Reimagined and Revamped. Fighting the spread of nonsense often feels like a Sisyphean task. However, the joy is in making the information available, not the hope of conversion.
Shit
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory Was a satellite that was going to let us create a dynamic detailed map of carbon emissions and carbon sinks. We do have some ability to do this now, but nothing like what this would have helped us to do. Now we will be looking to Japan Gosat satellite to perform this function. Too bad.
Update: Bad Astronomy has more and will have update. Clearly its better to read about it there..... But I still beat him to the punch!
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I don’t know many religious people. Of those, I know fewer who are willing to challenge their religious point of view. Of those, none are close enough to me to be able to carry on a friendly discussion on the matter. So what happens?
I have conversations about religion in my head while I walk the dog, drive, wait at the train station. Do you do this? Man, I hope I’m not the only one. Its kind of funny, because atheist tech doesn’t always ‘win’. Sometimes I come up with something that I don’t know how to defend to explain.
I’m not writing this post to give ammo to one side or another, I just write what I am thinking about at the time. So here is my conversation as I had it (I had a stenographer present at all times).
Atheist TS: You can’t know that there is a god, because there is no evidence, nothing that can’t be explained, and as time goes on, the things we can’t explain at some point, through the scientific method, eventually gets explained. the Gaps continue to shrink.
Religious TS: There isn’t a God-O-Meter that you can wave around to find god. He lives outside of our universe.
ATS: How convenient, if he lives outside of our universe, that's the same thing as not being there.
RTS: No, it isn’t. He may live outside of the universe, but he certainly has strong influence on our universe and humans as a whole.
ATS: If he had physical influence on our universe then we would be able to measure him.
RTS: Yeah I hear that assumption a lot. Let me give you an example. Do you think I am real?
ATS (sniggers a little, since this is in his head): no, but for the purposes of this conversation, I’ll bite. Yes you are real.
RTS: OK, lemme use someone else. Do you think Alex Rodriguez, the baseball player is real?
ATS: Yes.
RTS: So presumably he has a father right?
ATS: Yes
RTS: So we definitely know this person I am talking about is real, but he is also someone that most people do not know.
ATS: OK (with a look of “where the hell are you going with this?”)
RTS: OK, lets say A-Rods father, Daddy-Rod, goes to Mumbai and kills someone without being caught on video. Do you think that is possible, leaving aside his morals?
ATS: Yes.
RTS: Then Daddy-Rod does to Rhode Island and drops 1000 dollars in a mailbox in a suburb of Providence. Is that Possible?
ATS: I guess
RTS: Then he does 100 other acts of kindness, creation, destruction, and pain, all over the world in a completely random fashion. All while not being detected. Do you think that is possible?
ATS: Well I guess.
RTS: Is it possible that this string of actions looks random to you and everyone else, but in actuality there is a method to his madness?
ATS: I guess.
RTS: Is Daddy-Rod no longer real? Hasn’t he performed significant acts that affect people in a significant way? But still, presuming that all the acts appear to be random, he would not be detected. Further, it may appear completely random to you, but he may have his own formula about who gets good things and who gets bad, and you would never know it.
OK, I’ve let this drama go on long enough. Yeah, I knew where RTS was going in a second when I really had this conversation. Some of the folks I have brought this to, have asked “If you can’t detect Daddy-Rod, how is that different than him not being there?”. But clearly he is there. Clearly for many people there is a difference because he is there. Further, if we knew his reasoning, we would be in a better position to avoid pain and be granted something good.
The best I can think of is that, we have been trying to find concrete evidence of Daddy-Rod for millennia, surely he would have slipped up by now. Been caught on camera, or done something that would not have been able to be done without his presence. But presuming omnipotence, that may not apply to a god.
I’m not going all Raving Atheist. There are many reasons to ignore the god hypothesis. And tons of unconvincing arguments for God. But I was just thinking about this. If someone brought this to me, I am not sure of how I would respond. So, I am bringing it to you.
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For the most part of the last three years, I have been pretty free of dorks who just write useless blather. I have been pretty free of spam too. It was nice. But those days are over I guess.
I'll probably find a better comment system than the one blogger provides, but until I do and can specifically ban a trolls IP, I have to put on moderation, which is more work for me, and annoying for you. Let's all repeat after me, "Thank you, stupid trolls"
OK, for the future however, I'd like to get some foundation here for commenting. This blog is increasing in its readership, but its still not anywhere near any of the more popular blogs like PZ or Skeptico. I probably won't have to institute strict rules, but here are the basics:
Short notes:
If you are just going to write a short note, without debatable claims, then I don't really see any limitations to impose. If you want to tell me you liked a post, or hated a post, I'm all for it. I would encourage you to do this so I can have some feedback as to what I am doing right to entertain and inform, and what I am doing wrong.
Disputing Claims
If you disagree with me, or think I left out something glaringly stupid, or something like that, please tell me! I blog, read blogs, and write comments to learn. No where in this entire blog will you find me saying that I am 100% certainly right. I'm happy to change my mind about something, but I am not willing to do it based on fallacious arguments.
Avoid logical Fallacies.
I dislike responding by saying "Strawman, argument from ignorance, poisoning the well, ad hominem..." It boring and a waste of everyone's time. However, I do recognize that it actually takes some time to realize that you are making them, or even detecting them in other people. I ask that you put in your best effort. Here is a list of common ones, and why they are fallacies.
Name Calling
Also boring. I don't care if you think I'm an asshole. I care if you think I am wrong, and more importantly, why you think I am wrong.
Support your claims
If you think I am wrong, guess what, I don't believe you. I would not have written the post if I thought I was wrong. If you want to show me how I am wrong, you need to be using reasoned arguments and provide links to information that backs up what you said. I will change my mind on a subject with referenced data and logical reasoning. If you blather on this blog without supporting your claims, I'm simply going to ignore or delete you.
None of this is to say that if you type a single, short unsupported statement that I'm gonna go all medeival on your ass. But if you actually want to make your point, spend the extra time to back up what you say. Further, I encourage you to coment and truly enjoy calm reasoned debate, its one of the reasons I do this. So don't feel shy, don't feel like any innaccuracy is going to release the fllodgates of hell.
Other folks have pretty good commenting guidelines. Instead of duplicating all that here, I encourage you to read them to get a feel for what I find important.
Update: I have installed IntenseDebate. Mostly because I am lazy and didn't want to spend a lot of time looking for a tool that gives me better power over my comments and VJack recommended it.
Please sign up and use it. I may go threaded if the chatter gets confusing, but for now, i'm leaving threaded comments off.
Update II: OK, looks like I got IntenseDebate to work. Hope you like it. Took me a while becuase of the way I post (using Livewriter) and my custom template. But after I got that worked out it looks like it is working ok.
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Wesley, over at antievolution.org has made another creationist bingo game with direct links to Talk Origins. The one I did, is so that you can print out random cards, with the supporting information and take em with you. This is a good one to use if you happen to be near a computer.
I think his ultimate plan is to let you make bingo T-shirts. Keep an eye out.
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If you want to see the actual act that Obama signed, it is here.
Addition:
FOSSIL ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
For an additional amount for ‘‘Fossil Energy Research and
Development’’, $3,400,000,000.
really? Do we really think that we have not hammered out most of the problems with finding, getting and using fossil fuels? Now if it were more specific (it isn't), and said this money was for improving efficiency and sequestering carbon, I'd be all for it. Gristmill seems to think its going that way simply becuase of the people who are in charge of that money.
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For example, batteries are better than fuel cells in cell phones. They keep promising cell phone fuel cells, but the stuff required to make the fuel cell work makes it too bulky to be inside of a cell phone, no matter what companies are showing in their PR. At best we will see some box-on-cord systems that will still be bigger and more expensive to run, than keeping an external battery charged up.
I recently mentioned fuel cell cars in another post. So far, they are all requiring hydrogen infrastructure to work. And where do we get most of our hydrogen? Natural gas. That means that even if we use hydrogen for these things, we are still creating just as much CO2 (although there might be an efficiency play to be had, but we aren’t talking about a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gases).
I only mention fuel cells for this article, because the company I’m talking about uses fuel cell materials but doesn’t make fuel cells. H2Pump LLC uses fuel cell materials to pump hydrogen with no moving parts. In pumping hydrogen, they also pressurize it and purify it. They are specifically not a fuel cell company.
Before looking into it deeply, lets take a minute to try to understand why that is significant. The most common way to move gas and pressurize it is to use a compressor. We are all probably familiar with air compressors and may even have one in your garage. The issue with hydrogen is that the molecule is so small, that a normal compressor can really pump it. Further, the gas itself can embrittle steel. There are a host of problems with pumping pure hydrogen. But to date, the only way to do it is with a mechanical hydrogen compressor.
There are also hydrogen purification systems available. These are generally done with a PSA (pressure swing adsorption) system. Basically, gas is fed into a tank with these pellets in it. The pellets, when under pressure, adsorb everything except hydrogen which passes through the tank. Then when the pellets are full of the contaminants, the inlet gas is routed to another PSA tank, and the first tank is depressurized, releasing the contaminant into a waste stream and making it ready to start again. There are also low pressure Temperature Swing Adsorption units which do the same thing, but release contaminants upon heating. These systems can be used to purify a variety of other gases, not just hydrogen.
So, in order to pump and purify hydrogen, you would need a hydrogen capable compressor and a PSA system. There are companies that make the system I just described.
Why would you have a system like this? Where is hydrogen recovery useful? Fuel cells consume hydrogen, so there is nothing to recycle. Well it turns out there are a variety of industries that use hydrogen, but do not consume it. Instead it is simply released, either by flaming it at a stack, or just releasing it into the air! Industries that do this are:
Heat treating industry
Metallurgical processing
Steel production
Semiconductor manufacturing
Float glass production
Fats and oils (hydrogenation)
Any chemical process which generates by-product hydrogen such as biogas production
Its amazing to think that these companies are getting hydrogen, in huge quantities, flowing it into their process and then dumping it out the vent. Can this possibly be true? At worst it seems like they could burn it and use it as heat. However the heating value of H2 is only 2 or 3 times higher than that of natural gas but pure H2 is over an order of magnitude higher than natural gas in cost. So who knows? As mentioned before, companies make systems to recapture this hydrogen, but they are generally sized for the huge quantities of hydrogen and have very short times before failure (multiple failures per year), usually due to the compressor (there is little to go wrong in the PSA part).
OK, we know why we might recycle hydrogen, we know how we might recycle hydrogen, and we know a couple of companies who make equipment to recycle hydrogen. Now we can focus on H2Pump.
H2 pump has a different technology. They use fuel cell materials, but unlike fuel cells which consume hydrogen to generate power, these pumps consume electricity to pump hydrogen.
Hydrogen is fed to one side of the membrane with a catalyst on it (the anode electrode). The hydrogen molecules are split and pass through the membrane as protons. On the other side of the membrane is another electrode, the cathode, where the two proton recombine to produce H2. This action doesn’t happen to any other molecule. So if there is hydrogen and carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide (common ingredients in a process), only the pure hydrogen appears on the cathode, the other things get passed through the anode.
The flow rate of hydrogen coming off the cathode is directly dependant on the current. The more current supplied the higher the flow rate. If a restriction is placed on the outlet, the pressure will rise. The molar flow rate coming off the cathode will remain constant, however the volumetric flow rate will be completely dependant on the pressure differential between the anode and whatever is after the flow restriction. Some of these membrane are very strong because they are fluouropolymers, like Teflon. Therefore large pressures, even in the hundreds of PSI, could be generated.
Hydrogen is expensive. These guestimates don’t take into account the purity required for most of these processes (1 gallon of gas equivalent is about 1kg of H2). (I gotta write a post on the farce that is the difference between projections of hydrogen costs and what pure hydrogen actually costs right now). I’ll get hard data later, but depending on purity and volume, hydrogen costs between 4 dollars/kilogram (high volume, lower purity) and 100 dollars per kg (high purity, low volumes) according the H2Pumps website. They claim to be able to recover 90% of the hydrogen in the waste stream for what is essentially just the cost of the electricity to move the protons from one side to the other.
So how much does it cost to reclaim the hydrogen? Well, get ready for some arithmetic.
On their technology page, they explain how to calculate hydrogen flow based on current (actually they say how to calculate current based on flow), and they say that a typical voltage of a cell may be 50mV. If we do an example, of say, 100 kg/day of H2 (=1.157 grams/sec =1.148 mol/sec) , you would need 220,000 amps. In order to make that reasonable (to have a decent power supply), you would break that up into multiple cells, lets say 220 cells (just to make math easier). Each cell runs at 50mW, so you would consume, 0.050V x 220 x 1000 amps = 11kW.
So for each hour you run the machine you use up 11kWhs of energy. Its easy to find out the cost of energy where you live. For industrial use, the average cost of energy is 7 cents per kWh. So, for each day you pump 100kG of H2, you would pay $18.50, we are talking about 19 cents per kg of hydrogen if it is reclaimed instead of being thrown out the window! And this is for pure, pressurized hydrogen from a system with no moving parts (I can imagine valves being required). I gotta say, these numbers seem a bit too good to be true, but even if their numbers are off by an order of magnitude, it is still cheap hydrogen.
Now I am quite sure I have left out some stuff that they have not included on their page. For example, how much power does the system use to make the stack work? Are there things I have to replace every year? Are there other consumables? Then there is the cost of the system, they say a one or two year payback, but what are they assuming about my gas and electricity use?
So there are tons of questions to ask. However, they do not have many of the problems of fuel cells, namely oxygen screwing up a lot of things up and the fact that there is no flooding on the cathode (because hydrogen evolves there and no water is made). Further they do not have the big issue of PSA systems, namely a failure prone compressor. It seems like this may work.
Maybe all those companies making fuel cell materials may find a market after all.
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Recently we have heard about something really strange occurring. Now, if you are a theist, this would not be strange at all. It is only odd because evolution is such a well supported theory.
Here is what is weird: the picture to the right there is of an Antarctic sea anemone. This lil’ creature has a home that is remarkably large. These guys and 235 others are found at both the north and south pole, but not in the middle (as far as we know).
Many of these creatures that have obvious reasons to be at both poles, like whales and birds, like the Arctic Tern that migrates every single year from the arctic to the Antarctic and back. But it turns out that there are still many, many species, like the one above, that are anchored to the sea floor and have no known mode of transport. And yet, despite huge geographical separation, appear to be the exact same species at both poles. If this only happened rarely or once, with strong odds against it, we would have expected to see some speciation happen by now.
So this is a strange observation because we know evolutionary processes exist. So how can we explain this?
| 1 | The most probable idea is that there are strong continuous currents that regularly take spore or larvae from one pole to another. We know about ocean surface currents, but these mostly are in loops, called gyres, not generally from pole to pole. So the observation of “bipolar” species is that there are other currents that regularly take fauna from one pole to the other. So check this out, if true, then there are likely mechanics about the ocean that affect our climate, that we learned about from knowing evolution. |
| 2 | Another idea is that this happened recently. Some recent event could have happened that took some species from one pole to the other. for example, some one could have actually taken some species from one pole and set them free at the other. This is a very unlikely scenario, mostly because these creatures are far down in the water, and there are a number of bipolar species, not just one or two. |
| 3 | Another possibility is that something, like a whale is eating the spores and larvae at one pole and pooping (a recurring theme at this blog) them out at the other. We know that some seeds can stay in some birds for thousands of miles. However, in general, passage through the digestive tract is far faster than a trip from one pole to the other. |
| 4 | There is the possibility that the bipolar species were once ubiquitous throughout the ocean and got geographically isolated as the earth warmed. For them to have remained unchanged after isolation however, they would have to have remain unchanged not only through mutation and natural selection but also through all the evolutionary mechanisms that push evolution like genetic drift. A possible, but unlikely situation. |
| 5 | God liked these species as they are and decided to place them at both ends. |
Of these, ignoring the utter uselessness of the last one, the first is most probable and exciting. This observation may lead to some new information about our oceans and our planet. It would be yet another way evolution has helped us.
Sadly there are more observations that are needed before we can start truly verifying this hypothesis. Genetic testing must happen to be sure that these bipolar species are, in fact, the same species. But then, it would truly be great to know the mechanism by which these bipolar species can pull off these marathon expeditions! Not only would we have yet even more evidence of evolution by verification of a prediction, but we would have new information about our oceans that oculd lead to more information about our climate.
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The republicans are virtually monolithic on their newly found opposition to government spending. So here is the prediction, no matter what happens with the economy between now and 4 years from now, they will say "I told you so!"
They may say this, rightly, if the economy goes even further into the shitter (i'm patient for 2 years, before we need to start looking at course corrections which may in fact be dramatic cuts to spending). However, even if the economy improves, and no matter how fast or how much it improves, they will then produce the logistical somersault required to say "If you had listened to us, the economy would have improved more and faster".
Perhaps an obvious prediction.
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My sister, who suffers from the same stomach problems, but she tell me it is much worse than mine, has tried all brands of woo before settling on her current one. She’s seen an ancient chinese medicine doctor, acupuncturist and other things for years. Her most recent foray into curing the problem (known medically as IBS, which to be honest, I think it more like a catch all for a number of problems, but it does feel good to know that there is a name for it, meaning other people have this) has been eating Aloe juice.
I think the Mayo clinic has adequately explained the reason there are so many “alternative” methods to treat IBS:
No one knows exactly what causes irritable bowel syndrome.
The thing to remember, just because doctors don’t know what causes IBS doesn't mean that witch doctors do. It also doesnt mean that there hasn’t been loads of studies and tests done to try to wean out the causes and beneficial treatments. There are over 5200 papers studying IBS listed at PubMed. Its not like its a disorder that is being ignored.
Anyway, I told my sister that my drug had natural stuff in it too. Donnatal has an extract of Belladonna (Deadly Nightshade) in it. Funny thing is though, I went to go look up the efficacy of belladonna for IBS, no good evidence. But then I looked at a list of the actual studies:
Ummm… if you are testing the efficacy of an herb with a homeopathic preparation….have you tested the herb at all? To be fair, I pulled out only the ones that were tested in a homeopathic fashion. Other references used Donnatol preparations.
So I wanted to see if there are studies with Donnatol in the way that I expect them to be, placebo controlled and double blind. There are studies, I found 4 at pub med, but I can not read them nor their conclusions. That is quite annoying. Can someone give me a hand?
I hate to sound cranky and all, but the results of drug testing of any drug, should be made freely available to everyone.
Anyway, I may have found my woo. I’ve been relying on Donnatal for years. It may be pure placebo. What will I do about it? Probably nothing. I’ll stop taking them if they no longer work, I don’t need extra barbituates in my blood.
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