The link in my RSS feed to the New York Times web site promised Burger Armageddon in Miami. Wow!
What a letdown: they're having a contest for best burger. I imagined a Miami story. At least bribes. Maybe sex. Perhaps some gunplay. But no. Just meat — lots of meat — and cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles.
At least there's lots of meat.
Evidence for the hypothesis that modern life in the USA is increasingly Dickensian: Big Retail Chains Dun Mere Suspects in Theft. Incredible. And right here in Florida…
New materials can selectively capture CO2, scientists say:
Scientists have created metal-organic crystals capable of soaking up carbon dioxide gas like a sponge, which could be used to keep industrial emissions of the gas out of the atmosphere.
Chemists at the University of California Los Angeles said the crystals — which go by the name zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, or ZIFs — can be tailored to absorb and trap specific molecules.
[Prof. Omar] Yaghi and his colleagues describe their findings in the Friday issue of the journal Science.
He said the crystals are non-toxic and would require little extra energy from a power plant, making them an ideal alternative to current methods of CO2 filtering. The porous structures can be heated to high temperatures without decomposing and can be boiled in water or solvents for a week and remain stable, making them suitable for use in hot, energy-producing environments like power plants.
The team of scientists created 25 ZIF crystal structures in a laboratory, three of which showed a particular affinity for capturing carbon dioxide. The highly porous crystals also had what the researchers called “extraordinary capacity for storing CO2”: one litre of the crystals could store about 83 litres of CO2.
How much of this stuff do we need to stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere?
According to Gary W. Harding, How Much of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Accumulation Is Anthropogenic?
Today, the atmosphere contains about 720 Gtons of carbon. The concentration of carbon dioxide is about 360 ppm. Regardless of its source, one billion tons of carbon released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide would increase its concentration by 0.5 ppm (360 / 720) if all of it stayed there. However, scientists estimate that about half of present human carbon emissions are absorbed by the environment. Of the half absorbed, scientists have accounted for where half of that goes. Where the other half goes is the “mystery of the missing carbon” (about 1.8 Gton per year).
A gigaton, by the way, is a thousand million tons. And that's 1998 data on stocks not flows.
According to Table 3.2 on page 30 of Global Warming: The Complete Briefing we're up well past 7.5 GT added annually to the atmosphere due to fossil fuel burning and deforestation.
So to make humans carbon-neutral at present rates of emissions, we need what exactly? Let's fire up the calculator.
One liter of carbon dioxide at standard atmosphere and pressure weighs 1.965 grams. So 1 GT approximately equals a petagram (10 to the 15th power).
Divide 7.5 of those petagram by 1.965 grams and we get a measly 3.82 GT of these crystals. Per year. Assuming fossil fuel use stays flat.
How does this compare to this zany idea?
…a concept … for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline.
The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel: methanol, gasoline or jet fuel.
…
Even with those improvements, providing the energy to produce gasoline on a commercial scale — say, 750,000 gallons a day — would require a dedicated power plant, preferably a nuclear one, the scientists say.
According to their analysis, their concept, which would cost about $5 billion to build, could produce gasoline at an operating cost of $1.40 a gallon and would turn economically viable when the price at the pump hits $4.60 a gallon, taking into account construction costs and other expenses in getting the gas to the consumer. With some additional technological advances, the break-even price would drop to $3.40 a gallon, they said.
A nuclear reactor is not required technologically. The same chemical processes could also be powered by solar panels, for instance, but the economics become far less favorable.
This is not a small problem.
[erroneous timestamp corrected] [& spelling corrected too – thanks to Earl Killian]
Yesterday in Wikileaks: One Injunction Or Two? I explained why I was somewhat dubious about the theory that the second order in the Wikileaks case amended the first. Now it seems that the place where I found that theory, the Citizens Media Law Project, may be coming around to my point of view. In Making Sense of the Wikileaks Fiasco: Prior Restraints in the Internet Age, David Ardia writes,
This second order is actually captioned as an “Amended Temporary Restraining Order” which led me to believe yesterday that the court had amended its first order that required the take down of the Wikileaks site. I’ve now come to realize that the judge intended no such amendment. I guess he felt it wasn’t enough to shutdown the Wikileaks website, he’d add a second dose of judicial oversight to make sure things really went in the banks favor.
So, maybe we have a consensus?
Thanks to commentator 09F9 1102, a link to Media Statement on Behalf of Dynadot in re: Wikileaks Litigation:
The following constitutes Dynadot’s response to the Feb. 15 court order in the case of Bank Julius Baer & Co., Ltd v. Wikileaks, et al., which is pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco.
“This case raises First Amendment issues that are for the Courts to decide, not my client, Dynadot,” stated Garret D. Murai of Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean, LLP, who represents Dynadot. “The only agreement by Dynadot was to comply with the Court’s previous order to preserve evidence, including preventing Wikileaks from transferring its domain name to another registrar and from changing its account settings – essentially, to preserve the status quo. Dynadot did not agree to remove the name server settings for wikileaks.org or to produce any information. This was requested by Julius Baer and granted by the Court.”
“It was explained to the Court that Dynadot only provides domain name registration services to Wikileaks. Dynadot is not the DNS provider nor is it the web host provider that maintains the content of wikileaks.org,” explains Kathryn Chow Han, in-house legal counsel for Dynadot. “Our company does not take a position on the merits of this litigation. However, if Julius Baer is concerned with the posting of its confidential documents on the wikileaks.org web site, it could have sought a more narrow remedy than seeking to have the entire wikileaks.org web site shut down.”
There seems to be real and continuing confusion about what exactly happened in the wikileaks case. (Translation: I'm confused, and so are some other people.) I've had a look at the PACER records — the official online docket — for the case, and I still am not as sure as I would like.
Here's what we know for sure. The court issued its injunction against Dynadot, an order PACER describes as “ORDER by Judge Jeffrey S. White granting 5 Motion for Preliminary Injunction as to defendant DYNADOT LLC (jjo, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 2/15/2008) (Entered: 02/15/2008).”
The next entry on the docket is what I previously described as the “gag order”, and which PACER captions as “ORDER GRANTING AMENDED TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER AND ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE RE: PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION. Signed by Judge Jeffrey S. White on 2/15/08. (jjo, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 2/15/2008) (Entered: 02/15/2008)”.
Julius Baer Bank and Trust v. Wikileaks page at the Citizen Media Law Project, describes the sequence of events as follows,
On February 15, 2008, the court issued what it captioned as an “Order Granting Permanent Injunction.” This order, which appears to be the result of a stipulation between the plaintiffs and Dynadot, Wikileaks' domain name registrar and web host, required that Dynadot immediately disable the entire wikileaks.org domain name and account and remove all DNS hosting records.
Later that same day, the court issued an Amended Temporary Restraining Order that drops the requirement that Dynadot disable the entire Wikileaks.org domain. Among other things, the amended order enjoins the defendants from “displaying, posting, publishing, distributing, or linking to … all documents and information originating from [the plaintiffs' banks] which are internal non-public company documents and/or which contains private client or customer bank records.”
From the official sources, I can't tell you for sure that this is wrong, but I can tell you why it doesn't seem all that likely: (1) the first order is a preliminary injunction, the second only a TRO; (2) the second order nowhere mentions that it is either amending or vacating the first order, which you would expect if it were; (3) the two orders are largely addressed to different parties and are about different things (yes, Dynadot is mentioned in the second one, but only as part of a large group); (4) the first order contemplates an order being drafted for Dynadot being dismissed with prejudice, the second doesn't.
Now, if it's true that if these are two separate orders, that doesn't explain why the second one is captioned an “amended” TRO. What's it amending? Either an earlier order, or an earlier draft order, I presume, but I haven't figured out which.
Recent Bluessky Posts
Jotwell Blenderlaw