Re: LN2-Powered Cryocar vs Hydrogen-Powered Fuel Cells or I.C.E.s
http://www.ch-iv.com/lng/cc9408.htm NITROGEN (-320°F) " Nitrogen is probably the most common cryogen handled. Liquid nitrogen is commonly produced by "distilling" it from liquid air. This distillation process also produces liquid oxygen and sometimes liquid argon. Once liquefied the nitrogen can be shipped in bulk to other locations by railcar or trailer. You have probably been behind a liquid nitrogen trailer, labeled Nitrogen Refrigerated Liquid, many times on the highway. Once at its destination it can be used as a cryogenic liquid but most often it is vaporized and used as a gas. Nitrogen has many uses, but the bulk of it is consumed by the chemical, electronics and food industries. Nitrogen is often used in chemical and petrochemical facilities as a blanket, purge, or dry gas because it is inert and water-free. Again, its inert properties make it ideal for the manufacture of semiconductors and other clean processes. Liquid nitrogen plays a major role in the flash freezing of food to minimize product damage and dehydration. Nitrogen gas is injected into the aluminum cans containing non-carbonated drinks to provide the internal pressure necessary to minimize denting. Nitrogen injected into food packaging can prevent food discoloration, maintain crispness, and general product degradation. " http://www.deutsches-museum.de/ausstell/dauer/physik/e_luft.htm "The version of Linde's machine from 1906 on display here includes improvements designed to boost the machine's efficiency: The air is compressed in two stages (right), with a low-pressure compressor that compresses incoming air to 20 bar, and a high-pressure compressor that raises the pressure to up to 200 bar. The high-pressure air initially passes through a precooler (middle) and into the countercurrent apparatus. In the first throttle valve, it relaxes to 20 bar and partially liquefies. Part of the low-pressure air remaining that has not yet liquefied precools incoming high-pressure air in the countercurrent cooler and is fed back to the high-pressure compressor after it passes through the precooler. Another portion of the remaining air is relaxed in a second throttle valve together with air that has already liquefied and is also partially liquefied. The remaining portion has a cooling effect in the countercurrent apparatus and escapes into the open air." psi BAR KPa Atm Bar psi Kpa Atm 1 0.069 6.89 0.068 1 15 100 0.99 Or Hydrogen?? :-) http://www.linde-gas.com/International/Web/LG/COM/likelgcomn.nsf/DocByAlias/prod_hydrogenprojects_700barfillingstation "10.000 PSI / 700 bar Filling Station Linde has created the worlds first hydrogen filling station using 700-bar technology for the Adam Opel AG. This represents an important milestone on the road to the hydrogen-powered car society. In comparison to the usual 350 bar (5,000 PSI) systems, the higher storage density of the 700-bar technology extends the range of a fuel cell vehicle by 60 to 70%. This advance gives the fuel cell vehicle a range of over 400 km (250 miles), which is one of the most important pre-requisites for widespread use of cars powered by compressed hydrogen.The filling station, in the Opel test centre at Dudenhofen near Offenbach, Germany, was designed and built as a turnkey project by Linde. " A veritable bomb even without a spark! Fill'er up Scotty. :-) Frederick
Re: It is worse because it works better
Ten years ago I owned an Avid Flyer, it's like a Kit Fox. I suffered a catastrophic engine failure 400 feet in the air during a takeoff. The motality rate for that kind of incident is really high, but I managed to bring it back to the runway and land it without causing further damage. A few years later while on landing approach in a Cherokee 235 I hit a buzzard. He mangled my left wing as I cut him in half. I completed the landing successfully. My daughter, also a pilot, was with me. As we got out of the plane, she said Way to go dad, you kept flying the airplane ( as opposed to panicing). I think I'm a pretty good pilot when the chips are down. I attribute that to being one with the machine. I feel it . It is an extension of my body. Now, consider those fantastically awsome flight simulators we have all played on our computers. I think they are really cool, but I can't have any fun with them because I crash all the time. I look like a total bozo. If you ever saw me do one of those you would never fly with me. The trouble is: I can't feel anything. The visual inputs are not enough for me. Maybe it's not that bad for most people, but it sure is tough for me. Jeff - Original Message - From: Steven Krivit [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 8:59 PM Subject: Re: It is worse because it works better It turned out they literally flew by the seat of their pants. That's profound! s
Re: SOLVING REALLY BIG PROBLEMS
Jones Beene wrote: We are 15-25 years away from a run-away greenhouse effect now. Horace wrote: Is this just a guess? It seems to me entirely possible we may be in a runaway mode right now. Measurements of the tundra surface show methane release is increasing and the area of thawing regions are increasing ... Hi All, It's possible that 12,000 years ago solar radiation markedly increased, and that we are now in a warm room that could last another 20,000 years, based on the length of the next to the last interglacial (two before ours). Things in a warm room heat up. One way out is to rapidly melt the Arctic ice cap so that the cold Arctic winds could deposit at least 50 feet of lake effect snow over North America south to the Ohio River each summer. Reflection of solar radiation from the snow would lower the temperature of Earth; and the snow would stop only when the Arctic Ocean froze over again, leaving a mile-thick sheet of ice over Cleveland as per most of the last few hundred thousand years. The ice cover would help block methane release. Dusting vast stretches of the oceans with iron to increase CO2 consumption may be a good idea; but that may not be enough to stop the current release of methane in the Arctic. Short of melting the Arctic ice cap, the next best thing would be stopping the use of all fossil fuels. The increasing Himalayan rock face would remove existing CO2 as carbonates in the runoff to be fixed by shell fish. This may not work if a deviation amplifying methane release is already under way. What would replace fossil fuels? We could go to a methanol economy, making the methanol from wood chips produced by stump cutting rapidly growing poplars on tree farms. We could use our existing infrastructure -- tanks, pipelinces, gas stations, with minor modifications to our engines. We would thus stop sending billions to people who want to kill us and enslave our women. Also, tree farming would provide many jobs. Jack Smith
Air as fuel
This is part 2 of a ongoing speculation about how a liquidair-powered automobile engine might be improved over current schemes, which is simply to expand the liquid through a turbine or reciprocating engine using ambient heat to get the 800 to one expansion ratio. But there is potential unused energy in the liquid air itself, which can be exploited - of both the chemical and Casimir-related varieties. First of all and most obviously, it should be re-affirmed and hoped that CF or ZPE conversion technologies will negate any need for this, but on the chance they are delayed, or run into a cost (Pd) or technological dead-ends for unknown reasons, then it is wise to be prepared with secondary options, should we reach the stage where carbon can no longer be considered a tolerable fuel. This will assume that we have gone to 100% non-carbon electricity through the use of improved nuclear, wind and solar energy over the grid - and that legislation has forced all carbon to be consumed in the form of structural fiber and plastics. At this stage, improved batteries or hydrogenfuel would normally be considered the best choices for transportation. In any event, if we are forced to use nuclear energy for the bulk of our consumption, it is wise to use the off-peak (night-time) hours to produce transportation fuel or to charge batteries at the local (household) level. Batteries make the most sense, if they can be improved as much as claimed, but these same claims have been made for at least two decades and still the lead-acid battery has not been replaced. Hydrogen may have storage and safety issues for home manufacture. Therefore, nitrogen chemistry and liquidcryo-fuelis not ruled out, based solely on apparent issues. There is also the possibility of air/battery hybrids. Under this scenario,8-10 years out from the present,I think it can be shown that liquid air has advantages over even burning hydrogen, in terms of both cost and safety. The toxicity problems of this suggestion are apparent in the "uncontrolled" chemistry of nitrogen, but these have already been solved in principle with catalysis, so the bottom line is that this is another option to consider to avoid global catastrophe from CO2 increase. Nitrogen forms easily reversible oxides in which nitrogen exhibits each of its positive oxidation numbers from +1 to +5. Nitrogen (di)oxide is a reactive toxic compound released from auto exhaust that is easily converted by catalysis to the base elements. These oxides are also produced naturally by the human body and all life, so toxicity is often a matter of quantity, not quality. Dentists use nitrous oxide N2Ofor "pain free" oral torture and kids use it to get high. In all of these cases, oxides of nitrogen have a large fraction of an eV of energy to "play with" in reversible energy content. This is compared to a tiny fraction of an eV for ambient heat to be used in expansion. More on those details in a later post. Nitrogen oxides, or NOx, is the generic term for the entire group of highly reactive gases which contain nitrogen and oxygen in varying amounts. Gaseous nitric oxide is the most thermally stable oxide of nitrogen and is also paramagnetic-- i.e., a molecule with an unpaired electron. At room temperature nitric oxide is a colorless gas consisting of diatomic molecules. However, because of the unpaired electron, two molecules can combine to form a dimer by coupling their unpaired electrons. 2NO -- N2O2 Thus, liquid nitric oxide is partially dimerized, and the solid consists solely of dimers. Like with water/ice, therefore, there is a substantial density variation between the solid and liquid, implying that the Casimir force can be exploited by forcing expansion stresses to form explosively thorough either rapid (microsec) freezing or thawing of the nano-particulate. Nitrogen oxides form when fuel is burned at high temperatures, as in a combustion process, but they can also be formed catalytically and then used as fuel. That is one reason why NOx is formed naturally in almost all of life - it does provide a reversible energy pathway and energy storage medium. Some of the technology details are still classified, but many rockets and rocket-boostershave employed nitrogen tetroxide as oxidizer/fuel. The Titan was one such beast, and one can only speculate as to the full details, but it seems clear that many nitrogen oxides will "burn" on their own at far less output but with no need of carbon. IOW they will give us a half to a whole eV per molecule on their own. If one is expanding a liquid to a gas and through a turbine, then the Carnot efficiency and energy density is limited by the ambient temperate of no more than a tiny fraction of an eV. If we can multiply that 10-fold through reversible nitrogen chemistry, then the net energy density of the fuel can be increase to where it is arguable competitive or even superior to other methods as a
Guy builds Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) replica in basement
Wonderful! See: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/technology/circuits/10apol.html http://starfish.osfn.org/AGCreplica/ http://starfish.osfn.org/AGCreplica/buildAGC1.pdf REPORT Block I Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) How to build one in your basement Material developed and provided by John Pultorak who is kind enough to put these files into the public domain with no restrictions on their use. Abstract This report describes my successful project to build a working reproduction of the 1964 prototype for the Block I Apollo Guidance Computer. The AGC is the flight computer for the Apollo moon landings, with one unit in the command module and one in the LEM. I built it in my basement. It took me 4 years. If you like, you can build one too. It will take you less time, and yours will be better than mine. - - - - - - - - - - - - - Original AGC: Designed by M.I.T. in 1964 World's first microchip computer Prototype computer for Apollo moon landing Memory: 12K fixed (ROM), 1K eraseable (RAM) Clock: 1.024 MHz Computing: 11 instructions, 16 bit word Logic: ~5000 ICs (3-input NOR gates, RTL logic) My AGC: Built from original M.I.T. design documents Started November 2000, completed October 2004 ~15K hand-wrapped wire connections; ~3500 feet of wire Cost (parts only): $2,980. Labor: ~2500 hours Logic: ~500 ICs (LSTTL logic) Runs flight software (1969 program name: COLOSSUS 249)
Re: Thanks V Bill B Donations?
For snailmail just send a check to: William J. Beaty 7040 22nd Ave NW Seattle, WA 98117 Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: How useful is liquid N2 if as a fuel source?
At 11:28 AM 2/10/5, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How much energy is expended producing liquid N2, and how would this potential resource compare to equivalent alternative fuel source energy carriers. Liquifaction is the main problem. It occurs at less than 50 percent Carnot efficiency. See: http://www.phys.edu/~cordonez/imece01.pdf Hydrogen formation from either methane or water can be more than 60 percent efficient, so LN2 or liquid air comes out a loser on the supply end, and would be a net polluter. The source of pollution might be moved to more convenient spot, but the sum of pollution per mile driven is more than doubled vs burning directly in the car the original fuel that provides the energy for liquifaction (unless the energy source is nuclear). As Mike Carroll points out LN2 is not an energy source. Like hydrogen, it can't be mined. Hydrogen is not an energy source. These things are merely energy storage mediums, like batteries. There is a net energy and pollution *cost* to obtain these things. The principle advantage to LN2 is that it is much easier to store, and the energy density is high compared to hydrogen or batteries. The EV1 batteries stored at 110 kJ/kg, LN2 stores 570 kJ/kg, of which about 200 kJ/kg is heat of vaporization. The high percentage of heat stored in heat of vaporization tells one right off that simply vaporizing LN2 in a heat exchanger with ambient air, as done at UW or UNT is inefficient. A Sterling engine would be a better means of achieving the vaporization, because this would not waste the 200 kJ/kg by cooling the atmosphere with it. Interestingly, an LN2 engine would run less efficiently in arctic or cold weather, in which heat engines run better. A good all around approach might be to combine a heat source, e.g. hydrogen, with an LN2 or liquid air cold source to drive a sterling engine in addition to the LN2 vapor driven turbine. This would also provide a backup power mode to get to a LN2 station. To obtain a decent power to weight ratio, this kind of engine might best run at constant speed and thus would work best as part of a hydbrid system. To obtain an efficient vehicle breaking energy must be recoverable and storable, and LN2 can't do this. The capital and operating cost for a hybrid system this complex may be a problem. I think a significant problem is the lack of a home liquifaction capability. One of the nice things about the EV1 was the ability to charge it at home. This problem can probably be solved for a liquid air vehicle. The problem of liabilities due to cryogenic product safety are another matter entirely. It is not likely we will see home hydrogen refueling, though that is also a technical possibility. The main problem with using hydrogen, other than the energy and pollution costs of obtaining it, is safe and effective storge. LN2 beats H2 hands down on this at the moment, but maybe not for long. Carbon nanotube storage or alternative storage methods are likely to show up soon due to the large amount of money being spent on development now. A CF driven hybrid would be the ultimate vehicle, but a few technical problems remain there too. Regards, Horace Heffner
Energy War
An interesting treatise on the future war with China: http://www.321energy.com/editorials/winston/winston020905.html__Do You Yahoo!?Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: Energy War
Terry An interesting treatise on the future war with China: http://www.321energy.com/editorials/winston/winston020905.html There is probably a better adjective... maybe terrifying, alarming, etc. but is it really accurate? Are there any economists on Vortex? As China's Master Plan to Destroy America manifesto outlines, the multifaceted battle plan recommended by the Chinese military has taken shape...Financially: Using Currency as the Primary Weapon...[snip] While America's media is hypnotizing us with frivolous entertainment such as American Idol or The Amazing Race, they are totally ignoring the perilous economic time bomb the Chinese have placed against us. The Government of China is holding U.S. currency and Treasury notes in a $1.9 trillion Treasury bond trap. When they pull the trigger on their primary weapon, the dollar will crash and gold will break $600 in a heart beat and just keep going. [End of quote] I wonder how accurate this is... what can the Chinese do with this paper, in reality. Since Nixon took us off any international gold standard, they have no choice but to hole the paper, correct? We do not back up any T-bills with gold anymore do we? Jones
Re: Energy War
Jones Beene wrote: As China's Master Plan to Destroy America manifesto outlines, the multifaceted battle plan recommended by the Chinese military has taken shape...Financially: Using Currency as the Primary Weapon...[snip] I think that is ridiculous. No one is more conservative than stable communist dictator. The last thing the Chinese leaders want to do is rock the boat or cause instability anywhere in the world. My father, who was posted to the Soviet Union during WWII, said the Stalinists were the most stick-in-the-mud right-wing conservatives he ever met in his life. The North Korean Communists are not stable, and they may be a threat to other countries, but the Chinese leaders love the status quo. This position paper from PLA should not be taken any more seriously than these kooky right wing American plans to invade Iran, North Korea and Syria over the next six months (or whenever it is). By the way, I doubt the North Koreans have actually made nuclear weapons. Why should they bother? What use would they have for a bomb? If they used it on anyone they would be blown to smithereens by the U.S. They have all the leverage they need just by claiming to have bombs. I read interviews with retired U.S. scientists from Los Alamos who visited North Korea a few months ago. The Koreans tried to convince them that they have weapons, but the experts saw no credible. They got the impression that Koreans are trying to make everyone think they have weapons. Saddam Hussein did the same thing for a long time, for reasons only he can tell. If the Koreans actually had weapons or a weapons production facility, they could have convinced the Los Alamos experts in 15 minutes. I doubt there will be an energy war -- either economic or the shooting kind of war. Fixing the energy crisis with conventional alternative energy would be at least a thousand times cheaper. But if there is conflict over energy, it will prove how right Arthur C. Clarke was when he wrote in 1963: The heavy hydrogen in the seas can drive all our machines, heat all our cities, for as far ahead as we can imagine. If, as is perfectly possible, we are short of energy two generations from now, it will be through our own incompetence. We will be like Stone Age men freezing to death on top of a coal bed. That should be, Stone Age barbarians. - Jed
Re: Energy War
$1.93 T is the *total* outstanding T-Note debt of which 10% is held by China: http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt Jones Beene [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snippage The Government of China is holding U.S. currency andTreasury notes in a $1.9 trillion Treasury bond trap. Whenthey pull the trigger on their "primary weapon," the dollarwill crash and gold will break $600 in a heart beat and justkeep going."[End of quote]I wonder how accurate this is... Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! Try it today!
Re: Energy War
I'm not an economist, but I have been doing considerable reading about the problem. The Chinese can do the following: 1. They can use dollars obtained from providing products to Wal-Mart et al. to buy oil and other commodities that are sold in dollars. This will drive up the prices of these commodities and drive up most prices in the US. (Think fuel prices for airlines as one example.) 2. They can sell the treasury bonds on the open market, which will drive down the price of the bonds and increase interest rates. This will increase the cost of money to individuals and business, causing massive bankruptcy, both for businesses and for individuals as they lose their homes. 3. They can sell dollars and buy Euros. This will reduce the value of the dollar. As a result oil will cost more in dollars and the price of energy will go up. All of these actions will increase inflation and require the government to borrow even more money at a higher price. Business costs will rise causing more job loss and more moving of business to other countries. Meanwhile, the hope of selling our products to the world at a lower price will be frustrated because China and Japan now make and sell at a much lower price a lot of what we might have sold. Ironically, we gave them the wealth to develop their industry so that their products are just as good as ours and cheaper. Thanks to the greed and shortsighted planning of major companies and the ignorance of the government, we are slowing selling to China the power to weaken our country without firing a shot. Meanwhile, we go into debt and transfer funds from important programs for our people, to fight terrorism that has been created to a large extent by our failure to address the real problems in the world and to some extend is being encouraged by China. China is playing Go while we are playing Chess. Regards, Ed Jones Beene wrote: Terry An interesting treatise on the future war with China: http://www.321energy.com/editorials/winston/winston020905.html There is probably a better adjective... maybe terrifying, alarming, etc. but is it really accurate? Are there any economists on Vortex? As China's Master Plan to Destroy America manifesto outlines, the multifaceted battle plan recommended by the Chinese military has taken shape...Financially: Using Currency as the Primary Weapon...[snip] While America's media is hypnotizing us with frivolous entertainment such as American Idol or The Amazing Race, they are totally ignoring the perilous economic time bomb the Chinese have placed against us. The Government of China is holding U.S. currency and Treasury notes in a $1.9 trillion Treasury bond trap. When they pull the trigger on their primary weapon, the dollar will crash and gold will break $600 in a heart beat and just keep going. [End of quote] I wonder how accurate this is... what can the Chinese do with this paper, in reality. Since Nixon took us off any international gold standard, they have no choice but to hole the paper, correct? We do not back up any T-bills with gold anymore do we? Jones
FW: WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 11, 2005
From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Akira Kawasaki [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2/11/2005 11:51:13 AM Subject: WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 11, 2005 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 11 Feb 05 Washington, DC 1. D. ALLAN BROMLEY: FORMER APS PRESIDENT DIED YESTERDAY AT 78. Moshe Gai informs us that Allan was stricken yesterday at lunch. He died on the way to the hospital. One of the world's leading nuclear physicists, he was also an outspoken proponent of science and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1988. In a 1989 meeting with George H.W. Bush to discuss the position of Science Advisor, the President's first question was about cold fusion. Bromley had just learned the results from a collaboration he had arranged to test the claim. There were no neutrons. Confidently he told the President that the reports out of Utah were in error. 2. PROLIFERATION: TAUNTING IS ONLY AGAINST THE RULES IN THE NFL. Let's see if we've got this right: based on unfounded rumors of nuclear weapons in Iraq, the U.S. committed itself to a war that has so far cost the lives of more than 2,000 American troops and another 10,000 wounded. Perhaps 18,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, and more than 6,000 military. This carnage has cost us $153 billion, and there's no end in sight. Although he had no weapons of mass destruction, we're told the Iraq war is justified because Sadam is a really bad guy. Kim Jong Il is no sweetheart either, and N. Korea is dancing in the end zone with its nukes. 3. PUBLIC ACCESS: APS POLICY INCORRECTLY STATED BY WHAT'S NEW. Last week, WN misstated the position of Editor in Chief Marty Blume on public access, for which I profoundly apologize. In Marty Blume's words, We already allow authors to post the final versions of their papers on eprint archives anywhere (which would include the NIH's pub med central) and to make them available immediately. This is already done with many articles posted on the Cornell arXiv, and we have seen no effect on subscriptions. The new NIH policy announced last week by Elias Zerhouni goes a step further: authors are asked to post on public Web sites. 4. IS JOHN OF GOD A HEALER OR A CHARLATAN? IS ABC NEWS NUTS? In an hour long report last night, Primetime Live co-anchor John Quinones traveled to a remote area of Brazil to find out if John of God is really a miracle healer as his followers claim. Wake up ABC! It's the 21st Century. In a position to help millions of viewers understand that they live in a rational universe, ABC has chosen instead to tell them that their sad superstitions are open scientific questions. To give the program credibility they turned to one of the world's most respected surgeons, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Oz is no doubt a fine surgeon, but he has touch therapists in his operating room helping patients connect to the healing energy everywhere. When ABC dumped Michael Guillen as science editor, http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn122702.cfm it seemed like a good sign. But it looks like they still don't get it. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.aps.org/WN To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Energy War
Jed Rothwell wrote: Jones Beene wrote: As China's Master Plan to Destroy America manifesto outlines, the multifaceted battle plan recommended by the Chinese military has taken shape...Financially: Using Currency as the Primary Weapon...[snip] I think that is ridiculous. No one is more conservative than stable communist dictator. The last thing the Chinese leaders want to do is rock the boat or cause instability anywhere in the world. My father, who was posted to the Soviet Union during WWII, said the Stalinists were the most stick-in-the-mud right-wing conservatives he ever met in his life. As you have probably noticed, policy is based on what a country CAN do not on what we think it WILL do. Not only is it not possible to know how a country will behave, we have found that a country usually does what it CAN do. Consequently, given a clear advantage or an perceived threat, China has the power to destroy our economy. If it WILL do that depends on our behavior and on the rational behavior of China's leaders. Neither restriction gives me much comfort. The North Korean Communists are not stable, and they may be a threat to other countries, but the Chinese leaders love the status quo. This position paper from PLA should not be taken any more seriously than these kooky right wing American plans to invade Iran, North Korea and Syria over the next six months (or whenever it is). By the way, I doubt the North Koreans have actually made nuclear weapons. Why should they bother? What use would they have for a bomb? If they used it on anyone they would be blown to smithereens by the U.S. They have all the leverage they need just by claiming to have bombs. I read interviews with retired U.S. scientists from Los Alamos who visited North Korea a few months ago. The Koreans tried to convince them that they have weapons, but the experts saw no credible. They got the impression that Koreans are trying to make everyone think they have weapons. Saddam Hussein did the same thing for a long time, for reasons only he can tell. If the Koreans actually had weapons or a weapons production facility, they could have convinced the Los Alamos experts in 15 minutes. The NK would not use the weapon, they would sell it. That way they get money and they have someone else do the dirty work and get the blame. Actually, they appear to be using the threat of selling as a way to gain influence and money. As long as a doubt remains about their having a weapon, they are safe from attack. Consequently, they playing poker while we are playing chess. I doubt there will be an energy war -- either economic or the shooting kind of war. Fixing the energy crisis with conventional alternative energy would be at least a thousand times cheaper. But if there is conflict over energy, it will prove how right Arthur C. Clarke was when he wrote in 1963: Cheaper yes, doable no. The oil companies will not give up the power and money they are making. A lot of things would be cheaper, but they are not done because too much pride and ignorance are involved. The heavy hydrogen in the seas can drive all our machines, heat all our cities, for as far ahead as we can imagine. If, as is perfectly possible, we are short of energy two generations from now, it will be through our own incompetence. We will be like Stone Age men freezing to death on top of a coal bed. That should be, Stone Age barbarians. It is great to believe that mankind would act in an ideal and rational way - it helps a person sleep nights. However, too many examples of opposite behavior are available to count on the ideal occurring- or am I just getting too old? Regards, Ed - Jed
Re: Energy War
Edmund Storms wrote: As you have probably noticed, policy is based on what a country CAN do not on what we think it WILL do. Not only is it not possible to know how a country will behave, we have found that a country usually does what it CAN do. The Soviet Union might have started a nuclear war anytime from 1949 to the day of its demise. Many people thought it would; some said it was inevitable. But there was never the slightest chance of that, according to most Russians who were close to power. If the Chinese government were to destroy the US economy, the Chinese government were also be brought down by the ensuing economic upheaval. Nations do not often destroy themselves for no reason. It does happen, I agree. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, after all. The U.S. fought in Vietnam for years and years, long after it was obvious it could not win. The NK would not use the weapon, they would sell it. That way they get money and they have someone else do the dirty work and get the blame. If a bomb explodes anywhere in South Korea or Japan, North Korea will be destroyed, regardless of who plants it or who is responsible. Where else would North Korea want to attack? Cheaper yes, doable no. The oil companies will not give up the power and money they are making. A lot of things would be cheaper, but they are not done because too much pride and ignorance are involved. The oil companies will not remain powerful forever -- and probably not for long. Political economic dominance is evanescent. In 1890, many Americans felt that railroads and steel companies had an iron grip on the soul of the nation, and so much political power they would abolish democracy. But technology changed, and people no longer fear railroads. In 1975 IBM dominated the computer industry to such an extent, some experts predicted that all other computer companies would soon go out of business. Most computer purchasers did not even bother to look at equipment from other companies. By 1989, IBM was suffering the biggest losses in the history of commerce and the Wall Street Journal described it as fading from view. It is great to believe that mankind would act in an ideal and rational way - it helps a person sleep nights. However, too many examples of opposite behavior are available to count on the ideal occurring . . . Most people throughout most history have been rational and reasonable. Not ideal, but good enough. If that were not true our species would have gone extinct long ago. We are social animals -- pack hunting carnivores, like wolves. Such animals must to cooperate and protect other members of the pack, or they do not survive. We are only in danger now because our technology has increased our power. But our power has often escalated in the past, and we have usually survived these escalations. As shown in Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, even primitive people had the power to destroy themselves. Occasionally they did destroy themselves, but more often they survived. We often talk about the madness of crowds and the fact that people sometimes collectively go bonkers, in the Wall Street dot-com boom, for example. Yet paradoxically, when you take a large sample of people, you always find they are sane. A large sample is not a mob gathered in one place. It is a bunch of people at home or at work. Mobs can be inhumanly irrational, but once the mob scatters, and people go back to their daily lives, they usually recover. When you select 200 individual people at random, and examine their behavior in their normal, settled social context, you will find that on average they are sane, reasonable, and reliable. Most people do their jobs conscientiously. That is why your bread is baked and your telephone line stays connected. That is also why the experimental method works. The other day I wrote to reporter: If several hundred researchers could all make large mistakes using 100 and 200-year-old techniques, science would never work in the first place. That is like asserting that you can select 200 carpenters at random, have each of them build a wooden house, and when they finish every single house might collapse because of mistakes the carpenters made. That would not happen in the lifetime of the universe. Of course newly-built houses do collapse from time to time. Individual carpenters do make drastic mistakes, and so do individual electrochemists. But they are never *all* mistaken. When 200+ physicists got together at the APS to listen to Robert Park the rabble rouser, they became an unruly mob. If you could isolate them in their laboratories and somehow have them to observe a cold fusion experiment, sanity would return and most of them would begin acting like professional scientists again. - Jed
OFF TOPIC N.Y. Times offers bad advice to HP
From a N. Y. Times editorial today: Hewlett's board says it isn't considering retreating from Ms. Fiorina's goal of offering a smorgasbord of high-tech goodies to businesses and consumers. Let's hope that's just machismo. The best thing Hewlett could do would be to get rid of the bells and whistles Ms. Fiorina acquired, and focus on its core - and enormously profitable - business: printers and cartridges. Jed adds: . . . enormously profitable until maybe five years from now, when someone finally comes out with viable e-books and e-paper with resolution and contrast as good as real paper. Then the company tanks. Never put all your eggs in one technological basket. I depend upon paper printouts quite a bit, but I recently added a second screen to my computer -- a 19 flat panel. It reduces the use of paper because I can compare full-page documents side-by-side. Sooner or later, someone will build an e-book style e-printer the takes output to a printer port and displays it on a 20 flat panel that lies on your desk (horizontal and flat!) and does nothing but flip back and forth between pages and page thumbnails. That will eliminate maybe half of the printer market. - Jed
Re: OFF TOPIC N.Y. Times offers bad advice to HP
Title: Re: OFF TOPIC N.Y. Times offers bad advice to HP The Ink jet concept is not going to disappear because of e-books. The ink jet concept is now used to print 3-D models. Engineers are thinking about scaling up the technology to make houses using quick drying cement as the 'ink'. Some day your children or grandchildren might be living in a house built by HP! Harry Jed Rothwell at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From a N. Y. Times editorial today: Hewlett's board says it isn't considering retreating from Ms. Fiorina's goal of offering a smorgasbord of high-tech goodies to businesses and consumers. Let's hope that's just machismo. The best thing Hewlett could do would be to get rid of the bells and whistles Ms. Fiorina acquired, and focus on its core - and enormously profitable - business: printers and cartridges. Jed adds: . . . enormously profitable until maybe five years from now, when someone finally comes out with viable e-books and e-paper with resolution and contrast as good as real paper. Then the company tanks. Never put all your eggs in one technological basket. I depend upon paper printouts quite a bit, but I recently added a second screen to my computer -- a 19 flat panel. It reduces the use of paper because I can compare full-page documents side-by-side. Sooner or later, someone will build an e-book style e-printer the takes output to a printer port and displays it on a 20 flat panel that lies on your desk (horizontal and flat!) and does nothing but flip back and forth between pages and page thumbnails. That will eliminate maybe half of the printer market. - Jed
Re: Energy War
Nice one, Jed If several hundred researchers could all make large mistakes using 100 and 200-year-old techniques, science would never work in the first place. That is like asserting that you can select 200 carpenters at random, have each of them build a wooden house, and when they finish every single house might collapse because of mistakes the carpenters made. That would not happen in the lifetime of the universe. Of course newly-built houses do collapse from time to time. Individual carpenters do make drastic mistakes, and so do individual electrochemists. But they are never *all* mistaken. Steve
Re: CLOUDY DAY, SWEEPING THE DOOM AWAY
In reply to Mark Goldes's message of Fri, 11 Feb 2005 15:01:39 -0800: Hi, [snip] the scientists hope to exploit. Since, as atmospheric scientist John Latham says, clouds become more reflective if you increase the number of droplets in them, the eggheads propose spraying seawater high into the air near stratocumulus clouds, causing salt particles to be absorbed, extra droplets to form, and the clouds to become both more reflective and longer-lasting. Thus would more sunlight be [snip] I once saw a program on cloud seeding. The best results appear to have been obtained downwind from a paper factory because the smoke released through the chimney contained salt particles which drifted up into the bottom of the clouds. IOW the method proposed above may only succeed in increasing rainfall from the clouds. If anything, the effect would be counter productive, shortening the life span of the clouds. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk All SPAM goes in the trash unread.
RE: OFF TOPIC N.Y. Times offers bad advice to HP
It's already a great day in the professional graphics world... http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=3505972 -john -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 5:28 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: OFF TOPIC N.Y. Times offers bad advice to HP From Jed: ... I depend upon paper printouts quite a bit, but I recently added a second screen to my computer -- a 19 flat panel. It reduces the use of paper because I can compare full- page documents side-by-side. Sooner or later, someone will build an e-book style e-printer the takes output to a printer port and displays it on a 20 flat panel that lies on your desk (horizontal and flat!) and does nothing but flip back and forth between pages and page thumbnails. That will eliminate maybe half of the printer market I use a dual monitor system as well - a 20 and a 19 monitor to help me create my digital art. I would never go back to a mono-monitor system! At present most graphic artists are forced to rely on huge bulky CRTs as they are the only reasonably priced devices available in the market capable of producing accurate colors. It will be a great day in the professional illustration world when equivalent sized flat screen monitors are capable of generating the same specs that most high-end 20+ inch CRT monitors currently display. I also won't have to worry about rupturing myself every time I'm forced to move one of these horrid monsters. I agree with Jed that it's only a matter of time before conveniently priced 20-inch flat screen e-books make it to the market. Personally, I think it's possible within the next 5 - 10 years. I suspect the biggest obstacle will be the price however. The printer market is not the only industry that stands to experience major disruptions in sales. I suspect it has already been predicted by a slew of visionaries that when large full-color 20 sized e-books are eventually massed produced at reasonable prices it is likely to be disruptive in many corners of the publishing industry. I suspect the key to its success really comes down to when the population starts using flat screen e-books as the PREFERRED way to read most of their literature for both at work and at home. When that transition occurs the traditional publishing industry will be forced to rethink many of their current business models. Their markets may be reduced to generating quaint coffee table books printed on acid-free paper, or large atlas-sized maps, and Thomas Kinkade (Ugh!) calendars. Come to think of it, a nice twenty pound coffee table photo book of the solar system complete with the latest robotic rover images would look nifty placed next to my set of Encyclopedia Britanicas. The good and the bad in all of this is that anybody and everyone will be capable of publishing the best and worst American novel (and art books too!). The information glut is likely to only intensify. The playing field will be leveled even more than it is today. As for those rare writers and artists that are deservedly capable of turning pro, the collection of royalties through electronic distribution could be a real nightmare considering all the bootlegging that goes on today. Hopefully this will be worked out. But Jed, don't stop there. The ENTIRE SURFACE OF MY DESK should eventually be converted into flat screen display. This would allow me to shuffle documents whether and neither. IMHO, an Ideal office desk would consist of the entire surface of a desktop converted into a display screen ALONG WITH an equivalent sized vertical flat display behind the desk as well. I think Robert Heinlein already envisioned an equivalent desk top concept decades ago in one of his classic novels A Door into Summer. Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.7 - Release Date: 10-Feb-05
Re: Energy War
Jed wrote: snip. . . Most people throughout most history have been rational and reasonable. Not ideal, but good enough. If that were not true our species would have gone extinct long ago. We are social animals -- pack hunting carnivores, like wolves. Such animals must to cooperate and protect other members of the pack, or they do not survive. We are only in danger now because our technology has increased our power. But our power has often escalated in the past, and we have usually survived these escalations. As shown in Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, even primitive people had the power to destroy themselves. Occasionally they did destroy themselves, but more often they survived. MC: I don't know of Jed has read Diamond's book: I recommended it the other day. It is easy to see China as a looming threat, as the USSR seemed during the cold way. Diamond characterizes it as a lurching giant, not a s drunk, but because of its size and highly centralized government, changes in drection move a lot of 'mass'. As with the USSR, internal problems eventually made it weaker than it looked, and it may be so with China as well. This cnetralized government both enabled the early growth of technology long before Europe, enabled the buildingof a great fleet of exploration in the 1400s [which mapped the world and discovered the Americas and Antartica] and also led to the collapse of that expansion and a turn inward that lasted for centuries. MC: Of course they will set up their own network of oil sources, as does the US. They are buying massive amounts of stuff from the US in building their infrastructure -- this is good for Amaerican jobs and business, isn't it? Reduces the trade deficit? Or are we becoming a colony, exporting our mineral and agricultural resources while buying manufactured goods from others? If we 'gave this away' it is the fault of every consumer who bought for the lowest price, and of workers who demanded ever higher wages and benefits. Or blame the Wright Brothers and Fulton, whose inventions in transport made a global economy possible. Mike Carrell
OOPS, WRONG ADDR Thanks V Bill B Donations?
Actually, since 2001 it has been: William J. Beaty 7540 20th Ave NW Seattle, WA, 98117 Also see: AMASCI.COM TIP JAR http://amasci.com/tipjar.html On Fri, 11 Feb 2005, Horace Heffner wrote: For snailmail just send a check to: William J. Beaty 7040 22nd Ave NW Seattle, WA 98117 Regards, Horace Heffner (( ( ( ( ((O)) ) ) ) ))) William J. BeatySCIENCE HOBBYIST website [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair Seattle, WA 206-789-0775unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
