Responding to the FCC’s 900 MHz Transition Order

FCC-Telecommunications

T&D World – Hundreds of public, private and nonprofit entities in sectors including public utilities, municipals, cooperatives, manufacturing, transportation, and oil and gas have been utilizing narrowband land mobile radio (LMR) communications systems to enhance their operations for more than 30 years. Such organizations and others like specialized mobile radio (SMR) and business/industrial/land transportation (B/ILT) providers must have 900 MHz licenses which authorize their use of the airwaves. If you fall into one of these categories, you may be affected by the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) recent order to realign the 900 MHz band.

Learn more about the business-critical connectivity issues currently facing U.S. organizations in this FAQ.

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Will Future EVs Double the World’s Need for Electricity?

Electric-Vehicles

(The Truth About Cars) – While electric automobiles have numerous advantages over internal combustion vehicles, we’ve often wondered when their disadvantages would be offset to a point that would make sense to have them become the dominant mode of transportation. While there are multiple issues that have to be addressed, one of the largest involves finding a way to source the kind of energy needed for the world to recharge them on a regular basis.

An EV-dominated society likely means elevated energy prices and peak demand hours that could easily overtax national energy grids. Renewable energy sources may also prove insufficient in providing the kind of power necessary — potentially requiring countries to double down on plants reliant on coal, oil, and natural gas if nuclear facilities are not approved. Counter-productive takes like that are often downplayed, however, so industrial giants can continue proclaiming the technology as largely trouble-free.

But what happens when EV royalty starts making similar claims about our collective energy needs?

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, stated that the world’s electricity consumption would likely double as EVs become the norm.

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SCANA, Dominion agree to pay $25 million civil fine in massive nuclear fraud case

Summer-nuclear-plant

The StateSCANA and its successor company, Dominion Energy, have reached an agreement to pay the federal Securities and Exchange Commission a $25 million civil fine in one of the state’s largest civil fraud cases, according to public court records filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

Under the proposed settlement, neither SCANA, a now-defunct company, nor Dominion Energy, its successor company, admit any fault in the multi-billion dollar business failure of one of the state’s largest construction projects ever – the effort to build two nuclear power plants in Fairfield County.

However, under the proposal, neither corporation can publicly claim it is innocent of any wrong-doing alleged in the SEC’s 87-page civil complaint, filed last February in U.S. District Court in Columbia.

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AEP Continues Its Efforts Into the Power of Augmented Reality (AR)

American-Electric-Power

As AEP continues to roll out augmented reality (AR) within their distribution and transmission organizations, they are beginning to realize the benefits of this transformative technology.

AR allows AEP foresters to see what trees are impacted and pose risks under a variety of potential weather conditions against the backdrop of the real world. It also improves the ways AEP distribution engineering technicians interact with customers in the field by showing them how designed lines would look on their property. In this live webinar, experts will discuss practical AR distribution and transmission applications and use cases being used at AEP to enhance interaction with customers, validate overhead and underground line designs, and mitigate clashes with structures.

See other information on VR Systems by 3 Phase Associates…

What Makes 5G So Fast? – (All About Circuits)

Telecommunications-Speeds

(All About Circuits) – With 5G rolling out more quickly as we approach 2021, it may be helpful to touch on the key technologies that make 5G such a speedy success.

In a recent article, we discussed the basics of 5G technology—a discussion that is no longer in the realm of the hypothetical with 5G now being deployed in practice. One of the key talking points of 5G, at least from the consumer perspective, is its blazing-fast speeds. But what exactly makes 5G so fast? 

While the hardware-level details of 5G speed are extensive, this article will briefly discuss the basic building blocks that bump 5G speeds from 4G and LTE rates. 

As the name suggests, the 5G new radio (NR) requires a new kind of radio technology, antenna, and carrier tower design to achieve speeds of one gigabit per second with latency less than 10 milliseconds. The actual performance would depend on the design of the 5G products and the environment in which they operate.

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‘Air-Gen’ Device Generates Electric Power from Ambient Humidity (by Sci-News)

science-news

(Sci-News) A thin-film device made from nanometer-scale protein wires harvested from the microbe Geobacter sulfurreducens can generate continuous electric power in the ambient environment, according to a new study published in the journal Nature.

“We are literally making electricity out of thin air. The Air-gen generates clean energy 24/7,” said Dr. Jun Yao, an electrical engineer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“It’s the most amazing and exciting application of protein nanowires yet,” added Professor Derek Lovley, a microbiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The Air-gen device can generate power even in areas with extremely low humidity such as the Sahara Desert.

“It has significant advantages over other forms of renewable energy including solar and wind, because unlike these other renewable energy sources, the Air-gen does not require sunlight or wind, and it even works indoors,” Professor Lovley said.

The device requires only a thin film of protein nanowires less than 10 microns thick.

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