Promising Biofuels Pact: India and Canada

The tremendous potential of biofuels and biomass are barely understood by policy-makers and planners. But technical experts from Canada and India are collaborating to bring biofuels out of the closet.

India says Saskatchewan University will help it in advanced research into second-generation technologies for biofuels...."Agri residues such as bagasse, wheat straw, sorghum and maize straws, leaf litter and various other plant biomass, which have not been adequately utilized for energy production, provide ample opportunities for use as biofuels," said S.A. Patil, director of the Indian institute.

"We have entered into an agreement with the Saskatchewan University in Canada for four specific projects on biofuels."...He said one project is for the conversion of biomass to ethanol using different technologies such as acid hydrolysis and supercritical carbon dioxide to produce fermentable sugars, which will be converted into ethanol via fermentation. Another project is production of biodiesel from jatropha and other oils using ultrasound technology.

Patil said the other two projects are for the conversion of waste biomass into biogas and fertilizers and for biomass conversion into hydrogen through supercritical water process.___Source__via biopact

Small-scale biorefinery projects promise to bring energy production down to a scale where ordinary entrepreneurs, businesspersons, and labourers can benefit--unlike megascale projects of big oil, big coal, and big nuclear.

“Biorefineries producing not just fuel, but also chemicals and energy can be built throughout the United States, utilizing locally available cellulosic biomass feedstocks. These small-scale projects will use a wide variety of feedstocks and test many different technologies for fuel and coproducts, providing experience and data that can be transferred to full-size, commercial-scale biorefineries....“A recent BIO report, ‘Achieving Sustainable Production of Agricultural Biomass for Biorefinery Feedstock,’ showed that through increased use of no-till agriculture farmers can produce and collect crop residues in an economically and environmentally sustainable way. The report identifies available techniques for sustainable harvesting of agricultural residues – such as corn stover and cereal straws – for use as feedstocks for advance biofuel biorefineries. The report is available at http://bio.org/ind/biofuel/SustainableBiomassReport.pdf.
Source

The aspect of biomass and biofuels that seems to distress so many mega-scale energy analysts--its distributed, non-concentrated nature--is actually a good thing for small scale entrepreneurs, and small-town and small-village workers. Because biomass is so "spread out" over wide geographical areas, it lends itself far better to small-scale, local ventures. Faux environmentalists will fail to understand that feature, whereas true environmentalists who care about local economies, will seize sustainable biomass/biofuels as an important issue to promote.

Peak Oil: Meet PIP

Discovering new oil and gas deposits is expensive and time-consuming. But new exploration technologies are making it easier to find deposits that were almost impossible to find with traditional seismic technology. One of these technologies is PIP: Passive Induced Polarization.

Eldorado Exploration (Pink Sheets:EDEX) announced today that it expects its Passive Induced Polarization “PIP” technology to locate hundreds of undiscovered commercial oil and gas deposits. ‘PIP’ can be used to survey large areas and find large and small targets that traditional 3D Seismic technology used by the major oil and gas companies couldn’t find or were judged cost prohibitive. The potential commercial value of these undiscovered oil and gas reserves if successfully located and drilled is in the billions.

...The process helps eliminate geological prospects that will be dry holes. Strong signals indicate commercial potential of discovering oil and/or gas. No signal or weak readings indicate low probability for a successful find. The cost of evaluating prospects is a small fraction of 3D Seismic and takes much less time. 'PIP' technology takes days instead of months or years for 3-D Seismic.___Source

The amount of oil still in the ground, undiscovered, is no doubt far larger than all the oil that has been extracted or discovered to this time. It would be absurd to assume otherwise, given the miniscule proportion of the Earth's crust that has actually been explored--in any meaningful way.

This year is projected to be an active year for oil exploration and production startups.

The number of start-up oil and gas exploration and production companies in the U.S. is on pace to match the high volume seen in 2007, according to Oil and Gas Investor This Week, the online weekly e-letter of Hart Energy Publishing.

Oil and Gas Investor This Week recently published its annual round-up of 2007 E&P start-ups, showcasing 36 new companies.

“The past year saw no shortage of new energy companies, with high equity commitments helping to form new E&Ps and the promise of long-term benefits inspiring an explosion of MLP IPOs. Already, 2008 is looking to continue the previous year's trend,” remarked Stephen Payne, editor of Oil and Gas Investor This Week....Oil and Gas Investor This Week is the most authoritative news source on new financings in North America. Fifty times a year, the e-letter features news on company formations, moves by key industry personnel and comprehensive lists of new financings and insider trading.____Source

The huge untapped petroleum resources that remain in the ground, will be of benefit as a bridge between present non-sustainable energy methods, and the more sustainable energy that humans are just beginning to master. When humans abandon petroleum, it will not be due to peak oil, or the lack of more oil to pump. It will be due to cleaner, sustainable, less expensive fuels that are readily available.

Staircase Library

For those who are intelligent enough to understand the value of books--even in the age of electronic media--there is always the problem of where to put all your books. This is one solution, for the multi-story home. But I like the image more for the ideas it brings to mind than for its particular solution to a problem. via gadgetdna

Attention Earthlings: Submit to the First Carbon Reich -- Prepare to be Assimilated

Behind every revolution, there are groups of people waiting in the wings for the smoke to die down. Waiting to take control and run things the way they have always known things should be run. We are waiting in the wings, because we cannot afford to make our move until it is the right time.

David Shearman praises China’s recent ban on plastc shopping bags, expressing special admiration for its authoritarian quality. “The importance of the decision,” he writes, “lies in the fact that China can do it by edict and close the factories.” “Views like this reveal an ugly and ominous aspect of the political frenzy surrounding global warming,” said Dr. Keith Lockitch, a resident fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute.

“While few global-warming activists are willing--as Shearman is--to come out in favor of openly dictatorial policies, the kinds of laws and regulations that activists do call for will hand a comparably frightening degree of control over our lives to politicians and environmentalist bureaucrats. “In one form or another, every minute of our every day involves the emission of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas claimed to be the cause of climate change. Every moment we spend running our computers, lighting our homes, powering countless laborsaving appliances, driving to work or school or anywhere else--we are using industrialscale energy to make our lives better. “But global-warming activists want our use of the fossil fuels that provide the major source of that energy to be strictly controlled by the government and severely curtailed, no matter the harm that causes.___Source

A carbon dictatorship would need to control every aspect of your life. What do you do that does not cause the release of CO2 into the atmosphere? Nothing! Every breath you take releases CO2 into the air. What if--wait for it--what if CO2 were not responsible for the lion's share of climate twists and turns, rises and falls? We must not think about that. More importantly, we must not let anyone else think about that.

What is ... interesting is the 2.2° temperature rise from 7.8° in 1696 to 10.0° in 1732. This is a 2.2° rise is 36 years. By comparison, the world has seen a 0.6° rise over the 100 years of the 20th century. That temperature rise in the early 18th century was four times as large and three times as fast as the rise in the 20th century.
The significance of this is that the world can experience very rapid temperature swings all due to natural causes. The temperature peak of 10° in 1732 wasn’t reached again until 1947.__PDFArchibaldSolarCycle2425

CO2 is indisputably a greenhouse gas. But is it the driver of the climate? Or is CO2 merely the driver of the bandwagon of the religio-political "global warming crusade", CAGW? Again, you must never think about things like that.

Anthropogenic warming is real, it is also minuscule...The effect of carbon dioxide on temperature is logarithmic and thus climate sensitivity decreases with increasing concentration. The first 20 ppm of carbon dioxide has a greater temperature effect than the next 400 ppm. The rate of annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 30 years has averaged 1.7 ppm. From the current level of 380 ppm, it is projected to rise to 420 ppm by 2030.

The projected 40 ppm increase reduces emission from the stratosphere to space from 279.6 watts/m2 to 279.2 watts/m2. Using the temperature response demonstrated by Idso (1998) of 0.1°C per watt/m2, this difference of 0.4 watts/m2 equates to an increase in atmospheric temperature of 0.04°C.

Increasing the carbon dioxide content by a further 200 ppm to 620 ppm, projected by 2150, results in a further 0.16°C increase in atmospheric temperature.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, increased atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased the temperature of the atmosphere by 0.1°.__PDFArchibald

If CO2 is not driving the climate, what is? Unfortunately, we do not have time to consider that. No, we must hurry to do something, anything, to halt the rise of CO2 emissions coming from industrial countries. (we can ignore the third world, until we get the first world under control)

We must stop the "climate crimes" by oil companies such as BP--which recently moved into tar sands development And we must transfer hundreds of billions of dollars of ill-gotten capitalist gains from the pockets of capitalists into our own pockets, for safe-keeping. Perhaps we will need to bring out the guillotine--no one knows yet.

Certainly we must weed out the professional heretics--fire them, deny them tenure, destroy their reputations, deny them funding, deny them publication. We must then move against the amateur heretics, who are such a thorn in our side.

The point is, we are the only ones who know what must be done, and have the will to do it. We deserve to be in power.

Image and links H/T Tom Nelson

Space Tugs and Ferries--Getting Real About Space

Up until now, human space launches have been faltering baby-steps. There has been no significant effort to develop an ongoing, versatile space-based infrastructure. So far, it is almost as if humans had no intention of staying in space. That needs to change.

Over at Selenium Boondocks, a recent posting takes an interesting look at Space Tugs and Space Ferries--what they are and what they would do.

In a nutshell, tugs allow you to take all of the most complicated parts of getting people, propellants, and provisions to a station, and offloads it to either the launch vehicle, or to a reusable vehicle that always stays in orbit, doesn't have to reenter, etc. Why lug all of that hardware with you each and every time if you can leave it at the destination. Why require each and every company that wants to launch stuff to a station to then also have to come up with their own prox-ops solution? Solve the problem once, and then you don't have to keep solving it again.

...By having a ferry that operates between LEO and GEO, that has refueling capabilities in LEO, you can launch the largest commercial and government exo-LEO missions without requiring anything bigger than a bottom-of-the-line EELV. In fact, you can even launch manned lunar missions using launchers no bigger than an Atlas V 401 or a Falcon IX...Ferries can be based around either chemical or solar electric propulsion systems. Some cargoes don't mind a slow spiral out through the van Allen belts, and thus can be shipped by the more mass efficient (and hopefully therefore more cost efficient) solar-electric "slow boat". Other cargoes (people, cryogens, and possibly GEO satellites) can be shipped via a much faster chemical ferry. ___SB

If you understand the issues involved--why it is so important to develop these capacities if humans expect to establish a permanent presence in space--you will want to read the entire article, along with the comments.

Imagine if every airliner flying to a city had to taxi down city streets to deliver each passenger to his individual hotel? No, you say, there are taxis and rental cars for that purpose. Exactly! Each vehicle is specialised for particular purposes.

That is what is needed in space. Tugs to receive and deliver cargo and passenger vehicles, and place them reliably into docking. Ferries to transfer satellites to higher orbits, or to transfer passengers and cargo to habitats and stations in other orbits.

Until this minimal infrastructure is developed, one can not truly say that humans are serious about space.

miRNAs and Brain Neurodegenerative Disease

Parkinson's, Alzheimer's--neurodegenerative diseases that cause enormous disability and suffering. New findings in micro-RNA (miRNA) may provide researchers with more therapeutic targets, to combat the neurodegeneration caused by these and other brain diseases.

Micro-RNAs are a hot topic in almost every field of molecular biology right now; we’ve discussed them before here in the context of buffering age-related changes in gene expression. These novel regulatory molecules may also play a critical role in neurodegenerative disease, as described in this conference proceedings review by Pete Nelson and co-workers:

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Aging-related neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) are the culmination of many different genetic and environmental influences. Prior studies have shown that RNAs are pathologically altered during the inexorable course of some NDs. Recent evidence suggests that microRNAs (miRNAs) may be a contributing factor in neurodegeneration. miRNAs are brain-enriched, small (22 nucleotides) non-coding RNAs that participate in mRNA translational regulation. Although discovered in the framework of worm development, miRNAs are now appreciated to play a dynamic role in many mammalian brain-related biochemical pathways, including neuroplasticity and stress responses. Research about miRNAs in the context of neurodegeneration is accumulating rapidly, and the goal of this review is to provide perspective for these new data that may be helpful to specialists in either field. An overview is provided about the normal functions for miRNAs, including some of the newer concepts related to the human brain. Recently published studies pertaining to the roles of miRNAs in NDs––including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and triplet repeat disorders—are described.___Ouroborus

Noncoding RNAs perform many epigenetic and regulatory functions. This relatively new field within genetics is providing a lot of discoveries and new potential therapeutic options.

Update: This recent SEED article by Philip Ball reveals even more complexities in RNA's influence on heredity. Worth a look.

The World Genome: By SNP and by CNV

The image above provides a graphic display of various genomic characteristics of certain ethnic groupings of Earth. A recent Nature letter looked at ethnic genomes by SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) and CNV (copy number variant). The authors found some fascinating genomic distinctions not previously thought to exist.

A new letter in Nature combines data from single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variations (CNVs) across 29 human populations. STRUCTURE results from the paper are below based on SNPs, haplotypes, and CNVs. Note in particular the Green cluster, which was not seen in some previous studies that did not include Oceanian populations, the differentiation between African farmers and hunter-gatherers, and the differentiation between northern and southern Mongoloids evident in the bottom row___Dienekes Anthropology

This is a fascinating beginning to a fuller understanding of who we are, and how we came to be this way. There is a reason why some population groupings are more prosperous, and peaceful than others. Part of the answer lies in the genes. Not just the genetic sequences, but all of the variations within the genome including CNVs and epigenetic mechanisms that vary. It is time to do the work.

The point is, you cannot possibly know until you look. Leftist multicultural obscurantism--denial of cultural and genetic differences--is the largest threat to science at this time. Much larger than creationism, intelligent design, global warming heresies, big oil and coal, George W Bush, or any other of the usual boogey-man "threats to science." Why? Because the leftist multicultural saboteurs of science are already on the inside. They are destroying science from the inside out--which is always a greater threat than the threat from outsiders.

The brains of men and women are different. That is reasonable, given the significant physical differences between men and women. We also see significant physical differences between different ethnicities. Is it possible that there exist subtler differences that affect brain function? Can cultural differences be caused, at least partially, by heritable brain differences?

Biomass-->Pyrolysis-->Biocrude

Forget about burning food. Any kind of biomass--including garbage--can produce biocrude. Biocrude is similar to crude oil. It can be refined to the desired hydrocarbon product.

Pyrolysis is a process in which organic materials - any type of biomass - are heated in absence of air in a reactor (schematic, click to enlarge). Under these conditions, organic vapours, pyrolysis gases and charcoal are produced. Depending on the residence time and the temperature to which the biomass is exposed, varying amounts of these products are obtained.... Under fast pyrolysis (temperatures of 450 - 600 °C), the vapours are condensed to bio-oil and typically, 70-75 wt.% of the feedstock is converted into this oil (also known as 'biocrude' or 'pyrolysis oil').__Biopact

Biocrude projects are proceeding at full speed in Europe, Australia, and North America. The main problem remaining to be solved, is the wide dispersal of biomass. It costs energy to collect and concentrate biomass--to bring it to the central pyrolysis station.

Fortunately, pyrolysis is a scalable process. The pyrolysis infrastructure can be built closer to the source of biomass, and the resulting oil can be transported in bulk via pipeline, river barge, or rail, to refineries.

Currently, political obstructionists have prevented construction of refineries. The bottleneck in hydrocarbon refining keeps costs high to end consumers. We can hope that the obstructionists who prevent energy refining and new energy exploration, will relent in the case of biomass to biocrude to bio-refinery.

InnovaRig: Versatile Deep Drill Rig

The InnovaRig is an advanced deep drilling rig designed for scientific and geothermal exploratory purposes. It can drill to 5000 metres, and requires a minimal drilling crew--compared to oil exploration rigs capable of similar depths. Now, geothermal exploration and other deep earth drilling projects, will no longer need to compete with oil exploration for drilling rigs.

The need for a modern drill rig such as the InnovaRig became apparent in the many research drillings worldwide in which the GFZ participates and is, also, in many cases Principal Investigator. Drilling implies physical strain for the personnel and very often dangerous, hazardous work. Environmental restrictions and - in the case of industrial rigs – often insufficient tools for the scientific investigation of the drilled rocks, pose further problems. InnovaRig thinks conceptionally: hazardous work has been minimised or even completely abolished, due to optimised noise protection-measures, compliance with the exhaust-emission norms and the avoidance of contamination, the rig leaves behind only very minor ecological footprints and it functions cheaper than conventional drill rigs.___Eurekalert

More here and here (PDF)

There are Now Towns in Northern England Where Cousin Marriage is the Norm

It seems that author Mark Steyn is an alarmist for pointing out a few things that are happening in Europe. Apparently, in Europe, telling an uncomfortable truth makes one an alarmist.

My book's thesis — that most of the Western world is on course to become at least semi-Islamic in its political and cultural disposition within a very short time — is "alarmist."...The question then arises: fair enough, guys, what would it take to alarm you?

...Last week, the British and Ontario governments confirmed within days of each other that thousands of polygamous men in their jurisdictions receive welfare payments for each of their wives.

...What does it mean when 57 per cent of Pakistani Britons are married to first cousins and 70 per cent are married to relatives? At the very least, it tells you that this community is strongly resistant to traditional immigrant assimilation patterns.

...Is sharia, polygamy, routine first-cousin marriage in the interests of Canada or Britain or Europe? Oh, dear, even to raise the subject is to tiptoe into all kinds of uncomfortable terrain for the multicultural mindset.___Macleans

What about honour killings, stoning adulterers, killing of apostates, genital mutilation, and the general, run-of-the-mill religious bigotry, hatred, and failure to assimilate?

Without pressure to conform to the norms of a larger society, immigrant muslims will form their own internal power structures--a state within a state. It is inevitable, given the totalitarian nature of Islamic life. Religion, family, government--all wrapped into one set of rules, Sharia. If the secular western government is too reticent to insist upon compliance with civil and criminal law, Muslim law will fill the void.

While leftist multiculturalism claims to view all cultures as at least as good as western culture, the only way for multiculturalists to tolerate the misogyny, homophobic violence, and religious intolerance of Islam, is for them to pretend it does not exist. So they do--pretend. And pretend, and pretend, and pretend. But to what end?

Here is a simple multi-cultural math question. One million male muslim immigrants each marry four female first cousins, from the old country. Each wife has four children, and collects her own welfare check for her household. If the fertility rate for indigenous English girls is close to 1 child per woman, how long before everyone in England is muslim, and living on welfare checks?

Research shows that when third world people move to the first world, the fertility rate of at least the first generation of immigrants goes up. In the case of muslims in Europe, every generation is the first generation, since muslim males send back to the old country for girl cousins to marry.

Top-Secret Ethanol Pipeline Compromised!

For some time we at Al Fin have been hearing disturbing news coming from America's heartland. Members of a shadowy organisation that calls itself "AV" appear to be stealing strategic fuel from a secret and vitally important energy pipeline. The loss of these strategic pipeline reserves places America in grave danger from the dreaded "Peak Energy!"

We are now allowed to reveal for the first time, that agents of Al Fin have infiltrated the mysterious and sinister group known as "AV," to bring you this exclusive report. Further, at great risk to himself and his operatives, Al Fin himself has obtained an early copy of the top-secret pipeline route--a map that was supposed to have been destroyed, and all copies burned!

Here is a partially burned transcript of a conversation between Al Fin and the leader of "AV", occurring inside an abandoned auto parts factory outside of Akron:

Al Fin: You sure have a lot of booze around here! Where do you get it?

AV: [suspiciously] Why youse wanna know?

Al Fin: I thought I might buy some from you. Interested?

AV: [greedily] Sure. It's 50 cents a gallon and don't try to Jew me down neither!

Al Fin: I wouldn't think of it, old boy. By the way, what does AV stand for? Is it some kind of terrorist gang?

AV: AV stands for "alcoholics victorious" get it? Not that stupid AA, alcoholics anonymous. Alcoholics victorious! We ain't no terrorist gang. We's a agnostico-environmental orgn'sation.

Al Fin: Agnostico-environmental organisation? What does that mean, anyway?

AV: It means we's agnostic bouts the environment.

Al Fin: You mean, you don't know if the environment actually exists?

AV: Thassright! We never go outside if we can hep it. So how would we know whas out there?

[editor's note: observe that AV's speech appears to become more incoherent as the conversation goes on. We suspect that he was continuing to drink the pure ethanol throughout the conversation]

Al Fin: Is it possible that your group could be responsible for theft of ethanol from the top-secret ethanol pipeline?

AV: [frowning] If'so to'secret, how's you hear bout?

At this point in the narrative, severe charring of the transcript makes it completely illegible.

Piecing together other bits of evidence from the Al Fin team report, the AV group had managed to track the pipeline's secret route by using pocket mass spectrometers--which detected trace levels of chemical congeners unique to fuel-grade bio-ethanol. By installing secret taps into the strategic ethanol pipeline, AV had drained the nation's energy reserves so low, that a crisis is looming.

At this point in time, Al Fin is missing--unaccounted for. Surviving team members report that Al Fin insisted on going back into AV headquarters alone, to get the rest of the evidence. The brave team leader insisted that other team members return to home base, and report.

Naturally, we have passed along the information we have received, to President Obama's new Department of Homeland Security Chief. We can only hope that Al Fin will escape from AV headquarters before DHS performs its inevitable raid. One tries not to think about it...all that alcohol...echoes of Waco...

Bad Science: PhysOrg.Com Caught Serving "Science" Propaganda? You Decide

Propaganda is as old as mankind. People who have power, or who wish to be in power, have everything to gain by painting a reality that causes the masses to think and behave a certain way. Most of us know that mainstream news--as reported in newspapers, magazines, radio, and television--is often heavily slanted toward a particular point of view. A lot of "news" is, quite frankly, propaganda. We have come to expect this bias. But many of us let down our guard when reading "science news."

For example, many people go to websites such as Physorg.com fully expecting to read objective science news articles and news releases. I have quoted many articles from Physorg myself, and have found the site to provide much useful material, in the past. Imagine my surprise when clicking on a Physorg.com article entitled "Solar evidence points to human causes of climate change", to find a classic propaganda piece, instead of a scientific report substantiating the title.

When skeptical as to the veracity of a report, first check the sourcing. You may think that Physorg.com creates its own stories, but no--like most such news reporting websites, Physorg gets most stories from other sources. In this case, the source is listed as "Harvard University." But Harvard University is not a source, it is an institution. You cannot click on "Harvard University" to find the original release. You may as well list the source as "anonymous," except--the report purportedly deals with the AAAS Annual Meeting, "held in Boston." But there are no links to the particular presentations quoted by the article. (on my own I found this Eurekalert link to the AAAS Annual Meeting News--but so far have not found any reports that match the Physorg article)

Looking further in the article, astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas is quoted, apparently recanting her global warming heresy.

“Did the sun cause what we see on the ground?” she asked. “It doesn’t seem so. But there is some fuzziness in the data, which suggests it could go either way. The answer isn’t known at this time.”

The quote appears incomplete, and is not consistent with Baliunas' overall work, up to the present time. Clearly, the article is leaving something out--quoting Baliunas out of context. But where is the context, the rest of the quote? Where is the sourcing?

The article includes cryptic "quote snips" from David Hathaway:

“Our star, the sun, is a variable star,” said David H. Hathaway, a sunspot specialist from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Hunstville, Alabama. “It varies by about one-tenth of one percent” in energy output. But “there are suggestions the sun" varies "more than that, because we see it has gone through some periods, such as the Maunder minimum.” During the Maunder minimum, which lasted from 1645 to 1715 and is also known as the Little Ice Age, there was an absence or near-absence of sunpots and northern Europe experienced especially cold winters.

...and a very short snip from Baliunas:

There is considerable variability in the 60 sunlike stars she has examined, she said, depending on how fast each rotates and other factors.Unfortunately, she added, “there is no model to explain [solar surface activity] on the century-to-millennium time scale,” and long-term changes in solar output need further study.

Finally, comes the extended summary, tying everything together. Since the article is purportedly about the sun's effect--or lack of effect--on climate, we would expect a solar expert to be allowed to sum up the evidence, to put the final "spin" on the topic. But what "solar expert" did Physorg.com choose to put in the driver's seat?

Caspar Amman, a former student of "Hockey Stick" Michael Mann. Amman is not a solar scientist or astrophysicist. Rather he is a climate modeler with a homepage at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. A climate modeler on the "Hockey Team." Someone with a clear historical link to the discredited Hockey Stick view of climate made so famous by Al Gore. Why would Amman be given the final word on the topic of solar effects on climate--not his area of expertise?

One might wonder. But Amman did not waste the opportunity, not at all.

global warming is occurring at an incredibly rapid rate, faster than any previous episodes of climate change known from the paleo-climate data. Ammann did add, however, that there is reason to hope that the most dire consequences can be avoided. Although it’s clearly too late to avoid the heating of the earth’s atmosphere, “we can substantially cut [it]” by severely reducing the amounts of carbon dioxide going into the air. “It is absolutely achievable,” he said — if by mid-century societies can generate enough will to make the necessary changes.

Amman--a consummate team player--delivers for the team once again.

Where did this article come from? It appears to make the claim that it is based on a presentation (or multiple presentations) at a symposium as part of this year's AAAS meetings in Boston. But how could one tell what it is based on, from the article itself? One cannot. This is sloppy reporting at best, and a transparent attempt at climate propaganda at worst. Which is it? You decide.



Al Gore understood propaganda when he was US Vice President. That is why when he controlled billions of dollars in research fund allocation, he shunted the money to organisations such as NASA Goddard, full of people he could trust to make "the right kind of news."

There have always been plenty of environmental religionists in academia, but Al Gore is the one who gave them billions of dollars to play with, while excluding all “contrarians” from his largesse. As vice president over the eight years when global warming hysteria first made climate science a funding priority, Al Gore allocated every dime. This was his portfolio as President Clinton's climate science czar. With over ten billion dollars to spend (a huge amount for academia), Al Gore created the current climate science industry almost from scratch, transforming what had been a small backwater discipline into a juggernaut of his own framing.

The funding amounts have since multiplied several times, all of it channeled through the religious ideologues that Al Gore originally empowered, men like NASA scientists James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt, two of the most self-conscious frauds in the history of science, all for what they truly believe to be the best of all possible reasons: saving the environment from human economic activity.___ErrorTheory_via_TomNelson

Professional risk analysts--insurance actuaries--are giving climate change short shrift (via TomNelson) on a relative scale of risks. Is it possible that actuaries are looking at the issue a bit more clearly than the climate modelers--who have to paint a grim picture to keep the grants coming? An interesting thought.

I am saving the best part for last--but you will have to do the work. Contrast this PDF document by David Archibald, looking at solar cycles 24 and 25 in relation to near future climate, with the sloppy Physorg.com report above. Where can you find the "meat" as opposed to the "fluff?"

Solar effects on climate cannot be dismissed so easily as Physorg.com appears to believe. The debate is just beginning.

Biofuels: It's the Economy, Stupid!

The long-term prospects of biofuels rest in the economics of production. If biofuels can be produced and marketed economically, they will gradually replace petroleum as fuels for transportation, aviation, heavy equipment, agricultural machines, and freight hauling. I expect biofuels to be the primary fuel for vehicular fuel cells as well. So how do you make biofuels more competitive, economically? Step by step.

AE Biofuels,Inc. (OTCBB: AEBF) is working on:

Eliminating the initial cooking and cooling process significantly reduces energy and water consumption. In addition, the cellulose enzyme technology has proven successful in converting multiple lignocellulosic feedstocks, such switch grass, wheat grass, corn, and corn stover, the remaining corn “stalks” that are not currently being utilized as biomass, to ethanol. The multi-activity enzymes are expected to reduce capital and operating expenditures for cellulose ethanol production.__AEBF_via_Businesswire

Reducing the costs of concentrating the alcohol would help the economics of production significantly. Mitsui, GreenField Ethanol/Vaperma, and others are trying to develop membrane separation techniques (see graphic above) that would allow them to separate ethanol from water less expensively than using distillation for the entire separation.

Human ingenuity generally approaches such problems as this in a reductionist manner. Each step is looked at separately, in an attempt to achieve the same results in a simpler, cheaper, more productive manner. A useful technique is then to "step back" mentally, in increments, to look at groupings of process steps, deciding whether some steps might be streamlined or eliminated altogether.

I suspect that such process innovation might be amenable to "savant thinking", at least in part. Humans have two cerebral hemispheres, which function somewhat differently--just as humans have two sexes, male and female, which function differently. Both hemispheres (and both sexes) are vitally important in achieving optimal solutions. With the coming of electromagnetic autism, we may find ingenious ways of turning exceptional creativity on and off with a switch.

H/T No1203:Biofuels

Savantic Latency: Mind the Current

Are you a latent savant, with hidden mental powers waiting only for the proper trigger, to reveal themselves? Perhaps. A recent posting by commenter Mike led to this provocative NYT article from 2003 about the work of esteemed neuroscientist Allan W. Snyder:

If Snyder's suspicions are correct, in fact, and savants have not more brainpower than the rest of us, but less, then it's even possible that everybody starts out life as a savant. Look, for example, at the ease with which children master complex languages -- a mysterious skill that seems to shut off automatically around the age of 12. ''What we're doing is counterintuitive,'' Snyder tells me. ''We're saying that all these genius skills are easy, they're natural. Our brain does them naturally. Like walking. Do you know how difficult walking is? It's much more difficult than drawing!''

...Snyder's theories are bolstered by the documented cases in which sudden brain damage has produced savant abilities almost overnight. He cites the case of Orlando Serrell, a 10-year-old street kid who was hit on the head and immediately began doing calendrical calculations of baffling complexity. Snyder argues that we all have Serrell's powers. ''We remember virtually everything, but we recall very little,'' Snyder explains. ''Now isn't that strange? Everything is in there'' -- he taps the side of his head. ''Buried deep in all our brains are phenomenal abilities, which we lose for some reason as we develop into 'normal' conceptual creatures. But what if we could reawaken them?''____Source

Snyder, who has been publishing in the scientific literature for several decades, currently experiments with transcranial electromagnetic stimulation to bring out latent abilities mental.

The researchers think that by temporarily inhibiting activity in the left anterior temporal cortex, the TMS allowed the brain’s number estimator to act on raw sensory data, without it having already been automatically grouped together into patterns or shapes. In other words, they believe it caused the 'normal' brain to function more like an autistic 'savant' brain.___Source

Some forms of electromagnetic stimulation enhance the function of the stimulated portion of brain, and other forms of EMS suppress the function of the stimulated brain. Such a tool can function in an analogous way to a reversible "knock-out gene" in genetics research. By removing particular "instruments from the brain's symphony", we can glimpse the workings of a differently arranged brain.

It is not really a matter of whether savants have more or less brainpower than the rest of us. It is a matter of how the brain is being used. As people gain experience in life, they use forms of "mental shorthand" to speed repetitive mental functions. We do not actually read every word, but rather clump words and paragraphs into "essential meanings" to save time as we read. It seems that by taking shortcuts, we gain some time, and possibly lose something else.

"Modern" education is geared to shortcut thinking. The savants are "weeded out" by our educational system, because they make the teacher's work harder. Teachers have forgotten how to see the world in "raw" terms, without the learned shortcuts. The savants do not fit, so we toss them in with the refuse, or drug the savant out of them.

Yet, never have we needed the savants more than today, when modern societies find themselves in traps of their own making, but without any understanding of what is needed to open the cage door. Political systems are tightening the trap, and every proposed and attempted solution promises to make the situation worse. Political "change" is merely shorthand for a re-dressing of more-of-the-same. Savants have the ability to see elements of a problem that are hiding in plain sight.

An autistic savant is different from a genius savant, or prodigy. A normal person with savant-latency is a different creature still. Presumably, after the brain stimulation is turned off, the normal-cum-savant reverts back to normalcy. Autistic savants and prodigies typically retain their gifts for much longer periods of time, although not always permanently. Most of us probably wish to be polymaths, which may be possible eventually, with more advanced brain stimulation, or brain machine interfaces.

Here is more about the polymath.

More on Snyder's work here.

BTW, check out the new blog Brain Stimulant, if you are interested in brain electromagnetic stimulation.

Enviro-Paradise vs. Industrial Wasteland

In one simple satellite photo, one can see a stark contrast between energy-wasting South Korea, and pristine, energy-saving North Korea. Under capitalism, South Korea has clearly become an industrial wasteland--profligate in its unsparing energy extravagance. North Korea under communism has grown into a veritable enviro-paradise to a degree virtually unknown anywhere else in the world.

A better argument against capitalism and in favour of communism could not be constructed in words. Well, actually Al Fin could construct a better argument in words, but he is far too humble to admit it.

So take a moment to comtemplate if all the world were like North Korea--what a wonderful world it would be.

Image H/T WattsUpwithThat via NCMediaWatch

Math and Sex: Aptitude vs. Discrimination

There are far more men who are talented at math, than females who are talented at math. Researchers Camilla Benbow, David Geary, and others have established that claim quite well.

In the 1980s one of us (Benbow), along with the late psychologist Julian C. Stanley, who founded this study at the John Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, observed sex differences in mathematical reasoning ability among tens of thousands of intellectually talented 12- to 14-year-olds who had taken the SAT several years before the typical age.

Among this elite group, no significant differences were found on the verbal part of the SAT, but the math part revealed sex differences favoring boys. There were twice as many boys as girls with math scores of 500 or higher (out of a possible score of 800), four times as many boys with scores of at least 600, and 13 times as many boys with scores of at least 700 (putting these test takers in the top 0.01 percent of 12- to 14-year-olds nationwide).

...The ratio of boys to girls, first observed at 13 to 1 in the 1980s, has been dropping steadily and is now only about 3 to 1. During the same period the number of women in a few other scientific fields has surged. In the U.S., women now make up half of new medical school graduates and 75 percent of recent veterinary school graduates....This period coincides with a trend of special programs and mentoring to encourage girls to take higher-level math and science courses. And direct evidence exists that specifically targeted training could boost female performance even further. A special course created by engineering professor Sheryl A. Sorby and mathematics education specialist Beverly J. Baartmans at Michigan Technological University, for example, targeted improvement in visuospatial skills.

...Decades of data from studies of different animal species show that hormones can play a role in determining the cognitive abilities that males and females develop. For example, during typical prenatal male development, high levels of hormones such as testosterone masculinize the developing brain and result in male-typical behaviors and probably male patterns of cognitive performance...More recent studies have shown that hormones continue to play a role in cognitive development throughout life. Such changes have been observed in individuals receiving large quantities of male or female hormones in preparation for sex-change surgery. Researchers found, for example, that people undergoing female-to-male hormone treatment show “masculine” changes in their cognitive patterns: improvements in visuospatial processing and decrements in verbal skills.

The human brain is shaped by these hormones, as well as by our genetic inheritance and a lifetime of experiences, so it should not be surprising that numerous differences appear in female and male brains. In general, females have a higher percentage of gray matter brain tissue, areas with closely packed neurons and fast blood flow, whereas males have a higher volume of connecting white matter tissue, nerve fibers that are insulated by a white fatty protein called myelin. Furthermore, men tend to have a higher percentage of gray matter in the left hemisphere, whereas no such asymmetries are significant in females.

Imaging studies assessing brain function support the notion that females perform better on tasks such as language processing that call on more symmetric activation of brain hemispheres, whereas males excel in tasks requiring activation of the visual cortex. Even when men and women perform the same task equally well, studies suggest they sometimes use different parts of their brain to accomplish it.__SciAm_Benbow,Geary, etal

The article above mentioned an improvement in the number of women scoring above 700 on the SAT corresponding to special (and expensive) outreaches to women, to help them improve math and visuo-spatial skills. Other research has shown that when both men and women are provided with the supplemental training, that the gender gap remains unchanged--even widens. Thus, it appears that it may be important to continue to deprive boys and men of special training, while continuing to provide such training to girls and women--if we want to narrow the gap.

Wiser societies would focus upon the need for better scientists and engineers--of whatever gender. But our society appears to be fixated upon the concept of "gender equity", which is unknown to biology and mother nature. If gender equity requires a type of "brain-binding" of males, to achieve equity--or even female superiority--so be it.

It appears that the journal Nature is under attack by gender-equity feminists, for supposedly discriminating against female scientists and/or technologists. For hyper-egalitarians, any statistical inequity is de facto evidence of discrimination. Logically, such hyper-egalitarians are an shaky ground, but in a post-modernist world, logic carries far less weight than it once did.

Peel Scalp, Open Skull, Apply Electrodes

Medical indications for the placement of brain electrodes are multiplying. Parkinson's, paralysis, pain control, epilepsy, depression, deafness, blindness, and many more. It is good that the techniques for brain electrode implantation are growing more sophisticated.

1. Electrodes on the scalp can only detect electrical waves that have passed through the skull, producing a weak signal susceptible to interference from mains electricity and other sources.
2. Electrodes implanted directly into the brain produce much clearer signals, but are not well tolerated by the body. "The brain tries to get rid of [the electrodes] by covering them with a sheet of tissue," explains Schalk. "The signal degrades over time."
3. Schalk and colleagues at Albany Medical College, Washington University in St Louis, University of Washington, Seattle, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, all US, think a third approach will face fewer hurdles...They cover part of the brain's surface with a polymer sheet containing a grid of electrodes 2 millimetres in diameter and spaced 10 mm apart, a method called electrocorticography (ECOG). Such electrode grids are often placed in people with severe epilepsy to identify the focus of seizures within the brain.

"These grids are thin like a sheet of paper," says Schalk. "The electrodes record signals similar to those recorded by electrodes on the scalp, but with much greater fidelity."___ NewScientist

So far, the new approach looks good for long-term electrode array implantation. As the electrode arrays become more sophisticated, so do the possibilities for communication between the brain and electronic machines.

'When we turn the current on, the patients report the emptiness suddenly disappears'...By inserting electrodes into the brain while the patient is conscious (so that the surgeon knows if they have hit the right spot), Dr Mayberg found remarkable results. When she published her work, she said: "In the operating room, when we first turn the current on and get into the right location, the patients report that the heaviness or emptiness suddenly disappears. If they had a sense of a black cloud, they report it physically lifting."

The moment the electrodes were turned off, some of the positive effects vanished, but the overall results - four out of six patients were lifted from depression for six months - were encouraging.___Source

Wireheading is the science fiction concept of being able to connect the brain directly to an external electronic signal--for either "electronic bliss" or for purposes of high level communication with sophisticated computing devices (or with other wireheads).

The more sophisticated the brain electrode arrays, the more sophisticated the possible mind-machine or mind-mind interactions. "Brain chips" are already learning how to transfer neural signals across a "brain necrotic divide," as from a stroke. Such chips are slowly growing beyond mere relay stations, to learning to decode simple neural signals. As such experience grows, neurochips will learn even better neural communications skills.

In the brain, it is all about the connections, the timing, the amplitudes, and the frequencies. The smart approach to learning our way around brain signaling would be to implant smart arrays of electrodes that merely sit, watch, wait, correlate, analyse, theorise, and test theories. It goes without saying that such experiments with passive brain electrode arrays would also contribute to machine cognition research. Conversely, better machine cognition based upon brain emulation, would provide neuro-researchers with better models for testing theories and hypotheses.

Just getting started? No, just starting to get started.

30 Cents a Gallon Ethanol, Honda Co-Generates?

ZeaChem and Coskata are promising high volume bio-ethanol at US $1 a gallon, by 2012. New Canadian startup Syntec promises even cheaper bio-ethanol--40 cents a gallon.

The Syntec B2A technology, initially developed at the University of British Columbia, is focused on second-generation cellulosic ethanol production. The Syntec process parallels the low-pressure catalytic synthesis process used by methanol producers. Syntec's innovative technology uses any renewable waste biomass such as hard or soft wood, sawdust or bark, organic waste, agricultural waste (including sugar cane bagasse and corn stover), and switch-grass to produce syngas. This syngas, comprised of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, is then scrubbed and passed through a fixed bed reactor containing the Syntec catalysts to produce ethanol, methanol and higher order alcohols. The Syntec technology can also produce alcohols from biogas (sourced from anaerobic digestion of manure and effluent), landfill gas or stranded methane.__NextEnergy

Better information regarding the efficiencies of biofuels indicates that recent articles published in Science that were extremely critical of biofuels efficiencies, were highly misleading. The category of "biofuels" is too wide, varied, and inclusive to be susceptible to simplistic analyses such as were presented in the articles referred to by the link above.

The waste heat from internal combustion engines used in passenger and freight vehicles could be put to better use than heating the atmosphere. Honda is looking to put heat-mining technology in its hybrid vehicles.

Honda is exploring the use of a Rankine cycle co-generation unit to improve the overall efficiency of a hybrid vehicle by recapturing waste exhaust heat from the internal combustion engine and converting it to electricity to recharge the battery pack. Honda engineer Kensaku Yamamoto presented an overview of the work in a paper at the 2008 SAE Hybrid Vehicle Technology Symposium in San Diego.

Test results showed that in 100 kph (62 miles/hour) constant-speed driving, the use of the Rankine cycle improved the thermal efficiency of the engine by 3.8%. In the US highway cycle, the Rankine cycle system regenerated three times as much energy as the vehicle’s regenerative braking system.___GCC __via_Ecogeek

Hopeful discoveries in gas storage technology may make gas-phase powered vehicles more feasible.

In the case of gas storage, MOFs offer the crucial advantage of soaking up some of the gas pressure exerted by the molecules. This makes hydrogen derived from non-fossil energy sources such as biomass, or even genetically engineered plants, potentially viable as a fuel for cars while the alternative of pressurised canisters is not, says Ferey. The key difference is that the amount of gas stored in a conventional cylinder at say 200 atmospheres pressure could be accommodated in an MOF vessel of the same size at just 30 atmospheres, which is much safer...The porous nature of MOFs enables them to be exploited in quite another way as catalysts to accelerate chemical reactions for a wide variety of materials production and pharmaceutical applications, although this field, as Ferey noted, is still in its infancy. ____Source

This technology will likely require another ten or more years to become available for production model vehicles. By then, it is likely that series hybrids powered by bio:fuel cells will be common, incorporating a number of different ways of capturing waste heat to re-charge auxiliary batteries and super-capacitors.

Energy, the Outer Limits

In Outer Space, there are no limits. That is why any true capitalist would not be satisfied to own a business empire that is limited to one planet. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, Richard Branson, Robert Bigelow, and other successful capitalists wish to extend their empires beyond Earth.

And for good reason. There are enough resources in the asteroid belt alone to make every human being on Earth into mega-billionaires. And beyond the belt?

Consider Titan, the orange moon of Saturn. Titan is awash with hundreds of times more hydrocarbons than all of Earth's known reserves of oil and natural gas.

"Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material -- it's a giant factory of organic chemicals," said Lorenz. "This vast carbon inventory is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan."___Source

Can there be any question about the possibility of abiotic hydrocarbons beneath the surface of Earth?

But one does not have to go into outer space to run into the limits of scientific explanation for energy phenomena. As close as the Ottawa area, one can find a home experimenter playing with forces that even MIT engineers cannot explain.

Just before the big day at MIT, the Star spoke with professor Markus Zahn about what he expected to observe..."It's hard for me to give an opinion," said Zahn, who admitted he was excited to see the demonstration. "I don't believe it will violate the laws of physics. You're not going to get more energy out than you put in."

...Contacted by phone a few hours after the test, Zahn is genuinely stumped – and surprised. He said the magnet shouldn't cause acceleration. "It's an unusual phenomena I wouldn't have predicted in advance. But I saw it. It's real. Now I'm just trying to figure it out."

There's no talk of perpetual motion. No whisper of broken scientific laws or free energy. Zahn would never go there – at least not yet. But he does see the potential for making electric motors more efficient, and this itself is no small feat.___Star__via NewEnergyandFuel

No, there is no perpetual motion, as such. But there is acceleration where it is not exactly clear that there should be any.

To quote Professor Zahn again with his thoughts that strongly seized my attention, “To my mind this is unexpected and new, and it’s worth exploring all the possible advantages once you’re convinced it’s a real effect,” he added. “There are an infinite number of induction machines in people’s homes and everywhere around the world. If you could make them more efficient, cumulatively, it could make a big difference.”___NewEnergy

YouTube Video Demonstration(parts 1 and 2--others available at YouTube)

African Biofuels: What to Expect

The 3rd Annual African Biofuels conference is to be held on 10-13 March 2008 in Midrand, South Africa.The African Biofuels conference aims to:

• Provide in-depth insight into the growing African biofuels market

• Offer critical global information for the enhancement of biofuels-related businesses

• Cover every major aspect of the industry from policy and pricing to feedstock crops and CDM

• Give delegates exposure to more than 400 peers and over 50 technology and service providers

• Host a dedicated SMME Workshop for the development of small scale producers___Source

Africa has vast areas of land with great biofuels potential.

...the high rainfall belt between Angola, Zambia and Mozambique alone had the potential to rival the United States as a producer of...bioethanol.

"It's almost as big as the size of the midwest of America. It has the same of type of potential and could actually outperform America___Source

It is important for Africans not to repeat the mistakes of the United States maize ethanol producers.

"Two potential crops have been identified for the fuel ethanol initiative in Nigeria: sugarcane and cassava. Nigeria is currently reputed to be the leading producer of cassava in the world of about 30 million tons annually," states Onochie Anyaoku, group general manager of NNPC's Renewables Division. "The potential must be seen against the background that the average yield in Nigeria is put at about 15 tons/hectare as compared to 25-30 tons/hectare obtainable in other countries.___Source

Cassava and sugarcane both grow well in many parts of Africa. Cane gives much higher yields of alcohol than maize, and cassava fits more growing regions of Africa than maize.

Which crop grown in Africa produces twice as much as maize and three times as much as millet or sorghum? And which crop has seen Africa emerge as overall leader, accounting for more than half of the world output, with Nigeria as the biggest producer? Which same crop has seen production levels triple on the continent over the past 50 years? And now covers one-third of the dietary needs of its population? The answer is cassava.___Source

For biodiesel, we can expect Chinese and other giga-investors to attempt large-scale deforestation in Africa for Palm Oil plantations--just as they are doing in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. But Jatropha is the better oil seed crop for Africa, since it grows in the same fields as other crops--while improving the topsoil from its shed leaves, a rich fertiliser.

Interest is particularly growing in the perennial oil nut bearing jatropha tree, which is viewed as the most feasible plant for dry-land cultivation for the extraction of bio-oil...The plant was often used for snakebites, as an insect repellent and for constipation.

The jatropha tree originates from South America, but was brought to the southern African region by Portuguese explorers....The seeds of the plant grow on low fertility soils in low and high rainfall areas; it has a small gestation period, and can be harvested in non-rainy seasons.

The size of the plant is also convenient for collection of seeds. It produces seeds with a high oil-content (30 to 40 percent) after two to five years, depending on soil fertility and rainfall. According to Mwewa, the plant can yield one liter of oil from three kilogrammes of the nuts, and harvesting can be done over a 50-year period.

The oil from the jatropha plant can be transformed into bio-diesel fuel - which is produced from the reaction of vegetable oil with alcohol in the presence of a catalyst to yield mono-alkyl esters and glycerine, which is then removed - through an etherification process...What makes it more popular amongst protagonists of bio-fuels is because of its toxicity, it is not for human consumption, and therefore not in competition with food crops. Threats to food security are recognised as the primary drawback of large-scale bio-fuels development.___Source

If the Africans can avoid the destruction of large swathes of of rainforest, and stay out of the maize ethanol trap, do not depend on food crops for fuel, and most importantly--do not betray the small farmers in favour of the giga-conglomerates, she may grow into a significant player in the world sustainable energy game, without paying an onerous environmental and sociological price.