Disadvantage: ethanol fuel

It has been discussed around the blogosphere that "flex fuel", or fuel that is 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, yields less energy than pure gasoline. In fact, it will reduce a car's gas mileage considerably.

My father-in-law sat down, did the math, and sent me an email with his analysis:

For years countries lacking petroleum resources have used ethyl alcohol-blended with gasoline for fuel. Now, in an effort to reduce the United States dependence on imported oil the government is subsidizing the development and production of ethanol (ethyl alcohol) for motor fuel. The goal is to develop "E-85"; a fuel blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Pumps at many gasoline stations already post a notice that the fuel may contain up to 10% ethanol, in part to reduce emissions. So what are the characteristics of ethanol? What costs are involved?

Chemistry text books/handbooks explain that dilute ethyl alcohol (grain alcohol) is produced by fermentation and the proportion of alcohol is increased by fractional distillation over some dehydrating agent to remove the water, an expensive process. It is an excellent solvent, and used in many products. Because it burns readily it is considered a valuable liquid fuel, but some changes are needed to an internal combustion engine for its use.

Text books on internal combustion engines note that ethanol has some desirable characteristics. It will maintain its composition under much higher compression than gasoline; up to 200 p.s.i. Also, no carbon is found in engines using a fuel containing over 35% ethanol. A problem exists when ethanol and gasoline are blended together because the ethanol will absorb water from the atmosphere and separate from the gasoline. Recently problems have been reported in sports news where "E-10" fuel stored in cans vented to the atmosphere for several weeks have caused damage to outboard motors when used later. The larger detriment to ethanol is that it contains oxygen in its chemical makeup which reduces the amount of heat energy per pound which is released during burning.

The heating value (energy) of ethanol is 11,600 BTU per pound with specific weight of 48.98 pounds per cubic foot, or 6.55 pounds per gallon. Multiplying we get a heating value of 75,980 BTU per gallon.

Gasoline has a heating value of 18,800 BTU per pound with specific weight of 47.24 pounds per cubic foot, or 6.32 pounds per gallon. Similarly gasoline has 118, 816 BTU per gallon.

Blending 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline:

0.85 X 75,980 = 64,583BTU

0.15 X 118,816 = 17,822BTU

"E-85" = 82,405BTU/gal.

"E-85" then has slightly less than 70% (82,405/118,816 =0.693) the heating value (energy) of gasoline. Thus a decrease in the miles per gallon of cars with the engine modified to use the blended fuel can be expected. Developing large scale production of ethanol for automotive fuel is an option for reducing the United States dependence on foreign oil, but at a broad ranging significant cost beyond just the cost of fuel.

In other words, if your flex fuel vehicle gets 25 mpg now, it will only be getting about 18 mpg with E-85.

Ice age imminent?

Boy, this would really ruin Al Gore's day, wouldn't it?

THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.

What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot.

Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence that 2007 was exceptionally cold. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in centuries, the winter in China was simply terrible and the extent of Antarctic sea ice in the austral winter was the greatest on record since James Cook discovered the place in 1770.

It is generally not possible to draw conclusions about climatic trends from events in a single year, so I would normally dismiss this cold snap as transient, pending what happens in the next few years.

This is where SOHO comes in. The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent minimum was in March last year. The new cycle, No.24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers.

It didn't happen. . .

Global cooling or the onset of an ice age here on Earth is not some crackpot theory, but is well within the bounds of possibility. Indeed, there is a wealth of geological data to show that widespread glaciation is the normal condition of our planet.

Go read the rest.

[Via Instapundit.]

Bioengineering fresh breath

Popular Science has an intriguing article about bioengineering S. mutans bacteria to excrete alcohol instead of the acid that causes tooth decay.

Jeffrey Hillman, an oral biologist for-merly of the University of Florida, is a poster child for the kind of biotherapeutic future that Thaler envisions. Hillman has spent a decade lobbying the FDA to let him test a transgenic tooth bug in volunteers. “Fortunately, we had no idea what was ahead,” says Hillman of the gantlet of regulatory requirements he has had to tackle since 1996. That was the year Hillman founded Oragenics, a biotech firm dedicated to commercializing his patented cavity-preventing Streptococcus mutans, a genetically modified organism (GMO) that’s the product of nearly 30 years of research.

Inside the mouth of most every person on the planet, colonies of S. mutans bacteria thrive on leftover sugars. The by-product of their digestion is the acid that eats away at tooth enamel and causes cavities. But there are many different strains of S. mutans, and some cause more trouble than others. In the summer of 1976, Hillman was trying to replace cavity-prone strains with those that secrete less enamel-eroding acid. Unfortunately, it seemed almost impossible to permanently eradicate a person’s “native” S. mutans once his or her teeth became colonized in early childhood.

The article goes on to discuss using GMOs to treat Crohn's Disease, tumors, promote general health, and make you feel better.

This is where scientific inquiry is going in the field of biogenetics, and will become an important medical and political issue in the next few years.

I need to study up on this more . . . and I suggest you do the same.

The origins of the Chicxulub crater

This headline just grabbed my attention: Breakup event in the main asteroid belt likely caused dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago.

Interesting article, too, though I wonder if there is as much supposition as there is science in it . . .

I heart adult stem cells

It seems British researchers have grown living heart valve tissue from adult stem cells.

Few people read the British journal Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society, but the current issue contains details of the research by a British research team led by Sir Magdi Yacoub that may end the scourge of heart disease as we know it.

In April we wrote about research led by Yacoub, who's been called the world's leading heart surgeon. His team had managed in the laboratory to grow tissue that functions in the same way as human heart valves, using stem cells drawn from the patient's own bone marrow.

As reported in the London Daily Mail, Yacoub's team harvested the stem cells and used a chemical cocktail to coax them into becoming heart cells. Placed on a "scaffold" made of biodegradable plastic, they grew and fused together to form discs of heart valve tissue just an inch wide. As the valves developed, the scaffold decayed, leaving behind solid tissue.

No embryos required.

A long weekend for Mars explorers

It appears that there is a globe-encompassing dust storm on Mars. And it has lasted for weeks.

Mission controllers received telemetry from both rovers this morning that indicates the power situation has stabilized and that skies might be clearing a little. Opportunity is now getting about 210 watt-hours of energy a day from its solar panels — allowing it to recharge its batteries a little — while Spirit is at 350 watt-hours. That is still a large drop from the approximately 800 watt-hours of energy that each was getting before the dust storm began swirling in late June. Spirit has enough power to maintain normal communications with Earth. Opportunity, with less power, will remain quiet until Thursday. “Everything else is fine on the rovers,” said John Callas, the project manager.

This is week-old news, but still interesting.

The art science of napping

It seems as if the nappers of the world are on to something.

[Via Professor Newmark.]

Quantum dots and solar panels

Researchers at Texas' own Rice University have come up with a formulation to produce quantum dots more efficiently -- and less expensively.

The research, by scientists at Rice's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN), appears this week in the journal Small. It describes a new chemical method for making four-legged cadmium selenide quantum dots, which previous research has shown to be particularly effective at converting sunlight into electrical energy.

"Our work knocks down a big barrier in developing quantum-dot-based photovoltaics as an alternative to the conventional, more expensive silicon-based solar cells," said paper co-author and principal investigator Michael Wong, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

Quantum dots are "megamolecules" of semiconducting materials that are smaller than living cells. They interact with light in unique ways, to give off different-colored light or to create electrons and holes, due partly to their tiny size, partly to their shape and partly to the material they're made of. Scientists have studied quantum dots for more than a decade, with an eye toward using them in medical tests, chemical sensors and other devices.

A promising development in harvesting solar energy more efficiently.

[Via Instapundit.]

Biofuel scum

Popular Mechanics has an interesting article about a promising effort to turn algae into biofuel.

Given the right conditions, algae can double its volume overnight. Unlike other biofuel feedstocks, such as soy or corn, it can be harvested day after day. Up to 50 percent of an alga’s body weight is comprised of oil, whereas oil-palm trees—currently the largest producer of oil to make biofuels—yield just about 20 percent of their weight in oil. Across the board, yields are already impressive: Soy produces some 50 gallons of oil per acre per year; canola, 150 gallons; and palm, 650 gallons. But algae is expected to produce 10,000 gallons per acre per year, and eventually even more.

“If we were to replace all of the diesel that we use in the United States" with an algae derivative, says Solix CEO Douglas Henston, "we could do it on an area of land that’s about one-half of 1 percent of the current farm land that we use now."

This sounds very encouraging!

Should we repair Hubble?

Planetary scientist and four-time shuttle astronaut, Thomas D. Jones , says "yes, we should."

Some argue that repairing Hubble is pointless, since ground-based observatories have overtaken its capabilities. But terrestrial telescopes fall short of HST's resolution by a factor of 10 or more. So would I take the risk to fly to Hubble? Just after the Columbia crash in 2003, my feeling was no. But spaceflight will always involve risk, and the scientific value and public appeal of Hubble are clearly worth it. Besides, intelligently confronting danger is how we humans have always opened the way for great discoveries.

Recommended reading.

[Via Instapundit.]

Mobilizing your body's defenses

Against the 'superbug'.

"Antibiotics are now under threat because of the explosion in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. A third of all deaths on this planet are the result of infection so there is an urgent need to create new therapies," says Robert Hancock, principal investigator and Canada Research Chair in Pathogenomics and Antimicrobials. "The beauty of this peptide is that it acts on the host to trigger a protective response and doesn't act on bacteria directly. That means it's unlikely bacteria will become resistant to it."

The team found that a peptide, or chain of amino acids, they have dubbed innate defense regulator peptide (IDR-1), can increase innate immunity without triggering harmful inflammation, and offer protection both before and after infection is present.

This has some real potential . . .

Back to the future

R. James Woolsey, co-chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger, and director of central intelligence from 1993 to 1995, has a new years op-ed about using hybrid, plug-in, and ethanol technologies in combination to more than double the mileage of current hybrids. This kind of utilization of technologies would not only serve to conserve oil, but would also reduce carbon dioxide emissions, facilitate America attaining energy independence, contribute to our national security, and reduce consumers' fuel costs.

Gentlemen, Start Your Plug-Ins
How does 500 miles a gallon sound to you?

BY R. JAMES WOOLSEY
Monday, January 1, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

An oil and security task force of the Council on Foreign Relations recently opined that "the voices that espouse 'energy independence' are doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future." Others have also said, essentially, that other nations will control our transportation fuel--get used to it. Yet House Democrats have announced a push for "energy independence in 10 years," and in November General Motors joined Toyota and perhaps other auto makers in a race to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles, hugely reducing the demand for oil. Who's right--those who drive toward independence or those who shrug?

Bet on major progress toward independence, spurred by market forces and a portfolio of rapidly developing oil-replacing technologies.

In recent years a number of alternatives to conventional oil have come to the fore--oil sands, oil shale, coal-to-diesel and coal-to-methanol technologies. But their acceptability to a new Congress, quite possibly the next president, and a public increasingly concerned about global warming will depend on their demonstrating affordable and effective methods of sequestering the carbon they produce or otherwise avoiding carbon emissions.

Ethanol's appeal rose a few years ago when it became clear that genetically modified biocatalysts could break down the cellulose in biomass and thus enable ethanol's production from a wide range of plant life. This means that, compared with corn, little fossil fuel is needed during biomass cultivation and land use presents much less of a problem. Indeed two years ago the National Energy Policy Commission (NEPC), making reasonable assumptions about improved vehicle efficiency and biomass yields over the next 20 years, estimated that just 7% of U.S. farmland (the amount now in the Soil Bank) could produce enough biomass to provide half the fuel needed by U.S. passenger vehicles, and that production costs for cellulosic ethanol were headed downward toward around 70 cents per gallon. Further, conversion of only a portion of industrial, municipal and animal wastes--using thermal processes now coming into commercial operation--appears to be able to yield an additional several million barrels a day of diesel or, with some processes, methanol.

But in spite of the technological promise of alternative liquid fuels, skeptics rightly point out that it will take time to build production facilities and learn the practicalities of operating biorefineries and shifting industry from hydrocarbons to carbohydrates. Most of all there is a sense of investor caution, driven by memories of the mid-'80s and the late '90s when sharp drops in oil prices, driven in part by increased production from Saudi reserves, bankrupted such undertakings as the Synfuels Corporation. Also, industry support for moving away from oil dependence has long been weak outside agribusiness, and consumers see little immediate savings from using alternative liquid fuels.

---

All this is likely to change decisively, because electricity is about to become a major partner with alternative liquid fuels in replacing oil.

The change is being driven by innovations in the batteries that now power modern electronics. If hybrid gasoline-electric cars are provided with advanced batteries (GM's announcement said its choice would be lithium-ion) having improved energy and power density--variants of the ones in our computers and cell phones--dozens of vehicle prototypes are now demonstrating that these "plug-in hybrids" can more than double hybrids' overall (gasoline) mileage. With a plug-in, charging your car overnight from an ordinary 110-volt socket in your garage lets you drive 20 miles or more on the electricity stored in the topped-up battery before the car lapses into its normal hybrid mode. If you forget to charge or exceed 20 miles, no problem, you then just have a regular hybrid with the insurance of liquid fuel in the tank. And during those 20 all-electric miles you will be driving at a cost of between a penny and three cents a mile instead of the current 10-cent-a-mile cost of gasoline.

Utilities are rapidly becoming quite interested in plug-ins because of the substantial benefit to them of being able to sell off-peak power at night. Because off-peak nighttime charging uses unutilized capacity, DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that adopting plug-ins will not create a need for new base load electricity generation plants until plug-ins constitute over 84% of the country's 220 million passenger vehicles. Further, those plug-ins that are left connected to an electrical socket after being fully charged (most U.S. cars are parked over 20 hours a day) can substitute for expensive natural gas by providing electricity from their batteries back to the grid: "spinning" reserves to help deal with power outages and regulation of the grid's voltage and amperage.

Once plug-ins start appearing in showrooms it is not only consumers and utility shareholders who will be smiling. If cheap off-peak electricity supplies a portion of our transportation needs, this will help insulate alternative liquid fuels from OPEC market manipulation designed to cripple oil's competitors. Indian and Chinese demand and peaking oil production may make it much harder for OPEC today to use any excess production capacity to drive prices down and destroy competitive technology. But as plug-ins come into the fleet low electricity costs will stand as a substantial further barrier to such market manipulation. Since OPEC cannot drive oil prices low enough to undermine our use of off-peak electricity, it is unlikely to embark on a course of radical price cuts at all because such cuts are painful for its oil-exporter members. Plug-ins thus may well give investors enough confidence to back alternative liquid fuels without any need for new taxes on oil or subsidies to protect them.

Environmentalists should join this march with enthusiasm. Replacing hydrocarbons with fuels derived from biomass and waste reduces vehicles' carbon emissions very substantially. And replacing gasoline with electricity further brightens the environmental picture. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute has shown that, with today's electricity grid, there would be a national average reduction in carbon emissions by about 60% per vehicle when a plug-in hybrid with 20-mile all-electric range replaces a conventional car.

---

Subsidizing expensive substitutes for petroleum, ignoring the massive infrastructure costs needed to fuel family cars with hydrogen, searching for a single elegant solution--none of this has worked, nor will it. Instead we should encourage a portfolio of inexpensive fuels, including electricity, that requires very little infrastructure change and let its components work together: A 50 mpg hybrid, once it becomes a plug-in, will likely get solidly over 100 mpg of gasoline (call it "mpgg"); if it is also a flexible fuel vehicle using 85% ethanol, E-85, its mpgg rises to around 500.

The market will likely operate to expand sharply the use of these technologies that are already in pilot plants and prototypes and heavily reduce oil use in the foreseeable future. And given the array of Wahhabis, terrorists and Ahmadinejad-like fanatics who sit atop the Persian Gulf's two-thirds of the world's conventional oil, such reduction will not be a disservice to the nation.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Sounds almost too good to be true doesn't it? Yet it is a definite possibility. One that we may want to investigate, develop, and advocate.

Astronaut blogger

Astronaut Bill Oefelein is circumnavigating the globe every 90 minutes, or so, and is blogging about it.

Martian H2O

NASA has released photographs that suggest that water still flows on Mars.

NASA photographs have revealed bright new deposits seen in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past seven years.

"These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, Washington.

Resveratrol

Good news about a substance that could slow the aging process. More importantly, perhaps, is that it is found in red wine.

A component of red wine recently shown to help lab mice live longer also protects animals from obesity and diabetes and boosts their physical endurance, researchers reported yesterday.

The new research helps confirm and extend the possible benefits of the substance, resveratrol, and offers new insight into how it works -- apparently by revving up the metabolism to make muscles burn more energy and work more efficiently. Mice fed large doses could run twice as far as they would normally.

In addition, the scientists for the first time produced evidence linking the biological pathway activated by the substance to human physiology, showing that the same genetic switch resveratrol mimics seems to naturally endow some people with faster metabolisms.

Interesting stuff.

Ununoctium

Here's a story about the brief existence of Element 118, and what it could possibly mean to science.

Unfortunately, the atoms lived less than a millisecond before decaying, first into element 116, then 114, then 112 and finally fragmenting completely. It wasn't unexpected, but atomic physicists believe, for theoretical reasons, that atoms with 120 or 126 protons might be a lot more stable. Of course, they were saying that about element 114 a few years ago, and it didn't pan out. But if they get to a point where one of these super-heavy elements lasts for hours, not milliseconds (it will depend in part on getting the right number of neutrons as well), that would be enough time to do actual chemistry and understand their properties. It could happen, say the researchers, within 5 to 10 years, if a dedicated accelerator could ever get funded. That's the goal of all this work — there's pretty much no conceivable practical application for any of this stuff.

Cloaking device

Definitely one for our inner geek.

Scientists from the US and the UK have successfully demonstrated a cloaking device.

In this first successful experiment, researchers from the United States and England were able to cloak a copper cylinder.

It's like a mirage, where heat causes the bending of light rays and cloaks the road ahead behind an image of the sky.

"We have built an artificial mirage that can hide something from would-be observers in any direction," said cloak designer David Schurig, a research associate in Duke University's electrical and computer engineering department.

For their first attempt, the researchers designed a cloak that prevents microwaves from detecting objects. Like light and radar waves, microwaves usually bounce off objects, making them visible to instruments and creating a shadow that can be detected.

It's a long way from an operational implementation, but it is still a very good start!

Recommended.

Hydrogen as an alternative fuel

Popular Mechanics has an article out about the pros and cons of using hydrogen as a source of energy.

It's not as good as you'd think -- yet.

WHEN ASSESSING THE State of the Union in 2003, President Bush declared it was time to take a crucial step toward protecting our environment. He announced a $1.2 billion initiative to begin developing a national hydrogen infrastructure: a coast-to-coast network of facilities that would produce and distribute the hydrogen for powering hundreds of millions of fuel cell vehicles. Backed by a national commitment, he said, "our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free." With two years to go on the first, $720 million phase of the plan, PM asks that perennial question of every automotive journey: Are we almost there?

And the inevitable answer from the front seat: No. Promises of a thriving hydrogen economy — one that supports not only cars and trucks, but cellphones, computers, homes and whole neighborhoods — date back long before this presidency, and the road to fulfilling them stretches far beyond its horizon.

Good information. Go read the rest.

[Via Instapundit.]

'Beam me up, Scotty.'

Well, not any time soon. However, physicists from the Danish National Research Foundation Center for Quantum Optics have successfully teleported quantum information over a distance of a half meter.

. . . Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter.

"It is one step further because for the first time it involves teleportation between light and matter, two different objects. One is the carrier of information and the other one is the storage medium," Polzik explained in an interview on Wednesday.

The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further.

If this is for real, it could mean a revolution in secure communications.

DDT returns . . .

. . . in order to save lives . . .

Deroy Murdoch has an interesting article about the overwhelming benefits of using DDT for mosquito control.

The World Health Organization on September 15 issued new guidelines calling for DDT to play “a major role� in deterring and killing mosquitoes, which spread malaria. Each year, this debilitating, often deadly disease ails some 500 million people and kills about one million human beings, mainly poor Africans, Asians, and Latins under age five.

WHO malaria chief Dr. Arata Kochi said: “Help save African babies, as you help save the environment.� WHO’s new policy is a major boon for millions in the Third World and a major triumph for a cadre of free-market activists who relentlessly have pursued this cause.

An interesting article. It turns out that using DDT saves many more lives than not using it. Quite a different outcome that what was predicted in the 70s when it was banned.

Recommended.

Next-generation nukes

Popular Mechanics has a good article about research and development of Genration IV nuclear power plants. Here's how it starts:

Leaning over the rail of the metal catwalk, I peer down through 16 ft. of crystal-clear water at the cool, blue glow coming from the shapes at the bottom: partially spent uranium fuel rods. "Blue," says Joel Duling, my guide to America's most sophisticated nuclear test reactor, "not green like on The Simpsons." The narrow canal snakes under the catwalk and makes a dogleg through an opening in the wall into the reactor area, a cavernous room that feels like a jet hangar. The top of the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) pokes unobtrusively above the concrete floor. Most of the 35-ft.-high steel cylinder housing the reactor core lies underground. The chain reaction occurring there produces 250 megawatts--enough to power 201,000 homes. But, the ATR does something more important than generate energy. The machine tests fuels and alloys against the extreme conditions expected in exotic new reactors--radical designs that could produce power in molten salt, snap together like LEGOs and operate without water, safely and affordably fulfilling the decades-old dream of clean, abundant nuclear power.

The test reactor, part of the Department of Energy's (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory (INL), sits on an 890-square-mile tract of land known simply as “The Site.� Located 45 minutes from Idaho Falls in the southeastern corner of the state, this swath of windswept desert is the epicenter of American nuclear energy research. Over the past half century, 51 reactors have been built here, including first-generation prototypes of the 1950s; only three still operate. But it is among the relics of these early experiments that the country's energy future is taking shape.

Very interesting article.

[Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.]

Pluto, we hardly knew ye

The International Planetary Union has hammered out the characteristics that define what a "planet" is, and Pluto no longer qualifies.

Much-maligned Pluto doesn't make the grade under the new rules for a planet: "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's.

Pluto does qualify for the newly-designated "dwarf planet" classification, however.

Does the solar system suddenly feel smaller to you?

Hyponatremia

A tip for my brother who is preparing to run in the Georgia Marathon in Atlanta in March: don't drink too much water!

He probably already knows this. But.I.did.not.

Until now . . .

A stem-cell scam?

Michael Fumento provides a stinging rebuttal to Science's latest advocacy of embroyonic stem-cell research.

Food for thought.

Global warming in Antartica

National Geographic has an article about new evidence supporting a warmer climate in Antartica 1700 years ago.

In an Antarctic "ghost town," freeze-dried whiskers, skin, and bones provide evidence that the South Pole was a much warmer place not too long ago, a new study reveals.

The 1,000- to 6,000-year-old elephant seal remains were found in abandoned breeding colonies in a now barren region of Victoria Land on the Antarctic coast near the Ross Sea (map of Antarctica).

The discovery, scientists say, is the first hard evidence for a warming period in the region between 2,300 and 1,100 years ago.

The article does attempt to caution the reader not to think this new information invalidates the hysterical (my word) claims about human-caused global warming that are being made.

(And, just for the record, my personal philosophy regarding Ecosystem Earth is generally green. )

Solar warming

Pete du Pont has a good article calling for a more scientific approach to the global warming question. And he's got some good news:

Since 1970, the year of the first Earth Day, America's population has increased by 42%, the country's inflation-adjusted gross domestic product has grown 195%, the number of cars and trucks in the United States has more than doubled, and the total number of miles driven has increased by 178%.

But during these 35 years of growing population, employment, and industrial production, the Environmental Protection Agency reports, the environment has substantially improved. Emissions of the six principal air pollutants have decreased by 53%. Carbon monoxide emissions have dropped from 197 million tons per year to 89 million; nitrogen oxides from 27 million tons to 19 million, and sulfur dioxide from 31 million to 15 million. Particulates are down 80%, and lead emissions have declined by more than 98%.

I've reprinted it below the fold . . .

Don't Be Very Worried
The truth about "global warming" is much less dire than Al Gore wants you to think.

BY PETE DU PONT
Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Since 1970, the year of the first Earth Day, America's population has increased by 42%, the country's inflation-adjusted gross domestic product has grown 195%, the number of cars and trucks in the United States has more than doubled, and the total number of miles driven has increased by 178%.

But during these 35 years of growing population, employment, and industrial production, the Environmental Protection Agency reports, the environment has substantially improved. Emissions of the six principal air pollutants have decreased by 53%. Carbon monoxide emissions have dropped from 197 million tons per year to 89 million; nitrogen oxides from 27 million tons to 19 million, and sulfur dioxide from 31 million to 15 million. Particulates are down 80%, and lead emissions have declined by more than 98%.

When it comes to visible environmental improvements, America is also making substantial progress:

• The number of days the city of Los Angeles exceeded the one-hour ozone standard has declined from just under 200 a year in the late 1970s to 27 in 2004.

• The Pacific Research Institute's Index of Leading Environmental Indicators shows that "U.S. forests expanded by 9.5 million acres between 1990 and 2000."

• While wetlands were declining at the rate of 500,000 acres a year at midcentury, they "have shown a net gain of about 26,000 acres per year in the past five years," according to the institute.

• Also according to the institute, "bald eagles, down to fewer than 500 nesting pairs in 1965, are now estimated to number more than 7,500 nesting pairs."

Environmentally speaking, America has had a very good third of a century; the economy has grown and pollutants and their impacts upon society are substantially down.

---

But now comes the carbon dioxide alarm. CO2 is not a pollutant--indeed it is vital for plant growth--but the annual amount released into the atmosphere has increased 40% since 1970. This increase is blamed by global warming alarmists for a great many evil things. The Web site for Al Gore's new film, "An Inconvenient Truth," claims that because of CO2's impact on our atmosphere, sea levels may rise by 20 feet, the Arctic and Antarctic ice will likely melt, heat waves will be "more frequent and more intense," and "deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years--to 300,000 people a year."

If it all sounds familiar, think back to the 1970s. After the first Earth Day the New York Times predicted "intolerable deterioration and possible extinction" for the human race as the result of pollution. Harvard biologist George Wald predicted that unless we took immediate action "civilization will end within 15 to 30 years," and environmental doomsayer Paul Ehrlich predicted that four billion people--including 65 million American--would perish from famine in the 1980s.

So what is the reality about global warming and its impact on the world? A new study released this week by the National Center for Policy Analysis, "Climate Science: Climate Change and Its Impacts" (www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st285) looks at a wide variety of climate matters, from global warming and hurricanes to rain and drought, sea levels, arctic temperatures and solar radiation. It concludes that "the science does not support claims of drastic increases in global temperatures over the 21rst century, nor does it support claims of human influence on weather events and other secondary effects of climate change."

There are substantial differences in climate models--some 30 of them looked at by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--but the Climate Science study concludes that "computer models consistently project a rise in temperatures over the past century that is more than twice as high as the measured increase." The National Center for Atmospheric Research's prediction of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warming is more accurate. In short, the world is not warming as much as environmentalists think it is.

What warming there is turns out to be caused by solar radiation rather than human pollution. The Climate Change study concluded "half the observed 20th century warming occurred before 1940 and cannot be attributed to human causes," and changes in solar radiation can "account for 71 percent of the variation in global surface air temperature from 1880 to 1993."

As for hurricanes, 2005 saw several severe ones--Katrina and Rita both had winds of 150 knots--hitting New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and Florida. But there is little evidence linking them to global warming. A team of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists concluded that the increased Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995 "is not related to greenhouse warming" but instead to natural tropical climate cycles.

Regarding Arctic temperature changes, the Study found the coastal stations in Greenland had actually experienced a cooling trend: The "average summer air temperatures at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, have decreased at the rate of 4 degrees F per decade since measurements began in 1987." Add in Russian and Alaskan temperature data and "Arctic air temperatures were warmest in the 1930s and near the coolest for the period of recorded observations (since at least 1920) in the late 1980s."

As for sea ice, it is not melting excessively. Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans concluded that "global warming appears to play a minor role in changes to Arctic sea ice." The U.N.'s IPCC Third Assessment Report concluded that the rate of sea level rise has not accelerated during the last century, which is supported by U.S. coastal sea level experience. In California sea levels have risen between zero and seven millimeters a year and between 2.1 and 2.8 millimeters a year in North and South Carolina.

Finally come the polar bears--a species thought by global warming proponents to be seriously at risk from the increasing temperature. According to the World Wildlife Fund, among the distinct polar bear populations, two are growing--and in areas where temperatures have risen; ten are stable; and two are decreasing. But those two are in areas such as Baffin Bay where air temperatures have actually fallen.

---

The Climate Science study concludes that projections of global warming over the next century "have decreased significantly since early modeling efforts," and that global air temperatures should increase by 2.5 degrees and the United States by about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred years. The environmental pessimists tell us, as in Time magazine's recent global warming issue, to "Be Worried. Be Very Worried," but the truth is that our environmental progress has been substantially improving, and we should be very pleased.

Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears once a month.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Climate change

Global warming seemingly is an agreed-upon fact -- many contend that mankind has pumped loads of CO₂ into the atmosphere and things are beginning to warm up as a result.

I have read several papers by climatologists who refute some of the underpinning "facts" that global warming alarmists have been pointing to, and I have posted links to some of them over the last year, or so.

Richard Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, and he has published a commentary at OpinionJournal wherein he describes a climate of fear and intimidation that is suppressing dissenting views concerning the "global warming paradigm". Here's an excerpt:

Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

I've reprinted the article in the extended entry. You'll find it eye-opening.

Climate of Fear
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.

BY RICHARD LINDZEN
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

---

To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.

If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.

Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.

And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited." Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming--not whether it would actually happen.

---

Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers.

M. Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Global warming cooling

Professor Bob Carter, a geologist at James Cook University, Queensland, who is engaged in paleoclimate research has published an article in the Opinion Telegraph that discusses the problem with global warming -- there isn't one.

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Recommended reading regardless of whether you weigh in on the hysterical side of the argument, or the more conservative side. These two posts illustrate that there is no real consensus on global climate trends.

Sunrise

BBC News has published an article in which scientists BBC News | Sci/Tech | attribute global warming to an increase in the energy output of our sun.

Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth.

Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual - but a mini ice age could soon follow.

The sun provides all the energy that drives our climate, but it is not the constant star it might seem.

It makes for some interesting reading.

Global warming cooling?

A while back I read an interesting article at 21st Century Science and Technology online magazine about the impending Ice Age, and how it will come about.

Here is the link to a PDF of "The Ice Age is Coming" by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc. which is a much more thorough scientific treatment of the subject.

Needless to say, I don't think global warming is as universally accepted as is being depicted by most news organization.

[Hat tip to Jack Kelly at Irish Pennants.]

Global climate change

Steven F. Hayward has an informative article up about the uncertainty, scientifically and politically, of global climate change. Here's an excerpt:

If there is any subject more certain than the federal budget process to bring on eye-glaze, it is global warming and the drearily repetitive argument about the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The issue combines the worst of wonky numerology (parts per million of various gases, complex computer models, opaque cost-benefit analyses), an alphabet soup of unctuous international bureaucracies (IPCC, UNFCCC, SRES, TAR, USGCRP, etc., etc.), and the incessant braying of interest groups. No wonder Al Gore loves it so much. Yet the issue, seemingly stuck in a rut for almost two decades, is starting to shake loose and head in new directions.

It's rather long, but is much more comprehensive than what you get in news media snippets on the topic. Recommended.

Welfare begets violence?

Dr. Helen, also known affectionately as the Instawife, is a psychologist who has recently posted about the fallacy of appeasement. Or 'How To Get A Bigger Welfare Check'. She starts with:

You would think that governments as well as people in general would understand that appeasing and rewarding negative behavior doesn't work. It's basic psychology 101--but one that not even most psychology professors understand or put to use. And apparently, this concept is foreign to many of the politically correct persuasion outside the classroom as well--for them, their feeling of moral "superiority" trumps human nature and causes liberals to turn a blind eye to justice and acts of violence.

Go read the rest. I recommend it.

Hardliners hardwired?

The Washington Times has an interesting article about a study that found political opinions are based on emotion, not reason.

And we needed a study to tell us that?

[Hat tip to Betsy Newmark.]

Imminent Ice Age?

The India Daily has an article up speculating that we are at the beginning of an ice age. Here's how it starts:

Ice ages come every 11,000 years. A mega ice age comes every 105,000 years. Both are due between now and 2012. The 11,000 year cycle happens because of increase and decrease of cyclical underwater volcanic eruption. The 105,000 mega ice age happens because of the changing shape of the orbit of the earth around the sun – circular to elliptical and then back to circular every 105,000 years.

Both the cycles are overdue. They have actually started. Europe right now is in deep freeze. Japan and South Korea are experiencing the worst snowfall ever. Even New Delhi is experiencing the worst ever fog and cold weather. Do not get surprised to see New Delhi experiencing the weather of Moscow, Miami experiencing the weather of Chicago.

There are no sources cited beyond "some geologists, astrophysicists, and scientists" so you can color me a bit sceptical on this one.

On the other hand, I am not a proponent of "consensual science", either. Too many times when scientists come to a consensus on something it is more because of political or social reasons -- rather than purely scientific ones. Thus, I am not convinced that the world is undergoing "global warming" due to Mankind. (This is in spite of the fact that northeast Texas -- where I live -- is in the midst of a record warm, dry winter.)

More food for thought can be found here.

Also temperatures in India have been at a 70-year low this year. [Hat tip to Jack Kelly at Irish Pennants]

Picture of the Day

I just had to link you this beautiful picture of Dione!

It'll take a few moments to download the picture if you have a dial-up connection, but it's well worth the wait.

UPDATE: I just fixed the link to point to the right picture.