“Green” Energy the way out of Recession? Pt. 2

In my previous post I mentioned how issues Trasportation & Infrastructure Energies need to be dealt with for green energy to be practical. In this post the issue of Waste & Recycling is addressed.

Waste & Recycling

This is the clearest area where the divide between intelligent, practical environmentalists, and intelligent, idealist environmentalists is greatest. To eliminate (or at least drastically reduce) uses of fossil fuels and the accompanying CO2 emissions, there is only one practical solution that still allows for the use of combustion engines: hydrogen power. The difficulty arises in that (in addition to infrastructure issues previously discussed) mass producing hydrogen gas from H2O is energy-ineffecient. In other words, electrolysis requires energy to undertake. All of the proposals by idealist environmentalists, off-shore wind farms; tide-based water-power generators; solar panels; natural gas, don’t provide enough energy to support our current demands, much less enough energy to waste splitting water. The best possible source that could accomplish both supplying current demands and enough extra energy to split water is nuclear power. Not just a few plants will do, rather we would have to build a multitude in the next 5 years. To avoid the N.I.M.B.Y. issue, the plants could be located on old off-shore oil rigs that are reinforced against attack. Civilian guard units, created and run by the state, could be tasked to provide constant security.

Assuming the plants utilize non-breeder reactors, the amount of nuclear waste is far less than the waste produced by coal or oil power plants. With enough extra cheap energy, we could mix the waste with iron-rich glass and bury it in the deepest parts of abandoned mines, or bundle the waste up and launch it into space (preferably on a collision course with the sun). Since we are already using the power to separate water, the hydrogen and oxygen for the rockets would be readily available.

Although I’m hopeful, it is not likely a massive drive to build nuclear reactors will be initiated in the next 5 years. The idealist environmentalists hold too much sway over the environmental lobby; they are expecting some miracle discovery that will solve the global warming and pollution problem while ignoring the interim alternatives that could pull America out of its oil addiction and cement us as a premier energy provider for the world.

Performing Arts on the Web cont.

Today’s Selections come from the later parts of a documentary on Sylvie Guillem.

Video Clip: Sylvie Guillem – Part 4

Video Clip: Sylvie Guillem – Part 5

Video Clip: Sylvie Guillem – Part 6

Video Clip: Sylvie Guillem – Part 7


Over the past few years, I have pondered what the best ways of chronicling performing arts are. Some documentarians focus on particular pieces or instillations of art. Other documentarians focus on the artists: choosing to isolate their focus on particular traits/characteristics of the artist or how the artist approaches his or her medium. The last major focus of still other documentarians is the performance art/artist in historical context: what does both the artist and the art indicate about the place and period the artist existed in; does the artist challenge, ignore, or support convention; what is the relationship between the particular artist and his/her art, and does that relationship help or hinder the presentation/acceptance of that art?

As I continue to post findings from my internet meanderances, I will (on occasion) comment on which of the above strategies the filmmaker chose, and my thoughts and that choice.

The Sylvie Guillem documentary seems to have focused on the second option: isolate focus on the artist and view how the artist approaches her medium. Without subtitled translation, I cannot parse exactly what the people said. Perhaps someone who understands French will translate for me someday. Regardless, both the nature of how the documentary was shot and the style of editing allow the former conclusion to be made.

Is 'Green Energy' the way out of the Recession

The topic of Green Energy keeps popping up in the news. Our President even mentioned it in his speech to the joint houses of Congress. But my skepticism is increasing regarding how practical these ideas of solar panels in the desert, off-shore wind farms, and tide-based water-power generators. There seem to be great sweeping statements by environmentalists and energy producers/providers that either ignore or fail to recognize the multiple aspects of energy needs. While I’m clearly not a chemical engineer nor a physicist, it appears that there are at least XX facets to this: Transportation Energy; Public Use Energy; Waste & Recyling; and Energy Infrastructure. For this post I’ll address Trans. Energy & Energy Infrastructure,in a later post I’ll address the other two facets.

Transportation Energy
Both our previous and current Presidents have spoken about Americans addiction to oil. With the exception of some buses and trains, the majority of both private and commercial transportation has its lifeblood on oil(gasoline and diesel). This remains so because there is no commonly available technology that is more efficient (with such a high power-to-weight ratio) for land vehicles than the internal combustion engine. What this means is that any ‘solution’ for our oil dependence must replace the fuel with an alternative, not eliminate it. Biodiesel may serve this function, but that would require conversion of many gasoline powered vehicles. If the government is going to push for vehicle conversion, it may be better to push for converting vehicles to hydrogen power instead. This removes the majority of the pollution emissions generated by vehicles on the road.

Energy Infrastructure
Unfortunately, without the improvements, developments, or refinements necessary to both the power grid and fuel grid, any type of mass vehicle conversion program will falter. American’s N.I.M.B.Y. issues have delayed or halted the production of many power plants (oil, coal, or nuclear). Without having an overabundance of cheap energy, the inefficient tasks—such as splitting water to get hydrogen or pumping water uphill into dams and reservoirs—cannot be undertaking if the power demands on the current grids are to be met. The lack of cheap energy may also effect the willingness of energy providers to expand the capabilities of gas stations to include hydrogen fuel. In other words, if there isn’t an efficient way to distribute the hydrogen fuel to your stations, and there isn’t a high demand for the hydrogen fuel, why invest in retrofitting your stations to carry it?

Performing Arts on the Web cont.

Today’s Selections come from what appears to be a documentary on Sylvie Guillem.

…from wikepedia: “Sylvie Guillem CBE (born 23 February 1965 in Paris, France[1]) is a French ballet dancer. She was the top-ranking female dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet from 1984 to 1989, before becoming a principal guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London. She is currently performing contemporary dance as an Associate Artist of London's Sadler's Wells Theatre. Her most notable performances have included those in Giselle and in Rudolf Nureyev's stagings of Swan Lake and Don Quixote.” (Wikipedia)

Video Clip: ">Sylvie Guillem - Part 1

Video Clip: Sylvie Guillem - Part 2

Video Clip: Sylvie Guillem - Part 3

The film clips are entirely in what sounds like French, which I don’t speak. Consequently, I do not know what they are actually saying throughout the film. It appears that the documentary is more about Sylvie Guillem, the dancer, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvie_Guillem) than about a particular performance. I don’t know if it was the choice of the director or more the reality of the dancer, but the film shows how isolated a life Sylvie leads, even whilst she operates amongst the other people involved in the same productions. I wonder if that is characteristic of all high-level dancers.

There are 7 clips total to the documentary; the second half of which will be in a later post.

Performing Arts on the Web

In the past year, there was a distinct dearth of performing arts events that I attended. The numerous reasons for this, though the primary reasons are a paucity of disposable funds and location/distance of the events from my location. Consequently, I have been searching the Internet for various alternatives to tide my interest in the meantime. Over the many of the following posts, I’ll be inserting some of the content I find. Please note: None of the embedded content is owned or licensed by me.

Video Clip: Alessandra Ferri & Sting


Choreography by Heinz Spoerli. Music by Johan Sebastian Bach – ‘Prelude’ from “Cello Suite No. 1 in G major”

One of the first thoughts to run through my head while viewing the video was how surprisingly flexible Sting was. Overall I thought the clip was very interesting. I don’t have a background in dance, but I think the ballet choreography was more towards modern than classical. The short clip itself was well-lit and filmed, and may serve as an introduction to types of ballet that people unfamiliar with dance as a performing art may appreciate.

Beginnings Novel News

As much as I intended to have the novel finished by this date, my progress has been significant but limited. I just finished writing a ‘marathon’-length scene between two of my characters. That scene may be the longest single scene I have ever written that takes place inside one fixed location. I have yet to actually type it into the computer, but I’m guessing it will be around 20-30 pages. Considering that the entire scene utilizes just two characters, I’m curious what my opinion of the scene will be when I reread the novel as an entire whole. The remaining parts of the novel won’t be any easier to write, but should be comparatively quicker to produce.

Admission

I’m using today’s post to do something that probably is not done often in blogs. I admit it: I was wrong. I made the following post in October of 2007:

For the first time, a woman and a black man lead the polls in the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, those polls results do not reflect what I believe to be actual reality. I am more than willing and ready to be proved wrong, but I simply do not think the general American populace will elect either a woman or black man as President of the United States. Would the public settle for a woman or minority if they had no choice, yes. But given an alternative, I do not believe people will choose a female or minority leader.That means I am pessimistic about either Clinton or Obama securing the Democratic nomination for President, much less either actually winning the general election. As I told someone this week, either of them would actually serve to bolster the chances of one of the white male candidates. So here would be my prediction. Assuming Clinton actually fails to secure the nomination, it will probably be Biden or Edwards leading the ticket with either Clinton, Obama, or Richardson balancing out the bottom-half of the ticket.

Clearly, my thoughts from back then did not reflect the reality of the electorate, as measured on election day. As we conclude the first 30 days of America’s first African American president, I ponder what aspects of the Obama package led to his election. Was it his race, his message, the economy, the anti-Bush/Republican movement of the populace, or some other nebulous factor? Apparently, President Obama’s approval rating has decreased to the mid 60’s percentile. The news commentary I heard on ABCnews mentioned that this drop was typical of new presidents within their first month.

Because I’m near the saturation limit on all the discussions/news about the economy, I will not address that in this post, except to say that it is interesting that the government is rushing to fix this problem. One might think they would have learned from the Patriot Act or the bill that authorized former President Bush to go to war with Iraq: rushing bills through Congress, particularly a bill that almost nobody has read the entire way through, tends to lead to greater and more exacerbated problems in the future.

Working with IR Photography

I recently purchased an IR lens filter from B&H Photo, with the desire to begin exploring infrared photography. Since I left high school, I have not really spent time going back to the basic technical aspects of photography. But to justify the purchase of the lens and to really master IR photographs requires me relearning what I used to know about light and filters.

As the example photograph demonstrates, the image that shows up on the back of the digital camera removes the lower color wavelengths of light, leaving only about 50% of the red spectrum visible and the lower 700nm+ ranges of the infrared. I now have to readjust the techniques I learned so many years ago when I first started with black & white film. Contrasts are different, and exposure times are extended. Adding additional difficultly is the fact that with so little light coming through the lens, autofocusing becomes problematic. But the results, when things work, are extremely interesting.

Image 1: Sunset at Lafayette Resevoir. Image 2 & Image 3: Afternoon Jogger at Lafayette Resevoir.