How it works
Motor spins drum with 16 mirrors around at about 20-30 rev/second. The mirrors are tilted differently, so that they draw one line each on the screen. Rotation time is measured by the reading fork and divided by 16*32=512. This is the pixel clock. When the reading fork senses that the wire attached to the mirror drum passes, a new frame starts, and the pixel clock starts. For each pixel, the laser is turned on or off. Simple as that! Each line contains 32 pixels, but only 16 are used. The remaining 16 pixels on a line do either represent the gap between mirrors, or, they are used for calibration. Oh, yes. The calibration. I won't be attempting that again any day soon. Each mirror is calibrated in the Y-direction by tediously moving them physically. T-e-d-i-o-u-s-l-y. Did I mention that? The X-direction calibration is done with a lookup-table in software. Ahhh... software... :) And there's your picture. Making video is the easy part. That's just a matter of changing the picture every 4 or 5 frames or so.

...

This is pretty spiffy. How hard would this be to make?

DIY Laser Video Projector

k wrote:
] ] Engineers brought the two central ends of the Millau road
] ] viaduct in southwest France together, completing the span
] ] of the highest bridge in the world.
] ]
] ] The road surface is 270 metres above ground, a world
] ] record, and the total structure, with suspension cables
] ] added will be 343 metres (1,132 feet) above ground at its
] ] highest point or 23 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower.
]
] [ Holy crap bridges are cool. Awesome. -k]

Very cool. I wonder if the Gibraltar bridge will ever be built:

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/eti/projects/bridgemain.html

Such an ambitious project.

RE: Yahoo! News - Span of French Millau bridge, world highest, is completed

Decius wrote:

] The radical left would very much like to tell me that we're
] minutes away of running out of every kind of fossil fuel and
] no other energy source is acceptable for either efficiency or
] saftey reasons. This perspective can only be held through
] self-deception. Either because we're intentionally ignoring
] sources of natural gas on the one hand, or because we're
] holding nuclear power to a safety standard that far exceeds,
] at scale, any other activity that we participate in.
]
] What is the point in being this disingenuous? I don't get it!

Food for thought: Christian Science Monitor reporting on "The New Coal Rush" back in February:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/US/coal_rush_CSM_040302.html

...

After 25 years on the blacklist of America's energy sources, coal is poised to make a comeback, stoked by the demand for affordable electricity and the rising price of other fuels.

At least 94 coal-fired electric power plants - with the capacity to power 62 million American homes - are now planned across 36 states.

The plants, slated to start coming on line as early as next year, would add significantly to the United States' generating power, help keep electricity prices low, and boost energy security by offering an alternative to foreign oil and gas.

...

The jump in proposed coal-fired plants over the past three years - which would add 62 gigawatts or another 20 percent to the US's current coal-generating capacity - was documented in a report last month by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), an arm of the US Department of Energy.

...

The economics have also swung in the fuel's favor. Low-cost, low-emission, natural-gas turbines sprouted like mushrooms in the '90s and their contribution to the nation's generating capacity reached 19 percent. But in the past four years, the cost of natural gas has roughly tripled: from $2 per 1 million British thermal units of heat generated to over $6 per million BTUs. By contrast, coal costs less than $1 per million BTUs. That has put utilities in the position of paying more for the gas they burn to make power than they can get for the electricity it produces.

...

Natural gas gets more expensive, so we start reverting to coal. It doesn't look like they are really trying to exploit unconventional gas. Economics would dictate that since gas prices are higher, that would start to make unconventional gas become conventional gas.

It doesn't appear to be panning out quite like that though. Why the rush to start building coal fired electric plants? It's cheap. You tell me, are we that dependent on keeping the status-quo of current energy prices? By the actions of our energy policy planners, it appears so.

Trying to keep energy prices flat like this is going to really cause problems later. Unless this is some sort of stop-gap measure to allow more working capital to temporarily be allocated to alternative energies, I don't see this as a solution. Regardless of the safety of nuclear energy, it is not as economic as natural gas. If they're already getting the jitters on natural gas and starting to implement more coal, I don't see any shift to nuclear in the cards.

America’s New Coal Rush

The 155-mm shells containing sarin gas that exploded in Iraq May 17 were manufactured before 1991, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. That was a pre-Gulf War shell, a different category than the weapons being sought by the Iraq Survey Group, Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, the joint staff deputy director for operations, told a Pentagon news briefing.

...

For what it's worth in the debate over the shells.

Sarin Shells Made Before 1991 War

Decius wrote:

] In 2000, natural gas reserves in the United States were
] estimated to be 1,190 trillion cubic feet, and U.S. gas
] production was 19.2 trillion cubic feet.
]
] 61 years...

Nice find. And the graph showing the steady level of proved reserves was enlightening as well. I guess this means that "proved" reserves should be analogous to "what the market will bear." Still, we've burned through almost 1000 tcf of natural gas over the course of using it. That's putting us at the halfway mark if you consider the total reserves, not just proved. Those figures do not take into consideration how much of it will be left in the ground either. Surely we cannot recover all of it. We could, but will it take more money and energy to extract than what it is worth or what energy it yields? These questions though, they are ones we will not have answers to until more time elapses. I would caveat looking at total reserves just as you caveat looking at proved reserve figures.

Consumption keeps rising at a fairly linear rate. I understand what you are saying about 1 well on a 100 unit field versus say, 2 wells each on 50 unit fields. In that case, it is not particularly alarming from a pure arithmetic standpoint. But consider that you may now be expending twice the energy to produce the same unit amount. Each well takes energy to create, operate, maintain, and decommission. What these studies lack is a granular breakdown of each field and where the EROEI ratios are trending. If market rates are any indication, those ratios are falling.

As the production switches from conventional to unconventional gas reserves, the economic cost will rise and the EROEI ratios will fall. I know that's a blanket statement that doesn't account for technological advance, but history bears it out as true so far. If it were economical, these reserves wouldn't be unconventional. The sharp rise in NG prices is reflecting this trend. That and the ramp up of LNG imports on the horizon.

As this happens, everything is going to become more expensive. This is something that even the "proved" reserve figures probably do not adequately account for. But the point has not be lost that you just made, that "proved" reserves should be considered in concert with other factors.

Delving into the political landscape for just a second, we might believe that the war is affecting these trends. Surely it is, but take a look around. I don't believe this war is going to end. Our leaders say as much. Consider that outside influencing factor a constant from here on out.

] Some wells are easier to tap then others. Cheaper
] transportation costs are a huge factor. In the US much of our
] supply is on federal lands and is illegal to tap.

Transportation ties in with the point you made above about the 61 year supply. It's nice to know we have reserves, but getting them to market is a different sto... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

RE: As prices rise, concerns grow about world oil supplies

I found a good counter-opinion to Peak Oil.

...

Recently, numerous publications have appeared warning that oil production is near an unavoidable, geologically-determined peak that could have consequences up to and including “war, starvation, economic recession, possibly even the extinction of homo sapiens” (Campbell in Ruppert 2002) The current series of alarmist articles could be said to be merely reincarnations of earlier work which proved fallacious, but the authors insist that they have made significant advances in their analyses, overcoming earlier errors. For a number of reasons, this work has been nearly impenetrable to many observers, which seems to have lent it an added cachet. However, careful examination of the data and methods, as well as extensive perusal of the writings, suggests that the opacity of the work is at best obscuring the inconclusive nature of their research.

...

This article has things I do not agree with. Note this flip flop:

...

The initial theory behind what is now known as the Hubbert curve was very simplistic. Hubbert was simply trying to estimate approximate resource levels, and for the lower-48 US, he thought a bell-curve would be the most appropriate form. It was only later that the Hubbert curve came to be seen as explanatory in and of itself, that is, geology requires that production should follow such a curve. Indeed, for many years, Hubbert himself published no equations for deriving the curve, and it appears that he only used a rough estimation initially. In his 1956 paper, in fact, he noted that production often did not follow a bell curve. In later years, however, he seems to have accepted the curve as explanatory.

This particular example demonstrates a major theoretical flaw underlying the curve: for a closed system, such as the US gas market, demand determines production, not geology. (High gas transportation costs mean that overseas gas plays a trivial role in the US market.) Globally, the recent slowdown in demand has suggested to some that the peak has already occurred.

...

I've never heard anyone on the Peak Oil side argue that natural gas follows the Hubbert Curve. The production of gas is different than oil. Once a field is tapped, the gas flow is steady until the end. It's disingenuous to use this as an illustration. I am sure the author knows the difference. This bait and switch was laid early on in the article to set the tone for poo-pooing on the Hubbert model. That did not turn me off from the rest of the article though.

Also, note the other section I highlighted. Even this guy, a staunch debunker of Peak Oil theory, agrees that LNG imports are not feasible.

...

A more technical example is telling. Laherrere notes that the first 1920 new field wildcats in the Middle East discovered 723 billion barrels by 1980, while by the year 2000, a subsequent 1760 had found a... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

The New Pessimism about Petroleum Resources: Debunking the Hubbert Model

Decius wrote:

] 1. You writings on this subject have caused me to pay closer
] attention to it.

Really good to hear, thanks for sharing your thoughts. On the same note, the discussion has been making me rethink some of my positions on the issue and look deeper for answers. I see this as extremely encouraging. We are all bright enough to work on this problem and start coming up with good solutions.

] 3. I went and researched some other fossil fuels. The US has
] enough natural gas to provide its own supply for 70 years at
] the current rate of consumption,

Where did you read this? I refer you to this study:

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=119&contentId=2004165

This is BP's Statistical Review of US Energy, 2003. There is a PDF available. It's really easy to get it, just hit BP's website and search for "statistical review" 2004's probably won't be available for some time. BP has done an excellent job with their data layout.

Quoting from the section on natural gas, these are US stats:

---------------

At the end of 2002:

Proved Reserves: 5.19 trillion cubic metres
Production: 547.7 billion cubic metres
Consumption: 667.5 billion cubic metres
R/P Ratio: 9.6

Glossary:

Proved Reserves: Generally taken to be those quantities that geological and engineering information indicates with reasonable certainty can be recovered in the future from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions.

Reserves/Production (R/P) Ratio: If the reserves remaining at the end of the year are divided by the production in that year, the result is the length of time that those remaining reserves would last if production were to continue at that level.

---------------

That gives the US about 10 years of natural gas. Also from the study's forward:

"On the gas production side, North America was the only region to see a decline. A price-driven drop in drilling activity following the boom of 2001 explains some of the decrease, but the maturity of the USA and Canada from a resource perspective also seems a contributing factor."

You may be asking yourself, given the number above, "Where are we making up the 100 billion cubic metres difference between production and consumption?" The answer: Canada. We imported 108.8 bcm from them in 2002. Guess what Canada's R/P ratio is? 9.3 years.

See why having gas fired electric plants account for 90% of all new electric plant growth is short sighted? They are counting on the LNG infrastructure to be in place by then.

I need to locate an article I found about the logistics of LNG, but to give you an idea of what is in place today, the US has four LNG terminals. The numbers weren't encouraging from what I rememeber.

] that power without fossil fuels. Its a problem we have to
] solve, but not one we have to solve within a couple of
] decades.

See above. It is upon us my friend, if studies like these are to be believed.

] 7. Newsgateway.ca mostly consists of peak oil discussions and
] various 9/11 conspiracy theories, including articles like
] "Consider 20 parallels between the USA today and Hitler’s
] Germany." Its about as fair and balanced as fox news. Debating
] this in detail is really beside the point.

Agreed. I actually found it doing Google searches for things like "peak oil is a sham" "peak oil is a farce" etc. Just trying to find opinions on the other side. The page I meme'd was the first page I had ever seen on that site. I liked all of the points that were discussed, mainly because Heinberg's book was something that I was reading at the time and he was quoted quite heavily on the page. Easier than me typing it all in from the book.

RE: As prices rise, concerns grow about world oil supplies

w1ld wrote:
] ] In its weekly bulletin distributed to 18,000 agencies,
] ] the FBI says to look out for people wearing bulky jackets
] ] on warm days, smelling of chemicals, or even individuals
] ] whose fists are tightly clenched.
] ]
] ] The bulletin also says suicide bombers may disguise
] ] themselves in stolen police uniforms or even as pregnant
] ] women.
]
] Watch out for pregnant women who clench their fists; THEY ARE
] TERRORIST.

"QUAID!"

Big ups to the first person to catch the reference :)

RE: CNN.com - FBI warns of possible suicide attacks - May 20, 2004

Decius wrote:
] ] At current rates of production, there were 40.6 years of
] ] consumption covered by proven reserves in 2002, the latest
] ] data available, according to the Wall Street Journal.
] ]
] ] The newspaper, citing the BP Statistical Review, said
] ] that in 1989, there were 44.7 years left of consumption.
] ]
] ] "[A shortage] will probably happen in the next 10 to 20
] ] years," Professor David Goodstein, a physicist at the
] ] California Institute of Technology, told CNNfn.
]
] hrm...

I know you and Bucy probably think I'm drinking the Kool Aid on this, but I really do think we are facing a pretty damn big problem. The good news out of this is that:

In 1989, they said we had 44.7 years left.
In 2002, they said we had 40.6 years left.

Obviously, there is a 13 year span there, with only a 4 year difference. Obviously predictions are wrong. I agree with that, because you can never know all the variables like technological advances, new finds, etc.

Still, the figure did not stay flat or increase. The next thing that will happen is the drilling of the ANWR. I don't see that as a problem really, because current estimates are that there are between 3.5 billion and 20 billion barrels sitting under there. Environmentally speaking, pipelines that are in place now at Prudhoe field has actually allowed an INCREASE of caribou population, because the pipeline is a safe haven. I sit on the fence on that issue and lean towards exploiting ANWR.

But the constant that I've seen out of all the historical data is that the time is running out. That obviously makes logical sense, there is going to reach a point where we recover everything that makes sense to recover, without delving into negative energy returns. That will occur on the downslope, it's just inevitable.

The thing we have to consider in the short term is how much of a dependency we have on fossil fuel for our energy. The electric grid is 70% fossil fuel based, that's just a fact, and the growth rate for new plants here is tied in at a 90% growth rate right now to fossil fuels. And we all know that transportation is basically 95% or greater tied into fossil fuels. Ultimately the ERORI ratios are what matter. And the fact is that none of the technologies as they exist today will be able to make up the difference in what we will lose in fossil fuels, today.

Will technological advances be able to sustain the current demands? I wish they could, we'll see just how well human ingenuity fares in the face of this. If they can, will they be able to sustain AND meet the current global growth rate of consumption? That's asking for quite a lot of technological advance. And it's asking for it in a world where a critical resource is suspected to be reaching its peak production, with a regional war brewing in the area where most of the reserves of the resource are left.

I ... [ Read More (0.8k in body) ]

RE: As prices rise, concerns grow about world oil supplies

ryan is the supernicety wrote:
] Ryan-- this is really important. I really would like to learn
] more on this. Are there any good studies or academic papers
] anyone knows about? This could be the defining point for our
] generation.

That's an understatement :) There's a good link at the bottom of the article:

http://www.newsgateway.ca/by_topic_peak_oil.htm

And I have to say so far, Heinberg's book "The Party's Over" puts things in quite a sharp focus.

Tom, there's a great chapter in the book about Non-Petroleum Energy Sources. The problem with fuel cells is that they are not energy sources, they are just carriers of energy. That stems from the fact that the process of hydrogen production uses more energy than the hydrogen will yield.

And on ethanol:

"Cornell University professor David Pimentel, who has performed a thorough net-energy analysis of ethanol, found that an acre of corn ultimately yields, on average, 328 gallons of ethanol. It takes 1,000 gallons of fossil fuels to plant, grow, and harvest this quantity of corn. Additional energy must be used in distilling the ethanol. In sum, 131,000 BTU are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol, which has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. This gives ethanol an EROEI [Energy Returned On Energy Invested, -ed] of roughly .59, meaning a 41 percent net loss of energy.[0]

A recent USDA study came to a more optimistic conclusion: it claims that ethanol offers a 34 percent energy profit.[1] This translates into an EROEI of 1.34, still hardly an impressive figure when compared to the historic or current EROEI for oil. The practical difference between Pimentel's .59 and the USDA's 1.34 is slight. In either case, if the entire US automotive fleet were to run on pure ethanol, nearly all of the continental US would be required in order to grow the feedstock. There would be no land left over even to house the American population, let alone feed it.

[0] http://unisci.com/stories/20013/0813012.htm
[1] "Study Finds Ethanol Production Energy Efficient," ENS, 2 August 2002

Here's the positive study on ethanol:

http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2002/08/0322.htm

The reality is somewhere in the middle probably. The math on that puts it at about break even. Once again, back in the same boat as hydrogen, an energy carrier, not an energy source.

I really recommend this book. It's getting my attention and making me think really hard about where we should go from here. I think we should all be particularly worried. The road map you see, I believe the cartographers do not see the cliffs ahead.

RE: Observations and the State of Affairs - Peak Oil