NASA Announces $1.5 Million ‘Green’ Aircraft Challenge

The NASA Innovative Partnerships Program and the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation today announced the Green Flight Challenge. The contest is a flight efficiency competition for aircraft that can average at least 100 mph on a 200-mile flight while achieving greater than 200 passenger miles per gallon.

The prize for the aircraft with the best performance is $1.5 million. The competition is scheduled for July 2011 at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa, CA. A variety of innovative experimental aircraft using electrical, solar, bio-fuel or hybrid propulsion are expected to enter. Several major universities and aircraft builders have expressed their intention to enter teams in the challenge.

To win, teams must use cutting-edge technologies in mechanical and electrical engineering, structures, aerodynamics and thermodynamics. As a national showcase of "green" technology, the challenge is expected to help advance all three of the major climate mitigation initiatives: efficiency, conservation and zero-carbon energy sources. These technologies will support advances in aviation and may have broader applications in transportation and energy storage.

The Green Flight Challenge is administered for NASA by CAFE. Founded in 1981, CAFE is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the understanding of personal aircraft technologies through research, analysis and education.
NASA is providing the prize money as part of the Centennial Challenges program. The program seeks innovative solutions to problems of interest to NASA and the nation from diverse and unconventional sources. Competitors may not receive government funding for their entries in this challenge.

For information about CAFE and competing in this challenge, visit:

http://cafefoundation.org/v2/main_home.php

For more information about Centennial Challenges, visit:

http://www.ipp.nasa.gov/cc

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

Obama On U.S. Oil Imports: Lying Or Just Ignorant?

In a 6 July 2009 interview with the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Obama gave the same false information on U.S. oil imports he has been repeating since at least February of this year:

We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy.  Yet we import more oil today than ever before [Emphasis mine].

That quote is from the official White House transcript of the interview.

Obama was wrong in February and is wrong today.

The above chart from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, shows that U.S. oil imports peaked in November 2005 and have been declining ever since.

On the page at the above link, you may view a data table of the U.S. weekly oil imports from 1991 to date.

Now, I know the facts on this, you (now) know the facts on this, but the President of the United States keeps spouting inaccuracies about U.S. oil imports. I found this data very easily, and I would kinda think Obama—backed by dozens of staff and a trillion-dollar bureaucracy—could as well.

Yet Obama has been spouting this drivel since at least February 2009—even though the facts are laughably easy to obtain.

So my question is this:

Are Obama and his administration lying or simply ignorant and inept?

The answer has to be one of those two choices.

Frankly, neither answer sits well with me, nor should it with you.

Congressional Witness Intimidation: David Sokol Video Interview

As reported in my 16 June article, GOP Congressmen have accused Congressman Ed Markey of witness intimidation during the dissenting testimony of MidAmerica Energy CEO David Sokol.

Although the vast majority of the media has remained ominously—and unconscionably—silent, Larry Kudlow of CNBC interviewed Sokol on the matter.

Congressman Joe Barton, (R-Texas), appears, in committee, at the beginning of the video, questioning Markey’s actions.

Sokol states that in a conversation with the Congressman, Markey suspiciously maintains that—though his signature was on the letter to FERC—he had no knowledge whatsoever of the letter until after it was sent.

Below is an embedded video of the Kudlow-Sokol interview, (you may have to suffer a brief advertisement at the beginning). Shockwave-flash is required to view the video.


Update! Articles pertaining to the scandal may be found at these links:
Congressman Intimidates Congressional Witnesses
Congressional Witness Intimidation: David Sokol Video Interview (this article)
Is The Media Covering Up A Political Scandal?
Why The Media Blackout Of Congressional Scandal?
GOP Press Release On Congressman Markey Scandal
Congressional Scandal Videos: Sokol Testimony, Markey Apology

Congressman Intimidates Congressional Witnesses

Congressional witnesses intimidated, major news media silent

The individual you see on the right is Congress-critter Ed Markey, (D-Mass.), one of the co-authors of the Waxman-Markey bill, (AKA Cap-and-Trade bill), H.R. 2454. On Tuesday, 9 June 2009, Markey’s subcommittee held hearings on the bill.

Among the witnesses heard by the subcommittee on that day was David L. Sokol, Chairman of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company, who testified on behalf of GOP opposition.

Mr. Sokol spoke against the bill on his company’s website:

“The Waxman-Markey bill is a cap and trade program that will force our customers to pay two expensive costs,” Sokol said. “First, they will pay the cost of emissions allowances purchased on a complex auction market that will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and second, they will pay the cost of replacing our existing fossil-fuel generation facilities with low-carbon alternatives.”
As a result, Sokol said MidAmerican could not join the Edison Electric Institute in endorsing Waxman-Markey. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce began legislative consideration of the measure today. “Cap and trade will have a profoundly negative impact on people who are struggling to make ends meet in an economy still in distress[.]”

David L. Sokol

Mr. Sokol said that and much more in his testimony before the subcommittee, apparently provoking a criminal response from Markey, according to The Hill:

Energy panel Republicans are levying accusations of witness intimidation against Democratic Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the key authors of the contentious House climate change bill.
Republicans have seized on a letter – a copy of which was obtained by The Hill – that Markey penned to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff asking FERC to investigate the actions of a major energy company on the same day that the company’s CEO was set to testify before the energy panel on the dangers of a carbon cap and trade system.
According to the June 9 letter, Markey requested that Wellinghoff probe how thoroughly MidAmerican Energy Holdings – a $41 billion company in which Warren Buffet is a major investor – followed up on promises to invest as much as $15 billion in electric transmission expansion in the wake of the repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act in 2005.
In fact, Markey singled out MidAmerican Energy to also ask FERC to look into his concerns “that the repeal of PUHCA has also freed large multi-state public utility companies to diversify into other potentially risky business, to the potential detriment of utility investors and consumers.”
“For example, MidAmerican Holdings has acquired the second largest real estate brokerage company in the country,” Markey wrote in his six-page letter. “What protections have been put in place to prevent utility shareholders, such as those of MidAmerican Holdings’ regulated utilities, to prevent them from rate increases, higher costs for borrowing, or other risks with might be associated with unsuccessful or failed diversifications?”

The Hill continued:

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on Markey’s Energy and Environment Subcommittee, received a copy of the letter.
GOP sources confirmed that Republicans reacted furiously when they saw that the letter was sent the very same day that MidAmerican’s CEO, David L. Sokol, was testifying as a Republican witness before Markey’s subcommittee.

I should add: Markey’s letter was sent during Sokol’s testimony.

You may download a scanned copy of Markey’s letter to the FERC as a PDF at this link.

In the 11 June 2009 edition of the Omaha World-Herald, Sokol said he was “he was singled out by name” in the letter, (indeed, he was, as were his company and it’s primary shareholder), and accused Markey of trying to intimidate him into backing off on the Cap-and-Trade issue.

Rep. Lee Terry, (R-Neb.), a member of the Energy and Environment committee, said Markey's letter was retaliation for Sokol's testimony and intended as a message for future witnesses:

"Having Warren [Buffet] and Dave's credibility questioned like that—the whole result of that is to intimidate the next witness.”

Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), also a member of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee had this reaction:

“I am deeply troubled by the message this sends, whether it was accidental or intentional… If I had gotten that letter, I would have gotten the message that it was sent to intimidate me.”
“It is essential that witnesses be allowed to come forward and give candid testimony.”

On Friday, 12 June 2009, Markey dismissed the GOP’s concerns, claiming his letter to the FERC was in process days before he knew Sokol would be testifying: Yet, he sent it anyway, surely realizing how it would be perceived—realistically, how on Earth could he possibly not?

If you, gentle reader, were sitting on that committee, listening to testimony which could reduce or help reduce your bill to a smoking, useless ruin, and you knew your letter was going out within moments, singling out the witness by name and launching an investigation into his company in particular, would it never, ever occur to you that such letter and subsequent investigation would be regarded as nothing other than direct and retaliatory intimidation—intimidation not only of this witness but of all future dissenting witnesses sitting before congressional committees?

Of course it would occur to you; and I submit it beggars credulity to suppose it did not occur to Markey or his staff.

In a grammatically-disgraceful attempt at damage control, Markey said:

“I would never seek to intimidate or retaliate against a person from having to come in and having to testify before this subcommittee.”

And in a hasty—this time, merely grammatically-awkward—follow-up letter to the FERC, Markey wrote:

“I did not intend for the Commission to focus on just one company but rather on the industry as a whole.”

My friend, if you buy into that steaming pile of horse-hockey, you must still be dazed from your fall off the turnip truck.

Other than Sokol, Buffet and their company, no other companies or individuals—outside of government—are mentioned or alluded to in Markey’s entire 6-page letter to the FERC.

Yet Markey maintains he didn’t intend to focus on Sokol’s company? This must be some new and esoteric use of the word “focus” about which I haven’t been informed.

Few things are more important in a free society than the sovereignty of a witness.

If a witness—any witness, anywhere, in any court or governmental venue—fears personal or professional reprisals due to his testimony, unless he is a very special individual he will simply parrot what he believes will please his questioners and the truth be damned.

Any behavior—intentional or otherwise—which threatens the sanctity of official testimony threatens our freedom, threatens our society, threatens our families, threatens us as individuals and simply cannot be tolerated in the slightest.

Even if you believe Markey so incredibly stupid as to be oblivious to the timing and implications of his action, the fact is—by his own admission—he did it!

Any witness before a congressional committee—now, and long into the future—will think twice before he opens his mouth.

Markey has done an awful thing. A frightful thing. An intolerable thing.

For Congress to maintain whatever credibility, legitimacy and efficacy it may have left, Markey has to be called before the mast.

Markey must be punished and Congress must see to it that he is. Publically.

For all that, there is another—equally disturbing—issue here:

Clicking this link will take you to a Google News search for the keywords: Markey intimidation.
At that link, you will see that not one major media outlet is giving this scandal any coverage whatsoever!
In point of fact, as of this writing, 16 June, only The Hill, the Omaha World-Herald and the Salt Lake Tribune—out of all the major and minor newspapers and TV news outlets—have even mentioned this, and those three have been utterly silent since 13 June.

How can this be? How can this possibly be?

President Clinton did the smokey-pokey with a dumpy intern and the whole world knew about it! They must have heard of it on Pluto for pete’s sake!

Yet, members of the Congress of the United States have accused a sitting congressman of intimidating a congressional witness during hearings on a presidentially-approved, trillion-plus-dollar bill and no national media outlet is giving it so much as a brief mention?

It doesn’t matter who is right or who is wrong—this is nonetheless a very serious matter, but the media is keeping mum.

Why?

They must know about it: I do, you do, the mentioned newspapers do.

You might think that some journalists are ignoring the scandal because they want Markey’s climate bill to pass and to hell with propriety; but not all of them support this or, indeed, other climate bills. Yet, they are silent as well.

It’s quiet—too quiet.

There’s something going on here that I don’t like—and you shouldn’t either.

Update! Articles pertaining to the scandal may be found at these links:
Congressman Intimidates Congressional Witnesses (this article)
Congressional Witness Intimidation: David Sokol Video Interview
Is The Media Covering Up A Political Scandal?
Why The Media Blackout Of Congressional Scandal?
GOP Press Release On Congressman Markey Scandal
Congressional Scandal Videos: Sokol Testimony, Markey Apology

Has Cold Fusion Been Verified By US Navy Lab?

Researchers have reported compelling new scientific evidence for the existence of low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR). The LENR process—also called "cold fusion"—may portend a limitless and environmentally-clean method for generating electricity. The group of Navy scientists describes what it terms the first clear visual evidence that LENR devices can produce neutrons; subatomic particles which indicate nuclear reactions are taking place.

Their report—which injects new life into this controversial field—was presented 23 March at the American Chemical Society's National Meeting. It was among 30 papers on the topic presented during a four-day symposium, New Energy Technology, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the first description of cold fusion.

The study was undertaken at the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California, and published in the peer-reviewed journal, Naturwissenschaft, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-008-0449-x (SpringerLink subscription required).

Co-author and analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss, Ph.D. said:

"Our finding is very significant… to our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from an LENR device."

Fusion is the energy source which powers the sun and stars. Scientists have been striving to reproduce—in a controlled fashion—that power here on Earth. Fueled by deuterium—an abundant isotope of hydrogen easily extracted from seawater—fusion reactors would provide a clean and cheap source of electricity. For decades, prevailing fusion research concentrated on a sophisticated new genre of nuclear reactors able to withstand temperatures of tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit—hence, often called “hot” fusion.

The first report on "cold fusion," presented in 1989 by Martin Fleishmann and Stanley Pons, was a global scientific sensation. In contrast to the huge, complex and tremendously expensive “hot” fusion reactors, Pons and Fleishmann claimed to have achieved nuclear fusion at comparatively "cold" room temperatures—in a simple, tabletop laboratory device termed an electrolytic cell.

Other researchers could not seem to reproduce Pons and Fleishmann’s results, and the field of cold fusion research declined. A stalwart cadre of scientists persisted, however, seeking solid evidence that nuclear reactions can occur at low temperatures. One problem in proving the existence of low-energy (cold) nuclear reactions involved the extreme difficulty in using conventional electronic instruments to detect the small number of neutrons produced in the process.

In their new study, Mosier-Boss and colleagues inserted an electrode composed of nickel or gold wire into a solution of palladium chloride mixed with deuterium or "heavy water" in a process called co-deposition. They passed electric current through the solution—causing a reaction within seconds—using a special plastic, CR-39, to capture and track any high-energy particles emitted, including any neutrons emitted during the fusion of deuterium atoms.

They examined the plastic microscopically, discovering patterns of "triple tracks;" tiny-clusters of three adjacent pits that appear to split apart from a single point, (see the photo above). The researchers say that the track marks were made by subatomic particles released when neutrons smashed into the plastic. Significantly, no such tracks were seen if the experiment was repeated using normal rather than heavy water. Mosier-Boss and colleagues believe the neutrons originated in nuclear reactions, perhaps from the combining or fusing deuterium nuclei.

"People have always asked 'Where's the neutrons?'" Mosier-Boss said. "If you have fusion going on, then you have to have neutrons. We now have evidence that there are neutrons present in these LENR reactions."

They cited other evidence for nuclear reactions occurring in their experiment, including X-rays, tritium, (another isotope of hydrogen), and excess heat. Meanwhile, Mosier-Boss and colleagues are continuing to explore the phenomenon to get a better understanding of exactly how LENR works—key to controlling it for practical purposes.

Mosier-Boss points out that the field currently gets very little funding and, despite its promise, researchers cannot predict when—or if—LENR may emerge from the lab with practical applications.

Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss's published work, said the study did not provide a plausible explanation of how cold fusion could take place in the conditions described.

"It fails to provide a theoretical rationale to explain how fusion could occur at room temperatures. And in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons," he told the Houston Chronicle. "The whole point of fusion is, you’re bringing things of like charge together. As we all know, like things repel, and you have to overcome that repulsion somehow."

Padley’s remarks in no way negate the SPAWAR team’s findings and those findings in no way negate Padley’s comments: Isaac Newton, in his Principia Mathematica, formulated the mathematical laws governing gravitational force, though Newton never understood what gravity was or how it attracted objects.

The Navy team has performed experiments and released the results of those experiments—a fundamental step in scientific inquiry. The next step is for other researchers to precisely reproduce the apparatus used by Mosier-Boss and her team, perform the same experiment the same way under the same conditions and see if they derive they same results. If they do, the following step is to attempt to explain exactly what is happening, why and what physical and chemical processes are involved.

Other speakers at the conference presented evidence supporting cold fusion, including Antonella De Ninno, a scientist with New Technologies Energy and Environment (Rome), who reported both excess heat and helium gas.

"We now have very convincing experimental evidence," De Ninno claimed.

Tadahiko Mizuno of Japan's Hokkaido University also reported excess heat generation and gamma-ray emissions.

All three research groups are currently exploring both experimental and theoretical studies in hopes of better understanding the cold fusion process well enough to commercialize it.

These experimental results may be due to a cold fusion/LENR process or they may be the effects of chemical or physical processes not yet understood. Clearly, something is going on in such experiments which requires further scrutiny. Whatever the ultimate explanation, science can only be enriched by answering the questions raised: There is no downside to exploring this matter to its definitive conclusion.

If these findings are, indeed, evidence of a cold fusion process and this process can be extenuated into a practical means of inexpensively generating electricity in large quantity, we may be witnessing the first steps of a discovery which will benefit mankind—not in a small way, but in a truly revolutionary fashion.

Those with high-speed connections may watch streaming videos from the ACS cold fusion conference at:

Session 1, Session 2

America Unplugged! Obama's Cruel Tax on the Poor

America Unplugged! Obama's Cruel Tax on the Poor
Obama's "ideological" energy plan would cripple US economy

by Orson Scott Card

A reprint of an article which originally appeared in the Rhino Times of Greensboro, NC.

October 30, 2008

Obama isn't cutting taxes for the poor, because they don't pay any.

Instead, he's planning to make it so expensive to generate electricity that only the rich can afford to use their appliances whenever they want.

Why? It's all in the name of Obama's true belief in global warming. He says it himself – he'll take coal off the table as an "ideological matter." Even if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, he's opposed to pursuing it.

He wants to put a huge penalty on companies that emit carbon – which means that starting up new coal-powered electrical plants will be prohibitively expensive. In Obama's own words, "It will bankrupt them."

"Cap and trade" plans have already been tried, and they don't work – they cost too much and people find ways to get around them. But Obama promises us that he'll take that failed idea and be "as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's" plan.

In other words, if it doesn't work, let's do more of it!

This is Obama the New Puritan. We've found his real religion: Political and environmental correctness.

It's more important to him to eliminate coal than to find practical solutions. Why? Because coal is "bad." Our groupthinking "intellectual" elite thinks they are post-religious – but they believe in sin and hate the sinners.

(Real intellectuals are skeptical and look for evidence before they embrace an idea; global warming, like the rest of the dogmas of the extreme left, are believed without proof, by faith alone.)

For the New Puritans, global warming is the vengeful god that must be placated. Our economy is the sacrifice to that deity. In the name of global warming, we must destroy our quality of life – and, like sales tax, it will hurt the poorest people first and most.

Unfortunately, human-caused global warming exists only in the way Zeus exists – in the imagination of believers who ignore obvious natural explanations. So this sacrifice of America's most bountiful and reliable energy source (until we can get solar and wind and nuclear up and running) is to a god that only seems real to people who are not serious about staying connected to reality.

Right now it is vital that we convert all our land transportation to electricity so we can wean ourselves from oil (and save that fuel for air transport). It will take far longer to convert away from coal as a source of that electricity – so what we need right now, as a temporary measure, is to build more generating capacity.

Obama would freeze us where we are. Literally.

Our electrical system would be rationed, or as intermittent as in Saddam's Iraq or today's Nigeria – oil-rich countries that did such a poor job of providing electricity to their citizens that it might go away for weeks, and when it comes back on, it's only for a few hours a day.

The poor would be hardest hit. When that electric bill is bigger than your house payment, something's got to go. What do you turn off? The fridge? The stove? Using the microwave is out of the question. Hair dryers? Gone. And you can forget watching DVDs or television.

It's Obama's first album: America Unplugged.

But the harm to the poor wouldn't stop with their inability to afford to use the appliances that the rest of America gets to use. With energy costs soaring to assuage Obama's god, people will have less money to spend. The cost of manufacturing everything would soar.

Let's see – higher prices, less income. Do you see vast unemployment following?

Not only will the poor be worse off, there'll be a whole lot more of them.

Why didn't the San Francisco Chronicle tell us about this back in January, when Obama laid out this plan?

Because it wasn't good for the rest of the country to know what Obama really plans to do. If we knew the truth, we might not vote for the "anointed ruler."

So why did this tape emerge now? Maybe some reporter or editor got an attack of honesty. Or maybe they woke up when they saw Obama declare war on the press – punishing newspapers and TV stations that were not sufficiently loyal to the anointed ruler.

Think of it: Not only can we have Nigeria's electrical power system, we can have Egypt's and Russia's "free" press! All courtesy of Obama!

For a long time we really haven't been able to find out who Obama is. But now, as the anointed ruler makes his triumphal parade to Mount Olympus, his arrogance is showing.

We caught a glimpse when he sneered at religion, saying that we turn to it only out of bitterness – rather than, say, faith, or charity, or love of virtue, or spirituality.

Obama thinks like a New Puritan – the people who punish anyone who speaks an incorrect thought. You've seen how they borked Joe the Plumber and, for that matter, Sarah Palin, accusing them of terrible things – none of which were even bad!

Obama thinks that coal is the devil. But when you ban coal as a source of additional electricity, you cripple our ability to transition to the technologies we must have to keep our great, world-fueling economy going.

But Obama, when you bring the whole global economic system crashing down, what do you think we'll use to heat our houses – or caves – then?

Coal and trees. Lots and lots of carbon.

Obama and his elitist friends think they're smart, but they don't live on planet Earth, they live in a playhouse where they can make huge messes with their stupid policies and then pretend that the mess is someone else's fault while they hope for some invisible mommy to come and clean it up.

The invisible mommy so far has been the American people and the resilient economy that we create (along with the few remaining moral standards that have not yet been crushed).
But we can't clean up after Obama's plan if we're too broke to turn on the lights.

Copyright © 2008 by Orson Scott Card

Don't wait for permission – reprint, forward or link to this now.