| Friday, June
8, 2007
Jim Vogan's letter
Jerry,
I think you made a temperate reply to a somewhat
snippy letter. There is a dirty little secret buried in the prose of Mr.
Vogan:
>From my layman's understanding (due mostly to
"Scientific American"), the main reason for >singling out CO2 as a
likely primary cause for global warming is the distinctive signature it
>produces in the range of temperature readings in the atmosphere and on
the ground, over >land and over water, during night and day, over time.
For example, solar irradiation would >heat the upper atmosphere as much
or more than the lower atmosphere, whereas the CO2 >green house effect
actually lowers the temperature of the upper atmosphere by reducing >the
amount of reflected infrared radiation which reaches it. CO2
concentration varies over >land and water (and over different large land
regions, such as the Amazonian jungle), which >allows us to distinguish
its effects somewhat from those of other greenhouse gases. That is, >one
makes various hypotheses and then looks at the data to see which are
supported and >which are refuted, per the scientific method.
The hidden item is that water (both vapor, liquid and
solid) is MUCH more important than carbon dioxide for global warming (by
probably two orders of magnitude). It is very hard to divine how this
'signature' of carbon dioxide would differ from that of water. The real
effect, if any, of carbon dioxide is on water vapor, which because of its
far greater concentration and innate IR spectrum, then MIGHT multiply the
effect of CO2. Since the modelers can't model the complex water system, with
its three phases, and scattering components, they choose to model something
simpler (CO2) which occurs only in one phase, the gas phase, and which thus
has no scattering (ar albedo effect).
This approach is typical of modelers, and is not
necessarily bad as a first step in understanding phenomena. What IS bad is
treating the results as Holy script which cannot be questioned. TO
paraphrase
Star Trek (Wolf in the Fold):
"I know something of physical laws and you're engaging
in sheer speculation!"
Keep up the good work!
All the best,
Bob (a layman in climatology, but a professional
scientist for 40 years)
==========
Subject: The teacher porn case in Connecticut
Jerry,
It is very good that someone came to their senses,
realized this teacher was the victim of an uninformed witch hunt, and
overturned the conviction. But she still doesm't have a final resolution.
Aside from the couple of years of her life that have
been stolen, I imagine her legal bills could be running into the hundred's
of thousands, even with some pro bono representation. I wonder how she will
be compensated for that? Recently, we had a case here where a rapist who had
served 20 years in prison was found, via DNA evidence, to be innocent of the
crime for which he had been convicted. He got a $5 Million dollar settlement
for the 20 years of freedom he lost. Seems that ought to set a precedent.
And what about the bureacratic idiots who let this go
forward? Shouldn't the DA, or someone in the police department be fired for
incompetence?
If I were in this women's shoes, I'd have a huge
lawsuit waiting to go against the school district which provided her with a
computer that had obviously inadequate security - no fire wall, no spam
blocker. Seems that the real liability and responsibility lies with them.
I'm sure the various players have that in the back of their mind - how can
we walk away from this without exposing the school district to a huge
financial liability. Let's hope some equitable (more or less) back room deal
is about to be worked out.
CP, Connecticut.
=========
: "in those times they were using low grade heat to
warm buildings"
You reminded me of something.
In 1981, I worked a summer job at Charter Information
in Austin, TX. They were running a Xerox Sigma 6 computer (transistorized, I
think, maybe ICs). They'd moved the company down from Woburn MA a few years
earlier.
During a bull session one afternoon, they mentioned
that, when they'd set up the offices in Woburn, they'd run a duct, with a
valve, from the computer's cooling air exhaust into the building HVAC ducts.
Result: They heated their offices through Boston winter with JUST the waste
heat from the computer. They had an oil burner, but they never had to light
it up.
--John
=========
Wireless energy promise powers up
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6725955.stm
US researchers have successfully tested an
experimental system to deliver power to devices without the need for wires.
The setup, reported in the journal Science, made a 60W
light bulb glow from a distance of 2m (7ft).
Bill Shields
==========
Trade Secrets Revealed by Robert Silverberg
Hello Jerry,
Did you ever wonder what the three basic
characteristics are of a professional writer?
Robert Silverberg, who has won Hugo and Nebula awards
and who has professionally published fiction since the 1950’s, reveals trade
secrets that you cannot get anywhere else. His insight into the fiction
writing trade and getting published is amazing. You will love the 3 basic
steps Mr. Silverberg elaborates about in his exclusive article “To A Writer
Just Starting Out”.
If you ever felt that there was something you were
missing to break through as a fiction writer but you could never put your
finger on it exactly, read the article by Robert Silverberg.
Go to:
http://www.galaxypress.com/pub/tradesecrets.php
We wish you the best of luck and success in your
endeavors to get your stories published!
Peter Breyer GALAXY PRESS
Above was a general release by Writers of the
Future, but if you are interested in writing, Silverberg is worth listening
to.
==========
A penny a mile
It's not a great looking car but it goes 85MPH, does
150 miles between charges and costs only $30,000. The best part would be no
more imported oil.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/04/04/
afvi-show-miles-automotive-on-the-30-000-
javlon-xs500-all-elec/
Loy Myers
==========
Civil War Bookshelf -- my comments on Amazon Shorts
http://cwbn.blogspot.com/
Dear Jerry:
You may find this link to the comments I sent to
Dmitri Rotov of the Civil War Bookshelf of interest.
Regards,
Francis Hamit
==
Review of The Access Principle
http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/journal.html
The above is an unexpected bonus linked to Rotov's web
site. Enjoy.
Francis Hamit
==========
Subject: Re: Waste heat recovery
"I haven't looked into cogeneration techniques for
twenty years; in those times they were using low grade heat to warm
buildings, and saving money in doing that. I am sure we have better
methods now."
Dr. Pournelle, That is exactly the right thing to do
with waste heat. In fact, the entire metropolitan area of Gothenburg,
Sweden, (and I'm sure other places, but that's the one I know about) is
heated in such a manner (and living where they live they need heat for quite
a bit of the year). All of the industry in the city uses a common municipal
system for cooling their equipment, which is in turn circulated through the
radiators of the buildings in the city. Or, if it is summer, the city dumps
the heat for them (some sort of heat exchanger, maybe seawater. I'm not sure
of the details.)
I wholeheartedly support such intelligent, win-win
energy savings measures. I think a lot of No.2 home heating fuel could be
saved if more municipalities with industry would do such a thing.
Working in the heavy duty on-road diesel engine
industry, we expend a lot of effort chasing every erg of possible fuel
efficiency, since that is really the driving performance criteria in our
market. I've done lots of analysis of various waste heat recovery methods,
including turbocompounding, thermoelectric, and heat engines of all sorts.
Several of them would be worth it for steady-state applications like gensets
and so-forth, but the transient nature of vehicle engines give a bunch of
them fits. Turbocompounding works, but it isn't a magic bullet. A colleague
of mine recently did a 2nd law analysis on one of our engines and concluded
that even though nearly 30% of the fuel energy goes out the stack as heat,
only 9% was available, even with a Carnot engine. Then you have to start
applying real-life efficiencies to that 9%.
In the case of a 500 HP diesel, 9% is still a fairly
significant absolute number. But running a waste heat recovery device off of
a ~300 watt CPU heat sink is perhaps something else again.
On the gripping hand, it might be time to start
grasping at the tenths-of-a-percent efficiency that we had considered as
just scratching in the dirt before.
Regards, Mike Smith
=
Dr. Pournelle,
Just one more quick thought; waste heat could be used
very effectively for running alcohol fuel distilleries (the waste heat
stream would only have to be 212 F, max). That would take the energy
required to distill the fuel out of the energy balance for alcohol fuels for
transportation. I wonder if that would be one of the better usages on
balance for low grade heat…
Apologies for so many emails in one day,
Mike Smith
=========
Subject: waste heat recovery
Hi Jerry,
Here's an easily understood example of waste heat
recovery.
Most of your readers have a good combination of smarts
and curiosity. Anyone who has ever put their hand in front of the outdoor
part of their air conditioner (the condenser coil), or seen a pile of
sleeping kittens on the kitchen floor in front of an older refrigerator will
have noticed that those appliances reject heat to the surrounding
environment.
I'm sure the same people have also noticed the large
amount of walk-in and reach-in coolers and freezers in an average
supermarket. Those coolers and freezers work on the same principle. They
manipulate the pressure-temperature relationship of chemical refrigerants (freon)
to move heat from where it isn't wanted to where it doesn't matter. In
places that have cold winters, supermarkets often get a significant
percentage of heat for the store by capturing the otherwise wasted heat from
their freezers.
I've also seen commercial applications where the heat
rejected by the office air conditioners was captured and used for some
industrial process in the shop or lab. Just like any other form of energy,
the trick is getting a usable amount of heat to the place where you want it.
I once worked with a guy who tried to use the heat from his air conditioner
to heat water for the dishwasher, but the exchanger he built blocked too
much of the airflow around the AC condenser and only heated his water a few
degrees. Just last night, I was on a no AC service call at a cable company
switching hub. Once I got the AC running, the airflow at the condenser
measured 157 degrees F. I suppose that IF the cable company had a vehicle
maintenance garage right next door, AND it was the dead of winter, a fan and
some insulated ductwork might allow them to recover some waste heat to keep
the garage mechanics comfortable...
So, waste heat recovery is feasible in some
applications, but not so in others. Bring on SPS and nuclear!
Dave Porter
========
Subject: Wireless Power Transmission
Hello Dr. P.
Here's a link to an article describing successful
experiments (baby steps) in wireless power transmission. The article
contains a link to another article about SPS.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19098305/from/ET/
Glad you got out of DC relatively unscathed.
Dave Porter
=========
Chaos Mannor porn accusation
"I could not have been more shocked if I had seen porn
at Chaos Manor." --Brendan Kelly
I was amused, because your reply to the immediately
previous letter was,
"No Quarantines! Open Borders! Free Trade! My God how
the money rolls in."
And of course the last sentence is the refrain of a
pornagraphic song.
R H
You have an odd idea of what is pornographic.
I would think pornography would have an element of attractiveness and
perhaps seduction. The Old Left ballad I quoted is blasphemous and obscene,
but hardly pornographic.
There are many versions of "My God how the
money rolls in" but none I know are pornographic. For example
My brother's a church missionary
He's saving young girlies from sin,
He'll save you a blonde for a shilling,
My God how the money rolls in!
is hardly pornographic.
My father makes cheap prophylactics,
He punctures each one with a pin,
While mother grows rich from abortions,
My God how the money rolls in!
is no more so. There are probably a
hundred such verses, and none seem pornographic to me.
=========
Subj: Bacterial drug resistance: evolution in action
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/22/9451?
maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=
&fulltext=mwangi&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype
=HWCIT
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
==========
Subject: offshore methane bubbling up
I've just read Mr. Vogan's letter. It's disturbing to
see how many apparently intelligent people have been duped by the
Environmentalist lobby. Observation led me to the conclusion that the goals
of the Environmentalists are solely political; they're not seeking
solutions, they're seeking political control over the production and
distribution of energy. You suggested instigating oceanic algae blooms to
remove C02 since the '70s, with the caveat that the carbon becomes
irretrievable; even today we don't know if our apparent warming trend
signals global warming or sudden glaciation. (Sudden warming appears to
precede ice ages in the geological record.)
I've suggested making silvered mylar mirrors for the
nations comprising Saharan Africa. The stuff is cheap enough to make give
away sunglasses, how much would it cost to cover the Sahara? As much as our
rebuilding of New Orleans? The temperature of the Sahara is a suspected
cause of the hurricanes that strike our east coast and the Gulf of Mexico. I
doubt the natives of Mauritania, Mali, Algeria, Libya, Niger, Chad or the
Sudan would complain if this appreciably lowered their summer temperature.
Sunlight doesn't warm the air, sunlight warms the earth and the earth warms
the air. Reflect the sunlight before it strikes the earth and you're going
to be cooler than if you hadn't. The Sahara was a pastureland at the dawn of
the Holocene.
I've just read an article on Charles Paull, a
geologist with the University of North Carolina, who has found some methane
hydrate deposits off the north shore of Alaska and the Yukon and Northwest
Territories that have been bubbling up methane since being covered with
water at the dawn of the Holocene.
http://www.mbari.org/news/news_releases/2007/paull-plfs.html
Methane hydrate is an ice like solid that forms when
bacteria in ocean sediment creates methane, which then combines with sea
water and freezes, staying on the ocean floor. Additional methane created
afterward is trapped by the methane hydrate solid. Oil companies have been
investigating these beds as a possible power source since the '70s but have
been deterred due to the cost and the difficulty in handling the stuff. The
attraction was in the estimated amount; 10,000 gigatons of carbon, roughly
twice the world supply of petroleum. That estimate was made through seismic
mapping in the 70s, and since then more deposits have been found in non
seismic reflective areas.
Paull and other geologists have found offshore
depressions "500 to 700 meters wide and 20 to 30 meters deep" caused by
methane hydrate loss to the atmosphere. This may occur suddenly and
catastrophically, and several underwater landslides have their suspected
cause in the phenomenon. This is also a reason energy companies are less
than enthusiastic about attempting to harvest this resource. Losing a
drilling rig to a tsunami puts a pinch in the profit margin.
From the September 1996 Science News Online:
http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arch/11_9_96/bob1.htm
"James P. Kennett of the University of California,
Santa Barbara has recently discovered intriguing evidence implicating
methane hydrates as an instigator of climate change. Sediments off the
California coast show signs that carbon isotopic ratios in the ocean shifted
quite dramatically and quickly at several times during the last 70,000
years. Because methane has a distinctive isotopic fingerprint that matches
the shifts, Kennett suggests that large volumes of methane must have poured
into the ocean at these times."
Sea bed methane and the current increase in the solar
magnetic field are both recently proven to severely affect the world
climate, but neither offer hope of political power. The Communists knew to
execute their political rivals when they had the chance. Now that they've
renamed themselves to Environmentalists (having switched their perversion of
science from history and economics to ecology) they're laughing at us for
not learning their lesson to history.
-Ben Capoeman
==============
Paris Hilton
I know is theoretically a very low-brow and silly
story, with the infamous Paris Hilton getting out of jail after only three
days and ensuing outcry. Sort of celebrity pap, right?
But I found it very interesting that the Judge and
Prosecutors were angry enough over her sentence being commuted that they’re
pondering action against the Sherrif’s department… and they managed to have
her arrested again and hauled up in front of a judge!
http://www.tmz.com/2007/06/08/paris-handcuffed-and-tossed-into-cruiser/
Apparently the huge outcry was a factor. I guess
someone up in LA wants people to think the law is actually fair and applies
to the rich. Whodathunk it?
Bit of a punch in the nose to anarch-tyranny, huh?
David N. Scott
==
Unremitting justice. Without mercy. Careful what
you wish for.
Jerry Pournelle Chaos Manor
==
Hmmm. Sir, thou hast perturbed me. I'll have to think
on that angle.
I've added your thoughts to what was previously a more
cheerful take:
http://pererro.blogspot.com/2007/06/jerry-pournelle-on-paris-hilton.html
As to be a bit more fair.
I suppose the person being chosen to be the example
has many reasons to think it unfair, even if it seems fair for there to be
examples.
Thx,
David N. Scott
=========
Subject: DOD investigating Solar Power Satellites
Hello Dr. Pournelle,
It seems that the DOD (not DARPA) actually has a team
doing a feasibility study on solar power satellites. This article from Wired
<http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/06/post.html>
names LTC M. V. Smith (USAF) as one individual involved.
[snip]
Through the study, officials are also trying to
“identify all the collateral-type of technologies that go into building
space-based solar power <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite>
so that we can break those down and perhaps identify those with additional
emphasis as we press forward with budgeting and programming over the next
several years,” Smith said.
Scientists who have considered this concept are either
enthusiastic or skeptical, Smith said. “We’re pretty confident that the
truth lies somewhere in the middle.”
He added that the study is not a way for DOD
[Department of Defense] to jump into a “new program with wild enthusiasm,
but it is a time to take a look at a new concept with prudent caution and
step forward smartly.”
[snip]
This is only a feasibility study, but this is the kind
of long-range (multi-decade) planning that few, if any, private companies do
anymore. Most such studies are simply shelved, I know, but hopefully, this
one will be one of the exceptions.
Bill Hembree
============
Subject: Compassion?
Dr. Pournelle,
You stated (several times) in today's Current View:
> Unremitting justice without compassion.
Which seems to also be your view of how to handle
illegal immigrants.
I have seen very little compassion from the
'compassionate conservatives'.
As for Ms. Hilton, she's thumbed her nose at the law
long enough. It's time she paid the piper.
Regards, Jim Young
Primo, I have never claimed to be a
"compassionate conservative." Just a plain old conservative, a student of
Edmund Burke and privileged to be a protégé of Russell Kirk.
Secundo, as I have often said, the proper
way to deal with illegal immigrants, is (1) close the border, (2) pay a
bonus to any who will voluntarily leave -- say $4,000 or so, which is
significant to them but still a savings to both nation and state; (3)
instruct the police that any who come their attention as misfeasors of any
serious degree be turned over to the authorities for detention and
deportation and make that stick, (4) offer citizenship to any who spend 8
years in the armed services ending in honorable discharge, and (5) wait to
see what happens then. I have no idea whether you would call that
compassionate. It seems very reasonable to me.
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