There is a La Mancha in Spain, but there is no real Man of La Mancha. This all began with Miguel de Cervantes. Was born in Spain in 1547  (?, maybe ) and passed away in 1616 at the age of 68. Considered to be the greatest Spanish writer, best known for what is said to be the first modern novel,  Don Quixote , perhaps even the best book of all time.  As translated by Edith Grossman, widely regarded as one of funniest and most tragic  books ever written. Cervantes spent most of his life in relative poverty and obscurity. At the age of 22, moved to Rome, where he worked for the household of a cardinal. Enlisted in the Spanish Navy infantry a year later, 1570, and got severely wounded, losing use of his left arm and hand. There are no portraits of him, but this one to the right is generally used. In 1575 was captured by Barbary pirates, and ransomed to Madrid five years later. First significant novel, published in 1585, was  La Galatea . Don Quixote  was publis...

Energy Matters today from the American Energy Society's 19August2024 issue : Global warming remediation. Seems awfully expensive, but the largest Direct Air Capture and Storage of Carbon Dioxide, 36,000 tons of CO2/year, is the plant at Mammoth in Hellisheioi, Iceland. The biggest one in the U.S. was launched this month in Northern Oklahoma.  5.000 tons/year. Said to cost $200 per metric ton, about the highest of all the options. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)  can cost today as low as $50/ton. However, this "low" cost would still increase electricity cost by 5 cents/kilowatt-hour in a coal-fed powerplant. Implementation is increasing , but very slowly, because there is still no carbon tax. Industry is experimenting and will not move forward unless real decisions are made to combat global warming.   Cost prohibits any use at home, so applications range from heavy industry to natural gas processing to hydrogen production. CCS is especially necessary in synthetic fue...

I've lived a life where I have been able to professionally dabble in pure fantasies. Three years with the U.S. Senate working on energy and the environmental legislation.  I drafted the bill that created the national hydrogen program in 1979.  Worked on laser fusion at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ( SETI ) at the NASA Ames Research Center.   I had a full career in renewable energy, directing the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii and co-founding the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research. Here is a  nine-year old posting providing some details on my experience with fusion .  in the mid-1970's I remember having an apartment adjacent to Wente Brothers, and watching the Watergate hearings.  That was almost half a century ago.  At the  end of 2022 : Lawrence Livermore first achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers. That...

Nearly a dozen years ago I wrote an article for  The Huffington Pos t on  Star Power for Humanit y.  The latest June issue of  Scientific American  featured  Star Power: What is the future of fusion energy?   You can click on that link for the full article.  I'll summarize: This past December, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNR ) claimed a breakthrough in attaining net positive with their laser fusion system.  No one had ever done that before. As an aside, I worked there in the 1970's on that project, and left because I could not envision the laser that would accomplish this task.  Can you believe that was around half a century ago? The bad news is that net positive is a long way from commercialization.  And certainly, that intriguing ultimate laser has not yet been invented. Well anyway, this article was written by Philip Ball, a British science writer who is my same age.  He has a PhD in physics from Bristol Un...