Embark on a profound exploration with us as we scrutinize the pioneering yet contentious efforts of Neuralink and its first human trial, delving into the ethical quandaries and safety concerns that accompany such groundbreaking work. We'll also immerse ourselves in the enchanting advances of AI in interpreting the language of sperm whales, uncovering the mysterious depths of our oceans' gentle giants. The horizon of innovation is vast, and this episode promises to shine a light on the intricate balance between technological ambition and the moral compass guiding it.
Venture beyond the Earth's atmosphere as we discuss the reality-bending potential of warp drive technology, a concept inching from the pages of science fiction towards tangible scientific inquiry. With Japan's audacious plan to capture solar energy from space, we're on the cusp of revolutionizing how we sustain our world with clean, constant power. These discussions are not just about the marvels of technology, but about the impact they could have on our future — a future where the sky is not the limit, but rather the starting line.
Concluding with a testament to the human spirit, we recount acts of heroism amid nature's fury, from the courage of surfers transforming into rescuers in Brazil's floods to a personal narrative of a narrow escape from a tornado’s wrath. Through these stories, we honor the resilience that binds us in times of crisis. Join us for a compelling narrative that weaves the threads of technological advancements, the wonders of our natural world, and the incredible fortitude of humanity into a tapestry of hope and determination.
Embark on a profound exploration with us as we scrutinize the pioneering yet contentious efforts of Neuralink and its first human trial, delving into the ethical quandaries and safety concerns that accompany such groundbreaking work. We'll also immerse ourselves in the enchanting advances of AI in interpreting the language of sperm whales, uncovering the mysterious depths of our oceans' gentle giants. The horizon of innovation is vast, and this episode promises to shine a light on the intricate balance between technological ambition and the moral compass guiding it.
Venture beyond the Earth's atmosphere as we discuss the reality-bending potential of warp drive technology, a concept inching from the pages of science fiction towards tangible scientific inquiry. With Japan's audacious plan to capture solar energy from space, we're on the cusp of revolutionizing how we sustain our world with clean, constant power. These discussions are not just about the marvels of technology, but about the impact they could have on our future — a future where the sky is not the limit, but rather the starting line.
Concluding with a testament to the human spirit, we recount acts of heroism amid nature's fury, from the courage of surfers transforming into rescuers in Brazil's floods to a personal narrative of a narrow escape from a tornado’s wrath. Through these stories, we honor the resilience that binds us in times of crisis. Join us for a compelling narrative that weaves the threads of technological advancements, the wonders of our natural world, and the incredible fortitude of humanity into a tapestry of hope and determination.
Thank you. So commercial companies and startups are also developing concepts harnessing the availability of starship from spacex and the emergence of advanced space robotics. However, not everyone is enthusiastic about the potential space-based solar power. Hmm, I wonder who could come and rain on the parade and be a naysayer. In January, nasa released a report questioning the feasibility of the technology. Of course, the naysayers from NASA the same people that said that we would never put anything on the moon. And then we have wireless free energy device being built on the moon now With our tax dollars. But the difficulty and amount of energy required to build, launch and assemble orbital power stations means the energy they produce would be too expensive 61 cents per hour per kilowatt hour, compared to as little as five cents per kilowatt hour on earth. Well, that's just starting it out, but I mean, I get their point that it is expensive. In addition, the overall carbon footprint of the power production and those amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated by rockets taking those assemblies into orbit make space-based solar power much less climate friendly than technologies used on earth. See, that's, that's a good point, but I feel like, uh, I don't know, I have mixed feelings about that. But, for example, a gigawatt-style space-borne solar power station such as Cassiopeia, a concept plant proposed by the UK firm Space Solar, would need 68 starships to get into space. That's a lot. 68 launches just to get one. 68 start 68 launches just to get it one. Okay, so take this whole, uh, evolution of the space based solar power and take that idea into this next one that we're going to talk about here, and we like it's 2024, so we know that they were working on this in the early 2000s, so we have at least 20 years of work on this stuff and it's it's coming into fruition here. I mean, japan's doing it, america's doing it, so we are making advancements from this and I feel like this needs to be really seriously looked at. So here we have with this, uh, scientist said, a solar thermal trap to snare fossil fuels and this is 14 hours ago from clean technica, uh, but they posted on like science journals, but this is the only one that I could find that had a decent article about it, but uh. So take this other idea of taking the solar power from space and shooting it down into this one that we're talking about. So fossil energy seemed to have an iron grip on cement, steel and other industries just a few years ago. Well, that was then.
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New systems for harviting and transferring solar energy are emerging with the aim of producing the high heat needed for industrial processes. In the latest development, a Swiss research team is fine-tuning a solar thermal trap to achieve temperatures of 1,000 Celsius and more. That should be high enough to do the trick. The new solar thermal research comes from ETH Zurich, short for well-known Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, where researchers have been exploring ways to improve concentrating solar power systems. Unlike solar cells, which generate electricity directly, concentrating solar systems convert sunlight into solar thermal energy. To heat transfer medium, typically molten salt, could be deployed to provide thermal energy for industrial processes. It can also provide steam for generating electricity in a power plant. That's good as far as it goes, but the challenge is to design a concentrating system that can efficiently transfer heat up to the higher range of 1000 celsius or more demanded by some industrial processes.
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To leap that hurdle, the eth team decided to take a close look at the thermal trap effect, which describes the ability of quartz, water and other semi-transparent substances to trap water. Quartz and water is the two simplest things on earth. Okay, and if we can get a crazy amount of energy from the sun, from just putting quartz and water together. That's infuriating. I mean, that's that's amazing and that's like amazing. That's the best news in the world. But it's also really frustrating that we have not come up with that sooner. Like what the hell? Like that's the most stupidly simple thing I've ever heard of. And uh, I'll just say that also, a lot of ancient civilizations talked about using quartz and water to conduct energy. Uh, like the hindu talk about that. Um, allegedly atlantis use crystals and all of our electronics today are used off of crystal crystals. Uh, quartz specifically. So, yeah, mixing quartz and water is almost just, it's like facepalm type of. I'm almost speechless. How could that be that we have not put this together?
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But anyways, the thermal trap effect was thought to only work at lower temperatures, making it unsuitable for decarbonizing high heat industrial processes. Nevertheless, the ETH team took a crack at it. Previous research has only managed to demonstrate the thermal trap effect up to 170°C, explains the corresponding author of the research team, emilio Casari. The team crafted a thermal trapping device by attaching a synthetic quartz rod to an opaque silicone disc as an energy absorber. Eth Zurich recounted in a press release earlier today when exposed to the equivalent of 136 suns worth of energy flux. The absorber plate reached 1050 Celsius. The other end of the quartz rod remained relatively cool at 600 Celsius. Wow, that's fascinating. That's a lot of energy difference.
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Our research showed that the solar thermal trapping works not just at low temperatures but well above 1000 Celsius. This is crucial to show its potential for real world industrial applications. I wish this article doesn't say anything about it. I wish that it would have said why they thought that it could only go up to 170 celsius or 338 fahrenheit, because that seems strange. Like what was it that made them think that? And these people were just like screw it, we're doing it anyways. And it ended up being, uh like mind-blowing that it will. We can melt cement and make cement and melt steel to do this, which would normally take. I think 50% of our carbon and energy is used to make cement and steel and those sorts of things, so that's going to free up 50% of the energy released into the atmosphere. Solar processes. Heat at above 1000 Celsius can decarbonize key industrial applications such as cement manufacturing and metallurgical extraction.
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The researchers emphasize in their study Solar. This is in the scientific journal device under the title Solar Thermal Trapping at 1000 Celsius and above, if you want to read this, their journal. But this is on Clean Technica. Like I said, a new life for solar thermal energy. Don't get too excited just yet. The ETH solar thermal system is still in proof of concept phase. However, it does represent a breath of fresh air for the concentrating solar system. The team simulated their new solar thermal trap under various conditions and reported results that could lead to the design of more compact and even more efficient concentrating solar systems. Yeah, because this is just step number one. So there's going to be a whole bunch of rolling inventions after this.
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Like the snowball is now launched for the solar thermal concentration systems. The race is on. They've discovered that it's possible. I mean, like it's just once again, it's shocking that you can just mix together quartz, water and like a silicone disc and all of a sudden we can put 136 suns worth of energy into this thing and have it reach over 1,050 celsius. Uh, how has this? How is it 2024 and we're just putting together water and quartz and silicone and now we realize that we can do all of this stuff. I'm just it's very shocking. For example, a state-of-the-art unshielded receiver has an efficiency of 40% at 1,200 Celsius with a concentration of 500 suns. The receiver is shielded with 300 millimeter of quartz, achieves 70% efficiency at the same temperature and concentration. The unshielded receiver requires at least 1,000 suns of concentration for comparable performance. The perspective of leaner, meaner concentrating solar systems could help kickstart the industry here in the US. Though the technology has taken off in other parts of the world, the US has been slow to catch thermal fever. I wonder why it's not for lack of trying.
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The US Department of Energy has made a concerted effort to support next-gen concentrating solar technologies during Obama administration. The agency's concentrating solar programs also kept pace during the Trump administration. Despite the former president's oft-repeated promises to save coal jobs, the solar thermal chickens are coming home to roost. With much of the groundwork laid, energy Department has been readying itself for another concentrating solar push. In April, the agency's Solar Energy Technologies Office announced a new $30 million round of funding under the topic Concentrating Solar Flux to Heat and Power, aimed at accelerating the timeline towards large-scale commercial deployment.
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Csp technologies offer unique value as a renewable energy source that can readily deliver high temperature heat for uses in the industrial sector and incorporate energy storage for on-demand solar power. The three-part funding round includes an assist for new solar collectors that help cut costs while improving reliability. Another portion of the funding will go to the new favorite subjects, such as supercritical carbon dioxide, which is like a working fluid in solar thermal systems, crossed clean technica's radar in 2020 when it emerged as a compact, low-cost, energy efficient replacement for conventional steam turbines. The third portion relates to the ETH team's work. The funding will go to support proposals for novel solar receivers, solar retractors, reactors and convert concentrated sunlight into usable thermal energy at high temperatures. Particle receivers make the cut for consideration, partly due to their potential for hitting the 90% efficiency mark.
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Of course, no mention of new solar thermal technology would be complete without bringing up green hydrogen and uh, yeah, we'll see about that. It says that within 10 years, hopefully, we'll hit five dollar per kilogram of hydrogen and that we could make uh hydrogen pretty much replace everything. I'm going to be doing some more on hydrogen soon. Hopefully I will get that done. So here we have the rescue that I'm just going to play a little bit of, but it's from Brazil, rio Grande do Sul, a southern state of Brazil, and during the worst flooding in 80 years, as of Wednesday, at least 149 people have been killed, more than 100 people missing and 600,000 forced from their homes. So you can pray for Brazil. That's pretty nuts.
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But in response, a group of surfers have traveled to the region in a fleet of jet skis to help with rescue efforts and they have a YouTube channel that they are showing it and it says we feel compared to share his news, not only for our support of Brazilian friends and family during this difficult time, but to highlight the efforts of great surfers and big waves surfing community who have extended their help beyond the sport. The surfers not only use their jet skis for rescues, but also utilize their social networks to raise awareness and gather support for the blood for the flood victims. Despite facing challenges such as debris in the water, which can damage the jet skis, the group remained determined to carry out the heroic task and it says that they line up and they have a convoy of surfers that navigate flooded streets, ferry families to dry land and rescue stranded animals. According to Lucas Chumbo, the current situation evokes a combination of emotions a deep melancholy at witnessing the events, yet a sense of inner peace, knowing that the efforts they are doing provide assistance. So I'm going to play just a tiny bit of this video and narrate a little bit on it.
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So they're trying to get dogs and stuff out of the water and these the dogs are panicking, they're like about to drown. So the dogs are are thrashing and they're getting bit, trying to get the dogs out of the water. That's very brave to go and get panicked dogs and got bit by the dog on his arm. And then they rescued some goats and they were driving down the flooded streets with the goats on the side of the jet ski, which is kind of a funny look, uh. And then they got the these goats onto a truck and started feeding them. But I just wanted to note this that these guys are taking extreme risk coming out here and helping them. Not only did the dog bite him I mean he could get rabies or whatever but I mean the dog's probably just scared from the flood. It probably doesn't have rabies, but I'm just saying he could get it.
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But what's more likely is, uh, in texas we've had people that uh did this exact sort of thing. In louisiana we have big floods and people will come down here to help with their boats and trucks and stuff. Well, there was a guy that had did that and he got cut, just like this guy is showing right now in his arm and this guy's got a little laceration, maybe an inch long maybe, if that. But uh, this guy in texas got cut and he ended up getting necrotizing fasciitis like a skin-eating bacteria and passed away from it. So just getting a little tiny nick of your skin, having a hole in your skin whenever you're waiting in this type of water. I mean, you saw what this type of water is if you can't. It's. It's dark and muddy and just flood water, just a lot of garbage and and very dirty water, um, and there's animals in it and stuff like that. So the chances of infection are decent and, yeah, this guy should probably clean this right away. But, uh, there have been people that have come to rescue people like this and and they were fine and they just got cut on the arm and they ended up passing away from bacteria. So, yeah, that's pretty shocking, but, uh, it just goes to show. I just wanted to say how brave these people are and how you have to be very careful coming out and helping people like this. Uh, I just really hats off to them saving the panicked dog. I know a lot of people would not have even bothered with that, um, so I'm glad that they did that and they got all these goats rescued and all these people rescued.
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They didn't show many of the families at the beginning. I'm kind of skipping through it here. Oh, there's a big horse, um, I can link the video. I don't want to show too much of it. But oh, there's a big horse. Um, I can link the video. I don't want to show too much of it. But yeah, there's a lot of families and stuff, mainly dogs and animals and cats and stuff like that. How you get a horse out of there, that becomes a whole different challenge. You got to get a bigger boat than a jet ski to get a horse out of there. All right, guys. Um, I guess before I go, I forgot to talk about my tornado experience, so I can talk about that for a second before I close out.
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So I had a severe hailstorm with CD, dvd size hail, baseball size hail, tennis ball size hail, and it obliterated all the houses and like roofs and stuff like that and all the windows. Almost everybody's car got destroyed. Well, the windows got destroyed. I was one of the few cars that did not have my windows broken, so that was very lucky. I did have a baseball-sized dent in one of my doors, but this definitely was a tornado Like a low-end tornado came by the building and it was so loud, it was roaring and I was at work and basically I got this notification on my phone and that I couldn't find anybody.
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I couldn't find anybody none of my managers or anything like that and it said that there was a tornado just like right down the street. So I got as many people as I could to the severe weather area. We had about two minutes to spare before it hit. And boy did it hit. It was like a hailstorm or a storm that I've never experienced before. The wind sounded constant, it was like a giant roar and I could hear what sounded like tennis balls like bouncing on the roof, but with occasional like bowling balls being dropped. That's what it sounded like and it kind of sounded like a jet was just hovering outside the building uh, dropping tennis balls and golf balls and bowling balls on us.
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And yeah, I've never been in a tornado or anything like that before, but I've been in severe weather, like I've had plenty of severe weather, but that was something else. That was on another level and I'm glad that everybody was okay. There was a lot of property damage, but that's not the end of the world. But yeah, I just wanted to let you guys know to like get ready it's severe weather season and to always have something ready to go. You know, like have a little bag with some water and batteries and a flashlight, maybe candles if you want, and yeah, know where to go if you're in an area that has tornadoes, to get to a safe place. Because we did not have very much time at all. We got very little warning and we got to a safe place and luckily we were okay. But if it was a little bit stronger it would have been uh, bad news they get.
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They said they got 150 mile an hour wind in the air. The national weather service did that's not on the ground, that's in the air, that's still. That's. That's very intense and I had never seen grass get pulled out of the ground before, uh, but that's, there was like a path afterwards. I think it went right by the building and, yeah, there was little patches of grass that had been ripped out of the earth, as well as a bunch of weeds. Like a majority of the weeds were all gone and any of the weeds that were not gone were all blown over, like a bunch of sunflowers were all blown over. They're growing back right now, still blown over. But yeah, I've never seen grass or weeds get literally ripped out of the earth from the wind.
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And uh, yeah, it makes me think of art bell with and whitley streber with the coming Global Superstorm and they made the movie the Day After Tomorrow about that. And there's a scene in the Day After Tomorrow with the DVD softball-sized hail. Apparently, we've had melon-sized hail before a couple years ago and that was the record for Texas is melon-sized hail. So pray that you never see melon-sized hail. And, um, yeah, for everybody that was affected in Texas, uh, and everywhere else, because I know that that went on for a while and a lot of different states got affected. And, yeah, my heart goes out to you guys and I'm praying for you and let's all pray for our safety to get through this year and into the next. We still have hurricane season coming up, so, yeah, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
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Everybody be safe. If you find any rescue videos or rescue stories or anything like that, feel free to email me at inspiredearthpodcast at gmailcom. Also, uh, was it buzzsprout or spotify just added a new feature where you can directly message me. I'm not sure it says that I it's on there and that you guys are able to, but if you're not able to, you can always reach out at the patreon or at the email or. Um, yeah, you can add comments. Uh, facebook, all those places, instagram I post art occasionally on patreon and instagram. So, yeah, you guys, check it out and be safe out there. Thank you.