Good physics with aluminum

 

I never see good physics with these 'science porn' sites.  Nearly everything suffers from scaling.  But this one seems good.  Rare earth metals are everywhere.  You keep reading about new sites, and how great they are, but this is useless.

The nasty buggers are nearly impossible to process and get into a useful form.  That's because their very usefulness results from a very aggressive charge structure.  Try putting that in your pocket!

For a reaction, nobody cares about the stuff inside, it's all the surface.  They now claim to have a structure of aluminum that is as sizzly as the sizzliest rare metal.  If I were trymp, I would treat this discovery like the mrna discovery for the covid vaccine.  Get it out there, and compensate later.  Lots of labs sit on this stuff for rights, etc.

If it is as reactive as they say, then it scales well.  Mass production could solve all these rare earth problems without killing all the miners and processors.  I am excited.

ps note the irony, as he hates the covid vaccine.

Severe cold most likely dead in the water

 

Continuous seepage from the Arctic is no longer strong enough to penetrate the default solar heat of the lower continent.

Toronto will be at the boundary zone, which probably means snow in April.  However, I am going to start my tomatoes under the lights in the garage.  I was reluctant when we had bouts of -20.  

The only hope for a 'Texas Buster' is that the Arctic retreats into a 'recharge' and blows out a good one.  Most likely won't happen, since this 'seepage' pattern will go on, until killed by serious heat.

The general cold will continue, and we will have to wait for the May long weekend to plant tomatoes outside.  Cucumbers first of June.  This is our standard temperature for the cold decades before the warm cycle.  A great sign for our Spring outlook is the Gulf of Maine temperatures which have fallen below the chart.

On the first of May, we can summarize the 'Heating Degree Days' for the season, and it will be record cold.  This is the only legitimate measure of the 'coldness' of the winter, and is directly related to your energy use for heating.  In opposition, the warmies will look at exceptions and have nice stories.  I can't argue with them.

ps I think now it's perfectly fine to go back to the standard weather forecast.  We can talk about highs and lows, and the jet stream as objects.

Scientific Method applied to large underground openings

 

Almost everything done with the construction of large underground caverns is from experience.  I was involved with the field I now call Rock Dynamics, and it's time for some injection of physics and the Scientific Method.

This picture represents the basic large configuration of an underground powerhouse.  There are limits to the size of the cavern, and limits imposed by the quality of the rock.  In general, you need very good rock to construct large openings.  

Experience only gets you to where you've been before.  The Scientific Method can advance things.  I want the caverns to go into tectonic areas.  This is where the real benefit can happen.  A nice active mountain range provides lots of elevation for hydro power.  Right now, we are at a point where we can do large caverns in good rock, in active mountain building.

That requires knowing your basic physics.  The societal myth is that you can't build in an earthquake zone, but the SM should address that.  On preliminary evidence, caverns cannot be bothered by seismic waves, but don't do well if a rupture goes right through it.  

The testable hypothesis is such:  It is impossible for a cavern to be damaged by a seismic wave, if it is a hard inclusion in a softer rock.  This is like a steel tube embedded in rubber, being hit by a rubber hammer.  

If such a cavern would be built, I would embed instruments into everything.  The cavern would be exposed to 10 minor events before a major.  So much fun watching the seismic wave zoom right through the complex with the stress never going above ambient seismic noise.

Faults would be a different matter, but could be isolated.  There is a mine in Canada with a greasy fault going through it, and you can watch it move.  This is actually a good stress reliever and can be engineered.