Wood pellets are a real heating fuel: Their price is now officially tracked alongside oil, gas, propane

Posted by David Brooks    |    Wednesday, February 15, 2012

CONCORD – In a sign of continuing inroads made by wood pellets in the state, their price is now being tracked by the New Hampshire State Office of Energy and Planning, alongside traditional heating fuel sources such as oil, natural gas and propane.

The information about average statewide costs for bulk-delivered fuels is derived from a survey of five companies providing bulk pellet delivery service in New Hampshire. It shows that wood pellets are far cheaper than heating by heating oil or propane, although more expensive than natural gas.

This week, one million BTU’s of heat cost: natural gas ($13.50), cord wood ($17.50), wood pellets ($18.03), No. 2 heating oil ($34.97), kerosene ($39.56), electricity ($41.50) and propane ($46.86).

Pellets are made from compressed sawdust. Their uniform size and shape allows their delivery into a furnace to be automated, as compared to logs, so that heating can be controlled by thermostats, as with fossil fuels.

Although best known as a source for individual stoves, pellets or a similar product, wood chips, can be fed by augers into whole-house boilers or industrial-sized machines that can heat schools or factories.

The region’s biomass producers say pellets and wood chips could ultimately provide up to 20 percent of New Hampshire’s heat, compared to the current figure of about four percent.

The industry claims that nearly 5 percent of New Hampshire homes heat with wood pellets or other renewable energy. Heating uses nearly 40 percent of New Hampshire’s energy.

The federal Stimulus Funds Rebate Program is kick-starting the switch to wood pellet central heating in homes by offering rebates of up to 30 percent or up to $6,000 of installed cost for systems for primary residences.

Information about the residential wood pellet rebate program is on the Public Utilities Commission web site: www.puc.nh.gov.

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Concern about GPS interference probably kills Lightsquared proposal

Posted by David Brooks    |    Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Federal Communication Commission has said that LightSquared, a proposed wireless broadband network, should be shelved because it interferes with the spectrum used by Global Positioning Software. (NY Times story here)

I wrote about this issue last June (here's somebody else's copy of my story, which is easier to link to than our owm archive) when U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass held a press conference expressing concern about Lightsquared. Bass is a private pilot and pilots use GPS these days: When I got my private pilot's license, three decades ago, that was still science fiction.

I learned to fly at a small Tennessee airport that didn't even have lights. When landing after sunset I had to buzz the runway once before landing, in order to scare off the deer that came out to enjoy the latent heat coming up from the pavement. I haven't flown since I moved to N.H. - something about having kids made the cost hard to justify, oddly enough.</

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"Teach evolution as a theory" bill looks dead on arrival, despite all those atheists and Communists

Posted by David Brooks    |    Tuesday, February 14, 2012

The second of two proposed bills targeting the teaching of evolution in school was heard today, as reported by a Telegraph colleague, Cameron Kittle (story is here). This is the one that questions the viewpoint on atheism by "supporters of evolution," whatever that means. The sponsor, Jerry Bergevin, R-Manchester, has some (shall we say) extreme views, linking evolutionary theory to Communism and Planned Parenthead and various other bugaboos. He didn't mention precious bodily fluids, but it was close.

This one seems pretty dead on arrival, I'm happy to say. The Education Committee will decide Thursday what to do with the other anti-evolution bill they heard last week, which I wrote about here. It's more subtle, being presented as an "academic freedom" bill.

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Portland decides it's better to be prepared for the climate-change worst, uncertainty or no

Posted by David Brooks    |    Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Even though it's clear that burning fossil fuels and other human activities, such as deforestation, is altering the globe's climate, there is much uncertainty about how this change will affect us. Sea levels, for example, are almost certain to rise, but it's far from clear by how much and how quickly.

In a startling sign of maturity, however, Portland Maine has decided that it's better to at least think about the worst rather than to take solace in uncertainty and do nothing. As the Press-Herald reports:

Interfering with personal property rights based on climate change predictions? That should be fun to push through.

On a semi-related note, Vermont's Agency of Natural Resources is urging planners to assume that more "extreme rain events" will happen in the future. (Story here)

This idea came up at the very first Science Cafe, almost a year ago, discussing climate change. The town planner for Keene said one of the issues under debate is culverts, those artificial tunnels under roads, which have been sized according to historic water flows. If those flows are going to start being much larger much more often, roads are going to wash out more often - so maybe we should be installing bigger culverts as a matter of course.

But that's expensive, and it's not clear how much bigger they should be. It's not an easy question to answer.

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Science Cafe coming Wednesday (Feb. 15): The science of the "winter blues"

Posted by David Brooks    |    Monday, February 13, 2012

The next Science Cafe New Hampshire comes up Wednesday, discussing Seasonal Affective Disorder - the "winter blues" if you will. A psychologist and psychiatrist will be there as the experts to be peppered by your questions.

It should be of interest whether you're affected by SAD, know somebody who might be affected, are completely ignorant of the topic, or even doubt that "winter blues" is a real disorder. Judging from the high quality of the previous Science Cafes, even if you don't particularly care one way or the other it will be worthwhile: There's something so invigorating about having a good beer and burger while listening to intelligent people discuss a topic that they actually know something about - instead of merely ranting along based on casual heresay, which tends to be the level of public discourse these days.

I will miss this one - it's the first Science Cafe that I haven't been able to moderate - but you shouldn't.

More details are here, sciencecafenh.org

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Another anti-evolution bill comes up in Concord tomorrow (Tuesday)

Posted by David Brooks    |    Monday, February 13, 2012

Lawmakers will hold a hearing tomorrow (Tuesday) on a second anti-evolution bill: this one would require that it be "taught as a theory." (UPDATE: Unfortunately I won't be able to cover it; there's no much else happening in the state/region at the moment that I just can't spend half a day traveling up to Concord and back for a hearing. We will try to cover it some other way.)

I wrote about the first bill last week: It's more convoluted, since it doesn't mention evolution although that's the reason for its existence. Here's my story.

The Guardian, a well-respected, politically liberal national newspaper in Britain, had a column recently chiding us for the bills, as well as other anti-evolution bill in the U.S. It's titled "The new anti-science assault on US schools."

Indiana is facing a bill that would require teaching "creation science", which is patently illegal. Anti-evolutionists have learned to avoid any variant of the word "creation" because of the religious overtones. "Intelligent design" is the preferred designation.

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N.E. has some surprising dark spots on FCC's map of 3G coverage (or lack of it)

Posted by David Brooks    |    Saturday, February 11, 2012

A portion of an FCC map showing US Census blocks that lack 3G or better mobile coverage according to January 2012 American Roamer data.

The FCC has released an excellent map showing 3G coverage around the country (you can see it here). Above is a screenshot of northern New England: the black places are elegible for the Mobility Fund Phase 1 - federal subsidies to get coverage in uncovered areas.

Most of the dark areas are unsurprising: northern Maine, Coos County, the center of the White Mountains, Hogback Mountain in southern Vermont - places where terrain blocks signals and makes it expensive to build towers, and there aren't many potential customers to lure phone companies.

But notice to archipelago of black in northwestern Hillsborough County and neighboring counties of N.H. That's roughly around Pillsbury State Park, part of a low ridgeline which holds Lempster Mountain Wind Farm; it appears to cover a number of small towns, like Goshen, Marlow and Windsor. This is an also an area that lacks wired broadband, one of the target locations for the Network New Hampshire Now project.

Considering that the location is barely an hour's drive from Manchester and has terrain which isn't exactly mountainous - Mount Sunapee is about as rugged as it gets - it's a little surprising how overlooked it is.

If we start feeling sorry for ourselves, however, we can go back to the FCC map and check the Rocky Mountain states. At least half of Idaho lacks 3G coverage.

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It's not an anti-evolution bill, it's an 'academic freedom' bill

Posted by David Brooks    |    Friday, February 10, 2012

As I write in today's Telegraph, a bill aimed at getting creationism, in its "intelligent design" costume, mentioned in science classrooms got a hearing Thursday - and if you thought it wasn't a big deal, the appearance of a supporting speaker from the west coast-based Discovery Institute (the biggest creation - er, I.D. supporter in the country) was a sign.

The Discovery Institute says it is concerned about "academic freedom" for teachers facing unwavering supporters of evolution.

They are unwavering, of course, because evolution is the only scientific explanation - as compared to semi-theological and/or wildly speculative - out there, and science classes are supposed to teach science. Having legislators force teachers to allow non-science into science classes is not a good idea.

Here's my story.

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Making buildings energy-efficient is harder than we think, for reasons that are unclear

Posted by David Brooks    |    Thursday, February 9, 2012

A reader (hi, Pete!) pointed me to a story from LawandEnvironment.com about a study which found that making buildings more energy efficient is harder than we think, even when factoring in the fact that it's harder than we think:

Over the past 20 to 30 years, every important building component has improved in energy performance. From air conditioners to lighting to windows, construction crews today have an array of green technologies at their disposal.

Once they're put together, though, the finished building performs no better than its predecessors of two or three decades ago. The parts have gotten better, but not the whole.

The whole story is here. It references a longer piece that's behind a paywall, which in turn references a study by Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy-Efficient Building, a DOE "energy hub" connected with Penn State.

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Bill targeting teaching of evolution gets a hearing tomorrow (Wednesday)

Posted by David Brooks    |    Wednesday, February 8, 2012

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Maybe Vermont Yankee didn't contaminate Connecticut River fish, after all

Posted by David Brooks    |    Wednesday, February 8, 2012

In recent years Vermont Yankee has had problems with radiation leaking into groundwater wells. Particularly alarming was a report that said elevated levels of strontium 90 were found in a few fish in the Connecticut River. (The nuclear plant adjoins the river, which it uses for cooling.) The concern was that radiation had gotten into the groundwater, which then leaked into the river.

The finding was never really confirmed, however, and now the Burlington Free-Press reports that Vermont officials have found fish with similar levels of radiation in parts of the state where Vermont Yankee couldn't possibly have any effect.

As the paper puts it in the lede: "Fish in the Connecticut River near the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant are no more radioactive than fish far across the state, according to recent study results from the state Health Department." Here's the whole story.

New Hampshire regularly tests for radiation in the water, soil and air within 50 miles or so of the plant, including the Connecticut River (which New Hampshire owns; oddly, the state boundary is not in the middle but on the Vermont bank.) They haven't reported anything notable.

The legal status of the plant remains a little murky, although it seems like it will continue operating even after its original license expires next month. Here's the Free-Press summary.

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MakeItLabs, Nashua's hackerspace, is ready to open again

Posted by David Brooks    |    Tuesday, February 7, 2012

This is all I know, posted this evening on MakeItLabs' website:

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Mass. flywheel power-storage system gets a post-bankruptcy buyer

Posted by David Brooks    |    Saturday, June 2, 2018

From CNet (whole article here): "Beacon Power of Tyngsborough, Mass. says it has reached a deal with private equity firm Rockland Capital to buy most of its assets for $30.5 million. That includes Beacon Power's intellectual property around flywheel grid storage and a New York energy storage project partially financed by a Department of Energy loan guarantee."

It's unclear what will happen to its Tyngoborough headquarters, where the 7-foot-tall flywheel "batteries" were made.

Here's my last story about them, after the bankruptcy.

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If mountain lions exist in N.H., can they purr or can they roar? (Check the hyoid bone)

Posted by David Brooks    |    Saturday, June 2, 2018

A screenshot from BigCatRescue.org's excellent video about whether "big cats" can purr. (It's just a screenshot, so stop clicking on it!)

Did you know that the "big four" cats - lions, tigers, jaguars, cougars (aka mountain lions) - can roar but they can't purr, whereas smaller cats, from ocelots down to the cat in your lap, can purr but not roar?

I didn't either, but a terrific video on BigCatRescue.org (spotted via Boston.com's intriguing Braniac blog) provides the scoop: The secret is the hyoid bone, in the back of the throat. If it's connected one way they can roar, if it's connected another they can purr. There's considerable debate about the details, however, including uncertainty whether mid-sized to big cats can semi-purr - that is, purr only when exhaling.

It's good stuff: Check it out here. They also have a video about whether lions etc. like to chase laser pointer lights.

As for whether there are mountain lions in New Hampshire, here's a story I did last year. (Answer: Certainly no breeding pairs, maybe a single individual, although probably not. (The story was written before a mountain lion was killed in Connecticut after walking here from Wisconsin.)

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Is Linux coming to Concord? NH lawmakers back 'open source software' and 'open data formats'

Posted by David Brooks    |    Sunday, February 5, 2012

There are so many interesting bills (or goofy ones, depending on your point of view) being considered by New Hampshire's massive legislature that it's easy to overlook something important. Case in point: I just discovered that both the NH House and Senate have passed HB418 (read it here), which says:

The bill reads like it was written by the state Linux Users Group - for example:

It doesn't actually mandate much - notably, it doesn't limit software spending to open-source projects - so it's hard to say whether it will come to anything. A similar push fizzled away in Massachusetts a few years ago. But if nothing else, it's an interesting application of the "live free or die" ethos.

Spotted via Slashdot.

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MakeItLabs launches a fund-raiser. What a surprise: It's a T-shirt!

Posted by David Brooks    |    Thursday, February 2, 2012

If the world consisted entirely of geeks, I think money would be abolished and the only medium of exchange would be T-shirts. Geeks just can't get enough T-shirts, the weirder the better. (The best one in my collection is from the Icelandic power company ... it has to be seen to be believed.)

So when MakeItLabs launched a fundraiser to help it do the work required to reopen its "hackerspace" in Nashua, it decided to sell a T-shirt, shown above. They cost $20, payable when you go pick it up. If you're interested, check the website (makeitlabs.com). The operation, first of its kind in New Hampshire, has to do various work on the former foundry where it's established in order to get occupancy permits from the city.

They say: "All proceeds go toward the wow-renovations-cost-a-lot fund".

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Some weird warm bits of New Hampshire out along the western hills

Posted by David Brooks    |    Thursday, February 2, 2012

Note the warmer (well, less cold) areas associated with the low mountains in southwestern N.H.

(See Update at the bottom, with explanation from the paper's weather guru.)

I'm doing a story for the Telegraph about the updated plant hardiness map from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which reflects the fact that average lowest temperatures during teh winter are warmer than they used to be. The picture shows NH's listings by plant zone ... the weird thing are those green splotches running north-south, roughly from Keene to Sunapee, green signifying about areas with average lows about 5 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas.

Why are there slightly warmer areas (that is, areas with a higher average-low-winter-temperature) along there? It looks like they're associated with the line of low mountains/high hills that end up at the Sunapee Ski Area, which includes the ridgeline holding Lempster Mountain Wind Farm.

I suppose the mountains funnel air currents to the point that they create microclimates, but it's interesting to see.

UPDATE: Doug Webster, a meteorologist who writes our monthly weather column, explains. The map measures the average of low temperatures, not overall averages, and for places without tall mountains (the mountains in southwestern NH rarely top 3,000 ft), the coldest spots are valleys where cold air collects during cloudless winter nights. On average, ridgetops won't have temperatures as low as valleys (this doesn't count wind chill, of course).

In the White Mountains, it's a different matter: They're tall enough that they're seriously affected by the fact that temperatures decline 5.5 degrees per thousand feet elevation in dry air).

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Dartmouth's Cool Robot is literally cool - it has to work autonomously in Greenland

Posted by David Brooks    |    Thursday, February 2, 2012

When you were in college, what sort of field work did you do? Tramping through the local woods for a biology lab is about as exotic as most of us got.

Then there are classes like the Dartmouth engineering group that flew to Summit Station on the Greenland ice over to the summer to test "Cool Robot", an autonomous robot being designed to wander in Greenland, keeping an eye on magnetic particules in the atmosphere. (It's better to do this at the poles, but alot easier and cheaper to do it in Greenland.) An undergraduate class that gets to go to Greenland! Sigh ....

The biggest problem faced by the design, according to a report published in the winter issue of autonomous-systems magazine ISSUU (you can read the story here) is staying mobile both on icy packed snow and in deep powder, surfaces that require different approaches. I have the same problem when I'm skiing.

Like most autonomous-vehicle/robot projects, Cool Robot seems an interesting exercise in balancing competing needs. Although come to think of it, almost everything in life is an interesting exercise in balancing competing needs.

Spotted this via Dartmouth's daily email publication, Dartmouth Now. UNH and the Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover are also involved.

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Solar blast 'snuck around the corner' to hit Earth, say UNH scientists

Posted by David Brooks    |    Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Particle radiation from the Jan. 23, 2012 solar flare speeds away from the Sun along curved magnetic field lines (blue lines) and arrives before the coronal mass ejection (orange mass from the Sun) and its driven shock. (Image courtesy of Nathan Schwadron, UNH-EOS)

From UNH News Service: A potent follow-up solar flare, which occurred Friday (Jan. 27, 2012), days after the Sun launched the biggest coronal mass ejection (CME) seen in nearly a decade, delivered a powerful radiation punch to Earth’s magnetic field despite the fact that it was aimed away from our planet.

According to University of New Hampshire scientists studying and modeling various aspects of solar radiation, this was due to both the existing population of energetic particles launched by the first CME and a powerful magnetic connection that reeled particles in towards Earth from the Sun’s blast region, which had spun to an oblique angle.

“Energetic particles can sneak around the ‘corner,’ as was the case in Friday’s event when it was launched at the Sun's limb, or edge,” says astrophysicist Harlan Spence, director of the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) and principal investigator for the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission. CRaTER is designed to measure and characterize aspects of the deep space radiation environment.

Space weather events can disrupt Earth-based power grids, satellites that operate global positioning systems and other devices, can lead to some rerouting of flights over the polar regions, and pose severe risk to astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit.

The first explosion, which occurred Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, fell just short of being rated an X-class flare – the most powerful type of solar storm. When Friday’s X-flare exploded from the same sunspot region that was the source of the week’s earlier blast, the Sun’s west limb was pointing away from Earth.

Nonetheless, the resulting high-energy protons that speed toward Earth even faster than the four-million-mph solar wind demonstrated that dangerous “space weather” can affect us even when the planet is not in the direct path.

“The magnetic field lines on which energetic particles travel curve from the Sun to Earth unlike CMEs, which travel in straight lines. In the case of the second flare, energetic particles were magnetically connected to Earth even though the second CME from this active region missed us entirely,” explains Madhulika Guhathakurta, lead program scientist of NASA’s Living with a Star program.

Notes Spence, “And the situation was worsened, from the standpoint of radiation, because there was a pre-existing energetic particle population, from the first CME, when the second one arrived.”

CRaTER’s primary goal has been to characterize the global lunar radiation environment and its biological impacts. It does so by measuring galactic and solar cosmic radiation from behind a "human tissue-equivalent" plastic. During the two and a half years the LRO mission has been making measurements, the latest solar events are the most significant with respect to incoming radiation.

“We now have estimates of the dose and can speak to the biological impacts that might have occurred in deep space to astronauts,” says Michael Wargo, NASA’s chief lunar scientist.

Both events, while strong forms of space weather, were not as powerful as the 2003 Halloween storms, which were the most powerful space weather events of the last 23-year-long solar cycle. But as the Sun moves towards solar maximum in 2013, it may yet have even more powerful storms to deliver as it becomes increasingly violent.

Measurements from CRaTER, and predictions from the UNH Earth-Moon-Mars Radiation Environment Module (EMMREM), whose principal investigator is astrophysicist Nathan Schwadron of the EOS Space Science Center, describe radiation exposure in space, on the Moon, and in planetary environments. The resulting understanding of space radiation hazards becomes evermore critical in studying and predicting the effects of these powerful solar outbursts.

Notes Guhathakurta, “The use of EMMREM to characterize active events highlights our rapidly advancing capabilities for understanding, characterizing, and even predicting the radiation coming from our increasingly active Sun.”

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I will never write a better 'tagline' than this

Posted by David Brooks    |    Wednesday, February 1, 2012

There are certain times in your life when you know that you have reached the summit in a particular aspect of existence. I reached that summit this week when it comes to writing a "tagline" - the "how to contact the person who wrote this" sentence that gets stuck at the bottom of all Telegraph stories and columns.

My column this week was about Roman numerals, and this is how it ended:

I couldn't include the area code because Roman numerals have no zero!
<

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UNH researcher among those who analyzed interstellar gas captured by NASA mission

Posted by David Brooks    |    Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The neon to oxygen ratio in the neutral gas of the local cloud, as obtained with IBEX, in comparison with that ratio for the Sun and the Milky Way galaxy. There appears to be much less oxygen in the gas of the local cloud, meaning either a substantial portion of oxygen is locked up in interstellar dust or there were different conditions at the birthplace of the Sun compared to our immediate neighborhood. (Courtesy NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.)

From UNH News Services: Space scientists, including researchers from the University of New Hampshire (UNH), today described the first detailed analyses of samples of captured interstellar neutral atoms – raw material for the formation of new stars, planets, and human beings.

Investigators on NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, including UNH space physicist Eberhard Möbius, David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), and Priscilla Frisch of the University of Chicago, as well as astronomer Seth Redfield of Wesleyan University, presented the mission findings at a press conference from NASA headquarters in Washington,D.C. beginning at 1 p.m. and broadcast via NASA TV. The NASA press conference occurred in conjunction with the publication of six papers in the February issue of The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ)Supplement Series by IBEX team members, including Möbius and other UNH authors.

In addition to sampling the raw “star stuff” out of which stars, planets, and humans are formed, the findings are important because the interstellar gas surrounding us can affect the strength of the Sun’s heliosphere – the protective bubble that shields our solar system from dangerous cosmic radiation.

IBEX discovered that the interstellar wind is approximately 7,000 miles per hour slower than previously thought. This indicates that our solar system is still in what’s referred to as the “local interstellar cloud.” However, astronomers note, we will transition into a different region at any time within a few thousand years (very short on astronomical time scales) where conditions will change and affect the heliosphere’s protective capability for better or worse.

As our solar system travels around the Milky Way through the vast sweep of cosmic time, the ever-changing nature of the heliosphere has likely had implications on the evolution of life on Earth as varying levels of radiation spurred genetic mutations and, perhaps, wholesale extinctions.

IBEX’s second major finding announced in the press conference and papers - the first direct measurements of oxygen and neon from outside the solar system - shows that the composition of the local interstellar cloud appears to differ noticeably from the makeup of the Sun and even the average Milky Way galaxy.

There is less oxygen relative to neon in the local cloud than in the Sun and the Milky Way as a whole, which presents a puzzle to astronomers. Perhaps, it means that a substantial portion of an essential ingredient of life (oxygen) is locked up in dust, or it could tell us how different the conditions in our immediate neighborhood are than at the birthplace of the Sun.

Notes Möbius, an astrophysicist at the UNH Institute for the Study or Earth, Oceans, and Space and department of physics, “Together with the modeling of how stars sprinkle material into the interstellar medium, these measurements can really help us figure out the temporal evolution of the cosmic matter.”

IBEX, one of NASA’s Small Explorer missions, was launched October 19, 2008. The space probe uses a pair of ultra-high sensitivity cameras – one led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the other by the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center (LMATC) – that contain important components designed and built at UNH.

Möbius, currently on sabbatical as visiting professor at LANL, is the principal UNH scientist for IBEX, and the mission's Science Operations Center, directed by associate professor of physics Nathan Schwadron, is headquartered at UNH.

Photo Services.

NASA Briefing Materials:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ibex/multimedia/013112-briefing-materials.html

Feature: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ibex/news/interstellar-difference.html

NASA Visuals: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?10906

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