MUENCHHAUSEN, April 2, 2009
MUENCHHAUSEN
AN ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ABOUT ENVIRONMENT,
RENEWABLE RESOURCE TECHNOLOGY,
AND RELATED TOPICS
By BOOTSTRAP PRESS, INC.
BETHESDA, MD
JJGREENBARON@VERIZON.NET
FOR COMMENTS: GREEN_BARON99.MUENCHHAUSEN@BLOGGER.COM
WELCOME!
The Green Baron (TGB) welcomes one and all who take the time to read Muenchhausen. He aims to “tell it like it is” as much as possible, and avoid advocacy and ideological positions. There are enough of those to go around in other publications.
A FLYING COW
TGB read with some wry amusement a report from Reuters that an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) spokesman said that OPEC was not to blame for climate change and that [oil] consuming countries should pay to combat the threat (some might say, "if indeed threat threat there be") (1). Said OPEC secretary-general Abdullah al-Badri, "It is the industrialized countries [that] are making all this pollution in the world." At the same time, OPEC announced that it opposed plans to reduce oil consumption, and said that rather, there should be adaptation to climate change. This is why TGB is saying he thinks he just saw a cow flying in front of the windows of his house. Perhaps OPEC spokesmen can come up with some more such brilliant ideas! TGB will acknowledge his not being a well-wisher for OPEC.
COLD FUSION EVERY SO OFTEN
It would have been very salutary for much of the world's economy and, perhaps, environment, if experiments in cold fusion could have been reproduced. Muenchhausen has considered this topic before, TGB remembering the first announcement by Fleischmann and Pons concerning making cold fusion happen (3, 4).
What is "cold fusion"? This is the concept that an energy-generating thermonuclear-type fusion reaction can be carried out at or near room temperature without the need for super-strong pressure vessels and electromagnetic fields, such as those used in fusion research as it is normally carried out. Fusion here is defined as the fusing of hydrogen atoms, usually of all three of hydrogen's isotopes, to form helium, with an excess of energy left over.
Every so often, we read of another reportedly successful attempt at making cold fusion happen. So far, TGB and others have failed to find any replication of such cold fusion experiments or credible literature supporting such replication. Comes now a report from the U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR, San Diego, CA) that a cold fusion device built there has shown evidence of the production of neutrons, which would indicate a nuclear reaction (5). Ironically enough, the results of the SPAWAR's experiment with the low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, UT. This is ironic because Salt Lake City is where the Fleischmann-Pons announcement (4) originated in 1989.
As one can readily imagine, this latest report (5) met with considerably skepticism. Actually, TGB fervently hopes--perhaps vainly--that somehow, there will be a realistic, viable breakthrough in the science and engineering of cold fusion, if such indeed be possible. The result would be clean, inexpensive energy and a chance--yes, TGB is a bit biased here, full disclosure--to treat OPEC nations and their ilk to a comeuppance.
COOL SUMMER, COLD WINTER
During the summer of 2008, a friend e-mailed to TGB to ask him where the summer had gone that year. Apparently, the same question was asked in Alaska; for example, in Anchorage, the temperature rarely got up to about 20 °C or 68 °F. Warmer temperatures were mostly not observed at all. Moreover, the winter of 2008-2009 has been quite harsh in many places; just for openers, ask any citizen of North Dakota. Even in TGB's Washington, DC, area, although little snow fell, temperatures generally were below normal. Northern Europe also experienced below-average temperatures and considerable falls of snow.
It turns out that 2008 was a year of very quiet sun; that is, little or no sunspot activity (6). NASA scientists relate that of the 366 days of 2008, on 266 days, no sunspots were observed. In 2009, from January 1 to March 31, 78 days of that 90-day period were "sunspotless"; if this trend continues, 2009 could well turn our to be a major year of quiet sun. So far, to find a year of many quiet-sun days, one must look back to 1913, during which no sunspots were seen for 311 days. (1913 also is the year when the federal income tax went into effect; but it would be a bit of a stretch to blame that on a quiet-sun cycle.)
One question arises: If the sun remains quiet for long perios of time, might this lack of solar activity retard or reverse any trends there may be toward global warming? NASA scientists say that this is not the case, but TGB believes that the jury may still be out on that subject. Several things are clear: There is a substantial reduction in the "solar wind" (streams of charged particles "blowing" from the sun), and there has been a 0.2% reduction observed in solar brightness in the visible-light spectrum and perhaps 6% for extreme ultraviolet radiation. The downside is that a weak solar wind allows more cosmic rays to approach Earth and to affect the health of astronauts/cosmonauts in space. Cosmic rays are have very short electromagnetic wavelenths and are highly energetic.
Actually, this solar activity minimum--there usually is an approximately 12-year cycle--is about on schedule. An increase should be seen by 2011 and 2012. How big that increase will be is anyone's guess, although NASA scientists currently foresee a "quieter" maximum than would normally be expected. Stay tuned!
REFERENCES
1. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSL225721020090402
2. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.a67cf72fe27770f9ec992da18169937d.a1&show_article=1
3. Muenchhausen, March 21, 2008
4. Fleischmann, M.; Pons, S. “Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium”. J. Electroanalyt. Chem. 1989, 261, 301.
5. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.a67cf72fe27770f9ec992da18169937d.a1&show_article=1
6. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm
AN ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ABOUT ENVIRONMENT,
RENEWABLE RESOURCE TECHNOLOGY,
AND RELATED TOPICS
By BOOTSTRAP PRESS, INC.
BETHESDA, MD
JJGREENBARON@VERIZON.NET
FOR COMMENTS: GREEN_BARON99.MUENCHHAUSEN@BLOGGER.COM
WELCOME!
The Green Baron (TGB) welcomes one and all who take the time to read Muenchhausen. He aims to “tell it like it is” as much as possible, and avoid advocacy and ideological positions. There are enough of those to go around in other publications.
A FLYING COW
TGB read with some wry amusement a report from Reuters that an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) spokesman said that OPEC was not to blame for climate change and that [oil] consuming countries should pay to combat the threat (some might say, "if indeed threat threat there be") (1). Said OPEC secretary-general Abdullah al-Badri, "It is the industrialized countries [that] are making all this pollution in the world." At the same time, OPEC announced that it opposed plans to reduce oil consumption, and said that rather, there should be adaptation to climate change. This is why TGB is saying he thinks he just saw a cow flying in front of the windows of his house. Perhaps OPEC spokesmen can come up with some more such brilliant ideas! TGB will acknowledge his not being a well-wisher for OPEC.
COLD FUSION EVERY SO OFTEN
It would have been very salutary for much of the world's economy and, perhaps, environment, if experiments in cold fusion could have been reproduced. Muenchhausen has considered this topic before, TGB remembering the first announcement by Fleischmann and Pons concerning making cold fusion happen (3, 4).
What is "cold fusion"? This is the concept that an energy-generating thermonuclear-type fusion reaction can be carried out at or near room temperature without the need for super-strong pressure vessels and electromagnetic fields, such as those used in fusion research as it is normally carried out. Fusion here is defined as the fusing of hydrogen atoms, usually of all three of hydrogen's isotopes, to form helium, with an excess of energy left over.
Every so often, we read of another reportedly successful attempt at making cold fusion happen. So far, TGB and others have failed to find any replication of such cold fusion experiments or credible literature supporting such replication. Comes now a report from the U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR, San Diego, CA) that a cold fusion device built there has shown evidence of the production of neutrons, which would indicate a nuclear reaction (5). Ironically enough, the results of the SPAWAR's experiment with the low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, UT. This is ironic because Salt Lake City is where the Fleischmann-Pons announcement (4) originated in 1989.
As one can readily imagine, this latest report (5) met with considerably skepticism. Actually, TGB fervently hopes--perhaps vainly--that somehow, there will be a realistic, viable breakthrough in the science and engineering of cold fusion, if such indeed be possible. The result would be clean, inexpensive energy and a chance--yes, TGB is a bit biased here, full disclosure--to treat OPEC nations and their ilk to a comeuppance.
COOL SUMMER, COLD WINTER
During the summer of 2008, a friend e-mailed to TGB to ask him where the summer had gone that year. Apparently, the same question was asked in Alaska; for example, in Anchorage, the temperature rarely got up to about 20 °C or 68 °F. Warmer temperatures were mostly not observed at all. Moreover, the winter of 2008-2009 has been quite harsh in many places; just for openers, ask any citizen of North Dakota. Even in TGB's Washington, DC, area, although little snow fell, temperatures generally were below normal. Northern Europe also experienced below-average temperatures and considerable falls of snow.
It turns out that 2008 was a year of very quiet sun; that is, little or no sunspot activity (6). NASA scientists relate that of the 366 days of 2008, on 266 days, no sunspots were observed. In 2009, from January 1 to March 31, 78 days of that 90-day period were "sunspotless"; if this trend continues, 2009 could well turn our to be a major year of quiet sun. So far, to find a year of many quiet-sun days, one must look back to 1913, during which no sunspots were seen for 311 days. (1913 also is the year when the federal income tax went into effect; but it would be a bit of a stretch to blame that on a quiet-sun cycle.)
One question arises: If the sun remains quiet for long perios of time, might this lack of solar activity retard or reverse any trends there may be toward global warming? NASA scientists say that this is not the case, but TGB believes that the jury may still be out on that subject. Several things are clear: There is a substantial reduction in the "solar wind" (streams of charged particles "blowing" from the sun), and there has been a 0.2% reduction observed in solar brightness in the visible-light spectrum and perhaps 6% for extreme ultraviolet radiation. The downside is that a weak solar wind allows more cosmic rays to approach Earth and to affect the health of astronauts/cosmonauts in space. Cosmic rays are have very short electromagnetic wavelenths and are highly energetic.
Actually, this solar activity minimum--there usually is an approximately 12-year cycle--is about on schedule. An increase should be seen by 2011 and 2012. How big that increase will be is anyone's guess, although NASA scientists currently foresee a "quieter" maximum than would normally be expected. Stay tuned!
REFERENCES
1. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSL225721020090402
2. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.a67cf72fe27770f9ec992da18169937d.a1&show_article=1
3. Muenchhausen, March 21, 2008
4. Fleischmann, M.; Pons, S. “Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium”. J. Electroanalyt. Chem. 1989, 261, 301.
5. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.a67cf72fe27770f9ec992da18169937d.a1&show_article=1
6. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm
Labels: cold fusion, OPEC, sunspot activity
posted by Green_Baron00 @ 4:20 PM
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