Science needs more blue-sky thinking

Some Scientists seem willing to say or do anything to keep those research grants coming. Here is one who has a brilliant idea and was turned down. Go figure.
The Government is wrong to pursue an "impact agenda" which aims to limit research grants to those resulting in economic or social benefit.

This is a tale about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, a fairy story that began more than two decades ago with an article in this newspaper and whose happy ending carries an important moral message for science today. Its hero happens to be one of my chemistry tutors at Oxford: Ken Seddon, a man with extravagant mutton chops, a winning smile and an extraordinary feel for how to snap atoms together like so much Lego.

In 1987, Ken had a brainwave about exploiting ionic liquids. These substances were first studied in 1914 and had the potential to act as "super-solvents", removing grease, glue and other residues with ease and allowing new chemistry to be explored. He applied for funding from a body now known as the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, but the referees were underwhelmed. Too simple, said one; too complex, sniffed a second. The third muttered something about neutrons (he was staring at the wrong application). Their verdict: Ken's bright idea was worth a gamma at a time when even alpha-rated projects struggled to find funds.

Ken was not discouraged, and was fortunate enough to find a fairy godmother in the form of the BP Venture unit. He was given a cheque for £250,000, and his windfall was written up by The Daily Telegraph. That article, in turn, spawned interest from the oil industry, which wanted a way to dissolve kerogen, the thick crud left over from refining, and from the British Library, which was desperate for a means of removing glue from ancient manuscripts. Read more.

Horizon Hydrofill Hydrogen Refueling and Storage Solution

We published about Horizon Hydrofill, when it was announced prior to CES on Jan. 4th, and we got a chance to see the device at the show. Hydrofill is a major fuel cell innovation, allowing everyone to have a personal hydrogen generator and portable hydrogen cartridges. The Hydrofill system basically extracts hydrogen from water using electrolysis, and store it in the Hydrostick solid hydrogen cartridges. 60 W DC power is enoufght to extract 10 liters of Hydrogen per hour and fill one of the Hydrostick cartrigdge.Using the cartridge, you can charge your cellphone, or laprtop or any device with USB connector. According to Horizon, the metal hydride alloys contained in the cartridge absorb hydrogen into their crystalline structure and creates the highest volumetric energy density of any form of hydrogen storage. Horrizon Hydrofill can be powered by AC power, a solar panel or a small wind turbine. Read more.

Antarctic sea water shows 'no sign' of warming

SEA water under an East Antarctic ice shelf showed no sign of higher temperatures despite fears of a thaw linked to global warming that could bring higher world ocean levels, first tests showed yesterday.

Sensors lowered through three holes drilled in the Fimbul Ice Shelf showed the sea water is still around freezing and not at higher temperatures widely blamed for the break-up of 10 shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, the most northerly part of the frozen continent in West Antarctica.
"The water under the ice shelf is very close to the freezing point," Ole Anders Noest of the Norwegian Polar Institute wrote after drilling through the Fimbul, which is between 250m and 400m thick.
"This situation seems to be stable, suggesting that the melting under the ice shelf does not increase," he wrote of the first drilling cores.
The findings, a rare bit of good news after worrying signs in recent years of polar warming, adds a small bit to a puzzle about how Antarctica is responding to climate change, blamed largely on human use of fossil fuels. Read more.

An Inconvenient Truth: The Ice Cap Is Growing

A report from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado finds that Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007. But didn't we hear from the same Center that the North Pole was set to disappear by now? We all deserve apologies from the global warming fanatics who wanted to reshape the world in their image and called those who objected to their wild theories ignorant deniers. They were so convinced the world was ending and only they could save it, yet now they have been exposed as at best wildly idealistic and at worst frauds. They should have to do public penance for their hubris. I suggest they sit on blocks of melting ice and ponder their limitations. Either that or let the polar bears deal with them. Read more.

Copenhagen Summit Turned Junket?

CBS) Few would argue with the U.S. having a presence at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. But wait until you hear what we found about how many in Congress got all-expense paid trips to Denmark on your dime.

CBS investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports that cameras spotted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the summit. She called the shots on who got to go. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and embattled Chairman of the Tax Committee Charles Rangel were also there.
They were joined by 17 colleagues: Democrats: Waxman, Miller, Markey, Gordon, Levin, Blumenauer, DeGette, Inslee, Ryan, Butterfield, Cleaver, Giffords, and Republicans: Barton, Upton, Moore Capito, Sullivan, Blackburn and Sensenbrenner.
That's not the half of it. But finding out more was a bit like trying to get the keys to Ft. Knox. Many referred us to Speaker Pelosi who wouldn't agree to an interview. Her office said it "will comply with disclosure requirements" but wouldn't give us cost estimates or even tell us where they all stayed.
Senator Inhofe (R-OK) is one of the few who provided us any detail. He attended the summit on his own for just a few hours, to give an "opposing view."
"They're going because it's the biggest party of the year," Sen. Inhofe said. "The worst thing that happened there is they ran out of caviar."
Our investigation found that the congressional delegation was so large, it needed three military jets: two 737's and a Gulfstream Five -- up to 64 passengers -- traveling in luxurious comfort.
Add senators and staff, most of whom flew commercial, and we counted at least 101 Congress-related attendees. All for a summit that failed to deliver a global climate deal.
As a perk, some took spouses, since they could snag an open seat on a military jet or share a room at no extra cost to taxpayers. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was there with her husband. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) was also there with her husband. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) took his wife, as did Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI). Congressman Barton -- a climate change skeptic -- even brought along his daughter. Read more.

Obama Uses Global Warming To Destroy The US Economy

Obama wants disaster. He skillfully sets fires to falsely accentuate the inadequacies, inefficiencies and exploitive nature of the current system

President Obama knows little and cares less about global warming or climate change. It’s a means to a political end. He’s an arsonist setting fires to save the country, but as it burns he uses extinguishers that we know don’t work. He’s pursuing a deeply entrenched ideology with help from those who advanced his career as a figurehead for socialism in America. He’s assisted by the people he appointed to office and the policies already put in place. His actions are those Saul Alinsky outlined for community organizing but applied to the entire nation.

They require you prove the existing government and policies don’t work by slowly destroying the economy and from the ashes, the Phoenix of socialism takes flight. “An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent… He must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. Out of this mechanism, a new community organization arises….”

In the short term, the Bush Administration was allowed to go on for too long. In the long term it was abuse of the environment, especially climate by industry, the damnable engine of capitalism. This provides the moral argument Alinsky required to cloak the goal. His rule two says the end justifies the means. “The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises.” He adds another rule, which says, “… you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.” He cynically identifies caring about the means as the weakness of people who oppose socialism. Actually, they are people with ethics, morality and a genuine concern for others. Read more.

ClimateGate continues: “Follow the money, not the temperature”

Poor Giles Coren. The London Times restaurant critic has his proverbial knickers in a twist over all those global warming jokes he has to endure. I don’t blame him. There are a lot of insufferable jokes out there, including mine.

Of course, Coren is referring to witticisms created by dolts who can’t tell the difference between climate and weather. You know the kind – “Hey, Goreacle, where’s you warming when it’s forty below and Minnesota’s being invaded by randy polar bears?” And in case you don’t know who’s telling these execrable jokes – and, more importantly, being such a moron as to confuse such highly technical terms as climate and weather – Coren makes it explicit:
I appreciate how enjoyable it is for middle-aged rightwingers, who think that climate change (along with racial prejudice, gender inequality and Aids) is a lefty invention by softies on Camden Council, to make a mockery of it every time there is any sort of weather at all, but it is driving me absolutely insane.
Well, he’s got me there, at least some of the way. I am middle-aged. As for the rest of the bigoted bilge he’s spewing, it may interest Coren to know (assuming he’s picking this up on Google Alerts) that I am an ex-civil rights worker, am pro-gay marriage, believe Aids is a serious matter to which we should donate tons of money and…. think anyone who still believes anthropogenic global warming is anything near settled science is a BLOOMIN’ IDIOT (caps because Coren is addicted to them in his own column – a sign the author is a tad insecure about his message).
Even regarding Coren’s tedious differentiation between climate and weather (yes, yes, we’ve heard this), it seems the restaurant critic missed one of the key emails in the ClimateGate scandal from Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Read more.

Home hydrogen to spark energy revolution?

This will help everyone become aware of safe hydrogen fuel, but we will still need a huge industrial supply of hydrogen to run the economy and replace petroleum. The Canadian north can supply this market.
An off-grid energy revolution was launched this week with the unveiling of the world’s first domestic hydrogen generator at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Although domestic hydrogen fuel cells are already on the market, their use has been limited by the availability of hydrogen. They have depended on the supply of bottled industrially produced hydrogen, or metal hydride canisters to make them work.
The ‘Hydrofill’ which can fit on a desk top is a hydrogen refuelling and storage device that plugs into any available power source –mains electricity, solar panels or wind turbine.
Manufactured by Singapore based Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, it automatically extracts hydrogen from its water tank by means of electrolysis and stores it in a solid form in small refillable cartridges. The cartridges contain metallic alloys that absorb hydrogen into their crystalline structure. The cartridges then release the hydrogen at low pressures, which claims Horizon, addresses many of the worries about storing hydrogen at high pressure. Read more.

Obama to create 17,000 green jobs. What's a green job?

Despite the president's initiative, no one really knows how to count green jobs. A definitive answer is months away. How many real jobs will be lost? A president who has never had a real job should keep his hands off the economy.

President Obama announced Friday his administration would provide $2.3 billion in federal tax credits, which he said would create 17,000 new 'green' jobs across the United States. But even the federal government is struggling to define what a green job is.

Charles Dharapak/AP Read more.

More Out of Context Alarmism from the Star

OMG! This could have dire consequences for, ah, well somebody! The only outcome will be more ammo for eco-groups to secure a government research grant.
Canada's Arctic meltdown grows at alarming pace - but alarming to who?
American researchers suggest the melting season for Arctic sea ice is growing faster across much of the Canadian Arctic than anywhere else in the world.

A recently published article outlines how they used satellite microwave data to measure when sea ice begins to melt in the spring and when it starts refreezing in the fall. The researchers were able to look with 99 per cent accuracy as far back as 1979 and examine the entire circumpolar globe, the first time scientists have been able to do so.
They found that, on average, sea ice has started melting 2.5 days earlier every decade and begun to refreeze 3.7 days later. That means the average melt season is just under 20 days longer than it was 30 years ago.
"All areas in the Arctic show a trend toward earlier melt onset and also a trend toward later freeze-up," says the paper, published in the latest Journal of Geophysical Research.
However, the melt period for ice in several areas of the Canadian Arctic is growing even faster.
In Baffin Bay, at the eastern gate of the Northwest Passage, it is increasing about 20 per cent faster than the global average. And in the Beaufort Sea and Hudson Bay, the melt period is now a full month longer than it was in 1979.
In fact, the melting season for Hudson Bay ice is increasing at one of the fastest paces in the world, probably because it's one of the most southerly ice packs, the report suggested. Read more.

Britain under snow and ice as temperatures hit lowest level for 15 years

More evidence of man-made global warming. You see the climate is trying to trick you into believing that there is no warming at all. Don't fall for it! The climate is obviously in the pay of big oil.

Braemar in the Scottish Highlands was expected to reach -19 degrees Celsius (-2F) overnight, topping the -18 ( 0F) experienced in Benson, Oxon, on Wednesday. The Met office issued an ice alert for the whole country.

As schools and colleges remained closed, it emerged that thousands of pupils who aimed to sit exams next week will be forced to wait until June, disrupting their plans for the rest of the academic year.

Read more.

Europe braced for more heavy snow

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain – relentless cold weather has nothing to do with the settled fact of global warming! Don’t you think that one of the by-products of a warming climate might be warmer weather? The warmist lobby is becoming truly Orwellian in their response – cold is the new warm and we would all be better off if humans would just die off.

Measures are being taken to protect the homeless from the weather

Snow and gale-force winds are expected to cause transport chaos in Germany as a bitter cold snap continues to wreak havoc across Europe.
Up to 40cm (15 inches) of snow was expected later on Friday in Germany, with heavy winds expected to bring traffic to a standstill.
Airports have called in extra staff and rail operators have warned of delays.
In the UK, the worst winter for decades has led to a fear for energy supplies as temperatures dropped to -22C (-8F).
"What is being forecast for the weekend could lead to chaotic traffic conditions and potentially leave large parts of Germany completely paralysed," warned the Auto Club Europa. Read more.

Application for hydrogen fueling station on PZC agenda

WALLINGFORD - Proton Energy Systems, which manufactures hydrogen generation equipment, has an application before the Planning and Zoning Commission to build a commercial hydrogen vehicle fueling station in Connecticut in the parking lot of its 10 Technology Drive headquarters.
The application is on the commission's agenda for Monday.
The company, which was founded in 1996 and moved to its present location in 2002, has built and delivered thousands of hydrogen generating devices of various sizes to industrial customers worldwide, and foresees a major spike in hydrogen powered vehicles in the coming years.
Robert Friedland, Proton's president and chief executive officer, said hydrogen vehicles are safer and better for the environment than their gasoline powered counterparts, and the energy necessary to produce a kilogram of hydrogen - which is equal to about 2.5 gallons of gasoline - is practically comparable to the amount of needed to produce a gallon of gasoline. Read more.

Cold Weather Doesn't Disprove Global Warming

We knew somebody had to say this - just in case you might stop panicking.
This is hardly news, but seeing as though residents in the Midwest will have to deal with heavy snow and wind chills as low as 50 below zero today, it bears repeating: Cold weather and global warming can go hand in hand. Even though it's tempting to wonder what about this whole global warming thing? when China has its biggest snowfall since 1951, scientists insist these types of events should be seen only as anomalies in a long-term pattern. "It's part of natural variability," one expert explained, noting that record cold temperatures will still be reached. "We'll just have fewer of them." Although scientists have said that global warming could cause more extreme hot and cold weather, experts say the current cold spell has more to do with "a big outbreak of Arctic air," as one put it. Read more.

EnviroMission Plans Massive Solar Updraft Towers for Arizona

This type of project makes burning hydrogen fuel look so much better. (and cheaper)

Australia-based EnviroMission Ltd recently announced plans to build two solar updraft towers that span hundreds of acres in La Paz County, Arizona. Solar updraft technology sounds promising enough: generate hot air with a giant greenhouse, channel the air into a chimney-like device, and let the warm wind turn a wind turbine to produce energy. The idea isn’t new — it’s been around since the mid 1980’s — but it’s only now starting to take off.

EnviroMission Ltd’s new initiative is not a small project by any means. The towers will each have 2,400 foot chimneys over a greenhouse measuring four square miles. For some perspective, that’s nearly as tall as the recently-completed Burj Dubai structure.

There’s still plenty of work to be done before the $750 million, 200 megawatt project can begin. The Southern California Public Power Authority recently approved EnviroMission as a provider, but solar updraft hasn’t yet been proven to be commercially viable. That means EnviroMission might have trouble raising enough cash to get started. Still, we’re excited at the prospect of a new tool in our alternative energy arsenal — the more options we have, the better. Read more.

US climate change legislation Q&A: what will happen in 2010?

Even the Guardian is nowadays willing to contemplate that Cap and Trade is a Lefty pipe-dream.

The global recession, US mid-term elections and a weak deal at Copenhagen all play a part in the future of cap and trade.

What is the state of play for climate change legislation in America?

Barack Obama put his reputation on the line at Copenhagen by saying America would act on climate change. Now it's up to Congress. The House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey bill last June which would set a price on carbon, and would put progressively tighter limits on greenhouse gas emissions with a 17% cut from 2005 levels by 2020, and 80% by 2050.
Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, passed a nearly identical version of the bill out of the Senate environment committee last November. But action in the Senate has stalled. Boxer stared down a Republican boycott to get a bill through her committee. But Democrats are deeply reluctant to throw themselves into another full-on confrontation with Republicans so soon after the bruising battle over healthcare reform.
What happens next?
US environmental organisations say there is still a good chance the Senate will move ahead on a climate change bill this year. A triumvirate of Senators — Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsey Graham, and Independent Joe Lieberman — are working to craft a climate change bill they think would have a good chance of getting support from Republican as well as Democratic Senators. Kerry had earlier promised a blueprint late last year. The newest deadline is at the end of this month. The Senate is then expected to begin its push in the spring. Read more.

Dorgan’s retirement leaves energy void

Sen. Byron Dorgan’s (D-N.D.) surprising decision not to seek reelection means the Senate will lose one of its most prominent voices on energy policy.

Dorgan chairs the panel of the Appropriations Committee that crafts the Energy Department’s budget.
Last year he handed Energy Secretary Steven Chu a big defeat, rejecting the department’s request to end funding for development of hydrogen-powered vehicles. Read more.

Sea Shepherd anti-whaling speedboat collides with Japanese vessel

What truly amazes and shocks me is the abundance of resources that Greenpeace and other eco-emotion groups are able to put in the field. They are literally awash in cash.

Six crew members of hi-tech boat resembling stealth bomber rescued after bow sheared off in clash with whalers in Antarctica
A hi-tech anti-whaling speedboat resembling a stealth bomber had its bow sheared off and was taking on water today after it collided with a Japanese whaling ship in Antarctica.

The six crew members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society speedboat were safely rescued.
The clash was apparently the most serious in the past several years, during which the marine conservation group has sent vessels into far southern waters to try to harass the Japanese fleet into ceasing its annual whale cull.
The society said its boat the Ady Gil was hit by the Japanese ship the Shonan Maru near Commonwealth Bay and had its bow sheared off.
"The condition of the Ady Gil now is that it is inoperable and the crew of the Ady Gil has been transferred to our other vessel, the Bob Barker," Locky Maclean, the first mate of the society's lead ship told Australian Broadcasting Corpation radio.
The Ady Gil's captain had stayed on board to try to save equipment "before it floods too severely," he said.
Clashes using hand-thrown stink bombs, ropes meant to tangle propellers and high-tech sound equipment have been common in recent years, as have collisions between ships. Read more.

Copenhagen's Dodged Bullet

Modern men have lived through 20 sudden global warmings.
Al Gore said the other week that climate change is "a principle in physics. It's like gravity. It exists." Sarah Palin agreed that "climate change is like gravity," but added a better conclusion: Each is "a naturally occurring phenomenon that existed long before, and will exist long after, any governmental attempts to affect it."

Over time climates do change. As author Howard Bloom wrote in The Wall Street Journal last month, in the past two million years there have been 60 ice ages, and in the 120,000 years since the development of modern man, "we've lived through 20 sudden global warmings," and of course this was before--long before--"smokestacks and tail pipes."
In our earth's history there has been both global warming and global cooling. In Roman times, from 200 B.C. to A.D. 600, it was warm; from 600 to 900 came the cold Dark Ages; more warming from 900 to 1300; and another ice age from 1300 to 1850. Within the past century, the earth has warmed by 0.6 degree Celsius, but within this period we can see marked shifts: cooling (1900-10), warming (1910-40), cooling again (1940 to nearly 1980), and since then a little warming. The Hadley Climatic Research Unit global temperature record shows that from 1980 to 2009, the world warmed by 0.16 degree Celsius per decade.
As for the impact of reducing global warming, Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, outlined in The Wall Street Journal that Oxfam concluded that if wealthy nations diverted $50 billion to climate change that "at least 4.5 million children would die and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment." And if we spent it on reducing carbon emissions? It would "reduce temperatures by all of one-thousandth of one degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred years." Read more.

Cold weather: winter is chilliest 'in many people's memory’

Where is Al Gore when you need him? He promised me palm trees in Toronto!
Cold weather across much of the East has orange growers pulling all-nighters in Florida, city workers in Atlanta scrambling to fix burst pipes, and the homeless struggling in Memphis.

Remember those nasty 1970s winters?

Well, Americans are reliving those cold old days right now as cold weather threatens orange and strawberry growers in Florida, has social service crews working overtime in Tennessee, and fracturing old water mains in Atlanta.
Across the South, Midwest, and Eastern seaboard, a stubborn “arctic outbreak," tacked onto an already cold return to work for many Americans, augurs what meteorologist at AccuWeather.com are calling “the coldest winter in many people’s memory.” Read more.