As I get a lot of questions on what my position is on global warming, I’ve decided to answer them and hopefully put the issue to rest (although I’m sure that won’t happen).   Here are some of the common questions I get.

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NOTE:  See the question mark on the end of the headline?   That means this is not reported as verified fact but rather as a possible event that is being reported
Reports have come in from Mexico describing an apparent meteorite strike that left a thirty meter crater in an area of the country about 100 miles northeast of Mexico city.  The impact is reported to have occurred yesterday evening at approximately 18:30 (6:30 PM).   This would have been around 00:30 GMT, assuming that the reported timing is correct.   Thus far there’s not a lot of information outside of the Mexican press, but based on a number of reports it does appear that there was some kind of event that did occur in the area of Pachuca, Hidalgo Mexico.

Reports include sightings of a flaming object streaking across the sky, but it should be noted that until independent verification and more data becomes available, it can’t be stated conclusively that it was indeed a meteorite.   It is possible that this could have been a piece of “space junk,” an aircraft accident or possibly even something as mundane as a propane tank exploding.  It would not be the first time that a terrestrial explosion as reported as a meteor strike.

Via Bad Astronomy:

There have been some reports of a possible meteorite in Mexico — here is one news report translated into English.

Reports are a bit sketchy right now, but apparently a bright flaming object was seen coming down about 100 miles northeast of Mexico City on Wednesday around 18:30 local time. There was a roar that was loud enough to shake buildings. Another news article is reporting a crater 30 meters in diameter was found.

At the moment this is all I know. It’s not clear if this was actually an impact event from a meteorite or some terrestrial event. In 2007 a small meteorite struck in Peru, causing a lot of confusion (with me at least!) over the source of the event; there was a lot of speculation before an actual meteorite impact was confirmed. Before that impact, it was not considered likely that a small meteorite could actually hit the ground fast enough to make a crater in the ten-meter size range (they slow down or break up high in the atmosphere), so the Peru event was a surprise. It’s still not completely understood how the meteoroid survived to hit the ground.

So it’s possible this Mexico event is a meteorite, but we don’t know yet. I’ll post more information as I find it.

Possible Seismic Confirmation???

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Interestingly I was an observer to a disaster today without even knowing it.

My parents are out of town for a while and because I live quite near to them, I am staying at their home to take care of the dogs and keep down the fort.   Their home is in Guilford CT, which is about 15 miles, as the crow flies, from Middletown CT.   That’s slightly closer than where I’d otherwise be.  A bit before noon, I felt and heard what I would describe as  “surge” of wind or vibrations.    My parents house is fairly large and when a gust of wind hits it broadside, you can hear and feel the windows and walls rattle.   This event was a bit like that, but far more acute.  While wind gusts last a few seconds, this was more like a surge of pressure that lasted under a second.   It shook the house more than normal, to the point where it felt a bit like it might have been a seismic event, transmitted through the ground.

It was noteworthy enough to make me go to the window and look outside to see if there was something going on, like maybe a big truck or something else that could account for this weird sudden surge of pressure and vibration.   The event was not like a “BOOM” but perhaps a bit like a “thud,” although not an easily heard sound.   It may have been infrasonic – the kind of sound that you don’t hear directly but which you can feel in your chest and which you can hear indirectly due to the reverberations it causes.

It’s hard to describe the event, but the words “thud,” “woosh” and “surge” are the best I can come up with.

In any case, I went back to what I was doing, which was writing the previous post (the one about diamonds).

Turns out a natural gas power plant blew up and killed at least five people!!!

It seems a bit ironic that it’s called the “Clean Energy Plant” or at least it was, before much of it was blown up.   It’s far too early to tell exactly what happened here, but it’s worth noting that the event is not entirely unique.   Some enormous explosions have occurred at natural gas fired power plants over the years, as well as at natural gas pumping stations, storage depots and other facilities that support them. A massive natural gas explosion in New Jersey left hundreds homeless in 1994 and deadly natural gas explosions have occurred in recent years in Russia, Texas, Virgina, Alaska, several parts of Canada, China, India and numerous other places. This includes explosions at the power plant location, as was the case in St. Petersburg Russia.

I have to admit that while I’m acutely aware of the potential for disaster that lurks wherever you find massive amounts of flammable gas, this reminder hit especially close to home.   In addition to living near a natural gas power plant, I also live about 20 miles from a nuclear plant.  The nuclear plant, unlike the gas plant, has never killed anyone or had a major incident that effected the safety or property of those who live in the area.    This shouldn’t be surprising, however, because while the American  natural gas industry’s safety record is fairly descent, it’s far from spotless, unlike the nuclear energy industry which has never had even a single solitary incident in it’s history that endangered the local community or caused loss of life to citizens in the area.

During its history of roughly five decades, there have been a handful of worker fatalities in the US nuclear industry.  Nearly all of them have been from common workplace accidents found in all industries, such as falling off of a ladder or catwalk.   There has never been a death of a worker at a US nuclear power plant due to reactor malfunction or a nuclear accident.  There has been only one death attributable to a “nuclear” accident of any kind – a worker died as the result of a criticality accident in 1964 at the Woods River Junction reprocessing plant when he improperly mixed a solution of uranium and plutonium, resulting in unexpected critical.    Of course, the US is not alone in this.   With the exception of the former Soviet Union, most other countries with a nuclear industry have a spotless record and the rest have a nearly spotless one.

Sadly, in a single event, the natural gas industry has killed five times that many.   So which one is the dangerous one again?

In one of the greatest  losses of information in human history, eclipsed only by the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, it seems that the original tapes containing recordings of the unconverted vide0 from the Apollo-11 mission have most likely been destroyed.   This probably occurred sometime in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s, although it has not been specifically confirmed that all copies were degaussed at the time, it is known that many tapes in the collection from the era were.

At this time, there remains a very slim chance that there may be some of the original M22 tapes, most likely the on-site duplicates, that may have escaped degaussing and are hidden away somewhere in the US, Guam or Australia.  Although, that seems at best, a very long shot.   More likely to have survived was at least one recording, a possibly two made at the Parkes observatory on a modified  Ampex VR-660 video tape recorder.   If this tape exists, it is most likely in the archives of either the US government or the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. However, thus far, efforts to locate these tapes has also proven fruitless.

There is, however, another potential source of at least some of the information lost during the scan conversion process, which could be of use in the efforts to restore the video recordings, or which at least could provide some additional record for posterity:  Still images.

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Cancer treatment and especially chemotherapy seem to draw quacks like few other things.   Various misinformed and dishonest parties will have made any number of claims about cancer therapy and have pushed their own forms of snake-oil as an alternative.

Of course, forgoing effective science-based treatment can result in unnecessary loss of life, but to those suckered the deadly lies can be very attractive.  What makes things like chemotherapy such easy targets is that despite being lifesaving in the long run, the individual treatment sessions don’t make patients feel better and the side effects are well known for being unpleasant.   This aids in perpetuating the myth that it makes things worse.

James Randi has just finished up a course of chemotherapy which he was on for a few months.   Last time I saw him he had just finished some major abdominal surgery and was wheelchair bound (or rather, he was supposed to be, but he kept getting up out of the wheelchair despite being reminded that he shouldn’t do that so much.)    Now that he’s done with his chemo he relates his experience in this video.   Of course, we all wish him the best.  His prognosis is excellent for two reasons:  the cancer was detected early on and was treated immediately with the best that good, science-based medicine can provide.

Too bad it’s not their primary ship, the “Steve Irwin,” which is the base of operations for the pirate operation known as Sea Shephard, but their new “stealth,” “high tech” speedster that cost a cool 1.5 million.   The  Ady Gil, a fast yet flimsy boat had suffered many problems in her short lifetime before having her bow completely smashed by a Japanese security vessel defending their civil ships which were being endangered by the illegal operations of Sea Shepperd.   All six crew members escaped the sinking hulk. Hopefully they’re off to a Japanese courtroom.

If the Adi Gil looks familiar it’s because it had previously been used for the stunt known as “EarthRace.“   Earth Race was an attempt to “raise awareness” for global warming by racing around the world in a vessel powered by biofuels – not that biofuels are actually environmentally friendly, mind you, but it was an excuse to build a big fast boat on donated money.

Earthrace did succeed in setting a new marine around-the-world record.  It also did manage to achieve one kill.   While speeding through the crowded waters off the coast of Guatemala, the Earthrace vessel struck a small local fishing vessel.    Of the three working stiffs onboard, Earthrace scored one kill and two serious injuries.

Sea Shepherd had previous stated that they would use this vessel to “physically block” whaling operations.   The incident, according to Sea Shepherd occurred when the Gil attempted to ram a whaling support ship.  This leaves two, possibly three menacing vessels still afloat, but it’s still great news for marine safety, civil navigation of the world’s oceans and rule of law.

Now a molded carbon fiber and resin reinforced hull may have a high strength to weight ratio, but it doesn’t generally come out the winner when rammed into a very large structure of marine grade steel, dumbass.

I haven’t worken up to news this good in a long time.   It seems the new decade is looking good already!

Best Wishes that for a very very high energy holiday season and a bountiful new year.

This holiday season, may you and all your friends and family enjoy relief from the bitter cold through artificial heating and may your nights be happy, secure and brought by the glow of incandescence, fluorescence or whatever lighting you may have.   Of course, for those who are in Australia or South America, may your days be cooled by air conditioning.   Here’s hoping all your travels are safe, comfortable and rapid, and may all your pantries overflow with a surplus of safe and pathogen-free food.   And may your health be maintained by the best medicine that science can produce.

However you may celebrate your holidays and whether it is Christmas, the Yuletide, Solstice, Chaunaka or otherwise, here’s hoping that the power of many many kilowatts will serve for your comfort and protection.  Terajoules of comfort and joy, for all of mankind.

What the hell is…

No, that’s not Photoshopped.  Hundreds of thousands in Norway were amazed to see an astoundingly visually dramatic spiral light in the sky.   You can find a number of photos here.

My first thought at seeing this was that it might be related to the Aurora Borealis, as Norway is at a high latitude.    However, space weather reports indicate no unusual geomagnetic events and low solar activity.

Right now, most experts believe that the source was probably a Russian rocket that malfunctioned shortly after launch.   Rocket launched just before dawn and just after dusk are known for being very dramatic and producing a glow effect.  Although the sun may not have risen over the horizon, at high altitudes, the first rays of the sun illuminate the exhaust plume.   This explanation appears to make the most sense, and previous rocket launches have produced similar spiral patterns due to malfunctions that caused the rocket stage to spin out of control.

Despite lack of official confirmation from Russia, international Navtext alerts indicate a missile launch in the area, possibly an ICBM test.

That still leaves one big question, however:  While many rocket launches do produce dramatic and apparently “glowing” exhaust plumes, few, if any, have the dramatically sharp and distinctive edges or nearly perfect geometry of this event.   Normally, exhaust plumes are blur and scatter due to high altitude winds and the diffusion of gasses.

Best guess for now:  This may have simply been a “perfect storm” of conditions.  Low high altitude winds, the sun just barely bellow the horizon, clear skys and a rocket malfunctioning in just the right place to be seen by many people.

More as this story develops.  At the moment, I’m looking to see if I can find any earth observation satellites that caught this thing or any other relevant data on it.

And no, this is not alien or magic.  It has nothing to do with HAARP or chemtrails.  I will tell you that for sure right now.

I’m a little jealous of the Norwegians.  Looks like an amazing spectral to see.

UPDATE 1: More videos have been posted.  Ones like this clearly show the nature of the event better than still photos.  It appears to be an object spinning and ejecting a cloud.  This would appear to support the belief that it was a missile, this may be an upper stage.   Many of the photos, as well as the video, do not show as many concentric spirals and do not show the edges as sharply as a few photos, such as the photo above.   It is possible that the high contrast and many spirals seen in a few photos could be related to the operation of the camera.  As this was taken in low light conditions, it may be an extended exposure.  It is also possible that focus correction systems built into the camera have caused the edges to look slightly sharper than they are in reality.

Update 2: Based on additional information, it appears that the missile that was launched was a Bulava missile, a submarine-launched ballistic missile currently under development by Russia.   The Bulava is the only missile which is currently in flight testing by Russia.   The last test of the Bulava was in July, and was the 11th failure of the missile, which has been plagued by technical problems and delays.   The Bulava is supposed to be used with the next generation of Russian ballistic missile submarines. It’s smaller than previous generations or submarine launched missiles and is supposed to represent the next step in missile technology.

It should be noted that the Bulava has a very unusual launch profile that may account for the very unusual spiraling pattern of the plume that was seen.   The Buliva missile carries up to ten MIRV warheads, which are arranged so that they point backwards from the initial trajectory of the missile.   After the smaller third stage motor initiates a trajectory correction burn manuver, followed by the separation of the MIRV bus.   The portion containing the warheads must spin, in a kind of controlled tumble, to reorient it such that the reentry vehicles can be ejected, one at a time, to their targets.

This illustration shows this highly unusual flight profile.

In order for the upper stage to function properly and accurately eject each warhead, it would need to have a system of motors capable of rotating the vehicle and controlling its direction, keeping it from going into a completely uncontrolled tumble.    Of course, while that is how the system would work in theory, it has not yet functioned properly in any of the previous tests.

I’m calling this mystery solved (or at least nearly solved, as we don’t yet have proof positive of this).    The unique spiraling and ejection of plumes is most probably due to the unique and troublesome Buliva upper stage.

Update 3: Here’s a video that shows the intended launch profile of the Buliva.

Update 4: Some additional photos and locations have been published.  I’m trying to see if I can use them to get a rough idea of the location by triangulating the sitings.   One photo is especially interesting.   From this website. Note the trail low on the horizon.  That is clearly a rocket launch plume.  It is nearly identical to other ballistic missile launches.   That should put this to rest.     The upper portion of the trail has the unusual blue color.  That may be due to how light is scattered by the exhaust and dust particles in the upper atmosphere and would be made more dramatic by the fact that this was taken around dawn, when the effect of light scattering is the greatest.

UPDATE 5:  ACTUAL EVENT WAS APPARENTLY NOT AS SPECTACULAR AS SOME PHOTOS INDICATE The event was spectacular, even super-spectacular, but it was just a wee bit less spectacular than the top most photo, the photo which has been the single most headlined photo would indicate.   The top most photo, with the super-bright, super-sharp swirls was taken by Odd Magne Haugen.   Mr. Haugen is not an amateur who just wipped out a point and shoot.  In fact, he is an experienced astrophotographer who has made many photos of the aurora.

Sky photography of this type involves time exposures of anywhere from a few seconds to minutes, and uses relatively high ISO sensors or film and high quality optics.   The time exposure helps to bring out the details of an otherwise dark image.   Based on the lightness of the sky and the bleed of the streetlamp, it appears that this photo was taken by this method, probably with an exposure of several seconds – possibly much more.

Therefore, while it is an excellent image, it does not represent how it would have looked to the naked eye.   The image taken by the camera shows all the light gathered during the exposure period.   However, all of the “swirls” visible were probably not visible at any one moment during the event.  Videos and other photos seem to confirm this.

Just think of time exposure images of traffic.   You see streamers going across the picture where car headlights passed by, but at any one moment, the headlights were in only one spot and a briefer exposure would not have produced that effect.

(This is not meant to take away from the spectacular image captured by Mr. Haugen’s camera, but rather to clear any confusion on what it actually looked like)

A very important announcement:

A fellow nuclear energy promoter and very knowledgeable about the subject, Rod Adams has one hell of an engine design, one hell of a mustache and is one hell of a guy.  Rod knows how reliable and safe nuclear reactors are because he used to live next to one, while under hundreds of feet of ice cold sea water, no less!  He’s a very smart and knowledgeable nuker and runs an excellent site that is informative and occasionally shows his excellent sense of humor.    Above all else, he’s always very insightful.

Why am I mentioning this?   Because it’s his birthday!

A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ROD ADAMS

It is not as if Slashdot doesn’t, from time to time, put up a horribly biased or just plain stupid story, but this one really takes the cake, as does the item it lists to.

NRC Relicensing Old “Zombie” Nuclear Plants

“In the Dec. 7 edition of The Nation, Christian Parenti details what he considers to be the real problem with nuclear power as a solution to carbon emissions in the US: Not the high cost of new nuclear power, but rather the irresponsible relicensing of existing nuclear power plants by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The claim is that the relicensed plants — amounting to more than half ot the 104 original 1970s-era nukes in the US — operate like zombies beyond their design lifetimes only because of lax regulation spurred by concern over carbon dioxide emissions. But these plants are actually failing, as demonstrated by a rash of accidents. And some of the ancient plants are now being allowed to operate at 120% of their designed capacity. There is a video interview with Parenti up at Democracy Now.”

The article itself is bad enough, but there’s also no doubt that Slashdot does get a LOT of traffic. This is not a news item at all, it’s an editorial and a bad one at that. Why is this reported as fact there or anywhere? I don’t know, probably because some idiot who knows nothing about nuclear energy saw it and didn’t even have the sense to notice the obviously inflammatory language.

In any case, I am going to write a rebuttal to this. However, today turns out to be a very busy day for me and I’m not entirely sure I can get it done right away, as I want to be sure I can verify the facts.

In any case, I don’t want Slashdot to take down the story, because that smacks of censorship. I would, however, like the opportunity to rebut the story. If you agree, I encourage you to contact Slashdot and ask them to give this site an opportunity to have a rebuttal posted as well. Of course, it does not need to be this site, and if anyone else wants to write a full rebuttal on their site, then they are just as welcome to take the load off of me.

Surprised the user is named mdsolar? No, me neither. It seems this user is a newbie, and prefers coal to nuclear energy. (yeah coal)

Sorry, but I’m not sure what the best way is to contact slashdot.  You can use the “submit story” link, but otherwise, it’s a bit difficult to find a “contact” link on the site.  I realize this post is uncharacteristically short and generally sub-quality.  However, as I said, I’m a bit too busy at the moment to write a full post on this and I thought it was important enough to put this out.

At the very least, anyone who sees this crap for what it is is encouraged to refute it in the Slashdot story comments.

God, I hate it when something this ignorant and driven by special-interest ends up in the mainstream and reported as if it were fact.