At My Age…..

…..I can’t do the things I used to be able to do. Or so the saying goes. But now comes the news that things might not be so inevitable:

The question of what causes aging has spawned competing schools, with one side claiming that inborn genetic programs make organisms grow old. This theory has had trouble gaining traction because it implies that aging evolved, that natural selection pushed older organisms down a path of deterioration. However, natural selection works by favoring genes that help organisms produce lots of offspring. After reproduction ends, genes are beyond natural selection’s reach, so scientists argued that aging couldn’t be genetically programmed.

The alternate, competing theory holds that aging is an inevitable consequence of accumulated wear and tear: toxins, free-radical molecules, DNA-damaging radiation, disease and stress ravage the body to the point it can’t rebound. So far, this theory has dominated aging research.

But the Stanford team’s findings told a different story. “Our data just didn’t fit the current model of damage accumulation, and so we had to consider the alternative model of developmental drift,” Kim said.

…

If aging is not a cost of unavoidable chemistry but is instead driven by changes in regulatory genes, the aging process may not be inevitable. It is at least theoretically possible to slow down or stop developmental drift.

“The take-home message is that aging can be slowed and managed by manipulating signaling circuits within cells,” said Marc Tatar, PhD, a professor of biology and medicine at Brown University who was not involved in the research. “This is a new and potentially powerful circuit that has just been discovered for doing that.”

Kim added, “It’s a new way to think about how to slow the aging process.”

Where do I sign up?

Winter Home

What desolation!

A panorama from the Mars rover Spirit,

Passing Wind

Via the New York Times, some information about wind power in Texas.

The story is found here, with a few highlights for your amusement:

Texas regulators have approved a $4.93 billion wind-power transmission project, providing a major lift to the development of wind energy in the state.

The planned web of transmission lines will carry electricity from remote western parts of the state to major population centers like Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The lines can handle 18,500 megawatts of power, enough for 3.7 million homes on a hot day when air-conditioners are running.

The project will ease a bottleneck that has become a major obstacle to development of the wind-rich Texas Panhandle and other areas suitable for wind generation.

Texas is already the largest producer of wind power, with 5,300 installed megawatts — more than double the installed capacity of California, the next closest state. And Texas is fast expanding its capacity.

Wind developers reacted favorably…

“The lack of transmission has been a fundamental issue in Texas, and it’s becoming more and more of an issue elsewhere,” said Vanessa Kellogg, the Southwest regional development director for Horizon Wind Energy, which operates the Lone Star Wind Farm in West Texas and has more wind generation under development. “This is a great step in the right direction.”

Ms. Kellogg said that the project would be a boon for Texas power customers, whose electricity costs have risen in conjunction with soaring natural gas prices across the state. “There’s nothing volatile about the wind in terms of the price, because it’s free,” she said…

The transmission problem is so acute in Texas that turbines are sometimes shut off even when the wind is blowing.

“When the amount of generation exceeds the export capacity, you have to start turning off wind generators” to keep things in balance, said Hunter Armistead, head of the renewable energy division in North America at Babcock & Brown, a large wind developer and transmission provider. “We’ve reached that point in West Texas.”…

Lack of transmission is a severe problem in a number of states that, like Texas, want to develop their wind resources. Wind now accounts for 1 percent of the nation’s electricity generation but could rise to 20 percent by 2030, according to a recent Department of Energy report, if transmission lines are built and other challenges met.

But other states may find the Texas model difficult to emulate. The state is unique in having its own electricity grid. All other states fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, adding an extra layer of bureaucracy to any transmission proposals.

The exact route of the transmission lines has yet to be determined because the state has not yet acquired right-of-way, according to Mr. Withrow of the utility commission.

The project will almost certainly face concerns from landowners reluctant to have wires cutting across their property. “I would anticipate that some of these companies will have to use eminent domain,” he said, speaking of the companies that will be building the transmission lines.

It’s interesting to learn that the generation of power already exceeds the transmission capability. It is also interesting to learn that Texas, alone among the states, is not subject to regulatory review at the federal level. Lastly, this uninformed scribe asks why existing power lines cannot be used to transport the wind product, or why existing power line rights of way cannot be used with unique transmission lines.

Regardless, could we be on the verge of a significant increase in one of the alternative energy sources?

Engineering Our Way to Alternative Energy

Not so very long ago, Boone Pickens unleashed his vision for the future. Now we have heard from TheAlHimself. Their plans are noble, well-meaning, and surely offered in the spirit of altruism of the highest sort. My friend Xarker Dan “encourages” us all to climb on the progress train and get the ball rolling!

If only it was so simple. If only our enthusiasm and commitment and self-discipline could make it so.

Here is the scientific reality, delivered coolly and cruelly by Stephen Den Beste.

My least favorite subject about which to blog, back in the day, was “alternate energy”. I made a few posts about that and those are among the most-linked articles in the USS Clueless archive (for example, just today), and I get mail about those, too. The usual theme is, “Hey, did you see this? Ha! Now what do you think, eh? Ready to change your mind?” Sigh. Here’s one I got today:

I happened upon some old entries on USS Clueless in which you express considerable skepticism about the technical feasibility of large scale thermal solar plants. In some ways, I share your pessimism (see for example, my “Energy Independence Isn’t Very Green” – http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/17086446.html) . But I can also see some possibilities for political and technical breakthroughs. I wonder if you’ve had occasion to revisit the question of large scale solar installations recently, and if so, would you refer me to the URLs.

At least he was a lot less confrontational than many of them. Here’s the reply I sent him:

I don’t blog about that kind of thing anymore. I never enjoyed blogging about energy, anyway, because for too many people “alternate energy” is more about religion than about physics. They believe that if we are just creative enough, we can overcome fundamental physical limitations — and it’s not that easy.

In order for “alternate energy” to become feasible, it has to satisfy all of the following criteria:

1. It has to be huge (in terms of both energy and power)
2. It has to be reliable (not intermittent or unschedulable)
3. It has to be concentrated (not diffuse)
4. It has to be possible to utilize it efficiently
5. The capital investment and operating cost to utilize it has to be comparable to existing energy sources (per gigawatt, and per terajoule).

If it fails to satisfy any of those, then it can’t scale enough to make any difference. Solar power fails #3, and currently it also fails #5. (It also partially fails #2, but there are ways to work around that.)

The only sources of energy available to us now that satisfy all five are petroleum, coal, hydro, and nuclear.

My rule of thumb is that I’m not interested in any “alternate energy” until someone shows me how to scale it to produce at least 1% of our current energy usage. America right now uses about 3.6 terawatts average, so 1% of that is about 36 gigawatts average.

Show me a plan to produce 36 gigawatts (average, not peak) using solar power, at a price no more than 30% greater than coal generation of comparable capacity, which can be implemented at that scale in 10-15 years. Then I’ll pay attention.

Since solar power installations can only produce power for about 10 hours per day on average, that means that peak power production would need to be in the range of about 85 gigawatts to reach that 1%.

Without that, it’s just religion, like all the people fascinated with wind and with biomass. And even if it did reach 1%, that still leaves the other 99% of our energy production to petroleum, coal, hydro, and nuclear.

The problems facing “alternate energy” are fundamental, deep, and are show-stoppers. They are not things that will be surmounted by one lone incremental improvement in one small area, announced breathlessly by a startup which is trying to drum up funding.

The way you can tell that a fan of “alternate energy” is a religious cultist is to ask them this question: If your preferred alternate source of energy is practical, why isn’t it already in use?

Why not? Because of The Conspiracy™. The big oil companies don’t want it to happen, and have been suppressing all this live-saving green people’s energy all this time for their own nefarious purposes.

As soon as you hear any reference to The Conspiracy™, you know you’re talking to someone who is living in a morality play. That isn’t engineering any more, that’s religion. And while religion is an important part of many people’s lives, it has no place in engineering discussions.

UPDATE: There’s actually another common answer to the “Why not” question. It’s because you engineers are just too hidebound and conservative and unimaginative. If you’d just get on board and recognize how utterly cool and romantic these other ways of producing energy would be, then you could wave your magic engineering wand and make it happen.

That’s another kind of religion. It’s not a religious struggle against evil (as personified by Big Oil) so much as a religious image of paradise. If the adherents of this kind of religion can just convert enough doubters, then paradise can happen. If you just believe, we can all be saved! Hallelujah, baby! Praise Gaia and pass the biodiesel!

Thanks, but no thanks. My “conservatism” on this subject is due to my understanding of the laws of physics and the principles of engineering, not to me being hidebound and unimaginative.

That’s a slap in the face of Al et al, but before you leave thinking me a complete loser with a negative attitude, let me ask this question, in the spirit of Xark:

Where are we in the War on Cancer, the War on AIDS, the War on Drugs, and the War on Poverty?

Notwithstanding the results of the aforementioned, I would offer one idea. Let’s stop spending money on earmarks for buidlings to be named after our congressmen, on favored highway projects, and on not-for-profits who employ the relatives and friends of said congressmen. Let’s take the billions of dollars siphoned off for whatever reason, and let’s spend all of that money on investing in alternative energy solutions. Because, as Den Beste says, it’s all about the engineering.

Tunguska

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska Event.

Below a cut from The History Channel:

Be very afraid……….

I’m Going Back to the Candle….

If you have an extra 5 minutes and need another peek into the sausage factory, check this out:

Apophis Revisited

Sometimes, you really need to do the math correctly. Here’s why:

Seems that NASA wanted to reassure us that life as we know it would NOT end sometime in 2029…..said the odds are 1 in 450,000.

Now comes a German kid who says different.

NASA says they have rechecked, and he’s wrong, but so were they. The odds are not as bad as the kid says, but worse than NASA originally said. Take a look at this map for a little perspective on how important the precise location of the decimal can be……

I say I’m moving to Montana.

Update: Shamelessly pinched from a comment on another blog:

By the way, it passes by the earth in 2027 on friday the 13th. If it hit’s it will hit in the pacific ocean. So California may get wet. The energy content is said to be 26,000 Hiroshimas which is not that much but recent calculation suggest is more than enough to darken the earth.

Like, Montana might not be high enough……

Because We Should Care

APOD once again reminds us of things that sometimes don’t get the attention they need. Like our friends on Mars, there are important things happening in the near space of Earth orbit.

Here’s why:

The Jules Verne docked smoothly using its automated, laser guided rendezvous system. It was in many respects a repeat of the dry run on Monday. That practice approach brought the ATV to within 36 feet of the docking port.

The Jules Verne launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5 rocket on March 9.

Solar arrays deployed as planned after two engine firings more than an hour and a half after launch. That placed the ATV in a parking orbit about 1,200 miles from the station…

It was, at almost 22 tons, the largest payload ever launched by the Ariane 5.

The Jules Verne is named after the acclaimed French science-fiction author. It is the first of perhaps seven such spacecraft to be built.

The ATV can carry about three times the cargo weight carried by the Progress, the reliable Russian unpiloted cargo carrier…

The spacecraft is scheduled to remain at the station until August, for unloading and to reboost the orbiting laboratory. Subsequently it will be filled with station garbage and discards. Then it will be deorbited for destruction on re-entry over the Pacific.

We are, as a species, learning to live in space. We are learning how to lift more and more material into orbit, using automated techniques that, just a scant 30 years ago, required the skills of human astronauts. We are learning how to build equipment that can survive in space for a long time. \

What’s the next step, do you think?

Seperated at Birth?

From our friends at Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The APOD description:

Explanation: Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. But these speeds are less than the speed that all of these objects together move relative to the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). In the above all-sky map from the COBE satellite, radiation in the Earth’s direction of motion appears blueshifted and hence hotter, while radiation on the opposite side of the sky is redshifted and colder. The map indicates that the Local Group moves at about 600 kilometers per second relative to this primordial radiation. This high speed was initially unexpected and its magnitude is still unexplained. Why are we moving so fast? What is out there?

Wonder if there is any connection between the radiation map and, say, this ancient symbol…..

Cafeteria Trays – A Conservation Program

From the Wall Street Journal, an idea that, in a slightly altered version, seems to be gaining traction on my campus. Here, the push is on to save water; the advice is that the non-use of a tray reduces water consumption by 30%. Perhaps there is also the unintended, but welcomed, opportunity for weight reduction on the part of your scribe…..

Do cafeteria patrons waste food because of the ubiquitous food tray?That is the conclusion of some university administrators, who have found that removing trays from dining halls cuts down on the amount of food and drink that gets thrown in the trash. The idea is that without the convenience and space that trays afford, students don’t get overly ambitious when it comes to portions.Tests seem to back this up, Elia Powers reports in online publication Inside Higher Ed. At Alfred University in upstate New York, food and beverage waste dropped between 30% and 50% on two days when trays were removed.At Colby College in Maine, roughly one-third less waste is generated on days when trays aren’t available. The drop is so predictable that dining officials know to purchase less food for those days.Students generally haven’t enjoyed going without trays, dining-hall administrators say. Some come up with enterprising alternatives. Varun Avasthi, director of dining services at Colby, has heard of students piling food onto chair seats during trayless days. He says members of Colby’s woodsmen team (who, according to its Web site, mixes traditional woodsmen skills like “standing-block chop” with “newer events such as axe throw”) have crafted their own wooden trays. – Robin Moroney