In a couple of . . . → Read More: The E.coli (EHEC/STEC) outbreak in Europe could continue for the next 3 years]]> There’s interesting article in Wired about how the source of the E.coli outbreak in Europe, that killed at least 44 people and infected over 3700, has been tracked to a supplier in Egypt. And why the outbreak is likely to reoccur at any time in the next three years.

In a couple of sentences, the original shipment of infected fenugreek seeds was a 15 ton shipment, which has been broken down into many, many thousands of smaller packages (well over 10 000) for resale in various European countries. The seeds have a shelf life of another 3 years, which means that if any of them get sold and used to produce bean sprouts within that time, the infections could restart. It looks it would be a good idea to avoid raw bean sprouts for at least that long.

A lot of the rest of the world could fit in Africa

Let’s look at . . . → Read More: Africa is BIG]]>

A lot of the rest of the world could fit in Africa

Let’s look at the areas of some countries and compare the total with Africa (The areas of the countries on the map are all drawn to the same scale; but the countries have been rotated and/or chopped to fit them into the shape of Africa):

Comparative sizes of some countries and Africa

(Via Treehugger, “grunt” work by Greg Osuri/Kai Krause)

Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal – named after the Norse god of thunder, who also gave us Thor’s day or Thursday – produces as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of . . . → Read More: Thorium could be the answer to the energy crisis]]> The Daily Telegraph points to thorium as a way out of the energy crisis.

Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal – named after the Norse god of thunder, who also gave us Thor’s day or Thursday – produces as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal. A mere fistful would light London for a week.

Thorium eats its own hazardous waste. It can even scavenge the plutonium left by uranium reactors, acting as an eco-cleaner. “It’s the Big One,” said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA rocket engineer and now chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering. “Once you start looking more closely, it blows your mind away. You can run civilisation on thorium for hundreds of thousands of years, and it’s essentially free. You don’t have to deal with uranium cartels,” he said.

Thorium is so common that miners treat it as a nuisance, a radioactive by-product if they try to dig up rare earth metals. The US and Australia are full of the stuff. So are the granite rocks of Cornwall. You do not need much: all is potentially usable as fuel, compared to just 0.7pc for uranium.

The problem seems to be that the nuclear industry isn’t really interested in investing in new technology, they have invested too much in the current ones. Nuclear plants which are on the drawing board today will be around for up to another sixty years, so why try to master a new technology when you could refine the existing one?

There are advantages, however, to thorium plants:

• It has a higher neutron yield per neutron absorbed.
• It does not require isotope separation, a big cost saving.
• Thorium-fluoride reactors can operate at atmospheric temperature. (The plants would be much smaller and less expensive).
• Thorium is so common that miners treat it as a nuisance, and it’s available all over the globe, so there’s no possibility of a cartel of thorium producers who could block its use.
• It is almost impossible make nuclear weapons out of thorium because it is too difficult to handle. (It emits too many high gamma rays)

There is a web site, The Oil Drum, which has attracted a lot of informed comments about the developing situation . . . → Read More: What is really going on in the Gulf of Mexico?]]> BP has been quite tight-lipped about what is going on at the Deepwater Oil Spill site, so it is difficult as a member of the public to understand the issues about the spill.

There is a web site, The Oil Drum, which has attracted a lot of informed comments about the developing situation in the Gulf of Mexico, which makes disturbing reading. Take a look at this comment made by one of the readers, who seems to know what he is talking about. The main point being made is that BP’s decision to cut off the riser pipe and let the oil flow, capturing what they can, is probably the best course of action that can be taken. Why? Because although BP and the US government aren’t saying much, the evidence points to there being multiple leaks below the seabed, which would be made worse if the pipe was sealed and which are unpredictable and uncontrollable. Think of a garden hose which has been stabbed in several places with a knife – what happens if you close the nozzle at the end?

Here parts of the comment to give you an idea, but you can read the whole comment at the link above:

All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP’s actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from “BP officials” confirming the same.

I took some time to go into a bit of detail concerning the failure of Top Kill because this was a significant event. To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable, it was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to.

What does this mean?

It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot…the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?…the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?…it doesn’t leak so bad, you close the nozzle?…it leaks real bad,
same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off…or tried to anyway…but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks “down hole”. I’m sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed…because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below.

Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed…..and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks.

A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons.
There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the “system” including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil “Product” rushing through it…

…Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can “get there first”…us or the well.

We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not.

(via scienceblogs.com)

1. The UK is likely to run out of soil in the next 60 years. Other countries are similarly affected: An estimated 75 billion tonnes of soil is lost annually with more than 80 per . . . → Read More: Running out of…]]> If global warming hasn’t frightened your socks off yet, then take a look at these two news items:

1. The UK is likely to run out of soil in the next 60 years. Other countries are similarly affected:

An estimated 75 billion tonnes of soil is lost annually with more than 80 per cent of the world’s farming land “moderately or severely eroded”…

2. The world production of phosphorous probably peaked in the late 1980′s (phosphorous is used to make fertiliser):

According to a study by Patrick Dery peak phosphorus occurred in the US in 1988 and the rest of the world in 1989. Others think we’re still 30 years away from the peak, but it doesn’t matter who’s right. Either way, unless we change what we’re doing now, we will have depleted our supply of the central building block of life within a few hundred years of discovering it, and we do not know how to make more.

Both articles are interesting reading and are quite short. Better not to think about oil or water either.

(Via Boing . . . → Read More: Are you going to get wet feet?]]> Valencia and La Albufera if the sea level rises just one meter
Flood Map, a Google mashup, shows which land will be under water when Global Warming raises the sea level.

(Via Boing Boing)

For more information and a larger version of the photo (up to approx. 3300 x 3300 pixels versions are available, so you could use it as your desktop background!), click on the picture below:

Image . . . → Read More: Nasa’s photo of the day]]> Wow. Nasa publishes some really interesting photos. This one is of Phobos, the larger of Mars two moons.

For more information and a larger version of the photo (up to approx. 3300 x 3300 pixels versions are available, so you could use it as your desktop background!), click on the picture below:

Image Credit: NASA