A few stories from this week's C&EN:
- Cover story on citizen participation in environmental monitoring by Steven Gibb.
- Folks seem pretty excited about this new super-small-crystals X-ray crystallography paper (article by Stu Borman.)
- If you're a fan of MasterChef, here's a story about chemist who was on the show (by Jyllian Kemsley.)
- Formosa plans another cracker complex in Louisiana (story by Alex Tullo)
- Here's what I don't understand: is there strong global demand for polyethylene? or are all these new plants basically going to be built and then sit idle?
- ACS members are very, very excited about thorium in nuclear reactors.
- The indefatigable Linda Wang writes on graduate school and stress. Check out Vinylogous' comments.
- Also, check out stress relief techniques from current and former grad students.
1. The PE plants will continue to be built in US.
ReplyDelete2. PE plants elsewhere will get shuttered. (Shale gas is rich in ethane, and ethane must be separated from it anyway - as long as the supply lasts you can manufacture PE in US for 10-15 cents a pound cheaper than anywhere else. This is a huge profit margin, for a commodity product)
1. Some will not be built. Plans are changing all the time.
Delete2. This is possible. If crude stays low for an extended period, this will not be true and #1 above will be impacted.
It's interesting that she mentions Harvard and Jason Altom since after Altom's death they had started a counseling service for students which was terminated soon thereafter. I would be interested in hearing more about the story, especially since someone must surely have opposed the termination.
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