Immortality should not be seen as a curse but as a Reward. We prosper as a society on the successes of our past ancestors. Wth living longer, we can prosper even more, by keeping each generation around. (Commentary)

Me, "I have been reading some of the articles in the news about Immortality and how people think it would be a bad thing. Books about vampires weary of life and wanting to die, to rich couples downloading their brains into new cloned bodies. They become corrupt and turn against each other and others because they lost the reward of being alive.

Why would it be so bad to be immortal? Why would people crave death? I think some of it has to do with this fear that God would be angry with us for not dying, but there is nothing in the, Torah, Bible, etc., that says we have to die. In fact some of the popular figures mentioned in the Bible lived hundreds of years. Sure, some people say this may have been an error. But God didn't smote them or kill them for living a long life, so, why would he do that now? Especially, when we are getting close to learning how to do it.

My thinking on Religion is, believe whatever religion you

want. Give back to society however you can. Do good deeds. To family and friends. Treasure your family. And if you happen to live a long life? I really don't think God minds as long as you are happy.
Remember, we have been increasing the age span of Humans for a very long time. Death used to happen in our 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. Now it could happen in your 100s. So why would it be bad to extend it further? I can't see God saying, you should have died sooner? If your sticking to his rules or if you don't believe in God, societies rules, why would he care if we lived way longer?

And that may be the problem. A lot of people are not happy. So, they figure death is the answer.

But I believe at some point that job that has been annoying you? Either a robot will do it freeing you up to do more enjoyable things.

Or your wife that you are disappointed with? You can always get a divorced and find a better one.

Money issues? There will probably be a universal income, like social security, to offset that robot who took your job.

Your kids annoying you? They will eventually move out.

There are solutions to a lot of problems people have. The glass is half full and the glass is half empty. You just need to find things that will calm your mind and the future will treat you well.

So, is living forever a bad thing? I really don't think so. You just need to find things that give you peace. And just hold on a little longer as society adjusts to a new economy, a new life structure, old and new religions that are adaptable, which a lot are, to however long you live.

A long life is not a curse, but a reward. People who write books about immortality being a curse, do so for entertainment purposes. In stories you need a protagonist. Immortality is written as that protagonist. But, it doesn't have to be that way.

If we have gotten used to living to 100, why can't we get used to living to 200? Or 300, 400 or beyond? What I think people have to understand is that Death is not the answer. We should be focused on making a better today for all of humanity.
If you can feel good because you made a positive difference in society, however you contributed, that's all that matters. I am sure in that sense God would be happy too."

(A2F) Air to Hydrocarbon Fuels. The Future Fuel of Natural Gas Electrical Power Plants Could Be Pulled Out of Thin Air.

How Bill Gates aims to clean up the planet

John Vidal t's nothing much to look at, but the tangle of pipes, pumps, tanks, reactors, chimneys and ducts on a messy industrial estate outside the logging town of Squamish in western Canada could just provide the fix to stop the world tipping into runaway climate change and substitute dwindling supplies of conventional fuel.

From article, (It could also make Harvard superstar physicist David Keith, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and oil sands magnate Norman Murray Edwards more money than they could ever dream of.

The idea is grandiose yet simple: decarbonise the global economy by extracting global-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) straight from the air, using arrays of giant fans and patented chemical whizzery; and then use the gas to make clean, carbon-neutral synthetic diesel and petrol to drive the world’s ships, planes and trucks.

The hope is that the combination of direct air capture (DAC), water electrolysis and fuels synthesis used to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels can be made to work at a global scale, for little more than it costs to extract and sell fossil fuel today. This would revolutionise the world’s transport industry, which emits nearly one-third of total climate-changing emissions. It would be the equivalent of mechanising photosynthesis.

The individual technologies may not be new, but their combination at an industrial scale would be groundbreaking. Carbon Engineering, the company set up in 2009 by leading geoengineer Keith, with money from Gates and Murray, has constructed a prototype plant, installed large fans, and has been extracting around one tonne of pure CO2 every day for a year. At present it is released back into the air.

But Carbon Engineering (CE) has just passed another milestone. Working with California energy company Greyrock, it has now begun directly synthesising a mixture of petrol and diesel, using only CO2 captured from the air and hydrogen split from water with clean electricity – a process they call Air to Fuels (A2F).

“A2F is a potentially game-changing technology, which if successfully scaled up will allow us to harness cheap, intermittent renewable electricity to drive synthesis of liquid fuels that are compatible with modern infrastructure and engines,” says Geoff Holmes of CE. “This offers an alternative to biofuels and a complement to electric vehicles in the effort to displace fossil fuels from transportation.”

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Synthetic fuels have been made from CO2 and H2 before, on a small scale. “But,” Holmes adds, “we think our pilot plant is the first instance of Air to Fuels where all the equipment has large-scale industrial precedent, and thus gives real indication of commercial performance and viability, and leads directly to scale-up and deployment.”

The next step is to raise the money, scale up and then commercialise the process using low-carbon electricity like solar PV (photovoltaics). Company publicity envisages massive walls of extractor fans sited outside cities and on non-agricultural land, supplying CO2 for fuel synthesis, and eventually for direct sequestration.

“A2F is the future,” says Holmes, “because it needs 100 times less land and water than biofuels, and can be scaled up and sited anywhere. But for it to work, it will have to reduce costs to little more than it costs to extract oil today, and – even trickier – persuade countries to set a global carbon price.”)

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Me, "Carbon Engineering, could create a Hydrocarbon like Methane, from CO2 and H2O, anywhere. Then it is very simple to add it to current country Natural Gas Infrastructure to be piped to a Natural Gas power plant to provide Electricity or to your house for heating and cooking." 

What comes after TRAPPIST? What is SPECULOOS? And why are they looking at Ultra Cool Star Planetary Systems?

"How Frequently Does Life Exist Elsewhere?" --Cambridge Exoplanet Research Center

In the effort to answer the question 'Is there life elsewhere?' the focus on Earth twins is perceived as a safe path, since we can expect that similar conditions will lead to similar results (at least part of the time)....

From article, (Searching for habitable planets around ultra-cool dwarfs has long been considered a waste of time. Even as astronomers found that exoplanetary systems are generally different from the solar system, old attitudes lingered. The Earth and Sun appear so normal and hospitable to our eyes that we get blinded by their attributes. Major programmes are therefore directed at finding an Earth twin: a planet the mass and size of our own, orbiting a star just like the Sun, at the same Earth-Sun distance. The detection of such a world remains decades away.

The scientific advantages of ultra-cool dwarfs come from their stellar properties, from how we identify exoplanets, and from how we expect to investigate their atmospheres. The TRAPPIST-1 planets were found as they passed in front of their star, events known as transits. When the planet transits, it casts a shadow whose depth tells us how much of the stellar surface is being hidden by the planet; the bigger the planet, the deeper the shadow. Because ultra-cool dwarfs are so small, the transit of an Earth-sized planet in front of TRAPPIST-1A is approximately 80 times as prominent as an equivalent transit against a much larger, Sun-like star.

 Astronomers, including ourselves, have already begun investigating the compositions of giant planets around other stars, detecting molecules such as water, carbon monoxide, methane, and hydrogen cyanide. With the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system, we can extend those explorations to Earth-sized planets. Our first efforts will be to characterise the greenhouse gas content of atmosphere, and assess whether the surface conditions are conducive for liquid water. Then we will seek out signs of biologically produced gases, analogous to ways that living organisms have transformed the composition of Earth’s atmosphere.

Claiming a discovery of life will be hard. We cannot rely on the detection of a single gas but instead will need to detect several, and will need to measure their relative abundances. In addition, we will have to be extremely wary of false positives. For instance, repeated stellar flares could build up oxygen in an atmosphere without the presence of life. The richness of the TRAPPIST-1 system is an important asset, because we can compare its planets to one another. All seven planets originated from the same nebular chemistry; they share a similar history of receiving flares and meteoritic impacts. Weeding out false positives will be much easier here than in planetary systems containing only one or two temperate, potentially Earth-like worlds.

More important, TRAPPIST-1 is not a one-off discovery. Ultra-cool dwarf stars are so common that there could be numerous other similar systems close to us in the galaxy. The TRAPPIST (Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescopes) facility we used to find the TRAPPIST-1 planets was just the prototype of a more ambitious planet survey called SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets Eclipsing Ultra-Cool Stars), which has already begun operations. We expect to find many more Earth-sized, rocky planets around dwarf stars within the next five years. With this sample in hand, we will explore the many climates of such worlds. The solar system contains two: Venus and Earth. How many different types of environments will we discover?

Using SPECULOOS, we will also begin to address the many objections scientists have raised about the habitability of planets around ultra-cool dwarfs. One argument is that such planets will be tidally locked, meaning that they have permanent day and night sides. Planets orbiting in close proximity around small stars could excite each other’s orbits, leading to major instabilities. Ultra-cool dwarf stars frequently flare up, emitting ultraviolet and X-rays that might vaporise a planet’s oceans into space.

Far from holding us back, those arguments motivated us. Now we can assess the actual conditions, and explore counter-arguments that Earth-sized planets around stars such as TRAPPIST-1A might in fact be hospitable to life. Oceans and thick atmospheres could mitigate the temperature contrast between day and night sides. Tidal interaction between close-orbiting planets might provide energy for biology. Some models suggest that planets forming around ultra-cool dwarfs start out with much more water than Earth has. Ultraviolet radiation could help to produce biologically relevant compounds… We are optimistic.)

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India expands Solar Power to its Farms.

Farmers can soon bank on solar power for extra buck - Times of India

Farmers can make an extra buck or two by switching to solar power for running irrigation pumps and selling surplus power to discoms. All this will become possible because of heavy dose of funding promised in the Budget for 'KUSUM' (Kisan Urja Suraksha Utthaan Maha Abhiyaan) scheme.

From article, ([In India] Solar power could soon become the new cash crop for farmers, who can make an extra buck or two by switching to solar power for running irrigation pumps and selling surplus power to discoms.


All this will become possible because of heavy dose of funding promised in the Budget for 'KUSUM' (Kisan Urja Suraksha Utthaan Maha Abhiyaan) scheme. The refreshed version of the scheme doubles to 60% from 30% the subsidy for buying solar pumps. This will be equally borne by the Centre and states.

Farmers will have to bear 10% of the cost of solar pumps and will get loan from banks for the remaining part of the payment. All assistance will be transferred directly into the account of farmers. The refreshed scheme also provides 50 paise per unit as incentive to discoms for buying surplus power from farmers for five years.

The refreshed scheme envisages spending Rs 48,000 crore over the next 10 years to wean farmers away from diesel-run pumps and also convert grid-connected irrigation pumps to solar power for ensuring clean, reliable operation. India has 30 million farm pumps, including 10 million running on diesel.

The plan will allow farmers to put barren land to use by allowing construction of solar power projects on them.

Altogether, 10,000 MW solar power capacity is envisaged to be built under the plan. The Centre reckons to install 17.5 lakh off-grid solar pumps. Grid-connected farm pumps, aggregating a capacity of 7,250 MW, would also be 'solarised'. Grid-connected water pumps will be solarised. It is likely to take four years to solarise these pumps.)

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Coffee has had a good for you bad for you reputation. Now, a review of a bunch of coffee studies, shows, it is good for you, again.

After poring over all the evidence, experts declare coffee is (mostly) good for you

"It's impossible that we still struggle to decide if coffee is healthy or unhealthy," says Giuseppe Grosso, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Catania in Italy: Good for hypertension one week. Bad for hypertension the next.

From article, ([S]everal [studies] found “probable” evidence that coffee-drinking is associated with a decreased risk of many common cancers — including breast, colorectal, colon, endometrial and prostate — with a 2 to 20 percent reduction in risk, depending on the cancer type.

The review also found risk reductions of 5 percent for cardiovascular disease and around 30 percent for both Type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. A coffee habit was also associated with a lowered rate of death from any cause during the course of a study. Great news for coffee drinkers!

But there is one group who should exercise caution with coffee: pregnant women. Some studies showed a link (with a “probable” score on the scientists’ scale) between caffeine or coffee intake and increased risk of miscarriage.

The team also solved some earlier discrepancies involving coffee and the risk for high blood pressure and death from all cancers (when lumped together). The confusion, they found, stemmed from failure to adequately control for smoking — a habit that’s strongly linked to coffee consumption. When nonsmokers alone were considered, the data indicated that moderate coffee drinkers gained some protection from these diseases.

Most studies didn’t measure exact coffee volumes or caffeine levels. But in those that did, maximum benefits occurred at around four to five cups per day — the equivalent of two Starbucks “grande” drinks. That’s roughly 380 to 475 milligrams of caffeine per day for typically brewed coffee drinks. (You’ll find at least 95 mg in an eight-ounce cup.)

So how do the positive effects work? Coffee lovers probably benefit from two main mechanisms.

First, coffee beans contain phytochemicals (some of which are also found in fruits, vegetables, chocolate and tea) that have anti­oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. All of the diseases linked to protective effects from coffee start with low-level inflammation, and anti-inflammatory dietary chemicals circulating in the body could calm it down.

Second, caffeine and other phyto­chemicals have specific effects on enzymes that regulate liver function, insulin and glucose metabolism, and DNA repair. All could act favorably to fend off Parkinson’s, Type 2 diabetes and cancer.)

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Staten Island Expressway is better, but, still a Congestion Problem.

Still longing for a real HOV lane on the Staten Island Expressway (commentary)

Lane needs to be built out all the way to the Goethals Bridge.

From article, (City Councilman Steve Matteo (R-Mid-Island) was out there the other day, calling on the state Department of Transportation to complete the HOV lane on the Staten Island Expressway all the way to the Goethals Bridge. 

Matteo also offered to get city capital budget money for the project, and asked that a feasibility study be done. 

what happens now is that the HOV lane terminates at Victory Boulevard, forcing drivers to merge back over into the other travel lanes. Which causes congestion. Making things worse is that this merge happens right after the exit-only lane at Bradley Avenue that many drivers use as a travel lane. Until they get to the actual exit, that is. Then they squeeze back into the regular flow on the SIE.

So, that's two congestion areas basically right on top of each other. This after millions upon millions of dollars were spent renovating the highway. And this all on top of the normal congestion that we see on the highway thanks to it being more than just a local road, but an actual major regional trucking route. 

 There has really never been a time when the SIE hasn't been a problem. True, things were far worse before the redesign. Traffic moves better in non-rush hour times. There are fewer of those inexplicable late-night traffic jams. Which makes it all the more galling to see these other idiosyncrasies causing traffic. These are things that should be fixable.  

It's clear that the state DOT is in no hurry to get it done. All we as Staten Islanders can do is keep bringing the subject up, not letting the state forget about us. Fixing the SIE would solve so many of our traffic problems. It would help our commuters. 

It's something that needs to get done.) 

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Mercedes rushing to beat the competition on Self-Driving Taxis.

Mercedes and Bosch will test self-driving taxis in a few months

The news suggests the two are acting on their promises to make up for lost time. In a sense, they don't have much choice. When BMW plans to sell self-driving cars in 2021 and Waymo is already ordering thousands of Chrysler vans, Daimler doesn't have the luxury of taking things slowly -- it either steps up its game or risks missing out.

 From article, (Mercedes (or rather, its parent Daimler) and Bosch aren't far off from making their self-driving taxis a practical reality... in a manner of speaking. Bosch chief Volkmar Denner has informed Automobilwoche that the two companies will put test vehicles on the road within a few months. He didn't supply other details, but the mention provided a more definitive timetable for their ambitions. Until now, the two had only promised to have fully autonomous vehicles ready by the start of the next decade.

The news suggests the two are acting on their promises to make up for lost time. In a sense, they don't have much choice. When BMW plans to sell self-driving cars in 2021 and Waymo is already ordering thousands of Chrysler vans, Daimler doesn't have the luxury of taking things slowly -- it either steps up its game or risks missing out.)

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Tesla awarded new contract in South Australia. This time to build a virtual Power Plant.

Tesla to build 250MW "virtual power plant" in South Australia

South Australia unveils plans to build 250MW "virtual power plant", linking household rooftop solar and battery storage, in what it says will be world's biggest. It will involve 50,000 homes, each with 5kW rooftop solar and a Tesla Powerwall 2.

From article, (The South Australia Labor government has unveiled plans to build a 250MW “virtual power plant”, linking household rooftop solar and battery storage, in what it says will be the world’s biggest.

The project aims to connect at least 50,000 households, beginning with low-income Housing Trust (social housing) properties, which will be each fitted with 5kW of rooftop solar and one 13.5kWh Tesla Powerwall 2 battery system.

The involvement with Tesla further strengthens the links between the US solar, storage and Electric vehicle company, but this project will be significantly bigger than the s0-called Tesla big battery next to the Hornsdale wind farm.

The $800 million project (see more details here) will ultimately bring together 250MW of capacity and 650MWh of storage, allowing the combined resource to be pooled to help provide grid stability and extra capacity when supply is short.

Tesla said it will install Powerwall and solar panels on up to 50,000 homes in South Australia by June 2022, starting with 600 homes in 2018.

“Residents will enjoy lower bills and backup storage from their Tesla Powerwall battery, and the broader community will benefit from a more reliable grid that can better cope with peak demand.”
 The government said on its website that the virtual power plant could add up to a new 250MW/650MWh, dispatchable power plant “that can meet around 20 per cent of the state’s total average daily energy requirements,” adding competition to the market and putting downward pressure on everyone’s energy bills.

“In addition, the virtual power plant will provide security services through the distribution network (like the Tesla Powerpack ‘Big battery’), helping keep the power on during events or disturbances in the network,” it said.

It noted that if the batteries were charged when a blackout occurred, the households would not lose power, but be able to operate their lights and appliances from the battery.

The key objectives of the virtual power plant are to:

• Provide significant cost savings to consumers participating in the program
• Demonstrate the ability of a virtual power plant to deliver savings to households and improve the resilience of the grid
• Introduce competition into the South Australian energy market, placing downward pressure on energy prices
• Establish a new, dispatchable renewable energy power plant, providing energy when it is most required.)

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