Environmental News

Based on New Origins probe (that went to and past) Pluto, and some fast-and-loose math, about 600 tons of fuel need to be burned (in the atmosphere) to get a ton of stuff out there.

 

Pasadena -> Anaheim

Unless there is something peculiar happening at CalTech

 

News to me, and perhaps appropriate to the 'level' of our recent discussion here, there is a scientific journal aimed for a quite young audience:

Five Nobel Prize winners publish scientific a | EurekAlert!

Frontiers for Young Minds: Science for kids, edited by kids

Readers might test drive that on their young associates.

 

Continuing the fuel economy theme, it appears that 'shipping' to Mars requires only about 1/6 the fuel, compared to Pluto. Not very confident in that calculation - perhaps others see a clearer picture.

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I suppose New Origins needed enough velocity to escape Sun's gravity well completely, as it is still going. Only the third such?

Throwing stuff at Mars only requires enough velocity to get gravitationally captured by Mars. And of course going to a correct spot. So it should have a much lower velocity requirement. Always learning here

It may be that most Mars trippers move faster than that bare minimum, to save on travel time.

 

Actually there is new fun stuff coming out about sending people to Mars. That solar maximum activity would be a good time to go. That stuck me as counter intuitive because that is time of highest charged-particle flux from Sun, which biologicals would rather avoid.

Explanation apparently is that solar magnetosphere is largest then, and it can provide some protection en route against galactic charged-particle fluxes. Which are even less friendly.

Ecosystems within ecosystems

 

Here is some new love for heat pumps:

Are heat pumps the most overlooked climate solution?

 

Yes, they have financial interests here. That is not enough by itself to discard the analysis. People run the numbers for themselves and make some decisions. They might decide to not scuttle the coal scuttle. That's the fun of it.

 

Ah yes the pellets.Let me just defer complaining about new ways to grind up forests...

 

This article claims US pellet production is 80% waste from other wood industries and 20% new cutting:

Sustainability | Free Full-Text | Effects of Production of Woody Pellets in the Southeastern United States on the Sustainable Development Goals | HTML

Audubon, Natl Resources Defense Council among others are 'heated' on this subject, mostly related to the Euro policy @Trollbait mentions.

A consortium of Congo-forest countries are getting into pellet manufacture/export, possibly as a way to work around round-wood export bans.

 

When you put a stick in a wood stove, not all of it encounters optimal conditions of temperature and oxygen supply. So there are particulates, carbon monoxide, and thermal inefficiency. Pellet stoves demonstrably do combustion better, and are about as clean as wood burning can be I suppose. Also they are pretty much automatic, so end user does not need to know much about wood. Do not underestimate market value of dumbing down. They call it convenience

Full carbon accounting of pellet manufacturing, and transport (to as far as Europe) may have been done. I don't know. But it won't improve the carbon picture.

There is plenty of room for 'spin' by both sides.

A matter of interest for me is whether all that underground stuff (mycorrhia etc.) happens as nicely in short-rotation forests (whatever the reason they are on short rotation) as it does where trees are less disturbed. I don't think that has been studied carefully.

 

Firewood end use far from its cutting site also aids in dispersal of forest pests, emerald ash borer, etc. If pellet factories are close to cutting sites, I suppose they avoid such problems.

The subject has many aspects to consider. Makes it interesting.