Going To Mars – Why it will never happen

So see if you can follow me on this. Some people see “space travel” as a way to get off this planet. But why would you want to do that? It is a perfectly good planet. I think it is because everyone knows deep down that the way we are treating this planet may ultimately cause its demise. That is why I am ultimately an environmentalist; because I do not believe we can get off this planet. So we humans better change our ways. Why do I believe there will be no space travel for humans. The radiation levels of outer space are too great, the distances too far, and the physical demands too great. Thus I believe in saving energy and creating green energy because I believe it is the only way for our planet to survive. Yet people dream.

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-breakthrough-energy-harvesting-power-life.html

Breakthrough in energy harvesting could power life on Mars

Martian colonists could use an innovative new technique to harvest energy from carbon dioxide thanks to research pioneered at Northumbria University, Newcastle.  The technique, which has been proven for the first time by researchers at Northumbria, has been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

The research proposes a new kind of engine for producing energy based on the Leidenfrost effect – a phenomenon which happens when a liquid comes into near contact with a surface much hotter than its boiling point. This effect is commonly seen in the way water appears to skitter across the surface of a hot pan, but it also applies to solid carbon dioxide, commonly known as dry ice. Blocks of dry ice are able to levitate above hot surfaces protected by a barrier of evaporated gas vapour. Northumbria’s research proposes using the vapour created by this effect to power an engine. This is the first time the Leidenfrost effect has been adapted as a way of harvesting energy.

The technique has exciting implications for working in extreme and alien environments, such as , where it could be used to make long-term exploration and colonisation sustainable by using naturally occurring solid as a resource rather than a waste product. If this could be realized, then future missions to Mars, such as those in the news recently, may not need to be ‘one-way’ after all.

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Go there and fulfill your fantasy. More next week.

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When I Was Growing Up The Hot Things Were Compact Flourescents

Now the hottest things in the energy conservation world  or at least in the lighting world are LED lights. They come in all shapes and sizes. In fact I have one that I use as a flashlight, but it was intended to be a safety head light for my bicycle. It has been amazingly helpful. This is a complex subject so it will take me a few weeks to get it all posted. But here is a start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

Light-emitting diode

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a two-lead semiconductor light source. It is a pn-junction diode, which emits light when activated.[6] When a suitable voltage is applied to the leads, electrons are able to recombine with electron holes within the device, releasing energy in the form of photons. This effect is called electroluminescence, and the color of the light (corresponding to the energy of the photon) is determined by the energy band gap of the semiconductor.

An LED is often small in area (less than 1 mm2) and integrated optical components may be used to shape its radiation pattern.[7]

Appearing as practical electronic components in 1962,[8] the earliest LEDs emitted low-intensity infrared light. Infrared LEDs are still frequently used as transmitting elements in remote-control circuits, such as those in remote controls for a wide variety of consumer electronics. The first visible-light LEDs were also of low intensity, and limited to red. Modern LEDs are available across the visible, ultraviolet, and infrared wavelengths, with very high brightness.

Early LEDs were often used as indicator lamps for electronic devices, replacing small incandescent bulbs. They were soon packaged into numeric readouts in the form of seven-segment displays, and were commonly seen in digital clocks.

Recent developments in LEDs permit them to be used in environmental and task lighting. LEDs have many advantages over incandescent light sources including lower energy consumption, longer lifetime, improved physical robustness, smaller size, and faster switching. Light-emitting diodes are now used in applications as diverse as aviation lighting, automotive headlamps, advertising, general lighting, traffic signals, and camera flashes. However, LEDs powerful enough for room lighting are still relatively expensive, and require more precise current and heat management than compact fluorescent lamp sources of comparable output.

LEDs have allowed new text, video displays, and sensors to be developed, while their high switching rates are also useful in advanced communications technology.

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Go there and read in an OMG sort of way. More next week.

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Home Energy Use Has Shifted – Appliances now take more juice

I am really shocked by this article. The idea that residential energy consumption could change so dramatically  in only 16 years is so amazing. Its like when we shifted to coal or later when we shifted to natural gas and then electricity. Only nobody is really talking about it.

 

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=10271

March 7, 2013

Heating and cooling no longer majority of U.S. home energy use

For decades, space heating and cooling (space conditioning) accounted for more than half of all residential energy consumption. Estimates from the most recent Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), collected in 2010 and 2011 and released in 2011 and 2012, show that 48% of energy consumption in U.S. homes in 2009 was for heating and cooling, down from 58% in 1993. Factors underpinning this trend are increased adoption of more efficient equipment, better insulation, more efficient windows, and population shifts to warmer climates. The shift in how energy is consumed in homes has occurred even as per-household energy consumption has steadily declined.

While energy used for space conditioning has declined, energy consumption for appliances and electronics continues to rise. Although some appliances that are subject to federal efficiency standards, such as refrigerators and clothes washers, have become more efficient, the increased number of devices that consume energy in homes has offset these efficiency gains. Non-weather related energy use for appliances, electronics, water heating, and lighting now accounts for 52% of total consumption, up from 42% in 1993. The majority of devices in the fastest growing category of residential end-uses are powered by electricity, increasing the total amount of primary energy needed to meet residential electricity demand. As described in yesterday’s Today in Energy, increased electricity use has a disproportionate effect on the amount of total primary energy required to support site-level energy use.

Other notable trends in household energy consumption include:

  • The average U.S. household consumed 11,320 kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity in 2009, of which the largest portion (7,526 kWh) was for appliances, electronics, lighting, and miscellaneous uses.
  • On average, residents living in homes constructed in the 1980s consumed 77 million Btu of total energy at home. By comparison, those living in newer homes, built from 2000 to 2009, consumed 92 million Btu per household, which is 19% more.
  • Space heating accounted for 63% of natural gas consumed in U.S. homes in 2009; the remaining 37% was for water heating, cooking, and miscellaneous uses.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Overpopulation Is A Problem Now – It will be disasterous in the future

But do not ask this guy. He thinks it all is in Paul Ehrlichs head. I believe it to be real and that It started sometime around the year 2000. Furthermore this whole artificial fight is capitalism’s attack on a concept that would be its death knelll.  The “no growth” concept that it predicts would end capitalism as we know it, and that is why a Chicago economist attacked it. The problem of making predictions (as Ehrlich did) is that if they don’t come true then the nah sayer can come back and say, “see I told you so”.  It is also so first world centered, nor does it take into account the wars created by our trying to squeeze more people into a tighter spaces. The best estimate is 5 million people have died of starvation from global warming alone. But it isn’t happening here so it “ain’t happening”…in a dumb ass sort of way…

 

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/remember-future_774768.html#

Remember the Future?

The population bomb was ticking, and apocalypse was next in line .??.??.

Jan 27, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 19 • By PATRICK ALLITT

(excerpted from below the 4rth paragraph)

Julian Simon, meanwhile, became a professor of business at the University of Illinois. In the late ’60s, he, too, worried about overpopulation; but a closer look at the issue led to a change of heart. He discovered that population growth and economic growth usually went together and that there was no evidence of food shortages. The chronic problem of American agriculture, in fact, was overproduction. Population was rising because fewer children were dying and life expectancy kept increasing. That was good news, surely. Quite apart from a decline in agonizing bereavements, said Simon, children once doomed but now destined to survive might go on to be the next Einstein or Beethoven.

Simon also believed in the free market, whose long-term effect was to make products and raw materials not costlier and rarer but cheaper and more abundant. Occasional shortages stimulated increases in efficiency, the invention of better techniques, and the use of new materials.

Irritated that Paul Ehrlich was making a fortune with his apocalyptic prophecies while he, Julian Simon, labored in obscurity, Simon issued a challenge in 1980: Let Ehrlich choose any five commodities and then watch their prices either rise or fall over the next decade. If the prices rose, Ehrlich would seem to be right about shortages; if the prices declined, Simon would seem to be right that things were becoming more plentiful. Ehrlich accepted the challenge and the two men agreed on $1,000 worth of five metals: copper, chromium, tungsten, nickel, and tin. They agreed that, 10 years later, the loser would mail a check to the winner for the difference above or below $1,000.

The Chronicle of Higher Education called it “the scholarly wager of the decade,” and Ehrlich had some cause to feel confident. In the two recent oil crises of 1973 and 1979, gasoline prices had risen sharply while drivers fumed about shortages and long lines at the pump. Copper was in short supply and costlier every year. President Carter had donned a chunky sweater in the White House and ordered federal thermostats turned down to a chilly 65. Believing Ehrlich’s claim that the age of austerity was here to stay, the president had also commissioned the Global 2000 report, whose prognosis for the future was even grimmer than that of The Limits to Growth.

 

 

 

 

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There Are No Criminal Charges For The Frackers – So all they have to do is pay money

No Frackers will go to jail if they violate WHAT LAWS? IDNR might as well give away the state of Illinois to being totally trashed. Where will the Fracking start? In our State Parks?

Day 49   1/2/13

Topic:  Fines penalties, suspensions and revocations

For regulations to work, levied fines must exceed the financial benefit a company gains by violating the rules. None of the rulemaking sanctions meet this criterion. This results in the other 150 pages of rules being essentially meaningless because they will be ignored.   The draft rule sanctions place the Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act (HFRA)  on the road to failure before the first permit is issued.

Examples:

  1. Section 1-100(b) of the law specifies misdemeanor and felony criminal charges for a number of violations of the law.  Yet there are NO criminal charges in the rules
  2. In Section 1-60(a)1-6 of the law, there are six (6) grounds for suspension or revocation of a permit.  These are re-listed with a 7th in section 245.1100 of the rules.  But the very next  section of the Rules–245.1110–reduces the grounds for an immediate permit suspension to one: “an emergency condition posing a significant hazard to the public health, aquatic life, wildlife or the environment.” This is the most stringent requirement of the seven grounds listed in section 245.1100.  Why bother to list seven possible grounds for permit suspension or revocation in section 245.1100 if you then require the Department to identify the most stringent criteria for an immediate suspension.
  3. Section 1-60(b) of the law requires a much lower standard of proof to suspend, revoke or deny a permit than the rules (245.1110).  Under the law, the Department need only serve notice of its action (to suspend, revoke or deny), including a statement of the reasons for the action.
  4. In the law, if a well operator’s permit has been suspended, the burden of proof is on well operator to prove that the identified problem is “no significant threat to public health, aquatic life, wildlife, or the environment” [Section 1-60(d)].  In the rules, this phrase becomes something IDNR must prove before ordering a permit suspension [Rule Section 245.1100(b)3A].
  5. Sections 1-100 and 1-101 of the law have some stiff penalties that accrue on a daily basis until the reason for the fine is corrected.  These fines can go as high as $50,000 per violation and up to $10,000 per day.  These are replaced by fines so trivial ($50-$2500) that it will cost the IDNR more to impose and collect a fine than the dollar value of the fine itself.

Revisions Needed:  Return to the standards of the law with regard to fines, penalties and revocations.

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Go there and comment. We are done with this.
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So Illinois Is Gona Protect Me From Fracking – Not the way it is going

When we got in the faces of the 5 renegade environmental groups, they claimed that IDNR would tighten up things to take in our concerns. So far that ain’t been ahappening. We will just have to see what happens after the comment period closes.
Today (Tuesday, 12/10/13)  is Day 26 of the Comment Period of IDNR.   Getting tired of making comments?  We understand.  But if we don’t fight, the industry will win because their fingerprints are all over these rules.  Fight back.  Make a comment today.
Today’s Topic:  IDNR’s Duties and Responsibilities to Protect the Citizens of Illinois
Comment:
In Section 1-130 of the regulatory statute, the legislature granted IDNR authority to adopt rules to carry out the legislature’s purposes.
There are at least two legislative purposes in the regulatory statute:
  1. To allow horizontal fracking in Illinois,
  2. To approve horizontal fracking conditionally based on the safeguarding of public health and public safety, and the protection of the environment.
This purpose is set forth explicitly in two places in the regulatory statute–Section 1-75(a)(2) and Section 1-53(a)(4).  IDNR has acknowledged 1-75 verbatim, in Section 245.800(2) of the proposed rules: “All phases of high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing operations shall be conducted in a manner that shall not pose a significant risk to public health, life, property, aquatic life, or wildlife.”
But IDNR has changed the legislature’s language in Section 1-53(a)(4) of the proposed rules, lowering the standard explicitly created by the legislature.  Section 1-53(a)(4) of the legislation states: “The Department shall issue a high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing permit, with any conditions the Department may find necessary, only if the record of decision demonstrates that: the proposed hydraulic fracturing operations will be conducted in a manner that will protect the public health and safety and prevent pollution or diminution of any water source.”  The key phrase there is”will be conducted”.  Clearly the intent of the statute is that fracking will only be allowed if it is conducted in a safe manner.
IDNR’s proposed Section 245.300 changes the legislative words “will be conducted” to “as proposed, are reasonably expected to be conducted”.  This lowers the standard and is inconsistent with the legislature’s stated purpose.  “Will be conducted” is a mandate; “reasonably expected to be conducted” is not.
If hydraulic fracturing outcomes in Illinois mirror effects of other states, we can “reasonably expect” that the industry will cut corners and violate standards.  There have been over 3000 violations in PA since 2009 and they are not minor violations.  They involve infractions such as:
  • 224 violations of “Failure to properly store, transport, process or dispose of residual waste.
  • 143 violations of “Discharge of pollutional material to the waters of Commonwealth.
  • 140 violations of “Pit and tanks not constructed with sufficient capacity to contain pollutional substances.
The residents of Illinois are depending on IDNR to protect their health, their safety, and the safety of their water, air, and soil.  IDNR needs to return the legislation’s intent and mandate that hydraulic fracturing operations will only be conducted in a manner that will protect the public health and safety and prevent pollution or diminution of any water source.”
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510 E. Washington St. Suite 309
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alt

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Go there and comment. More tomorrow thank God.

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Mist Fracking, Foam Fracking And Gas Fracking – These are things I did not know

But it sounds nasty to me. And then there is the use of Acid. This is really ugly stuff.

 

 

Today (Sunday, 12/8/13)  is Day 24 of the Comment Period of IDNR.   We’re almost half-way through the comment period.  Please keep making your comments daily!

Today’s Topic: Non-water and partial water fracks must be regulated based on risk, not volume

Comment:

The law defines “high volume” fracking based on the number of gallons of base fluid” (at least 80,000 gallons per stage and 300,000 gallons total).   While this definition may be applicable if the fracking base is a fluid such as water, it leaves a gaping hole when gas (e.g. nitrogen, carbon dioxide) or a mixture of gas and water (foam fracks, mist fracks), are used.  And defining high volume fracking this way is especially critical in relation to Illinois’ New Albany shale where other bases are likely to be used; nitrogen gas and mist fracking is already occurring just across the border in Kentucky’s New Albany shale.

Problem: Gallons are units of volume used to measure liquids.  But what if a liquid isn’t used in fracking?  Not all fracking base material can be measured by gallons.  If non-water base fluids are accounted for as liquid gallons, the gallonage total will fall below the threshold whereby the fracking operation will be considered “high volume hydraulic fracturing”, even though the operation is comparable in scale – and therefore risk – to a high volume water-based frack in terms of chemical use, pressures, or other measures.

Revisions Needed:

The Department needs to come up with an appropriate means to express the threshold of applicability as it applies to non-water fracks. The key parameter for developing a comparable threshold should be identifying comparable risk. Simply converting the water-based thresholds from gallons to cubic feet or another unit of volume appropriate to measure gases would be completely arbitrary and wholly divorced from the real environmental and health risks posed by such non-water fracks. Thresholds for gas-based fracks must be developed independently based on an evaluation of risk and field data from gas-based fracks.

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510 E. Washington St. Suite 309
Bloomington, IL 61701
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Go there and comment. More tomorrow.

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Illinois Department Of Natural Resources Is Incompetant – But we kinda knew that

This was forwarded to me by Doctor Lora and other people have pointed out that this has been going on. This is why in my first post I said go to  this website:

http://www.ilagainstfracking.org/

They will deliver a printed copy to IDNR which gets you around the whole computer/internet thing.

AND Dr. Laura is suggesting that you send your comments to JCAR who must approve the final regulations before they become law. I am not sure how effective that would be but it takes so little time it can’t hurt. But still run them through IDNR repeatedly if you have to.

If you want to echo my remarks at JCAR, I think it would be very helpful, thanks,  L

 


Urgent — After two days of complaints from many residents concerned about fracking that their comments to the IDNR on the fracking rules weren’t going through, we learned that NO COMMENTS ON RADIOACTIVITY HAVE BEEN GOING THROUGH!   According to IDNR, there was a technical problem that has now been fixed, but that doesn’t address the fact that Comments from last Wednesday, yesterday and today did not get registered.
If they can’t get their website right, how are they going to get the rules right? 
Please share the comments below that were sent in by hundreds of residents with JCAR members, just in case the IDNR is trying to suppress comments about radioactivity in all fracking waste water and debris,

— General Summary of Rules on Radioactivity
Subpart H: High Volume Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing Preparations and Operations (245.800-245.870)
245.850 Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid and Hydraulic Fracturing Flowback Storage, Disposal or Recycling, Transportation and Reporting Requirements

Comment: Subsection (d)(1) of Section 245.850 provides for testing radioactivity only one time–during the early flowback stage–and only for “naturally occurring radioactive materials”. The problems with this are identified below.
Problems:
The proposed rules do not include any standards or protocols to follow if testing of flowback water shows unacceptable levels of radioactivity. 
The proposed rules do not require the testing of “produced water”, which is the water produced from a well in conjunction with oil or natural gas production. This is where radioactivity is most likely to show up. It should be noted that while these Rules have been purported to be the strongest in the nation, PA law requires the testing of produced water at two separate intervals.
The proposed rules do not require testing for added radioactive materials, like depleted uranium, which can be used in the perforation/fracturing operation.
The proposed rules do not test work areas for levels of radioactivity that would call for OSHA standards of occupational safety. 
These deficiencies, cumulatively or singly, would pose a significant risk to the public health and safety, property, aquatic life, and wildlife, in violation of section 1-75(a)(2) of the Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act.

— Produced Water Needs to Be Tested for Radioactivity (same subpart-H, and section: 245.850)
Notably absent from this section is a requirement for the testing of “produced water”, the fluid that returns from the well later during production and is most likely to contain radioactivity. Under the proposed rules, “produced water” can be stored on site and/or can be “recycled”, yet there is no testing requirement.
Naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occuring radioactive material are both found in “produced water”. See Technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials in the oil industry (TENORM), Nukleonika 2009; 54(1):3?9, and sources cited therein, especially for TENORM in produced water in the U.S., available athttp://www.nukleonika.pl/…/full/vol54_2009/v54n1p003f.pdf. See also
NORM is also found on scale in oil pipes and on fracking equipment. (See Kentucky Resources Council Proposes Comprehensive Plan For Investigating Radiological Contamination In Martha Oil Field. August 11, 2005.http://www.kyrc.org/webnewspro/112381723236086.shtml.)
IDNR’s definitions of “flowback water” and “produced water” are different. They are treated differently by both the Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act and by the DNR Rules. The Department knows that produced water will be in contact with the naturally occurring radioactive elements in the ground for a longer period that the flowback and that it is much more likely to be radioactive. Therefore it should require it to be tested and handled accordingly.
Problems: Failure to test produced water for radioactivity is problematic for a variety of reasons including:
The health and safety of workers on the site who will be unaware of the levels of radioactivity they are being exposed to.  The health and safety of workers transporting produced water who will also be in the dark regarding the levels of radioactivity they will be exposed to. 
The risk of storing radioactive material in tanks not created for storing radioactive materials.
The risk of “recycling” produced water—radioactivity cannot be removed by recycling.
The risk to the public in transporting radioactive materials
Argonne National Laboratory recently cautioned about radiological doses: “It is commonly accepted that efforts should be undertaken at all times to keep radiological doses ‘as low as reasonably achievable,’ which is referred to as the ALARA principle or requirement.” Overview of Radiological Dose and Risk Assessment (April 2011). DNR is failing to even adequately test for radioactivity and therefore, will not know the levels of radioactivity. How, then, can DNR adequately protect workers and the general public?
Revisions needed:
At a bare minimum, the rules should require that “produced water” be tested at two separate intervals across time for radioactivity. This is already required in Pennsylvania. The rules should also require that the requirements of the Illinois Low Level Radioactivity Waste Management Act be followed. 

— Rules need to include requirements or standards when radioactivity is found (same subpart-H and section:245.850)
The proposed rules include no follow-up requirements or standards if testing shows radioactivity levels in flowback to be high. In other words, these proposed rules treat flowback the same whether it is highly radioactive or not! DNR knows that naturally occurring radioactivity material occurs in Illinois oil and gas operations. See 62 Ill. Admin. Code secs. 240.860(e)(3), 240.861(k)(1)(C).
Revisions Needed: The rules must specify how flowback AND produced water will be treated if they test positive for radioactivity. The rules should also require that the requirements of the Illinois Low Level Radioactivity Waste Management Act be followed.
 
Sincerely, 
Frack Free Illinois
contact, Dr. Lora Chamberlain
drlora2@yahoo.com
773-486-7660

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Go there and comment. More today.

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The End Of The Smokestack Age – The move to a sustainable future

The terms he uses are different. Man has always extracted things. A  good case can be made that for much of our species existence we have caused things to go extinct as well. We need to quit both. The human race could survive off our garbage dumps from here to eternity if we just made product loops that left no waste. That is if we treated everything and everybody for their intrinsic value.

That last sentence is a little shaky but that is because we live in a throw away culture.

http://steadystate.org/the-end-of-the-age-of-extraction/

The End of the Age of Extraction

by Brent Blackwelder

BlackwelderToday’s global economy is causing shortages of natural resources (both renewable and nonrenewable) as we come to the end of what might be called the Age of Extraction. A true cost, steady state economy, on the other hand, would prevent resource problems by maintaining population and resource consumption well within the carrying capacity of the planet.

Energy and mineral shortages, along with depletion of forests and fisheries, are driving the extractors and harvesters to evermore remote places. No longer able to find gushing oilfields, vast stands of virgin timber, or waterways teeming with fish, the extraction companies are racing to the farthest reaches of the planet in search of profits.

The end of the Age of Extraction does not mean that such resources will disappear. In his recent book, The Quest, Daniel Yergin describes oil and gas discoveries that he predicts will turn the Western Hemisphere — from Canada to Brazil — into the next Saudi Arabia. But today’s extraction is pursuing fuels that are either dirty or hard to get. We see more pollution, both from accidents and mundane chronic causes, increasingly pushing civilization beyond the carrying capacity of the earth, wiping out more and more species, and accelerating climate destabilization.

Today’s global economic operating system tolerates and even abets severe pollution damages as industries externalize the costs from their books. Scarcity has made some of the most environmentally devastating energy and mining projects “short-term cost effective.” For example, according to price and revenue figures, it’s cost effective to extract oil from tar sands in Alberta, a process that requires huge energy inputs, grotesquely contaminates land and water, and poisons people, fish, and wildlife.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Meditations On Being Opposed To Nuclear Power – Isao Hashimoto 2053 nuclear explosions 1945-1998

OK, I tried to load the video here and failed again. Totally. But there are enough links below to get you to the video which is really cool. It is a video that shows the location of all the “known” nuclear bomb tests up to 1998. Now, that doesn’t mean ALL the tests because it does not show the Israeli test off South Africa nor does it include the Korean attempts. Still it is so much like a War Games screen and it is real. Also very well done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyGnq7d4MLg

http://youtu.be/gyGnq7d4MLg

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Go there and view. More tomorrow.

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