of the seven largest railroads reduced travel time, especially when mer deputy and acting administrator, was $8.2 billion.) ECP is coupled with other emerging is confident that the wait for ECP won’t Who would pay for the transforma- technologies to improve signaling and be nearly as long. The FRA has already tion, and who would reap the rewards? dispatching; big savings on fuel and on moved to codify inspection waivers hundreds of operating companies own maintenance on car wheels and brake granted to BNSF and Norfolk Southern, elements of the U.S. freight car fleet, shoes, which together could total at least and it expects to issue general rules by and half the fleet is owned not by rail- $575 million a year; and freedom from the end of this year. roads but by utilities and giant finance time-consuming midtrip brake inspec- “We’re going to be gathering a lot of companies that lease them to shippers tions otherwise mandated by the FRA— data,” says Eby, “and if the Booz Allen and railroads. Car owners, complain- inspections that delay operations and report [estimating conversion costs] ing that railroads will derive a dispro- cost operators about $125 million annu- is anywhere close in terms of rates of portionate benefit from new technology, ally, according to Booz Allen. return and payback period, that data is want a subsidy of some sort. Railroads, These economic incentives are entic- going to be very persuasive.” o new york air brake (6) brake air york new for their part, have a lot of competing ing enough to prompt some operators to needs for scarce capital investment—an take a second look—or, in some cases, a To Probe FurTher AAR report released last year calls for third—at ECP. In october 2007, in the An expanded version of this article is $148 billion over 30 years for “new tracks, Monongahela Valley, Norfolk Southern available at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/ signals, bridges, tunnels, terminals, and began operating the first freight train mar09/trainbraking.

www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 49 What about the nukes? Continued from page 31

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UNder WrAPS: the u.s. stockpile stewardship program seeks to maintain a nuclear deterrent without nuclear tests. Photo: Paul shambroom Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Put MIt to Work For You Based on the SFI data, we can draw two hopeful conclusions and one somewhat ambiguous one: • The Stockpile Stewardship Program is successfully detect- 2009 Summer CourSeS ing defects. in biotechnology, computing, networks, mechanical • The program is effectively addressing them. design, innovation, energy, transportation, nanotechnology, project management, imaging, • As time goes on, it is taking longer to find a solution to a tribology, lean enterprise, technology policy, given defect. healthcare, systems engineering, data The first two points suggest that stockpile stewardship is analysis and other topics of vital interest doing what it was designed to do. In particular, the number of to today’s engineers and scientists. 60 Years of open SFIs at the end of 2006 was the lowest in 10 years. excellence The third point, that it’s taking longer to close SFIs, has sev- eral possible explanations. We can’t know for sure which is IntenSIVe ProGramS of 2-5 dayS correct, because the details of the SFIs are classified. It may be that the defects are presenting substantial and growing chal- › led by renowned MIT pioneers lenges. Or it may simply be that the labs don’t have enough › taught on the MIT campus with MIT resources workers, or workers with the right experience, to resolve the › geared for busy professionals problems quickly. In any case, it is not the nature of the defects › designed for in-depth learning but the rate at which defects emerge that indicates where a sys- › grant MIT certificates and CEUs tem is on the Weibull curve. ContaCt So is the existing stockpile now reaching the end of its 617.253.2101 Weibull curve? It doesn’t look that way to us. Assuming that [email protected] http://shortprograms.mit.edu/summer nuclear weapons age just like any other manufactured system, then as the weapons enter the end-of-life phase you’d expect to see a significant uptick in SFIs. But the data clearly indicate that no such rise is occurring—even in the oldest systems that have already exceeded their design lifetimes. Although there is a spike in the number of SFIs at the 20-year mark, no sys- tem older than that has exhibited a trend of increasing SFIs.

50 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org What about the nukes? here is only one credible Continued from page 50 software package source... Indeed, among the five nuclear weapon types in the active When you need to study grounding or electromagnetic stockpile that were at least 25 years old in 2006—the B61-3, interference accurately, reliably B61-4, W76, W78, and W80-1—only one age-related defect in and economically. nuclear components was detected. Further, other stockpile Classical Equipotential Grounding data show that SFIs are infrequent even for systems that are more than 30 years old. Multiple grounding systems having any shape, in simple or complex soils, 1Automated Suppose, though, for argument’s sake, that the active stock- including any number of layers or het- pile is going to reach the end of its Weibull curve in the near erogeneous discrete volumes. 2 Accurate future. Even then, that doesn’t mean switching to a new war- AutoGroundDesign head is the way to go. For one thing, any new system would AutoGrid Pro Powerful AutoGround & MultiGround 3 also be subject to the Weibull curve; that is, it would expe- rience a significant number of defects during its early years. Interference Analysis & Environmental Impact Proponents of RRW argue that the new designs would be eas- Perform fast, yet complex & accurate, ier to fix and simpler to maintain and pose fewer technical chal- interference analyses on pipelines, lenges than the warheads they would replace. At this point, railways, etc. Examine electromag- netic impacts to the environment. Dedicated, flexible tools there’s no way of knowing if those claims are true. SESTLC simplify and automate Proceeding with a new nuclear weapon would also likely Right-Of-Way every aspect of your work. Exceptional documenta- reduce funds for stockpile stewardship, especially in the cur- SES-Shield tion, context sensitive help rent economic climate. Diverting resources from stewardship MultiLines & SES-Enviro and technical support bring you peace of mind, to the development of a new warhead could lead to a backlog Frequency & Time Domain Analysis when you need help. in surveillance, and it could also prolong the time it takes to close SFIs. The result would be diminished confidence in the Upgrade to the full power of MultiFields or CDEGS which integrate grounding, electromag- existing systems. netic compatibility, environmental impact and lightning or switching surge analysis. Whitepaperad_1-4:Layout 1 9/12/08 1:17 PM Page 1or all these reasons, we don’t favor switching to a com- www.sestech.com; Email: [email protected] Toll free: 1-800-668-3737; Tel: +1-514–336-2511 pletely new warhead. But there are elements of the RRW World Leader in Grounding & EMI f approach that may be worth considering and that could be incorporated into the existing program of stewardship. In particular, components that age rapidly could be replaced with newly designed parts that allow increased security and are Download free easier to manufacture. For example, inserting wireless micro- sensors into or onto these new components would allow in situ monitoring and diagnostics and prevent having to disassemble white papers on systems for inspection. Instrumenting every active weapon in this way—rather than just inspecting a relative handful of each weapon type each year—would yield much more useful data about age-related problems. There are many other options for maintaining the existing arsenal that have yet to be fully explored. One strategy is to reuse more of the components taken from previously tested, disassembled weapons. Another approach is to make more substantial improvements in aging components than is cur- rently done. Of course, any such changes would take time to Expert Information from Experts. implement, so it’s worthwhile to explore these options now. While the stockpile is undoubtedly aging, it doesn’t appear to be close to the end of its useful life. That means there is still Download a free time for a careful evaluation of technical options for maintain- ing the nuclear deterrent, without having to resort to building white paper today! entirely new warheads. o

To Probe FurTher The JASoN January 2007 study of plutonium pit lifetimes is at www.spectrum.ieee.org/whitepapers http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/pit.pdf. For a discussion of the Weibull curve, see http://www.weibull. com/hotwire/issue21/hottopics21.htm. More information on the Annual Assessment reports prepared by the directors of the Doe weapons labs is available at http://www. ®� gao.gov/htext/d07243r.html.

52 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org How Green Is My Plug-In? Continued from page 45

has roughly 300 million vehicles on the So how green is your grid—or, more road, so change to the overall composi- accurately, how carbon intensive is your tion of the fleet will be slow. supply of electricity? In the United States, Visit our website for thousands In practice, this means that in the the three cleanest states—at well below of standard products near future electric cars will impose a 200 grams of CO2 per kWh—are Idaho, www.picoelectronics.com very small load on the grid. If projec- Washington, and Oregon, due to their TRANSFORMERS & tions by GM’s Bob Lutz are accurate, extremely high percentage of hydro- Miniaturized INDUCTORS some 60 000 new Chevy Volts will hit electric generation. The worst—at just From 1/4" X 1/4" • Surface Mount the road in 2012. In the most optimis- over 1000 g/kWh—are North Dakota Plug-in • Toriodal • Insulated Leads tic scenario, other makers will add per- and Wyoming, which use large amounts haps three times that number. The load of coal. 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E-Mail: [email protected] www.spectrum.ieee.org

CYAN prints as Pantone 3268C And that’s only reasonable. Already, U.S. and European carmakers are turn- ing to gasoline direct injection, often paired with a turbocharger, to maintain The Brightest Minds power while reducing engine size. More exotic combustion technologies may be Discussing the Biggest Topics. on the horizon, including homogenous charge-compression ignition engines, under development by Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, and others. Eventually, designers may put such advanced com- bustion engines into hybrid-electric cars, further improving efficiency. Whether these gains could rival the advantages of plug-in vehicles is hard to say. Clearly plug-ins will continue to make environmental sense in nuclear- powered France, but will they ever do so in coal-heavy China? Where Today’s Technology Gurus Converge. It’s a question worth pondering now, Find out what’s REALLY happening in today’s hottest in light of China’s determination to nur- ture its own electric- and hybrid-vehicle technology fields at the IEEE Spectrum Tech Insiders industries. The country already manu- Webinar Series! factures a huge portion of the world’s batteries for consumer electronic goods, UPCOMING WEBINARS including the latest lithium-ion cells. • Parallel Signal Processing Using MATLAB® and Star-P® And Chinese automaker BYD shocked 12 March 2009 the industry last November when it This webinar will demonstrate how signal processing applications can be introduced the world’s first produc- tion plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, the adapted to run in parallel using very high level languages (VHLLs) such as F3DM, with a claimed electric range of MATLAB. www.spectrum.ieee.org/webcast/7669 about 110 km (68 miles). It is being sold • Long-Term Care Planning in a Recessionary Environment only in China and likely wouldn’t pass 19 March 2009 U.S. safety and emissions standards. This webinar will address the recession’s impact on long-term care, providing But it may point the way for Chinese insights and tips for planning and the alternative funding options, LTC Insurance, automakers—combining the country’s and the tax treatment of LTC Insurance. www.spectrum.ieee.org/webcasts strength in battery production with the desire to use vehicle manufacturing as OTHER WEBINARS IN THE SERIES – AVAILABLE ON DEMAND a lever for industrialization, as South • Faster Product Development Using Multi-Domain Modeling and Simulation Korea and Japan have. Advanced multi-domain modeling and simulation solutions that are driving In the long run, the electrifica- the development and enhancement of modern consumer products are tion of China’s vehicle fleet should be discussed with examples. www.spectrum.ieee.org/webcast/7689 a good thing. But today, plug-in cars in • Revolutionized Advanced DRC Checks and LVS Debug many parts of China may end up releas- Covers the evolution of the Calibre Physical Verification platform and the new ing more CO2 than would conventional approach to defining and implementing complex DRC checks with the addition hybrids—or even the best combustion- of Equation Based DRC (eqDRC). www.spectrum.ieee.org/webcast/7608 powered vehicles. And stiff new taxes on • Demystifying Testing of MIMO Communications Systems vehicles with low fuel economy will raise Explains the critical technical requirements needed to test MIMO-based the efficiency of all new cars there. Given that, environmental organizations con- technologies and outline test methods required using specific examples from cerned over global warming may want 802.11n WLAN, 802.16e Mobile-WiMAX Wave 2, and LTE cellular standards. to encourage China to hold off on pro- www.spectrum.ieee.org/webcast/7069 moting electric vehicles until the coun- Sponsors: try improves its generating mix.

what does it all mean for planet Earth? Researchers are just now starting to answer that question. Geoffrey Blanford, a senior project manager and global cli- mate policy analyst at EPRI, has taken a Sign up today! first look at what electric-drive vehicles www.spectrum.ieee.org/webcasts might mean for the world’s future.

www.spectrum.ieee.org green choices: countless environmentally conscious car buyers in europe and North America are looking forward to the day when they can purchase a practical plug-in. the introduction of BYD’s newly developed F3Dm plug-in hybrid [left] in china suggests that their wait may soon end. But even in its all- electric mode, this car can cause appreciable carbon dioxide emissions at the generating station that supplies its electricity. so driving an ultraeconomical gas or diesel car, such as the Ford Fiesta econetic [above], may be the better choice in some places.

“Electrification is a big deal,” Blanford Effects, which calculates the high-level paper about the rate of market penetra- says. His initial assessment, in the form costs and benefits of different energy tion for plug-ins from now until 2050, of an unpublished working paper, sug- policies. The late Alan Manne, of based on projected decreases in the cost gests that replacing liquid fuels with elec- Stanford, worked with EPRI’s Richard premiums for such new technologies tricity reduces greenhouse-gas emissions Richels to create the original model to as large battery packs and increases in from vehicles and that plug-in hybrid assess policy decisions for different electric-motor efficiency. vehicles will become a cost-efficient way mixes of generating capacity. The impact of plug-ins was most

d to meet carbon constraints. Blanford added more detail about striking in China, which analysts expect R o f Blanford came to those conclusions passenger vehicles to the model so that to become the world’s largest single auto- after working with a computer simu- he could gauge the global impact of mobile market around 2020 and thus ; Right: yd lation known as MERGE, for Model plug-ins specifically. For that he made a major source of the growth in CO2 eft: eft: B l for Evaluating Regulatory and Global various assumptions in his working emissions. Blanford showed that elec-

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www.spectrum.ieee.org mArch 2009 • iEEE SpEctrum • NA 57 tricity could come to power 30 percent ures, roughly 4 percent of that coun- with cars, power plants have their own of the annual 12 trillion km of passen- try’s CO2 emissions will be prevented suite of regulated emissions, includ- ger-vehicle travel predicted for China in 2050 by the introduction of plug- ing some—sulfur and mercury, for by 2050. “It’s the scale factor,” he says, in hybrids. For the world as a whole, example—that aren’t an issue for vehi- explaining that because China is start- plug-in hybrids would cut annual CO2 cles. So pursuing a policy that reduces ing from such a low number of vehicles, emissions from the use of energy by one pollutant may end up increas- new technology can have a dispropor- 3 percent in 2050. If carbon taxes or ing another. In vehicle travel as in life, tionate impact. “The growth in demand caps are enacted, plug-ins only get there’s no free lunch. is tremendous,” he observes. more valuable. Blanford considers the rest of the Still, not everybody sees plug-ins as it’s notoriously hard to predict the world, too, and the effect that plug-in the best bet. Toyota’s Jaycie Chitwood energy market. An oil-price decline from hybrids will have on electric-power and John German, formerly of American US $147 a barrel to $35 in six months would generation and greenhouse gases. The Honda Motor Co., among other analysts, have been thought impossible—until it impact on the grid should be minimal: suggest that conventional hybrids— occurred last year. But assuming the cost If one-third of the world’s vehicles in with their smaller, less expensive bat- of advanced batteries falls over time, elec- 2050 are plug-in hybrids and run half tery packs—will be a lower-cost way to tric vehicles seem poised to offer reasons their distance on grid power, the total reduce emissions than plug-in hybrids to plug in beyond lower carbon emissions, electricity consumed would be just or full-electric vehicles for at least a including smog reduction and energy 3.6 percent of the world’s total gener- decade and perhaps much longer. And security for oil-importing nations. ating capacity. Even if 80 percent of all indeed, the EPRI-NRDC study results And that’s even before the auto mar- plug-in travel is powered by grid elec- suggest that this approach might be just keters get to work. Imagine ads that com- tricity, that load would consume only as effective in reducing CO2 emissions pare the 10 cents or so it takes to run a 5.6 percent of capacity by 2050. in places with typical coal-fired electri- car one kilometer on gasoline with the “The question of CO2 impact is sub- cal power generation. In the real world, cost of electric cruising—in some mar- tler,” Blanford notes. Even when incre- it’s not going to be an either-or choice. kets, 2 cents a kilometer. Then there’s mental generation is fired largely by Automakers will offer both alterna- the driving experience, a steady, smooth, coal, plug-in hybrids produce a mod- tives, and the market, driven by fuel silent surge of electric acceleration. est reduction in overall CO2 compared costs and government incentives, will Within a decade, no matter what kind with liquid-fueled power, a category pick the winners. of car you’re looking for, you’ll have the that in his study includes conventional Of course, carbon dioxide is hardly option of an electric or partially electric hybrids. For China, Blanford fig- the only pollutant to worry about. As vehicle. Will you take it? o

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www.spectrum.ieee.org 58401-Qn NA SCEA_half • iEEE Sp pg.inddEctrum 1 • mArch 2009 8/10/06 11:03:56 AM 1. denmark 52.1% Top 10 CounTries for CHp GeneraTion as a sHare of ToTal power produCTion 2. finland 38.9%

4. laTvia 3. russia 30.7% 31.3% 5. neTHerlands 29.4%

7. poland 16.8% (tie) 7. CzeCH republiC 6. HunGary 16.8% (tie) 19.1% 9. ausTria 15.4%

10. CHina 12.7%

uniTed sTaTes 9% Generation Cogeneration oal and natural-gas power plants in towns, industries, and individual c lose as waste heat two-thirds of buildings. similar measures were taken the energy they produce. combined- in other eu countries. heat-and-power (cHp) systems—what the united states, the boss hog of used to be called cogeneration—attain energy-consuming nations, cogenerates 80 percent efficiency by capturing the a mere 9 percent of its power, putting u.s. CHp GeneraTion heat and using it locally. cHp predates it in 13th place internationally. even so, aCTual and HypoTHeTiCal electrical grids in many parts of the world. because of its sheer size, it still has the 202020 20 250250250 000 tiny denmark is the world leader, world’s highest installed cHp capacity, -1-1-1 200200 -1 200200 getting more than half its power from at 85 gigawatts. that’s enough to save 151515 15 -2-2-2 -2 cHp. the germ of the plan dates to the more than 2005 petajoules of fuel and 150150150 2006 101010 10 -3-3-3 -3 early 20th century, when the country carbon-dioxide emissions equivalent 100100100 -4-4-4 -4 555 5 installed insulated pipes to shunt heat to those of 45 million cars. oak ridge 505050 -5-5-5 -5 from big cHp plants to particular city national laboratory recently reported 000 000 -6-6-6 -6 2030 districts to heat homes and water. after that with the right blend of technology 2006 2030 2006 2030 the oil crises of the 1970s, the danes and policy advances, cHp could provide perCenTaGe ToTal CHp reduCed again instituted pro-cHp policies, 20 percent of u.s. electricity. of CapaCiTy CapaCiTy annual enerGy GiGawaTTs ConsumpTion boosting smaller-scale cHp plants —prachi patel-predd peTajoules

u.s. ToTal annual Co2 saved u.s. Car million meTriC Tons equivalenTs off THe road

248 848 2006 2030 2006 2030 = 5 million cars

Carbon dioxide savings are based on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory SOuRCe: “Combined Heat and Power: effective energy Solutions

(ORNL) estimate of total CO2 emissions in 2030 (6851 million metric tons). for a Sustainable Future,” ORNL, 1 December 2008 cooper emily

68 NA • iEEE SpEctrum • mArch 2009 www.spectrum.ieee.org