Gizmorama - August 6, 2014

Good Morning,

Accoring to two new studies the planet is three decades away from a water storage. What can be done to stop to this environmental crisis from happening?

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Serious global water shortage is only 25 years away --*
AARHUS, Denmark (UPI) - Two new studies suggest a worldwide water shortage is less than three decades away, and that at least 30 to 40 percent of the globe will be struggling to meet supply demands by 2020.

The projections are based on current usage rates and the increasing reliance upon water for hydroelectricity and cooling more traditional power plants. As the need for
water continues to grow, both for quenching the thirst of growing populations and as a source of energy, pressure on finite resources will eventually instigate an shortage.

Researchers with Aarhus University in Denmark, as well as analysts at the Vermont Law School and the Virginia-based non profit CNA Corporation, predict these imbalances will beset more than a third of the globe by 2020, and virtually all of it by 2040. The studies suggest previous water shortage predictions fail to account for the vast amounts of water it takes cool much of the world's power systems -- coal, gas and nuclear power plants.

Researchers suggest many electricity producers don't even keep track of the vast amounts of water used in cooling power systems.

"It's a huge problem that the electricity sector do not even realize how much water they actually consume," explained Benjamin Sovacool, a professor at Aarhus University. "And together with the fact that we do not have unlimited water resources, it could lead to a serious crisis if nobody acts on it soon."

The researchers came to their predictions by comparing and contrasting a number of studies that looked at water usage in France, the United States, China and India.

Sovacool and colleagues suggest world leaders act fast to address these impending shortages by: improving energy efficiency; developing more efficient cooling cycles; tracking water use by power plants; abandoning fossil fuel facilities in water-stressed regions; and boosting investments in wind and solar energy.

"If we keep doing business as usual, we are facing an insurmountable water shortage -- even if water was free, because it's not a matter of the price," Sovacool added. "There will no water by 2040 if we keep doing what we're doing today. There's no time to waste. We need to act now."


*-- 'Impossible' engine may actually work, NASA engineers suggest --*
WASHINGTON (UPI) - The laws of classical physics require a rocket's thrusters to push against something, creating acceleration by expelling matter (burned fuel) in the opposite direction.

Thus, so-called space drives -- engines that don't require fuel, but use alternative mechanisms to thwart the laws of physics and create thrust out of thin air (really thin space air) -- have always been considered "impossible."

But last week, scientists with NASA's Eagleworks Laboratories in Houston, Texas, presented a paper at a conference in Cleveland, Ohio, that suggests the impossible may be possible. The scientists say they tested an engine that created a small amount of thrust without burning or expelling any traditional fuels -- the acceleration created by microwaves bouncing around inside.

More specifically, the engine musters up a bit of thrust by bouncing microwaves from one end to the other of an unevenly-shaped container, creating a difference in radiation pressure and generating drive. Though the engine generated only enough thrust to compel only the tiniest of movement, that any sort drive was created -- subverting one of the central laws of physics, "the conservation of momentum" -- is potentially revolutionary.

The experimental drive engine produced "a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon," the scientists claim in their paper.

But a number of science journalists and experts are understandably skeptical. Chris Lee of Ars Technica points to the fact that the experiment involved two test engines -- one that was designed to create thrust and another that was not. But both created thrust, meaning the experiments negative control also worked, calling into question the expected thrust-creating mechanism and the experiment overall.

"All in all," Lee concluded, "it will take a lot more information before we can judge whether the thrust is really a thrust or not."

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