Technology, Science and the Environment.

[Wymsey]

The whole country needs a few days of heavy showers.

Perhaps some Scientist should try to invent artificial clouds...

[SpacedX]

9 hours ago, Wymsey said:

The whole country needs a few days of heavy showers.

Perhaps some Scientist should try to invent artificial clouds...

Aircraft contrails are actually classified by the World Meteorological Society as artificial clouds under the category homogenitus or anthropogenic clouds. This is because they are formed by the water in aircraft exhaust, although this is only the trigger mechanism. They expand, increase in mass and spread due to the same natural processes as a cirrus cloud which is basically what they are so therefore not rain bearing. 

 

There is of course cloud seeding but this obviously does not produce or create clouds. It is intended to introduce additional hygroscopic nucleation typically via silver iodide flares rack mounted to the wings of light aircraft to be released into extant cumulus clouds - those already conducive to precipitation - and thereby induce or divert rainfall. It can also employ burn sticks, rockets and even anti-aircraft guns (the shells contain the seeding material instead of high explosives), as the Chinese used during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

 

Although cloud seeding is practiced worldwide, not only by state, but private enterprises, the science and efficacy behind it is dubious and there is heaps of conspiracy theory shit about it online. One of the most ridiculous claims is that the Lynmouth Flood disaster of 1952 was caused by cloud seeding. While the UK government did run a short-lived 1950s weather modification trial called Project Cumulus,  cloud seeding can only marginally increase precipitation from existing clouds and cannot manufacture massive, catastrophic weather systems such as the low that hit Exmoor that produced nine inches of rain in 24 hours. Human intervention cannot scale up to produce the tens of millions of tonnes of water that devastated the village on the 15–16 August 1952. Besides, the cloud seeding experiments that week were in the East of England, not the South West. 

 

It was also practised during the Vietnam War primarily to deluge the Ho-Chi-Mihn trail. Operation Popeye as it was called was of debatable success which was hard to measure due to the fact that it coincided with particularly heavy seasonal monsoons. 

 

The UAE’s National Center of Meteorology runs an active cloud-seeding program which they claim can enhance existing rainfall by up to 10% to 30%. However, again, it cannot create rain out of clear skies. We know that climate change is shifting weather patterns in the Arabian Peninsula and these alleged successes are more likely due to more intense rainfall exacerbated by the latter when it does arrive. 

 

 

[davieG]

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DPXgxYP7H/

 

9 Craziest Bridges In The World That Don’t Seem Real

[CornwallFox]

8 hours ago, SpacedX said:

Aircraft contrails are actually classified by the World Meteorological Society as artificial clouds under the category homogenitus or anthropogenic clouds. This is because they are formed by the water in aircraft exhaust, although this is only the trigger mechanism. They expand, increase in mass and spread due to the same natural processes as a cirrus cloud which is basically what they are so therefore not rain bearing. 

 

There is of course cloud seeding but this obviously does not produce or create clouds. It is intended to introduce additional hygroscopic nucleation typically via silver iodide flares rack mounted to the wings of light aircraft to be released into extant cumulus clouds - those already conducive to precipitation - and thereby induce or divert rainfall. It can also employ burn sticks, rockets and even anti-aircraft guns (the shells contain the seeding material instead of high explosives), as the Chinese used during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

 

Although cloud seeding is practiced worldwide, not only by state, but private enterprises, the science and efficacy behind it is dubious and there is heaps of conspiracy theory shit about it online. One of the most ridiculous claims is that the Lynmouth Flood disaster of 1952 was caused by cloud seeding. While the UK government did run a short-lived 1950s weather modification trial called Project Cumulus,  cloud seeding can only marginally increase precipitation from existing clouds and cannot manufacture massive, catastrophic weather systems such as the low that hit Exmoor that produced nine inches of rain in 24 hours. Human intervention cannot scale up to produce the tens of millions of tonnes of water that devastated the village on the 15–16 August 1952. Besides, the cloud seeding experiments that week were in the East of England, not the South West. 

 

It was also practised during the Vietnam War primarily to deluge the Ho-Chi-Mihn trail. Operation Popeye as it was called was of debatable success which was hard to measure due to the fact that it coincided with particularly heavy seasonal monsoons. 

 

The UAE’s National Center of Meteorology runs an active cloud-seeding program which they claim can enhance existing rainfall by up to 10% to 30%. However, again, it cannot create rain out of clear skies. We know that climate change is shifting weather patterns in the Arabian Peninsula and these alleged successes are more likely due to more intense rainfall exacerbated by the latter when it does arrive. 

 

 

Idiots online parroting embarrassing nonsense about chemtrails is one of the things in modern Britain that annoys me most.

Your post won't have convinced any of them behind their tin foil hats, but thank you for providing some reality nevertheless. 

[SpacedX]

14 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

Idiots online parroting embarrassing nonsense about chemtrails is one of the things in modern Britain that annoys me most.

Your post won't have convinced any of them behind their tin foil hats, but thank you for providing some reality nevertheless. 

It has to be one of the dumbest conspiracy theories out there doesn't it. It originated with the misidentification of aircraft contrails, which, it was alleged are evidence of a nefarious government/NWO spraying programme for reasons that they can't agree on ranging from depopulation, (that's effective then), to mind control. More recently, in an attempt to gain credence and credibility, the grifters that continue to perpetrate this horseshit point to everything from geoengineering (stratospheric aerosol injection), to cloud seeding/weather modification in spite of the fact that neither would be conducted at the altitudes that contrails are observed nor would there be lasting and discernable trails. 

 

They also invoke actual historical experiments by governments dispersing chemicals over populated areas by air and at ground level to measure dispersion rates and to simulate a biological attack. 

 

Quite why the believers in this nonsense think that releasing chemicals from six miles above their empty heads would be an effective or efficient way to accomplish their aims, or how any aircraft on the planet would have the requisite MTOW to carry the necessary payload of chemicals to deposit a 150 mile trail, that can somehow expand and increase in mass just like...well no shit, condensed atmospheric water vapour, is beyond me. 

 

Conspiracy theorists often point to ballast barrels used on test flight aircraft to transfer water to shift the centre of gravity as evidence of chemtrail airplanes, fuel dumping, aerodynamic contrails on landing as pilots supposedly forgetting to turn their sprayers off, and even smoking APUs as chemtrails being accidently turned on on the ground. 

 

This is hilarious...

 

The vinegar part beggars belief. 

[davieG]

 

Naval Nostalgia  ·

 

 

 

Britain towed a dry dock across the Atlantic because the island could not hold one

Bermuda's limestone had defeated the Royal Navy's engineers. The rock was too porous for a conventional dry dock, since water pumped out of a basin simply seeped straight back in, yet the island was Britain's key Atlantic base and ironclads needed their hulls worked on below the waterline. The Admiralty's chief engineer proposed something audacious, build the dry dock as a floating vessel and tow it across the ocean. Construction began in 1866 at the Campbell, Johnstone yard at North Woolwich on the Thames, where around 1,400 men riveted together an iron U-shaped structure displacing 8,400 tons, capable of flooding down until only its side walls showed, taking a 10,000 ton warship inside, then pumping out and lifting her clear of the sea. It could even self-careen, rolling onto its side so crews could scrape its own bottom clean.

Getting it to Bermuda was the harder problem. No ocean-going tugs existed for a job like this, so the Navy used its own capital ships. Agincourt and Northumberland hauled the dock from Britain to Madeira in June 1869, then Warrior and Black Prince took over for the 2,400 mile Atlantic crossing, with the paddle frigate Terrible lashed astern to steer and a sail rigged between the dock's walls to catch easterly winds. Pointed cutwaters closed off the open ends to cut drag, and the convoy averaged 4.8 knots, touching 6 twice. On 28 July 1869 the dock reached Bermuda, where the ironclads proved too big for the reef-choked channel called The Narrows and five smaller vessels had to nurse her through. She served over thirty years before being replaced in 1906, then was sold for scrap, broke loose under tow, and grounded on a reef. Her remains still break the surface off Spanish Point today.

 

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czekx5g39elo

 

Michael Phillips spent his childhood in the 1980s playing with friends at a lagoon, firing air guns at rusty barrels that released clouds of coloured powder - completely oblivious to the toxic chemicals within.

Decades later, several of those friends and Phillips himself have developed rare cancers, which they believe may be linked to this.

Researcher and whistleblower Douglas Gowan tried to raise the alarm about 14 such sites - 12 of which were in Wales - but died before his warnings were heeded.

"What he told me made my blood run cold," said Hollywood actor Michael Sheen, who spoke to Gowan just months before he died and has now continued his investigation in a new BBC iPlayer documentary.

 

The legacy of rushing along the science tree without doing the due diligence. I remember seeing something about so many problems in Corby, but I never knew there were many other places too. 

 

Also, Michael Sheen is a really good example of someone with power using it to advocate for people who need it. 

[JonnyBoy]

watered over 18 trees opposite our house y'day, only two years old so likely could die due to drought. Must have used over 1000 litres of water, 45l buckets around 25 

 

Did notice the pear trees and apple trees were fruiting, albeit tiny fruits, but a good sign. 

[davieG]

11 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czekx5g39elo

 

Michael Phillips spent his childhood in the 1980s playing with friends at a lagoon, firing air guns at rusty barrels that released clouds of coloured powder - completely oblivious to the toxic chemicals within.

Decades later, several of those friends and Phillips himself have developed rare cancers, which they believe may be linked to this.

Researcher and whistleblower Douglas Gowan tried to raise the alarm about 14 such sites - 12 of which were in Wales - but died before his warnings were heeded.

"What he told me made my blood run cold," said Hollywood actor Michael Sheen, who spoke to Gowan just months before he died and has now continued his investigation in a new BBC iPlayer documentary.

 

The legacy of rushing along the science tree without doing the due diligence. I remember seeing something about so many problems in Corby, but I never knew there were many other places too. 

 

Also, Michael Sheen is a really good example of someone with power using it to advocate for people who need it. 

There's was a TV programme about Corby it was proved that when they were removing toxic waste to a safe place the trucks taking it were not being cleaned externally before travelling through Corby with the toxic waste on their tyres and underbody and contaminating all the streets they travelled on.

[Trav Le Bleu]

7 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Michael Phillips spent his childhood in the 1980s playing with friends at a lagoon, firing air guns at rusty barrels that released clouds of coloured powder - completely oblivious to the toxic chemicals within.

Decades later, several of those friends and Phillips himself have developed rare cancers, which they believe may be linked to this.

So, not super powers? 

[SpacedX]

7 hours ago, JonnyBoy said:

watered over 18 trees opposite our house y'day, only two years old so likely could die due to drought. Must have used over 1000 litres of water, 45l buckets around 25 

 

Did notice the pear trees and apple trees were fruiting, albeit tiny fruits, but a good sign. 

Please may you come and water my star jasmine and my bay trees? I've broken my ankle. 

[leicsmac]

7 hours ago, davieG said:

There's was a TV programme about Corby it was proved that when they were removing toxic waste to a safe place the trucks taking it were not being cleaned externally before travelling through Corby with the toxic waste on their tyres and underbody and contaminating all the streets they travelled on.

Yes, I believe there was a dramatisation with Jodie Whittaker in it?

 

The real tragedy, as appears with lots of such problems, is that those responsible have the resources to dodge accountability long enough for it not to really matter.

 

11 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

So, not super powers? 

Sadly no mutations and evolution leaping forward resulting in X-Men from this one, no.

[davieG]

Didcot Railway Centre
 ·Follow

On this day in history – Sunday 10 August 1975, the four-car experimental gas-turbine-powered Advanced Passenger Train Experimental (APT-E) achieved a speed record of 152.3 mph, which was maintained for two miles on the up (towards London) line east of Didcot. This photograph shows the train travelling through Didcot station at 150 mph, plus. The coal stage and water tank of Didcot Railway Centre can be seen in the right background.
The test runs were carried out early in the morning, because the gas turbine engines progressively lost power as the outside air heated up. The train was able to do its record breaking because the main line through Didcot was closed on Sundays that year for engineering work in preparation for introduction of Inter-City 125 high speed trains in 1976.
The APT-E consisted of two driving power cars and two trailer cars. Each power car was equipped with four Rover-built Leyland 2S/350 gas turbines (and a fifth for auxiliary power supplies), these initially produced 300 HP each but were progressively uprated to 330 HP. Two GEC 253AY nose suspended traction motors provided the traction on the leading bogies. The vehicles were manufactured from aluminium, approximately 70 ft long (21 m) with articulated bogies between them. 
APT-E used tilting technology, to enable it to go round curves faster than conventional trains. The train is now preserved at the National Railway Museum's Locomotion outbase in Shildon.

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

Yes, I believe there was a dramatisation with Jodie Whittaker in it?

 

Attack the Block.

 

I believe this was a factual documentary.

[leicsmac]

10 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Attack the Block.

 

I believe this was a factual documentary.

Just looked the one I watched up - Toxic Town, on Netflix. 

[Zear0]

Eclipse, Perseid’s peaking and forecasted clear skies. Bit of a treat.

[davieG]

[davieG]

When old technology is abandoned and the environment is left to suffer.

 

Drew Binsky  ·

Follow

 

America's 8 Most Unliveable Towns

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Br5nhADA7/

[SpacedX]

So in spite of rough seas over the last 24 days, flight 13's starship 40 is still afloat and is being towed off Christmas Island for recovery awaiting engineering analysis and return to Starbase in Texas. It resembles a stricken carcass of a stranded baleen whale. 

 

[davieG]

Britain turns to floating wind farms as it runs out of shallow waters
Story by Jonathan Leake 

 

Britain turns to floating wind farms as it runs out of shallow waters

 

Seems somewhat controversial 

[Grebfromgrebland]

Why's it controversial?

[davieG]

58 minutes ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

Why's it controversial?

Because it's not universally liked, certainly the fishing industry is against it and they're having to offer massive subsidies. It's all in the article.

 

[Innovindil]

1 hour ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

Why's it controversial?

Floating wind farms have been offered about £270 per megawatt hour (MWh) – about three to four times the normal price of wholesale electricity.

 

I'd say this is why, probably.

[leicsmac]

I'm sure there are more economical renewable options, but in the midst of that discussion it's probably better to remember that the option chosen has to be renewable. 

[CornwallFox]

38 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

Floating wind farms have been offered about £270 per megawatt hour (MWh) – about three to four times the normal price of wholesale electricity.

 

I'd say this is why, probably.

I honestly cannot understand why the government hasn't simply built wind, solar and tidal generation itself, cutting out the middle man, then have a nationalised energy that sells to the people at a bit over cost price to cover building and maintenance. The cost of renewable energy production is incredibly low, why are we promising returns for companies instead of focusing on cutting costs for households. Obviously the right wing media and political class would have a fit and publish all sorts of scare stories, but I can't see how it wouldn't be hugely popular.