Category Archives: Commentary

Robotic Cockroaches for Disaster Searches

Posted on by

This seemed to be a nice change of pace from depressing commentaries (although I understand disaster preparedness isn’t exactly a light-hearted subject). An article about robotic cockroaches leads with some amazing statements about the characteristics of the disgusting bugs. They can “…squish their bodies to one quarter their normal size, yet still scamper at lightning speed. Also, they can withstand 900 times their body weight without being hurt. That’s equivalent to a 200-pound man who wouldn’t be crushed by 90 tons on his head.” They can travel 50 body lengths a second, which is the equivalent of a man running 140 mph. They’re slowed down when they compress to squeeze through a small opening. Compressed they can only travel at 20 body lengths a second, or the equivalent of just under 60 mph.   Study of cockroaches led scientists to create a mini-robot that can be fitted with cameras, microphones, and other sensors for sifting through rubble after a disaster to search for survivors.

The prototype is called the Compressible Robot with Articulated Mechanisms, or CRAM. It’s actually about twenty times the size of a cockroach, but it’s simple and cheap. Kaushik Jayaram, a Harvard robotics researcher, said he used off-the-shelf electronics and motors to build the prototype in about half an hour at a cost of about $100. He estimated the cost would be about $10 for a mass-produced version. Jayaram also said he is still disgusted by cockroaches, “But we can learn a lot of interesting things from even the most disgusting animals.”

Colorado School Performance after Millions Invested

Posted on by

The subtitle of an article by Jennifer Brown in the Denver Post is, “Colorado ‘turnaround’ schools received $50 million since 2010 but many have not improved.” “Among the 29 schools in Colorado that have one year remaining on their ‘accountability clock’ before the state school board could move to shut them down or turn them into charters, most have not made significant progress, and some have gotten worse.” The analysis of student achievement data for schools receiving federal “…School Improvement Grant funds (and) found little correlation between money and academic gains.”

A spokesperson for the non-profit Bellwether Education Partners commented, “If you funnel a lot of money to the same dysfunctional districts that have been running the dysfunctional schools, these are the results you should expect…What’s mystifying to me is that people thought the school improvement grant program was going to get dramatically different results from the dozens of other similar efforts at school turnaround in the past.” That statement reminded me of the saying that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

The article is filled with statistics and examples, and it was obviously researched quite well. I wish there had been more about why school performances are so universally abysmal. There is one example of a new principal at a school “…where 90 percent of the kids are minorities and almost everyone is eligible for free or reduced lunch…” She realized she had to change the culture of gangs, drugs, and fighting. She used grant money to hire two additional assistant principals. They were told to learn the student’s names, greet them in the morning with fist bumps and high fives, and celebrate with them when they demonstrated good performance. The school had a 24 point improvement in math proficiency. Maybe other schools should try making the kids happy to be coming to school and acknowledging when they do well on a test. Refusing to allow gangs, drugs, and fighting would seem to be a good idea also.

Savers and Interest Rates

Posted on by

My father lived through the Great Depression and was forever nervous about whether he had saved enough to pay his bills after he quit working. He always saved all he could and put his savings into safe Certificates of Deposit (CDs). He had to move to assisted living and then began to fret that the interest he was earning wasn’t enough to keep him from beginning to use up the principal. I can’t imagine how upset he would be with the miniscule rate of return available to savers for the past few years. There must be millions of older Americans trying to figure out how to stretch their retirement savings to pay their bills while they earn less in interest than the rate of inflation.

The financial crisis resulted in the government intervening by “increasing the monetary supply” and reducing the interest on loans to near or at zero. It has struck me as beyond baffling that the result was a boom in the stock market while elderly savers suffered. I know I wasn’t the only investor who decided to take the additional risk of buying stocks with dividends that were higher than anything to be found in CDs. While politicians were railing against people who have money (the “investor class”), they supported policies that enriched those same “evil Capitalists” to the detriment of elderly savers.

I wonder when the millions of elderly savers who are voters will rebel against the economic policies that have punished them. I acknowledge that the current stock market has begun to look risky for the “investor class” that has been willing to take risks for higher returns. My father would probably say something such as “Learn from this and stick with CDs.”

The Federal Reserve has actually introduced negative interest rates into their recent discussions of the economy. Perhaps the “saver’s revolt” will happen when the message is that you will receive less than what you put in your CD when it matures?

Future of Clean Energy?

Posted on by

Pebble_bed_reactor_scheme_(English).svgI recently ran into an article reporting that a “nuclear startup called X-energy just scored a game-changing grant from the [US] government.” X-energy is run by a space contractor who is an Iranian-American – nice bit of irony there.

The article goes on to say the grant’s actually not that big or game-changing. But the technology could:

Commercialize a much needed energy source that doesn’t contribute to climate change and which could help revive a struggling nuclear industry.

Nuclear power
When you think about nuclear energy you probably think of huge plants that divert enormous amounts of water for cooling, thereby damaging aquatic life. Massive transmission lines marching across the countryside to move the power to its users. Difficult concrete pours and high-tech welding. Complex safety systems and expensive refueling cycles.

Okay, maybe some of this only occurs to those of you interested in reactor construction.

Everyone thinks of Chernobyl and Fukushima.

(BTW – it’s not like coal and gas fired power plants are risk free. See this old book– the numbers are out of date but the concepts still apply.)

But people need energy
and even some long-time opponents of nuclear energy are willing to look at better plant designs to stave off global warming. The threats of global warming over the course of the 21st century are extensive enough that listing them sounds hyperbolic. If you’re not familiar with the issue, check out wunderground.com.

X-energy is working on a design I read about some time ago – pebble bed reactors – which I find very exciting.

The pebbles are tennis-ball sized spheres of graphite and ceramic fuel (various radioactive elements can be used). Gas (helium is preferred though I like nitrogen – cheaper) is used to transfer heat from the core, rather than water that becomes radioactive and can lead to steam explosions. The reactor needn’t be shut down to refuel, and the spent fuel come out in the easily handled, shielded pebbles. You can learn more about the technology here.

This design makes the reactor inherently safer, and it gets even better:

A pebble-bed reactor thus can have all of its supporting machinery fail, and the reactor will not crack, melt, explode or spew hazardous wastes. It simply goes up to a designed ‘idle’ temperature, and stays there.

I once read that small reactors might be built inside railroad cars and hauled into place all over the country. Imagine a grid where one outage doesn’t black-out huge areas. Imagine avoiding the power loss suffered by long transmission lines that eat up land and view-scapes.

Imagine your brother-in-law running one of these things. It’s okay! They’re simple and inherently safe.

I have a nagging concern that, if they’re so wonderful, why aren’t we already using pebble bed reactors? Wikipedia says there’s only one in operation – in China.

The balance between global warming fears and nuclear fears may allow us to look at pebble-beds with a fresh eye. I hope we can make rational decisions based on facts. It may not matter too much for me, but posterity could enjoy cheaper, safer, cleaner, and abundant energy.

Thanks to fortune.com for their article

Global Warming Saves the Planet

Posted on by

I’ve been entertained by recent articles that the increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has prevented an ice age. Just guessing, but I predict most scientists and other citizens would vote for global warming if the choice was an ice age. Warming and increased carbon dioxide results in increased crop yields and more robust growth of trees while freezing results in poor or non-existent crop yields and people dying at higher rates from cold and starvation.

One explanation for why global warming has saved us is associated with something called the Milankovitch cycle. To avoid getting into tedious technical details, the cycle refers to how changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun changes, which also causes changes to the amount of sunlight received by the earth. (To state the obvious, the primary source of global warming is sunlight.) Citation needed (I admit that I copied the idea of using “citation needed” when an statement is made about an obvious fact from Randall Munroe’s excellent book “What If,” which I recently reviewed.)

To be “fair and balanced” there have been articles disputing the accuracy of claims that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been good. I was confused by articles that referred to sun spots causing aberrations instead of discussing the Milankovitch cycle, but then again, I’m not a trained climate expert.

I’ve noticed that there has been a scramble to explain why global temperatures didn’t continue to rise after 1998, even though 2014 might have broken that trend. One explanation is that the oceans are storing the excess heat. Now we have to consider something called Milankovitch cycles or sun spots.

I just checked the National Snow and Ice center’s report on Arctic sea ice, and the ice coverage for 2014 bounced around the average coverage for 2011-2012. It has recently just dipped slightly below that average line. Wasn’t the ice supposed to be gone by now?

For those new to this debate, I assure you I believe climate change is real as supported by the fact that the climate has always changed. Citation needed

Health Insurance Costs for Colorado Mountain Residents

Posted on by

There was a disturbing article in the Denver Post about the cost of health insurance in the Colorado high country. Health insurance premiums in one western Colorado region jumped 25.8 percent this year for people buying their own policies. That percentage increase sounds huge, but it seems small when quoting actual costs. One woman’s premium increased by more than $300 to $1828 per month, or nearly $22,000 per year. And it gets worse. The policy contains a $4,000 deductible for each her and her husband. Health care costs are significantly higher in the mountain communities compared to the metro areas and there are fewer insurers, which results in little if any competition.

Many people are obviously going to have to consider going uninsured, even though there are IRS penalties for being uninsured imposed by the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare.” The Act required the creation of geographical ratings within each state, and the mountain areas are locked into a high rating. Federal approval is required to revise them. One person is paying $1,590 a month for health insurance while an identical plan in Denver would cost $851. People are being forced to consider moving to Utah or Denver. Some are actually wishing they were older so they can be on Medicare. One woman commented, “It’s the first time I’ve heard 60-year-olds saying they wished they were 65.”

I didn’t find a proposed solution to the problem for people who don’t want to move or somehow find a way to quickly become 65. The term “Affordable” is misplaced for some of our citizens.