[Vo]:Europe announces that all scientific papers should be free by 2020: Rich Murray 2016.05.30

[Rich Murray]

Europe announces that all scientific papers should be free by 2020: Rich
Murray 2016.05.30

http://www.sciencealert.com/europe-announces-that-all-scientific-articles-should-be-freely-accessible-by-2020

Europe announces that all scientific papers should be free by 2020

YES !!

JOLENE CREIGHTON, FUTURISM
30 MAY 2016

This week was a revolutionary week in the sciences -- not because we
discovered a new fundamental particle or had a new breakthrough in quantum
computing -- but because some of the most prominent world leaders announced
an initiative which asserts that European scientific papers should be made
freely available to all by 2020.

This would legally only impact research supported by public and
public-private funds, which are a vast portion of the papers produced
annually;

however, the goal is to make all science freely available. ...

Re: [Vo]:Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project

[Stephen A. Lawrence]

On 05/30/2016 06:11 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote:

In reply to  Stephen A. Lawrence's message of Mon, 30 May 2016 12:57:15 -0400:
Hi,
[snip]

Right, for sure, but seriously, anybody who watched Space Angel as a kid
knows you can't just let a solar mirror point anyplace it wants --
you're just asking to have your headquarters burned to a crisp while the
bad guys escape.

As I said to start with, you don't really need to point them all at the
ground.  Just deflect them a degree or so off target, each mirror going
someplace random -- that shouldn't take much energy, and is probably
something you could do with distributed backup power.

Actually, this can be problematic too, as the reflected light can temporarily
blind pilots, posing an air safety hazard.


Um ... good point.  A single 30 foot mirror still packs quite a punch.

OTOH it's still better than accidentally hitting it with the whole 
focussed output of the mirror field.  That be like a beetle under a 
foot-wide Fresnel lens -- popcorn airplane.




In any case, in the scenario which actually happened there wasn't any
lightning strike, power wasn't lost, and it was a lot more like the
meltdown at Chernobyl, where the technicians intentionally put the thing
into a bad state for testing and then bad stuff happened. If the thing
had a 'defocussed' mode one could even imagine spotting a few
temperature sensors around the towers to automatically shut it down in
the case of poor aim.  Just because it's not radioactive doesn't mean
it's not dangerous.

On 05/30/2016 12:02 AM, ChemE Stewart wrote:

You guys are ignoring all of the mechanical and structural challenges
of pointing 350,000, 30 foot mirrors at the ground using worm gears
and stepper motors that have just lost power due to a storm and/or
lightning strike.  No motor power, no movement.  The fuel source (the
sun) keeps moving up and then down towards the west, so the focal
point(s) of all of that incident power is constantly changing.

It is not like a typical boiler where the flame safety system can cut
the source of fuel.  It is more like a cross between fukushima and the
towering inferno :)

On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 10:46 PM, mailto:mix...@bigpond.com>> wrote:


 In reply to  Stephen A. Lawrence's message of Sat, 28 May 2016
 17:18:24 -0400:
 Hi,
 [snip]
 >It ought to be possible to build the things with a fail-safe mode
 >wherein loss of power results in the mirrors defocussing.
 Shouldn't be
 >hard; the /hard/ thing, presumably, is getting them all pointing
 at the
 >_same_ spot.  Making them /not/ do that should be easy.
 >

 Just turn them all upside down so they point at the ground.

 Regards,

 Robin van Spaandonk

 http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html



Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project

[Eric Walker]

On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 11:57 AM, Stephen A. Lawrence 
wrote:

If the thing had a 'defocussed' mode one could even imagine spotting a few
> temperature sensors around the towers to automatically shut it down in the
> case of poor aim.
>

Seems within the realm of possibility.  If the large mirrors are composite
mirrors comprised of an array of smaller hexagonal mirrors that are focused
using adaptive optics, you could have a slight amount of tension in the
support structure that must be countered by the actuators. This tension
would cause the array to defocus when power is cut off to the actuators.

Eric

Re: [Vo]:The most mysterious star in the universe

[David Roberson]

One would think that the astronomers have cataloged enough stars during the 
original research project to know how the variable ones behave.  Of course it 
is entirely possible that what they are seeing is a rare form of variable star 
like you are suggesting.

I wonder what would happen if a large field of dark bodies much closer to the 
earth were passing in front of the star?  Once, I suggested that it might be 
possible to detect 'UFO' type objects by observing as many of the background 
stars as possible while looking for variation to the intensity of the light 
arriving from them.   This concept is a bit like radar in reverse.  Even a 
craft with a stealth coating would be visible using this scenario.

For my concept to work it would be necessary to figure a way to ignore the 
twinkle of the stars caused by atmospheric variations.  I assumed that a local 
craft would blank out a region in space that is much larger than a star 
appearing behind it from the earth's surface.  This should be apparent to the 
observer in most cases.  The location and motion of the craft could be 
determined by following the series of blanked out stars.

Dave

 

 

 

-Original Message-
From: mixent 
To: vortex-l 
Sent: Mon, May 30, 2016 6:38 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:The most mysterious star in the universe

In reply to  H LV's message of Mon, 30 May 2016 15:11:52 -0400:
Hi,
[snip]

1) I wonder if they have considered the possibility that the output of the star
itself is simply variable? 


>The most mysterious star in the universe
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gypAjPp6eps
>
>Published on Apr 29, 2016
>
>Something massive, with roughly 1,000 times the area of Earth, is blocking
>the light coming from a distant star known as KIC 8462852, and nobody is
>quite sure what it is. As astronomer Tabetha Boyajian investigated this
>perplexing celestial object, a colleague suggested something unusual: Could
>it be an alien-built megastructure? Such an extraordinary idea would
>require extraordinary evidence. In this talk, Boyajian gives us a look at
>how scientists search for and test hypotheses when faced with the unknown.
>
>?Harry?
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:The most mysterious star in the universe

[mixent]

In reply to  H LV's message of Mon, 30 May 2016 15:11:52 -0400:
Hi,
[snip]

1) I wonder if they have considered the possibility that the output of the star
itself is simply variable? 


>The most mysterious star in the universe
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gypAjPp6eps
>
>Published on Apr 29, 2016
>
>Something massive, with roughly 1,000 times the area of Earth, is blocking
>the light coming from a distant star known as KIC 8462852, and nobody is
>quite sure what it is. As astronomer Tabetha Boyajian investigated this
>perplexing celestial object, a colleague suggested something unusual: Could
>it be an alien-built megastructure? Such an extraordinary idea would
>require extraordinary evidence. In this talk, Boyajian gives us a look at
>how scientists search for and test hypotheses when faced with the unknown.
>
>?Harry?
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project

[mixent]

In reply to  Stephen A. Lawrence's message of Mon, 30 May 2016 12:57:15 -0400:
Hi,
[snip]
>Right, for sure, but seriously, anybody who watched Space Angel as a kid 
>knows you can't just let a solar mirror point anyplace it wants -- 
>you're just asking to have your headquarters burned to a crisp while the 
>bad guys escape.
>
>As I said to start with, you don't really need to point them all at the 
>ground.  Just deflect them a degree or so off target, each mirror going 
>someplace random -- that shouldn't take much energy, and is probably 
>something you could do with distributed backup power.

Actually, this can be problematic too, as the reflected light can temporarily
blind pilots, posing an air safety hazard.

>
>In any case, in the scenario which actually happened there wasn't any 
>lightning strike, power wasn't lost, and it was a lot more like the 
>meltdown at Chernobyl, where the technicians intentionally put the thing 
>into a bad state for testing and then bad stuff happened. If the thing 
>had a 'defocussed' mode one could even imagine spotting a few 
>temperature sensors around the towers to automatically shut it down in 
>the case of poor aim.  Just because it's not radioactive doesn't mean 
>it's not dangerous.
>
>On 05/30/2016 12:02 AM, ChemE Stewart wrote:
>> You guys are ignoring all of the mechanical and structural challenges 
>> of pointing 350,000, 30 foot mirrors at the ground using worm gears 
>> and stepper motors that have just lost power due to a storm and/or 
>> lightning strike.  No motor power, no movement.  The fuel source (the 
>> sun) keeps moving up and then down towards the west, so the focal 
>> point(s) of all of that incident power is constantly changing.
>>
>> It is not like a typical boiler where the flame safety system can cut 
>> the source of fuel.  It is more like a cross between fukushima and the 
>> towering inferno :)
>>
>> On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 10:46 PM, > > wrote:
>>
>>
>> In reply to  Stephen A. Lawrence's message of Sat, 28 May 2016
>> 17:18:24 -0400:
>> Hi,
>> [snip]
>> >It ought to be possible to build the things with a fail-safe mode
>> >wherein loss of power results in the mirrors defocussing. 
>> Shouldn't be
>> >hard; the /hard/ thing, presumably, is getting them all pointing
>> at the
>> >_same_ spot.  Making them /not/ do that should be easy.
>> >
>>
>> Just turn them all upside down so they point at the ground.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Robin van Spaandonk
>>
>> http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
>>
>>
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project

[mixent]

In reply to  ChemE Stewart's message of Mon, 30 May 2016 00:02:57 -0400:
Hi,
[snip]

Lightning on bright sunny days is very rare. ;)

>You guys are ignoring all of the mechanical and structural challenges of
>pointing 350,000, 30 foot mirrors at the ground using worm gears and
>stepper motors that have just lost power due to a storm and/or lightning
>strike.  No motor power, no movement.  The fuel source (the sun) keeps
>moving up and then down towards the west, so the focal point(s) of all of
>that incident power is constantly changing.
>
>It is not like a typical boiler where the flame safety system can cut the
>source of fuel.  It is more like a cross between fukushima and the towering
>inferno :)
>
>On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 10:46 PM,  wrote:
>
>>
>> In reply to  Stephen A. Lawrence's message of Sat, 28 May 2016 17:18:24
>> -0400:
>> Hi,
>> [snip]
>> >It ought to be possible to build the things with a fail-safe mode
>> >wherein loss of power results in the mirrors defocussing.  Shouldn't be
>> >hard; the /hard/ thing, presumably, is getting them all pointing at the
>> >_same_ spot.  Making them /not/ do that should be easy.
>> >
>>
>> Just turn them all upside down so they point at the ground.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Robin van Spaandonk
>>
>> http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
>>
>>
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

[Vo]:The most mysterious star in the universe

[H LV]

The most mysterious star in the universe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gypAjPp6eps

Published on Apr 29, 2016

Something massive, with roughly 1,000 times the area of Earth, is blocking
the light coming from a distant star known as KIC 8462852, and nobody is
quite sure what it is. As astronomer Tabetha Boyajian investigated this
perplexing celestial object, a colleague suggested something unusual: Could
it be an alien-built megastructure? Such an extraordinary idea would
require extraordinary evidence. In this talk, Boyajian gives us a look at
how scientists search for and test hypotheses when faced with the unknown.

​Harry​

Re: [Vo]:Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project

[Stephen A. Lawrence]

Right, for sure, but seriously, anybody who watched Space Angel as a kid 
knows you can't just let a solar mirror point anyplace it wants -- 
you're just asking to have your headquarters burned to a crisp while the 
bad guys escape.


As I said to start with, you don't really need to point them all at the 
ground.  Just deflect them a degree or so off target, each mirror going 
someplace random -- that shouldn't take much energy, and is probably 
something you could do with distributed backup power.


In any case, in the scenario which actually happened there wasn't any 
lightning strike, power wasn't lost, and it was a lot more like the 
meltdown at Chernobyl, where the technicians intentionally put the thing 
into a bad state for testing and then bad stuff happened. If the thing 
had a 'defocussed' mode one could even imagine spotting a few 
temperature sensors around the towers to automatically shut it down in 
the case of poor aim.  Just because it's not radioactive doesn't mean 
it's not dangerous.


On 05/30/2016 12:02 AM, ChemE Stewart wrote:
You guys are ignoring all of the mechanical and structural challenges 
of pointing 350,000, 30 foot mirrors at the ground using worm gears 
and stepper motors that have just lost power due to a storm and/or 
lightning strike.  No motor power, no movement.  The fuel source (the 
sun) keeps moving up and then down towards the west, so the focal 
point(s) of all of that incident power is constantly changing.


It is not like a typical boiler where the flame safety system can cut 
the source of fuel.  It is more like a cross between fukushima and the 
towering inferno :)


On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 10:46 PM, > wrote:



In reply to  Stephen A. Lawrence's message of Sat, 28 May 2016
17:18:24 -0400:
Hi,
[snip]
>It ought to be possible to build the things with a fail-safe mode
>wherein loss of power results in the mirrors defocussing. 
Shouldn't be

>hard; the /hard/ thing, presumably, is getting them all pointing
at the
>_same_ spot.  Making them /not/ do that should be easy.
>

Just turn them all upside down so they point at the ground.

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project

[ChemE Stewart]

Pay me $2 Bil and I will build you something that produces photons and
takes up much less than 4000 acres

You give these guys way too much credit

On Monday, May 30, 2016, Jones Beene  wrote:

> Speaking of a cross between Fuku and towering inferno, with a few thousand
> light sabers thrown-in … think about using all those mirrors as a renewable
> propellant …
>
>
>
> That’s right, propellant. You don’t really think that electricity was the
> only goal here, do you? Maybe there was something else going on behind the
> scenes and you-know-who will arrive to save the day. Can you say “space-x”.
> He is not far away.
>
>
>
> Solar pumped lasers are already on the horizon, and from there the next
> step would be to coat the mirror array with an optical material to
> consolidate the broad emission spectrum and then to focus the reflected
> superradiant light onto a point overhead in space where a vehicle,
> specially designed to use this light as a PLT (photonic laser thruster) is
> waiting for it… and there you have it… tenfold reduction in the cost of
> putting tonnage into low orbit.
>
>
>
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4593010/
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photonic_laser_thruster
>
>
>
> There are losses, but who cares when the advantage of having a few hundred
> megawatts of focused photons available for days and days on end (for
> accelerating objects to low earth orbit cheaply) is the bottom line. Once
> into low orbit, mylar solar mirrors deploy which can use the same converter
> to get to high orbit.
>
>
>
> It is a minor problem is to control the relative speed to maintain the
> craft is roughly overhead relative position to the mirrors until the first
> acceleration stage is complete. But all of this is doable… on paper. It
> seem no more complicated than landing a rocket in reverse, on a barge.
>
>
>
> Look for Elon to put in a bid for Ivanpah… but not necessarily for the
> electrical power… J
>
>
>
> *From:* ChemE Stewart
>
>
>
> You guys are ignoring all of the mechanical and structural challenges of
> pointing 350,000, 30 foot mirrors at the ground using worm gears and
> stepper motors that have just lost power due to a storm and/or lightning
> strike.  No motor power, no movement.  The fuel source (the sun) keeps
> moving up and then down towards the west, so the focal point(s) of all of
> that incident power is constantly changing.
>
>
>
> It is not like a typical boiler where the flame safety system can cut the
> source of fuel.  It is more like a cross between fukushima and the towering
> inferno :)
>
>
>
>
>

[Vo]:LENR, SIGNAL AND NOISE

[Peter Gluck]

http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2016/05/may-30-2016-lenr-signal-and-noise.html

Quite good info today.

Will MAUS be able to surprise us positively?

Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Gluck
Cluj, Romania
http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com

RE: [Vo]:Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project

[Jones Beene]

Speaking of a cross between Fuku and towering inferno, with a few thousand 
light sabers thrown-in … think about using all those mirrors as a renewable 
propellant … 

 

That’s right, propellant. You don’t really think that electricity was the only 
goal here, do you? Maybe there was something else going on behind the scenes 
and you-know-who will arrive to save the day. Can you say “space-x”. He is not 
far away.

 

Solar pumped lasers are already on the horizon, and from there the next step 
would be to coat the mirror array with an optical material to consolidate the 
broad emission spectrum and then to focus the reflected superradiant light onto 
a point overhead in space where a vehicle, specially designed to use this light 
as a PLT (photonic laser thruster) is waiting for it… and there you have it… 
tenfold reduction in the cost of putting tonnage into low orbit.

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4593010/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photonic_laser_thruster

 

There are losses, but who cares when the advantage of having a few hundred 
megawatts of focused photons available for days and days on end (for 
accelerating objects to low earth orbit cheaply) is the bottom line. Once into 
low orbit, mylar solar mirrors deploy which can use the same converter to get 
to high orbit. 

 

It is a minor problem is to control the relative speed to maintain the craft is 
roughly overhead relative position to the mirrors until the first acceleration 
stage is complete. But all of this is doable… on paper. It seem no more 
complicated than landing a rocket in reverse, on a barge.

 

Look for Elon to put in a bid for Ivanpah… but not necessarily for the 
electrical power… J

 

From: ChemE Stewart 

 

You guys are ignoring all of the mechanical and structural challenges of 
pointing 350,000, 30 foot mirrors at the ground using worm gears and stepper 
motors that have just lost power due to a storm and/or lightning strike.  No 
motor power, no movement.  The fuel source (the sun) keeps moving up and then 
down towards the west, so the focal point(s) of all of that incident power is 
constantly changing.

 

It is not like a typical boiler where the flame safety system can cut the 
source of fuel.  It is more like a cross between fukushima and the towering 
inferno :)

 

 

Re: [Vo]:Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project

[ChemE Stewart]

Actually, banks of mirrors are all controlled though one load center at
Ivanpah. load centers are distributed throughout the field.  One well
directed lightning strike at a load center will kill power to many
mirrors.  Think of the increased negative economics of doubling the power
redundancy to 350,000 mirrors.  The system was already grossly over priced
@ $2B of taxpayers money for 390 MW

Fukushima lost utility tie-line and diesel generators.  UPS batteries last
only a few hours for that power load and are no good for an entire plant,
especially if load center(s) are fried.  Sun(nuclear power source) keeps
moving.

Probably cheapest to insulate the entire tower or lease the system to movie
studios as a prop for the next Avenger's movie since it appears headed for
default (again)







On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 7:40 AM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> ChemE Stewart  wrote:
>
> You guys are ignoring all of the mechanical and structural challenges of
>> pointing 350,000, 30 foot mirrors at the ground using worm gears and
>> stepper motors that have just lost power due to a storm and/or lightning
>> strike.  No motor power, no movement.
>>
>
> Places such as large generators, telephone switching centers, data
> centers, military complexes and the like always have emergency power and
> backup power systems. Fukushima was powered for nearly a day even though
> there was catastrophic destruction to the Diesel backup generator system.
> No engineers would design a system that could be destroyed with a single
> lightning strike. Except for the engineers who design the bad-guy hideouts
> in James Bond movies.
>
> - Jed
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project

[Jed Rothwell]

ChemE Stewart  wrote:

You guys are ignoring all of the mechanical and structural challenges of
> pointing 350,000, 30 foot mirrors at the ground using worm gears and
> stepper motors that have just lost power due to a storm and/or lightning
> strike.  No motor power, no movement.
>

Places such as large generators, telephone switching centers, data centers,
military complexes and the like always have emergency power and backup
power systems. Fukushima was powered for nearly a day even though there was
catastrophic destruction to the Diesel backup generator system. No
engineers would design a system that could be destroyed with a single
lightning strike. Except for the engineers who design the bad-guy hideouts
in James Bond movies.

- Jed