Yet more on small nuclear

I mentioned small nuclear power generators once already today, but I didn't realise that a good, fairly recent article had just appeared at Discover too.

There are several companies vying to get the lead in these new-ish breed of reactors. Toshiba's is small but has a long, long life:

Toshiba’s 10-megawatt reactor design promises to be a marvel of low maintenance. It is intended to be sealed and run for up to 30 years without refueling, relying on uranium enriched to nearly 20 percent uranium-235. (Typical reactors use a mix that is only about 5 percent energy-rich uranium-235; the rest is more common uranium-238.) Hyperion’s 25-megawatt prototype, which is based on technology developed at nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory and is similar to reactors long used on Russian submarines, gets by with more conventional levels of uranium enrichment but could still run 8 to 10 years without refueling.

There's another company working on a high pressure water cooled one, but the Toshiba and Hyperion designs use molten sodium and lead bismuth (respectively.) The article says:

Without the risk of water boiling, the reactors can run at higher temperatures, producing enough heat to extract hydrogen from water for use in fuel cells. And if one of these reactors melted open, there would be no venting, just a well-contained hot mess underground.

Well, I'm not sure residents nearby will feel so comfortable about such a leak.

This is the thing that does give me reservations: the articles about these usually say that mini nukes are intended to be buried. But surely that is an issue for an country or region that is earthquake prone. I'm not entirely sure why burying is seen as the attractive option (I think it is meant to provide terrorist resistance, but I am not sure if there are other operational reasons for it.) I suspect most people would prefer to keep the things above ground, even if it means paying for a well armed security force.

All very interesting anyway.

A whole bunch of links

I’m not sure how blogging will go this week. I’ve got a major change to software and the office network going on, as well as a Great Big Tax Catch Up to worry about.

But I’m still reading the net and saving links for later. Here’s a bunch of them for your reading pleasure:

* well, let’s start with one from last month that I forgot to talk about: pancreatic cancer is a nasty thing, and it appears it lurks around for decades before it finally reveals itself, and then it’s usually too late:

Genetic analysis of tumours by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Johns Hopkins University suggested the first mutations may happen 20 years before they become lethal….

The Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund welcomed the findings, but said that research was underfunded in the UK.

Chief executive Maggie Blanks said: "Survival rates have not improved in the past 40 years and whilst the disease is the UK's fifth biggest cause of cancer death, it receives less than 2% of overall research funding.

It does seem odd that such a big cancer gets so little funding. Some cancers lead a charmed life as far as funding is concerned. Others are the crazy axe wielding psychopath bridesmaid that never catches the bouquet.

* Speaking of cancer, there was a good article in The Independent about how radiation is our friend. Sort of. In low doses. I didn’t know many of things noted in the report:

One striking piece of evidence for this comes from radiologists themselves. They spend their professional lives exposed to radiation, in the form of X-rays and computed tomography (CT) scans, so you might expect them to have higher rates of cancer. But they don't. They have less cancer and they live longer than physicians in other specialities.

With modern safety measures, the actual dose received by radiologists is only slightly higher than for the general population. But that may be enough to give them an advantage. Sir Richard Doll, the leading Oxford epidemiologist who first linked smoking with lung cancer in the 1950s, published a study of British radiologists in 2003 which showed that those who entered the profession between 1955 and 1970 had a 29 per cent lower risk of cancer (though this was not statistically significant) and a 32 per cent lower death rate from all causes (which was statistically significant) than other physicians.

A similar study in the US compared workers servicing conventionally powered and nuclear-powered ships. Significantly lower death rates were found in the nuclear workers compared with the others.

* Did Harrison Ford have one too many drinks in the Green Room before this Conan O’Brien interview? Quite possibly, but it’s still a funny interview.

* I’ve been complaining for years that Sony would not release its e-reader in Australia. Now it finally has, and I’ve already got an iPad.

The only problem I’m finding with reading on the iPad is that I’m continually distracted to go back to the internet, or see if there is someone on line with whom to play a drawing game.

* AN Wislon gives a favourable review of a new biography of Tolstoy.

I know little of this subject, but it certainly seems an interesting one. I’ll probably get lazy and see that recent movie on DVD instead.

* A new European study indicates that more protein is a good idea for weight loss:

If you want to lose weight, you should maintain a diet that is high in proteins with more lean meat, low-fat dairy products and beans and fewer finely refined starch calories such as white bread and white rice. With this diet, you can also eat until you are full without counting calories and without gaining weight. Finally, the extensive study concludes that the official dietary recommendations are not sufficient for preventing obesity.

How much protein? It seems the successful diet was a "high-protein (25% of energy consumed), low-GI diet". I'm not sure how much protein you have to eat to get 25% of your energy.

* Barry Brook and others set out why nuclear power is the cheapest way to seriously reduce greenhouse gases in the long run.

I’m still speculating that mini nuclear reactors, if they ever get licensed, may be a faster way to scale it up than big reactors of current design; but that’s just my guess. And spreading that radiation around may well be good for us!

Sunday lunch

Spied in the yard today:

(My camera’s not working as well as it used to, but it wasn’t an expensive one in the first place.)

Oils are oils

A somewhat interesting article in the New York Times suggests that, once you heat them up in frying, even the experts can't taste the difference between very expensive olive oils, and things like canola oil:

The refined olive oil and two of three extra-virgin olive oils I tested began to smoke at a respectable 450 degrees. The inexpensive extra-virgin oil started to smell of rubber and plastic almost as soon as it became warm, and fumed at 350 degrees.

After I’d heated them, none of the olive oils had much olive flavor left. In fact, they didn’t taste much different from the seed oils.

To get a set of more expert second opinions, I took the olive oils to a meeting of the University of California’s olive oil research group. This panel of trained tasters evaluates oils from all over the world to provide guidance to California’s young olive-oil industry.

In a blind tasting of the four unheated olive oils, the six tasters easily distinguished the medal winners from the cheaper oils and found many interesting aroma notes in them, from tea and mint to green banana, stone fruit and cinnamon.

For the second blind tasting, I heated each oil to 350 degrees for five minutes. I also heated a sample of the Spanish oil more gently, to 300 degrees, to see whether it might retain more olive flavor.

The panelists said nothing as they swirled and sniffed the heated oils in their small tasting glasses, tinted blue to eliminate any consideration of color, then sipped, slurped and spat. The first spoken comment, immediately seconded by most of the panel members, was, “These oils all taste like popcorn.” In fact the panel ranked the heated light oil higher than the heated pricey California extra-virgin oil, whose pungency was no longer balanced by a spicy aroma and had become overbearing.

Well, I find that interesting, anyway.

I must admit, though, I do like the smell of olive oil as it is heated in the frying pan.

Pteropod risk

I've been mentioning pteropods here in the context of ocean acidification for many years.

Here's a good Scientific American blog post summarising the current state of play, and discussing the consequences of their loss or reduction. Worth reading.

Note the reaction of the first commenter: he won't subscribe to Scientific American again because it is being unscientific. (It is, in fact, a very balanced article.) There's nothing like putting your fingers in your ears and saying "I can't hear you". (I'm sure he'll take them out to listen to Judith Curry, though.)

Symplicity itself

Australian research has come up with a possible treatment for high blood pressure that resists other treatment. It’s called a “simple” procedure, but only if you don’t mind catheter’s being shoved around inside the major blood vessels of your body:

The new procedure, developed by Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, involves a catheter device that is inserted through the groin into the renal arteries.

It emits radio waves to destroy nerves in the kidneys that play a crucial role in the elevation of blood pressure.

The device, called the Symplicity Catheter System, has already been approved for use by government medicines regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration and may be used routinely within a year.

I’m assuming some PR company has made a bit of money coming up with that name.

Anyway, I’d be giving the dark chocolate cure a good try before I underwent that procedure.

Caring readers may recall I recently found my blood pressure was a little higher than it should be. The other morning it was down a lot; and I did have a dark chocolate Kit Kat the night before. Today it’s back up to where it was, but I had no Kit Kat last night.

Clearly, more consistent self medication is called for.

Things that caught my attention

1. the phrase “mucous coccoon” (although your average marine biologist has heard it before)

2. China will soon be building its own generic jetliner (with a lot of help from foreign friends.) I was hoping for something a little more dragon like in appearance.

3. Wake up too soon before landing (sorry, I mean, wake up too close to landing time), and you’ll probably crash, seems to be the clear message from this investigation. Do pilots have rules about this? It’s probably been studied a lot in psychology departments, I imagine.

4. Judith Curry has had her day in Washington, and her statement is on her blog. My quick read of it indicates that this is a confused, contradictory, vague, inconclusive, pointless mess, just like her blog.

She certainly seems to be a (sudden?) convert to Pielke Snr’s similarly vague view of things.

Expect some severe criticism on the climate science blogosphere soon. (Except from skeptics and policy do-nothings, for whom confusion serves their position just fine. She’s their pin up girl now, there’s absolutely no doubt.)

Update: Joe Romm is first off the block, arguing convincingly (amongst other things) that Curry completely misrepresents economist Weitzman's position. While Romm is sometimes shrill, he was spot on when he started calling Curry a "confusionist". Doesn't the fact that the main praise she receives at her blog is from a cadre of AGW complete disbelievers alert her to the fact that she's traveled far from common sense?

Big Catholic statement of the day

A bishop at a conference:

Social media is proving itself to be a force with which to be reckoned. If not, the church may be facing as great a challenge as that of the Protestant Reformation.

Um, sure... I know Facebook has a lot to answer for (I am confident that its net effect on the happiness of humanity, or at least that part of it which is female and aged between about 10 and 30, is negative) but I wouldn't have picked a downfall of the Catholic faith as one of its outcomes.

Still, makes my recent musings about hearing confession over the internet sound sensible.

Pre-emptive pig removal

I don’t often highlight “stupid political correctness for Muslims” stories lately, but this one is a particularly egregious example:

A retailer withdrew a toy pig from a children's farm set to avoid the risk of causing offence on religious grounds, it emerged today.

A mother who bought the Early Learning Centre's (ELC) HappyLand Goosefeather Farm for her daughter's first birthday contacted the store after finding that the pig was missing, the Sun newspaper reported.

The £25 set contained a model of a cow, sheep, chicken, horse and dog but no pig, despite there being a sty and a button which generated an "oink".

But ELC chiefs have since decided to reintroduce the pig, with parents who have bought the set invited to get the toy from the company's website.

It’s interesting to hear the company’s explanation:

"ELC is a truly global brand, which means we need to be aware of the full range of customer expectations and cultural differences. The decision to remove the pig from our Goosefeather Farm set was taken in reaction to customer feedback in some parts of the world.

"We recognise that pigs are familiar farm animals, especially for our UK customers. Taking on board all the customer feedback, we have taken the decision to reinstate the pig and to no longer sell the set in those international markets where it might create an issue.”

So, in a sense, it wasn’t “pre-emptive” entirely:  they had received complaints about the toy pig from other countries, and decided to play it safe in soon to be Muslim England.  (Well, it may as well be, by the sounds.)

I'm sick of this carry on about pigs and dogs by you-know-which religion. Unless I'm mistaken, it's the only culture that goes to the extreme of finding it upsetting to have a mere model of an "unclean" animal in the hands of a child. Sure, religions can have their dietary taboos, whether they be founded in ancient practical experience of relative food safety or not. (After all, I'm not going to eat a snail again in a hurry.) But to carry on about animal's mere presence, particularly in a plastic version; this is just about the stupidest hangover of some  Arabian’s grudge against a harmless animal that still exists. 

Well, maybe not.  According to Ask an Imam, Muslims hate pigs , but they shouldn’t kill them.  Lizards and chameleons, on the other hand, get this treatment:

 4. Is there a reward for killing lizards or chameleons? if so then why ?

4.Yes there is. The Prophet Sallallah Alhi wa Sallam said that the chameleon blew on the fire which Sayyidina Ibrahim was hurled in to. This was its instinctive deed that it did on the promoting of the devil, but its efforts produced no results on the fire.

So we have been ordered to kill it to protect mankind from its mischief and from its harmful flesh.

Good grief.

The future is squid

The most interesting thing in last week's episode of Last Chance to See was the close up look at the Humboldt squid. I had read something about these appearing in larger numbers lately, but don't recall ever seeing them on TV before:



The guy in that video claimed he knew a fisherman who, while swimming between boats, had been seriously attacked by a swarm of them. According to Wikipedia (who knows with what accuracy), they aren't really that big danger to humans:

Although Humboldt squid have a reputation of being aggressive, the only reports of aggression towards humans have occurred when reflective diving gear or flashing lights have been present as a provocation. Roger Uzun, a veteran scuba diver and amateur underwater videographer who swam with a swarm of the animals for about 20 minutes, said they seemed to be more curious than aggressive.^[5] In reality, there is very likely little danger to humans.

Yet further down in the same article:

Recent footage of shoals of these animals demonstrates a tendency to meet unfamiliar objects aggressively. Having risen to depths of 130–200 metres (430–660 ft) below the surface to feed (up from their typical 700 metre (2,300 ft) diving depth, beyond the range of human diving), they have attacked deep-sea cameras and rendered them inoperable. Reports of recreational scuba divers being attacked by Humboldt Squid have been confirmed.

And more:

There are numerous accounts of the squid attacking fishermen and divers in the area.

Finally, the Wiki entry ends on this slightly worrying note for those who would like their children to be able to swim in the ocean without the risk of attack by swarms of aggressive squid:

A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that by the end of this century ocean acidification will lower the Humboldt squid's metabolic rate by 31% and activity levels by 45%. This will lead the squid to have to retreat to shallower waters where it can uptake oxygen at higher levels.^[24]

Catching malaria for good

Quite a surprise to read on the BBC about volunteers who are letting themselves catch malaria in the lab in order to test a new vaccine:

US army medic Joseph Civitello admits that becoming deliberately infected with malaria - one of the world's deadliest diseases - is "definitely nuts".

But without such volunteers, it would be almost impossible to test a new vaccine aimed at protecting the military overseas and preventing some of the estimated 300 million cases of malaria that occur every year.

First Sgt Civitello is part of the world's first clinical trial of a vaccine against Plasmodium vivax - the most widespread strain of malaria.

It's not as deadly as Plasmodium falciparum, which is endemic in Africa and kills millions of people, but it can resurface years after infection and still make its victims extremely ill.

"It was weird because I did this knowing I was going to get sick," says Sgt Civitello.

And the compensation for this: not much, by the sounds:

Volunteers in the world's first Plasmodium vivax malaria vaccine trial are given several thousand dollars in compensation. They say the money is an incentive, but most take part because they want to further medical science.

A well deserved thanks for service to humanity, Sgt Civitello.

"I have better things to do than make sense"

I can’t help but post again about the erratic Judith Curry.

As I noted before, she’s off to Washington soon to give evidence at a congressional hearing at the invitation of Republicans. So what does she do at her blog? Put up a post inviting her blog readership (who in a previous post, self identified as, I would guess, about 90% sceptics) to tell her what they think is known with confidence. [She doesn't say that this is related to her upcoming testimony, but it's kind of peculiar timing.]

One commenter asks the obvious:

Dr Curry, rather than setting an exam question for your pupils here, how would *you* answer the following? [Being the confidence question]

Curry makes no response.

When another, more sympathetic commenter asks her to respond to the criticisms other climate change blogs have made of her, she responds that “it’s coming” (as it has been for weeks), and adds this:

At this point I have no time to read stuff at RC or anywhere else for that matter. I frankly have better and more important things to do than deal with the little tempests created elsewhere in the climate blogosphere…

Yes, like asking skeptics to guide her in her testimony? And it's some freaking "little tempest". It's virtually the rest of the mainstream climate science scientific community telling her she is making major mistakes in many of her criticisms of the IPCC reports and process, and she does not respond in any detail.

CO2 up, temperature up

A study of what happened with increasing CO2 and higher temperatures 40 million years ago indicates that the CO2 came first, not vice versa:

“We found a close correspondence between carbon dioxide levels and sea surface temperature over the whole period, suggesting that increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere played a major role in global warming during the MECO,” said Bohaty.

The researchers consider it likely that elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the MECO resulted in increased global temperatures, rather than vice versa, arguing that the increase in carbon dioxide played the lead role.

“The change in carbon dioxide 40 million years ago was too large to have been the result of temperature change and associated feedbacks,” said co-lead author Peter Bijl of Utrecht University. “Such a large change in carbon dioxide certainly provides a plausible explanation for the changes in Earth’s temperature.”

And what conclusion do they reach about climate sensitivity:

The authors conclude that the climate sensitivity during the MECO led to a 2- to 5-degree C increase per doubling of atmospheric CO2.

Which is pretty much the range the IPCC expects.

Why electricity is going up

Michael Stutchbury gives an account of why electricity prices have been going up, and why a carbon tax would not add to that process as much as people think. Here’s a key section:

Sims's key point is a carbon price won't lift household electricity bills as much as typically figured. A modest carbon price has been estimated to push up wholesale prices by 60 per cent or so, translating into a 24 per cent or so rise in household retail bills.

But a carbon price world shouldn't be contrasted with the old status quo world. Instead, it should be compared with the actual alternative of carbon price uncertainty and the high-cost renewable schemes that are driving electricity bills higher anyway.

A carbon price could actually ease pressure on household electricity bills, assuming we're serious about hitting our target of cutting emissions by 30 per cent on business-as-usual levels by 2020. "A carbon price will see electricity prices increase by less than they would by pursuing a given greenhouse gas reduction target by the current greenhouse schemes," Sims told the committee.

This of course requires the Greens to accept that expensive renewables should no longer be mandated because they cost more than a carbon price to do the same emissions-reduction job. This extends to Gillard's own expensive $400 million "cash for clunkers" scheme which, like the Coalition's greenhouse direct action, shifts the problem on to the budget.

I was also interested to note this earlier part:

The recent surge is mostly driven by "network costs", which will account for two-thirds of the rise in regulated NSW power prices in the five years to 2012-13.

These distribution costs are rising in line with increasing peak demand, such as on hot days, and reflect our vigorous population growth and modern prosperity. Three out of every four Brisbane homes have air conditioners, compared with one in four only a dozen years ago.

More, bad, ocean news

I've made the observation before that, even if CO2 do-nothings are correct in saying that increased CO2 will lead to more ocean algae (which is basically fish food so what are ya worrying about?), not all algal blooms are good. Toxic algal blooms happen near populated coastlines where lots of nutrients from run off and sewerage fertilized the water, but what of the deeper ocean water?

This article says that the dangerous type of algae are indeed away from the coast, and it appears it is encouraged by the limited iron fertilization experiments that have taken place to date:

They joined Ken Bruland, professor of ocean Sciences at UCSC, on a research cruise to study iron chemistry in oceanic waters of the Gulf of Alaska. During this expedition, they collected water samples and found the algae and its toxin in nearly all of the natural oceanic environments throughout the region. This prompted them to examine older, stored samples from other sites around the Pacific, and again they found the toxin in most samples.

Then, with the help of Kenneth Coale, director of Moss Landing Marine laboratories and principal investigator on several cruises that conducted classic iron enrichment experiments in the Pacific, they retrieved samples and found both Pseudo-nitzschia and substantial amounts of toxin. Their findings show that iron enrichment indeed promotes high levels of toxins in the open sea, sometimes as high as those in coastal regions, where deaths of seabirds and mammals occur. The authors of this PNAS paper also noted that iron enrichments can occur naturally, suggesting that the high levels of toxins may also have occurred when iron was added by wind-blown dust and other climate and geological processes.

OK, so it probably happens naturally too. That's not to say it's such a good idea to cause more widespread toxic waters than what we see already.

And in other worrying news, another study suggests that elkhorn coral has its reproductive success greatly limited by ocean acidification. It's not that coral reefs will ever start fizzing due to an acid ocean, but as they are worn down by mechanical action, warm water bleaching and other damaging factors, they may not grow back.

Thugee investigation

I ended up watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom again last night on TV (I can’t help it – has there ever been a better directed and edited action/comedy movie ?  That’s a rhetorical question, the answer is “no”.  There’s something clever or witty that I like about every 8 seconds of its running time.)

Anyhow, it got me thinking: amongst the many topics in history I don’t know all that much about,  thugee in Indian is high amongst them.  Of course, I doubt that they were into magical heart removal or voodoo dolls, but how exactly they did kill, and whether or not they were that closely connected with Kali worship; well that’s all a bit of an unknown to this blogger. 

The Wikipedia article gives a bit of a general overview, but I felt it wasn’t the best example of that site’s work.  (Although it does get marks for mentioning Temple of Doom, which it probably does on the wise presumption that people like me would have their interest piqued by the movie.)  It does seem there has been a bit of historical revisionism going on about what exactly thugee was really all about.

A bit further down on the Google list showed a link to a book about it.  This link was to one of those download sites that seem to be all about hoping people will pay for the “fast” download for a (likely?) pirate copy of a movie or book.  I don’t think I have ever successfully used one of those sites before; the slow free download usually takes forever and I have given up when seeing the hopeless speed. 

But last night I did try it, and got a pretty fast free download.  I then tried to do it direct to the iPad, using Goodreader (one of the limitations of an iPad is that you can’t directly save .pdf or other web files directly from the browser.  You have to use an App such as Goodreader.)   That didn’t work, but I eventually got the book into my iPad via my computer and iTunes.

So, now I have a free .pdf of a book on my iPad which I actually want to read, or at least skim.  I will report further on any thugee discoveries as they come.

Dawn Treader is coming

The Narnia films have been very, very good. The third one, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is being released on 9 December, and yet I fear it is receiving inadequate publicity.

People in Brisbane who were able to visit one of the film locations (as my family did) have a particular reason to look forward to seeing it.

Really, Walden Media do very high quality films generally, and as it appears that the success of this film will determine whether or not the series comes to an end, all readers are hereby commanded to go see it.

Here's my bit to help promote it:

Putting the last election in perspective

The Economist has a chart that shows how, compared to Europe, Australians were complete wusses when it came to worrying about how long it took to form a government after the last federal election.

Curry in Washington

So, I see that Judith Curry has been invited (by the Republicans - so guess what purpose they hope her to fulfill) to a congressional hearing in Washington to talk about uncertainty in climate change. Seems to me they may do better to question uncertainty in Curry.

There hasn't been talk of this at James Annan's or Michael Tobis's blogs yet; they have been left waiting for Judith to explain how she didn't get her "Italian flag" comments on uncertainty very wrong. (I'm not sure how many times she has promised a direct answer is coming, but it's been quite a few.)

But Bart Verheggen has a useful suggestion to her on what she should concentrate on:

Facts and framing: Both are important

When it comes to science communication, the facts are the baseline from which one absolutely cannot stray; but at the same time, we have to be aware that people respond most strongly to the frame.

Uncertainty and risk

Remember that the political attack is also largely scientific in nature, at least in terms of its framing. It exaggerates uncertainty about particular scientific studies (…) in order to distract from the big picture.

So any scientist walking into this context had better be ready for one obvious trap: Being lured into talking about uncertainty to the detriment of what we actually know.

This is in sharp contrast to what Judith Curry is pushing for: Framing the issues in terms of uncertainty and stressing what we don’t know. I am in firm agreement with Chris Mooney here. Judith’s strategy is a dead end in terms of increasing the public’s knowledge about climate change.

Conversations about uncertainty invoke a frame which in the public mind is easily confused with doubt. Non-scientists have a very different perception of uncertainty than scientists. Framing what we know and don’t know in terms of risk is much more useful in getting the message across, because it leaves less room for misinterpretation (there is less of a gap in how this term is understood, whereas “uncertain” to a layperson means “I don’t know”).

You should read all of his post: it's very good.

Who knows, Curry could surprise us all and not leave everyone totally confused as to what her position is. But if her blog is anything to go by, she'll prefer to inconclusively waffle and be happy that she's muddied the waters further.

Update: A lengthy, detailed critique of Curry has turned up on Climate Progress. It's pretty devastating, and confirms even further how it is completely impossible to tell what she believes. It's not as if her apparent conversion to an "uncertainty is everything" view of climate change is actually backed up in her blog or elsewhere with detailed analysis and a critical reappraisal of her previous statements. It just seems to be "the vibe" which she wants to promote.

As Romm says towards the end of the post:

Curry is not the one who brings “uncertainty” into the discussion of climate science. Well, let me rephrase that. Curry is a confusionist who brings uncertainty into any discussion, but it is a canard of Curry-esque proportions to assert that scientists have not clearly explained the nature and extent of these uncertainties. They have bent over backwards to do so.