Gamechanger

Like all of you, I have been watching the price of gas go up quite markedly in the last few weeks.  I just filled up for $3.159 per gallon for regular.  Before the Jasmine revolution, I was paying about $2.65 per gallon.

The price increase was almost worth seeing Mubarak flee Egypt.  Of course, nothing has changed.  The military is still in charge.  Only time will tell if any measurable improvement for the people ever coalesces.  The Gaza Strip will be interesting to watch also, but that is a topic for another blog.

"Very long term energy supply resources that can supply all of the world energy needs for as long as our planet as been estimated to provide a habitat for humans and other species (about 3 billion years) are available from both nuclear breeder or fusion reactors."  

That is a quote from S. S. Penner of UCSD.  (paper and video) Please read it again.  Yes, 3 billion years.  Is that long enough for you?  It is for me.  Let me emphasize it again - all of the energy we need for 3 billion years; 3,000,000,000 years!

Isn't it amazing that political tremors in Africa and the Mideast send the price of gas soaring 50 cents a gallon in a few weeks, yet this respected scientist tells us there is enough uranium and thorium to provide all of humanity with energy (at Western standards) for 3,000,000,000 years. What gives?

I have to conclude, after observing nuclear politics for the last 30 years, that our present condition lavishly benefits those who run it.  It does not much benefit many others.  Billions of people do without electricity or energy of any kind except for burning wood/dung.

I want to change all that.  LFTRs could change all of that and tap into that most unused of natural resources, thorium.  However, I believe that LFTRs suffer from the same aliment currently aflicting us in regards to petroleum.  LFTRs are dependent on the NRC and the DOE for development funds, licensing permits, nuclear materials, etc. and capital that mostly does the bidding of the blue bloods.

That is why I have developed the specifications for the "Gamechanger", a washing machine sized device that produces energy on a personal level:

2 kilowatts, minimum, 10 kw or more, preferably in the form of electric power and/or heat

washing machine size and weight, or smaller

can be placed inside the house or outside

doesn't make noise or smells

no exhaust 

easily transportable

can be used in a car/vehicle

no fuel costs

can cool living spaces

zero maintenance

works continuously

purchase price ~$2,000 initially and then ever cheaper (a payback time of under 3 years considering that electricity retails for around 10 cents/kwh in the US)

I don't much care if the "Gamechanger" works on the principles of:

fusion

fission

squirrels

cold fusion

zero point energy

free energy

large hadron collisions

magnetic motors

dilithium crystals

tree nuts

cosmic unity

anti-matter

or whatever!

I would simply like to see all of humanity enjoy the benefits of abundant, clean, and cheap energy!

Tremble all you Malthusians!

Flights of Fancy

I was driving back from my son's basketball game last Saturday when I saw these signs along I-15 near Willard Bay.  It seems as though the Utah DOT is now educating drivers about the hazards of government stimulus spending and the dangers of the Federal Reserve!

(Hey, I can daydream, can't I?)

Flying in the Bear River Valley

The weather and my schedule finally, cosmically aligned and I was able to go to a fly-in breakfast in Logan last Saturday.  My son, Ben took these pictures on the way back to Brigham City.

The Bear River Valley with the snow-capped Promontory Mountains in the distance

The Bear River Valley just before the river empties into the Great Salt Lake

These are the Wellsville Mountains to the east of Brigham City

Kitfox IV update

A flying buddy of mine, Dave, is building a Kitfox Model IV.  It just happens to be the very kit that he and I went to look at a couple of years ago.  I passed up the opportunity, but he decided to take it on.  I think it helps that he is also retired.  Anyway, he has offered to take me on as a partner, if I want.  I think it would be a blast, but I am really interested in a Sonex.

These pictures show what he has done since he acquired the kit last year.  He has the wings nearly ready to cover.  They were much more time intensive than he expected.

The spars are aluminum and and ribs are plywood glued to the spars.

Details of the false ribs glued to the front spar.

This piece of aluminum will become the panel.

One of the wing tanks

False ribs on the bottom of the fiberglass wing tank

This is the strut attach fixture on the main spar

This all turns into an airplane once it is covered with Dacron and painted.

Rational Risk Assessments

I owe my readers a frank discussion of risk in relation to commercial nuclear power generation.  I would like to start this discussion with a picture that is worth 10,000 words. 

Why worry about unknown risks while engaging in significant, known risks?

The photo shows an obviously pregnant woman smoking while wondering about the effect of the noise from jackhammers on her unborn child.  Now, I don't fault this lady for worrying about her unborn child.  I fault her for engaging in a significant and known risk - smoking- while worrying about noise from jackhammers. 

This is the camel and gnat analogy that I have written about before.  She is smoking "camels" (pun intended) while worrying about gnats (noise from jackhammers).

She is directly inhaling carcinogens, mutagens, tar, and carbon monoxide, which she probably does multiple times everyday, while the jackhammers are probably intermittent for 5 days a week until the construction job is done.  One is concentrated, known, and volitional (smoking), while the other is diffuse. non-volitional, and more distant from her baby (noise from jackhammers).

I believe this photo captures the quintessence of the average American response to risks posed by commercial nuclear power generation - straining at gnats while swallowing camels.  By this I mean, that Americans engage in known and significant risks, which they think nothing of, while having Fonda-esque epileptic fits over the much, much, much smaller riks posed by commercial nuclear power generation.

The next installment on this topic will discuss common, everyday risks and how they compare to those from commercial nuclear power generation.

The Hunt for Red Track One

This little video snippet shows what happens when you insert a CD or DVD in your player.  An algorithm, programmed into the player turns on the spindle motor, moves the laser read head to the begining of the disc, turns on the laser, and moves the lens to focus on the first track.  


In this case, no disc was found, so the laser shuts off, as does the spindle motor.

Enjoy, I thought it was cool.

Gnats and Camels

In Matthew 23:24 Jesus upbraids the scribes and pharisees for omitting the important matters in the law while insisting on fanatical observance of their own rules, "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel."

I immediately thought of that saying in Matthew when I read this blog about radioactivity.   A gentleman who works at a nuclear power plant underwent a medical procedure where he was given, by his doctor, 18.5 billion picocuries of radiation in the form of iodine 131 and allowed to walk out of the hospital 5 minutes later.   The guy couldn't return to work at the nuclear power plant for weeks because he was too radioactive!

Contrast that to the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the Vermont House and anti-nuke types over the few thousand picocuries of radiation in the form of tritium released by the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.  Many in Vermont actually want to shut down the power plant even though the release endangers no one.

18.5 billion picocuries versus 2,000 picocuries.  That is what I call the camel and the gnat.  Literally, swallow one and strain at the other.

PS.  I am not suggesting that associated gummint worthies increase their regulation of medical procedures, but that some rational risk assessment finally come to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Gresham's Thresher

Perhaps you have heard of Gresham's law?  It is usually phrased like this, "Bad money drives out good" or "Bad money drives out good if their exchange rate is set by law".

An example of this occurred in 1965, when the United States minted quarters made of cupro-nickel when previously they were made of 90% silver.  The 1964 and previous quarters immediately were saved by their owners, while the new quarters circulated in daily commerce.  This happens because the face value of the 2 coins (the bad and the good) was the same, while it was obvious to everyone that the silver quarter was worth much more.  Thus, the bad (cupro-nickel) quarter with the same legal tender, face value drove out the good (silver) quarter.

Of course, this all happened before I was born, and I am sure it happened very rapidly, as soon as the government announced the debasement of the currency.  By the way, Battelle proudly claims ownership for the idea of the 1965 "sandwich" coin.  (That would look great on your resume if you were applying to replace Robert Mugabe as dictator of Zimbabwe.)  I think Battelle was at least 2,000 years late.  Debasement has been around a very long time - think Romans.

Nonetheless, our own dear FED has continued its inflation at a much more humble rate than Zimbabwe.  Don't believe me?  Check the government's own CPI calculator here.  One cent in 1965 would buy what 7 cents will buy in 2010.

The debasement of the coinage continued in 1982 when  copper-clad zinc pennies were introduced and copper pennies were phased out.  Then, however, the difference between the face value of the penny and the metal value of the coin was quite small.  But wait, the FED is ever relentless with its inflation and the difference in the face value and the metal value grew to about 2 to 1 in 2006.  However, because of this small difference and the small absolute value of a penny, I suspect that Gresham's Law was slow to take affect.  (This really means that people didn't think that it was worth their time to sort the pennies.  Compare the current 3-to-1 ratio of copper and copper-clad pennies to the 21-to-1 ratio of the silver quarters and cupro-nickel quarters.)

So, I did what any engineer who sees an opportunity would do.  I built a machine that would sort the pennies by the thousands at a time.

First, I bought 20 or 30 dollars worth of  pennies from a local credit union and asked my kids to help sort them into 3 piles; pre-1982, 1982, and post 1982.  The "1982" category was necessary because the US Mint issued both types of penny that year.  From that exercise, I concluded that about 25% of the pennies in circulation were of the copper variety.

Next, I studied what physical property would most differentiate the two types of penny.  I tried an eddy current sensing technique with a high end oscilloscope and the help of my friend John, an EE.  But I ultimately decided that the resistivity (reciprocal of conductivity) of zinc and copper would provide the greatest discriminator.

Copper has a resistivity of 1.68 x10-8 ohms*meter, while zinc's resistivity is 5.90 x10-8 ohms*meter.  This is why the wiring in your house is made of copper and not of zinc.  This also means that when a copper penny passes through a magnetic field, a larger current will be induced in it and a correspondingly larger opposing force will resist the passing of the copper penny as compared with the mostly zinc penny.  

Without further boring you with the developmental details, I will show you photos the working prototype.

Modified coin sorter and bin that sends the pennies down the track

Ten pairs of neodymium magnets at the end of the track

Pennies come off the end of the track at the left and land in the pink or white containers

The zinc pennies fly farther (moving left to right) and land in the white bucket, while the copper pennies are slowed more by induced eddy currents as they pass through the pairs of magnets and land in the container with the pink cloth (to keep them from bouncing)

Details of the transition from the coin sorter to the track

Clear acrylic track

 Oh, did I mention that the pennies I bought for one cent now have a metal value of three cents?  That's better than any stock, bond, or mutual fund I ever bought, by far!  I just need to decide when to take the profit before the table collapses.