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Hundreds of millions of people in India lost power this summer, in part because of a delayed monsoon season. Rainfall may seem far removed from power plants, but the fate of water in a region often affects the power there, too. In India’s case, the late rains meant farmers took more water from rivers to water their crops. The rivers were left with too little energy for the country’s hydropower plants.?

In the future, water shortages could lead to simultaneous electricity and fuel shortages, according to a?new report?from the International Energy Agency. The Paris-based agency studies the global energy market and helps 28 nations coordinate with each other during an oil supply emergency. The agency’s findings underscore the limit of the world’s supply of fresh water. “It is a growing concern,” Kelly Twomey Sanders, a University of Texas doctoral student in Austin who studies water and energy use, told TechNewsDaily.

“We’ve certainly seen this in the past,” said Vince Tidwell, a hydrologist at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. In the past few years, nuclear power plants in the U.S. and France have had to temporarily dial down the amount of electricity they make because they overheated the water they use for cooling, Tidwell said.?

France’s reduced power production prevented people from turning on their air conditioners and contributed to the thousands of deaths during the 2003 European?heat wave, said Sanders, who like Tidwell was not involved in the International Energy Agency report.

Water also could limit how much oil the U.S. extracts, depending on whether U.S. companies perform more hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the future. The International Energy Agency expects fracking, which is gaining popularity in the U.S., to help North America become the world’s No. 1 producer of oil in 2020.

Rising trends

The rising concerns come out of the intersection of several trends. People around the world are expected to demand more energy as populations grow and more people in developing countries buy cars and get electricity in their homes. At the same time, global warming will cause?droughts?and other water shortages in certain regions. [SEE ALSO:?What Country Faces the Worst Climate Change]

As energy demand goes up, so will the demand for fresh water. The International Energy Agency expects the demand for water just for energy production ? not including water for washing, drinking or irrigating crops ? to grow twice as quickly as the demand for energy itself.?

That is a “reasonable guess,” said Mike Hightower, a Sandia engineer who contributed to a 2006 report to the U.S. Congress on how the energy sector uses water.?

How energy tech uses water

Fifteen percent of the water the world currently uses goes to making energy, according to the International Energy Agency. Nuclear, coal and other power plants use water to make hot steam to turn turbines, plus more water to cool and condense the steam. In addition, some newer energy technologies, including ones designed to be more environmentally friendly, use more water than their traditional counterparts.

Examples include fracking, an oil and natural-gas mining technique that requires millions of gallons of water per well to release natural gas from shale deposits.?

“Greener” biofuels made from plants require water while the plants grow. Driving a mile on corn ethanol uses about 100 times more water than traditional gasoline, Sanders said, while biofuels made from algae can use 1,000 times more water than gas does.

A newer power plant cooling technique, called closed loop cooling, draws less water than traditional open loop cooling but loses more of what it draws to evaporation, so it consumes more water overall.

With closed loop systems, power plants draw in water from a river, reservoir or another source, then reuse the water until it has all evaporated. In open loop systems, power plants continually draw in new water and dump their once-used, warm water back into the source.

Many countries are now building closed loop plants because they trap and kill fewer fish.?

For the future

To help relieve the water crunch, power plants may turn to some new water-saving technologies. Solar panels and?wind turbines?use much less water than coal or gas plants do. Companies could make biofuels from species such as switchgrass that are more water-efficient than corn. Fracking companies could develop methods to use less water or reuse water.

Power plants, the greatest water-users among energy technologies, could use non-potable water or air instead of clean, drinkable water to cool the steam that turns their turbines.?

Alternative cooling systems tend to be more expensive to build and maintain, however. Some may be out of reach for developing countries, Hightower said. Nevertheless, developed countries that find themselves needing power plants in drier areas may simply have to pony up for the more-expensive tech. One Texas power plant already has: “They actually had to install dry cooled systems because they just physically didn’t have enough water,” Sanders said.?Dry systems use air instead of water for cooling and are more inefficient.

Sandia is currently helping U.S. cities plan power plants around water availability, Hightower said. Engineers in other countries are likely doing the same, he added.

“This is a concern; we need to look at it and address it, start looking at it now,” Hightower said.?

Corrected Nov. 20: The original story said corn ethanol is 1,000 times more water intensive than traditional gasoline. Corn ethanol actually uses about 100 times more water than gasoline, while biofuels made from algae use 1,000 times more water.

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. You can follow TechNewsDaily staff writer Francie Diep on Twitter @franciediep. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/droughts-cause-power-outages-021729377.html

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Public release date: 8-Nov-2012
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Contact: kathryn Knight
kathryn@biologists.com
44-078-763-44333
The Company of Biologists

Armoured in elaborate scales, the skins of crocodiles and alligators are much prized by the fashion industry. But sadly, not all skins are from farmed animals. Some are from endangered species and according to Ken Catania from Vanderbilt University, USA, sometimes the only way to distinguish legitimate hides from poached skins is to look at the distribution of thousands of microscopic pigmented bumps that pepper crocodiles’ bodies. Adding that the minute dome organs are restricted to the faces of alligators, Catania puzzled, ‘What are the organs for?’ Explaining that they have been proposed to detect subtle shifts in water salinity and shown to sense ripples in water, Catania says, ‘We suspected that there might be more to the story’, so he and Duncan Leitch teamed up to take a closer look at the small structures. The duo discovered that the bumps are tactile and even more touch sensitive than human fingertips. They publish their discovery in The Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb.biologists.org.

Observing the skin of American alligators and Nile crocodiles with scanning electron microscopy, Leitch could see that each dome was surrounded by a hinge depression. And when he sliced through a series of domes to identify the sensory receptor structures beneath, he found sensitive free nerve endings near the dome surface, and laminated corpuscle structures which are vibration sensitive and dermal Merkel complexes which respond to sustained pressure in the lowest skin layer.

Next, Leitch stained the nerve structures leading from the skin through the reptile’s jaw and painstakingly traced the sensitive trigeminal nerve as it branched to the domes. ‘The innervation of these jaws was incredible!’ exclaims Catania. The entire jaw was infiltrated with a delicate network of nerves. ‘There was a tremendous number of nerve endings and each of the nerve endings comes out of a hole in the skull’, Leitch adds. Referring to the animal’s combative lifestyle, he suggests that this arrangement protects the delicate trigeminal nerve fibres carried inside the skull from damage during attacks while maximising the nerve endings’ sensitivity at the surface.

But none of these observations answered the question of which system the domes relay sensory information to. Recalling that the domes had been proposed to detect salinity changes and even electric fields, Leitch gently bathed the limbs of Nile crocodiles in brackish water while carefully recording the electrical activity in the spinal nerve, but couldn’t detect a signal. And when he repeated the experiments while applying a weak electric field to the water, there was no response again. However, when Leitch gently touched one of the sensory domes with a minute hair designed to test human touch sensitivity, he discovered that the domes around the animals’ teeth and jaws were even more touch sensitive than human finger-tips. And when he filmed crocodiles and alligators going about their business in the aquarium at night, he was impressed at how fast the animal’s 50 ms response times were. ‘As soon as they feel something touch, they snap at it’, recalls Catania.

So, why do such well-armoured animals require such an exquisite sense of touch? Leitch suggests that this sensitivity allows the animals to distinguish rapidly between unpalatable pieces of debris and tasty prey while also allowing mother crocodiles to dextrously aid their hatching young by extracting them from the egg with their jaws. The pair is keen to understand how these sensory areas map onto the forebrain. Explaining that massive regions of the human brain are dedicated to processing touch sensory information, Catania says, ‘Crocodilians are not an ancestor to humans, but they are an important branch that allows us to fill in key parts of the evolutionary puzzle for how sensory maps in the forebrain have evolved’.

###

IF REPORTING ON THIS STORY, PLEASE MENTION THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY AS THE SOURCE AND, IF REPORTING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A LINK TO: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/23/4217.abstract

REFERENCE: Leitch, D. B. and Catania, K. C. (2012). Structure, innervation and response properties of integumentary sensory organs in crocodilians. J. Exp. Biol. 215, 4217-4230.

This article is posted on this site to give advance access to other authorised media who may wish to report on this story. Full attribution is required, and if reporting online a link to jeb.biologists.com is also required. The story posted here is COPYRIGHTED. Therefore advance permission is required before any and every reproduction of each article in full. PLEASE CONTACT permissions@biologists.com

THIS ARTICLE IS EMBARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY, 8 November 2012, 00.15 HRS EST (05:15 HRS GMT)

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 8-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: kathryn Knight
kathryn@biologists.com
44-078-763-44333
The Company of Biologists

Armoured in elaborate scales, the skins of crocodiles and alligators are much prized by the fashion industry. But sadly, not all skins are from farmed animals. Some are from endangered species and according to Ken Catania from Vanderbilt University, USA, sometimes the only way to distinguish legitimate hides from poached skins is to look at the distribution of thousands of microscopic pigmented bumps that pepper crocodiles’ bodies. Adding that the minute dome organs are restricted to the faces of alligators, Catania puzzled, ‘What are the organs for?’ Explaining that they have been proposed to detect subtle shifts in water salinity and shown to sense ripples in water, Catania says, ‘We suspected that there might be more to the story’, so he and Duncan Leitch teamed up to take a closer look at the small structures. The duo discovered that the bumps are tactile and even more touch sensitive than human fingertips. They publish their discovery in The Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb.biologists.org.

Observing the skin of American alligators and Nile crocodiles with scanning electron microscopy, Leitch could see that each dome was surrounded by a hinge depression. And when he sliced through a series of domes to identify the sensory receptor structures beneath, he found sensitive free nerve endings near the dome surface, and laminated corpuscle structures which are vibration sensitive and dermal Merkel complexes which respond to sustained pressure in the lowest skin layer.

Next, Leitch stained the nerve structures leading from the skin through the reptile’s jaw and painstakingly traced the sensitive trigeminal nerve as it branched to the domes. ‘The innervation of these jaws was incredible!’ exclaims Catania. The entire jaw was infiltrated with a delicate network of nerves. ‘There was a tremendous number of nerve endings and each of the nerve endings comes out of a hole in the skull’, Leitch adds. Referring to the animal’s combative lifestyle, he suggests that this arrangement protects the delicate trigeminal nerve fibres carried inside the skull from damage during attacks while maximising the nerve endings’ sensitivity at the surface.

But none of these observations answered the question of which system the domes relay sensory information to. Recalling that the domes had been proposed to detect salinity changes and even electric fields, Leitch gently bathed the limbs of Nile crocodiles in brackish water while carefully recording the electrical activity in the spinal nerve, but couldn’t detect a signal. And when he repeated the experiments while applying a weak electric field to the water, there was no response again. However, when Leitch gently touched one of the sensory domes with a minute hair designed to test human touch sensitivity, he discovered that the domes around the animals’ teeth and jaws were even more touch sensitive than human finger-tips. And when he filmed crocodiles and alligators going about their business in the aquarium at night, he was impressed at how fast the animal’s 50 ms response times were. ‘As soon as they feel something touch, they snap at it’, recalls Catania.

So, why do such well-armoured animals require such an exquisite sense of touch? Leitch suggests that this sensitivity allows the animals to distinguish rapidly between unpalatable pieces of debris and tasty prey while also allowing mother crocodiles to dextrously aid their hatching young by extracting them from the egg with their jaws. The pair is keen to understand how these sensory areas map onto the forebrain. Explaining that massive regions of the human brain are dedicated to processing touch sensory information, Catania says, ‘Crocodilians are not an ancestor to humans, but they are an important branch that allows us to fill in key parts of the evolutionary puzzle for how sensory maps in the forebrain have evolved’.

###

IF REPORTING ON THIS STORY, PLEASE MENTION THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY AS THE SOURCE AND, IF REPORTING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A LINK TO: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/23/4217.abstract

REFERENCE: Leitch, D. B. and Catania, K. C. (2012). Structure, innervation and response properties of integumentary sensory organs in crocodilians. J. Exp. Biol. 215, 4217-4230.

This article is posted on this site to give advance access to other authorised media who may wish to report on this story. Full attribution is required, and if reporting online a link to jeb.biologists.com is also required. The story posted here is COPYRIGHTED. Therefore advance permission is required before any and every reproduction of each article in full. PLEASE CONTACT permissions@biologists.com

THIS ARTICLE IS EMBARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY, 8 November 2012, 00.15 HRS EST (05:15 HRS GMT)

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/tcob-tcj110112.php

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How To Make Kick-Ass Emergency Cocktails Out of Whatever’s in Your Pantry

By Brent Rose

When the lights went out in a good portion of NYC and New Jersey, people holed up in their homes, and a lot of drinking occurred. If my Twitter feed is any indication, roughly 80 percent of those not in immediate danger got drunk.

But even if you’re stuck at home, dipping into the emergency whiskey, you can usually still make something tasty. In fact, you probably have what you need on hand already—because nearly every great cocktail just comes down to four basic ingredients.

It’s Friday afternoon, you’ve made it through the long week, and it’s time for >Happy Hour, Gizmodo’s weekly booze column. A cocktail shaker full of innovation, science, and alcohol. How long has that bottle been sitting in the back of the cabinet??

Let me start by saying that this is in no way meant to trivialize the suffering of the thousands and thousands of victims of Hurricane Sandy. This was a true disaster, and our hearts go out to everyone effected. If you can, please consider donating to Red Cross Hurricane Aid, and/or volunteering.?

Backstory

I was one of the lucky ones when Sandy hit. My apartment happens to be at a pretty high elevation and the flood never came anywhere near us. I had flashlights, water, food and everything ready should we lose power, but I was confident that we were in no immediate danger. So we decided to make some drinks.

My “bar,” if you can call it that, is a pretty random hodgepodge of booze, collected haphazardly over the years. It’s not what one might call well-balanced. But you see, that doesn’t really matter, because a little wisdom goes a long way, and a wise man taught me the golden rule.

The Formula

What do you think goes into an Old Fashioned cocktail? It’s rye or bourbon, simple syrup, angostura and orange bitters, served over ice, garnished with a twist, right? Well, that’s right. But it’s not the whole story. That’s only one example of what an Old Fashioned can be.

According to our friend, master barman Sother Teague, an Old Fashioned isn’t a recipe, it’s a formula. “Sugar, water, spirits, bitters. That’s an Old Fashioned,” says Sother. “That’s?the?cocktail, right? And people seem to have it in their heads that it’s rye whiskey, angostura bitters, white sugar, and water. It’s not. It’s sugar, water, spirits, bitters—which means I can use any spirit I can get my hands on. I can use white sugar, brown sugar, pomegranate, molasses…”

Armed with that knowledge, let’s go forth an?conquer?some taste buds.

The Necessities

The one thing that you absolutely must have and cannot get away from is spirits, as in hard alcohol. It doesn’t matter what kind of spirits. But if you don’t have any I’m afraid you’re out of luck. As the saying goes, “It is not advisable to attempt home-distilling during a hurricane (or really any other time).” I just said that. Now it’s a saying.?

Do not attempt to do something stupid, like use rubbing alcohol, hand sanitizer, hairspray, or mouthwash. I promise you, you’re better off sober. Seriously. This should be obvious, but it’s dangerous, so do not drink. Lesson for next time: Whiskey is a part of your storm preparation supply checklist.

The other almost-necessity is bitters. Bitters offer a very unique flavor that’s pretty much impossible to spoof with random ingredients. Just buy a bottle now and keep it around. It lasts a long time, and it is the glue that will hold your cocktail together. That said, if you’re reading this from a bunker and you forgot your bitters, we do have a suggestion for a substitute, but it’s not nearly as good as the real thing.

The Ratio

The exact ratio will vary depending on the ingredients you’re using and the flavor you’re going after. However, I would recommend starting with this ratio, and tweaking from there.

• 2 ounces of spirits
• 1/2 ounce of syrup
• 1 dash of bitters
• 1 or 2 ice cubes

?Mix the ingredients in a rocks glass (tumbler), add one or two ice cubes, and stir steadily for 45 seconds. Express an orange peel over the top if you’ve got it, or use a few drops of orange bitters.

Working with what I had, my go-to cocktail this week ended up being:

• 2 ounces of bourbon
• 1/2 ounce of ginger syrup
• 1 dash of Angostura bitters
• 1 large ice cube
• a few drops of Orange Citrate to top?

Break It Down

As Sother mention, the “sugar” component can really be just about anything. Syrup is great because it also helps take care of the “water” component. A good cocktail needs some dilution.?

My ginger syrup was extremely simple. I had bought a bunch of ginger several months ago, and it was going to go bad, so I juiced it. I then used a 1:1 ratio of sugar by weight. Once combined I simply stirred until it dissolved. Some people will tell you to heat it, but that adds?caramelized?flavors and makes it too sweet. The raw sugar juice keeps all of that spicy bite. I put a lid on it, stuck it in the fridge, and it still tastes about as fresh as the day it was made.

Another great way to make a syrup is with any fruit juices you happen to have in your fridge. Pour it into a pot, set the heat on low, bring it to a low simmer and keep it there, constantly stirring until you have a more viscous fluid. Let it cool some, then give it a taste. Add some sugar if necessary. This works with orange juice, apple juice, cranberry juice, really, pretty much anything. It’s delicious (as long as you don’t rush and burn it).?

Or, y’know, just use maple syrup. Or make a simple syrup by combining equal parts sugar and water by weight (or double the sugar, if by volume).

As I said, for bitters, there isn’t a whole lot you can do to replace a good bottle of Angostura. The closest subsitution I was able to find was by tossing four bags of black tea and a pinch of ground coffee into 12 ounces of boiling water, and simmering it until the water was just about completely gone. Then put the solids into a paper coffee filter (or a clean sock—hey, it’s an emergency), and squeeze into a container. It certainly won’t be as bitter as real bitters, but it can help bind your cocktail in a pinch. You can also try adding a little zest off a lemon peel if you have one lying around.

Why Bother?

Some of you will no doubt be wondering, “What the point? You’ve got the booze, the booze gets you drunk. Why gussy it up with all this fancy shit?” To each his own. I can only tell you why I’m recommending sipping cocktails rather than throwing back shots.?

When the shit hits the fan, and things are falling down around you, sometimes you want our escape to not just be a deadening of the mind, but an awakening of something else. Treating yourself to something delicious in a dire situation can help remind you that, regardless of today’s struggles, there are sweeter times ahead.

Anyway. Those are the basics. Now that you have the formula, you can experiment with your own formulas. Try some crazy combinations. You might just end up inventing the next great American cocktail. If you have a custom concoction you’re especially proud of, please let us know.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/7Mes-2Gins8/34850636141

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AP/Carlos Osorio

The new Quadski, a one-person motorboat that also drives on land, is being billed as the first commercially available, high-speed amphibious vehicle by its maker, Michigan-based Gibbs Technologies.

By Bryan Laviolette, TheDetroitBureau.com

We fire up the Gibbs Quadski ? the world?s first production, fast amphibian ? and head straight for the water. Just as the tires start to get wet, we instinctively grab the brake lever because, well, wheeled vehicles aren?t supposed to go in the water.

But then we remember that this wheeled vehicle is different. The fact that the Quadski can roll into the water is precisely what makes it special.

As a Gibbs marketing representative said, ?that?s when the magic happens.?

After pushing a button to raise the wheels ? the key feature that transforms the Quadski from land vehicle to boat ? we squeeze the throttle lever and in as little as five seconds after entering the water, we?re planing across the lake where we tested the vehicle.

TheDetroitBureau: EPA may slash use of ethanol in gasoline

Gibbs, founded by New Zealand industrialist Alan Gibbs, has been developing what it calls High Speed Amphibian technology for 15 years. But after teasing enthusiasts for years, it is finally going to start making one model of the long-awaited vehicles.

The Quadski can hit 45 mph in the water, the same on land. And a transition between the two takes as little as five seconds. That?s what Gibbs has said the Quadski would do and finally is ready to deliver after years of promises and premature production plans.

A year ago, we had a chance to take a quick spin on a Quadski prototype and came away thinking that it needed more pop ?out of the hole.? Problem solved. Gibbs completely redesigned the jet and impeller propulsion system, making it bigger to provide more thrust.

Now, the Quadski feels powerful from rest. It gets up on plane quickly and easily achieves top speed. Power comes from a 175-horsepower 1.3-liter four-cylinder lifted straight out of a BMW K1300 motorcycle.

The ride is smooth, and the Quadski feels well-balanced, although our test drive was on a mirror-smooth lake, so we can?t say how well it handles in rough water. It carves smooth turns, although the shallow V-shape of its hull results in it not being able to turn as well as the best-handling personal watercraft.

TheDetroitBureau.com:?’Big year’ for Chevrolet

One of the most controversial aspects of the Quadski is Gibbs? insistence that it doesn?t need four-wheel drive. Will the Quadski be able to hoist itself out of the water on slick or steep transition zones? Unfortunately, our test didn?t include any difficult spots on which to test the Quadski.

AP/Carlos Osorio

The Quadski zips across the water. It’s equally at home on a lake or on a trail.

Gibbs says that rear-wheel drive? ? with a limited-slip differential ? combined with the jet are more than enough to push the Q up any suitable landing.

Now, let?s check out the other half of the Quadski equation. It?s time to put the wheels back down and see what it can do on the trails. As easy as it is to go in the water, it?s just as easy to exit. After coming off the plane mode, toggle the wheels down. Because the jet is always engaged, we can still power through the water until the wheels reach land and help propel the vehicle out of the water.

All-terrain vehicles require far less power than personal watercraft, but the Quadski uses the same 1.3-liter BMW four-cylinder nestled under the seat for propulsion on land. At one point, Gibbs said its solution was to cut engine power while on land to 20 percent, but it is not currently publicizing that number. How much horsepower does the engine produce on land? The company won?t say.

Despite the cut in power, the Quadski accelerates quickly and easily hits its 45 mph top speed. Even with the limited-slip differential and the reduced power output, the the Q still willingly kicks out its tail end under power.

TheDetroitBureau.com: All I want for Christmas ? is my McLaren 12C?

The ride is very smooth, and the single-seat Quadski always feels stable. At 126 inches in length and 63 inches wide, it ought to.

Gibbs uses BMW?s constant-mesh six-speed manual transmission, but mounts its own automated clutch. Shifting is by a toggle switch on the left handlebar. There is no full automatic mode. Computers prevent the operator from over-revving the engine.

Does a vehicle with a 45-mph top speed need a six-speed transmission? Not really. Three speeds would be plenty. In water mode, the Q uses third gear.

Gibbs has been using a Polaris Sportsman 800 as a chase vehicle at its test site. The smaller Sportsman?s engine achieves 54 horsepower and doesn?t feel as quick as the Quadski, suggesting the Gibbs machine is probably producing about 80 horses while on land.

Many buyers will be tempted to try to eliminate the governor and coax the full 175 horses out of the engine on land. Better get an advanced computer-engineering degree, because you?re going to need it. Gibbs Chairman Neil Jenkins described the Quadski as tamper-proof.

TheDetroitBureau.com: VW looks at low-cost brand for emerging markets

The cut in power does not stop the fun on land. Even with a limited-slip differential, the Quadski allows some tail-out antics in turns.

Here?s what the Quadski is not: It is not the ultimate rock-hopper all-terrain vehicle. And it?s also not going to out-handle the most extreme personal watercraft. But it is a better ATV than any other personal watercraft, and it is a better personal watercraft than any other ATV.

Criticisms? The Quadski features a single large dial for speed with an LCD readout in the lower-right corner for other information such as tachometer readings and gear number. The LCD is virtually unreadable while moving. Gibbs officials said production versions would have a more legible LCD, but it?s still too small to see easily. A separate analog tachometer would be more useful.

Then again, even making reduced power on land, the Quadski is rarely wanting for power, so being in just the right gear isn?t all that important.

Also, there are several exposed screws on the body. While it?s a matter of taste, the Quadski would look better with hidden fasteners.

But nothing detracts from what the Quadski represents. Instead of having an ATV and a personal watercraft, you can now have one vehicle that is both.

Without getting off the vehicle, you can go from fishing in the middle of the bay to riding the trails. Instead of leaving your personal watercraft at the beach of a remote island, go farther on a Quadski. Forget the trouble of trailering and launching a personal watercraft; you can drive into the water right at the beach. Instead of storing an ATV and a personal watercraft on a trailer, you store one vehicle.

While the exact price has not been set, Gibbs announced it will be ?about? $40,000. The company will begin taking orders at gibbssportsamphibians.com next week. Deliveries will begin in November.

Now here?s the problem for everyone who doesn?t live in the eastern United States. With a plan to build just 1,000 of the machines in the first year, Gibbs will limit sales to just five or six dealers, all of which will be east of the Mississippi River. It expects to have as many as 20 dealers within a year.

As a new manufacturer building a product unlike anything else in existence in a new factory, the company wants to make sure the Quadski performs up to expectations before it ramps up production to 5,000 to 6,000 per year. The price is likely to come down as the company realizes economies of scale. How far could the price come down? Gibbs would like to get the price to the high 20 thousands.

Gibbs has been working on its High Speed Amphibian technology for 15 years. After years of broken promises and $200 million in development costs, the company is finally ready to put one of its amphibians into production.

The Quadski is just the start. The company is also taking orders for its Phibian, a 30-foot amphibian aimed at first responders. Variations on the Quadski are also expected.

And once it can clear more significant regulatory hurdles, the company will build an amphibious car, called the Aquada. In fact, the company originally developed its HSA technology for the Aquada, but decided to focus on other vehicles while the Aquada is mired with regulatory problems related to fundamental problems that make it impossible to meet all government regulations at the same time.

Source: http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/16/14454764-atv-turns-into-a-boat-and-here-is-our-verdict?lite

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A great deal more austerity. However, it makes a rather weak argument about a very real trade off problem, that problem is the water-energy trade off problem. In almost all forms of energy generation, it is not usable energy that is created directly, instead, heat is generated, the heat is used to do work, and the work is used to store the energy. So, the classic steam turbine has water heated to gas, and the resulting steam spins the turbine, and that carries wires through a magnetic field, which generates a corresponding electrical current, and that current is sent down wires. Another water energy trade off is to have wind turbines pump water up a shaft, which then is allowed to fall, spinning turbines, when power is needed. Bio-fuels, the same way: water is used to grow plants, the plants fix sunlight into hydrocarbons.

The solution to the water energy problem is more energy, because energy can be used to get water. This, however, lowers the Life Cycle Output of the energy system. LCO or LCA is the expected usable energy out, divided by the expected usable energy used to create and run a system. So if a system produces 10 watts for every watt it takes to build, run, and dispose of it, then its LCA is 10. The 20th century got by on a miracle: namely petroleum has a high LCA, and its its own storage mechanism. Gasoline has great power to weight storage capacities with internal combustion. And internal combustion engines can be built of very cheap metals. There are many quandaries in replacing hydro-carbon energy, and the water energy trade off that the piece mentions is one of them, but it is one of scale. Once there is a large enough renewable base, then the low LCA that getting the water to run it has, is not a problem. It is at the beginning, when the return is eaten through by the water problem, because there are competing uses for water that have much higher economic returns in the short run, such as airconditioning and agriculture. None of these uses want to pay much higher rates for water so that people not yet born can have the advantages.

Where the article falls down is pressing an agenda, and making sloppy equivalences. The first is equating capital requirements with expendable requirements: we don’t burn the rare earths we use in kinetic energy extraction ? that is water, wind, and geothermal ? and in fact, rare earths, are not, as a percentage of the earth’s crust, all that rare. For example, wikipedia has this chart [wikipedia.org]. It shows that all of the Lanthanide rare earths, plus scandium and yttrium, are more common than either gold or silver, many are more common than tin, and some more common than lead. The problem with them is that they tend to be found near the Actinide rare earths, particularly Thorium. If you have seen a press for “Thorium reactors” it is because exploitation of rare earths leads to Thorium by product, and reactors which burn it would be fantastically profitable, for the people who sell the rare earths. In reality, they have the same problems, only more so, of actively cooled salt reactors. Namely, they work until they blow up. The Chinese dump their Thorium in a holding lack, which, should it break, would contaminate large areas of land and volumes of water.

Side note: how is it that a browser’s spell check doesn’t know Actinide?

But for all of that, rare earths are not burned, the way for example Lithuium is not burned in a battery and can be recycled. These are recyclable, which is different from consumable. Hence moving from consumption of hydrocarbons, which really are burned, to using rare earths in capital energy, is a positive step, and while the author of the paper implies that there would be rare earth shortages, the reality is that this is not the case, and substitutes in the form of ceramics and active magnets (See Rare Earth Prices Plunge as Manufacturers turn to substitutes [mining.com]

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/bqyGP34ukOc/the-myth-of-renewable-energy

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The pollution level on Earth is raising each year. Individuals who have resolved to begin trying to save planet Earth have been shifting to a green living mode of life. The option to change over to a green living way of life is a choice individuals need to make for themselves. Living a green lifestyle has earned a bad rap by the radical groups that grab all of the headlines. If you want to help save the Earth, you don?t have to be a radical. For a number of people, making use of the power of the sun and wind is essential, but not everyone has to go to such extremes. If you opt to start living a green lifestyle, you can start off taking little steps; you don?t have to do everything right away. These things can easily be taught to youngsters so it becomes typical for them to do.

Use these hints to get going in going green. If you use fluorescent light bulbs, you can expect to save energy and they last a lot longer than a regular light bulb. Even though computers have become a thing that many people use, a laptop uses a lot less power than your desktop computer does. If you?re not in a room, make sure to turn off the electronics and lights there. Take the plugs out of the sockets them because if any light is still turned on, they are using power. The green movement is big on cutting down on fuel use, so keep your cars in excellent running condition, and keep your driving to a minimum. Correct tire inflation together with other scheduled upkeep will also help you conserve gas. If traffic stops for a few minutes, switch your engine off, because you are likely to save fuel and lessen pollution. Also, if you?re at the drive-thru window at the bank, turn off your car. The latest washing machines can not only save money and pollution by using less detergent, but they likewise use less water.

A big power savings is possible by keeping your thermostat down. By lowering your thermostat merely one or two degrees, you can save up to 10% in your heating bill. You should actually insulate your hot water pipes to help keep in the heat, because this is going to help you spend less on heating the water and you can save water by not having to let it run as long for hot water. To bring down your water use, you could buy the new shower heads that bring down the amount of water without losing the water pressure you want. There is one thing that many people do without having to think they are being green. Many people are into recycling, but their motive is to make cash. People can greatly bring down garbage in our landfills by just doing a little recycling. How difficult is it to reuse plastics, metals and paper products by dumping them in a nearby recycling area?

Numerous people don?t know that used batteries are recyclable instead of dumping them in the garbag. Also by purchasing locally grown food, you can help lower greenhouse gases, which are given off when trucks have to deliver food across the country. If each person on Earth planted a tree, it can help counterbalance the extra carbon dioxide on planet Earth. Planet Earth?s future can be reclaimed if every one would merely take one little step.

An important area of green living that can change the world is by utilizing alternative health remedies. Not only is it going to help your health to make use of herbal plants and organic foods, but ridding yourself chemical substances and pharmaceuticals is great for the Earth by lessening poisonous wastes. You do not need to go overboard, but living green is the proper choice.

Paul Nichols spends a lot of his time outside. His passion for the outdoors shows in the care he takes of his garden and his koi carp fish. Gardening the green way and eco friendly is his 1st concern and he attempts to educate this through his website. Visit koicarpfun.com to discover more about Paul and his passion.

Source: http://articlesideas.com/you-can-make-green-living-an-everyday-habit/

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