Future Energy eNews IntegrityResearchInstitute.org Dec. 5, 2004
1)Yucca Mountain and Nuke Waste - Still a major dilemma for Congress to decide. Why not use photoremediation of the waste first? Apparently MIT's Technology Review never heard of it.
2)Peak Oil and the Big Picture - Find out how the world is preparing for the already declining oil production...hoarding.
3)DOE Gives the Expected Brush-off of Cold Fusion - With so many skeptical reviewers who have no lab experience with cold fusion, DOE makes claims of measurement errors; suggests more research.
4)Europe's Impractical ITER Fusion Project - Another wasteful Tokamak for $6 billion which is not capable of commercial electricity production. Why not spend 0.1% of it on Focus Fusion instead?
5)Chronic Fatigue and Electromedicine - How the cell's membrane voltage potential can be boosted with electrotherapy.
1) A New Vision for Nuclear Waste
By Matthew L. Wald, Technology Review, December 2004,http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/12/wald1204.asp
Storing nuclear waste underground at Yucca Mountain for 100,000 years is a terrible idea. A better approach may be to buy some time—until new containment technologies mature.
When American Airlines Flight 11 flew at low altitude down the Hudson River valley on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, its target was the north tower of the World Trade Center. But its impact is still being felt at a cluster of buildings it passed about five minutes before it reached lower Manhattan, at a nuclear-reactor complex called Indian Point in Buchanan, NY. Adjacent to the site’s two operating reactors are two buildings packed with highly radioactive spent-fuel rods, in pools of water 12 meters deep and tinged Ty-D-Bol blue by boron added to tamp down nuclear chain reactions. The soothing hum of the pumps that circulate the building’s warm, moist air—and, critically, keep the water cool—lends an atmosphere of industrial tranquility.
Without that cooling water, the fuel cladding might overheat, melt, catch fire, and release radiation. Whether the impact of a Boeing 767 like Flight 11 could drain one of the pools and disable backup water pumps, starting such a fire, is far from clear. Nevertheless, the threat of terrorism in general and the flyover of Flight 11 in particular have reignited the debate about why all of this dangerous fuel is still here—indeed, why all spent fuel produced at Indian Point in three decades is still here—and not at Yucca Mountain, the federal government’s burial spot near Las Vegas, where it was supposed to be shipped beginning six years ago.
Late this past summer, a construction project began at Indian Point that will allow the fuel to be pulled out of the pools. But it’s not going to Yucca. The government says Yucca won’t be ready until 2010. Executives in the nuclear industry say a more likely date is between 2015 and never. So instead of traveling to Nevada, Indian Point’s fuel is traveling about 100 meters, to a bluff overlooking the Hudson River. On a late-summer day this year, a backhoe tore out maple and black-walnut trees to make way for a concrete pad. Beginning next year, the first of a planned 72 six-meter-tall concrete-and-steel casks will be placed there, a configuration that adds storage capacity and thus allows the twin power plants to keep operating. Though they provide a hedge against a worst-case fuel-pool meltdown, these casks are merely another temporary solution. The fact that they’re needed at all represents the colossal failure of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Yucca plans and technology.
Yet as engineering and policy failures go, this one has a silver lining. Conventional thinking holds that Yucca’s problems must be solved quickly so that nuclear waste can be squirreled away safely and permanently, deep within a remote mountain. But here’s the twist: with nuclear waste, procrastination may actually pay. The construction of cask fields presents a chance to rethink the conventional. The passage of several decades while the waste sits in casks could be immensely helpful. A century would give the United States time to observe progress on waste storage in other countries. In the meantime, natural radioactive decay would make the waste cooler and thus easier to deal with. What’s more, technological advances over the next century might yield better long-term storage methods. "If it goes on for another 50 years, it doesn’t matter. It could go on for 100 or 200 years, and it’s probably for the better," says Allison Macfarlane, a geologist at MIT and coeditor of a forthcoming book on Yucca. "We’ve got plenty of time to play with it."
The government must now accept that its Yucca plan is a failure and that casks are the de facto solution. Indian Point’s cask pad will not be the first; about two dozen operating reactors have them already. Others are likely to soon join the list. And some casks—at Rowe, MA, Wiscasset, ME, Charlevoix, MI, and a site near Sacramento, CA—are nuclear orphans, having outlived their reactors. Each cask pad is roughly the size of a football field, floodlit, watched by motion sensors and closed-circuit TV, and surrounded by razor wire and armed guards. Given the homeland-security concern posed by nuclear-waste facilities, and the need to guard them individually, do we really want 60 of them—serving all 125 commercial reactors that have ever operated—to rise around the nation, many near population centers? If casks are the solution for the next generation or two, they should be put in one place.
Yucca is already on tenuous ground; in July a federal appeals court said that to open the mountain burial site, the government would have to show that it could contain waste for hundreds of thousands of years. Extensive scientific analyses by the Energy Department show it cannot. The court’s decision throws the whole question back to the U.S. Congress, which must now decide whether to proceed with Yucca at all. This presents an opportunity to align policy with physics and abandon the Yucca-or-bust dogma that has dominated the debate for nearly 20 years. Casks, centrally located, could make the high-level-waste problem a lot easier to solve and increase national security much sooner, too.
ED. NOTE: The solution is photoremediation of nuclear waste which offers a "pre-treatment" process for the Yucca Mountain dilemma from J. of Physics D: "Laser-driven photo-transmutation of 129I—a long-lived nuclear waste product" - http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0022-3727/36/18/L01/ . Download the pdf version: http://www.iop.org/EJ/S/UNREG/vscR4TOSDFCsQ97Z1AQBZQ/article/0022-3727/36/18/L01/d3_18_L01.pdf
The US DOE also has confirmed its efficacy in a Congressional Report:
----- Original Message -----
Cc: <email@example.com>; <Dave.Goodwin@hq.doe.gov>
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 8:22 AM
Subject: nuclear remediation via half-life acceleration
I have read that the US DOE Congressional report for nuclear remediation
using particle accelerators (circa 2002) showed most radioactive species
could be half-life accelerated by gamma energy in the 6 to 10 MeV range.
This is in agreement with the late Dr. Paul Brown's work and publications
at his "Nuclear Solutions" firm in Colorado.
I feel we should rethink nuclear power with remediation as a requirement
before any mass production like China and Africa are planning, as well as
David B. Hamilton
2) Peak Oil and the Big Picture
3) Evidence on Cold Fusion Remains Inconclusive, New Review Finds
By KENNETH CHANG, New York Times, December 2, 2004http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/science/02fusion.html
In a new review of cold fusion - the claim that energy can be generated by running electrical current through water - the Department of Energy released a report yesterday that says the evidence remains inconclusive, echoing a similar report 15 years ago.
Over the past several months, 18 scientists reviewed research in cold fusion, and two-thirds of them did not find the evidence for nuclear reactions in the experiments convincing. Almost all of them, however, said that aspects of cold fusion merited consideration for further research.
"I think the new review has shed some light on the status of research that has been done over the last 15 years," said Dr. James F. Decker, deputy director of the science office in the Energy Department who agreed to the review at the request of several scientists involved with cold fusion research.
Dr. Decker said the department was open to proposals for cold fusion research, but added that was not new. "We have always been open to proposals that have scientific merit as determined by peer review," he said. "We have never closed the door to cold fusion proposals."
Cold fusion briefly appeared to promise an unlimited energy source in 1989 when Drs. B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Utah announced that they had generated fusion - the same process that powers the sun - in a tabletop experiment using a jar of water containing deuterium, a heavier version of hydrogen.
They claimed that an electrical current running through the water pulled deuterium atoms into two palladium electrodes, generating heat. The speculation was that the heat was coming from the fusion of the deuterium atoms.
Other scientists, however, had trouble reproducing the findings, and at the end of 1989, a review by the Energy Department recommended against a specific cold fusion research program, although it did support further investigation into some aspects.
After that, most scientists regarded cold fusion as a discredited farce, but a small group of scientists continued work in the field. Measurements have become better, but cold fusion experiments still produce heat at best half of the time. At the end of last year, several cold fusion scientists approached Dr. Decker, asking for a review. Dr. Decker agreed.
In the review, nine scientists chosen by the Energy Department considered a paper submitted by the cold fusion scientists. Another nine listened to oral presentations by cold fusion scientists in August.
"This was a very, very scientific, very level-headed, review by everybody," said Dr. Kirby W. Kemper, vice president for research at Florida State University and one of the reviewers of the oral presentations. But Dr. Kemper said, "I don't think we've made much progress since '89 in really nailing down the parameters that make it reproducible."
He said there were interesting scientific questions on the behavior of hydrogen within metals that merited research, and he said his comments tried to offer a future research path.
Dr. Michael McKubre, a scientist at SRI International, one of the scientists who approached Dr. Decker last year, said the conclusions were at least "mildly positive" in endorsing consideration of further research.
"All we set out to demonstrate was there were serious issues of science that had to be developed further," Dr. McKubre said. "If you look through the materials, the majority, if not the entirety, agree on that point."
ED. NOTE:Look at the DOE Report - http://www.science.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy/index.htm
Visit a website dedicated to the DOE Report -http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:DOE_ColdFusion
Visit Bamboo Web online encyclopedia for a good tutorial on Cold Fusion with lots of embedded links -http://www.bambooweb.com/articles/c/o/Cold_fusion.html
4) Europe threatens to go for fusion alone
EU says it could build a new reactor without Japanese support.
The ITER fusion reactor could pave the way for a new source of energy.
European ministers today agreed to build the $6.1-billion ITER experimental nuclear-fusion reactor with less than all its international partners, if that proves necessary to secure a French site for the project.
ITER will try to prove the principle of creating fusion energy by heating plasma constrained by a magnetic field. But a deadlock among the project's six partners over the choice of host has stalled it for more than a year.
China and Russia are backing the European Union's Cadarache site in France, whereas the United States and Korea support Japan's rival site at Rokkasho.
The latest international meeting, held on 9 November in Vienna, ended yet again without decision (see "Stalemate over fusion project threatens to provoke split").
On 26 November, the EU Competitiveness Council mandated the European Commission, the union's executive arm, to start ITER with fewer international partners if no deal could be reached with Japan. It also stated that the commission should complete the legal agreements needed to build ITER by next June, meaning that it would need to close any deal by the end of the year.
Informed of the development by Nature, Satoru Ohtake, director of fusion energy at Japan's science ministry, expressed doubts that Europe was committed to its declared stance, suggesting that the move might equally be intended to raise the stakes in the ITER negotiations. "If they think this will put pressure on us, they are wrong," he warns.
Ohtake argues that if Europe were to pursue this route, it would damage an important international scientific collaboration. "If they break the negotiations by pursuing their own desires, they will be the ones that break international mutual trust," he says. "This is divisive; it is not acceptable to us."
"The partners must remain united in the search for a compromise even if this takes time," he adds. "If both sides just insist on their own point of view, there is no way out."
5) Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Electromedicine
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a condition that has become quite prevalent in the last 50 years. It is defined as a debilitating lack of vitality that includes symptoms lasting at least 6 months. These symptoms may include:
More women are affected than men are by this syndrome. Even more disturbing, a muscle disorder that also causes weakness, called fibromyalgia, has been found in many CFS patients, according to a study conducted by the Center for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov). With more than three-quarters of a million people in the United States exhibiting a CFS-like condition, it is becoming a serious health concern.
The causes for CFS are still undetermined. Some studies suggest multiple nutrient deficiencies can trigger chronic fatigue. Therefore, proper nutrition, consisting of a well balanced diet is vitally important. Fresh fruits and raw foods are especially recommended. Herbs that are helpful include ginkgo, astragalus, red clover, dandelion and short term use of echinacea to help boost the immune system, which is always affected by CFS. To help improve the interrupted sleep pattern, valerian root or melatonin at bedtime is helpful.
Although numerous studies have been conducted to find the underlying causes of CFS, none have succeeded in understanding its physiological or chemical pathways. Some studies have shown that deficiencies of the adrenal or thyroid glands have been found in CFS patients. This has prompted the belief that stress can trigger CFS, whether it is of mental or physical origin. Therefore energy boosting therapies as well as vitamins and antioxidant supplementation to combat free radical proliferation is often considered to be extremely important.
How do free radicals deplete cellular energy? Free radical proliferation is linked to pathological changes that cause cellular malfunction or mutation (i.e. cancer) as well as protein degradation. Free radicals also play a large role in causing damage to all cells of the body but particularly the immune system. Free radicals also deplete cellular energy by interfering with mitochondrial function and contribute to shortened lifespan, according to studies with animal species. Cellular energy generation in the mitochondria is both a key source and key target of oxidative stress in the cells. Seeking an electron to complete the radical, free radicals cause chain reactions as electrons are ripped from molecules, creating another free radical. Cellular energy generation in the mitochondria is both a key source and key target of oxidant stress in the cell. One can therefore envision a model whereby the inevitable increased production of free radicals compromises mitochondrial efficiency and eventually energy output in a detrimental feedback loop.
Antioxidants such as vitamin A, vitamin E, selenium and coenzyme Q10 supply free electrons and are usually prescribed by naturopathic doctors in order to provide limited relief in counteracting free radical ravages, as long as they are taken regularly. However, electronic antioxidants produced by bioelectromagnetic (BEM) therapy can also satisfy and terminate free radicals, by abundantly supplying the key ingredient usually found only in encapsulated antioxidant supplements…the electron. Indeed, such a pattern of confirmation has been found through our preliminary studies before and after electrotherapy with the Pharmanex BioPhotonic Scanner which tests for carotenoid (vitamin A) levels in the blood. The carotenoid levels of the blood are noticeably higher after high voltage electrotherapy, suggesting that free radical levels have dropped since they are not consuming carotenoids at the same rate as before therapy.
Another indicator or immune system status and energy storage level of the body is the voltage that is maintained across all of its cell membranes. The so-called transmembrane potential (TMP), typically in the hundred thousand volt range per centimeter, is often found to be much lower during stress and disease states, indicating lower energy levels in the body. In this case, modern medicine does not offer a chemical supplement or pharmaceutical concoction to provide relief. However, the high voltage electric fields presented to the body by bioelectromagnetic therapy can be reasonably expected to boost the TMP directly.
It is known that damaged or diseased cells present an abnormally low TMP about 80% lower than healthy cells., This signifies a greatly reduced metabolism and, in particular, impairment of the electrogenic sodium-potassium (Na-K) pump activity and therefore, reduced ATP production. The sodium-potassium pump, within the membrane, forces a ratio of 3Na ions out of the cell for every 2K ions pumped in, for proper metabolism. An impaired Na-K pump results in edema (cellular water accumulation) and a tendency toward fermentation, a condition known to be favorable toward cancerous activity.
A Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgi, proposed that cell membranes also rectify alternating currents since structured proteins behave like solid-state diodes. (A diode passes electricity in only one direction.) It is reasonable therefore to conclude, based on these biophysical principles, that an endogenous high voltage EMF potential of sufficient strength will theoretically stimulate the TMP, normal cell metabolism, the sodium pump, ATP production and healing. This far-reaching generalization has already been found in the literature: "TMP is proportional to the activity of this pump and thus to the rate of healing." Furthermore, "increases in the membrane potential have also been found to increase the uptake of amino acids." Electromedicine therefore, appears to connect to and recharge the storage battery of the TMP, just as sunlight baths connect to and recharge the storage battery of biophotons in cellular DNA.
Will high voltage electrotherapy become the medicine of the future? Similar expectations were voiced 100 years ago when pioneers such as Tesla, Rife, and Lakhovsky served medical doctors with their remarkable inventions in electromedicine. Only superior clinical studies along with perseverance and determination to change the pharmaceutical dependency in this country may make the difference this time around. In the meantime, those suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome may find that relatively simple steps can be taken to reduce debilitating free radical attack and boost ATP production through TMP recharging by regular, brief electromedicine treatments.
Further information on TMP, ATP and BEM therapy can be found in the book,Bioelectromagnetic Healing: A Rationale for its Use by Thomas Valone. Related websites are www.novaliteresearch.com , www.zephyrtechnology.com , www.rejuvenetics.us , www.designmed.com, www.lightbeamgenerator.com , and www.IntegrityResearchInstitute.org .
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