The 10 greatest discoveries of zoology A panel of judges at BBC Wildlife Magazine has named the greatest zoological disco...
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This blog will guide about scientific discoveries and connect ypu with science world.So stay connceted with exploreworld12.blogspot.com Regards Irfan and Team
ScienceDaily (23 November, 2012) - salmon production from waste waters off the coast of Norway is. Researchers say this is a medium - NOK 6 billion worth per year - for a new biological product will be exploited.
2009 Norway fish salmon and salmon fish farms produce over a million tons, 1.2 million tons of high quality feed and went into production. But administered products breathing in plenty of feed, faeces and uneaten feed around the water continues.
This means that an important part of aquaculture feed industry actually both organic and inorganic waste is fertilising the ocean with nutrients. The cost of these nutrients is estimated at NOK 6 billion annually.
High economic growth, low pollution
Project "Integrated aquaculture sea water high yield (integrated) areas for sustainable culture technology," researchers studied the kelp waste and / or mussels harvested for use as nutrients can be is. The science and (NTNU) Norway University of Technology Associate Professor Kjell Inge Reitan was led by the Research Council of Norway's initiative to promote sustainable seafood production as part of the funding 've received.
"The integrated approach than trophic aquaculture (IMTA) significant investment in aquaculture will provide added value," explains Dr. Reitan, "while at the same time reduce the potentially adverse environmental effects have to. "
Environmental organizations are important aquaculture waste harmful to the environment.
Kelp can help: Many application areas.
Carrying out experiments in a research institute SINTEF researchers documented the harvest of kelp aquaculture facilities is progressing well. Mussel cultivation under similar conditions shows promise.
Kelp inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus discharged by fish farms are required in large quantities. Norway, one of the most common species of macroalgae, Laminaria saccharina - sea kelp strip or sugar is known as - especially for use as biofuel and feed additive for industrial and chemical grow out It's a promise. Dr. Reitan to mass with several companies on kelp cultivation for the production of bioenergy cooperation is seen.
"The growth in bioenergy production and feed needs to be encouraged by the players," stressed Dr. Reitan it. "I can not believe kelp salmon farming industry trade in agriculture will be added in the near future, the integrated production industry will increase sustainability and greener profile."
Kelp should grow all year
Produced in Norway by industrial discharge on the basis of statistics, researchers from kelp IMTA process 1.7 million tons of annual capacity is estimated at 0.6. IMTA mussels harvested using methods for the assessment of capacity is 7 200 21 500 tonnes. The scale cultivation of 82 250 square kilometers of sea area will need. Worldwide, approximately 14 million tons of aquatic plants are harvested annually.
Kelp is harvested year-round effort required skill. SINTEF researchers in the artificial cultivation of year-round sugar kelp sporophytes (juvenile plants) has successfully organized.
SINTEF research scientist Silje Forbord said "This strong growth potential of kelp possible when conditions are favorable exploit that."
mussel cultivation Quadrupling
Researchers estimate that Norway IMTA salmon production methods using waste to use nutrients that four times current annual capacity of 3 mussels 000 5 000 tons of agricultural crops to achieve.
Research Council's Research Programme Aquaculture - Growth (HAVBRUK) an industry "aykuaklcr exploitation of nutrients from salmon (exploitation)" research project is to determine how to find and cultivate kelp and mussel maximum use of facilities loss of nutrients designed to aquaculture industry.
Skinput interface devices is a new invention ideas.As a touchscreen will be used sufaces your body allows this invention.This is how it works.An armband on your arm or sleeve is portraying a menu or keyboard. The bio-acoustic sensors detect an armband analysis is based on sound frequencies can.Bone density, joints, and soft tissues of the body at different places on different acoustic features.Skinput identify prospective part of your image resulting from touching a computer, smart phone or other device can transmit a wireless signal may have.Dan Morris, a researcher at Microsoft Research in Computational User Experiences, and Chris Harrison, Skinput third year PhD student at Microsoft Research in the area of communication Visulization and a senior researcher Desney brown, built by the project team Contact human computer Institute was at Carnegie Mellon Univeristy.
Astrophysical observations in the X-ray, optical, infrared, microwave, and radio spectral regimes to understand
The Cosmic Microwave Background
The formation, structure and evolution of galaxies
The formation of stars and the planet-forming environment
Spacecraft observations of in situ magnetic fields and plasmas
Development of new techniques for observations of and interpretation of gravitational wave spectra
Development of new instrumentation for astronomical observations and space physics
Laboratory measurements of cross sections in highly-charged
ions; and phenomena in electron-molecule and atom-surface collisions and
Theoretical modeling of star and planet formation, protostellar
disks, dusty debris disks and the development of new techniques for
direct observation of extrasolar planets.
Open Space meeting at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Highly scalable and adaptable, OST has been used in meetings of 5 to
2,100 people. The approach is characterized by few basic mechanisms:
a broad, open invitation that articulates the purpose of the meeting;
participant chairs arranged in a circle;
a "bulletin board" of issues and opportunities posted by participants;
a "marketplace" with many breakout spaces that participants move
freely between, learning and contributing as they "shop" for information
and ideas;
a "breathing" or "pulsation" pattern of flow, between plenary and small-group breakout sessions.
The approach is most distinctive for its initial lack of an
agenda, which sets the stage for the meeting's participants to create
the agenda for themselves, in the first 30–90 minutes of the meeting or
event. Typically, an "open space" meeting will begin with short
introductions by the sponsor (the official or acknowledged leader of the
group) and usually a single facilitator. The sponsor introduces the
purpose; the facilitator explains the "self-organizing" process called
"open space." Then the group creates the working agenda, as individuals
post their issues in bulletin board style. Each individual "convener" of
a breakout session takes responsibility for naming the issue, posting
it on the bulletin board, assigning it a space and time to meet, and
then later showing up at that space and time, kicking off the
conversation, and taking notes. These notes are usually compiled into a
proceedings document that is distributed physically or electronically to
all participants. Sometimes one or more additional approaches are used
to sort through the notes, assign priorities, and identify what actions
should be taken next. Throughout the process, the ideal facilitator is
described as being "fully present and totally invisible" (see Owen,
User's Guide), "holding a space" for participants to self-organize,
rather than managing or directing the conversations.
Hundreds of Open Space meetings have been documented (http://www.openspaceworld.org; Open Space Institute US, STORIES Newsletter; http://www.openspaceworldscape.org;
Tales from Open Space, edited by Harrison Owen, Abbott Publishing). In
"Open Space Technology: A User's Guide," (and seven other books about
Open Space), Harrison Owen explains that this approach works best when
these conditions are present, namely high levels of (1) complexity, in term of the tasks to be done or outcomes achieved; (2) diversity, in terms of the people involved and/or needed to make any solution work; (3) real or potential conflict, meaning people really care about the central issue or purpose; and (4) urgency, meaning that the time to act was "yesterday".
According to Harrison
Owen, originator of the term and the approach,
Open Space works because it harnesses and acknowledges the power of
self-organization, which he suggests is substantially aligned with the
deepest process of life itself, as described by leading-edge complexity
science as well as ancient spiritual teachings.[1]
Origin and ownership
The history of Open Space Technology is detailed in the Introduction to "Open Space Technology: A User's Guide", by Harrison Owen.[2]
In the early 1980s, Harrison Owen wrote a paper on what he called
"organization transformation". He presented this paper at a traditional
management conference. It was well enough received that a number of
people urged Owen to organize a conference to specifically address the
issues and opportunities he identified in his paper. Owen hosted the
first annual Symposium on Organization Transformation in 1983, in a
traditional conference format, in Monterey, California. The event was a
success, inasmuch as it was generally agreed that it should happen
again. The second annual symposium (OT-2) one year later, but still in a
traditional conference format.
Harrison Owen agreed to organize OT-3 for the following year, but by
his own account, did not relish another year of work to manage all the
details. Upon volunteering to host the third symposium, he retreated to
the bar, where he consistently claims to have discovered what he later
called the "open space" approach to meetings and events, at the bottom
of his second martini. His plan for the following year's symposium was
informed by his experience as a biblical scholar, associate pastor,
peace corps organizer in the villages of west Africa, and federal
government staffer and organization development consultant in Washington
DC.
The following year, he sent out a simple, one-paragraph invitation,
and more than 100 people showed up to discuss Organization
Transformation. In his main meeting room he set the chairs one large
circle and proceeded to explain that what participants could see in the
room was the extent of his organizing work. If they had an issue or
opportunity that they felt passionate about and wanted to discuss with
other participants, they should come to the center of the circle, get a
marker and paper, write their issue and their name, read that out, and
post it on the wall. It took about 90 minutes for the 100+ people to
organize a 3-day agenda of conference sessions, each one titled, hosted,
and scheduled by somebody in the group.
Participants at OT-1 and OT-2 said that the best part of the events
was the coffee breaks, which Owen always pointed out was the one part of
the event that he didn't plan and couldn't take credit for. His
inspiration to articulate the theme, the larger purpose for the work of
the symposium, in an invitation and then a brief opening comment, and
then simply "open the space" for participants to self-organize around
the issues and opportunities they saw as essential to that purpose, was a
conscious decision to make "more of what works". His martini-based plan
sought to minimize the grunt work by leadership (him) and assign
responsibility for maximizing productive learning and contribution to
his participants (everyone else).
The approach worked well, in the 3-1/2 days symposium, where it was
repeated annually through OT-20. Soon after the first "Open Space" event
at OT-3, however, Owen tried the same approach with a consulting
client, a large chemical firm and a group of polymer chemists. When it
worked there, too, the participants of OT began trying it out with their
clients, in a variety of different kinds of organizations, to address
many different kinds of strategic and community issues, in countries
around the world. They returned to the OT symposium each year to share
learnings.
Owen never trademarked or patented or certified "open space" in any
way. He always claimed to have discovered, rather than invented, it. He
said it could be practiced freely by anyone with a good head and good
heart. From the beginning, he said only that those who used the approach
and found it valuable, should share their stories and learnings as
freely, as well.
Twenty-five years later, Harrison Owen estimates that more than
100,000 different "Open Space" meetings have taken place. The Open Space
World Map (http://www.openspaceworldmap.org)
documents that these events have taken place in more than 160
countries. In December 2009, the OSLIST email listserve (hosted by Boise
State University at http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=OSLIST)
for practitioners worldwide had 660+ members in 39 countries and more
than 26,500 publicly searchable messages, relating to all aspects of
practice. Information about open space is now posted in 21 different
languages at Open Space World (http://www.openspaceworld.org).
There are at least five different government-chartered associations or
institutes (France, Germany, Portugal, Sweden and USA) promoting Open
Space practice around the world, and also active, but informal,
organizations in several other countries (including Canada, Taiwan,
Australia and New Zealand, and the UK). The German-language Yahoo group
started February 2002, had 233 members at year-end 2009, mostly from
Germany, Austria and Switzerland and also from France, Spain, The
Netherlands, Poland and elsewhere, with 3497 messages in its archive. At
year-end 2009, the Australian email group was more than 500 strong.
Harrison Owen originally used the term "open space" for his "self-organizing[3]
meetings". One of the earliest implementations of the approach was for a
conference theme of "The business of business is learning," in Goa,
India. The organizer of the conference was interviewed by the local
media and described the simple process. When asked what the process was
called, he embellished it a bit, with the more important-sounding "Open
Space Technology". The story was picked up by The New York Times (need date, c. 1985), and so "open space" became "Open Space Technology".
Outcomes
There are several desired outcomes [4] from an Open Space event.
The issues that are most important to people will get discussed.
The issues raised will be addressed by the participants best capable of getting something done about them.
All of the most important ideas, recommendations, discussions, and next steps will be documented in a report.
When sufficient time is allowed, the report contents will be prioritized by the group.
Participants will feel engaged and energized by the process.
Ideal initial conditions
According to Open Space Technology: A User's Guide [2] and other books by Harrison Owen, open space technology works best when these conditions are present:
A real issue of concern, that it is something worth talking about.
a high level of complexity, such that no single person or small group fully understands or can solve the issue
a high level of diversity, in terms of the skills and people required for a successful resolution
real or potential conflict,[5] which implies that people genuinely care about the issue
a high level urgency, meaning the time for decisions and action was "yesterday"
He goes further to explain these as when we are not ready to do Open Space. When we are:
without a real business issue, nobody cares.
without complexity, there is really no reason to have a meeting (solve it!).
without diversity there is not sufficient richness in the points of view to achieve novel solutions.
without passion and conflict -- there is no juice to move things along.
without a real sense of urgency, all that wonderful passion loses focus and power.
Further, the recognition of these conditions by leadership typically
implies some level of letting go of control and opening of invitation.
In different ways and to varying degrees, leaders convening Open Space
meetings acknowledge that they, personally, do not have "the answer" to
whatever complex, urgent and important issue(s) must be addressed and
they put out the call (invitation) to anyone in the organization or
community who cares enough to attend a meeting and try to create a
solution.
In a different text[6] he talks about preconditions for open space
The essential preconditions are:
A relatively safe nutrient environment.
High levels of diversity and complexity in terms of the elements to be self-organized.
Living at the edge of chaos. Nothing will happen if everything is sitting like a lump.
An inner drive towards improvement. e.g. a cartoon atom wants to get together with other atoms to become a molecule.
Sparsity of connections.
Kaufmann[7]
is suggesting that self-organization will only occur if there are few
prior connections between the elements, indeed he says no more than two.
In retrospect, it seems to make sense. If everything is hardwired in
advance how could it self-organize?
Typical meeting process
At the beginning of an open space the participants sit in a circle,[8] or in concentric circles for large groups (300 to 2000 people and more).
The facilitator will greet the people and briefly re-state the theme
of their gathering, without giving a lengthy speech. Then someone will
invite all participants to identify any issue or opportunity related to
the theme. Participants willing to raise a topic will come to the centre
of the circle, write it on a sheet of paper and announce it to the
group before choosing a time and a place for discussion and posting it
on a wall. That wall becomes the agenda for the meeting.
No participant must suggest issues, but anyone may do so. However, if
someone posts a topic, the system expects that the person has a real passion
for the issue and can start the discussion on it. That person also must
make sure that a report of the discussion is done and posted on another
wall so that any participant can access the content of the discussion
at all times. No limit exists on the number of issues that the meeting
can post.
When all issues have been posted, participants sign up and attend
those individual sessions. Sessions typically last for 1.5 hours; the
whole gathering usually lasts from a half day up to about two days. The
opening and agenda creation lasts about an hour, even with a very large
group.
After the opening and agenda creation, the individual groups go to
work. The attendees organize each session; people may freely decide
which session they want to attend, and may switch to another one at any
time. Online networking can occur both before and following the actual
face-to-face meetings so discussions can continue seamlessly. All
discussion reports are compiled in a document on site and sent to
participants, unedited, shortly after.
In this way, Open Space Technology begins without any pre-determined
agenda, but work is directed by a "theme" or "purpose" or "invitation"
that is carefully articulated by leaders, in advance of the meeting. The
organizers do outline in advance a schedule of breakout times and
spaces. The combination of clear purpose and ample breakout facilities
directly supports the process of self-organization by meeting
participants. After the opening briefing, the facilitator typically
remains largely in the background, exerting no control over meeting
content or participants, though possibly supporting the compiling of
whatever sort of document is produced by participants.
Small groups might create agendas of only a few issues. Very large groups have generated as many as 234 sessions[1]
running concurrently over the course of a day and longer meetings may
establish priorities and set up working-groups for follow-up.
Guiding principles and one law
In his User's Guide, Harrison Owen has articulated "the principles"
and "one law" that are typically quoted and briefly explained during the
opening briefing of an Open Space meeting. These explanations describe
rather than control the process of the meeting. The principles and
Owen's explanations are:
Whoever comes is [sic] the right people
...reminds participants that they don't need the CEO and 100 people to
get something done, you need people who care. And, absent the direction
or control exerted in a traditional meeting, that's who shows up in the
various breakout sessions of an Open Space meeting.
Whenever it starts is the right time ...reminds participants that "spirit and creativity do not run on the clock."
Wherever it happens is the right place ...reminds
participants that space is opening everywhere all the time. Please be
conscious and aware. – Tahrir Square is one famous example. (Wherever is
the new one, just added[9])
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have ...reminds
participants that once something has happened, it's done—and no amount
of fretting, complaining or otherwise rehashing can change that. Move
on.
When it's over, it's over ...reminds participants that we
never know how long it will take to resolve an issue, once raised, but
that whenever the issue or work or conversation is finished, move on to
the next thing. Don't keep rehashing just because there's 30 minutes
left in the session. Do the work, not the time.
Law of two feet
Owen explains his one "Law," called the "Law of two feet" or "the law of mobility", as follows:
If at any time during our time together you find
yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor
contributing, use your two feet, go someplace else.
In this way, all participants are given both the right and the
responsibility to maximize their own learning and contribution, which
the Law assumes only they, themselves, can ultimately judge and control.
When participants lose interest and get bored in a breakout session, or
accomplish and share all that they can, the charge is to move on, the
"polite" thing to do is going off to do something else. In practical
terms, Owen explains, the Law of Two Feet says: "Don't waste time!"
Process engineers design, construct and operate plants
Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with physical science (e.g., chemistry and physics), and life sciences (e.g., biology, microbiology and biochemistry) with mathematics and economics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms. In addition, modern chemical engineers
are also concerned with pioneering valuable materials and related
techniques – which are often essential to related fields such as nanotechnology, fuel cells and biomedical engineering.[1]
Within chemical engineering, two broad subgroups include 1) design,
manufacture, and operation of plants and machinery in industrial
chemical and related processes ("chemical process engineers");
and 2) development of new or adapted substances for products ranging
from foods and beverages to cosmetics to cleaners to pharmaceutical
ingredients, among many other products ("chemical product engineers").
Etymology
George E. Davis
A 1996 British Journal for the History of Science article cites James F. Donnelly for mentioning a 1839 reference to chemical engineering in relation to the production of sulfuric acid.[2] In the same paper however, George E. Davis, an English consultant, was credited for having coined the term.[3] The History of Science in United States: An Encyclopedia puts this at around 1890.[4] "Chemical engineering", describing the use of mechanical equipment in the chemical industry, became common vocabulary in England after 1850.[5] By 1910, the profession, "chemical engineer", was already in common use in Britain and the United States.[6]
History
Main article: History of chemical engineering
Chemical engineering emerged upon the development of unit operations,
a fundamental concept of the discipline. Most authors agree that Davis
invented unit operations if not substantially developed it.[7] He gave a series of lectures on unit operations at the Manchester Technical School (University of Manchester today) in 1887, considered to be one of the earliest such about chemical engineering.[8] Three years before Davis' lectures, Henry Edward Armstrong taught a degree course in chemical engineering at the City and Guilds of London Institute.
Armstrong's course "failed simply because its graduates ... were not
especially attractive to employers." Employers of the time would have
rather hired chemists and mechanical engineers.[4] Courses in chemical engineering offered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, Owen's College in Manchester, England and University College London suffered under similar circumstances.[9]
Students inside an industrial chemistry laboratory at MIT
Starting from 1888,[10] Lewis M. Norton
taught at MIT the first chemical engineering course in the United
States. Norton's course was contemporaneous and essentially similar with
Armstrong's course. Both courses, however, simply merged chemistry and
engineering subjects. "Its practitioners had difficulty convincing
engineers that they were engineers and chemists that they were not
simply chemists."[4] Unit operations was introduced into the course by William Hultz Walker in 1905.[11]
By the early 1920s, unit operations became an important aspect of
chemical engineering at MIT and other US universities, as well as at Imperial College London.[12] The American Institute of Chemical Engineers
(AIChE), established in 1908, played a key role in making chemical
engineering considered an independent science, and unit operations
central to chemical engineering. For instance, it defined chemical
engineering to be a "science of itself, the basis of which is ... unit
operations" in a 1922 report; and with which principle, it had published
a list of academic institutions which offered "satisfactory" chemical
engineering courses.[13] Meanwhile, promoting chemical engineering as a distinct science in Britain lead to the establishment of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) in 1922.[14] IChemE likewise helped make unit operations considered essential to the discipline.[15]
New concepts and innovations
By the 1940s, it became clear that unit operations alone was insufficient in developing chemical reactors.
While the predominance of unit operations in chemical engineering
courses in Britain and the United States continued until the 1960s, transport phenomena started to experience greater focus.[16] Along with other novel concepts, such process systems engineering (PSE), a "second paradigm" was defined.[17][18] Transport phenomena gave an analytical approach to chemical engineering[19] while PSE focused on its synthetic elements, such as control system and process design.[20] Developments in chemical engineering before and after World War II were mainly incited by the petrochemical industry,[21] however, advances in other fields were made as well. Advancements in biochemical engineering in the 1940s, for example, found application in the pharmaceutical industry, and allowed for the mass production of various antibiotics, including penicillin and streptomycin.[22] Meanwhile, progress in polymer science in the 1950s paved way for the "age of plastics".[23]
The Union Carbide India Limited plant where the 1984 explosion originated
Lag and environmental awareness
The years after the 1950s are viewed{[by whom?] to have lacked major chemical innovations.[24]
Additional uncertainty was presented by declining prices of energy and
raw materials between 1950 and 1973. Concerns regarding the safety and
environmental impact of large-scale chemical manufacturing facilities
were also raised during this period. Silent Spring, published in 1962, alerted its readers to the harmful effects of DDT, a potent insecticide[citation needed]. The 1974 Flixborough disaster in the United Kingdom resulted in 28 deaths, as well as damage to a chemical plant and three nearby villages[citation needed]. The 1984 Bhopal disaster in India resulted in almost 4,000 deaths[citation needed]. These incidents, along with other incidents, affected the reputation of the trade as industrial safety and environmental protection were given more focus.[25]
In response, the IChemE required safety to be part of every degree
course that it accredited after 1982. By the 1970s, legislation and
monitoring agencies were instituted in various countries, such as France, Germany, and the United States.[26]
Recent progress
Advancements in computer science
found applications designing and managing plants, simplifying
calculations and drawings that previously had to be done manually. The
completion of the Human Genome Project is also seen as a major development, not only advancing chemical engineering but genetic engineering and genomics as well.[27] Chemical engineering principles were used to produce DNA sequences in large quantities.[28] While the application of chemical engineering principles to these fields only began in the 1990s, Rice University researchers see this as a trend towards biotechnology.[29]
Concepts
Chemical engineering involves the application of several principles. Key concepts are presented below.
Chemical reaction engineering
Main article: Chemical reaction engineering
Chemical reactions engineering involves managing plant processes and
conditions to ensure optimal plant operation. Chemical reaction
engineers construct models for reactor analysis and design using
laboratory data and physical parameters, such as chemical thermodynamics, to solve problems and predict reactor performance.[30]
Plant design
Chemical engineering design concerns the creation of plans and
specification, and income projection of plants. Chemical engineers
generate designs according to the clients needs. Design is limited by a
number of factors, including funding, government regulations and safety
standards. These constraints dictate a plant's choice of process,
materials and equipment.[31]
Process design
Main article: Process design
A unit operation is a physical step in an individual chemical engineering process. Unit operations (such as crystallization, drying and evaporation)
are used to prepare reactants, purifying and separating its products,
recycling unspent reactants, and controlling energy transfer in
reactors.[32]
On the other hand, a unit process is the chemical equivalent of a unit
operation. Along with unit operations, unit processes constitute a
process operation. Unit processes (such as nitration and oxidation) involve the conversion of material by biochemical, thermochemical and other means. Chemical engineers responsible for these are called process engineers.[33]
Transport phenomena
Main article: Transport phenomena
Transport phenomena occur frequently in industrial problems. These include fluid dynamics, heat transfer and mass transfer, which mainly concern momentum transfer, energy transfer and transport of chemical species respectively. Basic equations for describing the three transport phenomena in the macroscopic, microscopic and molecular levels are very similar. Thus, understanding transport phenomena requires thorough understanding of mathematics.[34]
Applications and practice
Chemical engineers use computers to manage automated systems in plants.[35]
Chemical engineers "develop economic ways of using materials and energy"[36]
as opposed to chemists who are more interested in the basic composition
of materials and synthesizing products from such. Chemical engineers
use chemistry
and engineering to turn raw materials into usable products, such as
medicine, petrochemicals and plastics. They are also involved in waste management and research. Both applied and research facets make extensive use of computers.[35]
Operators in a chemical plant using an older analog control board, seen in Germany, 1986.
A chemical engineer may be involved in industry or university
research where he or she is tasked in designing and performing
experiments to create new and better ways of production, controlling
pollution, conserving resources and making these processes safer. He/she
may be involved in designing and constructing plants as a project engineer.
In this field, the chemical engineer uses his/her knowledge in
selecting plant equipment and the optimum method of production to
minimize costs and increase profitability. After its construction,
he/she may help in upgrading its equipment. He/she may also be involved
in its daily operations. [37]
Could giant chillers at the South Pole freeze our way out of global warming? Some scientists think so.
Turning atmospheric carbon dioxide it into snow and burying it underground is a new way to think about capturing harmful CO2. Click to enlarge this image.
Corbis
What if you could build a giant refrigeration unit near the South Pole, pulling harmful carbon dioxide out of the Earth’s atmosphere, turning it into snow and burying it underground. Wind turbines would power the chiller plants, converting CO2 from a heat-trapping atmospheric gas to a solid as a way of slowing down climate change.
Of all the greenhouse gases, CO2 is the "control knob" of climate change. There's currently too much of it in our atmosphere, and the more of it that there is, the greater the effects of warming.
It sounds far-fetched, but researchers at Purdue University have put together a plan on how such a device would work.
“It’s kind of a novel idea and it’s going to take a lot of refrigeration units and a lot of cost,” said Ernest Agee, professor earth and planetary sciences at Purdue and author of the paper appearing in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.
ANALYSIS: The Sun Can't Save Us From Global Warming
hackers VIDEO: All About Climate Change: From Glacial Melt to Endangered Tigers
Water vapor turns to snow around 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but CO2 doesn’t switch from gas to solid until it gets down to a chilly -220 degrees Fahrenheit (133 Kelvin). The ambient air temperature in Antarctica can often reach -100 F, which gives the chilling process a head start. But to transform the planet’s atmospheric CO2 into snow, it would take an estimated 446 individual refrigeration units that use a closed-loop liquid nitrogen process. The units would be powered by 16 1,200-megawatt wind turbines. That’s a lot of power.
Agee says the idea came to him during a discussion about Mars’ south polar ice cap, which was found to consist of CO2 by the Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions.
He says Antarctica’s coastline would be the best place to put the chiller plants and the turbines since the coast gets blasts of high-powered winds that cascade down from the higher South Polar ice cap toward the ocean. The CO2 snow would be stored in insulated landfills. The winds can power the turbines, while excess heat from the chillers and electricity from the turbines can be harnessed to keep Antarctic research stations warm and dry.
Russell Donnelly, a University of Oregon physicist, is intrigued with Agee’s idea.“It’s quite exciting,” Donnelly said. “It’s certainly thinking big.”
ANALYSIS: Can Geoengineering Stop Global Warming?
enlarge
Donnelly is pushing his own, slightly different idea of chilling carbon dioxide. He wants to install chillers at coal-burning power plants to remove C02 from smokestacks. “You look at the hot gases of a stack, it would look impossible,” Donnelly said. “But you can cool them off with water sprays and down to room temperature without spending much money. Then if you start to refrigerate, you need to put just enough refrigeration to get the job done.”
Donnelly and colleagues published a paper in the July 12 issue of the journal Physical Review E that spells out how he would build such a device.
He said the electricity would cost 25 percent more to produce, “but you would have an environmentally-friendly power plant.”
Carbon sequestration schemes are not new. Utilities have been looking at burying excess CO2 beneath the ground or in deep wells or algae ponds for years, but efforts have not paid off because of the high associated costs.
Richard Branson’s Virgin Earth Challenge is offering $25 million to any company or group that can sequester a billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year. That’s the same amount that Agee says he can pull using his Antarctic chiller system, although he did not enter the contest.
Eleven finalists were chosen in November 2011, but no winners yet.
