Now on ScienceBlogs: How much like Earth is Kepler's new planet? How we'll find out!
What We're Talking About Saturday, December 10, 2011
Renewable energy sources could allow a prudent decrease in CO2 emissions while still powering a populous, electrified global economy. On The Pump Handle, Mark Pendergrast examines the proverbial canary in the coal mine, Japan. Wary of imported fossil fuels and burned by nuclear disaster, Japan is looking toward solar, geothermal, wind, water, and biomass-powered alternative energy sources. Wind, for example, could provide 10% of Japan's energy needs, but with blade-busting typhoons and fierce winter lightning storms, turbines must be more robust and adaptable than ever. Mark writes, "wind power could literally begin to replace nuclear power plants, which are all located by the ocean with a good infrastructure in place to deliver power to the grid." Mark takes an in-depth look at all of Japan's wide-ranging energy efforts, and has also published a new book on the subject. Meanwhile, Ethan Siegel considers the latest claim of cold fusion on Starts With a Bang! He explains that atomic nuclei are quantum mechanical objects whose wavefunctions can overlap, meaning they "can tunnel into that energetically favorable state, and fusion can occur!" This improbable event befalls 1038 protons every second in the Sun, but has never been observed at cold temperatures. And while Ethan says it's theoretically possible, the recent claims of Andrea Rossi shouldn't raise your hopes. Rossi claims his "Energy Catalyzer" fuses hydrogen and nickel to create copper. But Ethan and co-author Dr. Peter Thieberger write that the pressures and temperatures required for this reaction are "not found naturally anywhere in the Universe. Not in the Sun, not in the cores of the most massive stars, and (to the best of our knowledge) not even in supernova explosions!" In stars, Copper is only formed when a Nickel nucleus captures a free neutron from a magnesium atom, and undergoes radioactive decay.
the pump handleDecember 5, 2011
"Instead of incinerating 80 percent of wasted food, why not compost it at the household level for the family garden? Or biodigest it to produce methane to burn to make electricity? And why not make compost out of human waste, provided it is not too tainted with chemicals and pharmaceuticals? In traditional Japan, human waste ("night soil") was prized by farmers in outlying areas, who bought it to nourish their crops."
the pump handleNovember 30, 2011
"I arrived in Japan two months after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami killed over 20,000 people and caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear reaction. Until then, Japanese leaders had been planning to build 14 more nuclear power plants that, together with the 54 then-active plants, would provide half of the country's electricity. Now those plans have been scrapped. But what is the current state of Japan's renewable energy efforts?"
starts with a bang!November 25, 2011
"Andrea Rossi's cold fusion device -- known as the e-cat, or energy catalyzer -- has been exhibited at a few semi-public demonstrations, and has been observed to put out nuclear-scale energies with only electro-chemical-scale energy inputs. In particular, he claims that enriched nickel is being fused with hydrogen nuclei to create copper, and release large amounts of energy. If true, that would, in fact, be nuclear fusion! And a confirmed, controlled test of this would be spectacular, and an incredible cause for celebration."
starts with a bang!December 5, 2011
"But it is worth noting that there are stars that form copper from nickel, but they do not do it by adding protons. When our Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel, it will expand, becoming a red giant, and begin burning helium atoms into the element carbon. While the Sun will be capable of creating a few elements heavier than carbon, such as nitrogen, oxygen, and (probably) neon, that's the end of the line for the Sun. But significantly more massive stars can go farther."
“Yes, there was a problem with air speed, but the proximate reason for the crash is because the individuals piloting the plane (especially one of them) misunderstood, well, how to fly a plane because the things they needed to do were not part of their training.”
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The idea of the program is simple: To improve science education, invest in the teachers.
The Jobs Channel RSS FeedERV 11.26.2011
Orac 12.07.2011
Ethan Siegel 12.10.2011
Orac 12.09.2011
Tim Lambert 09.12.2011
dean's corner 12.09.2011
evolutionblog 12.08.2011
greg laden's blog 12.08.2011
starts with a bang! 12.07.2011
the pump handle 12.07.2011
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