Wilma the Capacitor and Particle Accelerator 238
Sterling D. Allan writes "In a story at the new Open Source Energy Network site, Paul Noel says: "Energetically speaking, the vortex that forms in these storms is also a natural particle accelerator, and a massive capacitor bank. As the harmonic circuit develops, it resonates acoustically and functions as a capacitor, extracting the heat from the storm and transmitting it away. Without this electrical circuit, the storm would fail almost instantly due to the accumulation of heat from condensation of water." He also asserts that understanding these phenomena better could help us harness the power of nature, seen and unseen."
Possible way to kill hurricanes . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly... (Score:5, Funny)
Its time to harness hurricanes to establish trade relations with dinosaurs, talking animals, and anything else we can get at through the dimensional rifts torn into existance.
I, for one welcome the chance to become a hurricane overlord.
Re:More importantly... (Score:2)
Frankly, they wouldn't stand a whelk's chance in a supernova.
What does a whelk have to do with a Supernova? It wouldn't stand a chance in one. Sort of like talking animals in a hurricane.
Re:More importantly... (Score:2, Funny)
It's the final countdown!
*didudiiiduuu dididi da du*
Re:Possible way to kill hurricanes . . . (Score:2)
I'd think we'd want to suck out as much energy as we could. Either that or just chill the storm somehow but the energy required would be huge and the net effect would probably bring on a quick ice age.
Maybe swarms of flying nano-bots are the solution. A large enough mass of them would disrupt the flow of warm water vapor. Therefore it would deny the storm the energy needed. Of course we're still a ways off from effective use of nano-bots but I can dream.
Re:Possible way to kill hurricanes . . . (Score:3, Informative)
I can't find the original Popular Science article about it, but the most basic design is an electro-magnet wound around an aluminium tube, with an antenna at the opposite end of the detonator
Re:Possible way to kill hurricanes . . . (Score:3, Funny)
You are right. Nothing bad could come of this.
Re:Possible way to kill hurricanes . . . (Score:2)
Do we also use pots of acid as telephones?
No, they test for that where I work.
Kill Hurricanes, Cause Droughts? (Score:4, Insightful)
If all hurricanes were destroyed ... what would that do to the climate worldwide? What about rainfall? It would be easier and cheaper to move people (permanently) out of vulnerable areas.
Building in an area that is hurricane-suceptible, in the area the expected to flood, should NOT BE REWARDED by subsidized insurance, rescue efforts, and rebuilding money. Except for fishing and shipping, there are few publically valuable reasons to build and live in the Gulf Coast. Resorts? Let them fend for themselves - they are for-profit businesses.
Re:Possible way to kill hurricanes . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure it would. Not only would it vaporize a lot of water, giving the hurricane a boost, but it would also irradiate said water, making those 60 m/s winds with heavy rainfall into 60 m/s radiactive wind and heavy raifall. In short, it would be the dumbest thing one could possibly do.
Which gets us back to the grandparents question: why hasn't the US government tried it ?-)
Sorry, couldn't resist...
Re:Possible way to kill hurricanes . . . (Score:2)
the Geneva Conventions (Score:2)
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, once we use this cheap power we stop making greenhouse gases and our power source dies.
D'oh!
(But no, this is very cool.)
Re:Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
And more on topic, I think the big deal would be the ability to stop hurricanes by s
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
The Atlantic has been a busy place for over 100yrs, I don't think the weather geeks missed too many big storms in the last century just because they didn't have satellites.
The GW aspect is not about the frequency of storms but rather the total amount of energy they contain, although given enough energy more storms could be expected to reach hurricane status. There is no hard evidence that the frequency is trending upwards (the frequency increase over the last few years is on too short a time scale to be significant). However there is good evidence that the total energy over the last 30 yrs has steadily increased but as far as I know the jury is still diliberating.
If you look back over the last 30yrs or so at reports such as from the IPCC and many other credible publications before it, you will find a plethora of predictions. Many of these predictions have already been verified by observation, unfortunately they have occured much sooner than the scientific establishment thought they would.
As an example, 10yrs ago the GHG feedback loop from melting permafrost was thought to be at least 50yrs away (if it happened at all). Recently one of those weather satelites observed this process over Siberria. A higher frequency of extreme weather has also been a long standing prediction, but you are technically correct, just because it waddles and quacks doesn't mean they are right.
The US has contributed as much to climate research as all the other countries combined. The rest of the planet appreciates this incredible scientific effort but cannot understand why the US continues to insist their emporer is not stark naked.
As for TFA, magnets will not stop a hurricane, cure arthritis or sterilize your water but they can be used to scan for brains.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Grab.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Of course I'm just pulling that scenario out of my ass, but the bottom line is that things like hurricanes are complicated and things like
Re:Wow (Score:2)
If the ground goes up 5degK then the stratosphere is not also going to go up 5degK. What your suggesting is the basic heat engine of hurricanes would be altered but the cold side of that heat sink is space not just cold air. Even in the middle of the day the sun is not really heating the upper atmosphere directly so when there is a huge heat sink (like the ocean) on the ground it's not that important i
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Are you so sure of this?
There are many who are now arguing the sun is indeed getting brighter.
Are you serious? (Score:3, Interesting)
Give me a break.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:2)
Re:Are you serious? (Score:2)
They are, but they're cranks (Score:5, Insightful)
None of this is strange physics. All of it is accounted for by current weather models. Talk of "particle accelerators" and "capacitor banks" is silly; there's a lot of energy converted to lightning in thunderstorms, but it's small and secondary compared to the heat engine which drives it.
The authors of this piece are first-class cranks.
Re: (Score:2)
They sap and impurify his precious bodily fluids (Score:2)
By the way any big storm will create "seismic disturbances". Big waves crash on shore, and heavy stuff falls over, and seismographs can pick this up. Big woo.
And falling barometric pressure can make your joints hurt, as the pressure inside your body equalizes with outside.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:2)
Re:Are you serious? (Score:2)
The way it works is this.
Many my legs ache. Oh look a Storm is coming. That must be why.
Then my legs ache. It is a clear day oh well.
And finally it can become. A storm is coming. My legs should hurt so they do.
It seems like as humans we are wired to find patterns. Sometimes it seems like we find patterns even when their isn't any.
It is not uncommon. The same thing happens with doctors and nurses. There is a myth that more babies are born when there is a full moon
Re:Are you serious? (Score:2)
More than likely exactly what I posted. Think about it a change in barometric pressure would have what effect on screws in a persons body? A solid piece of metal is extremely stable as far as pressure is concerned.
Look at what I wrote and think about it. Isn't it the most logical explanation?
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Kill the storm? (Score:2)
Re:Kill the storm? (Score:2)
There was talk about lightning being significant in tornadoes, and I can vouch for there being a lot of lightning in tornadoes, I've seen five of them at night and they even glow a very pretty blue-green. We also clocked windspeeds of over 800MPH on school (u
Re:Kill the storm? (Score:3, Funny)
At last (Score:3, Funny)
At last, a coherent argument for global warming and climate change.
Re:Global warming link to hurricane activity (Score:2)
Here's a good overview [thewatt.com] of the current thinking with the link between hurricane activity and global warming. Basically they can't prove the link between the number of hurricane's that make it inland, but it seems as if a link between hurricane strength and global warming is there. Since the 70's the number of class 4 and 5 hurricanes have gone steadily upwards.
Re:Global warming link to hurricane activity (Score:2)
Is it not also true that hurricane patterns run in cycles. Thus every 20 to 30 years there is a cycle and they also believe there is a secondary cycle. In the 120 year range.
We don't have records dating back very far on how stonge hurricane are, we don't have a clue how many there have been outside of the last 100 years, and those are just in 1858 it felt like 140 mile per hours winds!
Anyway my point being we have no constructive data about hurricanes at all in the range that we need them to have any idea i
Re:Global warming link to hurricane activity (Score:2)
What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
Check this bullshit out:
What a heaping plate of crud. This is embarassing.
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:2)
Actually I found this as lucid and useful as the "Executive Summary" and 'Mitigating Factors' in a Microsoft Security bulletin
Unless the author of the piece is himself at the vortex of the storm, he isn't acting as the dielectric in the capacitor that is the storm. His fevered imagination is pr
Hmm... the submitter... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hmm... the submitter... (Score:3, Informative)
Quite an interesting mix of websites he administers there...
That's an understatement. Check out some of his articles:
George W. Bush was Complicit with the 911 Attack on America [patriotsaints.com].
Was President Bush Behind Katrina? [greaterthings.com]. Lest the title fool you into thinking Allan considers this a question:
sounds like text from a course (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.life.edu/Chiropractic_and_Wellness/wha
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:2)
Of course it's outside the reductionistic-chemical paradigm, because it's crap! I'll file this one in the same place I file the Electric Universe theory and the UFO's-riding-behind-Comet-Hale-Bopp theory.
My sig is relevant today (Score:2)
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I find this pretty common in techies who didn't complete a formal education. Because they never had someone explain exactly the relations of capacitance, dielectric properties, EMF, or other scientifically known phenomena, they tend to "reinvent the wheel" with new names.
Tesla was working
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:2)
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you new here? Practically every other article is submitted by a party related to the article source websites. Nothing here is really news, but more just fodder for discussion. Or at least bitching (as the case may be here).
Imagine you're at the nerd table in high school, and people are continually coming up to the table peddling their wares or ideas. Maybe a couple people at the table chime in with something they heard in the news every now and then. In any case, it's all subject for discussion. We can talk about how something is crap, discuss the implications about this or that, or at least see if we can make milk come out someone's nose. That's really all
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:2)
Imagine you're at the nerd table in high school, and people are continually coming up to the table peddling their wares or ideas.
I think you are getting the nerd table in high school confused with a VC's office. What you mean here was pummelling you beyond recognition.
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:2)
I imagine a lot of the bitching arises from the fact that most of the people here aren't in high school anymore and want the editors to grow up, too.
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:2)
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:2)
Sadly, I'm forced to agree. Too bad Digg.com's discussions are even worse.
Wrong (Score:4, Informative)
-everphilski-
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:3, Funny)
Then I typed in "cheese fetish" and got 936, lol
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:3, Interesting)
No shit, really? I've never heard that.[/sarcasm]
Sparky, what makes it bullshit is his analysis, which involves claims that it's because of the dielectric stress of a storm that's hundreds of miles away. Pretty much every single statement in his article is purest, unmitigated, grade-D bullshit.
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:5, Informative)
This guy's in the Bozo brigade. I'm not disputing that his back aches. I am disputing the wealth of bullshit in the article:
He's a bullshit artist, and he's selling a product. No different than Simpson & Son's Patented Energizing Moisturizing Tantalizing Romanticizing Surprising, Herprizing Revitalizing Tonic. The term might be vulgar, but it's a hell of a lot more to the point than just calling it "snake oil."
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:2)
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:2)
Alternative theories (Score:2, Interesting)
However, alternative hypotheses require strong evidence to be accepted.
Let's look at the facts here. Paul Noel had back pain in the weeks leading up to Wilma hitting Florida. We don't know how often he has back pain, but lets assume that this pain was distinctive, call it "storm pain". So Paul is having storm pain in the weeks before Wilma hits Florida. Now, where was Wilma during this time? Wilma was a tropical depression in the m
Re:Alternative theories (Score:2)
Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell (Score:2)
But it is a good indicator. Besides he ignores the massive amount of heat that is radiated out by a tropical storm (through well understood thermodynamic processes) amd that if massive amounts of EM energy were being emitted by such a storm, it's not only be easily detectable, but also would overwhelm most of our delicate electronic devices and electrical power infrastructure - global
Particle Accelerator (Score:2, Funny)
I call BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Functions as a capacitor (Score:5, Insightful)
Definitions (Score:2)
Re:Definitions (Score:3, Funny)
Of course he's right! (Score:4, Funny)
The thing he's wrong about is the causes of these electrical phenomena. It's definitely Russian-made electromagnetic generators operated by the Yakuza [mosnews.com]. If we really want to harness the power of hurricanes, we simply need to find these generators and either (a) destroy them or (b) sell them to Third World dictators to destroy each other with.
Re:Of course he's right! (Score:2)
Check out Weather Wars [weatherwars.info]
Re:Of course he's right! (Score:2)
Re:Of course he's right! (Score:2)
From the article;
The generators emit a soundwave between three and 30 megahertz and Stevens claims the Russians invented the storm-creating technology back in 1976 and sold it to others in the late 1980s.
HF shortwave radio anyone? I seriously doubt you can spawn a storm with a shortwave radio.
I was inside Wilma (Score:2, Interesting)
Just for the record, although I was able to get to Jacksonville after the storm, there are still millions of people in the greater Ft. Lauderdale and Miami area that have no power. The lack of power makes it so that they are unable to get gasoline and therefore they can't
Re:I was inside Wilma (Score:2)
Particle accelerator (Score:2, Funny)
Wilma's in the Spacetime Continuum (Score:3, Funny)
Energy problems solved (Score:2)
So what this guy is trying to say is that we should attach a piece of wire with a key on the end to a kite and fly it into the storm thus tapping the stored enegry. This will not only provide us with a huge amount of free energy but disapate the storm as well. Cool.
I'll wait while this numb skull goes and tries his ideas out.
Re:Energy problems solved (Score:2)
The numbskull will probably tie it to a fence and wonder why it burst into flames.
Hurricane = Heat+Water Engine (Score:4, Insightful)
The flow of heat and water in hurricanes is well enough understood. I'm sure electrical discharges play a part in most storm mechanics, but even if a hurricane had ZERO discharges, its massive "humidity engine" would still run.
I don't know where these guys come from, where they think that electromagnetics are the ultimate macro-scale drivers of weather events.
Re:Hurricane = Heat+Water Engine (Score:2)
He must be one of the "electric universe" types.
Nutters (Score:5, Informative)
Since when did Slashdot become home to new age nutcases? Orgone Accumulators make great songs for Hawkwind and Kate Bush, but as physics it's not a basis for anything other than providing something to laugh at.
ian
Open Source Energy Network (Score:2)
Re:Nutters (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nutters (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, me too. New Age girls are easy.
Best... understatement... ever. (Score:2, Insightful)
Best understatement for a major hurricane hitting a populated area... EVER.
Electric Universe again? (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Universe_mod el [wikipedia.org]
WHY!!! (Score:2)
Why can't we moderate the actual stories! This should be a -3 Stupid.
Global Warming relief? (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdot needs a new category icon: the duncecap (Score:4, Informative)
The proper role of an editor is to properly categorize material which is suitable for the publication, and reject that which is not. Taco's judgement in this case is, shall we say, questionable. The source website is full of logical and scientific garbage, so it doesn't belong in the science category. The talk of "particle accelerators" is bunkum too, unless you are talking about phenomena like sprites and jets [alaska.edu] which also occur in thunderstorms (and are at least somewhat understood but still under research), or perhaps if you are talking about particles from shingles and 4x8 sheets of plywood up to whole trees accelerated to 150 knots. Thus it doesn't belong in the hardware category either. And it takes itself far too seriously to be funny.
There really is no legitimate Slashdot heading under which this piece fits. Accordingly, I suggest a new one: the duncecap. This is for articles (or editorial decisions to post articles) which are too stupid for words, and to properly categorize such errors in judgement rather than throwing them down the memory hole.
Any editor posting a mis-categorized article which really ought to be filed in "It's stupid. Ask your editor why this is here" should have to wear a real duncecap during the performance of their duties for the next 24 hours. That sort of reminder is necessary to keep editors from shirking their responsibility to be, you know, editors.
Obviously, /. needs a new icon (Score:2)
Well, what
Well, what
But I digress.
What
stop the spread! (Score:4, Insightful)
The use of the word "instantly" when discussing any weather phenomena is not accurate. Everything takes time to form, or not - to use such terms indicates the author is over exagerating his claims.
Terms like "massive capacitor bank" and "harmonic circuits" are also used to wow the audience into thinking that perhaps the author might actually know what he is talking about.
Not only that but it's on "opensourcenergy.org" after poking around I felt like I should get my tin foil hat out, I'd be in good company. Check out this great piece of reporting: http://www.opensourceenergy.org/_layouts/apps/dp/
Get a science editor (Score:2)
This kind of thing makes me consider removing Slashdot from my feed aggregator. You probably lost a few dozen right there.
It's not your job to know everything, but if you can't tell whether something is crap, either leave it alone, or get someone qualified to help.
thanks
Dear Complainers (Score:2)
In short: Shut the Hell up.
You are educated stupid! (Score:2)
pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo (Score:3, Insightful)
why I don't pay for slashdot (Score:2)
Bollocks (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, science is not cool anymore. It's a victim of its own success; things which obey rules never really attract attention. If light suddenly decided not to travel in straight lines, or objects suddenly ceased to attract one another in proportion to the ratio of the product of their masses to the distance between them, that would get noticed. If you want to get into the papers for drawing a triangle, all you have to do is make sure that its angles add up to somet
Re:Bollocks (Score:2)
It really depends what you mean by a straight line.
Electric Universe! (Score:2, Funny)
This is just painful to read... (Score:3, Interesting)
This man needs to look at some actual real atmospheric science work. Even a little search would get him a wealth of hurricane information:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaqHED.html [noaa.gov]
I would suggest anyone interested in hurricanes to read this FAQ. It is relatively regularly updated with new research and information.
TFA has some interesting points, but electromagnetic forces? How about simple thermodynamics? The troposphere responds to thermal forcings more readily than electromagnetic. (This is not necessarily true of the very upper reaches of the atmosphere, e.g. ionosphere, where electromagnetic forcings by the sun have not been heavily filtered and where the diatomic molecules of N2 and O2 do not make up the majority of the air.)
He is right, though, in a analogue way about the hurricane being a capacitor and that it needs to release heat energy somehow. He's just completely wrong on how hurricanes typically do this.
Hurricanes are warm core systems. This means that the center of the hurricane is warmer than the environment it lives in. This is required to keep the winds in balance. In a developing storm, the warm core is thought to form because of all the condensational heating. Then, as the storm strengthens, the heating from the convection (in a way) fluxes into the eye which allows the storm to strengthen and stay in balance (this is known as thermal wind balance, one of the fundamental balances in vertically-varying fluids... it is the phenomenon that explains why jet streams happen over frontal systems). In a way, one could think of the warm core of the hurricane as a sort of thermal capacitor... but it's not a perfect analogue.
Additionally, with all that energy transfer, why doesn't a strong hurricane keep strengthening even with all the convection happening? Simply put, the convection helps maintain the hurricane vortex against friction. Since the hurricane has strong winds near the surface, an unforced vortex will spin down very quickly. The convection around the eyewall provides the energy needed to keep the vortex spinning against friction. Take a moment and think about how much energy friction must be dissipating, then, if you need as much convection as is seen with strong hurricanes.
The hurricane is well-known to be a strongly balanced vortex that has an obvious structure that doesn't require any odd forcings like electromagnetics. Thermodynamics and fluid dynamics are all that are needed to understand 90% or more of the hurricane's structure. Electromagnetics in hurricanes is pretty silly. Besides, it's been well-observed that, given the strength of the convection in hurricanes, they have very little lightning compared to continental thunderstorms. The exact reasons for this are still speculative, but deal with the different precipitation processes in the two types of convection. Either way, I found all this rather silly. It's interesting to think about, but, from an expert in the field, pretty much ludicrous on its face.
-Jellisky
That's about the only thing they got right. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That's about the only thing they got right. (Score:2)
It can be shown (Callen's book does a fine job) that minimizing the free energy of a system will also maximize its entropy, under all conditions. You're free to think about it either way.
Re:That's about the only thing they got right. (Score:2)
minimizing the free energy of a system will also maximize its entropy, under all conditions. You're free to think about it either way.
Free Energy != heat
Free Energy = heat - temp * entropy
When the GP said "enegy[sic] is lost" I think it is important to emphasize that there are (none "free energy") terms for which your statement is incorrect. Minimizing the "heat energy" in a system does not itself obey the Second La
Re: (Score:2)
Hi Sterling, lets talk. (Score:2)
I'm surprised you have the guts to show yourself in the thread after some of the comments which have been made. So, kudos on your bravery.
However, I would like to take this opportunity to explain to you why so many people are mad at you right now.
People were expecting (rightly or wrongly, this being Slashdot) a science story. This is not what they got. I will explain to you why this is not a science story.
A science story would present a phenomenon which was previously unexplained, then presen