Sign of the times (oil and tremblor related)

[soubriquet 0]

Kobe (and Matsuyama) are on a shear zone and close to a subduction zone.

 

 

Niigata is in a thrust zone.

 

 

The central valley of Yamagata is a rift valley (graben). The tectonics here are tensional, not compressional or shear. Therefore we don't accumulate much strain before the faults are released.

[NoFakie 45]

The Kobe one is just nonsense Kansai people used to come out with to rubbish Tokyo I reckon. Historically there had been big quakes in Kansai before the 1995 big one. Google it if interested.

 

On soub's graph, presumably the ISTL is the Itoigawa-Shizuoka fault line that runs straight through the Hakuba Valley. As soubs says, snow zone houses tend to be robust, so its not quite the worry it could be. Tiled kawara roofs on spindly stick (sairai) frames are the ones you've really got to worry about.

 

Some modern Japanese houses are state of the art, so much so that central heating is overkill. 24 hr active ventilation is supposedly standard now, though some builders don't put one in to cut costs. As Ocean notes though, asking the local komuten to knock something up is just asking to repeat the mistakes of the past. Most of them haven't got a clue.

[damian 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by soubriquet:
This is the home soubriquette had built.

It looks like Soub-ette is the daughter of Donald Trump. Thats a big structure.

[soubriquet 0]

Not at all. The ground floor is a shop.

 

 

Six people live in the upper two floors, and eight when my children are here. It's actually quite tight, but very comfortable.

[Ocean11 0]

The current state of our planning.

 

I hope this thing will stand up to those two tectonic plates rubbing together in that cozy way they have. If you have a look at a satellite picture of Shikoku, that fault line really stands out.

[soubriquet 0]

Unless you are actually on a ruptured fault, it's not hard to build an earthquake-resistant structure. I'd be most worried by being killed by the joanna or wide screen TV jumping about, or fire.

[soubriquet 0]

And while I'm littering your thread, spudly, here's a photo of soubriquette. She's one hot chicken, and no Ivana Trump

 

[Ocean11 0]

Her unconventional dress sense will prove its worth in a magnitude 7 earthquake disaster.

[Goemon 0]

She'll be the one running around when the Big One hits yelling, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

[damian 0]

Soub's woman has chicken legs.

[yamayamayama 2]

That is one great outfit. Does she wear it to go shopping?

[damian 0]

Some quotes from today's press (oztraya).

 

>>We've seen in the latest polling that 50 per cent of the population are finding it very difficult to fill their cars at the moment.

 

>>The NSW government revealed today it would urge retailers to demand customers pay for their fuel before filling up their vehicles during certain hours, to combat a surge in petrol thefts.... Police Minister said he would recommend the change to a meeting of senior police and the Service Stations Association... 20 service stations in southern Sydney have already implemented prepaid sales.

 

>>Let's not get into the foolish situation of thinking we can cut the price of petrol by some amendment to a law, when the manifest reason for the high price of petrol is the high price of crude oil [rare instance of a political leader saying something that is true]

 

On the same internet news page there were three separate google adds offering instant credit card approval.

 

It is not news that the world is in the start of an interest rate tightening cycle, but in the last week the following nations raised borrowing rates: UK, Australia, European Union, South Africa, plus Japan has at last swung out of a zero rate policy.

 

Ocean - I just saw the link to your building progress. It was good to read, I enjoy practical 'real' things. Aren't you tempted to push ahead with the wind generator? The prevailing wind on a hill side could serve you well, and you can turn it off whilst sleeping to reduce noise unhappiness. If you are installing a solar system then the wind energy can simply feed into that infrastucture. Plus wind gives you AC without having to transform your solar DC, useful if you have demand for AC.

 

more...

 

 Quote:

PETROL theft across NSW has soared in the past year, with more than 8500 "drive-offs" - one an hour - costing an estimated $1 million each month. Police are promoting self-locking numberplates and pre-paid service stations to counter the crime wave sparked by record petrol prices.

Even more alarming, according to police, is the surge in numberplate thefts, now running at more than 1100 a month.

 

A numberplate security system is being launched across NSW, Victoria and Queensland this month to thwart thieves who use the plates to avoid detection by closed-circuit television cameras.

 Quote:

Police said the problem was out of control, with figures produced by the Bureau of Crime Research showing a direct link between petrol price rises and theft.

[Ocean11 0]

spud, I'm very tempted to push ahead with the wind generator, but most info about it recommends you watch the wind for a whole year before you make the investment. Some days I've been on the plot there hasn't been a whisper of wind, so I think that's what I'll do.

 

Also, the wind is often stronger at night, so turning it off then would cut down on ROI. And we're very, very parsimonious with our electric use anyway, so it may even be overkill, unless we were to get an electric car (which I want to do at some point. This one from Courrèges would do).

[damian 0]

Yes, good idea to survey the wind. Regarding stronger wind at night, family home sized wind turbines automatically furl (to protect thmeselves) and so generate no power in those conditions anyway. Strong wind is genreally far less eficient for wind turbines.

[Ocean11 0]

spud, that's all relative (like Grandma). Especially in the summer when the wind is weaker, you'd want it turning at night. Actually our house will be mostly immune to outside noise so it wouldn't be a problem - for us. The difference between summer and winter wind is stark.

 

We just had an abrupt tremor a moment ago. I thought I felt something change before it hit - maybe I just heard a far off rumble.

[NoFakie 45]

Mitsubishi are supposed to have an EV on sale in 2008. Toyota have finally confirmed that they're going to bring out a PHEV, though resourceful Americans have converted Priuses already. Without a major oil disruption, we may not see it in the next gen Prius though. Competition from cheaper hybrids is on the way, and more batteries=more expensive car.

 

I think the Mitsubishi one will need 200V to charge, so you may need a special inverter for your solar. Many commercial users use 200V so it shouldn't be difficult getting a line put in.

 

Here are some car crime stats from the UK.

 

 Quote:

* There are 2.1m vehicles on the road with no registered keeper

 

* In 2001/2 some 240,000 cars were abandoned

 

* 25% of fire brigade call outs are associated with abandoned cars

Lots more juicy ones here

 

http://www.racfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=87&Itemid=35

[damian 0]

Ocean - I'll leave you to your much more informed judgement. I just have a boyish attraction to wind turbines, and want you to have one for me

 

On other good news:

 

 Quote:

scientists at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have invented a technology that may be an important step towards the hydrogen economy: a hydrogen tablet that effectively stores hydrogen in an inexpensive and safe material...

 

effective and safe storage of hydrogen has challenged researchers worldwide for almost three decades. At the DTU, an interdisciplinary team has developed a hydrogen tablet which enables storage and transport of hydrogen in solid form....

 

Should you drive a car 600km using gaseous hydrogen at normal pressure, it would require a fuel tank with a size of nine cars. With our technology, the same amount of hydrogen can be stored in a normal gasoline tank,” said professor Claus Hviid Christensen of the DTU's chemistry department.

Source: second half of this article.

http://www.engineerlive.com/european-pro...-problems.thtml

 

MrW - from your link

>>More traffic police to target the "motoring underclass" and dangerous drivers

 

Motoring underclass!!

[damian 0]

Even the Amricans are hurting:

 

 Quote:

Starting Sunday, the cost of a one-day ticket to any of Walt Disney World's four parks is going up to $67 -- a 6.3 percent increase, the largest since 1991.

 

The hike is the second time in eight months the resort has bumped the cost of admission and represents an increase of almost 12 percent since December and 22 percent since early 2004.

[Ocean11 0]

Oh dear. Alaska goes offline .

 

 Quote:

"Our production while all this is in place is going to be marginal," said Will Vandergriff, spokesman for Gov. Frank Murkowski. "That presents some technical problems because it's a high capacity line and it's meant to be filled."

 

Vandergriff said he did not know exactly what potential problems a sudden drop in oil flow might cause the pipeline.

But they're on top of the technical aspects.

[damian 0]

That is good news. Through yet another price spike, it will force further acute awareness of the need to end the addiction, yet the Alaskan oil remains in the ground, rather than actually having 'run out'. It is a timely stress test, or simulation of diminished supply without the actual depletion. Likewise when Iran turns the tap off a little next month. America (and many other nations) will very quickly realise how much it hurts. It gives us a look into the future, yet with the comfort that the oil is still in the ground.

 

This will guide us towards a few alternate paths:

 

- bomb the crap out of Iran and take their oil. They have America by the balls. Human history is quite simply a string of invade and conquer with the objective of taking what you need to progress. If America does this in Iran we will all be shocked and appalled, but it is their rational response considering what they need to progress. It is both strategically and historically rational. lets not forget that the world's oldest profession is not prostitution, it is warfare. This is of course why Iran quite understandably wants nuclear resources, but they would get obliterated before developing any strategic ability in that area.

 

Alternatively:

 

- America will act resolutely to reduce oil demand by a nation-saving amount. It will become totally unpatriotic to consume more than you need. This will not be a fast solution, but it will once and for all allow the Burger King citizen to stop funding their enemy in Iran.

 

It will hurt Iran to limit oils exports as 80% of their export earnings come from that product. But Iran could easily restrict their export supply at the margin and for a limited period of time. After all, whether they sell the oil today or in 6 months, it will be sold. I am sure that the Iranian rulers could financially prop the economy until such time that the deferred sale (at a higher price) was realised.

 

 

But this is bad news:

 

 Quote:

Petroleos Mexicanos, Mexico's state-owned oil monopoly, on Aug. 2 said production at its Cantarell oil field, the world's second-largest by volume, will decline 8 percent in 2006, dropping faster than its December estimate of a 6 percent.

[damian 0]

Some lucky Swedes, living out one hell of an adventure, discover that diesel in Iran costs 2c per litre (part of a ski mountaineering story)

 

http://www.dynafit.at/blogs.php?dspac=bl...&lang=uk&thid=4

[damian 0]

You don't hear things like this very often (or ever)

 

 Quote:

Steorn is making three claims for its technology:

 

1. The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%. 2. The operation of the technology (i.e. the creation of energy) is not derived from the degradation of its component parts. 3. There is no identifiable environmental source of the energy (as might be witnessed by a cooling of ambient air temperature).

 

The sum of these claims is that the technology creates free energy.

 

This represents a significant challenge to current understanding of the universe and clearly such claims require independent validation from credible third parties

It takes some serious balls to make a statement like that. Or serious confidence in your new discovery.

 

Something this profound would change the world. Surely this can't be the very tip of such a massive berg? ^

 

http://www.gizmag.co.uk/go/6031/

 

It will probably end in nothing, but in the meantime it is exciting

http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx

[soubriquet 0]

The laws of thermodynamics have stood for 150 years.

 

"Thermodynamics is the study of the inter-relation between heat, work and internal energy of a system.

 

The British scientist and author C.P. Snow had an excellent way of remembering the three laws:

 

1. You cannot win (that is, you cannot get something for nothing, because matter and energy are conserved).

 

2. You cannot break even (you cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases).

 

3. You cannot get out of the game (because absolute zero is unattainable)."

 

How do you spell SCAM?

 

To be less cryptic, this is a perpetual motion machine. One of the oldest frauds in science. The first law of thermodynamics states that you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put in.

 

In banking terms it is a pyramid scheme. Substitute money for energy. What system generates more money out than money in, other than a printing press?

[damian 0]

Of course it is probably a scam, a massive marketting trick or Blair Witch type of hype generator. But there are no absolutes. And the laws of science we observe today only exist because the previously observed laws were wrong. Many things we believe today will one day prove to be wrong, or at best incomplete. But it is probably not yet time for the LTD to be felled.

 

Currency minting actually results in a net loss of value where 1 cent coins are concerned. It costs more in raw input to make them than they are worth in the corner store.

[soubriquet 0]

I'm fully awarre that the "laws" of science only describe our understanding at a given moment, and are not fixed. Still, the laws of thermodynamics have stood for 150 years, and have outlived many perpetual motion machines. I'm not a dogmatic person, but I'll back them to outlive this one too.