As alternative energy sources go, fusion power may be the ultimate goal. It seems like it has been "almost here" for years. So is it? Not Yet! But the various research projects and developments keep rolling along. A recent innovation for the "Z Machine" facility at the Sandia National Laboratories carries hopes with it that the Sandia project may gain a little ground on what is probably the world's leading fusion project right now, the ITER which is an experimental reactor that is going to be built in Caderache, France next year.
New Scientist has an article about a rapid-firing "spark plug" (actually a device called a Linear Transformer Driver) that may help boost the efficiency of the inertial confinement method being used at Sandia, which has until now been less efficient and shown less practical promise than the magnetic confinement method used at the Joint European Torus in Culham, UK (JET) and which will be used in ITER.
Fusion is actually a pretty controversial form of alternative power. Despite decades of research and billions of dollars spent on it, a viable fusion power station is probably still decades away (ITER won't be operational until 2015, and it is just the next step for magnetic confinement, not a fully functioning production facility). Critics say this is taking valuable research dollars away from other more viable forms of alternate energy. One leading scientist published a paper in the journal Science recently saying he believes fusion will never be practical as an alternate source of energy because there are just too many insurmountable obstacles that still have to be overcome.
And for those of you who remember that short period of hope and the following crash of Cold Fusion way back when, that horse is not dead yet. Recent experiments (reproducible this time) seem to show there really is SOMETHING going on there, and if that actually turned out to be the way ahead the irony would just be too sadsterical (that's sad and hysterical at the same time, couldn't think of a better way to say it...)
So, can something like an invisibility cloak from the Harry Potter stories be made? Not yet, but perhaps soon. It all involves something called metamaterials, which are essentially materials made up of simple electronic components in repeated patterns that give the material electromagnetic properties not occurring naturally in nature. Recently there has been work published postulating how such a thing could be achieved, and the effect was actually demonstrated recently in an experiment at Duke University in 2006. That experiment involved invisibility to microwave radiation, not visible light however, and in only one wavelength.
The concept seems to have been proven however, and the real hurdle right now is just to create a metamaterial with the correct properties for visible light. Cloaking devices for aircraft, submarines and such appear to be simpler to achieve since the effect would not have to change shape the way a cloak over a moving human form would have to. In this article at Science Daily, it states that scientists believe invisibility will be possible for objects of any size and shape within the next ten years.
There is an interesting article at Scientific American about building a tunnel out of this material, and how it would appear like a wormhole: light passing through it would seem to be appearing from another dimension.
I've been having a lot of fun thinking of some of the more bizarre applications for this sort of technology, other than the obvious military applications and such. Imagine activating the anti-theft device on your vehicle in the parking lot, and it disappears! Of course then someone else trying to park might plow into it, so maybe not such a good idea after all... How about using it to hide the structural supports for a building so it appears to be floating in space? Or improving the view in some places by rendering industrial infrastructure invisible? How about a closet door that disappears once you close it, leaving only a blank wall? The problem with almost any use for it of course is similar to the parking lot problem- for most things, you have to be able to see them for safety.
It's going to be interesting to see what the next developments in this field will be, now that the theory for how to achieve this effect has been established. See you out there (or maybe not)!
So, is there a hydrogen bus fleet or a hydrogen highway? Not yet! But there will be soon in British Columbia. There is an $89 million project to develop a fleet of 20 hydrogen fuelled buses and fulling stations in Whistler, Vancouver, and Victoria to supply the "hydrogen highway". The plan is to have it operational for showcasing at the 2010 Olympics. In fact, in cooperation with the United States the highway is planned to be operational all the way to San Diego by 2010. There is a short article about it here at CBC.
Hydrogen fulled vehicles are ZEVs, which are zero-emission vehicles. The only by-products are pure water and heat. The only problem with them at the moment is that we produce hydrogen using methods that do pollute during the production process. However, if we do get the distribution infrastructure and the vehicles put in place, the production method could be altered to a more environmentally friendly method. This seems to be the most feasible approach to me, one step at a time. It would be impractical to move to alternate production methods before a market has been developed.
So how long until hydrogen vehicles are in the hands of the average consumer? There are prototypes out there, and the big companies are going to be showing them off in the near future. Considering the momentum that concern over climate change is imparting to environmentally friendly technological change now, perhaps we'll see them a lot sooner than most of us originally thought! I'll see if I can round up some of the news on the prototypes that are out there and do a little summary in an upcoming yeti tracks. See you out there!
Well, here is my first yeti tracks, a type of post where I intend to add detail or discussion about something I've already mentioned, a sort of follow-up post.
I realized I mentioned the Drake equation in my post about Gliese 581 C without really saying what it was, for those who don't know. Basically the equation was created by Dr. Frank Drake as a method for estimating the number of extraterrestrial civilizations it might be possible to come in contact with. The variables in this equation are almost all subject to debate, but the one that this discovery specifically relates to is ne which is the number of planets per star that would be capable of developing life. The discovery is also very relevant to the Rare Earth hypothesis, which basically states that the conditions required to support life in the universe are very rare, and the Mediocrity principle, which states the opposite by saying there is nothing particularly unusual or special about the conditions required to support life in a universal context.
A new study suggests that black holes and worm holes may be virtually indistinguishable from each other observationally. The sole observable difference is something called Hawking radiation, which should be found in the case of black holes but not with worm holes. The trouble is that Hawking radiation should be very hard to detect in the presence of many other energy sources. There is a very interesting article on the study and on black holes and worm holes in general at New Scientist.
An interesting thought is put foward that Hawking radiation may aid in future particle accelerator experiments where microscopic black holes might be produced, specifically to help identify whether what is created in the experiment is a black hole or a worm hole.
I've heard a little about these proposed experiments before, and really have to read more about them. What effect would a microscopic black hole have on its surroundings? Would it last a few nanoseconds and then vanish/collapse, or could it sustain itself? A worm hole would be preferable I think, since it does not have an event horizon like a black hole does! Which means something that goes in might be able to come back out.
I remember reading an alternate theory on black hole formation, function and form recently that I'm going to look around for and put up as yeti tracks if I can find it.
Wow, this is a great story to get this blog off the ground with! Gliese 581 C is the name of the planet, the smallest and most Earthlike exoplanet discovered so far. It is in the habitable zone of its star, with an estimated surface temperature between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius. This of course means water could exist as a liquid on the surface. Also, its relatively small size as exoplanets go means the gravity would not be crushing. This makes it a great candidate for extraterrestrial life. And at a distance of 20.5 light years, it is right in our galactic backyard.
The proximity of this discovery does indicate that similar planets may be plentiful. If you look at something like the Drake equation when you have values that you can back up with evidence, the debate around SETI becomes really interesting.
Thanks for reading my first entry! I didn't want to get too deep or detailed until I am more comfortable with doing this. Please bear with me while I figure out how to go beyond the basics and start getting photos, user-friendly formatting and so on incorporated. See you out there!
Well, it seems I have finally gotten this project off the ground! A blog format seems to be the right way to go for something I can manage. With any luck, I will have the Url www.notyet.net pointing here in a day or so. And that Url is of course the source of my screen name, Naughty Yeti (Not-ty Yet-i -- get it?). Feel free to groan, the Naughty Yeti loves puns...
So what is going to be here? Stuff that is "Not Yet". I love following frontiers in science and technology, so I'll be posting interesting news and hints I find on these subjects, along with my own musings on where that might take us, what might be coming next, why somethings don't seem to be getting any closer, and implications of all the above. With any luck, it will be interesting to someone other than me. See you out there!
As alternative energy sources go, fusion power may be the ultimate goal. It seems like it has been "almost here" for years. So is it? Not Yet! But the various research projects and developments keep rolling along. A recent innovation for the "Z Machine" facility at the Sandia National Laboratories carries hopes with it that the Sandia project may gain a little ground on what is probably the world's leading fusion project right now, the ITER which is an experimental reactor that is going to be built in Caderache, France next year.
