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.

[ksquared]

Personally....I have always wondered about physics. How do these very smart scientists reach their conclusions. How does the process work..for those those of you who have wondered the same, question no more .....

A theoretical physicist coming to work one morning met a bleary eyed experimental physicist. "What happened to you? You look terrible."

The experimental physicist replied, "Oh, I've been up all night, but it was worth it because I now have enough data to show that parameter A is greater than parameter B."

"Oh, that's not so hard.", countered the theoretical physicist. "I could easily prove that A must be greater than B."

"Did I say A greater than B? I'm so sorry, I'm so tired I mixed it up. I meant to say B greater than A."

"Well", replied the theoretical physicist, "that is even easier to prove!"

[rinselberg]

How does your investment portfolio stack up with respect to metallurgy and non-ferrous metals?

Construction of the $12 billion ITER experimental fusion reactor is just around the corner at Cadarache, in the southern region of France.

The plan is for the international R&D facility to be running on all eight cylinders (so to speak) by 2016.

The largest requisition of specialty metals will be for austenitic stainless steel. After that, beryllium, tungsten, niobium, cobalt, titanium and carbon fiber composites are needed in quantity - some 23,000 tons of "high tech stuff". The project can be expected to have an impact on world financial markets as it draws on the inventories and production capacities for high-tech alloys and carbon composites.





Select ("click") the thumbnail to enlarge. At the bottom of the schematic is a figure of a technician to illustrate the imposing scale of the eight-story high reactor facility.


If nuclear fusion is developed into a viable method for large-scale electrical generation - and that's still a very big "if" - it's not expected to start feeding the world's power grids before 2040 at the earliest.


MSNBC Cosmic Log:
How far away is fusion?

Keay Davidson, San Francisco Chronicle:
Construction begins on one of the largest machines ever ...

ITER: International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
Home Page

[chip anderson]

Reiselburg: Neuclear Fission already furnishes most of the rest of he developed world's power. The only reason it doesn't furnish ours is we got wossy after Chernoble and 3 Mile island.

Chip

[rinselberg]

By Dave Mosher
LiveScience Staff writer

Updated: 10:53 a.m. PT June 29, 2007

[A new NASA satellite has recorded the first detailed images from space of a little-understood effect in the earth's upper atmosphere known as noctilucent or "night-shining" clouds.]

The clouds are on the move, brightening and creeping out of polar regions, and researchers don't know why.

"It is clear that these clouds are changing, a sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not understand how, why or what it means," said atmospheric scientist James Russell III of Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. "These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed." ...

Source:
http://www.livescience.com/environme...ht_clouds.html

Select ("click") the images below to enlarge.



This image shows one of the first ground sightings of noctilucent clouds in the 2007 season over Budapest, Hungary on June 15, 2007. Credit: Veres Viktor/NASA.


On June 11, 2007 the cameras on the AIM satellite returned some of the first data documenting noctilucent clouds over the Arctic regions of Europe and North America. White and light blue represent noctilucent cloud structures. Black indicates areas where no data is available. Credit: Cloud Imaging and Particle Size Experiment data processing team at the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

[rinselberg]

Recent reports from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and UC Berkeley highlight a startling possibility: Surpassing the resolution limit inherent to optical microscopy with a new kind of light microscope.

The focusing ability of even the most sophisticated optical microscopes has always been limited by the wavelength of visible light; i.e. approximately 500 nanometers. This has been partly surmounted by electron microscopes that "see" nanoscale objects like viruses (10 to 300 nanometers in scale) by capturing the reflections of electrons instead of light waves.

Using exotic "superlens" materials that convert traveling light waves to so-called "evanescent" waves, physicists are on the road to developing optical microscopes capable of focusing all the way down to 50 nanometers: An order of magnitude improvement that would extend optical resolution into the realm of viruses and nanoparticles, unlocking new capabilites for medical researchers and nanotech engineers and raising the possibility of CDs and DVDs with 10, 100 or even 1000 times the current data capacity.

For more details, see these recent online reports from Scientific American and UC Berkeley. For more background on evanescent waves, see this online animation from Olympus American Incorporated. For an earlier discussion of this topic on OptiBoard, see Berkeley scientists create "superlens" (2005).

[MOVEL]Are you reading more posts and enjoying it less?[/MOVEL]

[rinselberg]

What's your impression of that most iconic of dinosaurs: Tyrannosaurus rex ..? Was T. rex a fleet-footed, agile and incredibly lethal predator? Or was it more "show than go"; i.e. a slow, lumbering scavenger, well adapted for feeding on large carcasses, but largely incapable of tracking down live prey: along the lines of a prehistoric garbage collection truck?



Source: United States Dinosaur Postage Stamps.


Debates like this have been simmering among paleontologists for decades.

Have you ever seen T. rex depicted as anything but a solitary animal, aside from a suggestion of brief assignations with one of the opposite sex for the purpose of reproduction? And what about a young T. rex: Just a scaled-down version of Big Daddy?

A surprisingly new characterization of this legendary species is currently taking hold among a number of paleontologists and evolutionary biologists. It's being presented on the Science Channel's "Mammals vs. Dinos" series, comprising two one-hour TV segments. It's being pieced together from a variety of sources, including skeletal dispositions from newly discovered sites; recognition of yearly growth patterns in fossilized bones; recovery and analysis of T. rex proteins; analysis of bite-marks on fossil skeletons; measurements of bite-force using live alligators; and reassessments of the strength and function of certain parts of the T. rex anatomy.

According to the new script, T. rex was actually a prehistoric "family guy".

The animals lived together and hunted as a family, or possibly in small packs like wolves, with specific "jobs" and benefits for both the full grown adults and the juveniles.



Juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex. Select ("click") the image to enlarge.


Cut to the chase: A small group of Tyrannosaurs, moving slowly and quietly through a forested area, zeros in on a herd of Triceratops: the beef cattle of 70 million years ago. The plant-eating Triceratops are grazing in an open meadow.



Triceratops. Select ("click") the image to enlarge.


The younger Tyrannosaurs, lean, swift and agile, perform a flanking maneuver, stealthily positioning themselves behind the Triceratops herd. Suddenly they spring into action, charging the herd and chasing it back towards the edge of the forest, where a deadly ambush awaits. The juveniles close in on the slowest, most vulnerable Triceratops - a young one, or an old or injured specimen - and drive it towards a T. rex adult, concealed by the dense foliage of prehistoric conifers. When the unlucky Triceratops is close enough, the full grown Tyrannosaur lunges, gripping it in its monstrous jaws.



Triceratops' worst nightmare: an adult Tyrannosaurus rex. Select ("click") the image to enlarge.


"Meal accomplished ..." The big T. rex gets first choice. The younger and smaller Tyrannosaurs dine on whatever remains.

Young Tyrannosaurs were covered with bird-like feathers, which helped them conserve body heat and enhanced their agility and speed. The feathers were shed as the animals approached their maximum size. Adolescent Tyrannosaurs packed on weight at an incredible four to five pounds per day: a body-building regime that would put even home run king (or steroids king?) Barry Bonds to shame.



The feathered head of a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex. Select ("click") the image to enlarge.


An adult-sized T. rex was equipped with the most destructive animal jaws known to science. The bite strength is estimated in multiples of a modern alligator's bite strength. The Jurassic Park movie was factual in that regard: An adult T. rex would have been perfectly capable of chomping a steel automobile body into scrap metal.



T. rex vs. Ford Explorer: movie scene from Jurassic Park.


Believe it - or not!


Image credits:
http://www.studio-corvo.com/blog/kar...aurus_j_1.html
http://critters.pixel-shack.com/
http://www.ststephens.it/biology/din...dinosaurs.html
http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/wiki/Tyrannosaurus_rex


The author has also posted about dinosaurs under these OptiBoard post titles:

"Bird from Hell" unearthed in China
T. rex proteins analysis supports dino-bird link
Skeletons that won't fit in your closet
Jurassic Post
Smarter than the average dinosaur
Sky Monsters
Fossil evidence for macroevolution
Flying dinosaurs now thought to be as big as an F-14 Tomcat!


This has been another rinselberg™ T. rex production.

[rbaker]

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

Those who control the purse strings of corporate, government and academic research funds try to fund “real” science as opposed to “junk” or “pop” science. A case in point is my virtual lens. I can not raise a single buck of research and development money from any government or corporate source. I can’t even get my foot in the door of the venture capitalists. However, on any given evening I can easily raise a hundred dollars at my local saloon. The same is true with my perpetual motion machine and I even have a working model.

Go figure!

[DragonLensmanWV]

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

Those who control the purse strings of corporate, government and academic research funds try to fund “real” science as opposed to “junk” or “pop” science. A case in point is my virtual lens. I can not raise a single buck of research and development money from any government or corporate source. I can’t even get my foot in the door of the venture capitalists. However, on any given evening I can easily raise a hundred dollars at my local saloon. The same is true with my perpetual motion machine and I even have a working model.

Go figure!

If you have a working model, go here to claim your $10,000 prize:
http://www.phact.org/e/freetest.html

[rinselberg]

I appreciate the comments from DragonLensmanWV (one post back) and rbaker (two posts back). I hope to return with an update on the story that I posted at the very start of this thread about University of Washington physicist John Cramer and his "time travel" experiment, which he actually prefers to describe as an investigation of "nonlocal quantum communication". In my (admittedly limited) view, John Cramer is anything but "off the wall" or "out in left field". If it's "off the wall" or "out in left field" that you want, try this one on for size: I stumbled upon it in one of my searches for something else.

A Harvard-trained medical doctor is banking that his widely derided theory could supplant Big Bang theory, find the recipe for the cosmos' interstellar gases, and fuel cars without pollution.

Randell Mills, 42, blipped onto science debunkers' radar screens in 1991 when he claimed to unleash energy by "shrinking" the hydrogen atom's electron orbit to form what he calls a "hydrino."

Although mainstream physicists, including Nobel laureates, rankle at the mention of hydrinos, Mills has gathered $25 million dollars from investors for his startup, BlackLight Power Inc.

That's the beginning of a report on SPACE.com that dates back to May 2000. "Big Bang" theory is a reference to the idea that the universe more or less spontaneously materialized about 13.7 billion years ago from a single, infinitely small point or singularity. It's been well received by the scientists who ponder such questions, although more recently, other ideas are starting to attract more attention.

Fast forward to the website of Randell Mills' startup company, BlackLight Power Inc. ...

BlackLight Power, Inc. is the inventor of a paradigm-shifting new primary energy source and a new field of hydrogen chemistry with broad commercial applications. Its wholly owned subsidiary, Millsian, Inc., is dedicated to developing computational chemical design technology based on Classical Quantum Mechanics (CQM), a revolutionary approach to solving atomic and molecular structures ...

The BlackLight Power website goes on to assert, under the heading "Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics" ...

Classical Quantum Mechanics (CQM) is the theory that physical laws (Maxwell's Equations, Newton's Laws, Special and General Relativity) must hold on all scales. The theory is based on an often overlooked result of Maxwell's Equations, that an extended distribution of charge may, under certain conditions, accelerate without radiating. This "condition of no radiation" is invoked to solve the physical structure of subatomic particles, atoms, and molecules.

In exact closed-form equations with physical constants only, solutions to thousands of known experimental values arise that were beyond the reach of previous theory. These include the electron spin, g-factor, multi-electron atoms, excited states, polyatomic molecules, wave-particle duality and the nature of the photon, the masses and families of fundamental particles, and the relationships between fundamental laws of the universe that reveal why the universe is accelerating as it expands. CQM is successful over 85 orders of magnitude, from the level of quarks to the cosmos.

For the first time, the significant building-block molecules of chemistry have been successfully solved using classical physical laws in exact closed-form equations having fundamental constants only. The major functional groups have been solved from which molecules of infinite length can be solved almost instantly with a computer program. The predictions are accurate within experimental error for hundreds of molecules for which data is available.

Now that's "edgy". Or "over the edge", according to many. Randall Mills, M.D., wants to throw all the mainstream ideas about quantum mechanics overboard. Heisenberg, Bohr, Planck, Pauli, Schrodinger, Einstein ... the whole "Who's Who" of modern physics ... all wrong. Farewell to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, Planck's Constant, Pauli's Exclusion Principle and Schrodinger's "Cat". The "wave-particle duality" that optical engineers sometimes talk about: Bunk. And "spooky action at a distance" (one of quantum mechanics' most celebrated notions): More bunk. Dr. Mills has found the answers (or so we're informed) that Einstein was still searching for on the day that he died; i.e. "The Theory Of Everything".

In 2006 the Wall Street Journal ran a story on BlackLight Power, Inc., and reported that the Mills startup had attracted some $50 million in venture capital.

In 2005, the British newspaper The Guardian reported on Mills and the controversies attending his ideas.

Keep an eye out for the BlackLight Power "hydrino" home furnace, which, according to The Guardian, was on the drawing board as the first commercial product based on BlackLight technology. It was said to be coming "in as little as four years"; i.e., about 2009. If Dr. Mills is right, you'll be able to heat your home with an energy source that is priced lower than you'd ever believe.

And if not ... it still makes an interesting read.


Who's your prehistoric Daddy? See the latest rinselberg™ T. rex production ...
http://www.optiboard.com/forums/show...8&postcount=12

[rinselberg]

The genetic code is 3.6 billion years old. It's time for a rewrite.
Professor Tom Knight of MIT


According to most life scientists, life started about 3.6 billion years ago, when a tiny living cell emerged from the environment of Earth. It replicated itself, and its progeny replicated themselves, and so on, with genetic twists and evolutionary turns, down through billions of generations. Today every living organism—every person, plant, animal and microbe—can trace its heritage back to that first living cell.

That was "Life 1.0"—and scientists in the field of "SynBio" (synthetic biology) want to start all over. Some predict that they're about ten years away from creating a "test tube" organism—a single-celled organism, not very different from common bacteria—that will reproduce by an autonomous or independent process—a sine qua non for the definiton of life.

Synthetic viruses have already been created—like the one called "T7.1", based on a naturally occurring virus called "T7". T7.1 was created from T7 by "stripping it down"—stripping T7 of its natural but unnecessary complexity in both design and function—and reorganizing T7 to be sleek and efficient with [just] 57 genes encoded in a 40,000-letter genome. Although T7.1's [genetic] code is considerably shorter, compared to its natural cousin, T7.1 behaves like a "real" virus, infecting bacteria, which it uses to reproduce itself. But it cannot reproduce outside of a natural living cell.

As long as researchers depend on the genomes of natural organisms to start building new ones, progress will be hindered to a certain extent. The reason: Naturally evolved DNA is a mess of overlapping segments and "junk" that has no purpose that scientists can fathom—and there's no "user manual". When genetic engineers go in and tinker with these confusing natural genomes, they can't be sure of the outcome of their work. "Screw it," MIT SynBio scientist Drew Endy told Wired magazine. "Let's build new biological systems; systems that are easier to understand because we made them that way."

And then there's Craig Venter, the legendary entrepreneur who made his name by decoding the human genome for a tenth of the predicted cost and in a tenth of the predicted time. Venter has put tens of millions of dollars of his own money into Synthetic Genomics, a new company, to custom design living organisms that will convert sunlight into biofuel, with minimal environmental impact and zero net emissions of greenhouse gases. What would an ideal biofuel-generation system look like? "The most sustainable source of energy is sunlight and the most convenient products are pipeline-compatible petrochemicals ... so I would aim for an [artificial plant-like organism] that would secrete pure petrochemicals—octane, diesel, monomers for plastics, etc.—[directly] into [collection] pipes without any need for further [chemical] purification."

Based on detailed analysis, Harvard professor George Church believes that a [man-made] genome of just 151 specific genes laid out along 113,000 letters of DNA will be sufficient to fabricate a single-celled organism that will reproduce by itself.

He reckons he's 80 percent of the way to creating it.


To read more online, see MSNBC's "Scientists expect to create life in next 10 years" and "What exactly is life?" and Newsweek's "Life 2.0".

[rinselberg]

John Cramer is the UW (University of Washington) physicist who thinks he may demonstrate - at the quantum or subatomic level - that the consequence of an event can be detected even when the event is still in the future; i.e. a demonstration of retroactive causality or "retrocausality".

To put it another way, Cramer wants to send the light energy of a single photon 50 microseconds into the future, where its state could be either wave-like or particle-like, and execute a wave vs. particle discrimination experiment on it in the present, demonstrating a chain of events that could be said to have unfolded backwards in time.

There's an easy-to-read update on Cramer's progress online at MSNBC under the title "Backward Research Goes Forward".


"How to change the past" ... select ("click") the image to view a schematic of Cramer's "time reversal" experiment.

UW is providing Cramer with the lab space and time that he needs. And private donors have "pinch-hit" with funding that would usually be expected to come from one or more government agencies. Cramer, whose credentials include research at the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the internationally renowned CERN particle physics lab in Europe, in addition to his tenure at UW, has received more than $35,000 from people who read about his ideas on the Internet. Cash donations have been received from artists, scientists, businessmen and women and space enthusiasts like Walter Kistler, founder of Kistler Aerospace. That's very close to the $40,000 that Cramer estimated for his equipment expenditures, which is "chump change", compared to what's required for many state-of-the-art subatomic experiments.

More traditional patrons like NASA’s now defunct Institute for Advanced Concepts and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had already turned down Cramer’s grant proposals, as reported by online sources including Centauri Dreams "Cramer's Time Experiment Funded" and Seattle Post-Intelligencer "Public donates to UW scientist to fund backward-in-time research".

Cramer has said that he doesn't really expect to be able to demonstrate a "backwards in time" event, but he is pressing forward with the experiment, because there is nothing in his understanding of physics at the quantum level that precludes the possibility of such a demonstration.

Whatever the outcome of the experiment, Cramer expects it to be "illuminating".

For a relatively brief and down to earth explanation of Cramer's experiment, unimpeded by any of that "indecipherable math junk", see "What's done is done... or is it?", a NewScientist report from 2006 that you can read online.

The NewScientist report includes some speculation on what are possibly some very far-reaching implications of retrocausality - if Cramer is able to demonstrate it. Such as "why life exists". And on a more practical level, other reports about Cramer's experiment speculate on whether it could open a door to superluminal or faster-than-light engineering, such as operating space vehicles by remote control from Earth, without the limitations that are currently imposed by time-delays as radio signals go back and forth across space. Or instantaneous teleportation of objects across space, "Star Trek" style.

For a more technical, but very brief description of Cramer's experimental apparatus, minus the "time reversal" gizmo, see A Test of Quantum Nonlocal Communication by Cramer et al; also online.

Now all we have to do is wait for Cramer's results ...


This updates my previous OptiBoard report; also, a clarification from NASA:

June 18,2007

NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts) did not turn down John Cramer’s proposal. His proposal, like dozens of others, was in the midst of a peer review process, and it might have been a funded proposal, but that review process had to be cancelled as NASA has terminated its funding for NIAC. The NIAC funded credible ideas that represent advances in systems and architectures and because of it, a constellation of creative, valuable ideas have emerged to change the way many think about our future possibilities.

I for one will be watching John Cramer’s progress with great interest.

Diana Jennings, PhD
Associate Director, NIAC (for a little while longer)

[rinselberg]

A new Pentagon study lays out the roadmap for a multibillion-dollar push to the final frontier of energy: a satellite system that collects gigawatts’ worth of solar power and beams it down to Earth.

The military itself could become the “anchor tenant” for such a power source, due to the current high cost of fueling combat operations abroad, the study says.

The 75-page report, released Wednesday, says new economic incentives would have to be put in place to “close the business case” for space-based solar power systems — but it suggests that the technology could be tested in orbit by as early as 2012.

The report goes on to observe that space-oriented entrepreneurs are quick to connect the Pentagon proposal with the hot-button issues of national energy independence and global warming:

"While the technical challenges are real, significant investment now can build Space Solar Power into the ultimate energy source: clean, green, renewable, and capable of providing the vast amounts of power that the world will need. Congress, federal agencies and the business community should begin that investment immediately,” Mark Hopkins, senior vice president of the National Space Society, said in a written statement.

The report also concludes:

Government incentives for carbon-neutral energy technologies — such as carbon/pollution credits and offsets as well as loan guarantees — should be extended to space power programs as well. The loan guarantees could be modeled on the program currently provided to the nuclear power industry.

Access the complete MSNBC report, including an interactive slideshow, here ...



Climate change
Michael Crichton's global warming bunkum goes for a bruise cruise ...

[rinselberg]

A new report from the Global Carbon Project in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that global warming signals are coming on sooner and stronger than most previous estimates. The coauthors report greater-than-anticipated carbon (dioxide) emissions, attributable to global economic expansion and an increase in "carbon intensity": i.e. the amount of carbon emitted for every unit (dollar) of global economic output. They also highlight a significant and predictable decline in the capacity of natural carbon sinks - land masses and oceans - particularly the oceans - to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

MSNBC summarizes the findings online under the heading Study: Warming is stronger, happening sooner.

An abstract and the full text of the report (with figures and captions) are available online under Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.



Climate change
Nuclear power plants: Busting an urban myth ...

[rinselberg]

Ethanol from corn: Lately it's come under fire, even from some of the same environmentalists that have hopped aboard the bio-fuels bandwagon. But there is an upside to it. By keeping ethanol in the news and giving many car drivers a "taste" as they fill up at E85 gas pumps, it may have helped spur commercial interests and loosened R&D pursestrings that will soon lead to something much better.

Brian Williams reports in this brief video segment from MSNBC.

[MOVEL]More news headlines from rinselberg™ ...[/MOVEL]

Climate change
Michael Crichton's global warming bunkum goes for a bruise cruise ...




Countdown Iran
High profile OptiBoard poster rinselberg reports on the Pentagon's latest plans ...

[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