Science and technology updates from rinselberg™

[rinselberg]

Private donors stepping forward to fund "edgy" physics experiment involving light

An assortment of private donors is chipping in to help fund a physics experiment with the objective of transcending conventional ideas about the directionality of time.



The private donors are pinch-hitting for more traditional patrons like NASA and DoD that were unwilling or unable to "pony up".

Public donates to UW scientist to fund "backward-in-time" research

Physics experiment by UW researchers will attempt to send photon forward in time

For more background, see Personals: Ambitious physics experiment looking for $20,000 relationship and "Landmark" experiment with light delves into mysteries of quantum physics.

[rinselberg]

One of the world's top fossil hunters [has] unveiled a previously unknown, gigantic, chicken-like dinosaur ... and the discovery could change some ideas about the evolutionary relationships among prehistoric animals.

The remains of the animal, [which is] thought to have weighed 3,100 pounds [when it died] ... were discovered in ... Inner Mongolia, an area rich with fossils ...



The new species, Gigantoraptor erlianensis, is the largest bird-like dinosaur ever discovered, and at a height of 17 feet is comparable in size to the iconic predatory dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex ...

For more, see the reports from MSNBC and the Discovery Channel.

[rinselberg]

The world's most ambitious particle collider — which scientists hope will reveal the ultimate secrets of mass and energy — might not be fully functional until [sometime in 2008], months after its previously scheduled startup date, according to a recent disclosure from the European Organization for Nuclear Research.


[youtube]WvEK5uZXpZU[/youtube]

Particle Physics For Dummies: This BBC segment, "The Six Billion Dollar Experiment", runs for 7 minutes and highlights the Large Hadron Collider and how it may (or may not) resolve the 40-year old quest for the elusive Higgs boson, which some scientists have called the "God" particle.


Scientists have been scrambling to redesign a key U.S.-built component — located in a tunnel deep beneath the Swiss and French countryside outside Geneva — that broke "with a loud bang and a cloud of dust" during a high-pressure engineering test [in April ...] But time doesn't stand still, even for the world's undisputed A-team of particle physicists. Here's the lead-in of a new report by James Owen Weatherall at Slate:

Some call the Higgs boson the Holy Grail of particle physics. As the only undetected element of the field's theoretical masterpiece—the Standard Model—the Higgs [particle] guarantees a Nobel Prize for the experimenters who find it first. Now the European Union has spent an estimated $8 billion to build the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, to finally track it down ... but what if someone else has already found it?

The Standard Model of particle physics: Has the experimental evidence for the Higgs boson already been produced? Graphic: Fermilab.



New and improved: "unparticle" physics

Howard Georgi, a particle physicist at Harvard University, recently published an article on so-called "unparticle" physics, which suggests the existence of “unparticle stuff” that cannot be accounted for by the Standard Model. Appearing in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters, the article says that unparticle stuff would be very different than anything ever seen before. Georgi thinks that data from the Large Hadron Collider - after it transitions to running science experiments - may support his ideas, which he explains with a battery of sciencey phrases like "continuous scale-invariance" and "distribution for a fractional number of massless particles".

[rinselberg]

"Rounder is better ..." Master optician Achim Leistner checks the machining of one of two "perfect" spheres of crystallized silicon that will be used to develop a new international standard for one kilogram of mass. The objective is to arrive at a standard unit of mass that is equal to an exact, empirically determined number of Silicon-28 atoms. The original kilogram standard, a metal bar cast from an alloy of iridium and platinum, kept in a vault in France since 1889, is deteriorating as it gradually corrodes.

For the complete MSNBC report:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19253544/from/RS.3/

[rinselberg]

Engineering milestone achieved in development of Liquid Mirror Telescope technology.



A 2-inch diameter Liquid Mirror using an ionic liquid coated with a thin layer of silver.


NASA mulls concept of large, moon-based scientific telescope with deep-space capabilities beyond anything currently in the development pipeline.

Liquid Mirror technology viewed as most cost-effective path to ultra-precision optics for new deep-space observatories.

For the complete MSNBC report:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19337520/

[cocoisland58]

Ok, now the Time Travel thing is waaaay cool. How fascinating. My step son is in grad school for math. I can't even talk to him anymore his head is so full of this kind of stuff.

[chip anderson]

John Coleman Says Global Warming Is A Scam






27
vote
Founder of the Weather Channel, Meteorologist John Coleman: Global Warming is the Greatest Scam in History.

"It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in [sic] allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.
Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.
I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming."
In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. On the other hand, if this scam is what generates the political and social will to free ourselves of Saudi oil with new technologies, then perhaps the whole scam will have been worth it. - Source: Adapted from Neocon Express

[DragonLensmanWV]

John Coleman Says Global Warming Is A Scam






27
vote
Founder of the Weather Channel, Meteorologist John Coleman: Global Warming is the Greatest Scam in History.

"It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in [sic] allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.
Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.
I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming."
In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. On the other hand, if this scam is what generates the political and social will to free ourselves of Saudi oil with new technologies, then perhaps the whole scam will have been worth it. - Source: Adapted from Neocon Express

Not exactly the most unbiased of sources.

[rinselberg]

Issued on: November 9, 2007
DOE Releases Environmental Impact Statement for FutureGen Project

Washington, DC - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the completion of its Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the FutureGen project, a near-zero emissions gasification power plant that, when operational in 2012, would be the first plant in the world to produce both electricity and commercial-grade hydrogen gas from coal, while capturing and sequestering greenhouse gas emissions.

Complete press release


The FutureGen project is a partnership between DOE and the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, a non-profit consortium of some of the largest coal producers and electricity generators in the world. Revealed by President George W. Bush in 2003, the FutureGen project is a 275 MW prototype power plant based on cutting-edge technology. Once operational, this plant will remove and sequester carbon dioxide while producing electricity and hydrogen gas, making it the cleanest fossil fuel fired power plant in the world.

FutureGen is being designed to capture at least 90 percent of the carbon dioxide byproduct from generating electricity.

The current estimated cost-to-completion is almost $1.8 billion.


FutureGen: materials and processing flows. Select ("click") image to enlarge.


FutureGen will test the concept of Geologic Sequestration: the injection of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases into underground reservoirs in such a way that they remain permanently stored or sequestered from the atmosphere. In so long as they remain sequestered, these potentially heat-trapping gases are prevented from contributing to global warming.

FutureGen will use a deep saline formation as its underground sequestration reservoir. Saline formations or saltwater aquifers are naturally occurring structures of permeable rock that are saturated with saline water. FutureGen will be constructed to use a saline formation that could be 3000 feet or more below ground.

When FutureGen becomes operational, carbon dioxide from the coal-fired generating plant will be captured and if necessary, transported by pipeline to an injection well. (Whether such a pipeline is needed and how long of a pipeline will be determined after a site is selected and plant blueprints are drawn up.)

At the injection well, carbon dioxide will be pumped all the way down into the deep saline formation. FutureGen will be sited so that it can use a saline formation that is below one or more low permeability (i.e. almost non-permeable) caprock layers to ensure that the injected carbon dioxide cannot escape back upwards to the surface and into the atmosphere.

Deep saline formations are of special interest because it's thought that they will safely contain very large amounts of carbon dioxide, and because they are especially easy to locate worldwide.


FutureGen: carbon sequestration. Select ("click") image to enlarge.


Compared to a standard natural gas fired plant, FutureGen is expected to produce from as little as 0.14 to as much as 0.31 (fractionally) of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of electricity; to a standard coal fired plant ... from as little as 0.07 to as much as 0.14 per unit.


FutureGen: by the numbers; see table at bottom of page. Select ("click") image to enlarge.


FutureGen will be constructed at one of four locations in Illinois and Texas that are under current consideration: Mattoon, IL; Tuscola, IL; Jewett, TX; and Odessa, TX.


FutureGen: artist's conception. Select ("click") image to enlarge.


FutureGen-like power projects are also underway in Australia, Norway and China.

Under the leadership of British Petroleum (BP), the Carson Hydrogen Power project will convert carbon in the form of petroleum coke (a byproduct of refining crude oil) and recycled waste water into hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen gas will be used to fuel a power station capable of providing the California power grid with 500 MW of electricity. At the same time, about 4 million tons of carbon dioxide per year will be captured, transported and stored in deep underground oil reservoirs where it will enhance existing crude oil recovery.

The Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency are also collaborating on a number of other projects across the U.S. and Canada that are intended to pave the way for the permanent sequestration of massive amounts of carbon dioxide and other man-made greenhouse gas byproducts. Currently about 35 million tons of carbon dioxide are sequestered in the United States. That's expected to increase by as much as 400 times by the year 2100.

Coal is America's most abundant fossil energy resource.

[rinselberg]

Honda has just unveiled its new FCX Clarity, powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. The sleek, low-slung sedan, which Honda plans to begin leasing to a limited number of Southern California drivers next summer, is fashioned after a concept vehicle that Honda displayed in 2005. The FCX Clarity will be available on a three-year lease for $600 a month, making it the first fuel cell powered car to be offered to the general public.



According to car online, the new Honda specs out at 134 hp and 189 lb-ft of torque at zero RPM, and can hit 60 mph from a standing start in 10 seconds flat. Top speed is 100 mph. (Electronically speed limited..?) MSNBC quotes an "equivalent combined city and highway fuel economy" of 68 mpg. It stores enough hydrogen onboard in the single high pressure fuel tank to go about 270 road miles under most conditions before refueling.

The only byproduct released into Earth's atmosphere from its tailpipe (does it have a tailpipe..?) is water vapor.



Honda already has an extensive FCX Clarity website up and running.

The FCX Clarity boasts many new features, one of which is Honda Bio-Fabric. Made from corn, Bio-Fabric is the basis for the various woven panels that are used in the car's interior, starting with the seat coverings. Compared to the petroleum derived resins that are commonly used today, the new Bio-Fabric figures to reduce greenhouse (carbon dioxide) emissions by 30 percent from cornfield to junkyard - a number that's sure to put a smile on Al Gore's face.

The overarching question: If hydrogen powered cars like the new Honda were to become commonplace on U.S. roads, what net impact could be expected on greenhouse (carbon dioxide) emissions?

That's not so clear. For one thing, it depends on how the hydrogen fuel is produced; for another, on what levels of greenhouse emissions are attributed to manufacturing the new technology cars and to recycling them when they're junked. All that said, however, the figures look promising for some appreciable greenhouse reductions - enough to justify moving forward with the technology and simultaneously monitoring the results.

GM is also playing the fuel cell game, but they're putting some of their chips on another card: Plug-in hybrids like the Volt concept vehicle that's been displayed.



Above: Chevrolet's 2008 Malibu midsize sedan. This is the body that GM will wrap onto its Volt plug-in hybrid platform, which is on schedule for a November 2010 rollout. Instead of generating electricity onboard like the fuel cell powered Honda, a plug-in hybrid draws electrical power from the grid and stores it in a high capacity battery that powers it on the road. GM is mulling a Volt battery rental plan to make the car more affordable.

[AngryFish]

"An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything," by A. Garrett Lisi Ph.D, Surfer

I must have missed the conversation about this. This is remarkable. Is there any information on this theories’ reception so far other than media reports?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311952,00.html