Castaic, California, a quiet little jaunt from Los Angeles, has just gotten a new toy for their jail, a raygun.  More accurately the Assault Intervention Device or AID is a microwave beam emitter projecting an invisible beam about as wide as a CD, for a distance of up to 100 feet.  The microwave beam penetrates the skin by only 1/64th of an inch, causing minimal damage, but a whole lot of pain.

It’s a downsized version of the Active Denial System developed for the military in their search for non-lethal weapons, mounted on a Humvee or truck to use in crowd control / riot suppression.  Now it’ll be used at home to suppress prison riots instead.

AID is fairly simply to use.  The raygun is mounted in a turret on the ceiling, along with a CCTV camera feed.  From a safe room a guard can aim and fire the pain gun to stall or suppress a fight while guards move in.  In normal circumstances, without AID, precious time stopping the fight is lost while guards prep and move.  With AID fights will hopefully be stopped sooner and safer.

It’s an interesting concept, and as its first deployment, will no doubt provide admirable testing during the six month deployment.  One has to wonder however at the cost.  The National Institute of Justice provided it free of charge, no doubt in exchange for the invaluable human testing information that will be provided by using it in a jail.  After that, can it really be something that modern prisons can afford?

GENeco, an “organic waste solutions” specialist (AKA sewage treatment) company in the UK is bringing something new to the green table: a human-powered car.  The Bio-Bug is a VW Beetle converted to run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) which is a lot like Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) only, well, less compressed as it remains in a harder-to-contain gaseous form rather than the denser and more commonly used liquid form.  Presumably the choice was made because the hardware to convert natural gas into LNG requires a cooling phase and more expensive equipment.  In any event, the Bio-Bug is essentially run on methane gas.  And where does that gas come from?  In this case it’s from cleaned-up leftovers from the Avonmouth sewage treatment plant of Wessex Water.

You see the Avonmouth plant normally produces CNG from sewage waste, which powers its “digesters” through a combination of electrical power and heat generated from, you guessed it, burning off the CNG surplus from the sewage.  It’s a brilliant idea as methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide so should not be released into the atmosphere.  Burning it, turning it into carbon gasses instead, is far less harmful to our environment.  So using it in any way is a big plus, and where can you get more methane than from organic waste?  It’s not a new concept and in fact it’s a new trend to convert livestock farms to methane power.  But it’s nice to see it in action wherever possible and a sewage treatment plant is certainly a good place to use the technology.  Especially when there’s enough produced to also generate electricity to sell back to the grid, as is the case in Avonmouth.

But the thing is, even with all of that, Avonmouth still has a surplus of methane biogas, which would normally just be burned off before releasing it into the atmosphere to break down the methane into less damaging carbon gasses.  And that’s where GENeco has stepped in with their Bio-Bug.  With a little cleaning up of the excess CO2 naturally found in the biogas, the methane is converted into a cleaner burning fuel fit for automotive use.  And the Volkswagon Beetle, converted to run on CNG, is just the kind of vehicle to use it.

GENeco Bio-Bug - a human-waste powered car

Which all sounds brilliant and green!  It’s a great way to convert waste into a renewable resource, right?

Well, with a few caveats.  The first being that this isn’t really a carbon-free system.  It’s a good use of carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, carbon-shifting I guess you could call it.  It is not however carbon free.

The second caveat, one could simply replace the CNG cleansing and distribution with more electricity production for recharging electric cars, or even used to generate hydrogen from hydrocarbons through steam reforming to power hydrogen cars.  There are green paths here that are more synergistic with the modern green automotive trends that can be done at a big facility where as the typical farm cannot.

And the third caveat, and perhaps one of significant note, is that this is a process that does not equate to one car per household.  No.  It takes approximately seventy households to produce the quantity of CNG needed for one Bio-Bug.  It won’t work for every household to run their daily automotive needs, but it could be used in the fleet vehicles needed in the running of any facility.

So clearly, this is not a magic pill that could solve all of the world’s problems.  It is however a very interesting and creative approach to better utilizing the resources available to us, even (if not especially) the ones that we consider to be useless waste.  The smarter that we can innovate with these under-utilized resources, the better off our planet will be.  And the more intriguing the solutions are now, the more advanced and opportunities to replicate or even improve upon them will be in our future.  Sometimes being green isn’t just about the perfect zero-sum product, but about more efficiency with what we have.  If there’s one thing that we have a lot of, it’s poo.  So brown is the new green, and innovatively trapping, collecting, and utilizing methane gas will make for a better tomorrow, no matter how silly it might seem to drive a poo-powered car.

Rant Alert – The wording of this blog entry may not exactly always be … peaceable.

This is one of those tragedies that just goes so impossibly far beyond epic fail.  It’s so bad you just don’t even know where to begin.  This gulf oil spill of BP’s is just so out of hand.

Okay, yes, to be fair, it was a freak act of nature that took out the rig Deepwater Horizon.  And that really was a tragedy, the loss of life.

And sure, no one could have really seen that coming, right?

Although … you’d have thought maybe they kind of should have been able to have seen it coming.  Detection of methane gas?  Automated emergency systems to shut things down to prevent massive oil spills?

Well that’s the funny thing…

Now I’m no investigative reporter.  I don’t have the resources of, say, the New York Times.  Or the United States government.  I’m just a blogger, doing this for free in my spare time at that.  But this is what I’ve dug up:

First of all, the Deepwater Horizon had been issued 18 citations by the Coast Guard in the last decade for spills and fires.  Not a stunning track record at almost two citations a year.  Though, sadly, fires are not considered “unusual” for oil rig platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.  So perhaps this itself wasn’t the warning that it should have been.

Second, while the wellhead was actually fitted with a blow-out preventer (BOP), which is basically a really big valve to shut off the release of oil in case of emergency, this particular BOP was not fitted with acoustic triggers to automate an emergency shutoff in situations like a rig explosion.  Nor was it fitted with a remote control.  What it did have was a dead-man’s switch so that if communication with the platform was lost, it would cut off.  That was supposed to be enough.  Although in other countries, it wouldn’t have been enough to satisfy regulation authorities.

But it gets worse.  Third, internal BP documents show that the engineers were concerned in 2009 about the metal casing possibly collapsing under high pressure.  But nothing was done.

And fourth, in March of 2010, the rig was experiencing problems such as undersea mudslides, sudden methane gas releases, and at least three occasions of the BOP leaking fluid.

Oh. but it’s even worse than that.  Fifth, according to a 60 Minutes report, the blow-out preventer was even damaged in an unreported accident in late March, and BP overruled the drilling operator on key operations.

Sixth, in spite of all of this, the BOP’s last inspection from the Bureau of Shipping?  2005.

All of this resulted in what could be politely called “a situation”.  One in which on March 10th, 2010, a BP executive emailed the Minerals Management Service about there being a stuck pipe and a “well control situation” and that BP would have to “plugback the well.”  And a draft of a memo in April even warned that the cementing of the casing was unlikely to be successful.

Which takes us to May 25th, 2010, the preliminary findings from BP’s internal investigation, as released by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, indicated several serious warning signs such as gas bubbling into the well, signaling an impending blowout, hours prior to the April 20th explosion that killed 11 people.

And began the dump of what is undoubtedly the worst oil spill in American history.  Possibly in world history, though until experts can agree on some numbers, no one can really say that for certain.

So as far as I can see, and I admit, somewhere I may have some of this wrong, a structurally questionable well, on a rig with an average of two incidents each year, with a damaged and leaky blow-out preventer with minimal redundancy systems that other governments wouldn’t have considered sufficient and that hadn’t been inspected in 5 years, was seeing increasing incidents of mudslides and methane gas leaks recently, and even detected dangerous methane leaks and other indications of a serious problem, which hours after detection, on the 20th of April 2010, was not shut down nor evacuated, resulting in the worst oil spill in American history and the loss of 11 lives as the Deepwater Horizon burst into flames from a methane-induced blowout while manned.

And that’s just the background.

Since then, BP initially estimated the leak at about 42,000 gallons (1,000 barrels) a day.  But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated it at five times that much, 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) per day, based on satellite pictures.  But that was only the beginning of the spill, and the estimates.

BP tried to stop the oil from leaking by using the “top kill” technique, which involved pumping mud down the well to slow the leak long enough to cement it closed.  If you think this sounds in any way familiar, read back up to the drafted memo in April warning that cementing the casing was unlikely to be successful.  If BP engineers didn’t have faith in such a procedure in April, why then did BP try unsuccessfully, three times to “top kill” their leaking well?

So of course BP had to move on to option 2: Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) Cap Containment System.  Which basically involved robots with diamond-blade saws cutting the riser off of the top of the failed BOP to create a cleanly cut pipe that more robots could fit with a cap.

The procedure didn’t go exactly according to plan when the saw wedged into the cut and seized, forcing the switch to less ideal shearing cutters instead, leaving a “ragged” cut.  But the cap was still fitted into place.  Collecting 420,000 gallons (10,000 barrels) of oil a day now.  And it may improve to as much as 630,000 gallons (15,000 barrels) per day, the largest amount that tanker vessels can actually manage to collect.

So wait, they had robots with frikkin diamond-blade saws and their first option was to go with mud?  Three times?  When their own engineers had earlier expressed some level of doubt?

Yeah.

Also, those of you at home playing the numbers game might be a little confused, as 420,000 gallons is significantly more than the estimated 210,000 gallon leak size by the NOAA.  In fact, it’s ten times the initial BP estimate.  Did they really known their own well so badly that they could be off by a factor of ten?

And worse, the cap isn’t 100% successful in stopping the leak.  Even with the cap collecting far more oil than was estimated to be leaking, there is even more leaking than that.  And until August when a relief well can be finished, the cap cannot be 100% successful because there is too much pressure in pipes too badly damaged.  There is no complete seal yet, and there won’t be for months.

Which raises the question then, just how many gallons, exactly, are still leaking?  Have already leaked?  And what damage will this do to ecosystems?

Current estimates are more in the range of 800,000 gallons (19,000 barrels) of oil leaking into the gulf each day.  Of which BP is catching 420,000 gallons of.  (And at best with their current cap can only catch as much as 630,000 gallons of.)  Leaving, even after the “successful” capping done by BP, presently an estimated 380,000 gallons (9,000 barrels) still spilling into the gulf, which is nine times the initial estimate of the spill made by BP.  After their “fix”!

Presently the growing oil slick has reached Alabama and Florida now, joining them in the ranks of the other gulf states of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.  And it may not even stop there.  If the oil slick gets caught in the Gulf of Mexico’s loop current, it might even head up the Atlantic coast.

But yes, the cap was successful.  It doesn’t mean that the leak has been stopped or contained.  It just means that the leak is less than it was.  Perhaps only by half.  And for months yet, until relief wells can be drilled to exhaust the pressure, that’s the best that BP can do.  While the oil spill has not only flooded the gulf with crude, but now may very well escape the gulf and move up the Atlantic coast as well.

Congratulations?

I don’t think so.

The only way heads won’t roll in this one is if this is the very spark that triggers the supposed end of the world in 2012.

Many people are familiar with the antics of Professor Kevin Warwick (aka Captain Cyborg), a proponent of cybernetic research who’s biggest claim to fame so far is just to have implanted himself with a simple RFID chip that he uses to open doors and stuff.

As if thousands (millions?) of animals haven’t been tagged with various RFID chippery and such for wildlife research, for farm branding, for pet tagging, etc.  Are they all cyborgs too then?  Do we have an animal cyborg army?

And which is my no means nearly so cyborgish as the number of animals and people who have undergone surgery to implant devices into their brains in the attempts to find technology that can really change the lives of the disabled.  For robotic limb control.  For neural-to-device communication interfacing.  For artificial eyes for the blind.  And so forth.

Hell, I think someone with a pacemaker installed constitutes far more of a “cyborg” than Captain Cyborg.  But because Captain Cyborg stands upon his lofty soapbox so often, he’s the famous “cyborg”.  Yeah.  Whatever.

Well, the twit convention just got a new member, by the name of Dr. Mark Gasson, a senior researcher at Reading University’s Cybernetic Intelligence Research Group.  Much like Captain Cydork, he also had an RFID chip implanted.  Unlike his cybernetic cohort however, he intentionally infected that RFID chip with a computer virus.

Mind you, the virus is pretty darn harmless.  His malware can’t even infect anything but an RFID chip reader, and that’s only if it scans his chip, and even then only if the RFID reader has a vulnerability which would allow arbitrary code to execute, which is ridiculously unlikely.

No, it’s clear that this is, in fact, just yet another stupid publicity stunt.  We have no cyborg.  We have no human infection by a computer virus.  What we have is a twit who downloaded some code for some malware into the memory of a simple RFID chip implant.  Something that anyone could do, if they were feeling obtuse enough.  It poses no threat to humanity, or even technology, whatsoever.

Or as Craham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos puts it, “The way they are presenting their research is scaremongering nonsense that doesn’t present the true nature of this, frankly, non-threat.”

So there you have it.  First human ever infected with a computer virus?  In that the “infection” was introduced by design, is completely benign, and is just code sitting uselessly in an RFID chip that in no way interacts with the human being it was implanted in, I’d call this one hogwash.

Some German and Australian scientists have been working on a project to revolutionize renewable resources.  They have found a way to make synthetic “natural gas” from carbon dioxide (CO2), water, and electricity, much in the same way hydrogen can be produced from water.  Dr Michael Specht of the Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung (Solar energy and Waterstuff [Hydrogen] Research center – ZSW) explains:

“Our demonstration system in Stuttgart splits water using electrolysis. The result is hydrogen and oxygen.  A chemical reaction of hydrogen with carbon dioxide generates methane – and that is nothing other than natural gas, produced synthetically.”

And the process they currently use will supposedly will scale up remarkably well.  Plans are to create a double-digit megawatt-range unit by 2012 to prove that it really can be done, and to provide homes with synthetic natural gas.

Brilliant!

Err … maybe.

The thought behind it is that electricity is a somewhat wasteful system as during lulls in usage the generation has no useful way to store large amounts of energy for when the peak usage times hit.  This is especially a hindrance to renewable green sources of electricity like wind and solar where peaks of energy production rely upon the timetable of Mother Nature and not upon peak usages by mankind.  Where as converting electricity into natural gas allows one to store a lot of energy created during lulls to take the load off during peaks.

Colleague Dr Michael Sterner explains, “Surplus wind and solar energy can be stored in this manner. During times of high wind speeds, wind turbines generate more power than is currently needed. This surplus energy is being more frequently reflected at the power exchange market through negative electricity prices.”

Plus there are other theoretical benefits, like the ability to modify vehicles to run on Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) which is just a compressed form of natural gas that turns it from a gaseous state to a liquid state.

Which is all well and good.  In theory.

One might want to remind the world that we can however already do this with hydrogen.

And then there’s the conversion efficiency, which is only 60% efficient.  Where as processes like just pumping water up higher into a dam to store as potential energy for a hydroelectric plant are more than 70% efficient.

But the largest concern would be that according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) methane gas has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 21, meaning that methane is twenty one times more effective as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2).  So while proponents of synthetic  natural gas try to tell you that their methods are carbon-neutral, thus not harming our environment any more than it is saving it, this is not necessarily the case.  Any of their synthetic natural gas going up up and away is far more damaging to the environment than CO2.  Where as hydrogen isn’t.

But then one of the main problems with hydrogen is that, being the smallest atom, it escapes easily from systems that try to hold or transport it.  Where as methane, a much larger molecule, has no such problems.

So then, is it really such a great idea?  Yes, potentially, it holds a lot of interesting promise.  But then so does generating hydrogen from electrolysis.  Where as, potentially, it also holds a number of potential concerns, where as generating hydrogen from electrolysis doesn’t.

It’s certainly something to think about, and goes to show that when we put our heads to it, we can come up with all manner of interesting solutions to any problem.  And that it is likely a combination of efforts that will solve the world’s woes and not any one singular invention or ingenuity.