The Greening Continues — The most eclectic of what I read
macC May 2009
By Harry Babad ©
2009 with Robert L. Pritchett
Credits: Most of these
items, were located in the newsletter NewsBridge of ‘articles of interest’ to the
libraries users. It is electronically published by the Pacific Northwest
National Laboratories, in Richland WA. I then followed the provided link to the source of the information and
edited the content (abstracted) for our readers. The resulting column contains
a mini-summary with links to articles I found interesting.
In addition, for a change, I followed through some of the interesting posting
from Discover Magazine’s newsletters.
Send us your
referenced favorites (no more than 2-3 short paragraphs long) and we’ll share
them with our readers. If you have other favorites, we’ll share them if they
are “polite and seem factual. No science fiction perpetual motion please.
Much of what I
will share comes from the various weekly science and environmental newsletters
to which I subscribe. Their selections are obviously, and intentionally biased
by my views.
Now, As Usual in No Formal
Order, the Snippets
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Is It Time to Chuck the Internet and
Start Over?
The Internet is a fast-growing
40-year-old city in desperate need of renovation. In 2008 1.5 billion people
worldwide used the likes of BitTorrent, IM, Facebook, e-mail, Google, and Skype
via communications protocols originally intended for mere hundreds. The wear is
not only showing but also worsening: Upkeep and patchwork programming continue
to make running networks expensive, and cybercrime is flourishing. In response,
teams of computer scientists are gathering to form a Manhattan Project of sorts
to rethink the Internet.
The National
Science Foundation (NSF) chose Ellen Zegura, chairwoman of GENI’s network science
and engineering council. “Think of FedEx compared with the old U.S. Postal
system.” However, while the mail and package delivery system is large and
complex —much like the Internet—it has had far more time to test a
variety of iterations, from private to public to a combination of the two. The
challenge of integrating new ideas into the existing Internet is more like
writing, filming, and then editing an entirely new story line into the Matrix trilogy: How do you reconfigure an
entire universe that’s already over clocked, jacked-in, and densely coded?
Discover – Technology/Computers December 2008 issue, published online November 7, 2008
From Old Tires to New Energy
ROCKFORD, Ill. —
One man’s trash could be someone else’s energy.
A company has
developed a process to turn old tires into heating oil, natural gas and other
commodities without harmful emissions. Eventually, the process could get energy
out of solid waste, heavy oil, oil shale and other hard-to-tap energy sources.
Not only is
Global Resource Corp. making its prototype in Rockford, but also it could
manufacture the final machines in this region, giving the Rock River Valley’s
economy another green boost.
“We have a lot of opportunities to
create jobs for people when people are worried about losing their jobs and
people are being laid off,” said Jeff Kimberly, president of the West Berlin,
N.J.-based Company.
The prototype,
named the Patriot 1, is being worked on at Ingersoll Production Systems in
Rockford, where Kimberly used to work. Once the Patriot is ready for commercial
use this year, Global Resource (globalresourcecorp.com) will start taking orders.
Read More at:
By Thomas V. Bona
GateHouse News Service: Posted Mar 09, 2009
Mini Helicopters Conduct Whale Check-Ups by Flying Over Blowholes
How do you get a snot sample from a shy behemoth of the deep? That question stumped researchers
studying whale health, who wanted to give the animals check-ups without
corralling and traumatizing them. Now, researchers have come up with an
ingenious answer, flying a remote-control helicopter through the jets ejected by the whales’
blowholes. The helicopter has petri dishes strapped to it, which collect any
bacteria, fungi, and viruses that were in the whales’ lungs.
The collected samples could make a big contribution to scientists’ understanding of infectious diseases in whale populations. Researcher Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse explains:
“We don’t know much about them because they are so big and they are in the water all the time,
and that makes it really difficult to obtain biological samples that are
relevant to determining health in these populations. That is unless they’ve already stranded or
unless they are in captivity, which are hardly representative of a normal
population” [BBC News].
Read More at:
Discover
Magazine Blogs/80beats
Underwater Census: Frigid Oceans Are Surprisingly Popular Places to Live
Workers taking a biological census have
just completed their first 10-year count of marine organisms living near the
North and South poles, and they found more inhabitants than anyone expected.
They found some 13,000 kinds of animals living at one pole or the other, or, in
a surprising number of cases, at both” [Science News]. The Census of Marine Life began the project in 2000 and involves
thousands of researchers worldwide, hundreds of whom participated in more than
a dozen expeditions to both poles.
The complete
report will be issued next year, but a summary of findings has just been
released and reports about 7,500 species in the Antarctic region and 5,500 in the Arctic.
The poles were found to share 235 species, although further DNA testing is
being conducted to confirm that they are identical, and that they do not just
look alike. Among the “bi-polar” organisms are worms, crustaceans, and birds,
as well as great whales, which after centuries of whaling … had been thought to
remain only in the North Pacific and along the west coast of North America [Environment News Service]. Some of the bi-polar species
identified, such as two snail-like species that have become almost as filmy as
jellyfish and flutter through seawater instead of crawling, are not known from
anywhere in between the poles [Science News]
Read
More at:
Discover Magazine Blogs/80beats February 17, 2009
In Kentucky, A Preview Of What the Smart Grid Could Do
ERLANGER, Ky. —
ERLANGER, Ky. — One gizmo lets you run the dishwasher when electricity is
cheapest. Another decides when to fire up the water heater if you plan on a 6
a.m. shower. Another routes solar energy from a rooftop panel to a battery in
your garage and the wiring in your house.
Outside,
towers equipped with sensors tell the electric company exactly where a storm
has knocked out power. The power grid itself can react to trouble, rerouting
juice from a healthy part of the system or isolating itself to prevent a larger
meltdown.
So far, that
dramatization of "smart grid" technology is confined to an office
park in northern Kentucky, but sponsor Duke Energy Corp. is one of many large
utilities that are confident they can turn theater into reality for millions of
customers, aided by billions of dollars in the federal stimulus package.
The smart grid
idea is an essential component of President Barack Obama's plan to change the
nation's energy habits and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Read more and see a smart grid diagram at:
By Peter Slevin & Steven Mufson
The Washington Post
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Running on Air: New Hybrid Does Without a Battery
Reducing the
cost of the most expensive component of any high-priced product seems the
obvious way to increase its consumer demand. Swiss researchers led by engineer
Lino Guzzella are working to do just that for the gasoline-electric hybrid car by replacing the
battery with, of all things, compressed air. The new car, known as a pneumatic
hybrid, replaces a two-liter gasoline engine with one that stores energy in
compressed air, which is expected to yield a fuel savings of about 32 percent.
While a conventional gas engine has
enough power to accelerate quickly, it more often runs with much less power,
like when it’s moving at a steady speed. Guzella’s engine, however, strays from
that design. The small engine is sufficient for the car to cruise at highway
speeds, but when extra power is needed it relies on a process known as
supercharging: because the compressed air is dense, it supplies the oxygen
needed to burn more fuel for a boost of acceleration.
The engine
also gains efficiency by capturing energy during braking, and saving energy it
when the car is stopped: The compressed air can be used to restart the engine,
so the car actually shut downs rather than idles the engine when not in motion.
According to
Guzzella, the design will add about 20 percent to the cost of a conventional
engine, compared with up to 200 percent that current electric-hybrid models can
tack on. “Any time you can make the same equipment do more, says
one energy researcher, ‘that’s a good thing.”
Discover Magazine Blogs/Discoblog February 15, 2009
Numbers — Dams, From Hoover to Three Gorges to the Crumbling Ones
845,000 Number of dams in the world. The
United States has 80,000, with a total storage capacity of 48 trillion cubic
feet of water. Hoover Dam, straddling the Nevada-Arizona border at
Lake Mead, is the country’s largest, storing 1.2 trillion cubic feet.
49 Number of dam failures in the
United States between 2000 and 2007. Overtopping due to poor design accounts
for 34 percent of all failures. Some 85 percent of all large dams will have
passed their projected life spans by 2020. The Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimates that it would cost $10.1 billion
to repair the dams most in need of rehabilitation.
$25 billion Projected final cost of the Three Gorges Dam in China. Construction of this dam—the world’s largest, holding back 1.4
trillion cubic feet of water—has displaced at least 1.3 million people.
Thirteen cities, 140 towns, and 1,350 villages have been intentionally flooded.
When complete, the 410-mile-long reservoir will generate 84.7 billion
kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, the energy equivalent of 50 million
tons of coal.
Read
More at:
Dams - Hoover and Three Gorges - Crumbling Ones
Discover Magazine /Environment / Environmental Policy February 2, 2009
When ‘Clean’ Cars Charge Up On ‘Dirty’ Electricity
Q: If you have an electric
or plug-in hybrid car, you’re paying for electricity rather than gasoline all
or most of the time. How does that cost compare with a gasoline-powered car’s
cost per mile? And since the electricity may be generated from some other
polluting source, does it really work out to be better for the environment?
–
Kevin DeMarco, Milford, Conn.
A:When you compare battery to gasoline power, electricity wins, hands down. A 2007 study
by the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) calculated that powering
a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) would cost the equivalent of roughly
75 cents-per-gallon gasoline – a price not seen at the pump for 30 years.
Doc
Notes: That even at double the cost of electricity, found in a few parts of the
country, this is still a bargain.
The
auto image is of The
Tesla Roadster electric
vehicle on display at the Jan. 2009 North American International Auto Show.
Read More at:
EarthTalk: Christian Science Monitor March 20, 2009
Can
Clean Coal Actually Work? Time to Find Out.
The first
"clean coal" power plant is now up and running. By Jocelyn Rice
The world’s
first “clean coal” power plant fired up in September in the eastern German city
of Spremberg. Traditional coal-fired power plants, which produce 36 percent of
all carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, are the fastest-growing
source of energy—and air pollution—around the world.
Read More at:
Discover Magazine, published online, January 25, 2009
PS:
The previous report seems to contradict a
recent announcement by DOE & The News Gazette “CHAMPAIGN - Local officials
were encouraged Thursday by news that the Department of Energy may revive the
FutureGen project in Mattoon. If built, FutureGen would be the world's first
clean-coal power plant. The 1.8 billion [dollar]
experimental plant would store its carbon dioxide emissions 7,500 feet below
the surface.”
The News Gazette.com
(Urbana/Champaign News-Gazette, IL) 06 Mar 2009
A
Rising Tide Swamps All Coasts: New Estimates of Sea Level Rise Spell Global
Trouble
By the year 2100, ocean levels may have
risen twice as much as was predicted just two years ago, researchers announced
at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen. This means that the lives
of some 600 million people living on low-lying islands, as well as those living
in Southeast Asia’s populous delta areas, will be put at serious risk if
climate change is not quickly and radically mitigated [The New York Times]. Meanwhile, a separate study has
cataloged the damage that rising seas would do to the California coastline.
Previous
estimates of sea level rise from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change didn’t take full account of the rapid
melting of mountain glaciers and Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets,
researchers in Copenhagen said. Antarctica, in particular, was thought to be little
affected by global warming until recent research proved definitively that the southern continent
is heating up.
Read More at:
Discover Magazine, 80beats Blog, Published online March 12, 2009
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See you all next month — Remember being energy efficient is less expensive than creating new energy sources —use
what you have wisely.
Harry, aka
doc_Babad
