As a Man who really gets round the World, I questioned the Portsmouth Green Bin collectors on how good we are on recycling...
My eclipse box went into the Green Bin.
The truth of the story is it all gets burnt in our Portsmouth incinerator.
Supplies enough heat to warm 20,000 houses in Portsmouth. But does very little for CO2 emissions.
My eclipse box went into the Green Bin.
The truth of the story is it all gets burnt in our Portsmouth incinerator.
Supplies enough heat to warm 20,000 houses in Portsmouth. But does very little for CO2 emissions.
Surely you mean the Portsmouth Energy Recovery Facility!
The operators claim to process non-recyclable household waste.
However, as we say up here, "ah hae ma doots"!
P.S. With an estimated 222 tonnes of Nitrous Oxide emitted in 2017, you should be laughing, Steve!
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Incinerators in Space!
NASA have launched an incinerator into space (Dec '19)!
It's called the Orbital Syngas/Commodity Augmentation Reactor or OSCAR for short.
The incineration of trash and human waste in microgravity involves new combustion science.
OSCAR was tested during a suborbital flight, when it had 3 minutes to show off its recycling abilities.
NASA Technology Designed to Turn Space Trash into Treasure | NASA
NASA have launched an incinerator into space (Dec '19)!
It's called the Orbital Syngas/Commodity Augmentation Reactor or OSCAR for short.
The incineration of trash and human waste in microgravity involves new combustion science.
OSCAR was tested during a suborbital flight, when it had 3 minutes to show off its recycling abilities.
NASA Technology Designed to Turn Space Trash into Treasure | NASA
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Everybody feeling good about recycling? Saving the Planet.
One firm I worked for had cardboard bins for coca-cola tins and such, and another one for general waste. Sound environmentalist you think. No, it all got thrown into the same skip at the back of the building.
In a certain Naval base nearby, we watched in amazement as the general waste and the recycling waste all went into the back of the same dumpster lorry at 6 in the morning.
One firm I worked for had cardboard bins for coca-cola tins and such, and another one for general waste. Sound environmentalist you think. No, it all got thrown into the same skip at the back of the building.
In a certain Naval base nearby, we watched in amazement as the general waste and the recycling waste all went into the back of the same dumpster lorry at 6 in the morning.
China doesn't want our trash anymore, so the price of plastics has plummeted to the point where it's no longer worth recycling it.
The UK produces more waste than it can process at home. If China doesn't take plastic we can no longer recycle it.
It’s really a complete myth when people say that we’re recycling our plastics.
'Plastic recycling is a myth': what really happens to your rubbish? | Recycling | The Guardian
The UK produces more waste than it can process at home. If China doesn't take plastic we can no longer recycle it.
It’s really a complete myth when people say that we’re recycling our plastics.
'Plastic recycling is a myth': what really happens to your rubbish? | Recycling | The Guardian
One of my nephews used to try setting up textile factories in poorer countries, manufacturing clothing locally with 100% recycled synthetic fabrics.
I still have some from gifts.
His idea was setting them up, and when costs were covered, sell the operations off to locals and move on, and do it again.
edit: the recycling was bought from worldwide locally, and processed as part of the factories. Surplus funds were allocated to local food programs, education, and sometimes fresh water plants.
He did it a few times, but most locals don't want to put in a decent effort at work, and as I found out when presenting his brochures to local construction companies I was involved with in Canada (many buy coats or hats etc., with embossed or embroidered corporate logos by the thousands for gifts) no one wanted it.
Made to spec, with free samples, at equal or lesser pricing was not enough.
Every meeting I attended had the same sentiment. There was something wrong with using recycled plastics to make a new useful product.
We are flawed chimpanzees.
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Yes
It's all very well having plastic recycling codes on packaging products etc. and bunging them all in the same bin. How are they going to be economically sorted for re-use? You can't contaiminate the various groups and reprocess them in to something new.
I wonder how many people know their PET from PE, PP, PS etc.
?
Bit of Space news this week.
The Red Betelgeuse dimming mystery has been solved. It dropped a whole magnitude (10 times) in January 2020. From 0.1 and 0.8, which is regular variation down to 1.6. It wasn't very bright even last Christmas.
'''Great Dimming''' of Betelgeuse star is solved - BBC News
Dust in the way AND a cool spot. Now back to normal. Only 10 Million years old and 15 Sols mass but hugely bright (100.000 Sols) because of its size. Expected Supernova in 100,000 years.
China has sent 3 astronauts to its new expanding Space Station. Apparently it will have a Hubble type telescope eventually.
Shenzhou-12: China launches first crew to new space station - BBC News
The Red Betelgeuse dimming mystery has been solved. It dropped a whole magnitude (10 times) in January 2020. From 0.1 and 0.8, which is regular variation down to 1.6. It wasn't very bright even last Christmas.
'''Great Dimming''' of Betelgeuse star is solved - BBC News
Dust in the way AND a cool spot. Now back to normal. Only 10 Million years old and 15 Sols mass but hugely bright (100.000 Sols) because of its size. Expected Supernova in 100,000 years.
China has sent 3 astronauts to its new expanding Space Station. Apparently it will have a Hubble type telescope eventually.
Shenzhou-12: China launches first crew to new space station - BBC News
There's Some interesting background information in Steve's link.
China has been excluded from the International Space Station project and is going it alone in developing a space station.
The US, which leads the ISS partnership (with Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan) will not co-operate with the Asian nation in orbit.
However, China says it is open to foreign involvement on its station, in the first instance by hosting scientific experiments.
You have to look at my snap in a dark room to see anything...
Turns out a magnitude is about X2.5 brightness. 5 magnitudes are X100. Say from Blue Rigel, which is about 0 magnitude, to the faintest ones most of us can pick out. Absolute magnitude is calculated at 10 Parsecs, around 32 light-years. Rigel and the 3 in the belt are all whoppers, around -6. But the belt is twice as far away around 1500 light years.
Not too clear what Blue Giants are, but less massive than Betelgeuse I think. Maybe 5 Sols. Maybe main sequence on the old Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.
I had to dig around to find out where the 2m telescope is on the Chinese space station. Turns out it orbits alongside, but can dock for maintenance and refuelling.
China wants to launch its own Hubble-class telescope as part of space station | Space
It is significantly more advanced than Hubble, with x300 better field area at the same resolution.
Turns out a magnitude is about X2.5 brightness. 5 magnitudes are X100. Say from Blue Rigel, which is about 0 magnitude, to the faintest ones most of us can pick out. Absolute magnitude is calculated at 10 Parsecs, around 32 light-years. Rigel and the 3 in the belt are all whoppers, around -6. But the belt is twice as far away around 1500 light years.
Not too clear what Blue Giants are, but less massive than Betelgeuse I think. Maybe 5 Sols. Maybe main sequence on the old Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.
I had to dig around to find out where the 2m telescope is on the Chinese space station. Turns out it orbits alongside, but can dock for maintenance and refuelling.
China wants to launch its own Hubble-class telescope as part of space station | Space
It is significantly more advanced than Hubble, with x300 better field area at the same resolution.
One of the stars that most interests me is this one :-
R136a1 - Wikipedia
R136a1 is 215x the mass of the sun and the heaviest known star. Its not as huge as Betelgeuse, Canis Major or UY Scuti, but is about 10x heavier than those.
The outer layer of these super large diameter stars, and our sun as well by the way, is not dense at all I was surprised to find out, but quite diffuse. In the case of the sun, at its surface its only about 10^-9 g/cm^3 - i.e. very 'un-dense' and stars like Betelgeuse even less. The central core (100k km diameter) however is about 150g/cm^3 - so close to 13x that of lead
Here's a good link on the sun:-
The Sun's Vital Statistics
(check out the mag field strengths of solar spots - a thing that's 20-30 thousand km wide is generating field strengths of 3000 G)
R136a1 - Wikipedia
R136a1 is 215x the mass of the sun and the heaviest known star. Its not as huge as Betelgeuse, Canis Major or UY Scuti, but is about 10x heavier than those.
The outer layer of these super large diameter stars, and our sun as well by the way, is not dense at all I was surprised to find out, but quite diffuse. In the case of the sun, at its surface its only about 10^-9 g/cm^3 - i.e. very 'un-dense' and stars like Betelgeuse even less. The central core (100k km diameter) however is about 150g/cm^3 - so close to 13x that of lead
Here's a good link on the sun:-
The Sun's Vital Statistics
(check out the mag field strengths of solar spots - a thing that's 20-30 thousand km wide is generating field strengths of 3000 G)
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