Imbolc Valentine Moon
Wonders still unfolding
Category Archives: Science
Tokamak vs. the Stellarator
Imbolc Stock Show Moon
Friend Bill Schmidt found this follow-up to an earlier post about the stellarator. You may not recall it, but this is the next step toward a possible source of power generated by nuclear fusion. May it be successful.
Tokamak and stellarator are designs for fusion devices.
from earthlink.net.
GREIFSWALD, Germany (AP) — Scientists in Germany flipped the switch Wednesday on an experiment they hope will advance the quest for nuclear fusion, considered a clean and safe form of nuclear power.
Following nine years of construction and testing, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald injected a tiny amount of hydrogen into a doughnut-shaped device — then zapped it with the equivalent of 6,000 microwave ovens.
The resulting super-hot gas, known as plasma, lasted just a fraction of a second before cooling down again, long enough for scientists to confidently declare the start of their experiment a success…
Although there are about a dozen stellarator experiments around the world, including in the U.S., Japan, Australia and Europe, scientists say the Greifswald device is the first to match the performance of tokamaks.
Solar Generation Reports: Our Array
Yule Stock Show Moon
Quite an Array
Yule New (Stock Show) Moon
Called up our solar array on Alternative Energy Systems. Each of our microinverters, one per panel, sends out a message about its panels performance. 27 panels, 27 graphics with the amount of energy in watts being produced at any one moment. Very cool. Except for the fact that we have snow on the panels and only a few are producing at near optimum. Plus, even with tree cutting we’re still getting some shading. This will take some time, maybe a full year, to assess. The good news is that electricity now comes from the sun through the photovoltaic panels and into our home. (chart from today)
Death Diary
Mabon Moon of the First Snow
For Kate, who loves venom e.r.:
Not Commendable, But True
Mabon Moon of the First Snow
Not commendable, but true. I’m finding the pink ribbons, glowing reports of breast cancer survivors and the breathless joy of pink clad marathoners and professional athletes annoying. No, I don’t begrudge a single woman their successful treatment. Far from it. I’m glad.
It’s just that my own crew, prostate cancer survivors, have their cancer, get treatment, then get back to their lives. I don’t see blue ribbons (the color for prostate cancer. which makes some gender stereotypical sense) on cars, athlete’s sneakers, bedecking runners in the prostate cancer marathon. No smiling men surrounded by their buddies cheering them on.
This year the National Cancer Institute estimates there will be 231,480 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed, 14% of all new cancer cases. Over the same period it estimates 220,800 new cases of prostate cancer, 13.3% of all new cancer cases. Breast cancer will cause the death of 40,290 women and a small number of men, 6.8% of all cancer deaths. Prostate cancer will account for 27,450 deaths, 4.7% of all cancer deaths.
The numbers, then, are very similar though breast cancer does occur somewhat more often and causes more deaths.
Still, when I saw a woman celebrating her survival of stage 1 breast cancer being feted like a celebrity, a slow wave of rancor pulsed through me. I had stage 2. This is childish, I understand that. My cancer was worse than yours and you get all the fun. Geez.
A woman I know, when I confessed this emerging feeling, said, “Well, breasts are visible, more important to a woman’s sexual identity.” More important than sperm to a man’s? I thought this, but didn’t counter. The childishness part repressed there, thank god.
Would I want to have my face with a victorious I put prostate cancer in its place expression made available to public news services? Probably not. But I’m sure there are men who would be delighted.
Not quite sure what I want from this conversation, but I needed to put it out there.
Not Even Gone
Mabon Moon of the First Snow
It is so beautiful here around 5 a.m. when the sky is clear, which is most mornings. The stars leap out of the sky, reminders of the power they had when the only light pollution was an evening’s campfire. Orion stands high in the south, moving toward Black Mountain. The Big Dipper disappears behind the roof of the garage in the east, but the pointer stars are visible, showing the way to true north. Cassiopeia, that unhappy queen, extends her jagged W, a slash of stars.
Time travel has been with us since the first human looked up in wonder at the stars. What we see unaided and what we can see with telescopes comes to us from the distant, distant past. So distant that the miles come in units of time. Perhaps, in a way, our lives are like the heavens, still shining after long years, even after death, radiating out from our small sector of space-time to the far away future.
So you might go out and look at the stars and consider the bright lights in your life, still strong and beautiful, wonderful. And remember that someday, you too will shine for others. Not gone, not even absent.
Moon Rock and Baby Mountains
Mabon First Snow Moon
Friend Tom Crane sent me a package the other day. It had the familiar Amazon prime tape across it, so I didn’t check the sender. I just opened it. The first thing I saw was a blue nalgene water bottle. Filled with water. What? I ordered water from Amazon?
It was a heavy package for its size, 10# was written on the front. In bubble wrap I found two large chunks of rock, samples Tom had collected near Carleton Peak, east of the Temperance River. It’s anorthosite, he says in the accompanying note, which also identified the water as Lake Superior water.
Knowing me well, he said I’d look up anorthosite. Here’s the first thing I found:
Anorthosite /ænˈɔrθəsaɪt/ is a phaneritic, intrusive igneous rock characterized by a predominance of plagioclase feldspar (90–100%), and a minimal mafic component (0–10%). Pyroxene, ilmenite, magnetite, and olivine are the mafic minerals most commonly present.
Who needs to go further after a description like that?
Phaneritic means it has large, identifiable matrix grains. “This texture forms by the slow cooling of magma deep underground in the plutonic environment.” wiki
“Mafic is an adjective describing a silicate mineral or rock that is rich in magnesium and iron, and hence is a contraction of “magnesium” and “ferric”. Most mafic minerals are dark in color, and common rock-forming mafic minerals include olivine, pyroxene, amphibole, and biotite.” wiki
“The Plagioclase series is a group of related feldspar minerals that essentially have the same formula but vary in their percentage of sodium and calcium.” www.minerals.net
The most interesting thing I learned while looking up Anorthosite is that the highlands of the moon seem to be anorthosite, too. So the ancient Sawtooths, volcanoes of the midcontinent rift which pulled the North American landmass apart in precambrian times, created rock similar to that found on the moon.
It’s odd to consider but mountain ranges like the Sawtooths and the Appalachians, ground down by millions, even a billion, years of erosion, were once like the relatively young Rocky Mountains. So here on Shadow Mountain we are in, or rather on, a recent geological event compared to the precambrian era of the Sawtooths. In the Precambrian era life evolved and during its entire millions of years there were only animals with no hard parts.
To walk the shore of Lake Superior, in other words, is to walk on a truly ancient landform. The Canadian Shield, which exposes some of oldest rock on earth, underlies much of Minnesota, from the oldest deposits, gneiss in the Minnesota River Valley like near Morton, to the Ely greenstone found in the town of Ely.
On Shadow Mountain, by contrast, we live on evidence of the Laramide orogeny, (mountain building), only 85-55 million years ago.
Power to the People
Mabon Elk Rut Moon
We sat down with Kaleb Waite of Golden Solar yesterday afternoon. He impressed us both. He had a clearer plan for our panels, which ones we needed. Smart panels. He had a nifty gadget that can project shadowing throughout the year from any tall object near the roof, like trees or chimneys. He did not dumb down his presentation and walked us through the particular advantages and challenges of our roof. When he finished, we’d made up our minds. Golden Solar will get our business.
With the eventual development of capable storage batteries, we may be able to go off the grid entirely, though for the time being we will still be connected to the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA). The concept of radically distributed power generation, a form of disaggregation, is a small piece of the path leading to a sustainable future. Our choice, by itself, means almost nothing; gathered with others though and through that putting real change forward, an individual choice is not a small piece.
Martian Meteorites, Dinosaur Skeletons and Peyote
Lughnasa Elk Rut Moon
The Denver Gem and Mineral Show. “Largest in the nation.” I believe it. Vendor upon vendor occupying all the audience circulation area around the seating in the Denver Coliseum (where the hot dogs and beer get sold. And big on its own.) The coliseum floor and the circulation area around it, plus tents in the rear parking lot. We ran low on energy before we could get outside.
Spoke with three vendors, each unique. One wore a t-shirt that said Save Our Sacrament. He’s part of a church in Arizona that considers peyote its sacramental substance. His church welcomes all races, so they’re not covered like the native americans though he claims using peyote as a sacrament is legal in five states (actually 6 according to the churches website): Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, Nevada and, drumroll please, Minnesota.
Second guy was a Colorado rockhound who clearly loves rocks. He told us about geodes with water inside (think how old that water is), how to tell jade from other rocks that look similar (put your hands on it. if it’s heavier and cooler than its neighbors, probably jade) and showed us his personal pendant, a space owl, a piece of agate (I think.).
Meteorites were the domain of the third guy. eegooblago meteorites. I asked him what an ungrouped meteorite was since a row of small pieces were labeled that way. He started slow, but got excited as he moved into his explanation. It involves an organization that is the only official meteorite naming authority. They have lists of meteorites by type, a sort of “canonical taxonomy”, great phrase. If, after a lot of checking a chunk doesn’t fall with the canonical taxonomy, then it’s ungrouped.
He went on to show us the Martian meteorite, the only one certified and named by the authority. (see picture) Not cheap. But, to own a piece of Mars? Wow.
I learned from him that deserts are great places to find meteorites and the Maghreb is one of the best. “Morocco,” he said, “has a very sophisticated meteorite market. The Maghreb itself not so much.” He and his partner do occasionally hunt on their own, but mostly they go to rooms in which many collected rocks have been gathered.
In the Maghreb they rely on the folks who travel the desert regularly. They pick up various rocks and bring them back to a collecting spot. Then, using a handheld device that can “read” elements, he and his partner decide which ones to buy.
There were things I wanted to buy. The Dinosaur Brokers had a very nice fossilized skeleton of a small meat eating dinosaur for only $4,200. Another outfit had a huge Woolly Mammoth tusk, gorgeous. $14,000 plus but they were willing to wheel and deal. Their words. Fossilized fish, Woolly Mammoth teeth and vertebrae. Dinosaur tracks. Most well out of my price range. Didn’t buy anything though Kate got a number of things for grandchildren gifts, including some coprolite, fossilized poop. For Gabe, of course.