Stephan: Here is some very good news. It is wonderful to watch the speed with which solar technology is advancing, now that it is getting decent funding. This is exciting news about the trend of transitioning out of the carbon energy age.
I find stories like these also very poignant because if we had started seriously focusing on non-carbon energy in the 70s, when President Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House, imagine where we would be today. How much pain we would have saved ourselves. But profit was and remains for a critical mass more important than wellness.
Click through to see the very useful diagrams and the video or the facility in operation.
A solar thermal test plant in Newcastle, Australia, has generated ‘supercritical” steam at a pressure of 23.5 mpa (3400 psi) and 570°C (1,058°F).
CSIRO is claiming it as a world record, and it’s a HUGE step for solar thermal energy.
“It’s like breaking the sound barrier; this step change proves solar has the potential to compete with the peak performance capabilities of fossil fuel sources,” Dr Alex Wonhas, CSIRO’s Energy Director, told Colin Jeffrey for Gizmag.
The Energy Centre uses a field of more than 600 mirrors (known as heliostats) which are all directed at two towers housing solar receivers and turbines, Gizmag reports.
This supercritical steam is used to drive the world’s most advanced power plant turbines, but previously it’s only been possible to produce it by burning fossil fuels such as coal or gas.
“Instead of relying on burning fossil fuels to produce supercritical steam, this breakthrough demonstrates that the power plants of the future could instead be using the free, zero emission energy of the sun to achieve the same result,” Dr Wonhas explained.
Currently, commercial solar thermal or concentrating solar power power plants only operate a ‘subcritical” levels, using less pressurised steam. This means that they’ve never been able to match […]
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HARVEY WASSERMAN, - Eco Watch
Stephan: Here is the latest on Fukushima, and it is tragically sad. Remember that radiation contamination sourced at the site continues to pollute Japan, Japanese waters, and the world ocean. Note the last paragraphs. In American nuclear accidents the government has been similarly duplicitous. That's because nuclear accidents are so horrible governments everywhere don't want the information to get out. That alone is an argument against nuclear power.
Some 39 months after the multiple explosions at Fukushima, thyroid cancer rates among nearby children have skyrocketed to more than forty times (40x) normal.
More than 48 percent of some 375,000 young people-nearly 200,000 kids-tested by the Fukushima Medical University near the smoldering reactors now suffer from pre-cancerous thyroid abnormalities, primarily nodules and cysts. The rate is accelerating.
More than 120 childhood cancers have been indicated where just three would be expected, says Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project.
The nuclear industry and its apologists continue to deny this public health tragedy. Some have actually asserted that ‘not one person” has been affected by Fukushima’s massive radiation releases, which for some isotopes exceed Hiroshima by a factor of nearly 30.
But the deadly epidemic at Fukushima is consistent with impacts suffered among children near the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island and the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl, as well as findings at other commercial reactors.
The likelihood that atomic power could cause such epidemics has been confirmed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which says that ‘an increase in the risk of childhood thyroid cancer” would accompany a reactor disaster.
In evaluating the prospects of new reactor construction in Canada, the […]
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Stephan: This is the first report I have seen that realistically describes what I think is the future of cities along coastlines. And readers will recognize that in states like Florida, or cities like Norfolk the process described is already playing out.
Assessed correctly, we are being given the opportunity to correct our mistakes. This transition, joining with the transition out of carbon energy, will force us to confront our aging infrastructure. It will create prosperity and jobs will be plentiful.
Fifty two per cent of our population lives in coastal counties. We are being presented with an opportunity to build a new basis for society with wellness at its center. Or we can do it badly, corruptly, and solely for profit, in which case the next decades will be very painful.
The iron ore mine in Kiruna, Sweden, is the largest in the world. Transposed over Manhattan, it would stretch from river to river, from Canal Street to Central Park South. But what makes the Kiruna mine extraordinary is its depth: By 2033, its shafts will descend nearly a mile below the earth.
That will be good for extracting iron, but bad for the town of Kiruna, which is perched in an increasingly perilous spot on the edge of the mine. In 2003, preparing for this expansion, the Swedish mining company Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB) discovered that the excavations had and would continue to destabilize the town of 18,000. Before long, Kiruna would slide into the pit.
Ten years ago, LKAB announced it would move Kiruna two miles to the east. The master plan, whose first phase was announced in May, outlines a 20-year project that will cost more than a billion dollars. But the movement of the city from west to east could last until 2100 if excavations progress.
Structurally and sociologically, the moving of Kiruna is a noteworthy ambition in its own right. But it’s also an important test case in a field that may be, unfortunately, about to explode. Sea level rise […]
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GENERAL SIR MICHAEL ROSE, - The Daily Mail (U.K.)
Stephan: When even a general who ran the war thinks his civilian master is a moron, either in denial or lying, there is a problem. I listened to Senator John McCain on the subject of Iraq today, arguing for more war, and the only thing I could think of while he was talking was that this man thought Sarah Palin was competent to be the Vice President of the United States.
This exegetic essay by Sir Michael although assessing the British government could equally be applied to Bush-Cheney and their neocon minions.
Click through to see the videos.
Anyone who doubts Tony Blair’s self-delusion over Iraq should look at the 2,800-word essay he has posted on his website in defence of his decision to go to war.
He remains in complete denial over the disaster he inflicted not only on the people of Iraq, but also on many millions throughout the Middle East as a result of the 2003 invasion.
It goes without saying that if you start a war, you should be sure that the end result will be demonstrably better than the situation prior to the conflict.
Only someone who has lost touch with reality could possibly claim Iraq today is more stable or that life has become better for its inhabitants.
Blair accepts not a shred of responsibility and still refuses to apologise for taking us to war. So let us examine what he says point by point – and show his false logic for what it is.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
CLAIM: One of the most extraordinary arguments by Tony Blair in his essay is that, because Syria’s President Assad has used chemical weapons, this retrospectively justifies invading Iraq, where no such weapons were found.
‘Is it likely that, knowing what we now know about Assad, Saddam, who had used chemical weapons against […]
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, - Independent Science News
Stephan: The trend of corporations corrupting American science can be found throughout the disciplines. It is done in a myriad of ways, but always for the same end -- anywhere profit is involved. An entire peer-reviewed literature has grown up reporting on this trend. One can't be in disciplines such as medicine, chemistry, and pharmaceuticals and not be aware of this. I can tell you from personal experience that trying to publish in a medical journal today is an exercise in maneuvering through a Kafkaesque series of forms.
Yet, at both the scientific and governmental levels it is still rampant. Here is an example.
US EPA’s 503 sludge rule (1993) allows treated sewage sludges, aka biosolids, to be land-applied to farms, forests, parks, school playgrounds, home gardens and other private and public lands. According to a recent EPA survey, biosolids contain a wide range of mutagenic and neurotoxic chemicals, which are present at a million-fold higher concentrations (ppm versus ppt) compared with their levels in polluted air and water (1). Biosolids contain all of the lipophilic (fat-soluble) chemical wastes that once polluted our rivers and lakes, but which now settle out at sewage treatment plants and become concentrated in sewage sludges. Most biosolids contain ppm concentrations of heavy metals, including chromium, lead, and mercury. They contain similarly high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and semi-volatiles, such as bis (2-Ethylhexyl) phthalate, Benzo(a)pyrene), and polybrominated diphenyl ether congeners (PBDE flame retardants). Most biosolids also contain pathogenic agents and ppm levels of many common drugs, including ciprofloxacin (Cipro), carbamazepine (Tegretol, Equetro), and fluoxetine (Prozac).
While working at EPA Dr David Lewis published evidence that teenager Shayne Conner (of New Hampshire) died and other neighbors were harmed from living near land applied with sewage sludge (Lewis et al 2002). He furthermore became involved after dairy herds of two […]
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