Category: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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American Genius

     A late announcement today from Apple Corporation managed to drop the after market price and relative value of one of the hottest stock properties in the world more than 7 percent. The message wasn’t so much a what, but a who – legendary Apple CEO Steven Jobs announced he was relinquishing the position of leader of a corporation that had made one of the greatest comeback stories in American business history on the strength of his vision and leadership. The story of Steven Jobs is every bit an American success story, and a primary example of why we can never let government rather than the market dictate what is or will be a leading technology.

     Steven Jobs didn’t go to an Ivy league school, write a crucial paper on nanotechnology, invent hedge funds, or succeed at everything he put his mind to.  He was instead the ideal of the American Dream that has powered the American economy to the dominant position in the world.  Nobody predestined this adopted son of California parents to change the world as he did.  He grew up non-descript and struggled to even attend college at all, dropping out after several months and essentially “phoning” in his effort. He liked technological things but did not initially show commitment to anything that looked like a job.  A fortuitous acquaintance with computer geek Steven Wozniak lead Jobs to consider the crazy idea of starting a computer company out of his garage in 1976.  At a time when IBM was a company of business machines and the sole purveyor of “computers”, Jobs and Wozniak had the impulse to personalize the computer when no one knew what that meant.  It was horribly unclear what a person would actually do with a personal computer, but Jobs and Wozniak came up with the concept of tying the computer to desktop publishing and devised a graphics interface to make it palatable to the non-computer geek.  Apple I, Apple II, and finally Macintosh was born, and the world was never the same.  Though Microsoft Windows eventually took over the world of computer interface, it has always been a pale second to the genius of the Macintosh Operating System, that was the first to use icons for computer instructions, graphics, and mouse click, drag and drop.  Wozniak made the computer guts work but it was the particular genius of Jobs that formulated the personal look and feel of an Apple product that instantly defined it as something different, and somehow better and leading edge cool. 

      Like all visionaries, Job had his difficult egocentric side, and in the 1980’s his demand for total control proved too much for the company he founded to bear, and he was essentially released.  The path of failure was only one of many paths of Jobs visionary journey.  He founded NeXt technologies and  bought a little known computer aninmation company he renamed PIXAR entertainment, and within ten years it was Apple that was begging him to come back to the fold.  Apple purchased NeXT for 430 million dollars and more importantly put Jobs back int the vision seat of the company that had tumbled to less than three percent of the personal computer market.

     The rest is history.  In a ten year period that would be the envy of Thomas Edison, Jobs helped Apple create the Macintosh OS X operating system that made the world of Apple possible with the iMAC personal computer, revolutionized how we listened and collected music with the iPOD, took over the music industry with iTUNES and iTUNES Store, changed personal communication forever with the iPHONE, and invented a new computer interface known as iPAD that will convert the world of personal computing more profoundly than the original Apple.  The genius of Jobs was his ability to inject entirely new interfaces for the public to digest that would cause them to leave completely their comfort zone with proven technology and accept Job’s vision of the future.

     Jobs has known brilliant success and  personal rejection, spot on analysis and woeful misdirection,  business stagnation and unbounded business growth.  What he has known more than anything is that the American story is not how it begins or ends, but how the journey can be your own if you only accept the primary principle, you are limited only by your effort and imagination.  He has given his country a gift more precious then the magnifient inventions that have change our lives or the jobs and fortunes he has created for tens of thousands of individuals.  He has given us the beautiful example that in this wonderful experiment known as America, all things are possible.

    It appears illness will finally defeat Jobs where competition, turmoil, and limited understanding could not.  We all are indebted to Steven Jobs for bringing his indominable will to his perceived vision in the perfect marrage of both in Apple.  At a time where the country founders on the rocks of entitlement and repression of personal incentive, we need only look Mr Jobs as to what happens when the world gets out of the way – and lets a thousand flowers bloom.

 

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The Last Shuttle

    

      The last planned American space shuttle flight took of from Cape Canaveral yesterday, and with it a fifty year history of continuous effort to achieve and maintain an American manned presence in space. The Space Shuttle program was initiated on April 12th, 1981 and over the next thirty years achieved 135 flights with some significant firsts and some catastrophic failures. Initially positioned as a cheap reusable vehicle for easy space access and material transport, the shuttle proved to be a highly complicated and relatively risky means of space transport. Projecting an original 10 million dollar per flight relative cost and flights as often as once per week, the shuttle program ballooned to costing almost one hundred times as much per flight and was anything but simple to rapidly return to orbit. The catastrophic shuttle failures of 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia flights resulting in 14 astronaut deaths and significant delays each time in restoring the program was certainly a major contributor to the waning desire to utilize a complicated glider system for manned flight, but equally as devastating was the progressive loss of identifiable mission value.

     Confined to low earth orbit, the shuttle became an expensive way to deliver a limited number of satellites into space and provide taxi service for the International Space Station, a craft with its own ridiculously expensive albatross of questionable mission value. Spectacular space walks such as the Hubble Telescope rescue missions provided only temporary boosts in interest in the investment required to keep the shuttle viable as the means by which to maintain a permanent space presence..  After thirty years and billions upon billions of dollars in shuttle mission expenditure, the realization of “been there, done that”  with no visible contribution to further space progress has become the epitaph of the space shuttle program.

     NASA’s original plans to retire the shuttle program were predicated on initiating a new vehicle for space exploration, the Orion, but with budgetary issues so dominating the national conversation the program has been scrapped. the best we can hope for is to obtain rented rides on the Russian Soyuz craft until private American efforts such as those being attempted by SpaceX and other companies supplant what has been a national commitment to space and its exploration.  A leader since the beginning in space exploration, America will now take a back seat not only to Russia, but also emerging manned space powers such as China and India.  It is a very unpleasant sign of the times that America must look to others to show the national consensus necessary to do great space engineering, and a poor indicator of this country’s priorities and self confidence.  We seem a long was away from the time when America relished to be in the arena of challenge, sacrifice, and can-do spirit.

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The First Space Man

      Fifty years ago today something new, brave, and wonderful  occurred in the golden fields of Kazakhstan.  Only 58 years after Orville and Wilbur Wright proved man could achieve controlled flight and resist the confining bonds of gravity in their 1903 achievement at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a Russian hero proved forever that man could break those very gravitational bonds, and escape the confines of earth and find heaven.  Despite the political overtones of the time, it is an achievement unsullied in its magnificence.  Yuri Gagarin, a Russian test pilot, was propelled in a staged rocket into orbital flight, and became the first man to see the earth from beyond the blanketing atmosphere. The reality of manned light into space, long the stuff of science fiction and fantasy, became the very zenith of man’s capacity for greatness, and for a time made the then Soviet Union the center of science and technology in the civilized world.

     The glorious achievement was the crowning accomplishment of a brilliant aerospace engineer named Sergei Korolyov, a man who had tasted the dark side of Stalinist Russia, when in experimenting with rocket flight, he was imprisoned for six years for “wasting” state funds in unsuccessful rocket experiments.  With the German rocket success of World War II, Korolyov’s skill set proved too valuable for further abuse by the state and he was released at the end of the war to investigate German rocket technology and incorporate what he could into a Russian program.  The Americans managed the coup of rounding up the majority of Germany’s most successful rocket scientists including the young genius Werner Von Braun, and the initial lead in the concept of intercontinental rocket technology. Korolyov rapidly caught up and by the late 1950’s determined means of achieving multiple rocket engines harmonically delivering thrust in a single rocket, dramatically increasing payload lift capacity.  In 1958, he stunned the world by sending a satellite into stable earth orbit with the launch of Sputnik, igniting a dramatic US effort to close the gap.  The United States continued to formulate multiple options for rocket design, from the Atlas to the Vanguard and , finally the Jupiter, which would eventually be the successful and reproducible design.   This continued multi-directed formulation resulted in occasional launch embarrassments and dead ends, resulting in a hesitation to take the leap to projecting man into space. The game was on, however, as the Russians placed a dog in space, the Americans a chimpanzee, and progressively more aggressive satellite weights were thrown into space.   Korolyov saved what he knew would be overwhelming spectacle in leapfrogging these sub-orbital efforts with animals and went for broke, proposing man flight into space, having the man complete an orbit, and safely delivering him back to Earth.  The gaps in what was known were huge – how would man tolerate weightlessness, could he be counted on to tolerate the enormous gravitational forces, could he live through the fiery atmospheric re-entry? Korolyov left little to chance regarding the knowns he could control and determined to preconfigure the mission and have the space traveler be a passive voyager, with the flight controlled by preset radio signals from home.  He determined he would need a man for the job that would be brave but compliant, look and act the part of a hero, and he found his man in Gagarin.

      Yuri Gagarin was only 27 years old in 1961, but already a celebrated military pilot of the class of the Russian airforce the MIG-15, attentive, mathematically accomplished, and at only 5 feet 2 inches tall, perfect for the tight confines of the space capsule that would be his home in space.  He was a member of the Sochi Six, an elite group of russian pilots selected to be the first to engage the cosmos, and on the fortnight before the flight, he was finally selected in a last second discision over Gherman Titov for the epic flight.  Given the political circumstances of beating the Americans to the punch, the Vostok rocket was fitted for the manned flight after only two previous unmanned flights, and Gagarin was fully aware of the enormous risks involved.  On the morning of flight he was withdrawn and contemplative, and the weight of a potential dark outcome certainly weighed in his thoughts.  In the best tradition of great pilots, he took his place without hesitation, and at about 0600 am at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Vostok rocket with a payload of 10,420 lbs and a solitary man was lifted into space.  The capsule was projected into space into an oblong orbit that reached an ultimate height of 203 miles off the earth’s surface and in a little over 108 minutes, completed an earth orbit, and Gagarin became the first man to send a radio message from space, the first man to see the earth night fall from space, and the first man to experience a space emergency when a portion of his mechanized craft failed to separate from the re-entry vehicle, causing the craft to initially tumble wildly.  The craft luckily separated from its undesired companion, and achieved stability just prior to re-entry. In a falsification propagated by the Soviets, Gagarin was reported to have landed with his craft, but Korolyov secretly had him eject from the craft at 23,000 feet and land by separate parachute, to attempt to assure a safe delivery of the human cargo on the very first manned flight.  Gagarin and the Vostok 1 capsule landed separately, and safely, and the Soviet Union had a huge technological achievement and propaganda triumph.  Gagarin was instantaneously a world hero, and his accomplishment significantly dulled the American response three weeks later, when Alan Shepard rode the Mercury space craft into a meager sub-earth trajectory and a brief 15 minute flight.  Gagarin, through the brilliance of Sergei Korolyov, achieved what it would take the Americans another year to accomplish, true orbital space flight and safe return, a spectacular achievement that has not been dimmed one bit by the years of the subsequent American spectaculars.

     Yuri Gagarin was a hero for the rest of his short life, and a profound influence on his time.  He never was asked to pilot another spacecraft, considered too valuable to risk loss, yet ironically died in a MIG 15 plane crash in 1968 at the young age of 34.  In that brief, shining moment fifty years ago today, he became the first space man, and turned the heavens and stars from the stuff made of dreams, into the reality of what man can do, when he puts his mind to it, and has the will to risk it all.

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Kesennuma No More

     This blog essentially relates the journey of western civilization, both currently and historically, from the human perspective in both challenge and triumph. As spectacular as human capacity can be, the awesome force that Nature can apply, to make small the mightiest of civilization’s achievements, was brought to bear in Japan’s devastating 9.0 earthquake of two weeks ago. The Japanese port of Kesennuma on the Pacific coast of the island of Honshu faced the incredible force of the epic earthquake’s tsunami, and a city of 73000 individuals was in five horrifying minutes literally wiped of the face of the earth. As so often acknowledged in events that defy description, the video below shows the apocalyptic force of a 25 foot tsunami on the city in a vivid way that is unforgettable and awe-inspiring. But for the grace of God, go we all.
     Behold, the destroyer of worlds…..

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Trapped In The Snow Globe

   Nature, you magnificent bastard, you’ve done it again!  

     Just when the world had convinced itself that global warming hysteria and its accompanying pseudo-science would become the “law” of our times, mother nature delivers an uncommon blow to remind us of her awesome power and the pathetic capacity of we puny humans to control or influence her.  On February 1-2,  she delivered one of those storms for the ages that people will talk about for future generations as a good old paralyser.  Want to get out to your job, the store, even out your front door? Fagettaboutit!  Snowdrifts the size of school buses are blocking your way, and with continuing winds of 90 kilometers an hour aren’t going away any time soon.   A two thousand mile wide swath of awesome natural power swept across the United States with the energy of hundreds of nuclear bombs and the moisture of several years of rain water converted to ice and snow to boot.  Sit back and gaze at this storm’s incredible profile over the continental United States, Courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather satellite:

     The size of this creation is a wonder to behold .  From the tip of Texas cascading in an epic spiral of pummeling blast over the midwest center over Chicago until its leading tip is seen over New York, this storm would swallow up several hurricanes.  Woe be to those who assumed that cold weather creations are any less damaging  or destructive than warm weather ones.

     It was likely massive storms such as these that over years and years brought the type of snow cover that created the massive glaciers of the ice ages.  This monster coupled with Great Britain colder and snowbound the any year in recorded history,  China seeing significant increase in snowstorms and cooling – wait a minute is Man causing another Ice Age?

     Everybody calm down.  Whether we are heading to the permanent balmy future of global warming, or a progressive ice bound century, we are in the thrall of natural forces that will determine all of that for us.  Hysterical forecasts to the contrary, we can all take a breath and do what we have always done.  Deal with the way things are, and get on with it.  It would be nice if governments who progressively enjoy telling us what to eat, what to drive, what to read, what to listen to, what to learn, what to illuminate our darkness with, what to expect for a life, would get the message…. We live in a Snow Globe, and Someone other than us controls its every shake.

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Stuxnet Redux

     On December 4th of last year RAMPARTS looked at a new form of cyber warfare, the STUXNET virus,  that was used to cripple Iran’s drive toward achieving a viable nuclear device. Although at the initial report no identifiable connections with intelligence services were noted, the complexity of the computer virus suggested a tie to sophisticated  computer experts of the highest order. How do you devise a destructive computer program that creates havoc with critical performance measures, yet hides from all viewing the damage being done? A must read report in the New York Times by reporters Broad, Markoff, and Sanger begins to connect the dots on what has all the elements of the best spy stories of the 1960’s.  We are beginning to see the spiders web of intelligence agencies at work to frustrate Iran’s goals of becoming a nuclear menace, we just don’t know yet who played the James Bond role yet. We can, however, enjoy the elements of a building great mystery story on the level of John Le Carre and Ian Fleming. 

     1) Isreal, the named target of Iran’s rage whom the president of Iran has repeatedly vowed to “erase off the map”, has a special and urgent calling to prevent the access to nuclear weapons by its avowed enemy.  In the Bush administration, it asked for access to military weapons capable of penetrating and destroying Iran’s underground nuclear facilities to be potentially used in a military attack.  It is denied.

     2) The critical component of a nuclear program is the ability to produce weapons grade plutonium by centrifugation.  A weapons spy thief of the first order, A.Q. Khan of Pakistan working in the Netherlands in the 1970’s steals plans of a working centrifuge, the P-1,  initiating Pakistan’s successful nuclear weapon program.  He then proliferates the technology to radical states such as North Korea, Iran,  and Libya, allowing their dictators to develop their own programs.

     3) President George W. Bush in 2003 achieves a secondary windfall in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, as Muammar al-Gaddafiin Libya decides it is not worththe wrathof the United States to continue his weapons program and turns his program over to the United States, and with it, several P-1 centrifuges. The centrifuges are studied by American intelligence services to note their capacities, and their vulnerabilities.

     4) Israel succeeds at developing a testing process to mimic the Iranian nuclear facilities and determine the means by which a cyber attack could be contemplated.

     5) The German multinational corporation, Siemens, designer of the intricate software programs that over see the Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz, came to the United States in 2008 to have experts review potential vulnerabilities to cyberattack of its Process Control System 7, the software responsible for coordinating the multiple centrifuges required to achieve satisfactory weapons grade plutonium.  It appears the vulnerabilities were adequately understood by both sides.

     6) 2010, two critical scientists in the Iranian nuclear program are assassinated in Tehran, further preventing the adjustment of the nuclear program done by STUXNET. 

     7) President Bush in 2008 approves a program of cyber subtrifuge to the nuclear facilities in Iran, accelerated by President Obama. It is not known if STUXNET was directly associated with this program. 

     8) It appears some time in 2008 or 2009, “James Bond” succeeded in infiltrating the computer systems at Natanz, Iran and released the STUXNET virus achieving the disabling of multiple centrifuges without the damage being arrested, until a significant number of the centrifuges had to be taken off line.  It is estimated this delayed the success of the program as much as three years and clearly identifies why Israel remained militarily passive against the Iranian threat last year when all signs pointed to an approaching  “high noon” moment.

     The multi-layered saga of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the world’s resolve to stop Iran without a military cataclysm continues to fascinate. The New York Times has managed to bring together a potential narrative as to what is happening, but large elements are missing a may never be known.  Who devised STUXNET and who succeeded in infiltrating the Iranian facilities.  Given the instability in Iran was this potentially an “inside” job? What is the true extent of the damage and what is being done to prevent Iranian response and recovery.  Who else is involved from a world perspective and what is their role?

     Man, this is getting good…

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Cyber Warfare Is Here

       There have been hints of the power of software assassins to wreak havoc with the world’s computer grid of the past twenty years. These have produced more hysteria than actual damage – the Love virus and the Y2K event, to name a few. Something new and more ominous has presented itself in Iran recently, and across the world software experts are in awe of its sophisticated and cyber-lethal capacity. The apparent spectacular damage it created to delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions has far exceeded the world’s tepid efforts at embargo and sanction.  What seemed to be a minor bump in the road may turn out to be a critical intervention that will allow a sufficient “breather” in the battle to prevent the theocratic and apocolyptic elements of the Iranian dictatorship from living out their anti-Zionist fantasies.  The cyber-weapon of note is known as STUXNET, and the world is just getting to realize the power and potential trouble such technology holds for what has become for all of us a basic staple of life, the computer.

      As the weeks extend from the cyber-attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, the information regarding STUXNET becomes more cloak and dagger with every piece of evolving information.  A transfer of the virus was achieved into facilities with the highest security and no outside Internet access.  The virus was so sophisticated that it achieved the control of the critical centrifuges causing them to spin at high and damaging speeds without any monitor showing an aberrant function,  sufficient to damage the fragile and sophisticated machinery without anyone the wiser, the virus then hiding without a trace and waiting for new sites to proliferate and destroy. By the time Iranian scientists realized the damage, the ability to produce the enriched uranium required for atomic weaponry appears to have been significantly set back,  and may require Iran to again attempt to obtain the components of the centrifuges from countries who may no longer have the capacity or desire to give them access to the precision equipment .  

     The question as to who is capable of such sophisticated software capacity, and a recognition of the thousands of man-hours needed to produce such a sophisticated cyber weapon leads inevitably to nation states.  The Cold War was fought by stealth warriors on both sides, whose exploits were popularized in spy novels and Bond movies.  The ‘Bond spys’ were special warriors with special technology not available to the rest of us, designed to protect their nation’s interests and roust out evil plots with all of us being none the wiser in our daily existence.  The realities of STUXNET suggest intelligence agencies of the highest order.  The Iranians with their hatred and paranoia suspect Israel.  The incredible sophistication  of the weapon and its military nature could easily implicate the western intelligence services from the U.S., France, United Kingdom, or Russia.  The reality could be some combination of all of the above given the obvious interests all would have in seeing Iran not being successful in its nuclear ambitions.

     STUXNET has created a new reality and perhaps a new cold war weapon.  In the days of the cold war the fear was nuclear holocaust and we were all trained at school to seek shelter under our desks in case of attack, however ludicrous the level of protection that may have offered.  Now we will have to learn to hide from what is on our desks, as we note the capacity to turn off our communications, our power, our commerce, our lights, and our way of life may just have annouced its first ominous presence on earth.

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A Year Later, the World Is Slowly Warming to the “Truth”

     It was a year ago that one of the great farces and premeditated frauds  perpetrated on civilized culture began to unravel, to the benefit of all that care in the least about human progress and individual freedom.   World leadership was preparing to gather in Copenhagen for a world wide conference about “climate change and humanity driven global warming” that would codify the economic disarming of the western world in order to “convert economic behavior” through mandatory reduction in so-called greenhouse gas (CO2) production and carbon based fuels.  Secondarily for past environmental sins, the developed countries would agree to shift hundreds of billions of dollars to to economic backwaters like Zimbabwe and Fiji in order to “equalize the playing field”  in an action having nothing to do with climate science and everything to do with Marxist economic theory.  The lemmings in charge of western governments were prepared to sacrifice their own population’s well being and give up enormous chunks of sovereign power to global bureaucrats to sage their guilt on the altar of “settled science”.  Emerging economic powers like China and India were intelligently having none of it, but were perfectly willing to see their major competitors self-emolliate.  The forced serfdom  of individual freedom and human security was all but complete, when the miracle of the Internet once again charged to the rescue.  A still unidentified insider at the global temple of climate change science, East Anglia University in England, released on the Internet thousands of e-mail exchanges by the climate scientists at the center of the “settled science” of human mediated global warming revealing their own doubts of the validity of their own data and their willingness to cover up the inconsistencies to protect “truth” of global warming, along with the billions of dollars of research funds that the “truth” brought to their career work.  May I say it again?  Thank God for the Internet.

    One of the intrepid heroes of the unmasking of the fraud, James Delingpole, who blogs for the UK Telegraph, brought light to the incredible web of deceit exposed in the e-mails of Anglia scientists.  He almost single handedly turned the tide of momentum through his journalist work, when the mainstream media was prepared to bury the facts to protect the Copenhagen meeting.  Thankfully the conference broke down in chaos with the emerging pattern of fraud Delingpole and others brought to light and the organized destruction of western capacity dreamt about deciples of Al Gore was narrowly averted.  Over the past year, trends in global climate measurement continue to show continuing marked deviation and lack of precision from the “settled science” computer models that world leadership was prepared to swallow whole.  We are no closer to accurately predicting man’s effect on world temperature and climate change a hundred years from now than the weather two weeks from now,  and that at least is becoming “settled science”.   Thankfully the upcoming world climate conference in Cancun, Mexico as a follow-up to Copenhagen reflects the world’s identification of the underlying realities of the global warming hoaxers and will be attended by one tenth of the earth enders that populated Copenhagen and Kyoto.

     Mr. Delingpole continues to do important and critical analysis of the work being done in the climate science field and the underlying political agendas of  the most stalwart climate bureaucrats who continue to spout the human driven global warming gospel despite all the evidence to the contrary.  In two blogs that I consider must reads, he reminds us of the Marxist political agenda underlying the continued demands for the developed world to economically disarm for climate change, and how the culprits responsible for the farce are changing their attack through new vocabulary with the same destructive intentions of the global warming mantra on human freedom.

     As a defender of the ramparts of civilization, it is critical to always be on the lookout for the fool on the hill who would destroy all the progress humanity has made to feed a desire to return the planet to a more “natural” state.   We all want clean air to breathe. We all want clean water to drink. We all want to be good stewards of the mother earth that has been our home since Eden.  All that is more likely to occur, when we recognize the power of real truth and real scientific method to explore the boundless creativity and genius housed in each one of us, and not the ravings of those would seek to return the world to a place that never existed in reality and one in which there is no place for us.

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A New Champion in the Art of Tunneling

    The world was captivated earlier this week by the incredible engineering achievement of drilling teams to bore through 2300 feet of the granite rock of the Andes in less than two months to successfully provide a rescue portal for 33 trapped Chilean miners.  This same week another drilling milestone was achieved in the Swiss Alps every bit as awesome in its achievement and unsurpassed in its scope.  Since Roman times the perilous journey from northern to southern Europe has been blocked by the granite majesty of the alps with only two viable portals, the St. Gotthard and St. Bernard passes providing arduous and time consuming causeways for the motivated traveller.  In modern times these passes have been successfully traversed by roads that make trans-European travel viable, but there has been increasing concern for the threat of damage to the local alpine environment caused by increasingly high volume truck and rail freight travel through the passes.   The Swiss, however, are a particularly focused people acutely aware of their unique position on the European continent and the integral role the soaring alpine vistas play in the formation of their national character.   Over two decades ago, they determined to do something about the increasing congestion.  The  something was a massive public works project costing over 10 billion dollars and 23 years to completion- and what a project it has been.

      This week the Swiss nation celebrated the completed drilling of a 35.4 mile tunnel under the Gotthard that now forms the longest transport tunnel in the world, surpassing the Seikan Tunnel in Japan by over a mile.  The Swiss are no strangers to tunnel technology and achievement owning 3 of the 20 longest transport tunnels currently serving world travellers.    The achievement at this time is one of connectivity only as the viable use of the tunnel is expected to take 7 more years to initiate. 

      When all is said and done, the tunnel is expected to reduce the travel time for road freight slightly over one hour in passage through versus over the Gotthard, but more importantly to the Swiss, remove the visual damage to their beloved alps caused by the travel of people looking to pass through the country, not be a part of it.   Only the Swiss can say if it is worth three decades and billions of dollars to achieve this engineering marvel for the sheer joy of returning the Gotthard Pass to something closer to the vistas enjoyed by Europe’s first hardy travellers.  The toll to each Swiss citizen for this investment, 1300 dollars apiece.  Hopefully, the next time I travel the pass, they won’t try to get their investment back all in one transit through the tunnel.

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The World Drives Toward a Nuclear Future; We Remain in Park

   The focus on Iran’s nuclear program for its potential development of nuclear weapons obscures somewhat the progressive demand  by many countries across the globe to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels by development of nuclear energy capacity.  The presence of the majority of fossil fuel deposits in the hands of a very few countries has lead to dangerous reliance on the ability of these countries to maintain and protect a stable supply and meet the increasing demand.  The nearly limitless capacity of the atom to supply energy and its reputation as a “cleaner” alternative to carbon due to its low CO2 footprint has made it an increasingly attractive option for energy – except in the United States, the originator of the nuclear plant.  The commitment is particularly strong in France, where over 80% of its energy grid needs are met by nuclear plant kilowatt production and less than 10% reliant on fossil fuels.

     The United States, once the world leader in nuclear energy science and nuclear energy production, has taken a progressively backward attitude regarding the capability of nuclear energy, and despite multiple economic shocks secondary to unstable supply, has become increasingly reliant on imported fossil fuels.   The current number of functioning nuclear power energy plants in the United States is 104, producing as of 2007 806.4 trillion kilowatt -hours of energy to the United States energy grid, or 19.4% of the total energy requirement total (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis).   Impressive as this may sound, no new permits for construction of nuclear plants have been permitted by the U.S. government since 1970, and no new plants have come on line since the early 1980’s.   Additionally, despite holding the world’s forth largest reserves of elemental uranium required for nuclear fuel , the United States supplies only 8% of its current uranium needs and imports the rest from countries like Russia, Australia, and Canada.  

    How did the pioneer country of nuclear energy become the backwater for nuclear power development?  It was pretty much the power of a Hollywood movie.  ” The China Syndrome”  a 1979 movie  suggesting sloppy and devious quality of oversite at an imaginary nuclear power plant resulting in a nuclear accident was released just 12 days before a real nuclear accident occurred with a partial core melt down at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.  Despite the essentially benign outcome of the Three Mile incident with no permanent long term identified contamination or health risk, the juxtaposition of the two events, one fantasy and one real, sealed in the public consciousness a new found abhorrence of the idea of living with nuclear risk.  The consequence was no further plant development and worse no further nuclear energy science support for the next thirty years.  The objective focus on nuclear plant risk in the United States has shown the nuclear industry to have maintained by far the safest record in the U.S. industrial world, with only 0.13 industrial accidents per 200,000 worker-hours, over 15 times safer than any other manufacturing process(Reuters 03.27.09).  The secondary issue of nuclear waste storage received sufficient histrionic coverage to result in the halting of utilization of Yucca Mountain, Nevada as a nuclear waste repository in 2008, and the United States, unlike France, has not developed a modern nuclear waste re-processing facility that typically can recycle up to 97% of waste into usable fuel. 

     President Obama finally proposed the re-initiation of modern nuclear plant development for the United States with two proposed permits in 2009 for plants in Georgia, but as of yet with no progress in Congress to move the permits into action.   19 states currently have no nuclear power plants and only 21 states produce at least 20% of their energy grid demand from nuclear power, lead by Illinois with 11 plants and 47% of the power grid supplied.  It is well past time that we considered the consequences of our continuing reliance on fossil fuels and our negligence of the the power of the atom and its objective risks, compared to every other source of energy.  The rest of the world isn’t going to wait for us to get over our nuclear neuroses.