October 01, 2018
Good Morning,
Federal agency DARPA wants to prove Physicist Mike McCulloch quantized inertia theory. The theory has created quite a heated scientific debate.
Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.
Until Next Time,
Erin
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*-- Power grid pressure: Climate change to increase electricity demands --*
Energy providers are underestimating the long-term effects of climate change on electricity demands, according to new research.
In a new paper, published Tuesday in the journal Risk Analysis, scientists from the University at Buffalo and Purdue University argue current energy demand models are unreliable and imprecise.
The researchers developed a better way to predict future energy demands using a pair of more accurate predictors -- mean dew point temperature and extreme maximum temperature.
"Existing energy demand models haven't kept pace with our increasing knowledge of how the climate is changing," Sayanti Mukherjee, assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering at Buffalo, said in a news release. "This is troublesome because it could lead to supply inadequacy risks that cause more power outages, which can affect everything from national security and the digital economy to public health and the environment."
As global temperatures continue to rise, more people are likely to rely on air conditioning to keep cool. As a result, electricity demands are expected to increase.
But how much will electricity demand increase? The answer depends on the model.
One common energy demand model, called MARKAL, fails to account for climate variability, authors of the study argue. Another, the National Energy Modeling System, or NEMS, does consider climate, but according to Mukherjee and her research partners, its methodology is imprecise.
The NEMS model predicts heating and cooling days by adding the day's high and low temperature and dividing by two. However, the method fails to account for time.
If the thermometer reads in the low 80s for most of the day, but a cold front moves in during the evening, bringing a low of 60 with it, the mean temperature gives the impression of a mild day.
Scientists at Buffalo and Purdue surveyed a full range of weather indicators to determine which metrics are the most accurate predictors of energy demands. They found dew point temperature -- the temperature at which air is saturated with water vapor -- and the daily high temperature were the best predictors of energy demand.
To build a more accurate energy demand prediction model, researchers combined the new climate prediction factors with energy, weather data and socioeconomic data. When researchers used the new model to predict future energy demands across the state of Ohio, they found the energy demand by the residential sector is more directly affected by climate variability.
The new model showed a moderate increase in the average dew point temperature could boost energy demand by 20 percent in the residential sector and 14 percent in the industrial sector.
"The availability of public data in the energy sector, combined with advances in algorithmic modeling, has enabled us to go beyond existing approaches that often exhibit poor predictive performance. As a result, we're able to better characterize the nexus between energy demand and climate change, and assess future supply inadequacy risks," said Roshanak Nateghi, assistant professor of industrial and environmental engineering at Purdue.
Fossil fuels still supply nearly two-thirds of the United States' electricity. Unless more coal and natural gas plants are phased out in favor of renewables, an increased demand for electricity is likely to increase carbon emissions.
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*-- DARPA invests in propellant-free rocket theory --*
Physicist Mike McCulloch plans to use a $1.3 million grant from the federal agency DARPA to prove his quantized inertia theory is more than just a spark plug for heady debates on online physics forums.
McCulloch believes his ideas about quantized inertia and Unruh radiation can inspire the creation of a rocket engine that turns light into thrust without the assistance of a chemical propellant.
Engineers at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, think McCulloch might be onto something.
"There is increasing global activity in space," Mike Fiddy, program manager for the Nascent Light-Matter Interactions program in DARPA's Defense Sciences Office, told UPI. "DARPA is seeking to deepen our understanding of how to move objects around in more energy efficient and versatile ways."
McCulloch thinks imbalances in Unruh radiation can be used to generate a more energy efficient thrust.
"Uhler radiation is a kind of radiation that you see when you accelerate," McCulloch, a professor of physics at the University of Plymouth in England, told UPI. "When you accelerate, a horizon radiation appears behind you, and the radiation emanates from this horizon the way Hawking radiation is emitted by the horizon of a black hole."
"One definition of quantized inertia is that the force we know as inertia is caused by a gradient in this Uhler radiation," he said.
In previously published papers, McCulloch has used his quantized inertia theory to explain galaxy rotation without the presence of dark matter, as well as the thrust achieved by the EmDrive.
The EmDrive was NASA's attempt at developing a propellant-less rocket engine.
According to the EmDrive's inventors, 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 -- although a study earlier this year questioned whether it worked at all.
"I believe that the EmDrive is a manifestation of quantized inertia," McCulloch said.
He said a different set of experiments may produce more powerful QI-powered thrusts.
Before the DARPA grant, announced this month, is used to build experiments, it will fund more theorizing.
"The first thing the money will allow me to do is hire a postdoc," McCulloch said.
With the help of a postdoctoral researcher, McCulloch plans on building out and filling in his quantized inertia theory.
"We're going to try to develop a numerical model to make the theory fully predictive," he said.
After 18 months of theory-building, the grant will help fund experimental teams in Germany and Spain, which will build a pair of thrust-producing experiments.
"One such experiment is a shielded laser loop, and another uses asymmetrical mirrors and laser light," McCulloch said.
If the experiments succeed, as predicted by McCulloch's theory, researchers will look for ways to enhance the thrusts.
Throughout the different phases of research, McColloch hopes to continue to use his ideas to explain and understand observable astronomical data.
"I think that the strength of the theory is that it explains a lot of things on different scales -- both at the cosmological level and the level of the laboratory," he said.
McCulloch's theory purports to explain cosmological phenomena more accurately than the Standard Model, which relies on the existence of dark matter. Coincidentally or not, he's faced pushback from some physicists.
"I have gotten a lot of resistance from people who believe in dark matter," McCulloch said. "They don't like it at all, as many scientists and universities receive a lot of money to build expensive machines looking for the stuff."
But even if mainstream physicists are reluctant to engage with McCulloch's ideas, DARPA was interested enough to open the coffers. They might be willing to do so again, should the right idea come along.
"The broad interest in understanding more about how electromagnetic waves and matter interact will continue to stimulate new hypotheses and theories," Fiddy said. "When these new ideas are relevant to DARPA's mission and are testable, the agency may well support them."
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