Acid Test

Acid Test

Photovoltaics do take energy to make and use toxic elements that can cause nasty pollution unless they’re contained. We knew that. But what I didn’t really bother to think about is that those same rare elements that are toxic are also, well, rare. We’re using them like they’re not rare. So . . . doh! . . . they’ll run out soon. Meaning soon. Times like “five years” and “2017″ come out of the number-crunchers.

From New Scientist, reporting on Gordon, Bertram, and Graedel’s recent paper (abstract, pdf).

It’s not just the world’s platinum that is being used up at an alarming rate. The same goes for many other rare metals such as indium, which is being consumed in unprecedented quantities for making LCDs for flat-screen TVs, and the tantalum needed to make compact electronic devices like cellphones. . . . Even reserves of such commonplace elements as zinc, copper, nickel . . . will run out in the not-too-distant future. . . . [T]he metal gallium, which along with indium is used to make indium gallium arsenide . . . is the semiconducting material at the heart of a new generation of solar cells . . . . Reserves of both metals are disputed, but . . . René Kleijn, a chemist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, . . . estimates gallium and indium will probably contribute to less than 1 per cent of all future solar cells - a limitation imposed purely by a lack of raw material.

Iridium is the material that blankets the planet in a thin layer, left over from the asteroid strike that bothered the dinosaurs. Some of the other elements are found in sand in nano-quantities. However, grinding up the whole planet to make solar panels doesn’t seem like a much better idea than turning it inside out to burn it.

Time to get extremely serious about organic (in the sense of carbon-based) photovoltaics. It’s complicated, though. To begin with, organic molecules break down easily. And then, as Terry Pratchett might say, it’s quantum. However, plants do it. Bacteria do it. You’re not going to tell me we’re stupider than plants, are you? (Don’t answer that.)

Technorati Tags: solar power, photovoltaic, PV, gallium, resources, shortage, Graedel

I keep wanting to do something with pictures, and I keep procrastinating dreadfully. But just because I drop the ball all the time is no reason not to pick up again. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have anything to drop, would I?

This is a close-up of Dracula venefica taken at the Leiden Botanical Garden in 2000. (A bit more on Dracula at — where else? — Wikipedia.) It’s a small plant that grows in the Colombian Andes. The little “face” is smaller than a centimeter.

Technorati Tags: orchids, Colombia, Dracula venefica

Time to go all King-Arthur-and-Knights and do something about this. What, I have no idea. It’s such an arcane bureaucratic maneuver, I don’t know which levers apply. Those who do know, please comment or contact me and I’ll update the post. I saw this on Slashdot.

“The US Bureau of Land Management, overwhelmed by applications for large-scale solar energy plants, has declared a two-year freeze on applications for new projects until it completes an extensive environmental impact study. The study will produce ‘a single set of environmental criteria to weigh future solar proposals, which will ultimately speed the application process.’ The freeze means that current applications will continue to be processed — plants producing enough electricity for 20 million average American homes — but no new applications will be accepted until the study is complete. Solar power companies are worried that this will harm the industry just as it is poised for explosive growth. Some note that gas and oil projects are booming in the southwestern states most favorable to solar development. Another threat looming over the solar industry is that federal tax credits must be renewed in Congress, else they will expire this year.”

This has all the signs of studying solar power to death. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that this ruling follows a golf game among BLM honchos and oil execs. Or some damn thing. I mean, these are the same people who have to be sued because they let Federal lands turn into deserts and superfund sites. Since when has the BLM been so concerned about the environment that it seeks to prevent damage?

Technorati Tags: BLM, solar power, FUD

Update, June 30: One blogger I know who uses a number of widgets ran into difficulties with this upgrade method. Be careful, out there! Back up first! Always back up first!
First the good part: my blog runs on Wordpress, the software works, it’s easy to install, and easy to use. It has loads of advanced features as well as plugins that can expand those features further, nearly to the point of tap dancing and darning your socks. And the good people who developed it have made it open source and freely available. In short, a brilliant piece of work.

/*cue creeping sinister music*/

But Wordpress does have a dark side. It’s called “when things go wrong.” I have had zero success using their forums to find answers to simple or complicated questions, or anything in between. I must admit, I haven’t even tried in a year or so, because it was so uniformly useless. Maybe they’ve turned over a new leaf. When I did try it, the organization of the forums was hopeless, so other passing users weren’t likely to see or answer questions. The knowledgeable types, on the other hand, had nothing to say but RTFM. My questions made it rather plain that I’d done my best to read the effing manual, but the people who knew the answers couldn’t seem to be bothered to read the actual questions. Severely aggravating. The manual, called the Codex in Wordpress-talk, is indeed very complete, but again, organized so weirdly that finding anything was pretty much a matter of chance. Also aggravating, although it was easier not to take that personally.

This is all a long introduction to explain why I’d never upgraded my original, two year-old version of Wordpress. Not upgrading software, especially interactive stuff like blogging software, creates security holes and can cause all sorts of problems. But my blog was working, and I wasn’t about to to risk disturbing any part of that interlocking set of 75 megabytes worth of programs. Plus, Wordpress’s concept of upgrade methods was like their concept of user support. Totally dense. You were supposed to download, extract, ftp, back up, decompress MySQL databases, and god-knows-what-all. My eyes glazed over after about the fifteenth step. Forget it.

And then, at the end of March, Wordpress joined the 21st century and provided an automated upgrade. After the first whoop of joy, I turned cautious. Like the elderly oysters in The Walrus and The Carpenter, I’ve developed a suspicious mind. I googled to find out how things had worked for people. Had they, god forbid, had problems and needed help? The good old non-existent help of Wordpressdom?

There were some reports of mysterious glitches. The Wordpress site didn’t even talk about versions as old as mine. If I tried it, my fate would be in the Ceiling Cat’s paws, and I didn’t like that. But google really is your friend (so far, at least). In the course of searching, I found a site that said how to use an alternate upgrade script for Wordpress. Both sites sounded coherent and intelligent, and in the comments — oh, joy! — somebody mentioned having successfully gone straight from the paleolithic version I was using to the current one.

Time to make the leap.

So I did.

And everything worked.

I was boggled.

There was one heartstopping issue. The instructions said it would take a few minutes, but it took over an hour. I was drop dead sure that everything was stuffed. However, after an hour, suddenly the dear old blog went live again, stronger, faster, and better than before. I’d like my medical upgrades to work as well, please.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress, blog, blogging, upgrade, 2.5

I’ve been expecting this. The Administration needs a Really Big distraction before the election from everything that’s boiling over on the back burner. Health care, education, house prices, gas prices, Iraq, and the list goes on. The early stages of a war, the stage when it’s all about bunting and heroic young folks trailing clouds of glory, would be just the thing. But, sadly for them, BushCo has used up its capital. I’m not sure that at this point they could get the military to go along with another shooting war. (Congress probably would, but that’s Congress. Don’t get me started on our People’s Chamber of Deputies.) I’m sure BushCo would be glad to waste other people’s lives and money if they thought they could still get away with it, but from a purely Machiavellian standpoint, it’s a very risky strategy that could backfire badly in Peoria.

Enter Israel. That’s the bit I’ve been expecting. If Israel does the shooting, it solves all the problems. There’s a war, with visuals, but /*cough, cough, cough*/ nobody dies /*cough, cough*/. There’ll be a flare of support, because the US needs to stand by a friend, and BushCo will be kept way in the background. And — icing on the cake! — the price of oil will shoot to $200 a barrel through /*cough*/ nobody’s fault /*cough*/ and Cheney’s investments will do even better.

Right on schedule (i. e. US elections schedule) comes this information from the NYTimes, the outfit that did such a good job feeding us sober news indicating we had to do something about Iraq. U.S. Says Exercise by Israel Seemed Directed at Iran

Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. …

A second, the official said, was to send a clear message to the United States and other countries that Israel was prepared to act militarily if diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from producing bomb-grade uranium continued to falter.

“They wanted us to know, they wanted the Europeans to know, and they wanted the Iranians to know,” the Pentagon official said. “There’s a lot of signaling going on at different levels.”

Of course, there is the obligatory disclaimer that there’s nothing to see here, which has the added benefit of making it clear that Israel is an independent actor in all this.

Several American officials said they did not believe that the Israeli government had concluded that it must attack Iran and did not think that such a strike was imminent.

Then, just to make sure that the option of sensible shooting war stays open — nothing overhasty, you understand, more in sorrow than in anger, the Iranians made us do it —

Iran is also taking steps to better defend its nuclear facilities. Two sets of advance Russian-made radar systems were recently delivered to Iran. The radar will enhance Iran’s ability to detect planes flying at low altitude. … American military officials said that the deployment of such systems would hamper Israel’s attack planning, putting pressure on Israel to act before the missiles are fielded.

In completely unrelated news, Western oil majors returning to Iraq.

Technorati Tags: Iran, war, Israel, elections, 2008

WisCon is billed as “the world’s leading feminist science fiction convention.” “That’s easy,” you might be saying. “It’s the world’s only feminist sf con.” But you’d be wrong. There are others and this one is the biggest. I have to admit, I went to it for the first time with some trepidation. You never know, when there’s an angle, whether you aren’t going to be dropped down in the middle of a bunch of serious people looking at it from all sides. I mean, sf cons are about running around shouting in Klingon, not, um, well, discussing whether the correct term is womanist or feminist.

We learned useful things. For instance, Kate Schaefer helped us fold towels.

There was also a table where you could learn how to concoct your own Sri Lankan curry powder from roasted spices. Mary Ann Mohanraj had done several hours of work, roasting cumin, fenugreek, chili, cloves, and about ten other ingredients. We measured out the amounts she indicated, with variations based on what individual people said they liked, and she ground them up in a little Krups coffee grinder so we could take our own special curry powder home with us. I was too busy sniffing the out-of-this-world aromas to remember to take a picture.

While organic beings did their organic thing, the machine intelligences congregated in a room of their own and talked to each other.

(Actually, we had a lot of trouble getting the mesh networks to do the work part!)

Sunday, May 25th, during the con, was also when the Phoenix Mars Lander was due to touch down. Does it get better than a spacecraft landing on another planet in the middle of a science fiction convention? No, it does not. The geekier set clustered around a laptop tuned to NASA TV and watched a bunch of ecstatic scientists jump up and down with each bit of news about how well things were going. You could hear us yelling, too, from as far away as the hotel’s elevators. (Vulcan seemed more appropriate for the occasion than Klingon. Nobody shouted in Klingon.)

It wasn’t all fun and games. A visitor dropped in, asking to be taken to our leader. Unfortunately, there was a rather sticky diplomatic moment — note the expression of suppressed annoyance and incredulousness with the eyes bugging out — when we said we couldn’t. We currently don’t have one.

But the strangest, the most memorable, the most not-of-this-world thing that happened was meeting some of the other human beings there. Not so much the women who, though memorable, weren’t strange. I’ve been lucky in having met plenty of women who know their own minds and how to enjoy life. But WisCon is the only large gathering I’ve ever seen that had a large number of men in it, and they were just . . . I’m not even sure how to describe it . . . . Normal. Not one-upping, not worrying about bits falling off, not assuming that they’re the center of the universe. And not bothered by it. That really did feel like the future. Sign me up.

Technorati Tags: science fiction, WisCon, feminism

I’ve been giving much thought lately to ads, or, to be more exact, brainless repetitive messages generally. What with some very smart people (Dyson, Krugman 1996, 2008) predicting an ad-supported future, and what with the way that future is already among us, it’s high time to start thinking about how much free stuff costs.

But this is only tangentially about that. This is really just to share with you what those priceless Brits get up to.

About ads for drugs.

The biggest single market is in drugs that deal with erectile dysfunction. My favourite features a group of men who gather together to play in a band.

I think it is meant to show them looking relaxed and happy, but they are such good musicians you cannot help noting that impotence has left them with plenty of time on their hands to practise their instruments.

About brainless messages.

One of the big banks is currently advertising for [call center] workers saying “we seek passionate banking representatives to uphold our values.” This is a lie. Actually what the bank is seeking is competent people to follow instructions and answer the phones.

. . .

Passion, says the dictionary, means a strong sexual desire or the suffering of Christ at the crucifixion. In other words it doesn’t really have an awful lot to do with a typical day in the office - unless things have gone very wrong indeed.

Technorati Tags: advertising, newspeak

With this election, that is. Kate’s post brought it boiling back up, but so does practically everything right now. Just so you know we’re really out there: I’m mad as hell, and I’m not taking it any more. Not only can the Democrats not take my vote for granted, they’ve lost it. It doesn’t matter that with mindboggling generosity Hillary Clinton urges her supporters to vote in November. She’s not the one who caused the problem. The problem is the fauxgressives who think sexist bullying is okay, and the audiences who giggle nervously at best, and the candidates who ignore it. I don’t know how big a mea culpa it would take from all those people to bring me back in. I just know for sure that I’m not going to get it.

For some background to this rant, I want to tell you about something that happened in the high and far off times, when we were helping defend abortion clinics from fundie loonies down in the Deep South. Read more »

Talk about not knowing. I live in the country that did it. I was living in that country when they did it. I knew the US bombed Laos. I had no idea it was so bad.

From the BBC:

Laos is the most bombed country on earth. The US dropped 2.4 million tonnes of bombs on it during the Vietnam War - more than the allies dropped on Germany and Japan combined in World War II.

The photo essay shows what Laotians have done with the litter of war.

Technorati Tags: Laos, bombs, human ingenuity

Mark your calendars. Tuesday’s the day. People all over the world will be downloading Firefox 3.

Why? I’m glad you asked.

1) Firefox is an awesome browser, now with version 3 goodness. (It really is good. I’ve been using pre-release versions for a couple of months now, and it is Good.)

2) By downloading it Tuesday, you’ll be helping to set a world record for software downloads. Since this is free and open source software that’ll help lots of people hear about something with no ad budget. (It’s free. Who’s going to pay for ads?)

As for what’s so good about open source software: –Its focus is what the users want. (No stockholders to worry about.) –Because it’s open source, you have tens of thousands of geek eyes making sure it’s not carrying crapware, whether corporate or criminal. –Firefox, specifically, has hundreds of extensions that let you fill any specialized need you might have. (But a word of caution about extensions if you already use Firefox. See end of post.)

Speaking about specialized needs, one of mine is the absolute, can’t-live-without-it, do-or-die need for ad blocking. An extension called, amazingly enough, AdBlock, makes the web usable, and makes pages appear much faster because you’re not loading a bunch of useless junk. Another one is NoScript that selectively blocks javascript, flash ads, and any singing, dancing, blinking, annoying doodads you don’t need. (You can turn any of them back on if you want them.) That also means that an infected web page can’t load malware on your system.

With all the talk of Firefox 3, Opera fans (Opera is another open source free browser) have been pointing out loudly how much better their software is. So I went and had another look at it. (I gave up on it years ago when it put ads in a huge banner to try to force you to pay for a usable version.) Opera has no equivalent to AdBlock. (Yes, I know you can block ads with a whole lot of gymnastics, but it’s not easy.) So, as far as I’m concerned, forget it.

A word of caution. If you’re already using Firefox, 3 will install over 2. Since not all extensions are compatible with 3 at this point, you could suddenly lose some critical ones. This is not good. You can check the current status of add-on compatibility at alex.polvi’s site (via lifehacker).

Obviously, there ought to be an easy option to install 3 next to 2. For some braindead reason, Mozilla doesn’t take that route. (Probably a misguided desire to make sure everyone has the latest software. Point is, it should be a matter of user choice.) The workaround is to make a new profile in 2, install 3, but not start it until you’ve specified the option for it to use the new profile. Detailed instructions are here. It’s not difficult, but it is a bit tedious. Big demerit to the Firefox developers!

But, devs aside, Firefox itself is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, or for as long as you’re on the internets. Do your bit to let everyone know and download on Tuesday!

Technorati Tags: Firefox, Firefox 3

Except to say notice the URL, passed without comment.

Continuing my vehicular series . . .

the flying car from the MIT-grown geniuses at Terrafugia . . .

Maybe the deeper meaning here is that I want to get away from it all?

Technorati Tags: flying car, drivable airplane, Terrafugia

reality has a well known depressing bent just now.

Via the BBC, I noticed this article in Nature Geoscience by Zeebe & Caldeira.

They’ve absolutely nailed down a carbon cycle some mouthbreathers were hoping didn’t explain much. Volcanoes spew vast quantities of greenhouse gases into the air, so their thinking — the mouthbreathers’ thinking, not the volcanoes — was that greenhouse gases are natural and couldn’t possibly be a problem. Mother Nature would take care of everything. Thus it ever was. Thus it ever shall be. (No, I’m not being fair to the scientists, as opposed to the politicians, who held the contrarian point of view. It’s way more complicated than that. But it’s still just as wrong.)

The evidence pointed toward a cycle in which the atmospheric carbon is eventually fixated into rocks. Corals, for instance, fix CO2 when they form calcium carbonate which makes limestone. Sedimentary rocks trap carbonates as they pile up. (That’s what the BBC means when they write that carbon is “removed from the air by rock weathering,” which, as written, doesn’t make any sense.) Then, by the processes of tectonic movement, the rock containing all that carbon moves toward subduction zones and is eventually forced down under the crust. The volatiles in those rocks, including some containing carbon, rise and force their way up through the volcanoes that run with the subduction zones.

If you’re sitting there thinking, “But, my God, that’s got to take nonillions of years!” that’s exactly the point. It takes over a hundred million years for the whole cycle, and during all that time the carbon is not in the atmosphere and not greenhousing.

So far, so good. We’ve known about this (well, some of us have known about this) for decades. The shocking thing to me about their research was the data on how much long term variation in atmospheric carbon there has been. This is data from ice cores. This is not a guess, or a pessimistic estimate, or a liberal fantasy to make the Republicans look bad. This is data.

The mean long term variation in atmospheric carbon has been 22 parts per million. Individual measurements have varied more than that, but overall, for the last 610,000 years, that’s been the variation.

Except for the last 200 years. We’ve already upped the concentration by 100 ppm. We’re going to increase it by another couple of hundred before we have any chance of stopping it. The big argument is whether we need to bother stopping it then, or whether another few hundred on top of that will really make any difference. Why ding the GDP a percentage point or two when there’s no need?

The mind boggles.

Twenty two parts per million has been the extent of the real variation for longer than modern humans have existed. But some of us can’t figure out that shoveling on way, way more than that will have any impact.

I hereby rename our species Homo stupidens.

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change

That’s all. Just thought you might want to know.

Your Blogscientist is depressed. It may be necessary to take what I say with some salt, or sugar, or something. What brought this on is a longish article I read on zfacts.com, Peak Oil or Liquid Coal?

I was always under the general impression that oil ruled because, with all the subsidies it gets, it’s the cheapest and most convenient fuel around. Numbers periodically floated out saying that solar would be competitive at $70 per barrel oil, or $100, or some astronomical sum. Well, we’re there. Any day now, I figured, people would wake up from their mass hypnosis and realize that everybody except Big Oil wins when we start moving to solar and conservation.

Then I saw this on zfacts:

[Coal gasification] could produce gasoline for the equivalent of about $55 per barrel of oil. This has not yet happened because investors are afraid the price of oil will fall back below $55 as soon as they build a coal-to-gasoline plant.

Fifty-five dollars? Sure, that means current subsidies have to stay in place, but how much do you want to bet they will if it gives people a chance at $55 barrel oil? Also, Big Oil wins, which is way more important than everybody winning.

So now I’m convinced that too many people will race to hell down a path made of coal gas. They’ll do it as soon as the reality of peak oil penetrates through their ivory skulls and into that air space they use for brains. Once coal-to-gas infrastructure starts being built, we’ll have another whole wall of vested interests blocking off a real solution. And who cares if the planet fries? That’s tomorrow. … Until it’s today. And then we’ll have disasters to worry about. Namby-pamby hippy stuff like solar energy won’t even be on the map.

When has a crowd of people ever done anything different when they could do the same old thing at the same–or less–cost?

So I say we’re doomed.