Monday, July 27, 2015

This week's C&EN

A few of the stories from this week's issue:

8 comments:

  1. anon electrochemistJuly 27, 2015 at 5:30 PM

    Interesting to hear that the rare earths operation isn't having technical challenges in the treatment of radioactive thorium and radium process streams, it's the 125 year old basic chloralkali chemistry that's tripping them up.
    The question for this mine was always whether or not the Americans could compete with the Chinese mines that aren't saddled with the same environmental regulation. In the last few years, the Chinese mines have faced stiffening pollution regulations, and my LLNL colleagues tell me the economics are now roughly at the break even point. As those market distortions disappear over the next decade, the economic challenges facing Molycorp will ease substantially, they simply need to stay afloat. As the article mentions, there's political/military pressure to keep some domestic production capacity.

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  2. Depends how the weather is....if it's like the last time, it wouldn't be any fun at all (although the talks were nice, and I got to meet Derek Lowe, Excimer, and Curious Wavefunction, so it was good, anyway). It's nice hanging out with chemists for a little while.

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    1. Yeah, I am not a fan of the new convention center. Last time, there was no where within walking distance to eat except for the food court. Which was fine if you wanted to wait 45 min to pay $10 for a $3 burrito.

      With respect to that last story, I wouldn't blame the Russian dude for being pissed off if this new molecule gets published in a better journal than the one he described 24 years ago. Sadly, it wouldn't surprise me if that ends up happening. "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it... and publish it in better journals."

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    2. There was a convenience store on the way in, about 10-15 minutes away, if it's still there, and a Dunkin Donuts a little farther towards the city, but not much else. Not helpful (for us - I'm sure the convention center is happy about it). Indianapolis is much more boring but actually had convenient sources of food nearby at all times and easy walking.

      I stayed in the city, nearest the convention center, and almost everything there shut down after work (because it's the financial district) so getting dinner nearby was nontrivial. Hoteling further away might be better, but then walking to the convention center becomes more difficult. It's a nice city, but poorly set up for this (although when they did it at the old convention center, it was really good, because it wasn't in the hind end of nothing, and had lots of options around.)

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  3. "I find letters to the editor like this one kinda annoying"

    Which one? The Alzheimer's one you linked to later?

    @Hap: i 1/3 envy that story.

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    1. Thanks for catching that, anon!

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    2. People from the blogosphere i would like to meet:

      Derek Lowe

      Chemjobber

      ....

      That is all.

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20