bombs away!

A recent article on BBC reads: The UK has built up a stockpile of 100 tonnes of plutonium - enough to make 17,000 nuclear bombs, according to a Royal Society report.

This is just shocking news! I hope they find a way to get rid of all this mess before there is a new war around the world. I think it would be best to send all this waste out of the world so that no one can gain access to it. The moon as a dumpsite for the earth... sounds like a science fiction story, but might soon be needed if this goes on. I feel very guilty about getting our power from N-Power. I think its time to change a little bit.

wind energy!

Over the past few years, wind energy has picked up a lot of attention. Wind turbines are coming up in dozens all over the world and there is talk of entire countries switching to wind energy. So much so that the first zero emission scientific base in Antarctica is coming up which will be powered entirely by wind energy.

I think the idea is not that bright. There are talks of entire convection systems slowing down due to the use of wind energy, reports of almost extinct birds getting killed by these demonic turbines and of course, the ugly picture of going out into the nature and seeing hundreds of man made turbines which provide energy. Wonder how much energy is used to just make them and transport them and finally put them up. When do they break even? What about maintenance?... and all that jazz.

Are they really a solution?

As always, when you criticise some idea, you should be ready to present one of your own. I do have one, which might seems as ridiculous as the original wind energy plan.

I call this 'Wind Energy'.. yes yes, the name is the same. But the plan isn't.

Each and every person in the world passes wind. And if you do some simple calculations and use your knowledge of chemistry you come up with the following conclusion: If you pass wind for about 6 years and 9 months you would have enough gas to produce the same energy as an atomic bomb. I read about this on Null Hypothesis... very interesting reads. So when you further the calculations, assuming that when a person passes wind, its for an average of one second and assuming that everyone in the world passes wind at least once a day, then you can conclude the following: If you capture all the gas from all the people in the world once a day, then you would have enough energy for 600 atomic bombs in a day. Just one time event... over a year you will have 219000 atomic bombs worth of energy.

This is much more than what the world uses right now. Yes my people, wind energy could be the real answer here!

black is back

When I changed the face of my website recently, a few friends asked me why I decided to use black. Black looks great according to me but that was not the main driving force behind changing the colour of the website.

It was Blackle.

I guess everyone has to try and do their bit for conserving energy, though it might be a very small bit. Energy conservation is becoming more and more important in the world. I am not convinced that we need to use less energy for the better of the environment, but what I am convinced about is that if the developed countries do conserve energy, then the resources can be used to provide for the poorer nations. I am not talking about climate change but reducing poverty and bringing the entire human race to a certain level.

I don't mind starting with making sure I use a dark background. Want to know how else you could do your little bit while exploring the world wide web? Check this page

Also, Ben Harper is great.

influx

The students are coming... run for your lives, the students are coming...! No more empty corridors to walk in, no more finding a place for lunch where you want, no more quite environment, no more seeing only badly dressed PhD students who haven't seen the light of day in ages!

I had to shave today.

Besides that, there is some good news, our instrument which was in Cape Verde for such a long time might be arriving today. The instrument is a very well travelled piece of kit which has gone to the Arctic, Antarctic, Australia, the Americas, around Europe and recently to Africa. The only place remaining is Asia where it will be going next year. But the Africa trip has turned out to be a bit of a nightmare with it being delayed on the way here by more than two months. But finally it might be here now... we can all breathe with relief now that the baby is alive and hopefully well.

In other news, sometimes two is not better than one.. check

burning salt water

After years of people trying to invent new forms of fuel technology, most of which are less than convincing, there seems to be one which has caught my interest. A inventor trying to cure cancer stumbled upon a way to burn salt water which could act as the most abundant fuel source in the world. The physics behind this is pretty simple..

He heats the water using radio waves, which make the bonds in water weak. This causes the hydrogen to be released from water which can then be used as a fuel to burn any time you want. Also the process of hydrogen emission seems to be instantaneous and so you need not store the explosive hydrogen but only salty water and enough energy to fire the radio waves. There are still a few questions to be answered such a; how much radio energy will you need to produce the hydrogen? How much hydrogen is emitted? Is it a commercially viable technique and such.

But exciting for sure..

Burning salt water

the NHS experience

Oh hello!

All well? I wish I could say the same too. The weekend has been a pretty mad experience here. What happened you ask? Well..

On Friday evening I went to watch my very first Rugby game. We went to the Headingly stadium to watch the Leeds rhinos take on the Hull team. Th game was fantastic but unfortunately Leeds lost, and as a result they lost the league too. So we decided to go home and drown our sorrows (one day of intense support) by drinking some beer. As we were having a few gulps, I got a call from Mik, my flatmate, saying that he wasn't too well. When I got back, I found him violently ill and unable to keep anything in his stomach. So after speaking to the NHS direct on the phone we managed to call the ambulance just to be safe. Now this was a case of food poisoning due to a 'dodgy kebab' from Liverpool.

Never have a kebab at 3 am in Liverpool.

After getting to the hospital, the nurse did an initial check on him and asked us to wait for a few minutes before a doctor could see us. We waited for about 5 hours! During this time, no one came to help, check or tell us how long it would take. There were about 4 other cases in the waiting room hoping to get some treatment. Two drunk guys who had got into a fight and had deep gashes on their head, one girl who had got a deep cut on her cheek and was bleeding continuously and a guy with a heart attack. The last guy was seen to immediately but all the others had to wait at least 4 hours for any service. I do understand that most of the cases there were not too serious, but to wait for 4 hours through the night when you are not well is just not good enough. It did remind me of people saying that the NHS is a really good service and people in India would have had a much more difficult time. But if it is not serious, couldn't they just send you home and come in the morning when there is more staff around as they would in India? My opinion of the NHS has definitely changed through that experience.

In other news, they arrested a neo-nazi group in Israel. As opposed as I am towards the Nazi regime, I couldn't help but laugh at this... neo-nazi group in Israel.. they were definitely not too bright, were they? I mean, Israel is the home of the Jews! There is no chance they can get out of court easily with this. Its hard to imagine which lawyer would even help them. Even if they escape punishment for this, which they shouldn't, they should be sent to jail for being stupid!