I know I am an old fart. But, it is hard for me to realize that my kids don’t really know the “pleasure” of finding just the right battery for their flashlight, their radio, or other electronic devices.
Continue reading Even at 97, one can get a real charge!
Now, this is thinking outside the box. Dr. Adam Driks (Loyola, Illinois) is a microbiologist who has been studying spores for a while. A spore is a protective shell (actually, concentric shells) that some microbes form to keep themselves preserved during periods of environmental stress. It was originally thought to be like a walnut shell protecting the valuable components within. But, Driks has been studying Bacillus spores and found that when the relative humidity changes, so does the spore itself.
One of the big problems with our energy needs is that the fluctuations require us to build much larger plants to handle the peak demands. Which means that the plant cannot operate efficiently. (It is best to have any plant running at the same rate all the time.) Or, some have chosen to build a contiguous, smaller facility they can‘rev up’ to handle the peak demands. The problem with the second, smaller plant- even if it runs on natural gas- is the time it takes the facility to ramp up or down to handle those peak demands.
Continue reading So it can keep on going, and going, and going…