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June 2008 Plenum News 2008 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2007 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2006 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2005 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Entire Year (minimal, early formats) 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 You can write Comments or read the KeelyNet discussion list. Feel free to subscribe. Be aware in case any of these links don't respond, most will be available through the Wayback Machine, simply cut and paste the link to recall the 'lost' information. 06/29/08 - Ozone, The Crazy Cylinder-shaped Car This rolling cylinder created by Istanbul designer Özkan Koral is a design concept for a Peugeot hydrogen-powered car, where each of the huge wheels is independently powered by electric motors. The body is equipped with doors that slide 360 degrees into its own frame which is impressive enough on its own. It’s controlled by a joystick, and entire front of the car opens up when the door rotates underneath. The photo shows the car completely closed with its semi-transparent windows covered up. It reminds us of those canisters you use to pass money to drive-through bank tellers. - Source 06/29/08 - U-Haul: Crooked renters refill gas tank with water Crooks have come up with a new scam to get out of paying for gas, and it's costing truck rental companies thousands of dollars. Crooks reportedly rent U-Haul trucks then, when the time comes to return the truck, top off the tank with water instead of gas, wrecking the engine. U-Haul dealers say the scam has become more prevalent as gas prices continue to rise. "We had five or six (instances of) water in fuel (tank) last week," said Kim Merow. What's the harm? Some scammers get away with it because the trucks are often handed over to the next customer very quickly. But water in the gas tank eventually brings the trucks to a sputtering stop. "It can cost up to $2,000 each time it happens, minimum," said Merow. - Source 06/29/08 - DIY Anti-Paparrazi CCTV Sunglasses Video These easy-to-make glasses use infra-red LEDs to obscure your face from cameras... and, perhaps most usefully, from ubiquitous CCTV observation. Paparazzi are very annoying for the stars but with these sunglasses, paparazzi can't take a complete picture. Why? Because with these sunglasses your face will be invisible to the camera. Disclaimer: CAUTION! . Never use them for illegal acts. / (You could have clear glasses on some kind of headband that slips on your head to shine the LEDs at invasive cameras. - JWD) - Source 06/29/08 - Oil Price Fallout: Jobs Coming Home? As the cost of shipping continues to soar along with fuel prices, homegrown manufacturing jobs are making a comeback after decades of decline. While it once cost $3,000 to ship a container from a city like Shanghai to New York, it now costs $8,000, prompting some businesses to look closer to home for manufacturing needs. The rise in transportation costs are fueling what some economists are calling "reverse globalization." "Cheap labor in China doesn't help you when you gotta pay so much to bring the goods over," says economist Jeff Rubin. Some local manufacturers have suddenly found themselves in the thick of boom times. Other sectors of U.S. manufacturing may see a boost in jobs as well. Rubin says the U.S. steel industry is poised to reap benefits. "It's not just about labor costs anymore," says Rubin. "Distance costs money, and when you have to shift iron ore from Brazil to China and then ship it back to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is looking pretty good at 40 bucks an hour." - Source 06/29/08 - U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years. The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states - Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. “It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry.” Much of the 119 million surface acres of federally administered land in the West is ideal for solar energy, particularly in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, where sunlight drenches vast, flat desert tracts. According to the bureau, the applications, which cover more than one million acres, are for projects that have the potential to power more than 20 million homes. All involve two types of solar plants, concentrating and photovoltaic. Concentrating solar plants use mirrors to direct sunlight toward a synthetic fluid, which powers a steam turbine that produces electricity. Photovoltaic plants use solar panels to convert sunlight into electric energy. - Source 06/29/08 - 'Time reversal' allows wireless broadband under the sea Wireless communication in the ocean is difficult because water molecules absorb radio waves very efficiently, an effect exploited by microwave ovens. Acoustic signals travel better, but also degrade quickly due to echoes, ambient noise, swirling currents and, again, water absorbing the signals. But a technique called acoustic time reversal can change that. The trick cleans up underwater sound signals, extending their range and capacity. Time reversal exploits the way undersea acoustic signals typically arrive clouded by echoes that travel at different speeds. For example, a "ping" may arrive as three separate sounds - one that travelled directly, an echo from the surface and then an echo from the ocean floor. If the receiver transmits the same sequence of sounds backwards, they will take the same routes back to the original source. But because the sound that took the longest to travel is sent first, the second-slowest next, and the fastest last, all three will arrive at about the same time at the original source. In effect, they converge in time, reconstructing the original signal. The retransmitted sounds will create echoes of their own, but the original signal is strong enough to stand out, say the researchers. Kuperman and colleagues managed to use the technique to transmit 15 kilobits a second at a range of 4 kilometres, and 5 kilobits per second at 20 km. It even worked over 3,500 km - comparable to the distance some whales can communicate with song - although the data rate fell to only about 100 bits per second. Conventional underwater acoustic modems achieve reliable rates of just a few kilobits per second across 5 km in shallow water. - Source 06/29/08 - Hand-held Magnetic Device Eases Migraines w/video A new study suggests that there may be a drug-free alternative to treating some migraines: a hand-held transcranial magnetic stimulation device that, when held against the bottom of the back of the head, eased migraine symptoms in some study volunteers. The idea behind the device is that patients will use it when they enter the migraine's aura phase, a period of visual disturbance that can occur before the headache begins, says Mohammad, who is a consultant for the maker of the device, a California-based medical technology company called Neuralieve. Auras may involve seeing flashing lights, zigzag lines, or other visual hallucinations, or experiencing temporary blind spots, sensitivity to bright light, blurred vision, or eye pain. The device, about the size of a hair dryer, is put up against the back of the head, and users push a button to administer the magnetic pulse. The study showed it eliminated the headache within two hours for 39 percent of participants; 22 percent in the placebo group reported no pain two hours later. The device is intended to stimulate the occipital cortex in the brain, which induces a signal meant to disrupt what's known as cortical spreading depression, a pattern of abnormal brain waves that is thought to precede migraine. - Source 06/29/08 - Extra water, wind strain Northwest power grid A doubling of wind-power supplies and an unusually concentrated surge in water levels have challenged this season's power operations like never before. "You throw a spiky late runoff into the equation, and a little extra wind, and it definitely gets interesting," said Kieran Connolly, a power manager for Bonneville Power Administration. The result: wasted power generation, excessive spill through the dams and a sometimes frenzied juggling of dam and transmission schedules. Oregon and Washington can't use all the electricity that's available. And southbound transmission lines that are at capacity can't take the extra power California consumers otherwise would eagerly devour. In some cases, power producers are paying customers to take electricity off their hands. - Source 06/29/08 - Detector for UV-Radiation Developed Russian scientists developed and patented a unique detector for ultraviolet radiation, which allows accurate measuring of received dose in any range of this dangerous radiation. Heart of this device is so-called Z-sensor, a receiver, sensitive to ultraviolet radiation. This sensor facilitates recognition and integration of UV radiation in a simple way - UV changes semiconductor structure of the sensor, and amount of change depends on both radiation intensity and exposure time. Conduction meter is scaled to measure total radiation dosage during given time period. The device also has a beeper, which warns users about a radiation source located nearby, and measures radiation in various UV ranges. The earth's ozone layer absorbs the UV-C radiation in the solar energy, so it does not present any threat. UV-A and UV-B radiation does reach the earth's surface and is believed to have long and short-term adverse effects on the eyes and vision. - Source 06/29/08 - Californian boffins find Elixir of Eternal Youth Mouse-molesting boffins in California have used biochemical signals to rejuvenate elderly, knackered bodily tissues in a fashion normally only achievable by youngsters. However, the scientists insist that they have not yet achieved an immortality drug, and if they had it would only be for mice. "We're not at a point where we're ready to inject ourselves with [this stuff]" said Dr Morgan Carlson. It seems that when we're young, the stem cells in our bodies constantly repair and reinvigorate us. When we get old, this stops happening and pretty soon people are going through your stuff. "We don't realize it, but as we grow our bodies are constantly being remodeled," according to Conboy. "We are constantly falling apart, but we don't notice it much when we're young because we're always being restored. As we age, our stem cells are prevented, through chemical signals, from doing their jobs." Apparently one can revitalise stem cells by putting them in the right chemical environment. "When old tissue is placed in an environment of young blood, the stem cells behave as if they are young again," according to the Berkeley press release - in a process not unlike that undergone by wrinkly old Hollywood stars placed in an environment of Catherine Zeta Jones.Essentially, the Californian researchers were able to persuade muscle tissues in some mice that they were young again. "We found that Notch is capable of physically kicking off pSmad3 from the promoters for the CDK inhibitors within the stem cell's nucleus, which" - as any fool would realise - "tells us that a precise manipulation of the balance of these pathways would allow the ability to control stem cell responses." Diddling with Notch and pSmad3 levels using "an established method of RNA interference" allowed Conboy and Carlson to manipulate TGF-beta proteins and fire up the dormant stem cells of a group of elderly mice. The octogenarian murines "showed levels of cellular regeneration that were comparable to their much younger peers", apparently. But people shouldn't just start swigging down Notch, pSmad3 and TGF-beta at random. Cellular regeneration, out of hand, is sometimes just another name for cancer. "We need to find out what the levels of these chemicals are in the young so we can calibrate the system when we're older. If we can do that, we could rejuvenate tissue repair for a very long time." - Source 06/29/08 - Is Someone Tampering with the Sun? Over the course of three days, a complex repeated variation in solar X-ray measurements and electron output was found. Although complex variations of electrons and X-rays are very common with our Sun, what is not common is a duplication of X- ray flux and electron flux variations over the span of three days. This is practically unheard of. Our Sun generates extremely complex, ever changing waves of energy and magnetic fields that interact with one another in ways not fully understood. Rarely do these variations repeat themselves, especially over three 24 hour periods. In the following chart (Fig. 1) we see a three day span during which via the GOES 10 satellite measures X-ray levels every five minutes around the clock. I took the complex variation of X-ray levels in Fig. 1 and stacked a copy of the plot for each day one above the other (see lower left corner in Fig. 1.) I then drew dashed vertical light blue lines to show identical changes for various X-ray flux events. Specific X-ray levels were found to repeat at the same time each day... If a weapon or other weather modification system was directed at the Sun, complex patterns like these would provide evidence for researchers that something is actually occurring to alter the Sun's X-ray and electron output in response to what was directed at the Sun. In other words, these charts may provide successful confirmation for weather control researchers, if solar X-rays and electron changes match a new weapon or weather modification system operation. Perhaps we will bring the events of 2012 upon ourselves without any outside help. Time will tell. - Source 06/29/08 - Stink bomb gas to give stroke victims new hope Scientists use hydrogen sulphide to put patients into 'suspended animation'. Some researchers are even trying to use hydrogen sulphide - the source of rotten eggs' unpleasant odour - to put patients with strokes or serious injuries into a form of suspended animation to help them survive severe traumas. This research is now being backed by the US military, who believe it could help their surgeons cope with injuries suffered by soldiers in battle. Hydrogen sulphide is corrosive, foul-smelling, flammable and deadly in sufficient concentrations. A single breath can kill. Yet the gas has recently become a buzzword in scientific circles following discoveries that in tiny doses it plays a significant role in influencing some chemical pathways in the body. One key piece of research has shown that hydrogen sulphide could protect against internal bleeding, ulcers and other gastric effects suffered by those on long-term regimes of anti-inflammatory painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen. In a series of experiments on rats and mice, Wallace and his colleagues found that these painkillers - when administered with chemicals that released hydrogen sulphide into the gut - produced no harmful side effects. 'Now we are preparing to repeat these experiments on humans,' said Wallace, who has formed a company, Antibe Therapeutics, to create drugs based on hydrogen sulphide technology. 'We envisage using standard medicines, mixed with hydrogen sulphide-releasing chemicals, as painkillers that will not cause internal bleeding to long-term users.' Mice exposed to low levels of the gas passed out, their body temperatures dropped more than 20C and their metabolic rates plunged. Once the gas was switched off, they returned to normal. Now Roth is working on research aimed at reproducing the effect in humans, buying time for patients who have had heart attacks, strokes or wounds that have caused drastic losses of blood. - Source 06/29/08 - The future of food is not on the farm Thanet Earth will be the largest greenhouse development ever seen in Britain, covering an area equivalent to 80 football pitches. So far, only one of the eight metre-high glass cathedrals is up over the dusty Kent soil. Not that the quality of the earth here is relevant. The crops will be planted in glorified window boxes hanging from the ceiling, allowing the produce - tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers - to dangle at waist height for ease of picking. When in full production, Thanet Earth will be able to supply 15 per cent of this country's salad vegetable needs. In the past year, the cost of bread has risen 15 per cent. Butter is up by 32 per cent, eggs by a staggering 39 per cent. A kilo of basmati rice now costs 84p more than it did a year ago. The demand for wheat and corn has gone through the roof, a situation exacerbated by droughts in Australia and floods in the American Midwest maize belt. Get-rich-quick commodity speculators claim they are simply enabling farmers to make the money they need. The supermarkets are a more convincing target. Their profits are vast - Tesco has gone from making £2.55bn to £2.8bn, Sainsbury's from £380m to £488m - and yet they claim to be protecting us from price rises by swallowing fuel costs. Then there is the rush to biofuels, which are finally being recognised as anything but the much-heralded panacea for the damage caused by fossil fuels. To the hard-core foodies, Thanet Earth is an abomination, the exact antithesis of local, seasonal and organic. Increasingly, though, those buzzwords look like they were engineered for another, more comfortable age. The greenhouses will capture so much energy they will be supplying electricity back to the national grid, rendering the facility almost carbon-neutral. - Source 06/29/08 - Free Bug Repellent Do you also hate it when flies are walking over your computer screen? Now there is a simple and free solution: Load this page and those little pesters all soon will be gone! The page emits an ultra high frequency which is not attractive for mosquitoes and flies. Be sure to turn your audio on! Moreover the color yellow works as a natural repellent as well. (via j-walkblog.com) - Source 06/29/08 - How to Clear Your DVD Clutter If you've got a growing DVD collection that's taking over your living room, design site Apartment Therapy has posted a simple howto for clearing out the DVD clutter. Basically the author spent a little time with a label maker and cheap jewel cases and was able to fit an enormous DVD collection into a much smaller space. Another alternative, of course, is to move your DVD library to your hard drive, ripping your DVDs in one click with DVD Rip or any other popular DVD-ripping tool. (via lifehacker.com) - Source 06/29/08 - God makes you stupid, researchers claim A psychology researcher has controversially claimed that stupidity is causally linked to how likely people are to believe in God. University of Ulster professor Richard Lynn will draw the conclusion in new research due to be published in the journal Intelligence, the Times Higher Education Supplement reports. Lynn and his two co-authors argue that average IQ is an excellent predictor of what proportion of the population are true believers, across 137 countries. They also cite surveys of the US Academy of Sciences and UK Royal Academy showing single-digit rates of religious belief among academics. He said: "Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population." Lynn pointed out that most children do believe in God, but as their intelligence develops they tend to have doubts or reject religion. Similarly, as average IQ in Western societies increased through the 20th century, so did rates of atheism, he said. - Source 06/29/08 - The Portable Hotel A French company called Abilmo has developed collapsible hotel-style dwellings that users can quickly construct in just about any location. Abilmo, a portable hotel of sorts, "packs numerous modern conveniences like electricity, a bathroom with shower, climate control and even hardwood floors into its 130 square foot space." Currently, these units are only available in Europe. - Source 06/29/08 - Gas crunch: Jatropha, kudzu, algae and magic to rescue The traditional slogan that occurs to every editorial writer who believes children's fairy tales about American ingenuity and exceptionalism. There must be a new Manhattan Project! A sampling, identities omitted because although geographically separated, they're alike in groupthink: "The United States needs to organize a Manhattan Project for alternative energy... [We] need a Manhattan Project for renewable energy ... [Let's] put some real money to work and get another 'Manhattan Project' up and running, this time for a simple solution to the energy crisis." The Manhattan Project solved one problem by dropping bombs on Japan, but it led to a host of more complicated ones. Since corn-to-ethanol is expensive, rather inefficient, tough on food prices and itself vulnerable to price fluctuation due to commodities speculation, there has been a casting around for other crops, choices thought not to vulnerable to price fluctuations which would wreck businesses. So what about Jatropha, a pest tree that produces seed pods, as an oil source for biodiesel? But perhaps even better than jatropha is, wait for it, kudzu! A trash vine that is common in the US south, kudzu contains starch. Kudzu's starch is claimed to be a better source of bioethanol than corn by its boosters... Both the jatropha and kudzu hypes are partially, hmmm, fueled by Brazil's reliance on sugar cane-to-ethanol for automobiles running on blends of fuel. Sugar cane won't grow in most of the US, ergo the casting about for a cheap equivalent from the plant world, one that needs little water. One of the best quotes this writer has seen comes from the thicket of stories on start-ups pushing algae as a cure-all for everything: carbon sequestration, water purification, automotive fuel and energy, you name it. "This gasoline [from algae] doesn't create greenhouse gases..." reported the Copley News Service a couple of weeks ago. "Its byproducts include oxygen and filtered water." - Source 06/29/08 - Flying Saucer Runs on Plasma Subrata Roy, an engineering professor at the University of Florida, is trying to patent his design of a circular, spinning aircraft he dubs WEAV, short for wingless electromagnetic air vehicle. The suggested prototype offers several advantages. It can hover and take off vertically. With no moving parts, the WEAV should be markedly reliable. And though his battery-powered model is only six inches across, Roy thinks a larger craft is possible. Electrodes lining the vehicle’s surface ionize the surrounding air. This creates plasma on the vehicle’s exterior. An electrical current sent through this plasma generates a force that not only produces the necessary lift and momentum. It also stabilizes the vehicle in windy conditions. Looking like a flying bundt pan, the WEAV design is partially hollow and continuously curved. This larger surface area improves lift and control. Flying in Earth’s air requires a thrust at least 10 times greater than in outer space where drag and gravity are lower. And the plasma necessary to fly also obstructs wave transmission used for communicating with a remote source. - Source 06/29/08 - Video - Bush Compilation What a mistake! Some hilarious segments. - Source 06/29/08 - VW Golf Twin Drive Plug-In Hybrid Diesel Makes Prius Look Thirsty The Twin Drive can be run in electric-only mode for a range of up to 30 miles using an 82 HP electric motor. But, there's also a 2.0-liter turbo-diesel that makes 122 HP which can take over once the batteries have been drained. When the two powerplants combine, you become Captain Planet have a parallel hybrid with about 174 HP. The range is aided even further by regenerative braking to charge the batteries, and start-stop technology that shuts the engine off when idling in traffic. - Source 06/29/08 - Strange things video Interesting and odd photos from around the world. - Source 06/27/08 - $700 device turns water into fuel w/video "Now instead of filing up every two days, I'm doing it every three to four days. I'm saving hundreds of dollars a week" says Baldwin. The hydrogen generator claims to maximize the gas in your tank by giving it a better burn. Scientist Adrien Burkhart of Chandler is the brains behind the device. "By adding hydrogen to that combustion chamber, we get you to a 95-plus percent burn rate. So now you're burning more fuel." claims Adrien Burkhart, Hydrogen Concepts owner. The hydrogen generator has been around for 2 years, with some 20,000 units already in use across the country. "We've got a few hundred thousand miles on a unit and they're still going. They're very robust, very simplistic." says Burkhart. Several pieces make up the system. It's installed in the front of your vehicle. Total cost: about $700. - Source 06/27/08 - Feds: Energy Use To Grow 50 Percent In 20 Years Despite persistently high oil prices, global energy demand will grow by 50 percent over the next two decades with continued heavy reliance on environmentally troublesome fossil fuels, especially coal and oil, the government predicted Wednesday. Without mandatory actions to address global warming, the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide flowing into the atmosphere each year from energy use will be 51 percent greater in 2030 than it was three years ago. - Source 06/27/08 - Want to Enhance Your Brain Power? A noninvasive way to electrically stimulate the brain, known as transcranial direct current stimulation, has shown success in enhancing learning. The relatively low-tech approach delivers a gentle current to the brain via a large sponge, shown here fixed to a volunteer’s head. Research hints that electrically stimulating the brain can speed learning. Previous small-scale studies have suggested that a stream of current can improve motor function, verbal fluency, and even language learning. Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS), in which an electrical current is passed directly to the brain through the scalp and skull. The device is simple: a nine-volt battery that's been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for delivering drugs across the skin is connected to large flat sponges that are moistened and then applied to the head. It delivers a gentle 2 to 2.5 milliamps of current spread over a 20 to 50 square millimeter area of the scalp for up to 15 minutes. Little of that current actually reaches the brain--about half is shunted away from the target area, and the other half quickly dissipates as it gets farther from the scalp. Wassermann's team targets part of the brain known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area involved in higher-level organization and planning, as well as in working memory. - Source 06/27/08 - Bangalee’s Mr. Hydrogen comes clean on power Professor Neville Stephenson OAM fresh back from the World Hydrogen Energy Conference where his plans for clean energy have created a buzz of their own. He and his team have created a carbon-free way to produce energy, and it can use carbon and the even more global warming gas methane to run. The conference held every two years in a different country is a chance for the people with the ideas and hardware to meet the people with the money and influence. “Nobody has this technology, it has been developed over the last 10 years and now has more than $2 million invested in it from Australian investors.” They now have a factory in Thailand and expect that at the next conference they will be speaking about where their technology is being used rather than how it could be. “We can currently produce 67,000 litres of hydrogen in two hours, but we’re aiming to build a unit that is 200 times larger than that one.” - Source 06/27/08 - Gov't warns of oil scheme The provincial government issued a warning Wednesday about a bogus investment scheme that claimed royalties from the Bakken oil play in southern Saskatchewan would be paid directly to investors. The warning is related to an online document that advertises "Crown Revenue Distributions" (CRDs) that send cheques of as much as $2,000 every 10 days to investors. The item said Saskatchewan had implemented the CRDs to attract money that would otherwise go to Alberta. It's a complete fabrication, said Roy Schneider, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy and Resources. The document ends by advertising a "special report" called Saskatchewan's CRD Plan: How to Collect Steady Income Every 10 Days. However, in order to receive that report, the readers are told they must first sign up for The $20 Trillion Report, a subscription for which costs $99. - Source 06/27/08 - Scientific American: five 3D printers Last month, the open source 3D printer RepRap made the first successful copy of itself. And it's not the only 3D printer technology emerging from the workshops of ingenious makers. Over at SciAm.com, JR Minkel posts a slideshow of five machines to "print" 3D objects, including the RepRap, Fab@Home, and, seen here, the amazing Candy Fab from Evil Mad Scientist Labs. The Candy Fab prints objects by fusing layers of sugar. - Source 06/27/08 - Los Gatos Inventor Develops Home Fueling Station Go to most gas stations in the Bay Area and you're paying over $4.50 a gallon. But at Tom Quinn's house in Los Gatos, he pays a fraction of that for fuel. He makes ethanol with his new invention - the EFuel100 MicroFueler. "Consumers have been making ethanol, which is just alcohol, for thousands of years," Quinn said. "I call it third grade science." "Our machine works just like a washing machine. You connect to 110 or 220 (volt) power, connect water in, water out," Quinn said. The reason why boiling units are not required is because the machine uses a proprietary nanotechnology membrane to separate water from ethanol. First sugar and yeast is mixed with water and fermented. Over 1-2 days it is pumped into a distillation column where a vapor of ethanol and water passes through the nanotech membrane. Water filters out tiny holes while ethanol continues through an exit port. The process requires more sugar than you probably have stored in the pantry. Twelve pounds of sugar makes one gallon of ethanol. If sugar stays at 10 cents per pound, producing homemade ethanol costs $1.20 a gallon. But if you have access to a brewery or a winery's discarded alcohol, producing ethanol from alcohol will set you back just 10 cents a gallon in energy costs and a few hours time. Most vehicles-even if they were never intended to run on ethanol, can run on at least 15 percent - 50 percent ethanol. But there are certain instances where you will need to make minor adjustments to your car by installing an ethanol converter box. The technology runs about $400 depending on the make and year of your car. Quinn claims, "Once you have that converter, it will electrically convert your car computer and will be able to run on 100 percent ethanol. So, that means you can kiss the gas station good bye." Homemade fuel comes with an upfront cost. The EFuel 100 MicroFueler's price tag is $10,000. But, you can siphon off a few thousand in tax rebates. - Source 06/27/08 - NO NEW GASOLINE-POWERED VEHICLES IN THE U.S. BY 2014 w/video We need an ample supply of vehicles that can reliably utilize an alternative fuel; we need ample distribution and supply outlets for the alt fuel(s); and we need abundant resources (preferably located on the North American continent) to ensure a continuous supply of the raw material to produce the alt fuel. Next, we need available, plentiful, and affordable environment-friendly fuel solutions to the gasoline predicament (regardless of how or why the crisis exists and which conspiracy theory you subscribe to). THE CONTENDERS for the fuel solutions are: • Electric (straight plug-in battery or fuel-cell related) • Hydrogen - internal combustion engine • Solar • Ethanol • Bio-diesel • Compressed air • Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) • Propane. CNG and PROPANE VEHICLES - The prime requisite to make No New Gasoline-Powered Vehicles By 2014 a reality is vehicles that can reliably use an alternative fuel source. Unbeknownst to a great many Americans is that most if not all major automakers already produce vehicles that use CNG and/or propane, and they’ve been doing so for years. The list includes GM, Ford and Chrysler. Perhaps even more surprising is that many of the models, including Honda’s Civic GX are manufactured in North America. So obviously the technology is proven and the car companies know how to make them. CNG has a lower price per gallon (from about $1.25 to $2.75) and greater domestic reserves. Propane provides greater energy output per unit of measurement and offers more existing consumer outlets (there are literally thousands of propane dealers located throughout the country, in virtually every city and town). - Source 06/27/08 - WTF? NC Offers to Replace 10,000 License Plates "In light of recent discussions about the Internet habits of the older generation, it's comforting to know that in North Carolina, up to 10,000 license plates containing the potentially offensive 3-letter WTF combination will be replaced by the Motor Vehicles division at no cost - if the owner of the vehicle finds the plates offensive. As reported on Winston-Salem's television station WXII, the MVD was alerted to the problem by an irate 60-year-old technology teacher who'd been clued in by her grandchildren. The article includes a helpful slide show of twenty Internet acronyms every parent should know. The article doesn't include any information on how you could actually apply for a WTF license plate." / Popular acronyms - POS - parents over shoulder, PIR - parents in room, P911 - parent alert, PAW - parents are watching, PAL - parents are listening, ASL - age/sex/location, MorF - Male or Female, SorG - Straight or Gay, LMIRL - let's meet in real life, KPC - keeping parents clueless, TD2M - talk dirty to me, MOOS - member of opposite sex, MOSS - member of same sex, WYCM - will you call me?, IWSN - I want sex now, NIFOC - nude in front of computer, GYPO - get your pants off, ADR - address, KFU - kisses for you, NALOPKT - not a lot of people know this. - Source 06/27/08 - Alternative Fuel Specialist Says All Water Run Car Impossible You must have another form of energy too, either a stored energy of some sort (like gasoline) or electricity. Alternative fuel expert Theodosios Korakianitis says a water-only fueled car is impossible. Recently a Japanese company claimed to have invented one, Korakianitis says you must have another form of energy too, either a stored energy of some sort (like gas) or electricity. - Source 06/27/08 - Molten Salt Provides Highly Efficient Thermal Storage Despite their widespread use, solar technologies suffer the limitation of most renewable technologies: an unpredictable operating profile due to weather variations. However, using the highly efficient properties of molten salt for heat transfer, one technology insulates electricity production from weather volatility and, more importantly, it offers the capability to dispatch electricity as needed without requiring the use of natural gas. This technology is a concentrating solar power (CSP) technology, built around a proprietary central receiver tower and molten salt loop. The salt is a combination of sodium and potassium nitrate, with a melting temperature of 460°F. In the liquid state, molten salt has the viscosity and the appearance similar to water. "In solar applications, molten salt is used for a number of practical reasons," says Terry Murphy, Chief Executive Officer for SolarReserve, who along with others helped develop the molten salt technology at Rocketdyne. "Molten salt is a heat storage medium that retains thermal energy very effectively over time and operates at temperatures greater than 1000°F, which matches well with the most efficient steam turbines. Second, it remains in a liquid state throughout the plant's operating regime, which will improve long-term reliability and reduce O&M costs. And third, it's totally 'green,' molten salt is a non-toxic, readily available material, similar to commercial fertilizers." A primary advantage of molten salt central receiver technology is that the molten salt can be heated to 1050°F, which allows high energy steam to be generated at utility-standard temperatures (1650 psi minimum, 1025°F), achieving high thermodynamic cycle efficiencies of approximately 40 percent in modern steam turbine systems. - Source 06/27/08 - Suburbia becomes untenable with rising gas costs Suddenly, the economics of American suburban life are under assault as skyrocketing energy prices inflate the costs of reaching, heating and cooling homes on the outer edges of metropolitan areas. As the realization takes hold that rising energy prices are less a momentary blip than a restructuring with lasting consequences, the high cost of fuel is threatening to slow the decades-old migration away from cities, while exacerbating the housing downturn by diminishing the appeal of larger homes set far from urban jobs. Some proclaim the unfolding demise of suburbia. "Many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and '70s - slums characterized by poverty, crime and decay," said Christopher Leinberger, an urban land use expert, in a recent essay in the Atlantic Monthly. Most experts do not share such apocalyptic visions, seeing instead a gradual reordering. - Source 06/27/08 - Energy crisis: Turning-point of humanity After more than 150 years of increasing availability of energy and an explosive growth of the world population, we are now entering an era of always decreasing availability of energy. The oil-price rises explosivily. This time it is not about some action of OPEC, a threat of war or a cold winter. Today's rises in price are the result of a turning-point in the oil supply. Demand keeps growing and the oil extraction has reached its ceiling. And, as the oil exporting countries use more and more oil themselves, less oil is offered on the export-markets. Those who count on alternative energy sources are wrong. Gas, coal, nuclear, hydro, wind and solar energy cannot make up the shortage of oil. The world population will have to do with less energy. Today's mix of energy use consists of 36 percent oil, 24 percent gas, 28 percent coal, 6 percent nuclear, 6 percent hydro-power and 1 percent renewables, like wind and solar energy. The explosive growth of the world population has been possible by the one-time consumption of fossil energy. We now have reached the top of the energy-extraction. The extraction of the remainder demands more cost and efforts for a lower output. During our lifetime we never knew anything else but the growth model. That is in use nearly everywhere in the world. That is why we do not realize sufficiently, it is just an economic model. It only applies in a situation of permanent increase of energy, raw materials, working force and consumers. When there is less energy available than needed for a big population, we should - logically - strive for a smaller population. If we start the decrease in population early enough, then, counted per inhabitant, prosperity can be maintained at a high level. (When the population is too big, it will be war and economic crisis.) - Source 06/27/08 - Big Oil and the war in Iraq IT TOOK five years, the deaths of 4,100 US soldiers, and the wounding of 30,000 more to make Iraq safe for Exxon. ($543,236,299,998 Spent on Iraq as of 4:22 pm June 10th!) It is the inescapable open question since the reasons given by President Bush for the invasion and occupation did not exist, neither the weapons of mass destruction nor Saddam Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The New York Times reported last week that several Western oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, BP, and Chevron, are about to sign no-bid contracts with the Iraqi government. The Associated Press quoted Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit as saying he believed the contracts were a first step toward production-sharing agreements. "These companies are in it for the money, not to make friends," Gheit said. This of course blows a hole in another ancient Bush fallacy, the one in which former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said "the oil wells belong to the Iraqi people" and former secretary of State Colin Powell seconded him by saying Iraqi oil "will be held in trust for the Iraqi people." - Source 06/27/08 - Internet Gridlock Video is clogging the Internet. How we choose to unclog it will have far-reaching implications. Video downloads are sucking up bandwidth at an unprecedented rate. A short magazine article might take six minutes to read online. Watching "The Evolution of Dance" also takes six minutes--but it requires you to download 100 times as much data. The Internet is a lot like a highway, but not, contrary to popular belief, a superhighway. It's more like a four-lane state highway with traffic lights every five miles or so. A packet of data can blaze down an optical fiber at the speed of light, but every once in a while it reaches an intersection where it has the option of branching off down another fiber. There it encounters a box called an Internet router, which tells it which way to go. If traffic is light, the packet can negotiate the intersection with hardly any loss of speed. But if too many packets reach the intersection at the same time, they have to queue up and wait for the router to usher them through. When the wait gets too long, you've got congestion. The transmission control protocol, or TCP--one of the Internet's two fundamental protocols--includes an algorithm for handling congestion. Basically, if a given data link gets congested, TCP tells all the computers sending packets over it to halve their transmission rates. The senders then slowly ratchet their rates back up--until things get congested again. - Source 06/27/08 - British steam car unveiled for attempt at land speed record A British-built steam car that could break the longest-standing land speed record for such vehicles has been unveiled. The team behind the car is aiming to improve on the 128mph set by Fred Marriot in 1906. The vehicle was shown to the media for the first time at Thorney Island in Portsmouth. A team of British engineers has designed a car powered by steam which they hope will go over 200mph. - Source 06/27/08 - Seizing Laptops and Cameras Without Cause A ruling this year by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that DHS does indeed have the authority to search electronic devices without suspicion in the same way that it would inspect a briefcase. The lawsuit that prompted the ruling was the result of more than 20 cases, most of which involved laptops, cellphones, or other electronics seized at airports. Travelers who have their computers seized face real headaches. "It immediately deprives an executive or company of the very data?and revenue?a business trip was intended to create," says Susan Gurley, head of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, which is asking DHS for greater transparency and oversight to protect copied data. "As a businessperson returning to the U.S., you may find yourself effectively locked out of your electronic office indefinitely." While Hogan had his computer returned after only a few days, others say they have had theirs held for months at a time. As a result, some companies have instituted policies that require employees to travel with clean machines: free of corporate data. - Source 06/27/08 - Harness volcano power, energy experts say Volcanoes and hot springs could supply up to 25 per cent of America's power needs, energy experts have said. Companies are being invited to lease the rights to explore geothermal resources beneath Mount Spurr, a snowcapped 11,070-foot volcano that most recently erupted in 1992 showering much of Anchorage with volcanic ash. According to experts, America is only just waking up to the ancient power source lying beneath dozens of states that has the potential to supply as much as 25 percent of the nation's energy needs. The Bureau of Land Management has just surveyed 11 western states and Alaska for "lands with high potential for renewable geothermal resources". The study showed around 200 million acres of public land with geothermal potential, Mr Gawell said. But he estimates 80 per cent of geothermal systems remain undiscovered as they have no tell-tale surface feature such as a hot spring. "We're still just finding the obvious stuff." - Source 06/27/08 - Determining life with biogenetic computer algorithms The real definition of life is a hidden coded algorithm that forms the law of life just like the law of Gravity or Relativity. It is something fundamental in the universe. Wherever possible chemistry is programmed to organize itself into living cells. The most fascinating part of the whole story is the long-term evolution into intelligent beings. What that means wherever possible life will form and evolve into intelligent life forms. But all life forms may not be similar. What we have learnt from evolutionary biology is that life ‘program’ facilitates and encourages mutation - the defect or imperfectness in replication. That provides the notion that as life evolves; many species will be there. These species may not be similar to what we can see, believe or even imagine. An extraterrestrial intelligent living being can be in the form of ion or gas or even dark matter. Scientists are trying to understand the possible other life forms through super smart biogenetic computer algorithms encompassing law of emergence and life. These algorithms not only can predict different life form characteristics, they can also fast forward in algorithmic time frame to suggest an intelligent life form eventually will look like. - Source 06/25/08 - Litroenergy - Glowpaint - New Light Source Material Litroenergy is a patent pending designed light source material that emits light for 12 plus years- without electricity or sun exposure! Our development/design of long-life, self-luminous micro particles called Litrospheres (non-toxic) emit light continuously for 12 plus years (half-life point) without any exposure to a light or other energy (not effected by cold or heat). This extremely low cost material offers 24/7 light, which can be injection molded or added to paint. It is 5,000lb crush resistant, stable and constant light source (gives off no U.V. rays). It is designed to give off almost any color of light desired. Our goal is to mass produce this material and supply OEM’s. Litroenergy has potential to save billions of dollars in energy costs world-wide. Litroenergy surpasses all known available lighting options for cost/durability/reliability (12+ years) and safety. The uses are unlimited as the imagination; however we predict the safety aspects to be the front runner in application (light safety tape, lighted life rafts/flotation equipment, light safety markings/equipment, etc.). Supplemental light source will be second as the material is bright and one can read by it, if you have some Litroenergy lighting you will not need to always turn on a light source that requires electricity. The use of Litroenergy in toys, sports/camping equipment, bikes and novelty uses will be close in applications. The fill rate of Litroenergy micro particles in plastic injection molding material or paint is about 20%. The cost to light up 8 ½ x 11 piece of plastic 1/8” thick is about .35 cents. We appreciate this opportunity to introduce our patent pending designed Litroenergy light source material to the world. - (Thanks to Ross for sharing this link. - JWD) / A company known as MPK claims that throwing some tritium inside a phosphor-coated microsphere will result in a substance that can glow continuously for over a dozen years without an iota of energy input. The technology is known as betavoltaics, using a radioactive gas as its power source. Interestingly enough, tritium radiation (beta particles) can be safely contained by the microspheres it lives inside so there is no need to purchase a radiation suit anytime soon. The materials are not affected by heat or cold, should be able to emit just any color. Will this replace traditional lighting anytime soon? Probably not, as an expert in the matter claims that the intensity is not strong enough to match the light output or replace electric light bulbs. Add that to the fact that there is absolutely no way to turn this thing off. - Source 06/25/08 - A Hippocratic Oath For Scientists "In response to what appears to be a growing problem of scientific misconduct, a group of people at the Institute of Medical Science at University of Toronto in Canada wrote a scientist's version of the Hippocratic oath. This oath (which is cited in the story) was recited by all graduate students in the biological sciences at the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year." / Version 1 - "I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship. I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member." / Version 2 - Here are the seven commandments as laid down by Sir David: 1. Act with skill and care, keep skills up to date 2. Prevent corrupt practice and declare conflicts of interest 3. Respect and acknowledge the work of other scientists 4. Ensure that research is justified and lawful 5. Minimise impacts on people, animals and the environment 6. Discuss issues science raises for society 7. Do not mislead; present evidence honestly. - Source 06/25/08 - Energize Your Home With Solar Curtains Researchers at MIT have created designs for flexible photovoltaic materials, known as solar textiles, that can also be draped as curtains, which may change the way buildings receive and distribute energy. To design the solar textiles, Sheila Kennedy, an expert in the integration of solar cell technology in architecture, from MIT, used a 3-D modeling software. This software generated membrane-like surfaces that can become energy-efficient cladding for roofs or walls. A recent project, “Soft House,” exhibited at the Vitra Design Museum in Essen, Germany, illustrates what Kennedy means when she says the boundaries between walls and utilities are changing. For Soft House, Kennedy transformed household curtains into mobile, flexible energy-harvesting surfaces with integrated solid-state lighting. Soft House curtains move to follow the sun and can generate up to 16,000 watt-hours of electricity - more than half the daily power needs of an average American household. - Source 06/25/08 - Easy Conversion of Organic Matter to Hydrogen Researchers at Penn State have discovered a process for generating hydrogen from the decomposition of a common acid, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers placed naturally occurring bacteria into acetic acid, which is produced when glucose or cellulose ferment. Acetic acid is the primary component in vinegar. The researchers added a granulated graphite anode and a cathode of carbon with a platinum catalyst, converting the entire system into a fuel cell. As a consequence of the bacteria's digestion of the acetic acid, electrons flowed from the anode to the cathode, generating up to 0.3 volts of electricity. With a total of 0.5 volts of energy - meaning that 0.2 volts must be added from an external source - the liquid starts to break into its component parts and hydrogen gas is released. "This process produces 288 percent more energy in hydrogen than the electrical energy that is added to the process," Logan said. If the cell is set up to siphon off some of the hydrogen that it produces in order to power its own process, the cell produces 144 percent more energy than it uses. Fuel cells last until the fuel that powers them (in this case, acetic acid) is consumed. In contrast to batteries, in which the anode and cathode are consumed and must be replaced, the fuel cell can be recharged with fuel and continue operating.- (Thanks to Herbert R. for this link. - JWD) - Source 06/25/08 - Lack of Sunlight Could Lead To Early Death "Members of this community may want to venture out of the basement more often, because Dr. Harald Dobnig and his team have found that vitamin D deficiency leads to increased mortality. These results still hold when they take into account such factors as exercise and heart disease. Low vitamin D status has 'other significant negative effects in terms of incidence of cancer, stroke, sudden cardiac death and death of heart failure,' Dr. Dobnig said. The evidence of ill effects from low vitamin D 'is just becoming overwhelming at this point.' Vitamin D3 is usually produced by exposure to the UV-B in sunlight, but in high latitudes, especially in the fall and winter, insufficient UV-B gets through the atmosphere to produce enough vitamin D3, even with hours of exposure. The researchers are recommending that people at risk for deficiency take 800 IU of vitamin D3 daily. Just don't go overboard - as a fat-soluble vitamin, D3 is more capable of causing adverse effects at unnaturally high dosages. The human body tops out at producing about 10,000 IU per day." - Source 06/25/08 - First US Offshore Wind Power Park In Delaware "Offshore wind power company Bluewater Wind has announced an agreement to build America's first offshore wind turbine park off the coast of Delaware. 'Each turbine [will sit on] a pole about 250 feet above the waterline... the units are to be constructed to withstand hurricane-force winds. From the shore, the park will be visible only on clear winter days, and the turbines will be nearly invisible during summer months when Rehoboth Beach fills with vacationers. Each blade on the three-blade rotor is to be 150 feet long.' The wind farm will power 50,000 homes in Delaware, using about half of its capacity." - Source 06/25/08 - Experimenter claims 60mpg with Hydroxy Mix 63.3 Average MPG @ 60 MPH eastbound on I-40 in AZ. 100 series cell unit system in the trunk. A good site for learning about hydroxy gas production is; Hydrogen/Oxygen Study Group. Water can be transformed into the perfect energy carrier. It is abundant, non-polluting, and eternal in nature. If you split it hyper-efficiently, then combust it efficiently. After harvesting the released energy, you again have H2O as the by-product, ready to use again. Hard to beat! Will the greed of big oil and big business ever be satisfied enough that they can stop destroying this planet? I seriously doubt it. There is energy aplenty in the wind, the sun, in flowing rivers and waterfalls... Even in a cup of water, latent there, just waiting for the adventurous... Go for it! (Thanks to Bill W. for the headsup. - JWD) - Source 06/25/08 - 8 drugs doctors wouldn't take If your physician would skip these medicines, maybe you should, too. Plenty of M.D.'s do know which prescription and over-the-counter drugs are duds, dangers, or both. So we asked them, "Which medications would you skip?" Their list is your second opinion. If you're on any of these meds, talk to your doctor. Pseudoephedrine, Visine Original, Prilosec and Nexium, Advair, Avandia, Celebrex and Ketek. Read article for full details. - Source 06/25/08 - The misguided message of the ‘addict-in-chief’ Way back in 2006, the president delivered a State of the Union address that actually pretended to care about energy policy. Bush graciously acknowledged that we “have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.” The president argued, persuasively, that we need to “break” the addiction through the development of “cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources.” That was then. Now, Bush isn’t especially interested in breaking the addiction; he actually wants to exacerbate it. Indeed, just yesterday, in an unusually dumb radio address, the president said unless Congress approves his drilling policy, Democrats should be considered responsible for higher gas prices. The NYT’s Tom Friedman does a nice job today of taking the president to task. Now we have the new Bush energy plan: “Get more addicted to oil.” Actually, it’s more sophisticated than that: Get Saudi Arabia, our chief oil pusher, to up our dosage for a little while and bring down the oil price just enough so the renewable energy alternatives can’t totally take off. Then try to strong arm Congress into lifting the ban on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: “C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.” - Source 06/25/08 - Northern Lights leading sat navs astray The next time your sat nav leads you down a dead end it might not be faulty software that's to blame. Scientists at Bath University claim the devices may suffer from interference from space. The scientists claim that the Northern Lights can cause electrical interference with GPS signals, causing sat nav devices to state a faulty position or lose their place altogether. "Space weather impacts on GPS include the introduction of range errors and the loss of signal reception, both of which can have severe effects on marine and aviation navigation, surveying, and other critical real-time applications," the researchers state, in a paper published in the online journal, Space Weather: The International Journal of Research and Applications. The researchers used three GPS devices in Norway to measure the impact on signal strength before, during and after an aurora borealis event. They claim the signal wavered significantly during the event, with the devices often failing to get a lock on the satellites. "Anywhere that the aurora is visible, it will cause disruption," lead researcher Professor Cathryn Mitchell told The Daily Telegraph. "Although most people in the UK can't see the aurora when it is happening, because of cloud or ambient light, it can still affect the GPS signal. We have just passed a minimum in activity but we are due to hit a maximum in 2012, which is when we would expect to see most disruption." Device makers claim such interference will only affect devices temporarily. - Source 06/25/08 - IRS Increases Mileage Reimbursement Rates The Internal Revenue Service today announced an increase in the optional standard mileage rates for the final six months of 2008. Taxpayers may use the optional standard rates to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes. The rate will increase to 58.5 cents a mile for all business miles driven from July 1, 2008, through Dec. 31, 2008. - Source 06/25/08 - Hybrid hysteria Writing for the Heartland Institute, John Dale Dunn of the American Council on Science and Health notes many people who have bought taxpayer-subsidized hybrids are trading them in - at huge losses in some cases - for cars with internal-combustion engines because of concerns over unavoidable, prolonged exposure to electromagnetic fields created by hybrids' batteries. Even The New York Times says their fears are "not without merit." The National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute are two of many agencies that say long-term exposure to a strong electromagnetic field is hazardous. Drivers say their hybrids raised their blood pressure, caused drowsiness behind the wheel and worried them sick about increased leukemia risk. Tests have documented "dangerously high" EMFs in hybrids, leading owners "to conclude driving the vehicles is not worth risking blood for oil," Mr. Dunn wrote. We think this is all a bunch of hooey, of course, because a National Research Council review of more than 500 studies on EMFs found the fields do not cause disease or cancer. - Source 06/25/08 - Tricorder-like Device Identifies Life Forms Using nothing more than a battery-powered device that emits a beam of ultraviolet light, future robotic explorers will be able to identify the building blocks of life on other planets and moons. A group of scientists in the U.S. and the U.K. have developed a small device which uses a low-power laser beam to sweep over rocks or soil, identifying identify organic substances that are the signposts of life as we know it. Specifically, the little machine "sees" life by causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), often called the earliest form of organic matter in the universe, to light up. The discovery is so promising that it's likely to be launched out with the next generation of Mars rovers. While using fluorescence to illuminate organic material has been done for decades, light sources were too large and unwieldy to use for a robotic mission to another planet, said [researcher Michael] Storrie-Lombardi. However, new generations of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are very small, reliable and energy efficient, he added. "Placed on a Mars rover, one of these LEDs positioned a few centimeters from a target can easily provide enough light to produce fluorescence in small polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons," Storrie-Lombardi said. "But even more encouraging is the very recent development of a small 375 nanometer laser diode that can illuminate anything a PanCam can see, including geological layers and crevices high up on an otherwise inaccessible rock outcrop." - Source 06/25/08 - Airlines to US: Please Don't Make Us Fingerprint Foreigners Could conditions get any tougher for the airline industry? Possibly, if the US government has its way. Travel industry executives and governments around the world are pushing back against a plan to require airlines and cruise lines to collect fingerprints from all foreign passengers exiting the country. According to the Washington Post, airline reps complain that the move represents the government's attempt to "outsource" the responsibilities and costs associated with border control, setting a dangerous precedent of personal data being controlled by private companies. - Source 06/25/08 - Are Speed Bumps the New Electricity Generators? Two Palestinian teens invented a new way to generate electricity from the aggravating speed bumps that are found on a countless number of streets in many Arab countries. Fourteen-year-old Anan Ismail Ayad and Haytham Jumaa Abd Al-Gawwad, who attend Al-Ma`had Al-Arabi School in Al-Quds City, invented a mechanical speed bump that could possibly replace the speed bumps regularly found on streets. The new speed bump is capable of converting the vertical motion of cars pressing down on the speed bumps as they drive over them into electricity. This electricity is stored in batteries that could potentially be used to provide the electricity required to operate different pieces of equipment. "The device is made up of two parts; the first part is placed in a pit around 30-cm deep, while the second part consists of the speed bump, which is above the road. "When cars drive over the speed bump, the top part of it descends slightly. During this small motion, the up and down movement created by the weight of the car is converted into a circular motion that activates a linked generator. The generator goes on to create electricity." "The generated electric current is stored in batteries that can be used to operate street lights, traffic lights, or any other piece of equipment," he explained. According to Ayad, each speed bump can generate 10 kilowatt of electrical energy in a 12-hour period of continuous motion. "This means that the amount of electricity that could potentially be generated by the large number of cars and numerous speed bumps down the length of a single street may well be sufficient to light up the streets as well as operate traffic lights. It carries the prospect of being utilized in other areas as well," he explained. Production of Ayad and Abd Al-Gawwad's invention could be completed with a cost of USD1500 per speed bump. "Molten iron could be used so that the speed bumps are able to withstand the strain caused by the cars driving over them daily," said Abd Al-Gawwad. He goes on to say that the cost of maintenance for his contraption would be extremely low. With a yearly cost of USD100 or less, maintenance of these speed bumps is not only inexpensive but also straightforward, taking no more than 10 minutes to complete. He explained that during maintenance, it takes only four individuals to pick the speed bump up off the street. After that, the gap left behind is automatically closed up and leveled with the street by means of a hydraulics-operated seal. This allows the cars to drive along without any problems and without interrupting traffic. - Source 06/25/08 - How plastic bags could solve fuel crisis Mr Ketteringham, 75, had been working as a business consultant and came across the technology - which has been working in China for several years - through working with executives from a leading energy firm. He said: “They came across a working plant and the inventor, a Beijing professor, who had been awarded a diploma for his invention.” After engineers had checked out that the technology actually works, a market study of waste plastics in Europe was undertaken, and Mr Ketteringham was sufficiently impressed by the potential to form his company and acquire the world-wide patents for the process. He explained that all waste plastic, not just bags, could be used. Through a process operating under heat, called “catalytic cracking”, the shredded plastic was converted back into oil that could then be turned into high-grade diesel and petrol. A successful demonstration plant was operating in China. The next step was to upgrade the plant to meet European design standards. “The beauty is that the plastic bags don't have to be clean. They can be covered in grease and, in fact, a lot of plastic cement bags are used in China,” he said. One plant, costing about £5m to build, would be capable of processing all the waste plastic from an area as wide as Norwich, Yarmouth and Ipswich, and could produce about 1.5m gallons of fuel a year. Conversely the fuel could be used to generate more than three megawatts of electricity. If a local authority took up the technology it would have enough fuel to run all its vehicles as well as solving its waste plastic disposal problem. He said: “With oil prices soaring over $135 a barrel, we can produce it at $46 a barrel.” - Source 06/25/08 - Researchers create synthetic fuel from sunlight, CO2, water Sandia National Laboratories is building a fuel synthesizer in a bid to harnesses sunlight to reverse the process of combustion. The reactor would use reclaimed carbon dioxide emissions to create renewable synthetic fuel by combining the CO2 with water. "Rather than make hydrogen for people to use in fuel cells, we think it might make more sense to make a synthetic fuel that is already compatible with our existing [gasoline engine] infrastructure," said Rich Diver, inventor of the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5). "Others are working on ways to make liquid synthetic fuels from natural gas, but we are going back a step further and looking at ways of thermochemically making the precursors for synthetic fuel using solar energy, carbon dioxide and water." Unbelievable as it sounds, Diver claims that his solar-powered reactor could help clean up the planet by making internal combustion a reversible process. His team calls the project Sunshine to Petrol (S2P) and the envisioned synthesized product Liquid Solar Fuel. The conventional fuels with which we are familiar-gasoline, propane, butane, methane, natural gas-are all just various types of hydrocarbon bondings. When enough hydrogen and carbon atoms are bonded together, they become heavy enough to exist as liquid at room temperature. For example, 100 octane gasoline is just eight atoms of carbon bonded to 18 atoms of hydrogen: C8H18. "Combining hydrogen and carbon monoxide gives you a fuel which you can use similarly to natural gas; and using a few chemical processing steps, you can make methanol and other liquid fuels that you can burn in engines designed for gasoline," said Diver. - Source 06/25/08 - NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance' Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action. James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises. "We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would." Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer. - Source 06/25/08 - City inventor turns sewage sludge into ash The 83-year-old, who works out of an office at his Queenwood home, invented an eco-friendly sewage treatment plant that reduces the amount of human waste sent to landfills by 93 per cent. When sludge is put through the system the majority is converted to a fuel, which is used in a combustion process, leaving just seven per cent as ash. The system, trialled at Hamilton's plant in Pukete Rd for five years alongside the conventional operation, could reduce the amount of treated sewage going to the Hampton Downs landfill from 30 tonnes per day to just over two tonnes. The ash could then be used to make asphalt. Rob Arblaster, managing director of Enviro Energy, said the system could significantly decrease the environmental costs of waste management. "The ash from this process can go into roading and some say we can even make bricks. One guy even said we could make beer bottles out of it." Mr Arblaster said that if the new plant was run for 24 hours, the prototype was capable of processing eight to ten tonnes of waste per day. HOW IT WORKS - Digested sewage sludge is fed into a dryer that converts the sludge into fuel. The fuel is then used in a combustion process to heat the remaining particles to 815C, turning 93 per cent of the product into gas. The gas is treated through a filter system to remove any harmful qualities or odour and then released into the air. The only substance left at the end of the process is ash. - Source 06/25/08 - McCain offers $300 million dollar prize for cutting-edge battery Sen. John McCain added an unusual twist to his emerging energy agenda Monday, promising to award a $300-million prize to the inventor of a next-generation battery that could power electric vehicles. The prize amount is small relative to the billions of dollars the federal government spends on other energy industries. Today's batteries cost as much as $25,000 per car, making them far too expensive for an auto maker to turn a profit. Reducing that price is considered the battery car's main challenge. / As outlined by McCain, the prize would be paid the first innovator to develop a battery technology that “leapfrogs” existing electric car and plug-in hybrid technology, in terms of size, capacity, power, and cost. The aim is a battery technology that capable of powering motor vehicles at 30 percent of current costs. This would be a significant technical breakthrough, greatly enhancing the ability of battery-powered vehicles to compete in the marketplace. / The difference between a patent system and McCain’s idea, however, is that McCain has prescribed a very specific outcome using a very specific method, rather than allowing the best technology or the most innovative research to win out. - Source 06/23/08 - Can Congress cut gas prices? Not likely Will Congress do something to cut gas prices before you drive off to the beach this summer? Not a chance, energy experts say. The truth is that despite the flurry of bills being debated on Capitol Hill, Congress cannot control the global price of oil nor offer real help for beleaguered American drivers now or in the near future, analysts say. It's not that the politicians don't want to help. With their constituents screaming from pain at the pump, members of Congress facing re-election in November would like nothing better than to fix the problem and take credit for doing so, Ebel said. But Congress has no power over the worldwide demand for oil, which is being fueled in large part by developing nations such as India and China with an insatiable hunger for energy, said Bob O'Brien, the online stocks editor at Barrons.com. “China is undergoing this economic boom and is effectively willing to pay any price,” O'Brien said. “Just by the nature of the market, the product is going to seek out the end user that is willing to pay the most. And that dynamic is not going to change anytime soon.” - Source 06/23/08 - MIT Solar Dish That is Hot Enough to Melt Steel A parabolic collector consists of an array of mirrors focused on a singular point, which they heat to a high temperature. By placing water or another liquid at the collector, energy can be stored in the form of a phase transformation, and later harvested through a turbine generator. The key piece is the 12-foot dish, which the team assembled in several weeks. The design is exceedingly simple and inexpensive. The frame is composed of aluminum tubing and mirrors are attached to it. The results are staggering -- the completed mirror focuses enough solar energy at its focal point to melt solid steel. The energy of typical sunlight is concentrated by a factor of 1,000. This was showcased during a demonstration, in which a team member held up a board, which instantly and violently combusted, when brought within range of the focal point. By directing the dish at a more practical target -- water piped through black tubing -- steam can be flash created, offering instant means of producing energy or providing heating. Spencer Ahrens, who just received his master's in mechanical engineering from MIT, was among the designers of the dish. He and his fellow team members are serious about marketing it, and leveraging its cheap cost and easy production. They have founded a company named RawSolar. They say their design is easily mass producible and that they hope to be pumping out 1,000 of dishes in years to come. A dish the size of the RawSolar team's design costs only a third of what a larger dish would cost. - Source 06/23/08 - An Alternative to America’s Gasoline Crisis Last week saw the price of crude oil inch closer to $140/ BBL. The US consumes about 21 MBPD of crude oil of which 5,102,000 BPD of crude oil is produced domestically. The price of gasoline, currently hovering around $4.00 / gal, can be reduced by lowering demand in three ways. First, we can be drive less often and car pool. Second, we can seek alternate modes of transportation, such as public transit. Third, we can use another motor fuel as an alternative to gasoline, one that is not produced from crude oil. The alternatives to gasoline motor fuel include diesel, propane, ethanol, methanol, CNG (compressed natural gas) and hydrogen. CNG (compressed natural gas), which is 90 percent methane, has a much higher octane rating than gasoline, allowing for higher compression ratios and therefore greater efficiency in the engines that use it. By lowering the demand for gasoline by 25% the price at the pump should drop significantly. Also, displacing 25% of the US refining capacity of gasoline production, it will force multi-nationals to reformulate their crude oil intake to produce more diesel motor fuels from less costly crude types, thereby in theory lowering the price of diesel as well. Will America take up the challenge of switching to CNG vehicles? - Source 06/23/08 - Making The Environment Greener With Seed Bubbles The bicycle attachment may look like an exhaust pipe, but instead it’s a pedal-powered invention that produces seed-filled bubbles. By using wind currents, these seeds are then dispersed into the cracks and crevices in the ground. From there, the seeds then mature into vegetation. The idea was mainly for a design competition but it wouldn’t be surprising if a company decided to manufacture the bicycle attachment. The invention is truly unique and can make a difference when it comes to the environment and influencing individuals to ride a bike every once in a while. - Source 06/23/08 - Is expensive oil deglobalizing the world? A report today from CIBC World Markets says the skyrocketing cost of transportation is leading to inflation and taking away the edge that many Asian countries have had in offering cheap labour. The end result, as oil approaches $200 a barrel, is what the bank sees as a deglobalization of world markets. The report finds that the cost of shipping a standard 40-foot container from East Asia to North America's east coast has tripled since 2000 and is expected to double again as oil reaches $200 a barrel. In 2000 it cost roughly $3,000 to ship a standard container from Shanghai to North America's east coast, including inland transportation. That was when oil was $20 a barrel. Today that cost is $8,000 and at $200 a barrel it soars to $15,000. Jeff Rubin, CIBC's chief economist, said if this were translated into a tariff it would represent an 11 per cent trade tariff today on goods coming to North America, and a 15 per cent tariff when oil reaches $200. This, the bank argues, threatens decades of trade liberalization and will force some overseas manufacturing to relocate closer to home. - Source 06/23/08 - 90% Biomass to Electricity Efficiencies Direct carbon fuel cells run on solid carbon fuel and typically use solid oxide or molten carbonate electrolytes to transport ions between the electrodes. John Irvine at the University of St Andrews and colleagues made a hybrid direct carbon fuel cell containing both types of electrolyte. They found that the binary electrolyte system enhanced carbon oxidation because carbon was oxidised not only on the electrode surface but also in the carbon-electrolyte slurry... Solid carbon, which comes from various sources such as coal or plants, packs a lot of energy into a small volume, making it an attractive fuel. Irvine states that coal will be a major energy source in the future but, unless it can be converted into electricity more efficiently, will lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. Fuel cells could be the answer, he says. 'Carbon fuel cells offer very high efficiency of conversion and, if implemented in the correct way, can yield two to three times the amount of energy for a given amount of coal compared to conventional thermal generation,' he explains. - Source 06/23/08 - Seismicity as the cause behind the Fall of Ancient Civilizations WHAT IF Troy was destroyed by an earthquake? What really brought down the walls of Jericho or the Colossus of Rhodes? These are some of the questions Stanford University geophysicist Amos Nur raises in "Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God" (Princeton University Press: 324 pp., $26.95), a book that posits seismicity -- rather than invaders or social forces -- as the prime dynamic behind the fall of ancient civilizations. It's hard to argue with the fact that cities like Troy and Jericho existed in seismically active territory, and when Nur engages in what we might call archaeological detective work -- looking at the position of human remains, for instance, to determine cause of death -- his book is focused and intense. "The widespread bias against recognizing the effects of earthquakes and other natural disasters in archaeology and history reflects a deeper, and disturbing, trend in the general population." But if that makes "Apocalypse" something of a cautionary tale, it's one that never quite moves beyond what might have been into the realm of what really was. - Source 06/23/08 - Seasteads - Autonomous self-governing Deep-sea Platforms An audacious new project aims to achieve a similar result by creating new competition for the world's sovereign nations. The Seasteading Institute, the brainchild of two Silicon Valley software developers, aims to develop self-sufficient deep-sea platforms that would empower individuals to break free of the cozy cartel of 190-odd world governments and start their own autonomous societies. They envision a future in which any group of people dissatisfied with its current government would be able to start a new one by purchasing some floating platforms-called seasteads-and build a new community in the open ocean. They depict government as an industry that suffers from unreasonably high barriers to entry. At present, experimenting with a new form of government requires winning an election or starting a revolution, prohibitively expensive options for small groups. As a result, they argue, even democratic governments are insufficiently responsive to their customers, the voters. The seasteaders seek to lower barriers to entry in the government business in order to create more competition and choice. A key advantage of seasteads is what Friedman calls "dynamic geography," the fact that any given seasteading unit is free to join or leave larger units within seasteading communities. Seasteading platforms would likely band together to provide common services like police protection, but with the key difference that any platform that was dissatisfied with the value it was receiving from such jurisdictions could leave them at any time. He argues that this would "move power downward," giving smaller units within society greater leverage to ensure the interests of their members are being served. - Source 06/23/08 - Canada puts brakes on electric vehicles Despite increasing local demand for zero-emissions cars and trucks and robust exports of electric vehicles, Canada will not allow them on its roads, lament manufacturers. "It's a daily embarrassment," said Ian Clifford, president of Zenn Motor Company, which builds "zero emissions no noise" vehicles in Canada for export primarily to the United States. "Even my employees can't drive to work in a Zenn. It's absurd," he said of federal and provincial rules that forbid electric cars from being driven on most Canadian roads. Clifford's frustration is aggravated by the view that Canadians are increasingly concerned about the environment and are said to be eager to drive electric vehicles in this warming climate. "We build the car in St. Jerome (Quebec) and ship them all south of the border," where 44 states allow them, and some 45,000 electric cars are in use today, he said. But Transport Canada says the vehicles made of lightweight metals and plastics are not safe to drive on Canada's open roads, and would not stand up in a collision. The regulatory agency has so far certified only five models as road-worthy, including the Zenn, and two others that are no longer in production, said Transport Canada spokeswoman Maryse Durette. According to reports, others allege political bias, noting Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government's base of support in oil-rich Alberta province. To date, only westernmost British Columbia allows low speed electric vehicles on its urban roads. - Source 06/23/08 - The Thermionic Revolution - Using Ambient Heat Energy On their Solution page, they provide a simple diagram and describe the theoretical device as; By combining rotation and points, we can produce an effective 0.15ev work function. The drawing shows how these effects can be incorporated in a design. It shows (in cross section) a red disk spinning on a 240v AC dynamo shaft. Above the disk is a ring magnet (yellow) which is connected to magnetic iron (grey). At the outer edge of the disk there is an array of sharp points. The disk gets replacement electrons via a very sharp (for low loss) secondary needle array (top of orange.) The dynamo (blue) works initially as a motor to get the disk up to design speed, then it is a dynamo. As electrons are emitted from the outer surface, a current flows through the disk. That current passes the magnets and induces a torque in the disk which then turns the dynamo. Electrons are replaced at the same rate they were emitted from the disk via the extra sharp secondary needle array (top of orange). This also transfer some heat. Heat flows to the disk from the upper and lower case. At a work function of 0.15ev, we do work of 2.4E-20 Joules per emitted electron. At an edge speed of 300m/s replacement electrons use 4.1E-26 Joules to get up to edge speed. The net work available for torque (output) is therefore 2.39E-20 Joules. Allowing for losses, we estimate output at 3Kw, for a 150cm diameter disk. - Source 06/23/08 - Coal in Your Car's Tank American-dug coal could be altered to produce clean-burning fuels for our vehicles. Here's how we could do it, and what might stop it from happening. In 1943, when Germany had virtually no sources of petroleum to fuel its Luftwaffe, U-boats, and Tiger tanks, its scientists (arguably among the best in the world at that time) didn't turn to solar and wind power. Evil does not equate to naivete. Hitler's technical advisers turned to another energy source to keep their Wehrmacht running steadily for several years without petroleum. They used the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert coal into diesel fuel and employed the Bergius hydrogenation (or liquefaction) process to convert coal into aviation gasoline and high-quality truck and automobile gasoline. Nothing about the chemistry of coal has changed since WWII, and it is still possible to synthesize fuel from coal, which ranges from about 65 percent to 95 percent pure carbon. All that's required is hydrogen, heat, and pressure. The question arises: "Why, if the process is relatively simple, isn't more coal converted into oil?" For years, the answer to that question was cost. It was simply too expensive compared to pumping oil out of the ground, reported to cost the Saudis less than $1 per barrel. Robert Wright of the Department of Energy said in 2007 that coal-to-liquid technology would only be economical once oil prices were at $40 to $50 a barrel. Now that prices are well above that mark and will likely remain there, the problem has become the environmentalists who fear pollution above economic hardships brought on by high-priced motor fuels. - Source 06/23/08 - Political Stupidity - Petroleum Industry Antitrust Task Force A few weeks ago we witnessed a political act of such unimaginable stupidity, it is hard to not choke at the mention of it. "The US House passed, by a vote of 324 to 84, a bill that would create a new oil antitrust task force within the Department of Justice. Supporters of HR 6074, which also would give DOJ authority to sue foreign oil cartels for violating US antitrust laws, included 103 Republicans, according to its sponsor Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Wis.). The new "Petroleum Industry Antitrust Task Force" would be charged with determining the existence and extent of gasoline price gouging, anticompetitive price discrimination by refiners, actions to inflate prices by constraining supplies, and possible oil price manipulation in futures markets, Kagen said." oil is a global market and the members of OPEC include the world's largest suppliers to that market. In a world of increasing demand bumping up against flattening global production, these are not the people one wants to alienate - that is, if we want to drive our cars and tractors and heat our houses with something other than broken bits of heirloom furniture. Threatening to sue them, or worse, actually suing them, is unlikely to bring a warm response. Can you imagine the oil sheiks being made to present themselves in the docket in a U.S. Court? (If Homeland Security would let them through the airports, that is). Oh, what a fine media circus that would be! Frankly, if subpoenaed, I think they'll just refuse to show. And what then? - Source 06/23/08 - V-Bine PMG Generator V-Bine Energy, the creator of the permanent magnet generator (PMG) which is attached to chimney stacks and takes advantage or horsepower created from the combination of updraft and prevailing wind around a cylinder. With blades spaning ten feet in height and cover more that 5 feet in diameter, the PMG can generate power from stack updrafts as well as prevailing winds. Green power is now a real possibility for every industrial facility across the globe. Some of the advantages of the VBINE PMG are it's adaptability to almost any installation (Factory chimneys & stacks, High rise vents, etc), its quick payback period, it can connect directly into your facility without having to send the power through the normal power grid. - Source 06/23/08 - For geoengineers, all the world's a lab What scientists wouldn't have predicted, had they been around 225 years ago, was what happened in India and North Africa. The monsoon rains dried up and, in Egypt, the Nile River's annual flood - crucial for food crops - shrank to a trickle. It's understood now that the cooler weather in the northern hemisphere altered the normal temperature pattern that produces the intense, life-sustaining cloudbursts. The result was devastating famine. They've even acquired a solid-sounding name: Geoengineering. Among the concepts: Trees genetically modified to absorb and store much more carbon than natural versions can. Ocea