Category: Science

The UK shows what the future of the US and the world will really be with “sustainable” electric vehicles

Duggan Flanakin

Joe Biden, his fellow Democrats and what appears to be big US automakers have joined the rush to switch America’s transportation to 100% electric vehicles (EV), whether we like the people or not. During a town hall in October, Biden claimed his plan would save “billions of gallons of oil” and help create a million jobs in the auto industry, including banning the sale or manufacture of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2030. How That Will happen in the real world, he said not.

Biden’s California-inspired vision excludes hybrid vehicles, includes installing 500,000 EV charging stations, and offering cash for clunkers-style discounts to new EV buyers. As of 2018, nearly half of EV registrations (256,800 out of 543,600) in California, Hawaii, Washington, and Oregon were not far behind. As of 2018, electric vehicles made up less than 2% of the total of 15 million vehicles in California – despite huge tax credits, free charging stations, free access to HOV lanes, and other subsidies and incentives.

Only 727,000 electric vehicles were sold in the US in 2019, and nearly half were plug-in hybrids. Hybrid sales peaked in 2013 but had fallen to 2.3% (about 400,000 vehicles) of all light commercial vehicle sales by 2019, largely due to shunning EV purists. Compare these numbers to the total of 6.3 million vehicles sold in 2016 or the 273,600,000 cars, motorcycles, trucks, buses, and other vehicles on U.S. roads in 2018.

After China’s leadership, all US automakers – not just Tesla – are on board this major transition. As IC vehicles are replaced and gas stations are turned into EV charging stations, the pressure will increase to get rid of remaining IC vehicles and buy more EVs. China-friendly General Motors plans to spend $ 20 billion on electric vehicles and self-driving vehicle technology by 2025, including 23 different electric vehicles by 2023. Ford Motor Company has pledged to invest $ 11 billion in electric vehicle development by 2022.

Biden is following in the footsteps of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose new climate change plan includes banning gasoline-powered vehicles by 2030 and hybrids by 2035. But, as economist and Global Britain Think Tank director Ewen Stewart argued, “Frankly, this is one of the most illiberal and economically destructive measures Whitehall has ever taken. It risks hundreds of thousands of livelihoods and much-needed exports for the slightest benefit. ”

“The effects of this ban [in a country with only 1% EVs] are immense in terms of manufacturing, supply chains, investment, lost capital, employment, infrastructure, consumer choice, value of existing inventory and much more, ”said Stewart. “Never before has a government dared to shut down an entire critical industry almost overnight by dictating it.”

It was a delusion, he went on, to believe that the destruction of a successful UK industry by banning internal combustion engines – rather than letting consumer choice determine the market – will be good for the economy. Today’s British automotive sector accounts for one-fifth of the country’s manufacturing base. Over 80% of the 1.3 million cars it makes are exported. That is 13% of the total UK export market.

The UK automotive industry directly employs over 180,000 Britons and indirectly many hundreds of thousands more. However, the UK cannot compete with China for the global electric vehicle market as UK labor costs are far higher and its energy is becoming increasingly expensive and unreliable.

Worse still, Stewart pointed out that this virtue signaling will have minimal benefit to the UK and the global environment, but will be devastating to car owners. The UK government has already slashed the value of the country’s 12 million diesel vehicles significantly, with surcharges that before 2015 cost diesel vehicle owners up to $ 67 a week just to drive in “low-emission zones”. Other costs included doubling the parking permit rates and increasing taxes on diesel vehicles.

The new initiatives will do the same for gasoline-powered vehicles. They will run out of gas pumps, drop resale values ​​and destroy the country’s export market.

Andrew Montford, associate director of the Global Warming Policy Forum, says the misguided UK plan could cost motorists £ 700 billion ($ 938 billion). Montford claimed that several aspects of electric vehicles make them more expensive than gasoline cars: replacing expensive batteries, installing charging stations at home (which often require upgrading household wiring), time and inconvenience to recharge the batteries, and much more.

Montford estimated that the average household may have spent an additional £ 19,000 ($ 25,460) by 2050 – if they can still afford to own a vehicle. As other government mandates drive up electricity bills, the cost of driving could double and completely drive the working class off the streets.

The absurdity of this British attack on its own existing auto industry is made even more ridiculous by the fact that large-scale electrification does not change current mobility patterns – and only manages to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transport by 15% by 2050, Spanish systems engineering expert Margarita Mediaville explains. Calling EVs “green” or “sustainable” is obviously absurd.

Ms. Mediaville’s company also noted that manufacturing all of these new EV batteries would deplete proven global reserves of copper, lithium, nickel and manganese, unless mining and / or recycling rates increase dramatically by 2050. The European Union proposes to To have “a devastating impact on water, biodiversity and the human rights of local communities”.

Mining and processing ore and making batteries would also require enormous amounts of fossil fuels, hundreds or thousands of tons of ore and spoil for every ton of finished metals, and result in huge emissions of pollutants and carbon dioxide. Indeed, a new report by Competitive Enterprise Institute analyst Ben Lieberman concludes that replacing gasoline with electricity as a vehicle’s energy source does not eliminate these emissions, it only changes where they are emitted.

Another disadvantage of the soaring number of electric vehicles is that the metals and minerals increasingly come from countries like China, Chile and the Congo – where fair wages, child labor, safety at work and environmental standards are far below what the US or the EU do would tolerate. The manufacture of EV batteries also requires more energy than batteries and motors for IC vehicles. Recycling is also complicated, expensive, and fraught with pollution and public health risks.

Financial firm UBS found that replacing global sales of conventional IC vehicles with electric versions would require a 2,898% increase in lithium production. an increase in cobalt of 1,928%; a 524% increase in graphite; a 105% increase in nickel; a 655% increase in rare earth minerals; and at least tripling copper production. Burning coal, diesel, and gasoline would also skyrocket to fuel the work.

A separate report from Securing America’s Future Energy shows that China controls nearly 70% of the production capacity of batteries for electric vehicles, compared to just 10% in the US. The report estimates that 107 of the 142 EV battery manufacturing projects planned by 2021 will be in China and only nine in the US. The transition to mandatory electric vehicles will clearly enrich China at America’s expense.

Before US politicians take steps to convert America to electric vehicles and generate electricity from non-fossil fuels, they must carefully study the human and environmental costs – in precise figures, including rising lung diseases, cancer, injuries and deaths in foreign mines, processing plants and factories .

You also need to consider the impact of outsourcing battery manufacturing to Chinese companies on American workers and communities. The Chinese, with the assistance of President Biden, will happily bring most of these manufacturing orders back to the Middle Kingdom while burdening American families with rising costs of unreliable electricity, short-haul travel, and collapsing industries. Incredibly, our reliance on China for minerals and high-tech military equipment components will also increase!

All of these issues require the attention of our lawmakers and regulators, environmentalists and journalists. Unless, of course, they are only concerned with cheap virtue signs and are not concerned about American workers and energy consumers, the US and the global environment, or adult and child global workers putting their health and life at risk from electric vehicles and other technologies .

Duggan Flanakin is director of policy research on the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org).

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Do you have clear skies? Then you should definitely team up: The Geminid Meteors – one of the best, safest annual meteor showers – will peak this weekend … and near a new moon.

Gemini prospects for 2020

After a few years, one could not have wished for a better prospect for the Geminids. In 2020, the Geminids are expected to peak on Sunday, December 13th at 6:00 p.m. Universal Time (UT) / 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), with a projected zenith hourly rate (ZHR) of 120 East Asia is preferred in the morning hour with meteors per hour. Keep in mind, however, that the summit of the Geminids is wide … and meteor showers don’t read astronomical forecasts. Observers around the world are urged to keep an eye out for the Geminids in the morning hours before and after the summit.

Aspects for the 2020 Geminids near the expected apex of the shower on Sunday, showing the relative position of the Earth’s shadow to radiation from the shower, sun and moon. Photo credit: Dave Dickinson / Orbitron

The moon phase is almost perfect this year, as the new moon occurs just two days after the peak of the Geminids in 2020 and a total solar eclipse takes place over South America on the 14th.

The rising Geminids shine locally at 10 p.m. Image credit: Stellarium

In the 20th century, the Geminids were a relatively dark shower. Fast forward to the 21st century and the Geminids have intensified and take center stage as one of the strongest and best showers of the year, surpassing even the August Perseids. This happens when meteor streams develop over time.

A 2017 Geminid fireball. Photo credit: The virtual telescope 2.0.

What you see when you see a streak of meteorites through the sky is an ionized trail in the wake of a cosmic dust particle that flies through the faint upper atmosphere of the earth. Most of these are ancient streams of debris that are deposited by comets where their orbits intersect the earth’s path. These orbits develop as they interact with other planets (mainly Jupiter) and disperse, while other undiscovered, nodular lumps of debris find their way onto our planet’s path and make themselves known.

The source of the Geminids is actually the strange “rock comet” 3200 Phaethon. Discovered in 1983, this bizarre object is like a “baked Alaska” in orbit from 2.4 Astronomical Units (AU) (223.2 million miles or 359.2 million kilometers) to a scorching perihelion of 0.14 AU (13 million miles or 21 million kilometers) has been recorded once every 1.4 years from the Sun. Is 3200 Phaethon a trapped “dead cometary nucleus” or a previously unknown object? Whatever the case, the 3200 Phaethon appears to be shedding a lot of material and deserves another exam. Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission DESTINY + (demonstration and experiment of space technology for INterplanetary VoYage flyby for Phaethon) was once proposed to explore this enigmatic object, potentially launching in 2024. The Geminids have been observed every December since mid-December -19. Century, although 3200 Phaethon was not recorded as the source for the shower until shortly after its discovery in the early 1980s by astronomer Fred Whipple.

3200 Phaethon as seen from the Arecibo Radio Observatory in 2017. Photo credit: Arecibo / NSF

Sigma Hydrid Fireball Photo Bomb (s)?

Another relatively dark shower will make itself felt in 2020: Several fireballs in early December were bound to the Sigma Hydride meteors. Based on the constellation of the southern half of the water of Hydrus, the water snake, the sigma hydrides generally hit a paltry zenith-hour rate of three per hour, just below the usual sporadic background rate … but several early fireball sightings suggest 2020 will be different could be. If you can’t trace a meteor back to the Geminids Ray near the bright star Castor (Beta Geminorum) in the constellation Gemini the Twins, you may have seen a rare Sigma Hydride meteor.

A Geminid composite / time-lapse over the LAMOST telescope in China from 2014. Photo credits and copyright: Steedjoy. Used with permission.

Don’t forget the Ursids

Another meteor shower in December is worth checking out. The Ursid meteors peak with a respectable ZHR of 15 right around the solstice on December 21st to the south. The source of the Ursids is the periodic comet 8P / Tuttle, but the source of the sigma hydrids is unknown.

A one-night animation of the Geminids 2017. Photo credit: The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0

Meteor watching is as easy as dressing warmly, reclining in a comfortable garden chair, and diligently observing the sky with a simple pair of ‘mk-1 eyeballs’. Look at a 45-90 degree angle on either side of the spotlight to catch long stately meteor trains in profile. It is true that after midnight towards morning you see more and more meteors if you stand on the forward-facing part of the earth and scoop a huge cavity with a width of 8,000 miles from space. The Geminids are a little different. The shower’s radiation is high enough that you can look for meteors a little earlier before midnight, around 10 p.m. local time. Be aware that these early meteors leave long, slow trails across the night sky and that the pace accelerates from midnight to dawn. Choose as dark a location as possible to maximize your chances of seeing as many Geminids as possible. Even the slightest amount of light pollution in the suburbs can significantly kill the number of meteors you see.

Waiting for a night of sky-gazing at the annual Nebraska Star Party. Photo credit: Dave Dickinson

Photographing meteors is as easy as using a wide angle lens with a tripod-mounted DSLR, taking long exposures (30 to 3 minutes), and viewing the results. I like to use an interval meter to automate the process. Be sure to check out our latest guide to shooting meteor showers on Astro-Gear Today.

A tarantula (!) Against the Geminid Meteors 2017 … Credit: The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0

Meteorite watching is an ideal 2020 destination: you can do it on your own or as a physically distant activity, with observers observing different areas of the sky.

Count how many meteors you see in a set period of time and you can add your observations to the science of meteoriticism by reporting your observations to the International Meteorological Organization.

Good luck and have a nice weekend with the Geminids 2020.

– Watch the Geminids live courtesy of astronomer Gianluca Masi and the Virtual Telescope Project starting December 13 at 10:00 PM UT / 5:00 PM EST.

Main image: 2017 Geminids grace the Arizona skies. Photo credit and copyright: Robert Sparks. Used with permission.

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Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h / t Breitbart; Heating bills will quadruple under Boris Johnson’s recent climate brainstorming. Many people in the UK cannot afford heating bills on this scale. Around 10% of the British can already not afford their heating costs, even with government assistance and inexpensive gas heating.

The lie of the “green industrial revolution”

Boris Johnson’s plans to ban gas boilers and rely on hydrogen are more than insane.

I am bunch
December 9, 2020

Following Boris Johnson’s 10-point plan to promote the “green industrial revolution” in the UK, the government is proposing to ban gas boilers in new homes from 2025 to 2023. The 10-point plan also provides for replacement gas boilers to be phased out by 2035.

This leaves a big question hanging over any home in the UK: how are they kept warm? The fact that this question has no answer shows the lie at the heart of Johnson’s green industrial revolution. It is an anti-industrial revolution and it will cause great trouble.

Around 84 percent of British households are connected to the gas network. It sounds obvious to say that they should just switch to electricity. However, the retail price for gas is less than a quarter of the electricity price per kWh. Heating a house with electricity is therefore currently four times more expensive than heating a house with gas. Furthermore, the move merely shifts the question of where the UK is energy will come from.

…

Point two of the plan is “to generate 5 GW of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity for industry, transport, electricity and households by 2030 and to develop the first city to be fully hydrogen-heated by the end of the decade”. In contrast to natural gas, hydrogen is not an energy source – it has to be produced. There are two ways to produce hydrogen: electrolysis and steam reforming of natural gas.

Grid-scale electrolysis is simply uneconomical – an extremely conservative estimate of the requirements and costs of replacing natural gas with hydrogen, produced by electrolysis and powered by wind, would mean the UK has 20 times the number of wind farms and the wholesale cost of electricity would need would increase tenfold.

…

Read more: https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/12/09/the-lie-of-the-green-industrial-revolution/

When my family lived in the UK, in our quaint but rather older house, we did not have gas heating because our house was too far from the nearest available gas pipe. Even with the help of our wood burner, our home electric heater bills peaked at £ 600 / month ($ 800 / month) in February.

Boris Johnson has no problem paying his energy bills. If people are complaining about the new costs, maybe he thinks that they just aren’t making enough effort to save the planet, then they just don’t go along with it and do their part. Either way, the inconvenience will be short-term, right? The MET predicts that the UK will have a warm Mediterranean climate by 2050.

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General relativity is a deeply complex mathematical theory, but its description of black holes is surprisingly simple. A stable black hole can be described by only three properties: its mass, its electrical charge and its rotation or spin. Since black holes are unlikely to have much charge, only two properties are required. If you know the mass and spin of a black hole, you will know everything you need to know about the black hole.

This characteristic is often summarized by the no-hair phrase. In particular, the theorem states that once matter falls into a black hole, the only remaining property is mass. You could make a black hole out of hydrogen, chairs, or old National Geographic copies of Grandma’s attic and it wouldn’t make a difference. Mass is mass as far as general relativity is concerned. In either case, a black hole’s event horizon is perfectly smooth with no additional features. As Jacob Bekenstein said, black holes don’t have hair.

The conflict between relativity and quantum theory leads to the firewall paradox. Photo credit: Jeremy Perkins / Unsplash

For all its predictive power, general relativity has a problem with quantum theory. This is especially true for black holes. If the sentence without the hair is correct, the information contained in an object is destroyed when it crosses the event horizon. Quantum theory says that information can never be destroyed. The valid theory of gravity thus contradicts the valid quantum theory. This leads to problems like the firewall paradox, which cannot decide whether an event horizon should be hot or cold.

Various theories have been proposed to resolve this contradiction, often including extensions to the theory of relativity. However, the difference between standard relativity and these modified theories can only be seen in extreme situations, making them difficult to examine observationally. However, a new paper in Physical Review Letters shows how they can be examined by rotating a black hole.

The temperature in a room is an example of a scalar field. Photo credit: Lucas Vieira

Many modified theories of relativity have an additional parameter that is not included in standard theory. Known as a massless scalar field, Einstein’s model allows it to connect to quantum theory in non-contradicting ways. In this new work, the team investigated how such a scalar field relates to the rotation of a black hole. They found that a modified black hole is indistinguishable from the standard model at low rotations, but at high rotations the scalar field allows a black hole to have additional features. In other words, in these alternative models, rapidly rotating black holes can have hair.

The hairy aspects of rotating black holes would only be seen near the event horizon itself, but they would also affect the merging of black holes. As the authors point out, future gravitational wave observatories should be able to use rapidly rotating black holes to determine whether an alternative to general relativity is valid.

Einstein’s general theory of relativity has so far passed all the observation challenges but is likely to collapse in the most extreme environments in the universe. Studies like this show how we can discover the next theory.

Reference: Alexandru Dima et al. “Spin-Induced Spontaneous Scaling of the Black Hole.” Physical Review Letters 125.23 (2020): 231101.

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HELSINKI UNIVERSITY

Research news

IMAGE: Untouched sites like the HIMALAYAS are useful in trying to understand the natural atmospheric conditions before industrialization. Show more CREDIT: FEDERICO BIANCHI

In the valleys of the Himalayas, naturally emitted gases can form large quantities of new particles, which can be transported to great heights by the mountain winds and injected into the upper atmosphere.

The emitted particles can ultimately affect the climate by acting as nuclei for cloud condensation. These new insights into particle formation and sources will contribute to a better understanding of past and future climates.

“In order to understand how the climate has changed in the last century, we need to know the natural atmospheric conditions before industrialization as reliably as possible,” says Associate Professor Federico Bianchi from the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research at the University of Helsinki (INAR).

To this end, scientists are looking for pristine places around the world where human influence is minimal. An international group of researchers has now completed a comprehensive study at the Nepal Climate Observatory in the Pyramid Station, which is located near the Everest base camp at 5050 m above sea level. There they could study the formation of atmospheric particles that were far removed from human activity. The results were published today in the prestigious journal Nature Geoscience.

Particles of natural origin

The study shows that winds in the valley bring vapors emitted by the vegetation at the foot of the Himalayas to higher altitudes. During this transport, these gases are converted by photochemical reactions into compounds with very low volatility, which quickly form large numbers of new aerosol particles. These are then transported into the free troposphere, a region of the atmosphere with very little human influence.

“You can think of the entire Himalayas as an“ aerosol factory ”that continuously produces large quantities of particles and then injects them directly high into the atmosphere above Everest,” says Bianchi. From these measurements we calculate that the transport of particles can increase today’s particle concentration over the Himalayas by a factor of up to two or more.

It is the first time that scientists have considered mountain ventilation as a major potential source of atmospheric particles in the free troposphere.

In addition, the freshly formed particles have a natural origin, with little evidence of the involvement of anthropogenic pollutants. This process is therefore likely to have remained essentially unchanged since the pre-industrial era and could have been one of the main sources that contributed to the aerosol population in the upper atmosphere during this period. These new observations are therefore important in order to better estimate the pre-industrial baseline aerosol concentrations in this large region. The inclusion of such processes in climate models can improve the understanding of climate change and the prediction of future climate.

Future studies should focus on a better quantification of this phenomenon and examine it in other high mountain regions as well.

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Items:

Federico Bianchi, Heikki Junninen, Alessandro Bigi, Victoria A. Sinclair, Lubna Dada, Cristopher R. Hoyle, Qiaozhi Zha, Lei Yao, Lauri R. Ahonen, Paolo Bonasoni, Stephany Buenrostro Mazon, Manuel Hutterli, Paolo Laj, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Juha Kangasluoma1, Veli-Matti Kerminen, Jenni Kontkanen, Angela Marinoni, Sander Mirme, Ugo Molteni, Tuukka Petäjä, Matthieu Riva, Clemence Rose, Karine Sellegri, Chao Yan, Douglas R. Worsnop, Markku Kulmala, Urs Baltensperger and Josef Dommen. Biogenic particles formed in the Himalayas are an important source of free tropospheric aerosols. Natural Geosciences, December 2020.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-020-00661-5

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The planets in our solar system are roughly divided into two groups: small, rocky worlds like Earth and large gas giants. Before the discovery of the exoplanets, our solar system was believed to be very typical. The light and heat from a star push the gas towards the outer solar system, while heavier dust stays closer to the star. For example, a solar system has nearby rocky planets and distant gas giants. But we now know that planets and star systems are much more diverse.

The most common way to categorize exoplanets is by their mass or size. Jupiter worlds are the largest, then Neptunians, super-earths, earth-sized and lower-earths. Obviously, the greatest interest is in potentially habitable Earth-like worlds that would have similar mass and orbit as our planet. But there is still much we do not understand about other types of planets. For example, super-earths are slightly larger than Earth, but they are terrestrial planets or more gas-like. Because of this, the group is sometimes further divided into those smaller than about 1.6 Earth radii, which are likely rocky, and larger super-earths, often called mini-Neptunes, which are likely to have more in common with gas giants.

Exoplanets by size and temperature. Photo credit: NASA / Ames Research Center / Natalie Batalha / Wendy Stenzel

Since we cannot observe most exoplanets directly, one way to study them is to look at their statistics. For example, there is a statistical gap between the great earths and mini-Neptunes. This 1.6 earth radius gap indicates separate forms of formation. Things are less clear for lower-earths. Planets the size of Mars or Mercury are hard to find, which is part of the reason why there are so few known exoplanets underground. This makes it difficult to study their statistics. However, a new statistical study suggests an interesting origin for these little worlds.

Because the number of confirmed lower earths is so small, the team examined a collection of candidate planets. Observational data suggests they might be planets, but the data isn’t strong enough to be certain. They have filtered everything out of more than 4,000 candidate planets, except worlds with short orbital times (less than 16 days) and a size of less than 4 earth radii. That left 280 candidates, which is enough to compile some basic statistics.

Earth-sized worlds could be rare. Photo credit: NASA / Ames Research Center / Daniel Rutter

One of the things they found is that the size distribution for these exoplanets follows a power law distribution. In other words, the statistical number of planets increases by an order of magnitude (or force) as they get smaller. The size of the asteroids in our solar system follows a power law distribution, and we know that the asteroids formed long after the classical planets captured much of the material of the early solar system. Since lower earths follow a similar distribution, it is very likely that they formed later as well.

The authors refer to this two-stage educational process as Generation I (large planets) and Generation II (terrestrial sub-earths). If this idea is correct, it could explain why super-earths are more common than truly earth-sized worlds. If planets like Earth were Generation II, they would be pretty rare. However, it is important to note that the sample used is quite small. While the study is interesting, we need more data before we can draw solid conclusions.

Reference: Yansong Qian and Yanqin Wu. “A distinct population of small planets: lower earths.” arXiv preprint arXiv: 2012.02273 (2020).

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Reposted by Paul Homewoods MANY PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THAT

DECEMBER 7, 2020 Tags: Coral

By Paul Homewood

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has released its latest report on the condition of the Great Barrier Reef. It has turned the volume up one notch, claiming the threat to the reef has gone from “significant concern” to “critical”. It blames climate change, agriculture pollution, coastal development, industry, mining, shipping, overfishing, disease, problematic native species, and coal dust – you name it, it’s killing the reef.

However, the report is just a repetition of old, mostly false or misleading information produced by generally untrustworthy scientific institutions with an activist agenda and no commitment to quality assurance.

It is noteworthy that the world believes that one of its most pristine ecosystems is on its last legs. Part of the problem is that very few people visit the reef underwater and far from shore. The truth is hidden. Those of us in North Queensland who live next to the reef and tourists from elsewhere can report that the water is an iridescent clear blue and completely unpolluted. The fish and coral are fabulous.

An aerial view of the world famous Heart Reef in the Whitsundays. Image: Brooke Miles / Riptide Creative

The reef occasionally conspires to give the impression that it is dying. A coral area the size of Belgium can be killed by cyclones (hurricanes), native starfish plagues or bleaching. All of these events are completely natural and part of life on the reef. In fact, each of the 3,000 individual reefs along the entire 2,000 km length of the Great Barrier Reef is a 50 to 100 m high plateau of dead coral remnants that has built up over thousands of years. The living coral lives on the surface of this pile of dead ancestors.

Sixty years ago, when these cycles of death and destruction were first discovered by scientists, it was legitimate to worry about whether they were unnatural. But there is ample evidence now, almost completely ignored by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, that the reef is okay. The coral always recovers vigorously after severe mortality events. Corals are abundant on all 3,000 reefs. While the amount of coral varies dramatically from year to year, it is roughly the same today as it was when records began in the 1980s. Coral growth rates have not decreased – if at all, they have increased as one would expect given the slight increase in temperature over the past century. Corals like it hot and grow faster in warmer water.

Ignoring evidence of the reef’s apparently good condition is not the slightest problem with this IUCN report. Evidence that is obviously false is also used. For example, the report claims that blowing coal dust from ship loading facilities poses a risk to the reef that is 100 to 1000 km from the ports. This ridiculous claim is based on a report prepared by undisputed expert on the subject, Dr. Simon Apte and other scientists at CSIRO, who showed that the results were 3000 percent flawed. It is also highly doubtful that the original scientists actually measured coal dust. They measured polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which are common, naturally occurring molecules that are not specific to coal.

Unsurprisingly, the IUCN report made the mistake of using this discredited coal dust report. Other major Australian reports on the reef also cite it. It is noteworthy that Apte refused to do anything when they tried to get the scientific journal and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, which was responsible for the coal dust data, to correct the error. The scientific institutions are no longer trustworthy.

Dr. Peter Ridd at the Quoin Island Turtle Rehabilitation Center. Pictured: Rodney Stevens

The IUCN makes other equally scandalous mistakes. It is claimed that despite all measurements showing pesticide concentrations so low that they are generally undetectable with the most sensitive scientific equipment, it is claimed that agricultural pollution is a problem. The effect of sludge washed from farms is also negligible.

The fundamental problem with the IUCN report is that it is based on scientific knowledge, the quality of which is poorly assured. The scientific foundations are lazy and none of the science organizations want to solve the problem – also because the science organizations and the IUCN have long since stopped being scientific. They recognized their political power. We have to recognize that they have become political.

Until true quality assurance measures can be put in place in reef science facilities, the problem of untrustworthy scientific evidence being reported and replicated ad nauseam will persist. The only good news is that the next IUCN report on the reef in 2023 won’t be any worse than “critical” as that seems like the worst category they have.

https://www.thegwpf.com/peter-ridd-its-the-science-thats-rotten-not-the-great-barrier-reef/

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SpaceX has finally made the first high-altitude test flight with its prototype Starship! During launch, the eighth iteration of their spacecraft (SN8) flew to an altitude of 12.5 km and performed some fancy maneuvers before returning to their landing site. Unfortunately the landing was a bit hot and the SN8 exploded as soon as it touched down.

Although SpaceX failed to get home in one piece (well, technically, but then exploded), SpaceX validated its spacecraft design for soaring, which is an important step in conducting regular space flights. The data they gathered from launch will make it possible too

The launch window opened this morning at 7:00 a.m. CST (8:00 a.m. EST; 5:00 a.m. PST) and closed at 5:00 p.m. CST (6:00 p.m. EST; 3:00 p.m. PST). An attempt was made yesterday (Tuesday, December 8th) but scrubbed after a pre-flight engine problem resulted in an automatic shutdown. Today’s launch was originally scheduled to be at 3:00 p.m. CST (1:00 p.m. PST; 4:00 p.m. EST) but was canceled at 2:12 a.m. prior to launch.

Still image of the SpaceX live stream with the three different feeds. Image Credit: SpaceX

Ground teams requested that the countdown be interrupted (the obvious cause being that an aircraft had entered restricted airspace) and then reset the start clock. A new launch was tentatively scheduled for 4:40 p.m. CST, just 20 minutes before today’s launch window closed. The countdown resumed just before 4:00 p.m. CST and the SN8 started at 4:45:26 p.m. CST (2:25:26 p.m. PST; 5:25:26 p.m. EST)!

The launch began without incident when all three Raptor engines ignited and the spaceship slowly lifted off the pad. SpaceXs shared the entire event via live stream (see below), which recorded everything with an outside camera, a downward facing camera on the outside of the spaceship, and a third camera in the “rock” (engine compartment).

Just before 4:42 minutes, the SN8 reached its target altitude of 12.5 km (41,000 feet) and the Raptor engines were shut off. The SN8 rolled in the air for a moment before beginning its descent and tilting its hull towards the ground. This was the much anticipated “belly-flop” maneuver, testing the spacecraft’s maneuvering flaps and aerodynamic surfaces.

The SN8 performs its “belly flop” maneuver. Image Credit: SpaceX

The spaceship then glided through the air for over a minute, making most of the way back to the landing site. The ground teams then reignited the three Raptor engines (6:25 minutes after takeoff), which giggled and fired to swing the tail section quickly around. The last 17 seconds of the test consisted of the SN8 slowing down enough to allow it to land gently.

Unfortunately, immediately after touchdown, the SN8 went up in flames 6:42 minutes after takeoff (at 4:52:08 p.m. CST) and then quickly exploded. With the exception of the external camera, all video feeds were abruptly interrupted and after a few seconds the smoke dissipated to reveal a small pile of dirt and much of the nose cone that was scattered across the pad. The live feed ended with the message:

“Great test, congratulations Starship, steam! SN9 Up Next! ”

Elon Musk took to Twitter about 10 minutes after the flight ended to put the test (and its fiery finale) into context. First of all, he praised the successes they had achieved with this last run of the spaceship.[s]Successful ascent, conversion to collection tanks and precise flap control to the landing point. ”

The still image of the SN8 explodes immediately after touching down on the landing pad. Image Credit: SpaceX

He also explained the reason why SN8 exploded immediately after reaching the landing site:

“The pressure in the fuel tank was low during landing, resulting in a high touchdown speed and RUD, but we have all the data we needed! Congratulations SpaceX Team Hell yeah !! ”

For the recording, RUD stands for “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly”, a term in aerospace engineering that essentially means code for “Kaboom!” Is. That said, Musk is certainly right, and there are many reasons SpaceX is feeling solemn right now. With the exception that the SN8 arrived too quickly and burned on the landing pad, it managed to do everything that was intended for this flight test.

It peaked at 12.5 km, successfully gliding through the atmosphere with nothing but its fins and surfaces, and managed to reignite its engine just in time to turn around and land. As for the landing portion, Musk and his engineers now have the data they need to make sure the next flight test has more time to slow down.

Given SpaceX’s highly iterative rapid prototyping approach, these errors can be instantly translated into success. The SN9 is almost completely stacked and processed and at this point is just waiting for the integration of its nosecone. Barring unforeseen delays, it could be ready to do a similar hop test in a few weeks.

At this point it is impossible to tell if the SN9’s hop test will have a similar target altitude of 12.5 km or if it will try to reach a higher altitude. Originally, the altitude test was supposed to peak at 20 km (~ 12.5 mi) above sea level. However, this value was reduced as the SN8 approached the attempt – first to 15 km (9.5 mi; 50,000 ft) and then to 12.5 km.

However, SpaceX is sure to shift the envelope as they near an orbital flight test in the near future. A Starship prototype will try to reach a height of 200 km with six Raptor engines. Musk also stated last week that he was “very confident” that the spacecraft would complete a crewed mission to Mars by 2026. While this means a two year delay, it’s fair to say he’s still on a tight schedule!

In the meantime, several more prototypes (SN10 to SN15) are in various stages of manufacture and assembly, and construction of the first Super Heavy prototype (BN1) is in full swing. So expect lots of news from Boca Chica in the months and years to come! Also watch the video of the start (the start starts at 1h48m).

Further reading: SpaceX

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UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA

Research news

IMAGE: UVIC MARINE BIOLOGIST JULIA BAUM SAMPLING PLATYGYRA COLONIES ON KIRITIMATI (CHRISTMAS ISLAND), 2019. Show more CREDIT: CREDIT: KRISTINA TIETJEN.

Biologists at the University of Victoria found how some corals managed to survive a heat wave unprecedented in the world in an initial study that offers new hope for long-term survival of coral reefs in the face of climate change.

“The devastating effects of climate change on coral reefs are well known. Finding ways to improve coral survival from marine heat waves is critical if coral reefs are to withstand decades of climate change, ”says UV marine biologist Julia Baum, lead author of the study.

The study, published today in Nature Communications, presents the discoveries made by the international research team that tracked hundreds of coral colonies on reefs around Christmas Island (Kiritimati) during El Niño 2015-2016. The El Niño heat stress triggered the third global coral bleaching event, causing mass coral bleaching and mortality on reefs around the world. The epicenter was Christmas Island, where the heat wave lasted an unprecedented 10 months.

Globally, coral reef fisheries are valued at $ 6.8 billion annually and are a vital source of food and income for hundreds of millions of people in tropical island nations. In the run-up to the United Nations Decade for the Exploration of the Sea for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), global calls are being made to reverse the cycle of declining marine health.

“If we understand how some corals can survive prolonged heat waves, we can mitigate the effects of marine heat waves on coral reefs and gain time to limit greenhouse gas emissions,” says Danielle Claar, who led the study as a UV radiation PhD student and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington.

Climate change is threatening the world’s coral reefs as corals are very sensitive to the temperature of their surrounding waters. During a heat wave, corals release the algae that live in their tissues and produce food for them, causing the coral to become completely white – a phenomenon known as coral bleaching. Prolonged bleaching often causes corals to die of starvation. If they can regain their food source within a few weeks, they can usually recover.

So far, coral recovery after bleaching has only been observed after the heat stress has subsided. As global climate models predict that heat waves will continue to increase in both frequency and duration, the ability of a coral to regain its food source during a prolonged heat wave is critical to its survival.

“Watching corals recover from bleaching while they’re still baking in hot water changes the game,” says Baum.

Baum adds that corals only exhibited this ability when they weren’t also exposed to other types of man-made stressors such as water pollution. So far, it was unclear whether local reef management could help improve corals’ chances of survival in the face of climate change. “We have found a glimmer of hope that protection from local stress factors can help corals,” says Baum.

“While this path to survival may not be open to all corals or in all conditions, it demonstrates an innovative survival strategy that conservationists could use to help coral survive,” adds Claar.

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The research was funded by the Canadian Science and Engineering Research Council, the US National Science Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts Pew Fellows program for marine conservation, the Rufford Foundation, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Shedd Aquarium .

From EurekAlert!

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connected

For decades, robotic missions have explored Mars to learn more about the planet’s geological and ecological history. Next year the Perseverance rover will join the hunt and be the first mission to send samples back to Earth. The first crewed mission is expected to take place by 2030. All of these efforts are part of an ongoing effort to find evidence of past (and perhaps even present) life on Mars.

According to a new study from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, the most likely place where this evidence can be found is several miles below the surface. Here (so they argue), water still exists in liquid form, likely due to geothermal warming, which melts thick sheets of ice beneath the surface. This research could help resolve remaining questions like the solar weak young paradox.

The study, recently published in the journal Science Advances, was led by Lujendra Ojha, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University. He was joined by a team of engineers and planetary scientists from Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH), Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, LA) and the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) in Tuscon, Arizona.

This artist’s concept shows the early Martian environment (right) – presumably liquid water and a thicker atmosphere – compared to the cold, dry environment seen on Mars today (left). Photo credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

One of the most persistent questions about Mars was how to keep temperatures warm enough to have liquid water on its surface. During the Noachian era (about 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago) the sun was much weaker and cooler than it is today. However, there are innumerable geological indicators on Mars that suggest the presence of rivers, lakes, and even an ocean in the northern lowlands, dated to this time.

This apparent contradiction between the geological record and the climate models is referred to by scientists as the “weak paradox of the young sun”. As Prof. Ojha stated in a press release from Rutgers Today:

“Even if greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapor are pumped into the early Martian atmosphere in computer simulations, climate models still have difficulties in supporting a long-term warm and humid Mars. Myself and my co-authors suggest that if Mars had high geothermal heat in its past, the weak paradox of the young sun can be at least partially reconciled. “

One possible mechanism is the heat generated by the radioactive decay of elements such as uranium, thorium, and potassium. On terrestrial planets like Earth, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, these elements generate enough heat inside to keep the mantle in a viscous state. They can also cause the undersides of thick ice sheets to melt, resulting in the formation of subglacial lakes.

Artist’s impression of water beneath the surface of Mars. Photo credit: ESA / Medialab

It is believed that this phenomenon on Earth led to the formation of lakes under the ice cover of West Antarctica, Greenland, and the Canadian Arctic. It is likely that a similar melting could explain the presence of liquid water on Mars 4 billion years ago, at a time when surface temperatures would be frozen.

To verify this theory, the Rutgers team examined various Mars data sets to determine whether geothermal warming would have been possible in the Noachian era. What they found was that these conditions would have been commonplace on the Martian surface about 4 billion years ago. As the planet lost its magnetosphere and slowly saw its atmosphere receding, falling temperatures likely meant that liquid water was only stable at great depths.

So if life had ever originated on Mars, it would likely have followed the liquid water as it seeped underground. On these levels, said Ojha, the conditions would have been warm enough for life to continue:

“At such depths, life could have been sustained by hydrothermal (warming) activity and stone-water reactions. So the subsurface could represent the longest-lived habitable environment on Mars. “

These results support an ongoing theory among planetary scientists and astrobiologists currently in search of life on Mars. Ever since the Mariner 9 orbiter provided the first direct evidence of past water on the Red Planet – as has been confirmed multiple times since – scientists have begun to speculate where that water (and any life that supported it) might be found today.

In 2018, NASA interior exploration using seismic surveys, geodesy and heat transport (InSight) reached the surface and began studying the internal structure of Mars. The data collected could allow scientists to better understand the role geothermal warming played in the habitability of Mars during the Noachian era. It could also point the way to life on Mars today!

Further reading: Rutgers Today

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