Sunday, January 26, 2025

Fires in LA

                                                                                      written 20 January, 2025

                                                                                  published 26 January, 2025

                  

            Parts of Los Angeles are still burning, even though I began writing this 2 weeks ago.

            The region received less than 0.1" of rain since October 1st, 2024.  Tuesday, January 7th, meteorological conditions created strong Santa Anna winds, rushing over the desert, down the coastal ranges, heating and drying as they progressed, blowing steadily at 50mph, gusting up to 100mph.  With winds this strong, fires are unstoppable. 

            That afternoon, the first fire was reported in the Pacific Palisades, between Santa Monica and Malibu.  This mountainous portion of the city, with narrow winding streets, has very expensive homes.  A hurricane of embers swept through, fire resources were overwhelmed, and evacuation became the only possible focus.  The water system, designed to supply residential needs, was exhausted within hours, leaving hydrants temporarily dry at the peak of demand.  Roads became clogged, as traffic congestion caused people to abandoned their cars and run for their lives.  Blocks upon blocks of housing and commercial buildings were reduced to ash and rubble, and video of the disaster made all the news outlets. 

            A few hours later, the Eaton fire was reported in Altadena, just north of Pasadena.  With fire resources already stressed, this heavily populated area was also suddenly burning, and evacuation was again the priority.  Soon, three more areas of the city were on fire, one near Hollywood and two in the San Fernando Valley.

            The next day, the winds were so strong, and smoke so thick, aerial firefighting was curtailed.  The extent of the damage was becoming clear.  By then, the Palisades fire had consumed 26 square miles and destroyed over 1,000 structures.  The second largest impact was the Eaton fire, burning 16 square miles and 900 structures.  The initial death toll was five, but 130,000 had been evacuated and 1.5 million were without power.

            By Thursday, winds had diminished some, allowing planes to help attack the flames.  A total of six named fires were now burning, consuming a combined total of 46 square miles and 5,000 buildings.

            On Friday, only the four biggest fires were still growing.  The Palisades fire had burned to the ocean, and the active front was expanding north into the wild lands of the Santa Monica mountains, and west into the hills above Malibu and Pepperdine University, having consumed 31 square miles, with 8 percent containment.  The Eaton fire, burning north into the San Gabriel mountains, consumed 21 square miles, was 3 percent contained.  In the San Fernando valley, the Kenneth fire in the west, and the Hurst fire in the north, each burning another 1.5 square miles, were both only 1/3 contained.  The death toll had reached ten, 10,000 structures had been destroyed, and 180,000 people had been evacuated.  

            By Sunday the 12th, the death toll was sixteen, with 62 square miles burned, but most of the power had been restored.  On the 20th, the regional death toll is 27, 14,000 structures were destroyed, and the Palisades fire is only 52 percent contained. 

            Over 25 years, California wild fires have more than doubled in extent, as atmospheric CO2 content grows, inexorably heating the planet.  15 of the 20 most destructive fires have occurred in just the last decade.  The 2018 Camp fire, which destroyed 18,800 buildings in Paradise, was the most expensive fire, but the Palisades fire is expected to top that, with regional economic impact estimates now as high as $250 billion.  

            But people still deny the climate crisis, even as the results make the evening news.  Our newly inaugurated "blamer-in-chief" pointed the finger at Biden and Newsom, yet is unable to propose any actual solutions.  Real problems require real people, but we only get a media distraction.  The fires we experienced in LA will become exponentially worse, growing larger and more frequent over time, until we collectively decide enough is enough.  This will be difficult to change.  Not only is the magnitude of the problem vast, but the mindset that caused this is very resistant.  People who are fooled are resistant to accepting they have been fooled.

            But the climate crisis doesn't care what you believe or how you voted.  If left unaddressed, your home and community will get dried out, burned up, flooded away, or blown to bits, no matter where you live.  Our heavily leveraged, massively inequitable economy, will corrode and collapse.  Do you think these fires will make home owners insurance more affordable or available? 

 

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Thinking of the Titanic

                                                                                         written 5 January, 2025

                                                                                   published 12 January, 2025

    

            At 11:40pm, April 14th, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg, sinking 3 hours later.  From the moment of impact, the ship was doomed, but that awareness spread unevenly through the 2,224 people on board.  

            For hours previously, despite repeated radio warnings of sea ice from other ships in the area, the Titanic never slowed, determined to make their maiden voyage in record time.  The night was moonless, and windless, making detecting icebergs very difficult.  Spotted only a few minutes before impact, the berg couldn't be avoided.  

            The Titanic was advertised as "unsinkable" with 16 watertight compartments.  But it could only stay afloat with four or less fully flooded.  The ice narrowly sliced along the side of the ship, opening 5 compartments to the sea, and the pumps couldn't keep up.  

            One of the first to know their dire reality was the ship's architect, who was onboard for the celebratory voyage.  With his extensive knowledge of the design, he had no doubt the ship would sink.  But most of the passengers were still asleep.  As the situation became clearer, the crew began to react.  Distress signals were repeatedly radioed.  All passengers were awakened, and lifeboats were being rigged for launching.  Many passengers still didn't know what was happening, or didn't believe the information.  Many, most especially the first-class passengers, were upset at being disturbed.

            Believing the ship invulnerable, there had been no lifeboat practice drills for crew or passengers, so events proceeded slowly.  Further, for cost and aesthetic reasons, there were only enough lifeboats on board for half the people.  Even when the boats were eventually launched, the were carrying fewer than full capacity, from unfounded fears they would capsize and lack of concern by many still on board, who continued believing the ship was "unsinkable".  

            The first ships arrived almost 2 hours after the Titanic disappeared.  By then all the people in the frigid water had died, over 2/3 of the ship's population, predominantly third-class passengers and crew.

            Moving from a past disaster to the present one, last year was again the hottest year on record.  For the first time, we are 1.5°C above preindustrial times, having added 1,000 gigatons of atmospheric CO2 in the last 200 years, due to fossil fuel combustion.  The International Panel on Climate Change had set 1.5°C as a target to avoid.  Despite decades of scientific warnings, describing risk of increasing climactic collapse, short-term corporate profits prevail, and atmospheric CO2 content grows each year.

            Arctic sea ice is the lowest on record for this time of year.  The concern is, with sea ice cover diminished, the shallow Arctic sea floor will warm, melting the embedded frozen methane, estimated between 200-10,000 gigatons.  Methane is 80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a few decades.  Once the sea floor warms above freezing, an unrestrained methane release into the atmosphere would cause a sudden, massive temperature spike.  Beginning a decade ago, dinner plate size methane bubbles were reported rising to the ocean surface.

            Has space ship Earth already been irrevocably damaged?  Are we doomed to collapse, with most of the passengers still asleep, unaware of our fate?  Are there any lifeboats onboard?  What do they look like?  Where would we go?  Are we depending on rescue from other "ships" in the area, or divine salvation?  

            Less than 2 weeks from now, a president will take power who claims these concerns are "fake news", and is owned by the billionaire class killing the planet for exclusive profit.  It may be the current shift in our energy production, a crude lifeboat attempt, is far enough along it can't be stopped by the denial lunacy.  But the best efforts so far are inadequate to the challenge, and any delay will hurt, as more CO2 floods in each year.  

            There may still be paths to avoiding societal collapse but we have wasted decades.  Gradual change is no longer sufficient, and abrupt social change doesn't seem possible in such a polarized global society.  

            We don’t know what’s going to happen.  Are we just a lethal parasite killing our host?  Could crisis awaken the masses to experience the fundamental unity of our reality?  Could limited dogmatic religious visons of transcendence fall away?  Could we embrace the power of our own attention?  Could we experience the imminence of reality?  Miracles are the operation of forces of which we are currently unaware.


Sunday, January 5, 2025

Brief History of Fusion

                                                                                   written 29 December, 2024

                                                                                     published 5 January, 2025


            Last week I described how some of the heavier elements will fission, releasing energy as they get smaller.  Modern physics also shows the lighter 26 elements release energy as they get larger through fusion, with the nucleus more tightly bound.  The most well know example of this is the fusion of two hydrogen atoms into one helium atom.

            Because protons are all positively charged, the electromagnetic force repels them.  When that repulsion is overcome, and protons are brought close enough together, the "strong" nuclear force takes over, holding the nucleus together.  The core of the sun has pressure 100 billion times our atmospheric pressure, with a temperature of 15 million degrees Centigrade.  This is sufficient to initiate hydrogen fusion, and the released energy is what allows life on Earth.

            Combustion of any kind (carbohydrates in the body, plant material, or fossil fuels) involves oxidation of hydrogen, which has historically powered life and human civilization.  But oxidation of hydrogen involves the electromechanical forces in chemistry.  Fusion of hydrogen, involving the strong nuclear force, is 2 million times more powerful, making it an attractive energy source.

            The problem with accessing this level of energy is the extreme pressure/temperature needed to make it happen.  Once the first fission device was developed in 1945, it was realized this power could be used to initiate fusion by locating a hydrogen core within a nuclear fission bomb.  The first hydrogen fusion device was detonated in 1952, rated at 10 megatons of TNT.  Russia detonated their first hydrogen bomb a year later, and detonated the largest man-made bomb in 1961, rated at 50 megatons of TNT, 3,000 times larger than the fission bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.  

            As with the power from fission, efforts quickly turned to trying to make peaceful use of fusion.  This is a much more difficult engineering project than a bomb, as controlled fusion needs be sustainable and not destructive.   The fundamental problem is still how to generate sufficient pressure/temperature to initiate fusion.  Designs using radio waves, magnetic fields, and lasers have been proposed and constructed, trying to generate the necessary conditions and keep them contained.  

            Over the decades, research has become more globally cooperative, driven by the complexity and massive expense of such a project, with almost 100 fusion experiments now in play globally, and more planned.  Billions of dollars are invested annually in the US alone.  Successes have been measured in terms of temperatures and energy levels achieved, and duration of actual fusion.  Designs have improved, now including superconducting magnets and as many as 200 laser beams.  

            However, the longest duration of sufficient temperatures yet achieved was 18 minutes, and the longest actual fusion was just seconds.  Any power produced is a fraction of the power required to generate the fusion environment.  Therefore, commercial fusion power is still described as "decades away".   

            In 1989, there was a flurry of news about "cold fusion".  Two chemists, Fleischmann and Pons, reported excess heat and nuclear byproducts using electrolysis on the surface of an electrode, and the hope was a new form of cheap and abundant energy.  However, multiple efforts to reproduce the results failed, so this report was considered an error and the subject declared dead.  No peer reviewed literature now mentions cold fusion, and many consider it impossible.  

            However, some researchers continued, mostly working outside the US, despite limited funding and rejection by the mainstream scientific community.  Over time, these investigations have earned enough reputation to become known as Low Energy Nuclear Reaction research.  Rather than trying to push hydrogen together, one theory is cold fusion pulls them together, within the cracks of suitable substrate.  Perhaps the energy released destroyed the substrate structure, making the first results impossible to reproduce, and research now centers on creating more durable substates.

            Science has a history of blind spots, where orthodoxy refuses to recognize changes when they appear.  Cold fusion may be one of these and will one day become mainstream.  However, that isn't going to happen soon, if ever.

            Fusion is still a technologist's dream, and fission is expensive, economically risky, producing eternally lethal waste, consuming finite fuel.  No form of nuclear power is going to rescue our troubled energy future.  Even the oil industry acknowledges the US fracking boom is over, depleted.  Without even addressing the climate crisis, a sustainable technological civilization will require fundamental changes in our energy production, if it is to exist much longer.