Today as an exciting day for me for two reasons. Interestingly enough the one that followed later in the day surpassed one of deep personal enrichment and growth.
I received an invite to the Inauguration of Barack H. Obama, as President of the United States of America and Joseph R. Biden, Jr., as Vice President of the United States of America.
Like so many people, never have I ever been involved in politics because and to be honest, it scared and/or bored me off.
It is deeply moving to see another person's dream as one of my own. I'm going because "we can" and might be doing the jig all the way there. :-) (jk).
I'm excited!!!
by Marcel F. WilliamsFossil fuels are predominantly responsible for putting excess carbon dioxide and methane intothe Earth's atmosphere, greenhouse gases that are melting our polar ice caps, raising global sea levels, and causing more extreme climate conditions around the world. The coal and natural gas power industry has looked looked towards future technologies for the on site capture of flu gas in order to recover and sequester carbon dioxide. However, there is no cost effective technology for capturing the CO2 from the mobile producers of carbon dioxide: automobiles, trucks, aircraft, and sea craft.But there are new technologies that are rapidly being developed that may eventually divorce carbon dioxide polluting sources of energy from the need for on site capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide. These devices are sometimes referred to as mechanical trees. But what they do is to simply extract and recover carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And these future technologies appear to be far more efficient at extracting CO2 from the air than the plant life on our planet.Some argue that these carbon dioxide from air extracting technologies could be the saviors of the fossil fuel industry. Ironically, such future technologies could also eventually lead to the complete extinction of fossil use on this planet if the CO2 taken from the atmosphere is used in combination with hydrogen from water to produce hydrocarbon fuels such as: gasoline, methanol, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and dimethyl ether.HydrogenBecause the combustion of hydrogen produces only energy and water, hydrogen via the electrolysis of water through hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar has often been proposed as a replacement for hydrocarbon transportation fuels. Liquid hydrogen fuel has been used in US space craft since the days of the Apollo Moon program. And liquid hydrogen has also been frequently proposed for future generation subsonic and hypersonic airliners and aircraft. Hydrogen fueled buses now transport commuters in many urban areas in the US. And hydrogen automobiles have been demonstrated by many automobile companies around the world .However, hydrogen automobiles have a substantially shorter range than hydrocarbon fueled vehicles and are a lot less efficient than electric vehicles. Refueling hydrogen vehicles also takes much longer than refueling with gasoline, ethanol, or methanol. Because of the hydrogen embrittlement of metals like steel, hydrogen pipelines are more expensive to maintain than natural gas and oil pipelines. Aircraft, seacraft and ground vehicles, and the infrastructure associated with these vehicles, would also have to be completely replaced if we completely replaced our fuel economy with hydrogen.Hydrocarbon fuels from CO2 and hydrogenAlternatively, there are several demonstrated methods for synthesizing hydrocarbon fuels by utilizing carbon dioxide in combination with hydrogen which could allow a country to avoid any major overhaul in its transportation energy infrastructure.Chemist have known how to produce methanol from hydrogen and carbon dioxide for more than 80 years:CO2 + 3H2 → CH3OH (methanol) + H2OMethanol is mostly used as a feedstock for making other chemicals. But methanol can be converted into dimethyl ether (DME), a fuel that can be effectively used in diesel engines equipped with new fuel injection systems. The fact that dimethyl ether produces no black smoke, soot, or sulfur dioxide is an clean advantage it has over diesel fuel.Methanol can also be converted into high octane gasoline via the Mobil Oil methanol to gasoline (MTG) process. Back in the 1980's, the New Zealand government produced 600,000 tonnes of gasoline a year from methanol derived from natural gas using the MTG process.Methane gas can also be synthesized from hydrogen and carbon dioxide:CO2 + 4H2 → CH4 (methane) + 2H2OAnd methane can also be converted into diesel and jet fuels via Fischer-Tropsch and hydrocracking processes.Mechanical extraction of atmospheric CO2Plants capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while utilizing sunlight to convert the CO2 into starch. During photosynthesis, trees, for instance, convert carbon dioxide and water into starche molecules and oxygen through a series of oxidation and reduction reactions:6 CO2 + 6 H2O + sunlight ---> C6H12O6 + 6 O2Some farm crops and trees can produce up to 20 metric tons per acre (4047 square meters) of biomass a year. One tonne of dried tree consist of 0.45 tonnes of carbon which would translate into the extraction of 1.65 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually extracted from the atmosphere. That's 33 tonnes of CO2 per acre extracted on an annual basis.Even though the concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere is a meager 0.04 per cent, companies like GRT (Global Research Technologies) in Arizona and Canadian researchers at the University of Calgary have already built machines that can extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere far more efficiently than any tree or any other source of biomass. GRT claims that its carbon dioxide air extraction system is a thousand times more efficient than a tree of equal size.
GRT CO2 absorbent material The University of Calgary team has shown that they could capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere with less than 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity per tonne of carbon dioxide. Their carbon dioxide from air extraction tower was able to capture the equivalent of about 20 tonnes per year of CO2 on just one single square meter of air scrubbing material. Astonishingly, this suggest that even the most conservative estimates would allow these CO2 extracting machines to produce more than 80 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide per acre annually.
University of Calgary carbon dioxide extraction machine Because of the need for cheap electricity for hydrogen production, only nuclear and hydroelectric facilities would be currently viable for hydrocarbon fuel production utilizing carbon dioxide from air extraction technologies. Hydroelectric facilities currently produce electricity at 0 .85 cents per kwh while electricity from nuclear facilities currently cost 1.68 cents per kwh. Wind and solar thermal electricity, however, is much more expensive and ranges from over 4 cents per kwh to over 6 cents per kwh.At the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, F. Jeffrey Martin and Williams L. Kubic, Jr. have developed the Green Freedom concept for using the cooling towers of nuclear reactors to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for the production of gasoline and methanol.
They argue that a 1 GWe power plant using their Green Freedom method could produce 18,000-bbl/day of gasoline or 5000 tonnes a day of methanol.Carbon neutral hydrocarbon synfuel production at nuclear and hydroelectric facilities would not only allow such power facilities to produce transportation fuels and industrial chemicals, they would also allow them to pump methanol and oxygen up to 80 kilometers away to high efficiency power plants for the production of peak-load and back-up-load electricity and commercial waste heat. Nuclear power plants could therefore not only produce base-load electricity but could also supply methanol fuel to replace greenhouse polluting natural gas power plants which are used for daytime peak-load energy and back-up energy for wind and solar power plants.In 2006, the US consumed nearly 21 million bbl/day of petroleum for transportation fuel and industrial chemical use. If we assumed that nuclear power plants replaced all of the petroleum used in the US in 2006, that would roughly require more than a thousand new 1Gwe nuclear reactors, over 1000 GWe of electrical capacity. Existing nuclear sites that already have nuclear reactors could probably on add an additional 200 to 300 Gwe of capacity. However, if one large centralized nuplex (nuclear park) with about 30GWe of average electrical capacity were set up in every state in the union, then that could add an additional 1500 GWe of electrical capacity, more than enough to replace all of our petroleum needs today and probably our needs 30 years from now.If the new Obama administration is going to invest substantial R&D money into new energy technologies, I would strongly suggest investing in the fast tracking of these carbon dioxide extraction from air technologies that could revolution synfuel production by helping to achieve US independence from the petroleum fuel economy while protecting the global environment from the dangers of global warming and climate change.Links and References1. Green Freedom: A concept for producing carbon-neutral synthetic fuels and chemicals, Los Alamos Labs, November 2007 F.J. Martin and WL Kubic, 2. GRT (Global Research Technologies, LLC)3. Giant Carbon dioxide Vacuums4. Snatching Carbon dioxide from the Atmosphere5. CO2 capture from air6. First Successful Demonstration of Carbon Dioxide Air Capture Technology Achieved:7. First Successful Demonstration of Carbon Dioxide Air Capture Technology Achieved by Columbia University Scientist and Private Company, (2007) Earth Institute News Archive, 04/24/078. Carbon capture and storage:9. Researchers Scramble to Create CO2-Busting Technologies:10. CO2 capture from ambient air: a feasibility assessment:11. Carbon Capture and Storage A False Solution12. The Case for Carbon Dioxide Extraction from Air13. Klaus S. Lackner, Patrick Grimes, Hans-J. Ziock, Capturing Carbon Dioxide From Air14. K. Schultz, L. Bogart, G. Besenbruch, L. Brown, R. Buckingham, M. Campbell, B. Russ, and B. Wong HYDROGEN AND SYNTHETIC HYDROCARBON FUELS – A NATURAL SYNERGY General Atomics Poster15. G. Olah, A. Goeppert, and G. Prakash, (2006) Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy, Wiley-VCH Verlang, Weinheim, Germany
OMG...I can hardly contain myself. It looks like it is going to happen!!! This entire experience has restored my hope that our nation really sees the truth behind the blinds. I am almost at a complete loss of words...
Thank you MSNBC for hearing the voice of the Senator Obama supporters from Day 1. They were smart enough to know it was the "Voice of A Nation".
Florida...please do not act crazy and let's get it under the belt!! Go Obama Go!!!! Thank God!
I found these three videos to be quite heart felt and thought provoking, perhaps you will too.
The first and third were so deeply touching, but the second was equally as compelling. Never before have I wanted someone to be President more than I do now.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27460577#27460577
NEW PAPYRUS
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Monday, October 20, 2008
Natural Radiation
by Marcel F. WilliamsHumans exist on a planet and within a universe that is naturally radioactive. In fact, humans and all other plant and animal species that live and breed on Earth are also inherently radioactive.Since the birth of the cosmos, the earth has been subjected to an endless hailstorm of cosmic radiation. These potentially deleterious ionizing particles consist of highly accelerated protons, electrons, and neutrons originating mostly from other stars in our galaxy.Our planet of evolutionary origin is also radioactive due to naturally occurring radioactive elements in the earth's crust such as: potassium-40, uranium-238, thorium-232, and rubidinum-87, and radium-226. In fact, the radioactive decay from uranium, thorium, and potassium may be responsible for 45 to 90% of the earth's internal heat source which is the source of earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain building, hot springs, and continental drift.On average, humans receive 0.4 mSv (40 millirems) of cosmic radiation. People also receive about 0.5 mSv (50 millirems) of terrestrial radiation. We also inhale about 1.2 mSV (120 millirems) of radiation from radon gas annually.The human species is also internally radioactive due to the potassium in our bones which exposes our tissues to 0.4 mSv (40 millirems) of ionizing radiation. So being in constant proximity to other human beings increases one's exposure to ionizing radiation.So if you lived with at least one other person in your house, you would receive 0.4 (40 millirems). That's more than ten times as much radiation as you would receive by living near a nuclear facility. If you lived in California and moved to Colorado, you would receive 45 times as much ionizing radiation as you would living next to a nuclear power facility.Ionizing Radiation Levels (annual):0.39 (mSv) Annual human internal radiation due to radioactive potassium0.35 mSv Annual exposure to cosmic radiation in the state of Louisiana1.20 mSv Annual exposure to cosmic radiation in the state of Colorado0.30 mSv Annual exposure to terrestrial radiation in the state of Texas1.15 mSV Annual exposure to terrestrial radiation in the state of South Dakota0.07 mSv Annual radiation exposure to while living in a stone, brick, or concrete building0.03 mSv Annual radiation exposure while living near the gate of a nuclear power plant0.01 Annual USA dose from nuclear fuel and nuclear power plants1.15 mSv Annual radiation exposure while working at a nuclear power plant2.0 mSv Annual human internal radiation due to radon1.0 mSv Annual Limit of dose from all DOE facilities to a member of the public who is not a radiation worker5.0 mSv Annual USA NRC limit for visitorsIonizing Radiation Levels (acute):0.o5 mSV One round-trip to Paris-New York0.46 mSv off-site exposure to the Three Mile Island core meltdown accident2.2 mSv Average dose from upper gastrointestinal diagnostic X-ray series50 mSv Lowest dose at which there is any evidence of cancer being caused in adults100 mSv USA EPA acute dose level estimated to increase cancer risk 0.8%500-1000 mSv Low-level radiation sickness due to short-term exposurePersons working at a nuclear facility are normally exposed to 1.15 mSv (115 millirems) annually. This would be the equivalent of living in the state of Ohio where Americans there are exposed to an equivalent amount of cosmic and terrestrial radiation and below that of states like Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah where one receives a lot more background radiation.If you lived near the gate of a nuclear reactor and never left the house, you would be exposed to 0.03 mSv (3 millirems) of radiation annually from that nuclear facility. However, you would receive 0.07 mSv (7 millirems) of radiation if you were living in a stone, brick, or concrete building. So you would receive more radiation from your house than from living near the gate of a nuclear facility.But what about a nuclear meltdown?Thanks to the fact that US reactors are housed in huge protective containment structures, the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island exposed nearby residents to only 0.46 mSv of acute radiation. That's nearly five times lower than receiving a gastrointestinal medical X-Ray and more than 100 times below the level of cancer causing radiation. But the new generation of nuclear reactors such as the AP1000 and GE's ESBWR have core damage frequencies at least 100 to 1000 times lower than current reactors such as the LWR at Three Mile Island. But, again, even if a meltdown did occur, the public would be protected by the containment structures which are also designed to withstand an impact from a jet plane.Americans are exposed to natural radiation from cosmic and terrestrial radiation ranging from as low as 0.75 mSv (75 millirems) to as high as 2.25 mSv (225 millirems). And Americans are exposed to an additional 2.0 mSv (200 millirems) of radon gas on average. Yet living near the gate of nuclear power facility would only expose them to 0.03 mSv (3 millirems) of radiation. And even consistent contact with a family member would expose you to another 0.4 mSv (40 millirems) of radiation annually. So the idea that a dramatic increase in nuclear power would expose humans to a dramatic increase in ionizing radiation is clearly not supported by the scientific evidence.References and Links1. G. Olah, A. Goeppert, and G. Prakash, (2006) Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy, Wiley-VCH Verlang, Weinheim, Germany2. Ionizing radiation (Wikipedia)3. Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor4. Martin D. Ecker, and Norton J. Bramesco (1981) Radiation: All you need t know about to stop worrying...or to start, Vintage Books, New York5. Radiation and Life Posted by Marcel F. Williams at 12:53 AM 0 comments:
In the roar of coverage leading up to the election in eighteen-odd days, some of my fellow Space Democrats outside of Florida may have missed this:
http://www.floridatoday.com/content/blogs/space/2008/10/campaigns-compete-for-space-votes.shtml
Sen. Barack Obama has released a radio ad touting his pledge to increase NASA funding. The ad features Sen. Bill Nelson, who says the additional $2 billion and an extra shuttle flight would reduce layoffs expected at Kennedy Space Center when the shuttle is retired.
I download the following federal budget data from the Congressional Budget Office. It clearly shows that for the last forty years the Republicans have been the party of huge federal deficits. During both the Carter era (1977 – 1980) and the Clinton era (1993 – 2000) the deficit shrank and during the Reagan era (1981 – 1988) and the Bush II era (2001 – 2008) the deficit broke all previous records.
All figures in Billions of dollars. The 2008 Budget deficit is a record $455 billion.
1968 -31
1969 -3
1970 2
1971 -10
1972 -21
1973 -20
1974 2
1975 4
1976 -35
1977 -21
1978 -32
1979 -14
1980 -9
1981 -17
1982 -43
1983 -112
1984 -143
1985 -179
1986 -211
1987 -157
1988 -126
1989 -117
1990 -120
1991 -150
1992 -186
1993 -192
1994 -144
1995 -146
1996 -93
1997 -81
1998 -38
1999 2
2000 105
2001 102
2002 -131
2003 -288
2004 -294
2005 -239
2006 -229
2007 -152
2008 -455
I think, given all the attacks democrats get for taxing people, democrats should highlight the deficits the Republicans have created for us and the debt they are leaving for our children. The Republicans have been a party of debt and deficit for the last forty years. They have shown fiscal indiscipline of the worst kind.
Dear Senator Obama:
Now that the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has shown some understanding of the financial problem, it is time for us to see it as well. As I had strongly advocated in my two previous blogs (Sahil's blog) that helping the banking system directly was the right thing to do. Main Street deals with the banks and banks are the institutions we regulate and have responsibility for. FDIC insures deposits in these banks.Now that we seem to be focusing on the banks and will probably get the short term fix; we need to look at the long term fix for our economy.I have sent many letters to you and to Dr. Jason Furman and would really wish that you look at my proposal once. We are in problem of very unusual kind, one that happens once in hundreds of years, and it needs a very radical solution. In my proposed solution I have done away with interest and income tax and changed the powers of money itself. My solution is the only one so far available that will solve the problem for good. Please take a look at it; you will need it down the line when it becomes clear that solutions proposed by the experts are not working. This is the time when the experts change.
Sincerely,
Syed G.Q. Sahil
John McCain's attempt to nail Senator Obama on the Adler Planetarium's Projector is a clear example of the fact that McCain has no idea on how education is an important integral aspect of growing a strong nation. He asserts that the projector's $3,000.000.00 dollars that was asked for in a bipartisan bill is "Pork Barrel Spending" when the bill was out front and in the open.
In comparing this learning tool for children and adults alike to the cost of the war in Iraq, I found that in the time it took me to research, compose & post this I had already surpassed the cost of $3,000,000.00.
The cost of the war in Iraq is at 10 billion a month (31 days.) That in comparison to the cost of the Planetariums complex projection system is $3 million dollars for 13.392 minutes.
In 2004, John Kerry lost by 118,601 votes - an average of 9 votes per precinct.
By taking Ohio, George W Bush won enough electoral votes to secure a second term.
Please, drop everything and come to Ohio!
http://my.barackobama.com/page/-/Video_states/OH/ComeToOhio.mov
This evening I checked my work email from home. I was very surprised someone sent me the email I will cut and paste below. I was surprised and rather annoyed someone would send it out on a global distribution list throughout my work. Instead of blasting him for sending such garbage I responded with an actual website that shared the truth in this matter. How do people actual think they can send and say outright lies without being found out?
The first email is my response to the hideous one below:
RE:
From: meSent: Sunday, September 28, 2008 8:07 PMTo: Subject: RE: Who is Franklin Rains
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Obama_denies_Raines_ties_accuses_McCain_of_throwing_stones_from_his_seven_glass_houses.html
Raines said in the statement through the campaign, "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters."Obama spokesman Bill Burton added an attack:
This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything -- ever. And by the way, someone whose campaign manager and top advisor worked and lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shouldn't be throwing stones from his seven glass houses.
From: Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 5:13 PMTo: Subject: Who is Franklin Rains
And why should we care?
Franklin Rains is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, the government sponsored enterprise started in 1939 to offer mortgages to Americans wishing to become home owners.
After serving as budget director under President Bill Clinton, Mr. Raines served as CEO at Fannie Mae from 2000 until 2004.
While Mr. Raines was CEO, Fannie Mae went deep into the practice of buying mortgages based on almost no or no money down given to borrowers who could not afford them. During this time he received bonuses and salary over 90 million dollars. In 2004 he was offered “early retirement” after the accounting practices used at Fannie during his tenure to secure top executive bonuses were shown to be fraudulent.
Civil charges were filed against Raines and two other former executives which sought $110 million in penalties and $115 million in returned bonuses from the three accused. On April 18, 2008, the government announced a settlement with Raines together with J. Timothy Howard, Fannie's former chief financial officer, and Leanne G.Spencer, Fannie's former controller. The three executives agreed to pay fines totaling about $3 million, which will be paid by Fannie's insurance policies.
When pressed by the Bush administration to tighten down regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, members of congress – Republicans and Democrats alike - in positions to pass such regulations, did nothing. Today, Fannie Mae owns or guarantees over half of America’s 12 trillion dollar mortgage market, and we are in the middle of a credit crunch and housing slump brought on in large part by government backed Fannie Mae going down this dangerous credit slope under Mr. Raines.
And where is Franklin Raines today? He is a chief economic advisor to the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama. Who says "Crime" does not pay?
This is a post I wrote originally on August 2 on my own blog. I decided to add this and a couple of other Obama-related posts to this blog. The occasion for this was a speech by Senator Obama in Florida in late July in which he clarified and expanded upon his support for space exploration and NASA.
Although political "flip flopping" is sometimes condemned as if it were a crime, let's face it - politicians are always adjusting their positions and sometimes even reversing them. Situations change, new information and analysis becomes available, mistakes are made, strategies are changed. If there's a good reason to change a position, and if the candidate can explain and justify it, it's crazy to stick to the original position for its own sake.
