A hydrogen car that uses an ICE misses the whole point. It doesn't improve efficiency much, given that it is still limited by the thermal efficiency of a heat engine.
We already have a huge number of internal combustion engines all over the planet.
The reason for all the effort to create a new hydrogen fueling infrastructure is to take advantage of fuel cells/electric motors.
You might be able to build a practical car which runs from hydrogen fuel cells. But can fuel cells deliver the power required for a truck, locomotive or airliner.
It's a well known fact that many animals emit massive amounts of methane and other gases that are produced by microbes in their innards. Has anyone crunched any numbers as to how much methane might be captured if we were to apply this to agricultural livestock?
There's quite a bit of methane emitted by rotting garbage. It's probably easier to collect methane from a landfill than a cow.
What kind of work has been done to understand the microbes that produce methane? Maybe we could have large methane production facilities based on photosynthesis and some other feedstock for these (perhaps genetically engineered) microbes?
The bacteria produce methane through anerobic respiration. Nothing to do with photosynthesis. There are sewerage works which collect methane and use it for power generation (and heating, since the bacteria work better in warm water.)
The point is that hydrogen can be made by any power source whereas petrol can only be made from oil.
It is perfectly possible to make the relevent mix of hydrocarbons from a non petroleum source (as well as from waste petroleum manufactured products.) The real issue is if it is economic to do so.
the best hope for the future is nuclear power now and solar/wind/wave etc. being used more and more in the future.
Bio-diesel is a promising idea for fueling internal conbustion engines. On the basis that an otherwise waste product can be used as a fuel and getting vegetable oil out of plants does not involve complex chemistry.
You can also build very thick carbon fiber tanks for high-pressure storage, and wrap them up in aluminum and more carbon fiber to protect them from crashes.
One important differance is how a carbon fibre tank containing a compressed gas behaves in a fire. Whereas metal tanks often rupture spilling all their contents in one go carbon fibre tanks tend to slowly leak fuel when over preasurised.
Are you implying that a tank of hydrogen can't explode into a fireball under any circumstances? Maybe you should review a tape of the Challenger disaster again.
The shuttle tank contains both hydrogen and oxygen in liquid form. If these are mixed they will explode quite well. A pool of liquid hydrogen would simply burn.
Kinda weird since there was only one An-225 ever built... should be the An-225 I think.
Maybe someone mistook one aircraft which has flown under both military and civilian registration (as well as with 2 different sets of engines and avionics) for being two aircraft or something...
but it says they are banning direct dial calls, so if you want to ring someone in one of those countries, ring the International Operator first and ask to be connected.
Maybe these numbers (if any) will subsequently be added to the IDD whitelist.
So what's going to stop owners of those numbers in foreign countries to send an email requesting that their number is whitelisted?
The easiest way would be for the regulator to accept requests only be telephone via a number which does not accept calls from outside the Irish Republic.
To sum up, the major difference between Canada and the US in voting is that there is a (non-partisan) Federal agency responsable for setting up and running the election, with standardised ballots.
It's more a case of "rest of the world" than just Canada. The US is also unusual in that registers of voters record party membership rather than just being a list of people who can vote.
Provincial elections are run similarly to Federal ones, while Local ones have started using electronic vote counters, but using and keeping paper ballots.
Having real paper ballots means that if there any question about the results or the machine breaks down a manual count can be done.
You'd think a company who's been making ATMs since their inception, would have a good understanding of cryptographic security and the "gotchas" inherent in such systems.
Isn't this the same company which put Windows inside ATMs?
Yet it seems that this multi-billion dollar company is utilizing nothing more than junior level Microsoft programmers.
Maybe such "programmers" are now the "Industry Standard".
I mean, who in their right mind would write a national voting system in Microsoft Access?!?
Few people in their right minds, at least those who had some knowlage of systems analysis, would use computers at all for running an election. Especially an election where there are several months in which to make sure that the votes have been counted correctly.
now, let's do a little math. the number of milliseconds in 49.7 days = (49.7 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000) = 4,294,080,000. recognize that number? that's right, it's 2^32 (actually, this is: 4,294,967,296, but it's pretty damn close). and why is that significant, you ask? because at 2^32, the unsigned int used by some versions of windows to keep the time since boot overflows back to zero, and bad things begin to happen.
Bad things may happen if the software does not take account of this system variable being capable of "roll over". is the problem microsoft's fault? goddamn right it is. in software that runs A MAJOR AIRPORT and controls the flight control and radar systems that affect thousands of lives in the air, an error like this just not an option. the people who put this system into production ought to be fired. i don't know what the right os for this task is. solaris? aix? vms? something with provable uptime and reliability, something that can deliver uptime of longer than a month and a half, that's for sure.
The fault is more with the people who chose to use MS Windows in this way. Microsoft's blame is more at the level of promoting their products as something they are not as well as encouraging a culture of "everything Microsoft".
but here is what i really want: i would like you (microsoft, inc.), to stop selling your products to mission critical and infrastructure operations until such a time as they are ready to do so.
IIRC Microsoft do actually state in their documentation that Windows is not suitable for such tasks. But this is probably more intended as CYA. Since their advertising and marketing arms push the myth of Windows as a general purpose OS.
big projects don't work like this. if you find a bug mid testing, then you don't throw the whole thing back at the vendor and chuck the baby out with the bathwater; you simply cannot organise big projects like this.
In many cases the "chucking the baby out with the bathwater" stage appears to come with the choice of using MS Windows in the first place.
you do risk analysis and if it's decided you can accept it with a constraint that you, say, boot it occasionally then you may be able to accept the system.
I wonder if "risk analysis" is actually something along the lines of "TCO". i.e. meaning something other than what it says.
The flaw isn't in Windows, it is in an application written by a high priced consulting company. It was discovered late in the evaluation process, and since it is easy to work around (by rebooting once per month), and fixing it would have delayed delivery, the software was accepted with the bug.
If the flaw was in the application then the fix would be to restart the application. Since the "fix" is to reboot the entire machine then it's self evident that the flaw is somewhere in the operating system. If it would be possible to simply restart the application and the advice to reboot the computer is incorrect then the "high priced consulting company" isn't competent to write software in the first place.
I've seen AIX-based database systems that require an overnight downtime to do reindexing, since non-SQL formats like DBase have always been a little funky when they start having to deal with million-record tables.
This in application, rather than an Operating System issue though.
Like they're hard to get working. Also, when you start adding multiple guide stars, as in Multi-conjugate AO (MCAO), you decrease the field-of-view (which on a large telescope is already pretty small) with every laser guide you use.
It's also rather silly that having picked a good site without light pollution to then go and create light pollution of your own:)
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A hydrogen car that uses an ICE misses the whole point. It doesn't improve efficiency much, given that it is still limited by the thermal efficiency of a heat engine.
We already have a huge number of internal combustion engines all over the planet.
The reason for all the effort to create a new hydrogen fueling infrastructure is to take advantage of fuel cells/electric motors.
You might be able to build a practical car which runs from hydrogen fuel cells. But can fuel cells deliver the power required for a truck, locomotive or airliner.
It's a well known fact that many animals emit massive amounts of methane and other gases that are produced by microbes in their innards. Has anyone crunched any numbers as to how much methane might be captured if we were to apply this to agricultural livestock?
There's quite a bit of methane emitted by rotting garbage. It's probably easier to collect methane from a landfill than a cow.
What kind of work has been done to understand the microbes that produce methane? Maybe we could have large methane production facilities based on photosynthesis and some other feedstock for these (perhaps genetically engineered) microbes?
The bacteria produce methane through anerobic respiration. Nothing to do with photosynthesis. There are sewerage works which collect methane and use it for power generation (and heating, since the bacteria work better in warm water.)
The point is that hydrogen can be made by any power source whereas petrol can only be made from oil.
It is perfectly possible to make the relevent mix of hydrocarbons from a non petroleum source (as well as from waste petroleum manufactured products.) The real issue is if it is economic to do so.
the best hope for the future is nuclear power now and solar/wind/wave etc. being used more and more in the future.
Bio-diesel is a promising idea for fueling internal conbustion engines. On the basis that an otherwise waste product can be used as a fuel and getting vegetable oil out of plants does not involve complex chemistry.
Without developing a breeder reactor the uranium will run out as well.
Breeder reactors already exist anyway the US and Russia have more Pu239 than they know what to do with due to dismantling nuclear weapons.
Hydrogen cars will remove the polution from where you live and keep it at the power plant or factories.
The polution they remove is that they don't emit carbon monoxie and carbon dioxide. The exhaust is still likely to contain nitrogen oxides.
You can also build very thick carbon fiber tanks for high-pressure storage, and wrap them up in aluminum and more carbon fiber to protect them from crashes.
One important differance is how a carbon fibre tank containing a compressed gas behaves in a fire. Whereas metal tanks often rupture spilling all their contents in one go carbon fibre tanks tend to slowly leak fuel when over preasurised.
Are you implying that a tank of hydrogen can't explode into a fireball under any circumstances? Maybe you should review a tape of the Challenger disaster again.
The shuttle tank contains both hydrogen and oxygen in liquid form. If these are mixed they will explode quite well. A pool of liquid hydrogen would simply burn.
Kinda weird since there was only one An-225 ever built... should be the An-225 I think.
Maybe someone mistook one aircraft which has flown under both military and civilian registration (as well as with 2 different sets of engines and avionics) for being two aircraft or something...
but it says they are banning direct dial calls, so if you want to ring someone in one of those countries, ring the International Operator first and ask to be connected.
Maybe these numbers (if any) will subsequently be added to the IDD whitelist.
So what's going to stop owners of those numbers in foreign countries to send an email requesting that their number is whitelisted?
The easiest way would be for the regulator to accept requests only be telephone via a number which does not accept calls from outside the Irish Republic.
How many legitimate companies with overpriced premium only phone lines would be on small south pacific islands?
Assuming the phone call actually makes it to anywhere near the South Pacific.
Not looking likely... but tell your MS-using UK friends: BT will password protect premium numbers so they can't be used by a dialler.
But for international call baring they would have to pay.
To sum up, the major difference between Canada and the US in voting is that there is a (non-partisan) Federal agency responsable for setting up and running the election, with standardised ballots.
It's more a case of "rest of the world" than just Canada. The US is also unusual in that registers of voters record party membership rather than just being a list of people who can vote.
Provincial elections are run similarly to Federal ones, while Local ones have started using electronic vote counters, but using and keeping paper ballots.
Having real paper ballots means that if there any question about the results or the machine breaks down a manual count can be done.
You'd think a company who's been making ATMs since their inception, would have a good understanding of cryptographic security and the "gotchas" inherent in such systems.
Isn't this the same company which put Windows inside ATMs?
Yet it seems that this multi-billion dollar company is utilizing nothing more than junior level Microsoft programmers.
Maybe such "programmers" are now the "Industry Standard".
I mean, who in their right mind would write a national voting system in Microsoft Access?!?
Few people in their right minds, at least those who had some knowlage of systems analysis, would use computers at all for running an election. Especially an election where there are several months in which to make sure that the votes have been counted correctly.
Thankfully, Chicken Little, planes do NOT fall out of the sky during a total air traffic control outage, but control regresses to pencil and paper.
You use paper and pencil when you have radio and no radar. It isn't much use when you have radar and no radio.
now, let's do a little math. the number of milliseconds in 49.7 days = (49.7 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000) = 4,294,080,000. recognize that number? that's right, it's 2^32 (actually, this is: 4,294,967,296, but it's pretty damn close). and why is that significant, you ask? because at 2^32, the unsigned int used by some versions of windows to keep the time since boot overflows back to zero, and bad things begin to happen.
Bad things may happen if the software does not take account of this system variable being capable of "roll over".
is the problem microsoft's fault? goddamn right it is. in software that runs A MAJOR AIRPORT and controls the flight control and radar systems that affect thousands of lives in the air, an error like this just not an option. the people who put this system into production ought to be fired. i don't know what the right os for this task is. solaris? aix? vms? something with provable uptime and reliability, something that can deliver uptime of longer than a month and a half, that's for sure.
The fault is more with the people who chose to use MS Windows in this way. Microsoft's blame is more at the level of promoting their products as something they are not as well as encouraging a culture of "everything Microsoft".
but here is what i really want: i would like you (microsoft, inc.), to stop selling your products to mission critical and infrastructure operations until such a time as they are ready to do so.
IIRC Microsoft do actually state in their documentation that Windows is not suitable for such tasks.
But this is probably more intended as CYA. Since their advertising and marketing arms push the myth of Windows as a general purpose OS.
big projects don't work like this. if you find a bug mid testing, then you don't throw the whole thing back at the vendor and chuck the baby out with the bathwater; you simply cannot organise big projects like this.
In many cases the "chucking the baby out with the bathwater" stage appears to come with the choice of using MS Windows in the first place.
you do risk analysis and if it's decided you can accept it with a constraint that you, say, boot it occasionally then you may be able to accept the system.
I wonder if "risk analysis" is actually something along the lines of "TCO". i.e. meaning something other than what it says.
Click Me. Menu. Actions. Tasks. Open Here.
How about "Do Things" or "Do Stuff"? Which would be both suitably ambiguious and understandable by people of any literacy level.
The flaw isn't in Windows, it is in an application written by a high priced consulting company. It was discovered late in the evaluation process, and since it is easy to work around (by rebooting once per month), and fixing it would have delayed delivery, the software was accepted with the bug.
If the flaw was in the application then the fix would be to restart the application. Since the "fix" is to reboot the entire machine then it's self evident that the flaw is somewhere in the operating system.
If it would be possible to simply restart the application and the advice to reboot the computer is incorrect then the "high priced consulting company" isn't competent to write software in the first place.
I've seen AIX-based database systems that require an overnight downtime to do reindexing, since non-SQL formats like DBase have always been a little funky when they start having to deal with million-record tables.
This in application, rather than an Operating System issue though.
What if they want a picture of Polaris. Woops, there's a big rock in the way!!!
Then put a telescope within the Artic circle. There must be plenty oof suitable sites within Northern Russia or Canada.
No, but it naturally circles the earth every 96 minutes or so, so there's no large portion of the sky which is continually in eclipse.
:)
But not much use if you want to study a variable star with a period of less than the orbital period
Would this telescope be as beneficial as the Hubble considering the Hubble isn't attached to any surface and can freely move in space...
Hubble cannot move "freely" in space. It's in low Earth orbit, changing the orbit requires use of the limited amount of fuel onboard the spacecraft.
This Antartic version would have limited viewing capabilities,
So does Hubble, given that there is a large planet in the way of part of it's field of view.
Like they're hard to get working. Also, when you start adding multiple guide stars, as in Multi-conjugate AO (MCAO), you decrease the field-of-view (which on a large telescope is already pretty small) with every laser guide you use.
:)
It's also rather silly that having picked a good site without light pollution to then go and create light pollution of your own