Thermal Pollution Becomes Electricity With a Controlled Tornado

One of the many problems with generating electricity is that it produces waste heat.  Even if we are not burning something to create the steam to spin the generator, e.g. nuclear power, there is still a lot of thermal pollution.

Canadian Louis Michaud is President of of AVEtec Energy Corporation.  AVE stands for "Atmospheric Vortex Engine".

His idea is a simple one:  Hot air from waste heat rises (convection).  By shaping the exhaust correctly, that rising air can be given a spin, turning it into a tame tornado.  The rising, spinning air can turn a generator.

Since most of that heat is contained in steam from the coal/oil/gas/nuclear generator, you get an extra boost as the steam condenses and releases its latent heat (the energy used to evaporate in the first place).

Note:  While most of  greenhouse gas that humans produce is carbon dioxide, water is also a greenhouse gas.  The problem with water is that as the atmosphere warms, more water evaporates, which increases the temperature of the atmosphere, and more water evaporates ...

Not only can an AVE be added to existing electric generating facilities, but any source of rising air, such as a tropical ocean, can provide the needed energy.

More information is available at http://vortexengine.ca/index.shtml

Climate Change Ticks Off Moose - Then They Die

Photo by Don Bergeron, NH Fish and Game

Moose are disappearing from New Hampshire and other northern states.  They are being killed by winter ticks.  Minnesota’s moose mortality rate is so high that the state canceled its annual hunt in February.  In New Hampshire there have been years where almost none of the calves survived and only 25 percent of adults.

Winter cold used to keep the ticks under control.  Most winter tick eggs in New Hampshire would die over the winter, frozen to death.   But that hasn’t happened lately as winters are starting later and ending sooner.  

Winter ticks on the body of a Moose
Photo by Ron Moen, University of Minn/Duluth

A single female tick lays about 3,000 eggs. With warmer weather, ticks don’t die. Tens of millions of winter ticks will be hatching in September from eggs hidden in thick brush. They will wait there to hitch a ride on a moose and suck its blood until the end of May.  As the number of ticks explodes, moose have disappeared by the thousands. Many of those still alive are starving, with rib cages visible through ragged skin. 

As many as 150,000 blood-sucking insects can turn an 1,800-pound animal into a ‘ghost in the woods’, but not only by sucking out all of their blood.  The tick bites itch.

The moose lick and rub and scratch at the ticks until their fur falls off. They develop secondary infections.  They can actually freeze without their fur.  They develop anemia and starve. 

Who says climate change doesn't hurt anyone?

For more information, see this from the New Hampshire Wildlife Service.

I See Dead Obliviots

According to the National Traffic Safety Administration, the number of pedestrian vs. car deaths has increased about 10% in the last few years.  

In Los Angeles, nearly half of all car-related deaths now are pedestrians. 

The probable reason?  "Distracted" pedestrians, which is a nicer way of saying idiots texting while talking on the phone, distracted by music, heads down, reading texts or sending them, oblivious to traffic and traffic signals.

London actually padded lampposts experimentally because texters were banging into them so often as they walked while texting.

Living Streets, a well-known charity dedicated to making cities more pedestrian-friendly, conducted an unscientific survey of 1,000 texting Brits and found that 1 in 10 — or, potentially, 6.5 million people nationwide — had suffered injuries while texting and walking.

As I have so often told my students, "Be different.  Think".

For more fun with texters, watch this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLA1UelcDrE&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1)

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Earn More Than A College Grad

You don't need that college debt!  Or maybe you do.  It depends on what you want to do when you grow up. 

Some careers, such as astrophysicist or genetic researcher do need some serious education after high school.  If that is what you love, go for it!

Mr. Money Mustache

But as I've often told my students, there are more than enough lawyers in the world, and electricians can make a lot of money with a lot less bother.  In fact, research has shown that many two-year graduates earn more money than those with a BA!

Courtesy of Mr. Money Mustache, here are over 50 jobs that pay over $50,000 a year, with at the most a two year degree:

Part 1 of 2:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/25/50-jobs-over-50000-without-a-degree-part-1/

Part 2 of 2:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/05/50-jobs-over-50000-without-a-degree-part-2

Water is a Useful Thing

Wetlands are very useful things, filtering water, preventing floods, recharging aquifers, and of course providing homes for ducks and waterlilies.

Water is also a friend to anthropologists.  The low oxygen levels at the bottom of swamps preserves dead people and their toys.

A body found in Ireland by a man digging peat has been dated to 4,000 years ago.

A video on the find is here.

In far-off Minnesota, archaeologists digging in a swamp have discovered the remains of an 8,000 year old campsite.

Cool information is here.

And also, a new way has been found to create hydrogen using sunlight - in other words, a non-polluting way to create a non-polluting fuel.

See how they can do it here.

Lazy Sunday Morning

Today was such an amazing day that I had to get out and enjoy it.  I spent the morning paddling up the Bantam River to Little Pond.

Lesser Yellowlegs

Semipalmated Plover

Yellow Pondlily

White Waterlily

Feeding Another 4 Billion, and Other News

The world's croplands could feed 4 billion more people than they do now.  How?

Just by shifting from producing animal feed and biofuels to producing exclusively food for human consumption, according to Emily Cassidy at the University of Minnesota, lead author of a paper published in Environmental Research Letters. new research from the Institute on the Environment.

In other words, live lower on the food chain (remember entropy?) and stop burning food in our cars.

Read more about the study at ScienceDaily.

Climate Change IS Occurring Ten Times Faster Than at Any Time in Past 65 Million Years

The planet is undergoing one of the largest changes in climate since the dinosaurs went extinct. But what might be even more troubling for humans, plants and animals is the speed of the change. Stanford climate scientists warn that the likely rate of change over the next century will be at least 10 times quicker than any climate shift in the past 65 million years.

Remember - adaptation takes time that we might not have.

Tropical Diseases Spreading North, for Humans and Their Food.

Where human health is concerned, there is not only the direct risk from pathogens like dengue, malaria and cholera, all of which are linked to warmer temperatures, but indirect risks from threats to agricultural systems and game species crucial for subsistence and cultural activities.