Half Marathon Ottawa 2010

Sunday May 30th 2010, I participated in the half marathon in Ottawa. It was my 3rd attempt at this race. The weather was perfect, 17c at 9AM and 19c at 11AM. No sun and a bit of rain to keep us cool.

In 2008, I did 1h59m19s, 2009 1h57m07s. This year, I manage to do 1h47m45s. almost 10 min faster or 28sec/km faster than 2009.

It's funny, because I had a bit less training than 2009, but different shoes. But seriously, I think this year the cool weather helped. Maybe I did a bit more interval training than previous years, that maybe helped a bit.

So I manage to keep a pace very close to 5min/km. Here's a graphic of my pace at every km and on top the elevation profile of the course.

You can see the path we took around Ottawa and Gatineau on the Québec side here.

One thing I did a bit better this year was hydration.  I drank quite a lot of fluids and electrolytes in the 24hours before the race.  I also took a pack of gel (shot block) 1 hours to 30 minutes before the start. During the race, I drank 75% Gatorade and 25% water and a gel at around 9km.  I had on myself a small 5oz bottle of water mixed with electrolytes that I took in the last 5km.  The last 2 km where hard with my feet getting soared and tired.  I finished with thigh calf but happy about my time.

The Ottawa race weekend is a very well organized weekend with many thousand people.  I big party of people in good shape.

10,000 demonstrators in New York, demanding Wall Street reform

I don't remember seeing this in the "news", do you?

The birth of synthetic life

More on the speaker

Paper supercapacitor could power future paper electronics

Source

Photos at left and center show the paper supercapacitor printed on Xerox paper. The right photo shows the paper supercapacitor printed on newspaper. Image credit: Liangbing Hu, et al. ©2010 AIP.

(PhysOrg.com) -- All those paper transistors and paper displays that scientists have been designing can now be powered by an onboard power source, thanks to the development of a new paper supercapacitor. Designed by researchers at Stanford University, the paper supercapacitor is made by simply printing carbon nanotubes onto a treated piece of paper. The researchers hope that the integrated design could lead to the development of low-cost, disposable paper electronics.

In the paper supercapacitor, all the necessary components are integrated onto a single sheet of paper in the form of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). High-speed printing could be used to print the SWNTs directly onto a piece of paper - anything from Xerox paper to newspaper and even grocery ads will work. At first, the researchers found that the SWNTs were so small that they penetrated the paper through micron-sized pores, which would cause the device to short-circuit. To solve this problem, the researchers first coated both sides of the paper with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), which blocked the pores but still allowed for electrolytes to be transported through the paper. As such, the treated paper could function as an electrolyte membrane and separator without short-circuiting.

"The key design is that SWNTs stick well on paper and do not penetrate through paper completely to avoid shorting," Yi Cui of Stanford University told PhysOrg.com.

Once the SWNTs were printed onto the treated paper, they experienced strong bonding forces similar to those experienced when writing with a pen or pencil on paper. Even when rubbed or subjected to tape, the SWNTs remained attached to the paper. After printing SWNTs on both sides of single sheets of paper, electrolyte was loaded to form a supercapacitor. The SWNTs served as both the electrodes and current collectors in the supercapacitor, which had a capacitance of about 3 F/g. The device also showed an excellent cycling stability, with very little loss of capacitance after 2500 cycles. The researchers say the same concept could be extended to make batteries, as well.

The fully integrated supercapacitor is based on an earlier version that the researchers made, in which nanomaterials were coated separately onto different anode and cathode substrates and then assembled together with a separator. The advantage of the new integrated structure is that it allows for high-speed printing, which greatly reduces fabrication costs and brings disposable, flexible, and lightweight paper electronics closer to reality. Cui said that, in the future, the researchers plan "to use this new design for real applications."

More information: Liangbing Hu, Hui Wu, and Yi Cui. "Printed energy storage devices by integration of electrodes and separators into single sheets of paper." Applied Physics Letters 96, 183502 (2010). Doi:10.1063/1.3425767

Stimulus Package Increases Trade Deficit: Replaces U.S. Jobs with Foreign “Green Jobs”

More on the "green" and "new" economic madness.

Source by Hans Bader

The $800 billion stimulus package is shipping American jobs overseas.  More than 79 percent of “green jobs” funding under the stimulus package went to foreign firms.  Meanwhile, to pay for the stimulus package, the government borrowed a huge amount of money from the American people, money that would otherwise have been spent on American products, or been invested in America’s companies.
The stimulus package has also destroyed thousands of jobs in America’s export sector by triggering trade wars that America lost.  It also subsidized countless examples of government waste.
Spain’s “green jobs” program, a model for Obama’s green-jobs and global-warming programs, has turned out to be a complete bust, destroying jobs and contributing to Spain’s skyrocketing government deficit.  (Earlier, Obama’s green jobs czar, Van Jones, resigned over his 9/11 conspiracy theories.  He was hired by Obama despite his long history of Marxism and racism, arrest record, and glorification of a convicted murderer.)

The Washington Examiner earlier explained how the global-warming bill backed by Obama will lead to deforestation, and thus increase greenhouse gas emissions in the long run.  Obama’s so-called “cap-and-trade” bill is full of pay-offs for special interests.  Obama once admitted that under his cap-and-trade scheme, electricity and utility bills would “skyrocket” and coal-fed power plants would go “bankrupt.”  Treasury Department analysts estimated it could increase taxes on the average American household by $1761 per year.  The bill contains environmentally-harmful provisions, such as massive ethanol subsidies, which will result in “damage to water supplies, soil health and air quality.” Ethanol subsidies have resulted in forests being destroyed in the Third World, and caused famines that have killed countless people in the world’s poorest countries.

The cap-and-trade global-warming tax is yet another violation of Obama’s campaign promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.  Obama has admitted that its cost will be passed “on to consumers,” like middle-class homeowners and motorists.
“Nearly two-thirds of Americans do not believe the $787 billion stimulus package the president passed last year has helped create jobs, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.”

As the Washington Examiner notes, “a recent survey of business economists showed they didn’t think the stimulus was creating jobs, either.”  President Obama falsely claimed that virtually all economists supported his stimulus package, but this was patently untrue at the time he made this claim, when at least 200 economists publicly opposed it, and it  is even more untrue now.

Obama falsely claimed that the $787 billion stimulus package was needed to prevent “irreversible decline,” but the Congressional Budget Office admitted that it would actually shrink the economy “in the long run”.  The stimulus package has since destroyed thousands of jobs in America’s export sector, and subsidized countless examples of government waste and corruption.

Unemployment has skyrocketed past European levels, as big-spending countries have fared worse than thrifty ones.  As the Examiner notes, “If his stimulus program was approved, Obama promised, unemployment would not go above 8 percent . . . The reality is that it passed 10.3 percent.”
Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker says that Obama’s policies are delaying economic recovery.
“How is stimulus money allocated? Unemployment isn’t a factor, but politics is,” found George Mason University researcher Veronique de Rugy in a recent study.

Districts where people are struggling and unemployment is high are not receiving any more money than those in which unemployment is low, even though a stated purpose of the $800 billion stimulus package was to help the unemployed.  But politics mattered in doling out federal funds.  And “Democratic districts also received two-and-a-half times more stimulus dollars than Republican districts.”

There are three trillion dollars in tax increases in Obama’s proposed budget, yet it would still borrow 42 cents on the dollar, resulting in colossal deficits.
Obama’s policies would raise the national debt by $9.7 trillion, noted the Congressional Budget Office.
Earlier, one of Obama’s own advisers worried that the “barrage of tax increases” in his budgets could harm the economy and prevent a “sustained” economic recovery.
In 2008, Obama promised a “net spending cut,” but as soon as he was elected, he proposed massive spending increases.

The new economy : The undermining of democracy

Source1  Source2

According to Friedrich von Hayek, the development of welfare socialism after World War II undermined freedom and would lead western democracies inexorably to some form of state-run serfdom.

Hayek had the sign and the destination right but was entirely wrong about the mechanism. Unregulated finance, the ideology of unfettered free markets, and state capture by corporate interests are what ended up undermining democracy both in North America and in Europe. All industrialized countries are at risk, but it’s the eurozone – with its vulnerable structures – that points most clearly to our potentially unpleasant collective futures.

As a result of the continuing euro crisis, European Central Bank (ECB) now finds itself buying up the debt of all the weaker eurozone governments, making it the – perhaps unwittingly – feudal boss of Europe. In the coming years, it will be the ECB and the European Union who dictate policy. The policy elite who run these structures – along with their allies in the private sector – are the new overlords.

We can argue about who exactly are the peasants, the vassals, and the lords under this model – and what services exactly will end up being exchanged. But there is no question we are seeing a sea change in the post-war system of property, power, and prosperity across Western Europe, just as Hayek feared. An overwhelming debt burden will bring down even the proudest people.

The ECB-EU approach will not of course return countries to reasonable levels of growth – the debt overhang is simply too large. The southern and western periphery of the eurozone cannot grow out of their debts under these arrangements, and so will stumble from stabilization program to stabilization program – just like Latin America did during the 1980s. This is bound to be acrimonious, leading to hostile politics, social unrest, and more economic crises.

Nice information to debate nuclear energy versus other energy type

Source

What information can I use to counter arguments made by people who are opposed to Nuclear Power?

What do I say if an opponent says that Nuclear Energy Is Not Safe?

• Nuclear Energy is safer than any other form of energy available.
• No member of the general public has ever been killed or injured in 40 years of commercial Nuclear Energy generation in the United States
• The OSHA Accident Rate for the Nuclear Power Industry is lower than the accident rate for the Finance, Education, and Artist industries 

Table 1

What do I say to opponents who claim that nuclear power plants could explode like a nuclear bomb?

• A nuclear reactor can never explode like a nuclear bomb. The fuel (Uranium) in reactors is only enriched to about 3%, a nuclear bombs fuel is enriched to over 95%.
• The MOX fuel program is currently down-blending Russian Nuclear weapons grade uranium to produce a lot of fuel for the nuclear power industry. This is helping to deplete the number of nuclear warheads around the world.

What do I say if an opponent says that as nuclear plants get older they become more risky to operate?

• Safety and Reliability of Nuclear Power Plants has improved over time. Plants have increased their electrical output to over 806.5 Billion kWh. Unplanned shutdowns have decreased tremendously, see Table 2 below.

Table 2

Table 3

What do I say if an opponent says that Nuclear Plants Cause Cancer?

• Nuclear Plant workers have a lower mortality than average Americans. 35% lower for all cancers and 66% lower for all non-cancer deaths (NEI)
• Americans receive more radiation from natural sources than from Nuclear Plants (NEI)
  • Average Resident Receives 360 millirems per year
  • Average Nuclear Plant worker receives 160 millirems per year
• Pilots receive many times more radiation than the average nuclear plant worker. The higher in elevation you are the more radiation you receive.

What do I say if an opponent says that all radiation is negative, no matter the level?

• Everyone receives radiation on earth. The sun, rocks, dirt, anything on the earth emits radiation. It is known as background radiation.
• Radiation is highly used in the medical field for cancer research, cancer treaments, X-rays, etc.
• The granite walls of the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. emit so much radiation from the contained uranium, that it could never be licensed as a Nuclear Power Reactor Site (PBS) and if it were a Nuclear Power Plant, it would be decommissioned.
• Dispersions from coal combustion result in effective radiation dose 100 times greater than nuclear energy production.

What do I say to opponents who claim that Nuclear Energy is too costly?

• Nuclear Energy is competitive with other forms of baseload power generation. (Table 5, Table 6)

Table 5 : Baseload Power Costs

Courtesy - NEI

Table 6

Courtesy - Dept. of Energy, Energy Information Administration 2009

What do I say to opponents who claim that Nuclear Power Generation is not reliable?

• In 2004 Nuclear Power Plants in the United States operated at an average of 90.5% capacity.
• The increases in capacity factor at 103 nuclear power plants across the country have been equivalent to the addition of 26 new 1,000MW power plants.
• Nuclear power plants are available 24/7 day and night and release no greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It accounts for about 75% of all non-greenhouse emitting energy generation.

U.S. Capacity Factors by Fuel Type (2007)

Fuel Type	Average Capacity Factors (%)
Nuclear	91.8
Coal (Steam Turbine)	71.8
Gas (Combined Cycle)	43.3
Wind	30.4
Hydro	27.8
Solar	19.8
Oil (Steam Turbine)	19.6
Gas (Steam Turbine)	16.0

What do I say to opponents who claim that there is not enough uranium to support building new Nuclear Plants?

• There is enough Uranium today to last hundreds of years.
• 96% of today’s spent fuel can be recycled. The United States is the only country that does not recycle the spent fuel.
• Advanced breeder reactors could increase fuel inventories by 50 times.
• Thorium which is found in large supplies within the United States could be converted to U-233 and used to fuel reactors.
• Fuel costs are roughly 2% of the total cost of a MWhr in currently operated plants.
• Current MOX Fuel technology can turn nuclear weapons into nuclear fuel for your home.

What do I say to opponents who claim that Nuclear Power Plants are terrorist targets?

• Nuclear Power Plants have the highest security of any American industry
• Well armed, trained security forces
• New, strong physical security barriers
  • Continuous Link to the Department of Homeland Security
  • Established response procedures and contingency plans
  • See this link from the NRC for more information on security measures -http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/security-spotlight/overview.html
• The containment dome is conservatively designed to withstand impact from a commercial jet and still stand, along with continuing to protect and contain the reactor.
• Containment structure is 4-5 feet of concrete, 1.5 in thick steel liner, and has a negative pressure.

What do I say to opponents who claim that Americans are not in favor of Nuclear Power?

• Support for Nuclear Energy is WIDESPREAD and GROWING! (Table 7)

“Overall, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity in the United States?”

Table 7

Courtesy: Bisconti Research Inc./GfK, September 2008

How not to save the environment

Here are some example of how not to save the environment. We often hear "special groups" pushing for projects that would "save" the environment.  Here's some information to make you see the big picture.

While you read this, remind yourself that for every dollar spent, 80% of it is spent on fossil fuels.  Why you ask?  For every dollar we consume, we need energy in one form or another to produce it.  Calculating where the energy is coming from we come to the conclusion that around 80% or more comes for oil, gas, coal.

The Danish government plans to clear forests and destroy unique nature for the benefit of industry. Source

The Danish environment minister Troels Lund Poulsen decided, on behalf of the government, on 30th September 2009, that the clearing of 15 km2 of forest in the north west of Denmark will take place. A test centre for the development of offshore windmills is planned to take up 30 km2 of land in the Thy region, near Østerild. This deforestation will create an increase of 400,000 tonnes of CO2 emission, the equivalent of the CO2 emission of 100,000 people per year.

The windmills, which are 250 meters tall, are planned to be along a 6 km linear south/north stretch. This will prevent birds in the international Ramsar-area, Vejlerne, which is situated to the east of the test centre, from flying west to the EU-habitat area Vullum Sø and to Thy National Park just south of Hanstholm.

I often demonstrated that windmills are not the way to go for a good energy policy and surely not to save the environment. Other examples

Spain is still suffering for the "green" energy policies imposed by "special groups" that pushes those "renewable" energy sources. Complete report

A leaked internal document from the Spanish government shows the catastrophic effect of the "green" policies on energy cost and the economy.

The internal report of the Spanish administration admits that the price of electricity has gone up, as well as the debt, due to the extra costs of solar and wind energy. Even the government numbers indicate that each green job created costs more than 2.2 traditional jobs, as was shown in the report of the Juan de Mariana Institute.

The numbers in the long run are even scarier. The government itself says that the alternative energies sector will receive 126 billion euros in the next 25 years. Just an example: The owners of solar plants make 12 times more than what they pay for the energy coming from fossil fuel combustion. The majority are subsidies charged to the consumer. The conclusion is that with the economy at the point of bankruptcy, it is not possible to keep injecting money in such a costly sector. And the government seems to realize this now.

Follow the money

Joanne Nova documented extensively the link between those "green" policies and the greed of some people wanting to make a money on the environmental fears artificially created for that purpose.

Some example from JoNova

The smell of money

Who would have thought? Goldman Sachs has been working hard to save the environment for years. Generation Investment Management (GIM) was founded by Al Gore, and a few friends, which included David Blood (former Goldman executive), Mark Ferguson (Goldman) and Peter Harris (Goldman). They are the fifth largest shareholder in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Then in 2006, when the CCX needed some extra funding, who should step up to buy 10% of the company – Goldman Sachs.

CLIMATE MONEY
The Climate Industry: $79 billion so far – trillions to come

The US government has spent over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, education campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks.

Carbon trading worldwide reached $126 billion in 2008. Banks are calling for more carbon-trading. And experts are predicting the carbon market will reach $2 - $10 trillion making carbon the largest single commodity traded.

$30 Billion makes for Monopolistic Science

• A trial without a defense is a sham
• Business without competition is a monopoly
• Science without debate is propaganda

The scientific process has become distorted. One side of a theory receives billions, but the other side is so poorly funded that auditing of that research is left as a community service project for people with expert skills, a thick skin and a passionate interest. A kind of “Adopt an Error” approach.

Superbe vidéo de l'éruption du volcan islandais Eyjafjöll

À voir en plein écran HD...

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better. But the flights to get over took forever as expected (somewhat). 4 days after leaving I finally made it, but the weather was terrible for another 4. Just before leaving it got pretty good for about a day and a half and this is what I managed to get.

Wish I had more time. I missed all the cool Lightning and the Lava of the first eruption. But I figure this will just be a trial run for another day.

I am of course accepting sponsors to send me back there for more please...!! haha

Music: Jónsi - Kolniður (http://jonsi.com)
Canon 5d mkII
HUGE thanks for the Motorized Dolly via MILapse (http://vimeo.com/milapse). Details are to come soon so stay tuned...

© Sean Stiegemeier
www.in-perfidia.com
www.twitter.com/sstieg

Climate debate - May 16-18

The climate change debate is heating up, and we invite you to be a part of it.  Just this week, Sens. Kerry and Lieberman introduced the American Power Act - a massive climate change bill that is anti-industry and anti-jobs.  On the heels of this legislation, the Heartland Institute is holding its 4th Annual International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-4) - a gathering for climate "realists" - and PJTV will be covering it LIVE.   From Copenhagen to DC, PJTV has tracked all sides of the climate change debate.  Now, we are proud to bring you to the next stop on the Climategate tour - Chicago - where our correspondents will be sending you LIVE footage of every keynote speaker, including:

SUNDAY, MAY 16, 2010:   7:30 p.m. CDT: Harrison Schmitt, Ph.D. and former Apollo 17 moonwalker, speaks on the Constitutional constraints related to climate and energy.   8:05 p.m. CDT Steve McIntyre, Ph.D. and editor of www.climateaudit.org, speaks on key events that led to exposure of the Climategate scandal.   MONDAY, MAY 17, 2010   7:15 a.m. CDT Patrick Michaels, Ph.D. and American Senior Fellow at Cato Institute, speaks on new scientific data on global temperatures.   7:50 a.m. CDT Hon. George Allen, Chairman, American Energy Freedom Center and former Governor of Virginia, speaks on a winning American energy game plan.   1:30 p.m. CDT Richard Lindzen, Ph.D. and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, speaks candidly and comprehensively on global warming.    TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2010   7:15 a.m. CDT Jay Lehr, Ph.D., Heartland Institute Science Director, speaks on scientific credibility in the wake of Climategate.   7:50 a.m. CDT Roy Spencer, Ph.D., University of Alabama, Huntsville, speaks about his book, The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World's Top Scientists.   2:05 p.m. CDT Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speaks on global warming, the Trojan Horse that menaces global freedom.   Speaker Times Subject To Change. Consult www.heartland.org/events/2010Chicago/program.html Also, we are excited to bring you inside the conference, offering viewers exclusive footage and interviews from leading economists, scientists and public policy experts. To view this exclusive ICCC-4 coverage, simply CLICK HERE Roger L. Simon CEO of Pajamas Media

Water crisis.. Really?

Will we run out of fresh water in a world where we have an almost limitless amount of nuclear power and a limitless supply of salt water?

The answer is no... Here comes Nuclear Powered Desalination.

At the latest Global Water Summit 2010 in Paris, it was agreed that nuclear power will play an increased role in the future of desalination.

The future prospect of co-located nuclear or renewable energy powered water desalination facilities has been supported by leading water experts at the Global Water Summit 2010 in Paris, Water and Wastewater International (WWi) reported. Speaking at the conference, Imad Makhzoumi, president of the International Desalination Association (IDA) said: "Nuclear is enjoying a resurgence. We must reach out to the nuclear sector - where all nuclear projects are being considered, desalination must be taken into account [where appropriate]." Dan McCarthy, president and CEO of Black & Veatch's global water business, told WWi, "I've heard leaders in the energy business say that nuclear has to be a large part of their portfolio for the future." He added, "If you think about combining that with reverse osmosis, forward osmosis or any of the technologies, that could be a fairly efficient way to deliver water supply."

Source

Listen to this video for a better understanding of the challenges and solutions:



Hopefully the world will not let the speculators control this precious resource like they are trying to do with food. We must strive to produce fresh water for all humanity at the lowest possible physically cost.

Comments are welcomed

Global food bubble, do we really need to gamble on food price?

The financial gamblers are doing it again. Pushing food price again for a profit. People are starving and speculators are making more profits by gambling on food. Do we really need this.

Listen to this two part interview to make up your mind.

Part1 1: Source and transcript


Part 2: Source and transcript