Posts Tagged ‘Science’

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Periodic table gets bigger: Element 114 Ununquadium

June 25, 2010

Element 114 has been made and confirmed in the laboratory but elements 113, 115, 116, 117 and 118 are predicted but still to be made.

Temporary names assigned to elements 113 to 118 are: Ununtrium, Ununquadium, Ununpentium, Ununhexium, Ununseptiumand Ununoctium.

New Scientist: Element 114 on the brink of recognition

The periodic table is set to get bigger, now that three labs have independently made atoms of element 114. There’s still one big uncertainty though – should it be classified as a metal or as a noble gas?

In February 2010, an element with 112 protons in its atomic nucleus was recognised and named Copernicium by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). A similar honour should shortly be on the way for element 114. Ununquadium is the temporary name with the temporary symbol Uuq and atomic number114.

In 1999, researchers at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, claimed to have made atoms of element 114, but no confirmation was available. Now teams at two other laboratories say they have produced it.

One team was led by Heino Nitsche and Ken Gregorich at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. The other was led by Christoph Düllmann at the Centre for Heavy Ion Research (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany.

Element 114’s likely chemical properties remain in doubt, however. One prediction suggests it is a noble gas, while another indicates it has properties similar to lead.

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Home made Fusion reactors at room temperature!!

June 23, 2010

Whatever next??

Cold fusion was a bust so it now moves to room temperature.

I note that investors are being sought but I think I’ll pass.

But Good Luck to Mr. Suppes anyway.

Building a homemade nuclear reactor in NYC

Mr Suppes, 32, is part of a growing community of “fusioneers” – amateur science junkies who are building homemade fusion reactors, for fun and with an eye to being part of the solution to that problem.

He is the 38th independent amateur physicist in the world to achieve nuclear fusion from a homemade reactor, according to community site Fusor.net. Others on the list include a 15-year-old from Michigan and a doctoral student in Ohio.

The fusion reactor in the Brooklyn warehouse

Mr Suppes has spent the last two years perfecting his reactor

“I was inspired because I believed I was looking at a technology that could actually work to solve our energy problems, and I believed it was something that I could at least begin to build,” Mr Suppes told the BBC.

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McCarthyism returns to the NAS

June 22, 2010

It seems that the high priests of global warming now believe that science is determined by who is more “authoritative”.

We have had “consensus science” and “settled science” and now we have “authoritative science”.

Perhaps we should just have a poll.

Climate change sceptic scientists ‘less prominent and authoritative’

The research indicates that scientists who blame human activity for global warming have published more relevant and influential papers than those who question man’s impact.

But the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has been dismissed as misleading by critics.

Opponents said that the paper divided scientists into artificial groups and did not consider a balanced spectrum of scientists.

They also pointed out that climate sceptics often struggled to get their papers accepted by journals, as they must first be reviewed and approved by climate change “believers”.

Judith Curry, a climate expert at the Georgia Institute of Technology – who was not part of the analysis – called the study “completely unconvincing” while John Christy of University of Alabama claimed he and other climate sceptics included in the survey were simply “being blacklisted” by colleagues.


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Developing language of Global Warming

June 21, 2010

alarmist –  a paranoid Warmist

AGW –  a religion propogating the homo-centric view of the universe and denying any influence of the sun

climate scientist  –  one who tricks successfully; a failed  statistician

climategate –  release on the internet of the inner workings of the hockeystick team

denialist  –  a heretical sceptic

Gore   –  a figurehead for AGW

hockeystick   – a Warmist religious symbol; a graph depicting the uncontrolled increase of any paramater

hockeystick team  – a small group of fanatical Warmists who created the hockeystick symbol by a trick

IPCC   – The High Church of AGW; primarily an advocacy group for the generation of funds for Warmist projects

Jones  – A Warmist priest and member of the UK Chapter of the hockeystick team

Mann  –  A Warmist priest and inventor of the trick

mann  –  n. a successful practitioner of a trick (not to be confused with a human person)

(mann.ism  n. a trick; mann.ick  adj. manic)

Pachauri  –  High Priest of the IPCC, a railway engineer who underwent a religious conversion to Warmism

peer-review – process for preventing publication by heretics  comparable to excommunication

sceptic – a scientist; a heretic

trick  –   n. data manipulation by exclusion; v. to selectively exclude data to achieve a desired result

settled science – as defined by the High Church

voodoo science – any  scientific endeavour following the scientific method but not conforming to to Warmism dogma

Warmist    –  one who adheres to the religion of  man-made Global Warming

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Wind stops wind power…..

June 20, 2010

It is sometimes overlooked that the difficulty to store electric energy can make wind and solar power – even if they were competitive enough not to be subsidised – impractical.  Energy storage is still a major barrier to be overcome in the use of renewable power.

The economics of the subsidy mechanisms can lead to strange distortions which in turn can lead to extremely lucrative but ridiculous situations such as:

  1. solar plants using electricity from the grid to produce electricity for the grid since the subsidy makes it worth-while
  2. the intermittent nature of the power leading to inter-connection instabilities which lead to owners being paid not to produce power
  3. wind power – as in this article today – having to shut down when there is insufficient load
  4. solar plants using natural gas at night to heat up the heat transfer medium (oils or molten salts) which then generates steam and runs the steam turbine to produce electricity.

Firms paid to shut down wind farms when the wind is blowing.

A general view of Europe's biggest onshore wind farm, Whitelee Windfarm on the outskirts of Glasgow

Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing. Critics of wind farms have seized on the revelation as evidence of the unsuitability of turbines to meet the UK’s energy needs in the future. They claim that the ‘intermittent’ nature of wind makes such farms unreliable providers of electricity.

Solar and Wind power have still some way to go before they are anywhere near commercial.

But the area of research which could probably do with more funding is that of energy storage but it is probably not fashionable enough. Instead of subsidising the owners of renewable energy plants (note that the subsidy rarely reaches the consumer), it might be better to conduct more R & D for the storage and recovery of electrical energy.

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Posted in Energy, Environment | 3 Comments »

Circular Arguments and Speculation masquerading as Science

June 18, 2010

It is still fashionable – and probably profitable – to connect whatever you are working with to Global Warming.

Artist's impression of mammoths in North America

“The inception of a strong carbon dioxide–greenhouse gas feedback and amplification of orbital forcing at ~2.7 million years ago connected the fate of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets with global ocean temperatures since that time.” So says Timothy Herbert of Brown University in a new paper in Science.

His speculations are less than convincing but no doubt he brings in CO2 forcing either to get funding or to facilitate publication.

Completely circular arguments !!

1. Start by assuming that CO2 induced forcing mechanisms cause global temperature change.

2. Analyse the composition of mud cores from 4 regions in the tropics laid down millions of years ago.

3. Find a temperature “fingerprint” ({delta}18O) in the tropical samples showing an increase of temperature of 1° to 3°C some 2.7 Million years ago. Assume that this is unique and exclusive to temperature.

4.Since the “patterns are similar”  the common mechanism must be via the atmosphere.

5. Voila !! This proves that a forcing mechanism induced by CO2 must have been the common cause of the temperature pattern !!!!!

A so-called science reporter  – a Victoria Gill – at the BBC then proclaims “Ancient climate change ‘link’ to CO2”.

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IPCC is to Science what Mussolini was to Democracy

June 15, 2010

Pachauri’s back!!

The BBC reports that “The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, says he welcomes “the development of a vigorous debate” on climate science”.

It would seem that he has changed his tune such that what he once considered “voodoo science” is now elevated to  “vigorous debate”. I am afraid his credibility has evaporated completely and whatever credit he once had when simply running TERI has been fatally contaminated by his mixing of science with greed and advocacy while at the IPCC.

As Der Spiegel reported in April

Also at issue is the position of IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, who is praised as a “leading global thinker” in his official biography. A railroad engineer by trade, Pachauri wrote an erotic novel and recommended that people reduce their meat consumption while traveling around the world to save the climate. He has cut a miserable figure during the current crisis. The climate guru summarily dismissed justified objections to the IPCC report as “voodoo science.”

After the Climategate circus and the discrediting of the IPCC the UN has established its own inquiry (which is a long way from being independent and seems slightly incestuous) to contemplate its own navel. An “expert” review panel convened by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) – a network of science academies across the world, such as the UK’s Royal Society – will hear testimony from four expert witnesses at the session in Montreal.

Pachauri’s new found respect for scientific dissent and openness is in marked contrast to his wish in February 2010 that skeptics would “apply asbestos to their faces every day.”

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Journalists: The Purveyors of Doom

June 15, 2010

Why do journalists always feel it necessary to report science in alarmist terms?

Solar storms and the geomagnetic consequences are serious and the subject of serious study but such study is devalued when sensationalised by intrepid reporters from the outback.

Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph informed us that “Nasa warns solar flares from ‘huge space storm’ will cause devastation”. The reporter Andrew Hough goes on breathlessly  to explain that the “Daily Telegraph can disclose” that

National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years. Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013. In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken. “We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” said Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa’s Heliophysics division. Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots – or flares – hits a maximum level every 11 years. Dr Fisher, a Nasa scientist for 20 years, said these two events would combine in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation.

We should head for the hills !!!!

The 22 year Solar Cycle – the Babcock cycle was discovered by HW Babcock in 1961.

In 2007 NASA was predicting the Cycle 24 maximum for 2011 as a strong maximum or in 2012 as a weak maximum. By March 2009 the maximum was being forecast for May 2013 with the admission that “It turns out that none of our models were totally correct,” says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA’s lead representative on the panel. “The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting way.”

The great 1859 storm– the “Carrington Event” – electrified transmission cables, set some papers on fire in a few telegraph offices, and produced exceptionally  bright Northern Lights. Some electrical disruption also occurred during storms in 1921, 1937, 1941 and 1958. On August 4, 1972 a solar flare knocked out long-distance telephone communication across Illinois. That event, in fact, caused AT&T to redesign its power system for transatlantic cables. A similar flare on March 13, 1989, provoked geomagnetic storms that disrupted electric power transmission from the Hydro Québec generating station in Canada. In  2005, a solar storm disrupted satellite-to-ground communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals for about 10 minutes.

There is a long way in nature from notable to  disruption to devastation and to catastrophe; but in journalism the distance seems exceedingly short.

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Solar Cycle 24: Landscheidt minimum looking more likely

June 14, 2010

soho

The sunspot numbers and the solar flux for May are not keeping up even with the reduced expectations for this cycle.

Are we in the Landscheidt minimum or is it still to come?

Even though many of the alarmists of Global Warming reject the notion of the Solar Cycle having much influence on climate, there is little doubt that the period of the Maunder Minmum coincided with the Little Ice Age. It has been unfortunate that the so-called mathematical models on which Global Warming conclusions are based have descended to the level of glorified arithmetic even though there is little understanding of what the arithmetic represents.

It is time for science to return into the debate and for incomplete mathematical models relying on “fudge factors” to validate the model against temperature proxies (which are themselves highly unlikely to be solely dependant upon temperature) to be treated with the utmost scepticism. In fact it is time for scepticism to return to science.

Predictions of a global cooling over the next 20 or 30 years seem to be gaining substance.

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Scientists, penalties and the World Cup

June 11, 2010

The big kick-off is later today and if a S. American country does not win I forecast a win for Germany.

A super schedule / calendar is available here.

http://www.marca.com/deporte/futbol/mundial/sudafrica-2010/calendario-english.html

Scientists cannot be left behind and psychologists have analysed the science of penalty taking. I wonder how much this study cost to come to the conclusion that focusing on where to place the ball rather than on the goal keeper is the way to do it. It will not come as much of revelation to even any junior school coach!!

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6562PJ20100607

But let’s hope that penalties are not too decisive a factor.

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