Discovery News is reporting that chemicals found in old cigarette butts makes steel stronger.
If this were Fark, there would be a joke here about cancer not being cured yet, but there's a reason why these chemists were messing around with cigarette butts. They're a major source of pollution, since one butt seems inconsequential, but throw ten in a lake and suddenly half the fish abruptly die. So, the more butts can be recycled, the less polluting they will be. (Because now they will be worth money.)
Curiously enough, the chemical that helped the most was nicotine, the very chemical reason that people do smoke in the first place. Nicotine is a strong stimulant that Tobacco plants make to make insects that eat them die of heart failure.
So...if I want to help the steel industry, I should sponsor a tobacco farm. Or something.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Compression heating/cooling
In desert climates, like the one where I was born, it's ridiculously hot in the day, and then very cold at night. People who live there spend a fortune on air conditioning, and gain a little more relief with swamp coolers, which work by evaporation. (Works great in dry desert climates!)
As a student of physics, I am aware that fluids (gasses and liquids) become higher in temperature when compressed, and lower when decompressed. I wish to harness this effect to replace air conditioning, and to shift costs to when energy is the cheapest, which is typically at night in deserts. (Day costs are high from high demand, everyone running their air conditioning at once.) If this system is widely deployed, then the energy pricing would be recalculated, and we'd have to switch to a battery system or something.
So we build under the house a huge air tank, compressor, and heat exchanger. At night, it's cold and energy costs are low, and we run the compressor. The compressed air in the tank gets very hot, and the heat exchanger blows the heat into the house. Aaaaaaah. Feels good. The tank is high pressure, room temperature air.
When the sun rises, the compressor is shut off. The tank under the house is now under huge pressure, likely many atmospheres worth. When the heat of the day starts, we open a valve and fill the house with a cold wind. (Because the same amount of heat to make a many atmosphere'd tank room temperature is very little heat at all when that air is reduced to one atmosphere's worth of pressure, as it would be when let out.) Aaaaaaaaahhhh. Feels really really good. The expander valve should only allow a small amount of air out for maximum results. The tank will also get very very cold as it does this.
By the time the sun goes down, ideally this is when our tank has reached one atmosphere of pressure, ending the cold wind. It's time to repeat the cycle, but we won't start compressing immediately. We should probably let it sit a few minutes. Then we compress it up.
I got this idea thinking about a museum I visited once that talks about how it shifted its cooling energy burden to nighttime, when energy demand is least, by freezing a whole lot of ice and using this ice for cooling during the day, when energy demand is higher. And I thought, why bother with ice?
As a student of physics, I am aware that fluids (gasses and liquids) become higher in temperature when compressed, and lower when decompressed. I wish to harness this effect to replace air conditioning, and to shift costs to when energy is the cheapest, which is typically at night in deserts. (Day costs are high from high demand, everyone running their air conditioning at once.) If this system is widely deployed, then the energy pricing would be recalculated, and we'd have to switch to a battery system or something.
So we build under the house a huge air tank, compressor, and heat exchanger. At night, it's cold and energy costs are low, and we run the compressor. The compressed air in the tank gets very hot, and the heat exchanger blows the heat into the house. Aaaaaaah. Feels good. The tank is high pressure, room temperature air.
When the sun rises, the compressor is shut off. The tank under the house is now under huge pressure, likely many atmospheres worth. When the heat of the day starts, we open a valve and fill the house with a cold wind. (Because the same amount of heat to make a many atmosphere'd tank room temperature is very little heat at all when that air is reduced to one atmosphere's worth of pressure, as it would be when let out.) Aaaaaaaaahhhh. Feels really really good. The expander valve should only allow a small amount of air out for maximum results. The tank will also get very very cold as it does this.
By the time the sun goes down, ideally this is when our tank has reached one atmosphere of pressure, ending the cold wind. It's time to repeat the cycle, but we won't start compressing immediately. We should probably let it sit a few minutes. Then we compress it up.
I got this idea thinking about a museum I visited once that talks about how it shifted its cooling energy burden to nighttime, when energy demand is least, by freezing a whole lot of ice and using this ice for cooling during the day, when energy demand is higher. And I thought, why bother with ice?
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Carbon Cooling
Discovery News is reporting that in the microscopic scale, Graphene, a complex form of carbon, conducts heat really well. Graphene would be layered with the silicon and would distribute the heat made by the circuits to the edges of the device. The larger surface area would help it cool off.
This is important because the faster processors of today are getting harder and harder to cool off. The faster they switch, the more power they need, and the more heat they make that has to be hauled away before it melts something. 1980s era personal computers needed a small heat sink. 1990s era computers needed a large heat sink and a small fan. Today's computers need a large heat sink and fan, and thermal paste to facilitate heat transfer to the heat sink.
With this discovery, the entire backplane (like the motherboard in personal computers) can now effectively be used as a heat sink, making the entire cooling process more efficient. The heat radiates into the air, requiring slightly less fan action. This will make computers quieter. Or faster. Probably faster. (Same cooling setup will now tolerate more heat output, so the CPU is clocked even faster than before.)
Good news if you like overclocking. Bad news if you're air conditioning a data center.
This is important because the faster processors of today are getting harder and harder to cool off. The faster they switch, the more power they need, and the more heat they make that has to be hauled away before it melts something. 1980s era personal computers needed a small heat sink. 1990s era computers needed a large heat sink and a small fan. Today's computers need a large heat sink and fan, and thermal paste to facilitate heat transfer to the heat sink.
With this discovery, the entire backplane (like the motherboard in personal computers) can now effectively be used as a heat sink, making the entire cooling process more efficient. The heat radiates into the air, requiring slightly less fan action. This will make computers quieter. Or faster. Probably faster. (Same cooling setup will now tolerate more heat output, so the CPU is clocked even faster than before.)
Good news if you like overclocking. Bad news if you're air conditioning a data center.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Cap and Trade Roughly Analyzed
Cap and Trade is an American proposed law, in which carbon emissions would be limited per entity, (the "cap,") but the limited quantity could be traded between entities (the "trade") to minimize the cost to any one person. Permittable pollution would be represented with certificates. Companies that were particularly efficient in reducing their pollution output could trade their savings to companies that were having a harder time doing so. Reactions are mixed.
The American political left really enjoys this idea, because it would be the cheapest possible solution for limiting carbon emissions. Prices would rise, but not by much, and the economy would develop a certain efficiency of pollution, with more trade-able dollars per unit of carbon production, and the limits could be tightened or loosened by the requirements of the environment.
The American political right despises this idea, as it would increase costs for businesses for something that they refuse to consider a problem. They mostly see environmental legislation along these lines as a plot to damage business interests, as the relationship between business and environmentalism has been strained for years now.
I personally like the idea, as it combines environmental and business concerns for the cheapest possible solution. I like the way that it internalizes the externality of carbon, and uses free-market logic to minimize the expenses involved.
Some economists worry of potential side effects. Who gets the issuing certificates? If it's per person, then either we get business beholden to random people (which they will intensely resent), or we get into corporate personhood issues and shell corporations that exist purely to collect more certificates. Alternatively, if you have to buy them from the government in the first place, it's basically a stealth carbon tax. If you clean carbon from the air, do you get a certificate for that? (You should, the issue with carbon is statistical. 1 ton minus 1 ton equals zero tons.) If so, how do you prove you cleaned the carbon? What if somebody counterfeits the certificates? Or, what if somebody buys up every certificate and demands exorbitant amounts of money for any of them? (An obnoxious example of what economists call "Rent-seeking behavior" in which one seeks to be paid despite providing little to no benefit to those around you.) Some experts proclaim that the disreputable financial firm Goldman-Sachs plans to do exactly that, and has the political lobby resources to force it on the rest of us, public opinion be damned.
If it's a some-freely-issued, others produced by demonstrable sinking efforts, monopoly-free system, I'm all for it. If it's a government-issued-only system that's ignored after the initial issuing, I'm against it.
The American political left really enjoys this idea, because it would be the cheapest possible solution for limiting carbon emissions. Prices would rise, but not by much, and the economy would develop a certain efficiency of pollution, with more trade-able dollars per unit of carbon production, and the limits could be tightened or loosened by the requirements of the environment.
The American political right despises this idea, as it would increase costs for businesses for something that they refuse to consider a problem. They mostly see environmental legislation along these lines as a plot to damage business interests, as the relationship between business and environmentalism has been strained for years now.
I personally like the idea, as it combines environmental and business concerns for the cheapest possible solution. I like the way that it internalizes the externality of carbon, and uses free-market logic to minimize the expenses involved.
Some economists worry of potential side effects. Who gets the issuing certificates? If it's per person, then either we get business beholden to random people (which they will intensely resent), or we get into corporate personhood issues and shell corporations that exist purely to collect more certificates. Alternatively, if you have to buy them from the government in the first place, it's basically a stealth carbon tax. If you clean carbon from the air, do you get a certificate for that? (You should, the issue with carbon is statistical. 1 ton minus 1 ton equals zero tons.) If so, how do you prove you cleaned the carbon? What if somebody counterfeits the certificates? Or, what if somebody buys up every certificate and demands exorbitant amounts of money for any of them? (An obnoxious example of what economists call "Rent-seeking behavior" in which one seeks to be paid despite providing little to no benefit to those around you.) Some experts proclaim that the disreputable financial firm Goldman-Sachs plans to do exactly that, and has the political lobby resources to force it on the rest of us, public opinion be damned.
If it's a some-freely-issued, others produced by demonstrable sinking efforts, monopoly-free system, I'm all for it. If it's a government-issued-only system that's ignored after the initial issuing, I'm against it.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Duck-onomics
So yesterday I was taking a walk in a lovely park with a lake, and there were Muscovy ducks swimming around the lake. I fed them some of my bread, which they really enjoyed. I started to think how food is like money to them, no matter how much they get, they always want even more than that. And that got me to thinking, if I could somehow speak their language, how could I explain trade and economics to them?
Ducks make primarily three things. Their bodies grow feathers, which they discard at a certain level of wear. There are two levels of feathers, the large outer feathers, and the fluffy inner down. Both are oiled to keep the duck waterproof. (Which helps them float on the surface of the water.) The other are eggs, which they use to make more ducks. I don't think they'd be inclined to trade their eggs. Their feathers, on the other hand, were littered around the park.
I'll be imagining the ducks to be speaking in LOLCAT speak, because they're not very smart compared to humans. (Big human-style brains are metabolically expensive. We humans are the nerds of the animal world.)
Lesson for the ducks #1: Feather Plus Wood Equals Arrow
"WHAT GOOD IS ARROW NO CAN EAT"
Patience, my Anatidae friend, we're getting to that. I just have to establish some things first.
Lesson for the ducks #2: Down Feathers Plus Textiles Equals Pillow
Probably a really good one too, all natural and all that. All the humans love down pillows.
"SO CAN EAT PILLOW?"
No, ducks. But we're getting to that.
Lesson #3: Goods like pillow and arrows can be traded for monies.
"WHAT ARE MONIES? CAN EATS?"
No, you can't eat money, but we're getting really close to that, I promise. Next lesson.
Lesson #4: Monies can be traded for anything, including bread.
"NOMS!! BUT WE NO HAVE MONIES, GIVE US NOMS ANYWAY."
No, ducks, you don't get stuff for free.
"BUT WANT!!!!"
I see, I think you'll like lesson five then.
Lesson #5: Since all goods are interchangeable, you can trade feathers you don't need anymore for bread from a human like me. He (or she) will do the remaining transactions without you.
"...."
"...."
"WE TRADE RIGHT NOW K?"
No, I didn't bring any more bread, but you might want to start saving your feathers.
"CAN TRADE ALL FETHURS ME REALLY HONGRY!!!"
No, you need some feathers to, you know, stay afloat, but when some fall out naturally...
"ME PULL THEM, THAT NATRUL, NOW GIVE BREAD."
Maybe I shouldn't trade with you ducks, lest you destroy yourselves.
"NO WAIT COME BACK ME WANT MORE BREAD!!!"
Eh...you're eating well enough as it is.
"WHO TOLD YOU, CREYFISH?!?! CREYFISH LIES!!"
I'm going now. I think I need to talk to someone less...impulsive.
"ME NOT IMPULSUV, ME DUCK. YOU SELL ME BREAD NOW."
I'll bring some tomorrow. No trading.
"AWW, BUT ALL US LIKE NOMS!"
So...imaginary trade with the ducks proves...disastrous....and is accordingly not performed. Ah well. The ideas are almost assuredly too complicated for them.
Ducks make primarily three things. Their bodies grow feathers, which they discard at a certain level of wear. There are two levels of feathers, the large outer feathers, and the fluffy inner down. Both are oiled to keep the duck waterproof. (Which helps them float on the surface of the water.) The other are eggs, which they use to make more ducks. I don't think they'd be inclined to trade their eggs. Their feathers, on the other hand, were littered around the park.
I'll be imagining the ducks to be speaking in LOLCAT speak, because they're not very smart compared to humans. (Big human-style brains are metabolically expensive. We humans are the nerds of the animal world.)
Lesson for the ducks #1: Feather Plus Wood Equals Arrow
"WHAT GOOD IS ARROW NO CAN EAT"
Patience, my Anatidae friend, we're getting to that. I just have to establish some things first.
Lesson for the ducks #2: Down Feathers Plus Textiles Equals Pillow
Probably a really good one too, all natural and all that. All the humans love down pillows.
"SO CAN EAT PILLOW?"
No, ducks. But we're getting to that.
Lesson #3: Goods like pillow and arrows can be traded for monies.
"WHAT ARE MONIES? CAN EATS?"
No, you can't eat money, but we're getting really close to that, I promise. Next lesson.
Lesson #4: Monies can be traded for anything, including bread.
"NOMS!! BUT WE NO HAVE MONIES, GIVE US NOMS ANYWAY."
No, ducks, you don't get stuff for free.
"BUT WANT!!!!"
I see, I think you'll like lesson five then.
Lesson #5: Since all goods are interchangeable, you can trade feathers you don't need anymore for bread from a human like me. He (or she) will do the remaining transactions without you.
"...."
"...."
"WE TRADE RIGHT NOW K?"
No, I didn't bring any more bread, but you might want to start saving your feathers.
"CAN TRADE ALL FETHURS ME REALLY HONGRY!!!"
No, you need some feathers to, you know, stay afloat, but when some fall out naturally...
"ME PULL THEM, THAT NATRUL, NOW GIVE BREAD."
Maybe I shouldn't trade with you ducks, lest you destroy yourselves.
"NO WAIT COME BACK ME WANT MORE BREAD!!!"
Eh...you're eating well enough as it is.
"WHO TOLD YOU, CREYFISH?!?! CREYFISH LIES!!"
I'm going now. I think I need to talk to someone less...impulsive.
"ME NOT IMPULSUV, ME DUCK. YOU SELL ME BREAD NOW."
I'll bring some tomorrow. No trading.
"AWW, BUT ALL US LIKE NOMS!"
So...imaginary trade with the ducks proves...disastrous....and is accordingly not performed. Ah well. The ideas are almost assuredly too complicated for them.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Memristors
The first three types of electronics, resistors, capacitors, and inductors, were discovered very early, before 1900. It occured to people that logically there should be a forth type, but no one went very far with that idea. A mathematician, Leon Chua, proved mathematically that this forth type would exist and what properties it would have, but didn't build one. (He designed many other circuits, including some that are non-deterministic, an unusual trait for electronics.) This was in 1971.
An actual memristor wasn't built until 2008. 37 years later. It's still in the experimental stage, physically, but it implies some interesting things.
Especially in computers. Memristors could produce, according to electronics experts, a device that is a CPU, RAM, and a hard drive, all in one device. (It's a CPU because it can process information, RAM because it can store it [and reads and writes very quickly], and a hard drive because the information is not lost when the power cuts out.) It would enjoy capacities of terrabytes per cubic centimeter, and could be stacked together. This would be an impressively powerful computer that could be made literally arbitrarily large.
The future's so bright that I'll need to wear sunglasses.
An actual memristor wasn't built until 2008. 37 years later. It's still in the experimental stage, physically, but it implies some interesting things.
Especially in computers. Memristors could produce, according to electronics experts, a device that is a CPU, RAM, and a hard drive, all in one device. (It's a CPU because it can process information, RAM because it can store it [and reads and writes very quickly], and a hard drive because the information is not lost when the power cuts out.) It would enjoy capacities of terrabytes per cubic centimeter, and could be stacked together. This would be an impressively powerful computer that could be made literally arbitrarily large.
The future's so bright that I'll need to wear sunglasses.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Oceanic Plastic Cleanup
Discovery News is reporting that a bacteria colony has evolved the ability to consume plastic. This is excellent news.
In the pacific ocean, floating swarms of plastic have become a severe problem. An enormous swath of floating discarded plastic has reached twice the size of Texas, and roams around the ocean. In the affected areas, sure the ocean looks blue, but if you ran a plankton net through it, you'd get a whole bunch of plastic for your trouble. This is proving problematic for filter feeding albatrosses, who get large amounts of plastic in their diet. They have been turning up dead on the pacific's many small islands, their digestive systems clogged with loads and loads of plastic garbage. The garbage becomes apparent when the bird dies.
If these microorganisms could be bred to handle to the greater salinity of the open ocean, then we could deploy them in colonies in the middle of the patch, and the patch would quickly be consumed, leaving the water pure. If the plastic ran out, probably the microorganisms would die off and sink to the bottom.
In the pacific ocean, floating swarms of plastic have become a severe problem. An enormous swath of floating discarded plastic has reached twice the size of Texas, and roams around the ocean. In the affected areas, sure the ocean looks blue, but if you ran a plankton net through it, you'd get a whole bunch of plastic for your trouble. This is proving problematic for filter feeding albatrosses, who get large amounts of plastic in their diet. They have been turning up dead on the pacific's many small islands, their digestive systems clogged with loads and loads of plastic garbage. The garbage becomes apparent when the bird dies.
If these microorganisms could be bred to handle to the greater salinity of the open ocean, then we could deploy them in colonies in the middle of the patch, and the patch would quickly be consumed, leaving the water pure. If the plastic ran out, probably the microorganisms would die off and sink to the bottom.
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