August 29, 2010

DEUTERIUM : The White Gold of The Philippines

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (80)

Posted In : Personal and Family, Earth & Environment, The Economy, Science & Technology, Global Politics

When I was in highschool, Michael Petralba, an old neighborhood friend from Carmen Street but who is now residing in Los Angeles, once spoke to me in a very animated fashion how the Philippines could one day become the richest country in the world. As a prelude, Michael said to me that his father had some vital information why a number of foreigners were in the country for a very secret purpose. I wondered loudly to him how secret it was and asked him if he could actually let me know some of the “secret’. He then informed me without hesitation that the foreigners were here mainly to study and find out ways on how to extract deuterium from the Philippine seas. I asked how come his father knew about all those stuff and what “deuterium” was in the first place. With gasping breath, and with gleaming pride for that matter, Michael told me as a matter of fact that his father was a war veteran and because of this, he had American contacts in the CIA. The CIA thing sounded preposterous to me at that time but when I recently read some articles in the Internet about deuterium, I started to wonder if the CIAtalk of Michael was plausible after all and that maybe the CIA was behind the sudden departure of Michael’s whole family to Los Angeles later that year, where in a year’s time he was already driving a very exotic looking red corvette (might be from second hand store) as evidenced by a picture that he had sent to the neighborhood kids through a very kind uncle. This story may start to sound like a brimming Tom Clancy thriller but before anything gets out of hand, that CIA talk of Michael is just that and nothing else to it I am pretty sure on that and their immigration to America was due mainly to his father being a USAFFE during World War II. But Michael’s rambling on deuterium was completely a different matter—-it sounded to me then so awfully good that I had wished it to be true already even though it wasn’t true at all at that time, and even now.

 

There is really something to this issue on deuterium that lingers long and never goes away completely. It had been virtually popping and bobbing up in the local media every now and then—-especially in the last couple of decades. The Cebu-based news outfit The Freeman published the most recent news article on deuterium. In that article, Freeman publicized a certain study on deuterium by a Filipino scientist working in a Canadian agency. Canada by the way is the world’s leading producer and consumer of deuterium as an energy source. There had been many rumors and hush-hush talks before about certain groups of foreigners, possibly American and sometimes German, that were in the country to initiate drilling projects that should siphon-off the coveted deuterium from the Philippine seas. All those talks just died down however and nobody really minded them, perhaps everyone just disregarded some weird-sounding element that is supposedly found in the Philippines in great volume. In fact, even as we speak now, I would not be surprised if Exxon or Shell has some of its people working night and day trying to unravel the key to gathering the millions of barrels of “white gold” underneath our seas.

 

I was watching Sentro last night, the upstart news program from ABC 5, and heard Ms. Ali Sotto do some lighter take on the news as she reported how hydrogen-fuelled cars were already running in the streets of Washington D.C.. This particular news segment was apparently so short that I had to scour the Internet for a more elaborate rendering of the news item. I read a couple of related news articles from not-too-famous news sites on the net.

 

It was reported that the United States Government, through the Department of Energy and General Motors had unveiled an $88 Million joint project in order to put a fleet of hydrogen-fuelled cars on the streets of Washington D.C., New York and Los Angeles within a year’s time. The fleet would consist merely of 40 of such cars but most of the money would be spent on putting up a number of hydrogen refueling stations all over the streets of those pilot cities since the main cause why consumers are not buying too many hydrogen-fuelled cars these days is basically due to the lack of gas stations peddling or selling hydrogen gas or liquid hydrogen. Come to think of it, even if any of us had all the money to buy this car stuff right now, like for example if some of us are sons and daughters of Taipans with money to burn, we wouldn’t be able to use them anyway, at least not for long, unless we all fly all the way to America to buy gallons and gallons of hydrogen fuel.

 

But again come to think about the possibilities. If only there were enough hydrogen-refueling stations all over our city streets, our days of being dependent on crude oil (freshly-drilled from the dusty sands of Sahara) would soon be over and our atmosphere would be a lot more livable since the only end product of hydrogen fuels is water. Water, instead of carbon dioxides that make our urban landscape looked orange or yellow at dusk.

 

I really hope that this project of GM and the United States Government would entirely succeed for reasons that we all should know by now.

And so this bit of news on hydrogen-fuelled cars reminded me of the high school talk I had with an old friend from the neighborhood concerning deuterium. What is deuterium and how does it become an energy source? Deuterium is the end product when a common tap water (H2O) is subjected to enormous pressurize of gigantic proportion that the oxygen element in the H2O compound is forced out of the combination, making the hydrogen element to purify and consolidated all the more. Since in deuterium, the hydrogen becomes so solid and unadulterated, hydrogen gas can be easily obtained from it since a natural electrolysis happens immediately the moment deuterium is exposed to room temperature. Meaning to say, when deuterium is used as a base in obtaining hydrogen gas, the generation process is much less expensive. Right now, hydrogen gas and liquid hydrogen that are often used to power jets and giant trucks, are sold at very steep prices (much more expensive than gasoline) because it is so costly to produce them, necessitating an energy-consuming and lengthy electrolysis process that are undertaken in order to separate the hydrogen compound from common water. When deuterium is used, the very expensive process of electrolysis would be bypassed and set aside in the production of hydrogen gas and therefore, obtaining hydrogen fuel becomes more efficient and less expensive by a mile.

 

The Philippines is identified to hold the greatest amount of deuterium deposit, somewhere in the area known as Mindanao Trench, the part of the Pacific Ocean just off the shores of Surigao. Deuterium is most prevalent in an area more widely known in the whole world as The Philipppine Deep. In the Freeman news article (dated August 2004), Dr. Anthony B. Halog, the Filipino scientist working at the Sustainable Technology Office of the Institute for Chemical Process and Environmental Technology, and the National Research Council of Canada described the Philippine deuterium wealth in this manner:

“A big deposit of 868 miles long, 52 miles at widest point, and 3 miles at deepest point, replenished by nature 24 hours a day after deuterium travels more than 12,000 kilometers from Central America to the Philippines through the span of the Pacific Ocean when Planet Earth turns on its axis from West to East in unending perpetual motion.”

And it’s potential in this breathe:

“At 12 million barrels per day capacity priced at US$7.00 per barrel, this is US$84 million per day or US$30.66 billion per year, enough to wipe out all existing foreign debts of the Government in one year, revenue-wise in foreign exchange.

Public works, private construction, economic and financial booms are expected to happen in the Philippines in the same manner as those which happened in the Middle East and financial centers of the world from 1974 to 1984, with everybody earning their respective comfortable livelihood, while pricing basic prime necessities at reasonable and affordable levels.”

At present, deuterium seems to be produce exclusively through an expensive synthesizing process, by subjecting ordinary tap water to enormous pressure using some highly-advanced machinery or equipment and thus the price of hydrogen fuel remain relatively out of reach from the ordinary consumers of fuels. But if the deuterium deposit under the Philippine seas can be obtained, hydrogen gas prices could become far more reasonable and affordable. If natural deuterium is utilized as the base in the production of hydrogen fuel—-in both its most widely used form as hydrogen gas and liquid hydrogen—-the generation process would become more efficient and much cheaper. And mind you, deuterium as a source of energy is not only useful to power cars, trucks and planes. It is also being utilized to power factories and power plants in the same manner that nuclear power plants are operated. With deuterium as moderator, nuclear power plants could do away with enriched uranium as a main fuel source and this means, deuterium use could generate a whole new species of power plants that are a lot safer—-safer by a grand mile.

The problem faced by those who wants to extract natural deuterium from the Philippines seas is probably the enormous pressure that is existing in the very area where deuterium are supposed to be found. To reach the area of deuterium concentration, a drilling system should reach a level of at least 30,000 feet deep into the ocean, where the water pressure could reach as high as 10,000 psi, or the equivalent of 10,000 tons of load pressuring from all direction. Apparently, there is no material known today that could withstand such enormous amount of pressure. Maybe diamonds could be strong enough to endure the extraordinary pressure down there but imagine how much diamonds should be needed in order to manufacture a very long tube. That’ll be unimaginable in both cost and expanse. But scientists nowadays always finds a way and when the time comes that a kind of metal could actually be developed, one that could reach ten thousand meters underwater without breaking apart and efficiently drill out barrels and barrels of sea water that contains deuterium, then that’ll be the time the Philippines could become the main hawker of fuels for the world’s cars, airplanes, buses, factories, power plants and whatever that runs and hums not by its own accord.

So deuterium may be the gasoline of the future, the main energy source of the next millennium, and the Philippines is the only country that has them naturally tucked under its seabed in an amount and breathe that replenishes on its own every time the Earth rotates and the sea shifts from side to side.

 

Look in Wikipedia for more information.

 

March 2, 2010

The Thin Line between Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Weapons

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (162)

Posted In : Philippine Politics, Science & Technology, News & Info

The massive power crisis the country is presently experiencing leads some of our government people to rethink and reconsider nuclear power.

The government is now reportedly canvassing 12 possible locations for nuclear power plant projects, receiving entreaties from two foreign power conglomerates – Korea’s Korean Electric Power Corp. and an undisclosed French firm.

We all know that the plan would not stand a bit of a chance not only that Filipinos are often aversive to anything that has “nuclear” on it but also because of the very high cost of putting up one, having a price tag between $6 Billion to $10 Billion each.

In the 1970’s the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was mothballed due to very widespread public disproval albeit the sky-high expense that was put up to bankroll it, sinking our national finances in a quagmire of foreign debts.

So NAPOCOR would probably be sticking it out with floating power barges to help augment power supply across the country, especially in Mindanao.

The construction of coal-powered power plants are also in the offing, despite the foreseen hazards coal power plants could bring the environment.

On the one hand, the potentialities of nuclear power plants are such a very tempting proposition as they can mostly solve every other power scarcity problem, easily providing a utopian energy source, one that is not dependent on water level or world prices of petroleum.

Most developed countries like America (and even earthquake-prone Japan) depends much on nuclear power plants to power their homes and industries, about 20% of their energy requirements comes from uranium-powered power plants. Total nuclear energy output in 2009 amounted to 15% of the world total.

In the economic mindset, stable and continuous power supply becomes ultimately elemental in sparking and keeping up economic progress and growth. Power failure or energy supply instability is one major reason why the Philippines is lagging so far behind its other Asian neighbours in terms of foreign direct investments.

This is perhaps the reason why our government now has come to the point of nuclear contemplation.

Our constitution does not basically prohibit the installation of nuclear power plants in our territory but only the use, transport or storage of nuclear weapons.

Accordingly, Section 8 of Article 2 of the 1987 Constitution provides and states:

“The Philippines, consistent with the national interest, adopts and pursues a policy of freedom from nuclear weapons in its territory.”

Despite that we are prone to earthquakes (the Philippines being part of the Pacific Ring of Fire), making nuclear power plants so extremely risky and unsafe—- no existing law could hinder or prohibit the government from engaging foreign investors for the construction of nuclear power plants here in our country, most probably through the build-operate-and-transfer mode of acquisition.

These power plants are envisioned not merely to bolster our country’s power supply exponentially but they should completely eradicate power scarcity problems of our country altogether and once and for all.

And besides, nuclear energy could make power cheaper and more expeditious in the long run.
Yet in the final analysis, the attempt to put up nuclear power plants here in our country may still be in contradiction to the very strong national emphasis on being a nuclear-free state, despite that they are not for military purposes, for the very process of energy generation within these plants generally produces weapon grade materials as by-products or end-products like enriched Uranium and Plutonium, those that can actually be used and recycled as nuclear warheads.

This situation easily undermines national security (as well as global and regional security for that matter) as these very dangerous by-products of nuclear power plants can possibly fall into the hands of unscrupulous individuals and be used for ultimately malevolent means, creating possibly a very tempting underground blackmarket for them. This is where the supposedly undisruptive energy generation utility of nuclear power plants could redound or be tantamount to harnessing nuclear weapons potentialities.

Therefore, we’d be so very much better off without any nuclear power plant within our midst. We’d rather go for coal-fuelled power plants at least for this time for while they should be so troubling to our environment, clearly they’re the lesser evil by the longest mile.

November 5, 2009

Fisher,Farmer

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (44)

Posted In : Personal and Family, Science & Technology

I am just about to do some refinements or introduce finishing touches on a research work that had kept me so busy these past couple of months, one that took me even towards places far away from downtown, snatching long bus rides and toddling into bangkas ang ferries, all these over and above my main duty of college instruction.

The premise of my study was simple and plain, yet I believe that to this day, scientific scholars have yet to fully took advantage of this approach, of clearly defining the socio-economic and political routines of rural population, especially on Muslim communities, as my work is specifically focused at right now.

How do they make their living there and what potentials that awaits them in their everyday economic endeavors? Are they involved in activities that becomes futile in the long run, trapping them in the notorious cycle of poverty, leading to the general lackluster movement of our national economic life? Or do they just need a little push on the back or some encouragement?

It is of so much irony to me that major aspects of my research involves information which could be – I am afraid – common knowledge and accessible through effortless means—- this is my worry. Yet, despite of this, I should be emphasizing that verification and confirmation on these matters, no matter how routine and prevalent they are, are ultimately necessary in order to take-off towards another important query of my research.

First is knowing the livelihood activities of my targeted respondents and then determining the manner of improving on such, inculcating progress and development, mostly economic in character.

Ironic as it may seem, we realize that rural economic activities partakes through the fertile soil and the abundant sea. If not farmers, then fishermen. Farmer, fisher.

Upon this precept, developmental strategies should be focused on inherent and practiced abilities of the rural populace, such as in the methods of increasing production and of course, exponentiation of income as an end-result. And not ever to introduce them alien concepts, unless when the foundation of their economics have been resolved fully.

These are the basic premise of my present research work. I hope it would have enough wind to fly.

October 6, 2009

The Climate Change as a Perturbing Social Issue

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (56)

Posted In : Earth & Environment, Science & Technology, Current Events

The vast devastation wrought about by Typhoon Ondoy had left one lasting impression on us about climate change, as the enormous amount of rainfall that was left off by the now infamous tropical storm signaled the onset of a more cataclysmic scenario about our weather, and of our environment as whole.

There lies now the singular question: Is Mother Earth Now at the Brink of Extinction?

Is humanity’s existence threatened by these evolving circumstances especially that of global warming and climate change?

For certain, the specter of global warming is now more real than ever, a truth to be told like the sun in the sky, first as a doubtful phenomenon, even just merely a few years ago, yet now as a universal truth.

With this realization, citizens of the world should all be made aware and be conscious about the nature and implications of climate change, and most importantly governments should start addressing this issue just as any other salient social issue—- current and perturbing—- and every entity should heed and follow the directions towards minimizing its harmful effects, just like perhaps crimes in the streets, drug addiction, graft and corruption, housing or health concerns.

In actuality, it is of note that climate change as a weather phenomenon had already been happening even for millions of years and of ages ago, where the earth have already had numerous steep climate shifts so many times before, having had very cold environment during the so called Ice Ages in the Paleolithic Age while having very hot and warm weather on Interglacial periods. These radical shifts in weather are said to be as a result of the Earths changing position and distance away from the sun at any given period, having lengthened modifications in the so-called Equinox of the Earth in relation to the sun.

In fact, it was because of these shifts in climate that pre-historic humans were compelled to roam away from their natural habitat, as weather changes in those ages affects supply of food (herds migrating, vegetation disappearing), thus, the providing the basis for the scientific phenomenon of the human diaspora in pre-historic times.

An innate occurrence such as volcanic eruptions are events that could actually change the Earth’s temperature in a very radical manner, and in a very different way, as sulfur dioxides released into the atmosphere by these eruptions lowers global temperature and acts as a cooling effect, albeit provisionally.

Thus, the phenomenon of climate change is not actually an absolutely new observable fact that the Earth is facing as it had been actually happening to the earth many centuries and eons ago, through cycles of Ice Ages and Interglacial Periods, at times covering almost the entire Earth surface with ice while at other times it were heated deserts and barren plains that had dominated.

However, it is a notable circumstance that the ensuing weather alterations today are mostly due to human activities, anthropogenic in character, as against the entirely natural causes of climate changes in the past. It is unprecedented in this manner.

Waste and fumes expelled into the atmosphere resulting from the highly industrial and modern routine of today’s humanity remains the foremost cause of climate change, exuding enormous amount of carbon dioxide into the environment, trapping hot gases that should have been let-off into space naturally.

Now, it should be pointed out that since the recent version of climate change is almost purely man-made, then it could actually be reversed, of course similarly through man-made methods.

In this line, every citizen should be made aware of these circumstances, that thru collective action, the threat of global warming could be combated and dispelled away completely, by taking every day measures, like disposing garbage properly, not using harmful elements as much as possible, saving on power, and preserving natural resources. Governments on one hand should implement laws and infrastructure towards this end and execute them rigorously, such as in urban planning, an effective drainage system for one, prevention of deforestation, ban on the use of harmful chemicals, etc.—- thereon treating climate change as among the most pressing social concern that the society is facing today.

April 12, 2009

Windows Live Offers Best Online file Storage

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (49)

Posted In : Science & Technology, Computers

Windows Live is such a heaven sent for those who necessitate online storage of files. As a college instructor, I always need to backup files online to counter USB flash breakdowns, as they often do, what with new form of viruses keeps on being invented. We all must have had that horrifying USB experience, one way or another. Sometimes, it makes me think that some mad genius out there is so mad about flash drives that he keeps on inventing and creating viruses just to break them down.

The most secure and guaranteed back-up measure would be to use our mail accounts, especially Yahoo! Mail, now with unlimited storage capacity. However, the sometimes drawn out log-in process could be so disarming when one need not to check mail anyway, but merely to store and backup.

I had for a long-time used Driveway as my storage facility before, it’s free and it has enormous capacity, allowing transfer or one-time storing of more than 10 MB files, which one could not do in other sites, like Yahoo! Briefcase for one.

Driveway was such a sturdy storage site and very efficient and fast. However, one day, I just could not log in and even if I had to request for a new password, it didn’t resolved my predicament. I had to contact support but no response came my way. I was hacked and they didn’t get me through it. And it was not easy to realize that a lot of my files—-some of them I consider so pertinent—-were gone in a jiffy, and since most of them were created eons ago, when I still had the old computer, some files are gone forever, as I had no other copy.

I thought that websites offering services should often have a very active and responsive support system and it ought to be illegal if they haven’t any. Otherwise, that’ll be tantamount to committing public mistrust and disturbance. It should be against web use policy.

Box.net, another online storage bin well-known for its sharp and smooth aesthetics, like fascinating dialogue boxes, has now shown some kinks as one could not log in to it as easily, one gotta try about five times to get through it. Now that’s not what I mean by efficient service. I saw that they have gone to commercializing their storage service for a fee now, so perhaps they make free accounts such a hassle that one who has it is summed up to get a price for it. That’s like a pointed gun.

But Windows Live comes now to the rescue, and it is not merely a free online storage bin, but offers lots of other nifty services, like photo and video sharing, email, browsing, instant messaging, and a horde of others. They even have free downloads for your mobile would you believe.

Skydrive, the portion there that offers free storage, ( click on ‘More’ to go to Skydrive’) allows a total of 25 GB of space and that’s more than enough for many of us.

And besides, we can rely on its reliability and long-term efficiency as it is being owned and operated by none other than the Microsoft Co., one who provides us all with the very nifty Microsoft Office. Just because of this, Windows Live should be the best free online storage bin that is available out there, and we need not look for anything else.

September 10, 2008

What’s God’s Particle?

By P.B. Masdal | Comments (34)

Posted In : Science & Technology, Current Events

It is called that way because man had not known about its form and nature in a specific and categorical manner, at least not yet. It is said to be smaller than protons and neutrons and one of it has no mass at all, like the anti-mass “black hole” that is often predicted to occur incessantly throughout the universe.

A “black hole” are extra-huge and ultra-powerful spaces in the universe that is so lacking in mass that it seeps off every particle that is caught within it’s energy field, like a powerful magnet with force that is multiplied a million times; and if one goes anywhere near it, like a thousand miles even, he or she would be suck off within lightning speed.

Like those “black hole” (which remains theoretical in form despite the strong belief by scientists that it indeed exists in the realms of space), the so-called “God’s Particle” remains a very itchy mystery among scientists today as they fully believe that there should be smaller form of particles or masses other than the known matters like neutrons and protons, and they acceptably termed them as “higgs boson” .

Yesterday, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has finally tested a $ 3.8 Billion equipment that would further scatter the atom and in the process find out if there would be other smaller particles other than neutrons, protons and quarks. The gigantic experimental machine is called the Large Hadron Collider or LHC.

Initial results had showed some promise but the greatest scientists alive today, Mr. Stephen Hawking, bets that no matter what, this costly experiment would not be efficient enough to unravel and determine the existence of mysterious particles in the universe, known as “God’s particle”.

Some say that with this experiment, man is actually attempting to trespass into God’s territory, seeking knowledge that should be well-beyond human comprehension, trying to unravel the ultimate mystery of the universe, that is, the main elements that gave life to particles scattered after the Big Bang.

One of the main concerns with this experiment was that the LHC would merely lead to the discovery of more massive and more lethal weapon of mass destruction, much more malevolent than nuclear arms, and could destroy the earth possibly. And for me, that’s a very grave concern. I think man should stop at this. Man should leave God’s mystery or mysteries alone.

That way, we’d be a lot safer than we could be with finding out more powerful elements in the universe.

To know more about “God’s Particle” please read the full news article HERE and check out the CERN site.