Electric Cars go Nuclear

This excellent piece by Courtney over at the Stocksorbonds blog is a good read. I have personally over the years been a staunch advocate of letting supply and demand do their thing while were it is possible to grease the tracks a bit. It truly takes long term government mandated money to shape a nascent industry. I do not like that, because I understand human greed and stupidity far too well.

Yet when we point out flaws, the fact is, is that they are obvious and simply cannot last. As has been so well put, we will insist on trying every wrong way possible before we relent and do the right thing. Part of this is the limitation of human intelligence. A well thought out plan must be presented and sold to folks with the capacity to act as actuator. Being human they grasp the outline and charge off on the program with serious shrinkage. Most plans fail to survive the experience.

I have just told you about the potential for cattails. It truly requires a major planning program and the solicitation of private joint venture partners, to say nothing of a new land classification scheme. That is the minimum needed. Instead we will first get a serious of ill equipped adventures that may add to the knowledge but not speed the development of the industry very much. In the end, it will be a very important industry.

A classic example of industry and governments getting together was the development of the Canadian tar sands. The original investment was made in the late seventies and is only realizing its potential now. A mere human being cannot live to that time frame.

This article helps scope out the future size of the nuclear industry, which is now ramping up to dominate grid power all over the globe. It is about to become a dynamic industry again, with or without the US market. Recall that most countries are small and simply lack energy options. A reactor gives them national energy independence and France has shown them the value of that.

Grid power is about to become very valuable because the electric car, with all its limitations is the current best option for private urban transportation. We have much better batteries, and obviously the manufacturers are producing high voltage systems with the necessary torque for performance. Those two little tricks can produce a perky little golf cart weight vehicle that screams about town.

Mass production is about to kick in to produce an inexpensive electric car that will surely beat out a bicycle so beloved by the purists. As Courtney points out, China is cranking out millions of electric scooters. We are a little more spoiled.

It would not be astonishing if over the next decade, we see an almost complete shift over to personal electric transportation. This is very bullish, but it is naturally cheaper to build out and obviously will be much cheaper to run. Right now it is only slightly inconvenient.

Re: THE PUZZLE IS ALMOST COMPLETE

There is nothing evil in the least about petitioning the government to do what is right. Doing so is one of the very basic freedoms offered to us by our constitution. Day after day pollution continues to kill. Something should be done. The problem is that politicians fall in love with power. They seek to tailor regulations in a way that will "earn" campaign contributions from the "winners". Politicians convert the goal of protecting the environment into the goal of producing campaign contributions. Politicians on the other side also win by not solving problems but by preventing solutions from being implemented.

We have made an awful lot of bad choices. Much of the damage from past bad choices can never be fixed. We can do better.

By mandating the use of ethanol and then subsidizing some of the richest people in the world to produce the stuff, we waste our time effort and energy and we create frustration, distrust, high prices for food and even starvation of poor people. Seventy percent of the farmers in Iowa and 78% of the farmers in North Dakota receive subsidies while the average Joe pays through the nose for fuel and food. US farmers are the richest farmers in the world. Some are New York City farmers who collect the subsidies without ever setting foot on the land. It is one thing to support a crop stabilization co-op and quite another to pay massive subsidies at the height of the agricultural profit cycle. The Cap and Trade system has been designed to split the difference. It will give existing businesses oligopoly power and campaign contributions to incumbent politicians. Big business and big government win but the consumer pays through the nose.

Government has gotten too big and the profit from lobbying has gotten out of hand. We can set up appropriate regulations without constantly robbing from Peter, enriching Paul and paying off politicians in the process.

Nuclear power gave us all a scare. It took about 25 years, but the fear has largely subsided. As a result, there are nuclear power deals being made daily. The big one was the agreement between Russia and the USA. Russia will build 45 nuclear plants over the next 22 years, producing a very large amount of low cost electricity. I believe the total built by Russia will be several times the 45 called for in the agreement. Once the process gets started, who can guess the total number? In the USA, we would need to go from 104 plants to about 700 plants to reach the market share that exists in France today.

The total number of plants that will be built in the rest of the world will be greater than the number built in Russia and the USA combined. In the past few days, Jordon has executed 123 agreements with France and the USA. Japan just renewed its agreement with the USA. India is in a battle royal over its prime ministers agreement with Bush. Around the globe, and particularly in the Middle East, it is like a nuclear power race is on. The backlog for nuclear power components is great. The major components are sold out for several years to come. The doubling of the price of oil in the past year has made nuclear and many other methods of producing energy very profitable.

Over the past 25 years, trillions of tones of coal have been burned because we have not been willing to drill for cleaner burning oil and because we have not been willing to build nuclear power. Billions of barrels of oil have been consumed because we have not drilled for cleaner burning natural gas. We could put every acre of land into production of ethanol and still hardly make a dent in our energy needs. The amount of resources needed to build enough wind mills would be incredible.

Drilling does much less environmental damage as other methods. With trillions of cubic meters of gas just a short distance off our coast lines, it makes no sense to damage the environment by tilling vast tracks of fertile land or dotting the countryside with noisy windmills made of steel and concrete.

The country has gotten into a group think mode that has resulted in the suspension of belief in the basic laws of supply and demand. Supposedly knowledgeable people are constantly saying things like the corn used in cars does not drive up the price of food because it is a different kind of corn than we eat. They say putting corn in cars does not effect the price of rice because most rice is grown in other countries. They say subsidies do not distort markets but makes them better. They even say that using double the amount of steel and concrete in a wind farm is not a consideration in comparing wind energy to nuclear energy.

Your point about the scaring of land and the damage to water resources is a good one. Yes, the total costs of mining and burning coal have not been factored into the cost of the energy produced. Determining the exact cost is impossible. A commission needs to be established to estimate externalities to the best of their ability with the support of the scientific community and the congress should only vote up or down. The externalities should be taxed and the revenues should go to eliminate taxes on earnings. We need incentives to produce less pollution and incentives to produce more work and investment.

Again, we do not want to take away our right to petition the government, but we want to reduce the necessity for it. Decade after decade the congress was unable to close extra military bases because representatives fought for local pork. Most everyone agreed there were too many bases but no one was willing to volunteer to have their base closed. A commission established which bases should be closed they were.

Right now, we use energy as a political football. Everyone has their own ideas about how to "fix the problem". The incentives to come up with good solutions are huge. If the externalities created by mining and burning coal were included in the price, we would burn less coal. However, I believe it will not be long before someone comes up with the best method for microbes to digest the coal and burp out clean burning methane gas. Thirty years ago, we grew 16 bushels of corn per acre. Today, we grow as much as 250 bushels of corn per acre; Monsanto projects that we will double yields in 5-7 years; 30 times the yield in 40 years! "Bugs" are already eating coal and oil and producing methane. A number of scientists have given us good reason to believe the natural process can be sped up many times, perhaps 10,000 times.

Once people realize that the natural process of producing energy is a renewable process, they will stop wasting so much time and effort on weak substitutes. Of course, improvements in batteries could change the dynamics of wind, solar, nuclear and other power solutions. The Chinese will buy upwards of 14 million electric scooters this year not to protect the environment but because the electric scooters cost less to make than the gasoline powered scooters. With about 30 nuclear power plants coming on line over the next 12 years, China will be able to charge as many scooters as the public will buy.

Governments and capitalist are willing to gamble. There will be winners and losers but the consumer will ultimately win. History has shown that free markets generally make fewer mistakes when allocating resources than do governments. Free markets drive down prices, whereas governments frequently drive up prices. Government is needed to set up the least amount of rules as are necessary. We should trust the people to do the rest.

Alternative History of the Holocene.

As my readers know, I am presenting an alternative history of the Holocene that is radically different than that ascribed to by everyone else. It is my expectation that this alternative history will require much of a generation to pass before it is actually accepted into the mainstream.

Fifteen years ago, it was very obvious to me that the Pacific coastal route was a major highway for human migration into the Americas. I live there, after all. It is only now that we are seeing rising acceptance of this idea. Also, the archeologists are now digging deeper than the Clovis record and are actually finding the necessary evidence.

Let us discuss the idea of archeological evidence. One of the poorly understood aspects of such evidence is the input distribution curve. Modest reflection tells us that the input curve is not very likely to match the output curve. What does this mean? It means that a culture can occupy a river valley for 10,000 years and that all evidence of their passing will be recycled by the meandering river bed for the duration leaving only a scattered location or two to interpret. A sampling of this remaining evidence cannot be expected to tell us very much at all about the real history of this occupation and most critically, the fall off in evidence as we retreat in time is naturally precipitous.

We have the example of Monte Verde which is telling us that humanity was in all the Americas for most of 50,000 years. And why not? Our problem is that we have only one or two such sites, while we have many more recent sites. But this is to be expected. What is important is to confirm the antiquity of mankind in the Americas or ignore every piece of cracked stone that may be a human artifact in the Americas while accepting such in the rest of the world.

We now have the important Topper site in North Carolina receiving the same treatment. It is already a very important Clovis site that confirms the meteoric extinction event of 12900 BCE. It also revealed much deeper strata that gave up radiocarbon readings of 50,000 years for charcoal associated with apparent human occupation.

I have had my eyes open for evidence of this nature for many years and it is nice to see it been slowly dug up. And let us not blame the archeologists for a lack of insight. They were far too few and had far too much reputation vested in bad ideas for this to be easily changed. And everyone wants that scant piece of evidence interpreted.

When I reconstructed Bronze Age mathematics, I understood that the measuring stick used by builders of the pyramids needed to have specific marks on the back. When one of these sticks became available for me to inspect, I was electrified to find those marks exactly were they should be.

The same was true when it was revealed that the Paleolithic coastal natives of Eastern Siberia had the best developed upper bodies ever seen for their kayaks.

These alternative historical interpretations continue to accrete new and compelling evidence. They are clearly not bad ideas.

Returning to the Holocene, we have a world utterly changed by the 12900 BCE crustal shift. Prior to this event, the temperate zone was locked in a climate regime that was dominated by the polar ice caps and produced temperature ranges much broader than to day and inimical to any form of stable crop production. It could only support a hunter gatherer society.

The regions of the world that could have evolved an antique civilization were constrained to SE Asia, India, Africa and the Amazon. So far though, our evidence is strictly Paleolithic from typically highland regions. Since modern humanity arose around 70,000 years ago and had sixty thousand years to establish antique civilizations not unlike those of the Maya and Mesopotamia in any convenient river bottom, it is a good surmise that these were all obliterated in 12900 BCE and their littorals flooded out as the sea levels rose from melting ice.

There is no evidence whatsoever to suppose that such a hypothetical population achieved a culture any more sophisticated than that of an advanced stone and wood based society. This is assured by the pervasiveness of surrounding Paleolithic culture.

After the event known as the Pleistocene nonconformity, the temperate zone became hospitable with the removal of the Northern ice Cap with the concomitant 300 foot sea rise and has continued hospitable to this day. The only anomalies of mention are the drop in global heat content caused by mankind’s denuding of the Sahara and the occasional nasty 1159 BCE blip produced by the likes of Hekla.

Such blips are typically volcanic in origin and Hekla’s lasted a full twenty years. The unrecognized consequence of such an event is the establishment of a huge amount of multi year ice in the high Arctic. This sea ice is only removed very slowly in the years that follow. There is good reason to suggest that the consequence of the little ice age was a slow recovery that has lasted two hundred years and only now is showing signs of fully abating.

Thus revegetating the Sahara and the Middle East is a priority to finish the job that nature is trying to complete and protect. The added global heat will allow us to recover far more quickly from the next Hekla style event. And the crust will never move again unless plate tectonics shifts Antarctica fifteen degrees or lifts the Arctic sea bed starting a new ice cap. By then we should have terraformed Venus and not care too much.

I have roughly sketched a history that included ample Bronze Age trading ending abruptly with Hekla and most certainly saw the rise and fall of many organized cultures. Many of those cultures left no stonework to mark their passing. In the Amazon we have a unique man made soil to indicate a population of millions. Without that there is nothing. We will find it necessary to err on the side of the large populations wherever possible.

Wealthlands

This article from The Statesman out of India is a bit difficult to read because of weak use of English. It may have been generated by a translation program. I have done what I could by largely treating every sentence as a separate paragraph, but do your best.

Our recent article on the cattail awoke me to the unexploited productivity of wetlands in general and ours in particular. This article demonstrates the commercial potential of wetland husbandry and once again also demonstrates the need for a proper regulatory framework.

It is fairly obvious that the Achilles heal of wetland husbandry is the same as for direct irrigation in which there is both individual responsibility and communal responsibility. This problem is minimized in traditional field cropping where a recalcitrant participant can be ignored. Not so when we are managing perhaps thousands of interlinking fields and channels that is sensitive to bad practice.

Our immediate need is to produce huge tonnages of starch bearing cattails for ethanol production. While we are at it, it is only good business to perfect as many additional food sources as possible as has been done in India.
These same wetlands are natural habitats for a range of fish and game that can also be exploited.

The only reason that this has never been pursued thoroughly in the past is surely the biological danger to the operator, today partially overcome by enclosed cabins and other strategies.

Wetlands’ wealth

The onus of saving water now rests squarely on the shoulders of future generations. As trite as this may sound, Arunayan Sharma explains why

Every year, 16 June is observed as Pachimbango Jalabhumi Diwas or West Bengal State Wetlands Day. The event provides the framework for action at the state and district wise cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands. It also promotes conservation and the wise use of wetlands throughout the state for alternative resources of sustainable development.

The wetlands have always played a key role in the history of human civilization. But the link between these natural resources and the communities dependent on them has become increasingly strained.

The uses of wetlands are many. They often provide alternative sources of income for locales and for activities such as fishing and the cultivation of economic and medicinal plants and boating generate money — which can be satisfy the sustainable development of opportunity and livelihood.

Many additional services and benefits that are often less tangible are also provided, like an improvement in the quality of water, rainwater harvesting, storm and flood water management and navigable waterways.

Which makes wetlands very important, as much because these have an historical and cultural significance and a reserve for biodiversity, which accounts for the expression “wealthlands”.

And they have a have tremendous capacity to retain rainwater and prevent flooding so as to reduce the need for expensive engineered structures for flood control and irrigation.

Temporary wetlands can be classified in cyclical terms in respect of hydrology. However, most ponds and beel fisheries are extensively managed for fish farming. And such wetlands are significant in terms of biodiversity because of their flora and fauna.

Waterbodies have diverse utilities and thus support a good number of human populations that depend on these waterbodies. In addition, large spreads of both terrestrial and wetland fauna use these wetlands as breeding and roosting grounds. The profile of a wetland area changes in course of time due to anthropogenic pressure and unplanned urbanisation.

Wetlands, including shallow waterbodies, cover a meagre six per cent of the earth’s surface and supports nearly 20 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity.

The hydrological regime, physico-chemical parameters of diverse water bodies and human interference are among the major forces that control biodiversity in the wetlands.

India has about 4.1 million hectares of wetlands, excluding paddy fields, of which 1.5 million hectares are natural and 2.6 million hectares are man-made.

In West Bengal, there are about 60 natural and 12 man-made wetlands, not to forget the numerous small water bodies including ponds, lakes, ditches, puddles.

The categories combine to cover about nine per cent of the total wetland area in India.

According to a study, these spreads can be classified as wetlands of the Gangetic alluvial plains, coastal wetlands, wetlands of the semi-arid regions or the Rarh region and wetlands of North Bengal.

These stretches are mainly confined to the alluvial plains of the lower Gangetic delta.

Waterbodies in this region can be divided into four categories depending upon parameters such as oligotrophic, mesotrophic, eutrophic and brackish. The Gangetic alluvial plains include trans-boundary wetlands like Bhatiar beel in Malda district. Coastal wetlands are mostly saline in nature. The Rarh region can be divided into a plain and a plateau and most of the waterbodies in this region are of a man-made perennial reservoir type. All these are all rain-fed and remain saturated through the monsoon and winter months.

Waterbodies distributed in these regions consist mainly of ancient as well as perennial reservoirs standing on old alluvial or laterite alkaline soil with occasional coarse sand or gravel.

North Bengal can broadly be divided into the Terai and Dooars. Waterbodies in the Terai and the Dooars are distinctly different in their hydrology and physiography.

The Dooars region includes hilly streams, rivers and a few perennial and seasonal lakes and reservoirs mainly distributed in Darjeeling.

The Terai region consists of marshes, backwater wetlands and several other man-made ponds, ditches, lakes and dighis distributed in Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, North and South Dinajpur.

Bengal’s wetlands, covering only about 8.5 per cent of the India area, provide shelter to 60 per cent diversity of aquatic and related flora. The phrenology of aquatic and wetland plants is controlled by physio-chemical parameters of the waterbodies.

The diversity of aquatic and wetland plants is controlled by the height of the water table as well as quality.

The diversity of wetland plants of Bengal is the richest in the country in that more than 44 species are important as food. Eight species of emergent hydrophytes are widely exploited for rural economy.

In addition, about 21 species are medicinally important and 12 species are significant for their biological filtering capacity.

More than 45 species have become rare, five species are already endangered and six species are under threat.

In general, the wetlands of the alluvial plains of the lower Ganga deltas are richest in macrophytic plant diversity in aquatic habitat due to variations in physicochemical parameters of water and bottom sediments.

Highly saline coastal wetlands are vegetated with mangroves and salinity-loving plants. Wetlands of the sub-Himalayan and semi arid regions are also distinguished for their physiography, hydrology and floristic composition.

Perennial water reservoirs in the semi arid regions are rich sources of floristic diversity. The wetlands of West Bengal represent 75 per cent of the fern population of the Indian subcontinent.

Many of the bird species depend on wetlands for their nesting, roosting and halting grounds and they directly or indirectly depend on aquatic plants and animals for their food.

Amphibians depend on aquatic and wetland plant communities for their shelter. A significant part of rural communities manage their sustenance from harvesting wetland products.

Fish farming is easily the most gainful commercial practice in these wetlands.

In addition to that, there are vast expanse of low-lying swamps, marshes and basins which are densely vegetated with commercial reeds, sedges and other emergent macrophytes so often exploited by the rural people for subsistence livelihood.

Traditional commercial practice (other than fish farming) in the wetlands is an indigenous culture. Earlier people used to harvest wetland products for their domestic consumption.

Rural people were responsible for commercialisation of major wetland products obtained from plant resources like Typha elephantina and Typha domingensis (hogla), Aeschynomene aspera (shola), Cyperus pangorei and Cyperus corymbosus (madurkathi), Trapa natans bispinosa (paniphal), Euryale ferox (makhana).

Apart from these, the poor villagers as supplementary vegetables and medicinal plants are also harvesting several wetland plants. Several aquatic plants are also marketed for aesthetic purposes. Several new green herbs of aquatic origin have now captured the city markets along with conventional aquatic herbs.

Makhana (Euryale ferox) is a seasonal or perennial giant water lily having flat leaf surface. The leaves, petioles, sepals and fruits of makhana are covered with semi-delicate bent prickles. Makhana is an aquatic cash crop.

Makhana supports a full-fledged cottage industry, which provides sustenance to a great many rural communities. Makhana seeds are edible and fried seeds or puffs are extremely nutritious and consist of easily digestible starch.

Cultivation and management of cattails, locally called hogla-pati (Typha elephantina and Typha domingensis) is more than a century old practice particularly found in the wetlands.

Many rural people are engaged in cultivation, management and marketing of products obtained from hogla.

A coarse quality of mat and rain-shed are the major products prepared from dried hogla leaves.
Shola is obtained from the soft stem pith of Aeschynomene aspera and its cultivation for commercial purposes.

Presently beautiful paintings and silk-screen printing is done on fine mats which have become very popular.

Water chestnut locally called paniphal (Trapa natans bispinosa) is one of the traditional water crop found in India. It is commercially cultivated for its edible fruits.

Ipomoea aquatica or Kalmi is most popular or traditionally consume leafy twigs, petioles and rhizomes of several aquatic herbs. Kalmi is cultivated along the wetlands areas.

In addition, other aquatic herbs like Kachu (Colocasia esculenta), Hingche (Enhydra fluctuans), Sushni (Marsilea minuta), Alligators weed, locally called Jalsakhi or ban-hingche (Alternanthera philoxeroides) and shaluk, water lilies (Nymphaea nouchali and Nymphaea pubescens) are significant for their market potential.

Several other aquatic herbs like thankuni (Centella asiatica and Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides), kulekhara (Hygrophila schulli) and bramhi (Bacopa monnieri) are also consumed as supplementary vegetables for their medicinal values.

In addition to this, a wetland fern (Diplazium esculentum) locally called dhenki shak is also sold in the market as supplementary vegetable.

All of these wetland plants grow abundantly in fresh water or mesotrophic marshes, pools, puddles and irrigation canals and provide sustenance to several thousand families.

At least 40 species of aquatic herbs are significant for their medicinal values. Among these few species are only marketed purely as herbal medicine.

Eclipta alba (keshut) is marketed for its ability to improve the colour of the hair and the luster of eye. Brahmi leaves are commercially used in preparation of brain tonic.

It is estimated that due to growing popularity of herbal medicine market demand of aquatic medicinal herbs is sharply increasing. This has created the possibility of their cultivation in wetlands in the near future.

Cultivation of aquarium plants namely Vallisneria natans, Aponogeton undulatus, Cabomba caroliniana, Hygrophila polysperma and Hydrilla verticillata are extensively harvested from wilderness for supply in the aquarium market.

Unsatisfactory socio-economic status leads to overuse of natural resources of wetlands.

Intensive search for alternative food resource from the wetlands for sustenance has forced an alarming level of modification of physico-chemical parameters in the natural wetland habitat. This disturbance of natural wetland habitat, eutrophication, frequent change in the settlement pattern, mono-culture practice (like fisheries) for maximum profit is damaging wetlands.

Unplanned urbanisation, lack of proper management and extension of unmanaged fishing practice in wetlands have resulted in degrading wetlands resources. Encroachments in wetlands, eutrophication, and lack of national and state level wetland management policies and rapid filling of ponds have collectively resulted in disappearance of aquatic flora and fauna.

Population explosion leads to encroachment of wetlands for other land uses. Weed infestation in wetlands has resulted in shrinkage due to excessive evapo-transpiration.

Sedimentation in wetlands and unmanaged pisciculture has resulted in decline of species diversity in wetlands. Fertilisers and pesticides from agricultural run off have resulted in decline of wetland species diversity.

Situated in the Indo-Gangetic floodplains, Malda district is dotted with many large and small wetlands. Some of the major wetlands in Malda are Bara Sagardighi, Bhatiar Bheel, Tangon Bheel, Chhatra Bheel, Madhaipur Bheel, Chandipur Bheel, Gour Bheel, Nayabandh Bheel and Jatradanga Bheel.

Sadly, these have never been utilised to their fullest extent in terms of flood control and other purposes.
Many wetlands have also been wiped out to make space for human settlements cultivable lands. Effective conservation measures and management plans and policies are immediately required to save these wealthlands from further degradation.

New approaches to irrigation and agricultural schemes should be undertaken in the adjoining sites. As the district attracts a large number of migratory birds every season, steps should be taken to develop these sites as spots for eco-tourism. The Bhatiar Bheel near Malda town is one of the most diverse wetlands in the area lies endangered due to extensive encroachment and unplanned growth of the city.

Unfortunately, in India there is no national wetland policy and whatever protection is available through prevailing regulatory measures do not cover the small and medium wetlands in the countryside.

Wetlands are natural assets, although the developers and administrators fail to see it.

Wetlands and their significance, diversity of plants, animal’s resources, livelihood support values and their region wise ecological roles should be included in the curriculum of school, college and University level. Wetlands are common property of society at large and destruction or misuse of such natural resources amounts to violation of environmental laws.

(The author is director, Centre for Ecological Engineering, Malda.)
statesman

After the Bronze Age

The one major climate anomaly that needs explanation is the Bronze Age warm period and its aftermath which we are living in today. During the Bronze Age, the climate appeared to be, at least on the basis of the science to date, a couple of degrees warmer than the present temperature regime. It ended with a bang as Hekla blew up, but why was recovery never full? We have had near attempts to restore that climatic regime, such as the medieval warm period, but all have ended badly. We are now clearly living through another such warm spell.

The chart shows a two thousand year warm spell that was untouchable. I have to accept that the data proxies are also fairly consistent for that era. The question remains, what mechanism lowered the global heat content?

For that we have the stripping of the Sahara by misplaced human agricultural practice. Today, solar energy is not absorbed or stored there at all. It is mostly reflected back into space. If that energy were been collected by vegetation, it would represent a huge addition to the earth’s heat content. The loss of that heat surely was responsible for post Bronze Age coolness.

We now have increasing evidence that the surplus CO2 in the atmosphere has now encouraged an increase in plant life throughout the globe. This should increase direct solar energy absorption and has likely contributed to the slightly warmer global conditions. Note the attached report.

With this excess of CO2 in the atmosphere, there is ample reason to restore the Sahara as growing environment. We have already addressed some of the needed methodology. I am not sure that I have added more since my earliest postings.

The first question is what really can be done using native dry land vegetation and is there any obvious engineering solutions. Solar driven atmospheric water extraction is a long way from been actually a feasible option although clunky demos have been built.

Before we start, it must be understood that reforesting the Sahara will lead to a far warmer Northern Hemisphere and that this is actually a good thing, It is also reasonable to anticipate the regreening of the entire Middle East. This will generate a warmer but moderated northern Hemisphere. This is one of the greatest single Terraforming tasks left to us to accomplish.

As I have posted earlier, the first step is the building of fenced range lands along the edge of the true desert. That controls the cropping behavior and allows a resurgence of vegetation promoting the retention of moisture. This perimeter culture will migrate backward into the more arable lands and also enhance their productivity. This should tend to encourage an increase in available moisture into the nearby desert lands.

Most critically, it has been shown that the establishment of acacia trees provides shade and a reduction in general temperature increasing the probability of night showers. It has also been shown that such an environment is conducive to the raising of indigenous cattle that are able to graze the developing grasses and possible under story. One would expect that the best strategy would also include other native ruminants that browse more difficult fodder. No goats should be permitted as they will attack and destroy the whole plant.

The idea is to advance this culture into the desert one fence row at a time as the following advance of available moisture accommodates. Without use of artificial means this does promise to take many years. Yet it will still be hugely advanced. The necessary population exists along the entirety of the southern edge of the Sahara with the necessary skills. In most cases it will be a problem of establishing title and supplying barb wire. It will be a lot like the spread of farming on the Great Plains.

We actually know that this was all likely viable grazing land in the beginning that was destroyed over a thousand years. Restoring it this way would likely take another thousand years.

To speed the process up, it should be possible to first design some large water diversion schemes that transfer water into suitable desert regions. It will never be enough but is will expand the watered regions and increase the atmospheric moisture content in those regions, once again allowing a gradual dry land expansion.

The principal prospect for this is the diversion of most of the water in the Upper Congo Basin over to the Chad Basin, perhaps not creating a lake so much as a fully watered basin with a sustainable lake that hopefully is large enough to drain. The possibility would also exist for additional diversion into the north. Work done seventy years ago suggested that this might be feasible.

It is also possible to create a biannual diversion of the Nile west of its current route but this may be of doubtful value until we are in the very late stages.

That then opens the remaining question of whether there is any method to divert some water north from the Niger Valley. At first blush, this appears very unlikely except the rainy season produces a huge amount of water that naturally is lost to the sea. It may be possible to divert sections of that river system to the north into valleys running into the Sahara. There should still be ample water for down river applications.

The truth is that that these engineering options help, but actually for a small fraction of the Sahara. The place is several millions of square miles and it would be a miracle to provide direct irrigation for even a quarter million square miles.

Therefore without actual atmospheric moisture recovery, we are looking at relying on natural recovery aided at least by our direct land management efforts. This might be at the rate of a mile per year, so that you are always followed closely by emergent tree cover. It will require two thousand years at this rate to do the Sahara, and assuming a simultaneous effort in the Middle East, much the same time.

The process may go faster if appropriate grasses can be used.

Arctic Sea Ice Surprise

Arctic Sea Ice Surprise

The Arctic sea ice appears to be having a somewhat different year this year as compared to last year’s shocker. We seem to be well on track to match last year’s sea ice low areal coverage. So, in spite of the chilly winter, it appears that little if any of the perennial sea ice will be restored. You may see the current map at this site:

http://www.socc.ca/seaice/seaice_current_e.cfm

What has my attention is an apparent change in the wind patterns, or more likely a shift in the cyclonal center of mass. I have no knowledge of the actual importance of this shift or even if it is unique. The general reduction in overall sea ice mass certainly promises to make it much more important if it repeats.

Early in the spring, I observed two anomalies. Wind and current had driven the sea ice deeply back along the edge of the Russian Arctic along the coast of Novaya Zemlya and also that an open area had emerged early off the coast of the Canadian Arctic between the archipelago and the Alaska border.

Now in the first week of June we have progression. The open sea area in the Canadian Western Arctic has expanded as far north as the mouth of Lancaster Sound. Less noticeably, the swath of sea ice along the northern coast of the Arctic Archipelago is showing the unmistakable signature of been well broken up with perhaps as high as thirty percent open water. This fairway is bounded on the north and west by more tightly packed sea ice from last winter.

This tells us that almost the whole mass of Arctic sea ice is in motion and almost everything is vulnerable to flushing. The ice that last year was packed up against the Arctic Coast is now been blown toward the Russian Coast.

What might this mean? I suggest that we will loose much more perennial sea ice this year than expected paving the way for a mostly single season ice regime. In fact, it appears that this perennial ice is been attacked almost preferentially at the moment. I suspect that my prognosis of a complete clearing of the Arctic seas by as early as 2012 may turn out to be conservative.

On a more practical side, if this can be maintained, it is very likely that the North West Passage will be cleanly opened this year with shipping friendly conditions. The major problem there has always been the western mouth of the Lancaster Sound. Right now you could sail the choke point. Of course either Alaska or the Sound could remain icebound, though that seems very unlikely.

It also acts like a clear passage over the pole could open up. This is very unlikely this year, but if the Arctic wind system is changing as much as I suspect, it may finally happen. The only advice that works anymore is to expect to be surprised. Recall that we do not know what a stable wind regime will look like once the long term pack ice is removed. A prevailing wind system that shoved all pack ice against the Russian coast seems impossible but it is those types of extremes that must now be countenanced.

Of course with the land warming up, the winds can reconfigure quickly and make nonsense out of these speculations.


In the meantime we have a couple of related stories:

GOING, GOING

Sea ice disappeared from the Arctic in May at an average of 8,000 square kilometres a day, on track to rival the record minimum extent of recent Septembers.

This latest satellite information, compiled by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, appears to put paid to claims by climate change skeptics that a colder winter produced thicker new ice that wouldn't melt as quickly as previously.

Springtime Arctic temperatures have been higher than long-term normals. Over the Arctic Ocean, the average hike in surface air temperatures was 1 to 3 C. But over the Baffin Bay region, average temperatures in May were as much as 8 degrees above normal.

Rising temperatures are usually hard on the thin ice that has formed over the past winter (first-year ice), and a declining percentage of that has been surviving to form more resilient multi-year ice.

However, much of the 2008 first-year ice is farther north than usual and therefore in areas that get weaker solar radiation. More might survive through the summer, the Center's scientists speculate.

Baltic Sea ice hits record low

Ice in Baltic Sea at record lows. The ice levels in the Baltic Sea region this winter were at the lowest levels since record-keeping began, according to data recently released by Sweden’s meteorological agency. Only 49,000 square kilometers were covered in ice – a mere quarter of the surface area that is normally expected to be frozen. Thank you, Swedish scientists, for sharing this important and alarming information. May governments and citizens worldwide take action to protect our planet from the perils of global warming.

Blog Anniversary Overview

I have been writing this daily column for a full year now. I think that there were only one or two instants that I lacked an obvious topic. In any event, this is as good a time as any to reformulate my theme of the application of agriculture to resolving our perceived difficulties with CO2 in particular and environmental issues in general.

I have always looked for ways in which the small farmer, who represents a likely third of the global population, can adopt beneficial protocols.

My initial postings commenced with the need to restore good husbandry to the maintenance and use of the woodlot in temperate North America. We recognized the need to produce a larger authority than the individual who could be capitalized over the long time spans necessary. We opened discussions on the methods and established practical protocols.

What I am very conscious of is that all protocols must be first properly implemented by some form of collective agency that has access to title creation and enforcement. After all, why are you going to grow a Macadamia nut plantation if after five years I can come in and convert the wood to charcoal?

This form of agricultural barbarism is inhibiting agricultural development in the underdeveloped world. The impoverished and disenfranchised simply do not care if their neighbor’s family is thrown into poverty and this is the selfish foundation of so called ethnic cleansing.

We went on to almost immediately discover terra preta. There was little coverage then but that has since totally blossomed. The power of terra preta is that it clearly answers the age old problem of maintaining soil fertility and I showed how even the original makers used corn waste to make it happen. This can be done today by any subsistence farmer.

Getting that world wide problem behind us was extremely necessary and very timely. Now that we know how to produce highly fertile soils in only a few years, we will be able to at least tolerate poor practices until the current operators are replaced. We actually have the time. I expect to see the ruined soils of Mesopotamia to be fertile again.

Education and gentle pressure will do the rest.

More exciting, millions of acres of tropical forest soils, now been cropped on a slash and burn system can be converted to continuous sustainable agriculture, This actually puts feeding our projected population of ten billion within easy reach.

We talked about the buffalo commons development that is quietly underway with no need to call on government involvement. I expect that in two centuries, that we will have more buffalo ranched than was ever alive in the wild. This particular protocol will also be implemented in the Asian steppes where their brethren were wiped out many thousands of years ago.

Recently we have been made aware of the productivity of cattail culture which allows a wetland protocol that will produce massive amounts of starch suitable for ethanol. This was unexpected and promises to be hugely productive and very low cost. The agricultural protocol can be applied from the tropics to deep in the Boreal forest. Whoever thought that there would be a crop that could prosper in those dismal swamps? Even the moose will be happy. The mosquitoes and black flies will be even happier which is why the work will have to be largely done after first frost.

We also discussed the onset of peak oil conditions in the energy markets. Pricing was shifted from an abundance regime to a chronic shortage regime. This obviously hurts and is now creating a huge immediate market for ethanol. Again, the obvious first step is to impose optional ethanol usage on all new vehicles. Industry and agriculture will sort out how to do the rest.

Many other protocols are now been experimented with and we have reported on these as they arose.

It is very comforting to know however, that almost all global soils in use can be easily restored to full health, that most wetland areas can become massive producers of starch for ethanol and if we care, for human consumption, and that temperate dry lands are best served by buffalo husbandry.

I have also commented on the need to bring the entire ancient hunter gather protocols under proper management. This will not likely occur until the hunters are run out of business. I do not think that it will be too difficult to restore the soon to be extinct salmon fishery or the soon to be extinct blue fin tuna fishery when the so called owners are completely out of business. It did happen to the world’s greatest cod fishery and once they are finished wrecking the ocean bottom so that any other form of fishing is impossible, it should be possible to get agreement with everyone to stay away forever and allow a full optimized recovery.

I welcome my readers to comment and I also welcome new ideas that I have never seen. Feel free to contact me through this blog.

Magenn Wind Power Generation

I was introduced this morning to this ongoing project at

http://www.magenn.com

Although anyone can sketch out the likely difficulties, the promise is certainly there for a major new source of constant energy supply. I have copied their FAQ and have interspersed a couple of comments there.

This is clearly a serious effort by folks with real knowledge and skills and it is good to see this happening.

My general comment is that this will quickly come down in cost per kw. The present initial pricing is at $3.00 to $5.00 for a small unit.

More critically, it opens the door to major off grid industrial energy production. A large factory normally has to be sited on grid and grid losses are built in. Here we have our power source within a thousand yards of its application which means a huge increase in overall efficiency. Any small town can both contemplate producing their own local power sharply dropping the cost, but also can attract manufacturing to their locale. The manufacturer gains a secure local work force, and a secure local power source.

The promoters see the usual very remote opportunities. I see every small town as a viable customer. Yes they are on the grid, but having a convenient primary source of power at home and even the capacity to wheel any surplus onto the grid is very attractive, particularly if we want to adopt municipal electric cars as a major energy conservation strategy.

I also question the ability to handle weather related problems, but this has been the primary problem of balloons and blimps from day one and they have generally been sorted out. Hauling the device down is actually the final recourse and all weather systems provide ample warning. Icing may be another matter.

This innovation makes economic distributed municipal scaled energy generation a viable option. And for every kw that you have released back to up stream users, you have also likely released another kw used to overcome line losses. I look forward to seeing a 1000 kw unit built which should be quite suitable for a small town of a 1000 or so. That size should be producible at a much lower cost also.

FAQ

1. When is Magenn's "Floating Wind Generator" or Air Rotor shipping?

Magenn Power is currently in the prototype phase of our Magenn Air Rotor System (MARS). Magenn Power plans to ship our first official product, a 10 to 25kW version in the later part of 2009/10. Magenn will not be shipping a 4 kW sized unit as previously planned.

2. What is the Magenn breakthrough?

Magenn's breakthrough is based upon three decades of experience designing very large inflatable structures. The Magenn Air Rotor System is a closed inflatable structural design with inherent integrity, stability, and low cost. Furthermore, MARS is a buoyant system that only requires a low cost tensioning cable to secure it and transfer energy to the ground. When considering aerodynamics (Magnus effect) and other properties, the result is a device that is elegant and is projected to be more cost efficient when compared to competing wind energy systems.

3. What is the projected life span of a Magenn Air Rotor?

In some cases, current aerostats (blimps and balloons) made of the same materials have lasted over 20 years. Magenn assumes a depreciable life span of at least 15 years before major refits are required.

4. How does MARS stay aloft?

MARS is filled with helium gas, which is inert and non-flammable. The lifting gas creates a lift force that is in excess of the total weight of the system. The helium provides at least twice the positive lift versus the overall weight of the MARS unit. Additional lift is also created when the rotor is spinning in a wind. The aerodynamic effect that produces additional lift is called the Magnus Effect.

5. What is the Magnus Effect?

This is the same effect, discovered in the mid 1800's, that creates lift when a spherical or cylindrical object is spun while moving in a fluid. A dimpled golf ball, hit properly, has a back spin that causes it to lift in flight. A baseball curve ball pitch uses the Magnus effect. Basically, a back spin causes a low pressure region to form above the object and high pressure to form below, resulting in lift. A large object like the Magenn Air Rotor creates substantial lift, so much so that the device should actually work in a wind, without using a lifting gas.

6. Why are two types of lift useful?

The combined lifting effect from buoyant (helium) lift and aerodynamic (Magnus) lift help stabilize the Air Rotor against "leaning" in the wind. In tests, an Air Rotor went straight up and held a near vertical position in various wind speeds, since the Magnus effect increases as the wind speed increases. Our research indicates that maximum lean will never be more than 45 degrees from the vertical. One can buy inexpensive wind rotor kites that demonstrate the Magnus effect. They are called Hawaiian kites and are interesting in that they go straight up in a wind; much straighter than a foil design or other kite designs.

7. Is the total lift sufficient to lift generators and other equipment?

The bigger the MARS unit, the easier it is to build heavier stronger structures, envelopes, and generators. As an example, the largest MARS units planned (100' x 300') will have tens of tons of buoyant (helium) lift. This is well in excess of the overall Air Rotor system weight.

What I find particularly attractive about this concept is that it will have declining cost curve against increasing scale and improving aerodynamics. Just as large ships are also better, so should this device.

I have always been a fan of airships, but their proper development needed modern materials and increasing scale to justify the economics. I always liked the idea of hauling fresh fruit and vegetables from California to New York at eighty miles an hour without any vibration and a modest fuel expenditure. Oh well.

8. What's the difference between a Magenn Cylindrical Rotor and propeller wind mills?
Other things being equal, Magenn Air Rotors are 50% as efficient as the best propeller rotors, in terms of their wind "intercepted area". For a standard propeller system, this is the circular "swept area" of the propeller, and for a Magenn cylinder, its "wind facing area". Thus Magenn must have an intercepted area twice as large to produce equivalent output. However, there are other factors that will boost Magenn efficiency such as being able to deploy above ground mechanical turbulence. Magenn cylinders are basically strong, closed structures and therefore can be built in large sizes at low cost -- substantially reduced capital cost in comparison to the propeller units.

9. How is the swept area of the Magenn Air Rotor compared with that of the traditional turbine?

Wind Turbine swept area efficiency is crucially important to a flat plate wind turbine, but in our case it is not, since we can increase the size of our rotor at little cost and get equivalent or better "economic efficiency" per unit of swept area. Magenn uses 40% to 50% of our total rotor frontal area to calculate swept area efficiency. What is important is the overall cost and the rated output.

10. Why use Helium?

Helium is a light inert gas and the second most abundant element in the universe. Helium was discovered in 1868 by J. Norman Lockyear. Helium provides extra lift and will keep MARS at altitude in very low winds or calm air. It is also plentiful, inexpensive and environmentally safe. Helium's inert quality over other lifting gases makes it very acceptable in North America. In other parts of the world other lifting gases will probably suffice due to availability and low cost.

11. What about using Hydrogen?

This flammable gas is lighter than air and the most abundant element in the universe. Henry Cavendish discovered that hydrogen was an element in 1766. In Third World applications, hydrogen is an attractive and inexpensive candidate for the lifting gas. The use of hydrogen will be the subject of future MARS testing.

In fairness, hydrogen has always been problematic. It does enter into chemical reactions and it just loves to leak away. Since lift is needed only to get to altitude, were aerodynamic lift can take over, it makes more sense to avoid hydrogen.

12. What type of inflatable material (envelopes) will be used?

MARS will be constructed with composite fabrics used in airships today. The fabric will be either woven Dacron or Vectran with an inner laminated coating of Mylar to reduce porosity and an exterior coating of Tedlar which will provide ultra-violet protection, scuff resistance and color. Dacron is used for boat sails, Mylar in silver toy helium balloons, and Tedlar is the plastic coating found in all-weather house siding.

13. What about weather, lightning and service?

The US military uses inflated, helium-filled aerostats that are 400-ft in length and are tethered at up to 15,000-ft in altitude. These aerostats are illuminated, including the tethers, and indicated on all general aviation charts and Notams (Notification to Air Men). The aerostats carry many tons of radar equipment and are powered through the tether which is connected to ground winches which raise and lower the aerostat for servicing. Lightning is not a problem since the aerostats have lightning arrestor equipment. Also, helium is non-flammable. MARS units will be deployed at much lower altitudes, thus simplifying all of this.

14. At what altitudes will Magenn Air Rotors be deployed?

MARS will be deployed up to 1,000-ft altitude at this time. The benefits of higher altitudes are being investigated. Future MARS units may be deployed at altitudes far beyond 1,000-ft.

15. What about positioning and wind direction?

Due to the inherent elegance of the design, the Magenn Air Rotors will always weather-vane properly. Regardless of wind direction, the deflection disk will ensure MARS units will automatically rotate toward the wind, with the Magnus aerodynamic effect creating additional lift.

16. How does Magenn altitude compare with the big fixed tower Wind Generators?

Magenn Air Rotors will be deployed at altitudes up to 1000-ft. The maximum height of the GE rotors are approximately 400-ft, which is still subject to ground turbulence in most locations. The big fixed tower windmills still need to be located in specific high wind locations often near the coast.

17. Can Magenn Air Rotors be deployed anywhere?

Yes almost anywhere, deployment flexibility is inherent in the system. Its deployment flexibility, its rapid deployment capability, and its limited maintenance requirements create markets that are not available to other wind or solar energy product manufactures. MARS units will be deployed for disaster relief, to third world communities with limited or no infrastructure, for various military applications, to remote locations, and in harsh climates.

18. What field testing have you done on the MARS to establish its reliability?

We have tested all individual components. Three important, and well documented, test areas from our airship research and development have included validation of the envelope structure, aerodynamics (Magnus effect) and more recently the best blade to drum configuration. MARS units will undergo extensive field testing before they are put into full production.

19. What is the maximum wind speed that the MARS can tolerate and still remain airborne?

MARS can operate at speeds greater than 28 meters per second. The MARS uses torque (load) as opposed to velocity (speed) to transfer energy from the wind hence it has very good low speed characteristics and broad speed latitude. The maximum wind speed is dictated by structural integrity, and not tip rotation speed, therefore, the larger the MARS the higher the wind speed capability.

20. Are there any features or controls that keep the MARS from over-speeding?

Yes, over speed controls are built into the design of MARS. On the larger MARS units, excessive speed is controlled by moderating tether height.

21. Is the deflate system used in case of excessive wind speed?

A deflate system (common on all blimps) is an emergency system that would only be used if for some reason the rotor broke free or other extreme emergency.

22. Is there any transmission of data from the MARS to the ground that monitor the performance or signal that there are malfunctions that need attention?

Yes. Pressure is constantly monitored and controlled. Rotation speed, wind speed, and generator functions are also monitored.

23. What type of generators will be used?

Depending on size, either DC or AC generators will be used, with rectification as necessary.

24. Do the generators use a drive that increases their rotational speed relative to that of the rotor?

Yes, the generators support the axle ends, but are off axis and slightly below the axle. They act as tether anchor points. In all cases the rotation speed is stepped up by a simple gear arrangement.

25. Is there any equipment on the ground, other than a transformer, needed to regulate or in some way transform the electricity transmitted to the ground? If so what sort of equipment is required?

Magenn anticipates that MARS units smaller than or equal to 10 to 25kW nameplate capacity will be used mostly in off-grid applications, such as for backup power for farms, emergency response or Third-World villages. The off-grid configuration (at an additional charge) will include a charge controller, storage batteries, and a DC-AC inverter to supply AC output at mains voltages. This equipment will be on the ground. Mains voltage is 120 Vac 60 Hz in North America, and 240 VAC 50 Hz in Western Europe and many other parts of the world.

When in production, large on-grid MARS units used for commercial power generation will be configured differently. The plan is to use variable-frequency (doubly fed) AC generators, so that the generator can remain synchronous with the grid and get the most out of the energy in the wind without motoring off the grid or causing excess reactive loading. The generator controller, protection and grid interconnect equipment (including voltage-matching transformer), and a winch to regulate the elevation of the MARS above the terrain will all reside on the ground.

In summary, Magenn's aim is to send airborne as little equipment as possible (i.e. we aim to keep things on the ground if possible). In all instances, Magenn will provide all necessary equipment to interface our unique generation system to conventional loads.

26. What voltage is generated on the MARS?

Customer specified DC or AC - 110 to 240 volt, 50 to 60 Hz.

27. What qualities does the "Kevlar like" material used for the rotor have that would prevent damage from flying objects such as birds or airborne debris?

Our experience in large airship structures leads us to use a woven high-tenacity substrate similar to Kevlar. This woven material is coated or laminated with a Tedlar outer surface which reduces abrasion and protects against UV radiation. Tedlar is typically used as a coating on aluminum siding. On the inside of the woven material is a coating designed to act as a gas barrier (Mylar is used as example). It should be noted that the woven substrate material is the same as that used in bullet-proof vests.

28. What happens if a MARS unit breaks loose from the tether?

Magenn has incorporated an instant deflate device if the MARS unit breaks loose from the tether or base (a requirement of FAA). A rip cord type device cuts a hole In the envelope and the MARS unit safely floats back to the ground.

29. Is there a point where the device has to be reeled in to avoid too strong a wind or bad weather?

Yes, in extremely high winds the device should be reeled in and winched down to the ground.

30. What warranty or guarantee will you have on the MARS?

Magenn will pass on the standard warranty for the generators installed. The warranty for the MARS unit will be a minimum of one year. It is expected that a service/support contract will also be sold with each MARS unit (7 to 15% of initial cost per annum). The support contract will cover most mechanical and electrical problems.

31. How soon will backpack-sized units be available?

Backpack size or small units may be available in five to ten years. Magenn Power is looking to license this technology and may not manufacture it ourselves.

32. Can I get a Demo unit for a very large customer?

Demo units are NOT available yet. Magenn Power will have demo units available in 2009/10.

33. Can I be a test site for your MARS unit?

Although test sites are welcome, we have already selected all the test sites we need at this time. Please advice us if you would like Magenn to consider you as a candidate for future test sites.

34. What is the pricing of the MARS 10 kW unit and what does it include?

Final pricing is yet to be determined on the 10kW MARS unit. We are aiming to have Magenn's target list price between $3 dollars to $5 dollars per watt. (Please Note: this price is subject to change).

The MARS 10 kW units includes:

30' x 60' foot envelope (exact size yet to be determined)

Two x 5kW generators, gear systems, etc.

Tether System, 400 feet included, (optional tether lengths will be available up to 1,000 feet at an additional charge)

Necessary lighting on the Tether to meet FAA & Transport Canada regulations
Safety mechanisms in case envelopes detaches from tether to meet FAA & Transport Canada regulations

Onboard Electronics

5 Year warranty on parts and labor, does not include helium

Yearly Maintenance contracts will be available from Certified Dealers and Distributors for an additional fee of (7 to 15%) per year. Magenn Power will supply the parts, and the Dealers will supply the labor.

Not included with the MARS 10kW unit:

Electric Winch (Magenn will provide at an additional charge, but will be offered as a separate line item)

Inverter if required (Magenn will provide at an additional charge, and will be offered as a separate line item)

Necessary Permits will vary from location to location (Certified Dealers and Distributors will be responsible for obtaining permits for most customers)

Installation and setup of the MARS unit (Available from Certified Dealers and Distributors and an extra charge)

Helium (Magenn is negotiating a world price, see question on Helium below for costs)

Electrical cable from MARS unit to power grid or battery system (Available from Certified Dealers and Distributors at an extra charge, Magenn will provide specifications)

Electronics to connect to power grid (Available from Certified Dealers and Distributors for an extra charge, Magenn will provide specifications)

Batteries (Available from Certified Dealers and Distributors for an extra charge, Magenn will provide specifications)

35. What is the size of MARS and its shipping weight?

The MARS 10 kW unit will be approximately 25" x 65" when inflated, it will come standard with a 400 foot tether; this configuration will have a shipping weight under 1,200 lbs.

36. Can I purchase a 10kW unit with a longer tether than 400 feet?

Yes, different tether lengths will be available as an option.

37. Does my customer need a concrete pad for MARS?

Some customers may require a concrete pad for a permanent installation. Magenn Power will provide specifications.

38. How much Helium does the 10kW MARS require?

The exact amount is yet to be determined. MARS 10kW unit will require slightly over 32,000 cubic feet of helium. Please note; Helium is NOT included in the price of MARS units.

39. What is the price of Helium?

The price of Helium varies from country to country. It is roughly $0.30 cents per cubic foot (depending on location in the world). It should be noted that Magenn is negotiating with the worlds largest helium suppliers to get the best available pricing for its distributors and dealers around the world.

40. I hear that Helium leaks?

Yes, Helium will leak over time. Helium leaks at a rate of 0.5% per month or 6% per year, therefore the MARS units will have to be topped up with Helium every 4 to 6 months. The Certified Dealer will provide this service to the consumer.

41. My customer needs to know exact power curves on the 10kW MARS?

Exact power curves and efficiency data are not available at this time. Magenn will provide our findings as soon as they are available. Estimates of power curves and efficiency data estimates are available on the MARS 10 kW specification sheet which is available for download on this site.

42. How do I know if the wind conditions in my area are good for the MARS unit?

MARS units will operate between 2 meters/sec and in excess of 28 meters/sec. As a reseller or Certified Distributor, you will be responsible for knowing your local wind conditions. A Google search should be able to provide you with this data.

43. What permits will I need for my customer?

Each MARS units will need special permits from the FAA to be installed in North America, countries outside of North America may have different rules and may not require permits, please check with your local authorities.

44. What are the exact FAA rules?

See: http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/part101.html

MARS units cannot be installed within 5 miles of an airport; MARS units cannot be installed within a flight path in North America; MARS units must and will have lighting every 50 feet, and the lights must flash once per second. All MARS units must and will have a mechanism to quickly deflate in case a unit gets detached from its tether.

45. What about installing a unit at my house in town?

MARS units will not be able to be installed within most city or town boundaries within North America.

46. I am a very large distributor and I want exclusivity for my country?
At this time, Magenn Power has no plans of offering exclusivity in any one country or geographical area.
Exclusivity may be given to companies that invest in Magenn, do joint ventures with Magenn, license Magenn's technology, or commit to large volumes of MARS product.

47. How do I invest in Magenn Power Inc., how much is Magenn raising and what is the minimum that I can invest?

See Magenn Investment Page. Send an email to invest@magenn.com

Oil headlines

The 2008 oil fright is continuing and we are seeing signs of volatility in the oil market itself and this likely presages a sell off in the price of oil which is rather welcome. We needed this price to get everyone’s attention. That accomplished, we now need a long period of price stability while demand is lowered and a vast redeployment of capital resources is put in motion. A price retrenchment to below a $100 is now in the works and is much more likely than any further advance. Much more importantly, the consumer is spending on ways to reduce the pain and this will cause a sharp lowering of USA oil consumption possibly beyond what anyone ever imagined possible.

I now expect that the conversion by the trucking industry to LNG engines will be precipitous in spite of the current distribution difficulties and the need to accelerate access to supply. Now that all minds are focused, it is possible to shed two to four million barrels of daily oil demand over the next four years. Yes this is optimistic, but the need is seen as dire and the effort will be there.

Recall that this price advance has not been driven by a shock of some sort. It has been driven by tightening supplies and the revealed inability of suppliers to crank up volume anywhere. That meant that the price had to go to a level were it became everyone’s business to cut down usage. At some point, the hole in your wallet sparks reaction. We have now clearly reached it and a full blown effort to reduce demand is now underway.

A shock may still arrive to run the price up to much higher levels, but I do not see many opportunities there. Besides, the retreat of the US dollar can only go so far as a way to balance the pressure and only hastens the day that other currencies take on reserve currency status.

What we cannot evade is that the current level of oil production at 87,000,000 bpd is likely as good as it gets and that this is terribly vulnerable to declines that are not easily replaced, although THAI promises to handle all that if we have enough time. Nothing else will do it.

This means that increased demand and some historic demand must be covered by other energy sources. The simplest but more inconvenient LNG can bridge this demand for a long time. It will certainly be having its heyday. On the other hand it is necessary. We simply cannot convert to anything else at sufficient speed.

I have already pointed out that cattail culture is capable of producing a cornucopia of ethanol as compared to any other biological pathway we have investigated. The sheer logistics are daunting. It would be better to properly encourage it and then allow it to roll out naturally, until all transportation fuel is ethanol. If every farmer took up the challenge today, it would still take at least a decade to make the easy stuff happen and a century to do the rest.

The fact is that we have options that sound policy can unleash.

What we do not have is a way to substantially stave of pending large field declines except by replacing such declines by fresh production using THAI on heavy oil reservoirs. This technology seems to be working in Alberta and will open up a major new class of field. It will still take a lot of time and as I have posted earlier, I think that we are confronting a production swing approaching 20,000,000 bpd over the next decade. And I am trying to downplay the scale of change hitting us, and hoping that is not really true.

That means energy will be in the headlines continuously from now on. Get used to it.

Dr Bruce J. West on Solar Energy Modeling

This was put out recently by Noah Shachtman on a paper published by Dr Bruce J. West. In view of Dr West’s research focus on data sets that elude simple mathematical modeling, it is fair to say that his findings represent the best available in terms of this question. His theoretical work is quite exciting.

The data that I have seen and the correlations that have been openly discussed supported a strong solar component in any climate model. The problem was and is in the details. Suddenly we have new methodology that begins to handle those details and is surely head and shoulders above the raging debate.

He is able to establish a first benchmark of 69% for solar influence as the driving engine of climate. This is far different from trotting my intuitions, even if they are dead right. It is also very good news. We now know that the engine driving the two degree variation in global temperature is susceptible to modeling.

With that as background, we have our only other factor that is independent of the sun and that is volcanism of course.

We have just fully recognized the true impact of the 1159 Hekla blast that turned over a two thousand year Bronze Age culture that was just then confronting Egypt and ended the long warm conditions of the Bronze Age. This has never been fully reversed, except perhaps during the medieval warm period.

I still think that we need a major volcanic event to properly explain the onset of the Little Ice Age. We can be fairly sure it was not focused on the Northern Hemisphere although the evidence is negative. In 1430, the climate was very similar to today based on the usual proxies. It very quickly declined to less pleasant conditions, finally culminating in the lows of the Little ice age. And it may just be that it was all about Solar variation.



Army: Sun, Not Man, Is Causing Climate Change

By Noah Shachtman June 03, 2008 1:46:00 PMCategories: Science!

on the global warming debate, claiming that climate change is not man-made. Instead, Dr. Bruce West, with the Army Research Office, argues that "changes in the earth’s average surface temperature are directly linked to ... the short-term statistical fluctuations in the Sun’s irradiance and the longer-term solar cycles."

In an advisory to bloggers entitled "Global Warming: Fact of Fiction [sic]," an Army public affairs official promoted a conference call with West about "the causes of global warming, and how it may not be caused by the common indicates [sic] some scientists and the media are indicating."

In the March, 2008 issue of Physics Today, West, the chief scientist of the Army Research Office's mathematical and information science directorate, wrote that "the Sun’s turbulent dynamics" are linked with the Earth's complex ecosystem. These connections are what is heating up the planet. "The Sun could account for as much as 69 percent of the increase in Earth’s average temperature," West noted.

It's a position that puts West at odds with nearly every major scientific organization on the planet. "The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling," Science magazine observes. So has the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, for their work on global warming.

West acknowledges that the IPCC and other scientific groups have "conclude[d] that the contribution of solar variability to global warming is negligible." He argues that these groups have done a poor job modeling the Sun's impact, however, and that's why they have "significantly over-estimated" the "anthropogenic contribution to global warming."

In recent days, the science and politics of climate change have once again taken center stage. NASA's Inspector General just issued a report, acknowledging that political appointees "reduced, marginalized or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public." Yesterday, the Senate began debating a bill that would cap carbon dioxide emissions -- considered one of the leading causes of man-made global warming.

UPDATE: "The Army does not have a position on global warming. Dr. West is an Army chief scientist, and is presenting one alternative theory to the cause of global warming," Army spokesperson Lindy Dinklage tells Danger Room. "This research is just some amongst thousands of studies being conducted by Army Scientists across the globe."

Okay. But the Army's Office of the Chief of Public Affairs chose to promote just this one study. And when Army public affairs rolls out research from an Army chief scientist -- with no clarifications that these are just his private views -- I think it's fair to call that an official endorsement.