Daily Archives: 31 July 2019

Responsibilities

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Iran, as I write this (Monday), has rejected efforts to defuse the situation in the Arabian Gulf, a situation it has created with its piracy of and extended threats toward oil shipping in the Gulf and transiting the Strait of Hormuz.  Indeed, in response to a planned British redeployment of a couple of small combat ships to the Gulf to add to the protection of British tankers, Iran had this:

But Mr [Ali, Iranian government spokesman] Rabie warned Sunday that a European military deployment in the Gulf would be viewed as an escalation of the crisis. “Such moves under the current conditions are provocative,” he said, according to IRNA.

Thus, Iran does not want the nations trading in oil to be able to more effectively protect their shipping.  Iran demands to preserve its ability to seize those ships for itself.

This is not the action of a peace-loving nation. Piracy in the Gulf is the responsibility of Iran.

Freeze the North Pole

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…or keep it frozen.  Or add more ice to it.  Or something.

Here’s an idea:

A team of designers led by Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha proposes re-freezing sea water in the Arctic to create miniature modular icebergs using a submarine-like vessel, in a bid to combat climate change.
The Indonesian designer worked on the prototype with collaborators Denny Lesmana Budi and Fiera Alifa for an international competition organised by the Association of Siamese Architects.

And they won a consolation prize for that.  After all, as Kotahatuhaha said,

The main goal of this idea is to restore the polar ecosystem, which has a direct effect on the balance of the global climate[.]

And here’s some of the “engineering” by which the polar ice caps and their ecosystems would be saved [emphasis added]:

The submarine-like vessel would submerge to collect sea water in a central hexagonal tank. Turbines would then be used to blast the tank with cold air and accelerate the freezing process.
… A system of reverse osmosis would be used to filter some of the salt from the water in order to speed up the process.

Eric Warrell, over at Watts Up With That?, had some thoughts on this…scheme.

There is a slight flaw with this idea.
Refrigeration, reverse osmosis, pumping heat, all takes a lot of work. Both the latent heat of fusion extracted from the water to turn it into ice and the waste heat from the freezing process will have to be dumped somewhere.
If they dump the waste heat into the Arctic ocean, or the air, it will probably melt the ice their submarine just finished freezing.

And I have a couple thoughts on Kotahatuhaha’s…scheme.

All that melting fresh-watered-up ice restores the polar salt water ecosystem how, exactly?

All that heat (lots of it from a project of this scale) injected into the ocean, or worse, into the atmosphere, slows the warming of our atmosphere and our climate how, exactly?

Wait—I have an idea.  Recall all those efforts to capture and sequester atmospheric CO2 in holes in the ground, perhaps salt caves (known for their geologic stability) or holes drilled for the purpose: pump all that waste heat into those holes, too.  After all, that’s what heat pumps do—move heat from here to there.

And: think of all the green jobs and all the out-of-work elves who are between seasons.

And: think of all the starving children in Bangladesh and all the food these large-screen refrigerators could preserve and keep safe for them.

Engineers? Got their degrees from the College of Cracker Jack, did they?