Stephan: Wind power seems about to undergo a next stage evolution. This story is an example. Carbon energy still reigns, but I see an exhilarating transition trend. It is going to be fascinating to watch, and even participate in.
SheerWind Inc. of Chaska, Minnesota is claiming in a press release that its newly developed funnel-based wind turbine system is capable of producing 600 percent more power than conventional wind turbines. The new design uses funnels to channel wind to a ground-based turbine.
The idea behind the INVELOX system is to capture wind using wide mouthed funnels and channel it via ducts to a turbine sitting at ground level. The wind picks up speed as it is concentrated through a series of nozzle and pipes before it is delivered to a turbine, which produces electricity. SheerWind claims in its announcement that the system is capable of producing electricity with wind speeds as low as 1mph.
As an example, they say that tests have demonstrated that the system operating in natural wind speeds of 10mph is able to increase that speed to 40mph before it enters the turbine. After passing through the turbine, the wind is exhausted back into the environment, in this case, at 15mph.
In another scenario the company says it tested the abilities of its system by comparing it with an identical turbine configured as a conventional system. They claim they found improvements of 81 to 660 percent.
The company says the […]
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Stephan: This report describes another reactor breakdown. Nuclear reactors are now in their 40s, at the end of their lifetimes. There will be more and more of this. The last reactor built began in 1977. Nuclear energy, I believe, is going to prove to be an unbelievably expensive wrong turn, given life by the paranoia of the Cold War.
A federal panel on nuclear safety has called for a full public hearing on a proposal to restart a damaged reactor at the San Onofre nuclear plant, siding in large part with the environmental group Friends of the Earth in an order published Monday.
The Atomic Licensing and Safety Board found that the destructive vibrations among steam generator tubes that have sidelined San Onofre are not accounted for in the plant’s official safety blueprint, known as the updated Final Safety Analysis Report.
An evaluation by Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff of plans to restart the plant at partial power amounts to an amendment of the operating rules – creating the opportunity for public hearings on the proposal, the board found.
The decision by a three-member panel of administrative judges, independent of nuclear commission staff, complicates plant operator Southern California Edison’s efforts build a secure regulatory footing to restart the Unit 2 reactor as costs mount for repairs and replacement power. Unit 3 has more severe problems that Edison says could take years to resolve.
The plant, once capable of powering 1.4 million homes at time, has been sidelined since Jan. 31, 2012, when a small radiation leak helped uncover rapid wear on steam generator tubes […]
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Stephan: Once again the difference between the Blue value and Red Value states, and the reality of this Great Schism is made clear. Be sure and click through and see the dynamic map. It is very sobering.
The full interactive map is available here: http://users.humboldt.edu/mstephens/hate/hate_map.html
UPDATE (5/13/13 @ 10:45pm): We have written and published a FAQ to respond to some of the questions and concerns raised in the comments here and elsewhere. Please review our comments there before commenting or emailing.
Following the 2012 US Presidential election, we created a map of tweets that referred to President Obama using a variety of racist slurs. In the wake of that map, we received a number of criticisms – some constructive, others not – about how we were measuring what we determined to be racist sentiments. In that work, we showed that the states with the highest relative amount of racist content referencing President Obama – Mississippi and Alabama – were notable not only for being starkly anti-Obama in their voting patterns, but also for their problematic histories of racism. That is, even a fairly crude and cursory analysis can show how contemporary expressions of racism on social media can be tied to any number of contextual factors which explain their persistence.
The prominence of debates around online bullying and the censorship of hate speech prompted us to examine how social media has become an important conduit for hate speech, and how particular terminology used to degrade a given […]
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FRANCESCA GINO and MICHAEL I. NORTON, - Scientific American
Stephan: Many years ago I spoke at a conference along with Paul de Chardin, a neoplatonic philosopher at Haverford. In answer to a question from the audience, from a lapsed Roman Catholic, who asked de Chardin didn't he find the rituals of the Church medieval and meaningless, I was surprised to hear him reply that, No, he found small rituals very important. He went on to describe how he used small quotidian rituals to remind himself that he was a spiritual being. 'Every morning as I stand under the shower I undergo the rite of Baptism. And every time I break a piece of bread I am reminded of the Eucharist. It had a huge effect on me. From that day on, I have never put any food in my mouth without stopping to say a personal grace. And with every shower I reconsecrate myself to my spiritual purpose. Breaking up the day with small personal rituals that are meaningful to you, whether they make any sense to anyone else I find is a very useful practice for a healthy life.
Think about the last time you were about to interview for a job, speak in front of an audience, or go on a first date. To quell your nerves, chances are you spent time preparing – reading up on the company, reviewing your slides, practicing your charming patter. People facing situations that induce anxiety typically take comfort in engaging in preparatory activities, inducing a feeling of being back in control and reducing uncertainty.
While a little extra preparation seems perfectly reasonable, people also engage in seemingly less logical behaviors in such situations. Here’s one person’s description from our research:
I pound my feet strongly on the ground several times, I take several deep breaths, and I ‘shake’ my body to remove any negative energies. I do this often before going to work, going into meetings, and at the front door before entering my house after a long day.
While we wonder what this person’s co-workers and neighbors think of their shaky acquaintance, such rituals – the symbolic behaviors we perform before, during, and after meaningful event – are surprisingly ubiquitous, across culture and time. Rituals take an extraordinary array of shapes and forms. At times performed in communal or religious settings, […]
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Stephan: Although those of us in the developed nations take potable water for granted the fact is for several billion people it is a major matter of urgent stress. Here is a new technology that may help relieve this problem.
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Biopolymer-reinforced synthetic granular nanocomposites for affordable point-of-use water purification, PNAS, Published online before print May 6, 2013, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1220222110
Researchers at India’s Institute of Technology Madras have developed a new kind of portable water purification system based on nanoparticle filtration. In their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team explains how their new device does its job-it employs nanoparticles to remove not just biological hazards, but toxic heavy metals as well.
The researchers note that access to clean drinking water is still a major worldwide problem-making it available to everyone, they say, would save approximately 2 million lives a year (approximately 42.6 percent of deaths are due to diarrhea alone and impact mostly children). To help reach the UN millennium development goal of doubling the number of people with sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015, the team has been applying nanoparticle technology to the problem.
The system they have developed is a two-stage filtration process that provides 10 liters of clean water in just an hour’s time. The biggest challenge, the team says, was figuring out how to deliver silver ions into the water to be processed, without using any electricity. The process also had to use a minimal amount of silver ions to meet international safety standards. The answer, they say, was […]
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