We Owe a Lot to Marc Isambard Brunel and Thomas Cochrane. Why? They Conceived a Very Ingenious Way of Digging Modern Tunnels.

175 Years Ago The First Modern Tunnel Was Built, Inspired By A Burrowing Animal

Share to email Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Share to google I deal with the rocky road to our modern understanding of earth Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. March 25, 1843, the first tunnel constructed under a river was opened to the (paying) public.

 From article, (March 25, 1843, the first tunnel constructed under a river was opened to the (paying) public. After eighteen years of work, the 1,300 feet long Thames Tunnel was finally finished.

At the time it was considered impossible to build under a river. In fact, in 1828 a water leakage into the tunnel caused the drowning of six workers. Work at the tunnel was stopped until two engineers came up with an ingenious solution. Marc Isambard Brunel and Thomas Cochrane got inspiration from a mollusk, revolutionizing tunneling thereafter. Teredo navalis, the naval shipworm, is a species of saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusk, with a strongly reduced shell. At the front end of the reddish, wormlike body of the animal there are two triangular, calcareous plates, used by the animal to rasp burrows into wood.

 Supposedly one day Brunel and Cochrane observed one of the burrows in a plank of a wooden ship, anchored in the harbor of London. The animal uses a secretion to cover the inner walls of its burrow with a thin layer of limestone, leaving only the front free, where it continues to dig, using the hard plates. Brunel and Cochrane used a similar method to finish the Thames Tunnel.  Miners would dig at the front of the tunnel, protected by a movable wooden framework. Immediately behind the miners, workers would secure the tunnel, covering the walls with bricks and concrete.

The tunneling shield method is still in use today. The front of the tunnel is excavated, be it with explosives or a modern tunnel boring machine. Immediately after, just some feet away from the unstable rock, the walls of the tunnel are secured with steel arches or concrete, strong enough to support the weight of the mountain.)

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Block 5 Falcon 9 to Be More Improved Than Previous Falcon 9's.

The First SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 should launch in April | NextBigFuture.com

The current SpaceX Falcon 9 boosters that have been recovered were only designed to be reused 2-3 times but the new SpaceX Falcon 9 block 5 are expected to last for ten reuses. SpaceX has about 6 recovered boosters which will be reused. Most will be reused and not recovered in the next several launches.

From article, (The current SpaceX Falcon 9 boosters that have been recovered were only designed to be reused 2-3 times but the new SpaceX Falcon 9 block 5 are expected to last for ten reuses.

SpaceX has about 6 recovered boosters which will be reused. Most will be reused and not recovered in the next several launches.

SpaceX ic counting on Block 5 to succeed with increased reusability and for faster relaunching. If any design or manufacturing flaws are discovered in the first several Block 5 Falcon 9s, or if Block 5 is less reusable than SpaceX then SpaceX could have delays in its launch schedule.

The first Block 5 Falcon 9 first stage is on the test stand at their McGregor, Texas test facility.

The maiden flight is planned for April 2018, with the Bangabandhu-1 satellite.

Alterations are focused on increasing the speed of production and efficiency of re-usability. SpaceX aims to fly each Block 5 booster ten times with only inspections in between, and up to 100 times with refurbishment

For increased payload:
* 7–8% more thrust by uprating the engines;
* an improved flight control system for an optimized angle of attack on the descent, lowering landing fuel requirements.

For reusability endurance:
* a reusable heat shield protecting the engines and plumbing at the base of the rocket;
* more temperature-resistant titanium casted grid fins;
* a thermal protection coating on the first stage to limit reentry heating damage;
* Redesigned and requalified valves for higher levels and much longer duration.

For rapid reusability:
* a set of black retractable landing legs for rapid recovery and shipping.

Block 5 is planned to launch astronauts for the first time in late 2018. NASA requires seven flights before the vehicle can be certified for human spaceflight.)

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Combat Laser Systems are Getting Smaller, are More Powerful, but Use Less Generating Power.

Combat lasers will protect against drone swarms | NextBigFuture.com

Raytheon has a High Energy Laser (HEL) mounted a dune buggy which can be charged from a 220 volt outlet then scan for enemy drones for four hours and fire up to thirty shots. The system is standalone, with a footprint of roughly 30 square feet.

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From article, (Raytheon has a High Energy Laser (HEL) mounted a dune buggy which can be charged from a 220 volt outlet then scan for enemy drones for four hours and fire up to thirty shots.

The system is standalone, with a footprint of roughly 30 square feet. On a single charge from a standard 220v outlet, the same kind you plug your washing machine into at home, the HEL system onboard the MRZR delivers four hours of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability and 20 to 30 laser shots. The system can also be coupled with a generator to provide virtually infinite magazine depth.

While the laser and the vehicle are sure to draw all the attention, it’s the weaponized MTS sensor package that is the core of the system. In this configuration, the MTS provides its standard setting ISR and tracking capabilities while also serving as a beam director.

That’s something Allison says sets this combo apart from bigger, more power-hungry systems. “If you have a good beam director, then you can use a smaller, more efficient laser. You can make your system smaller and more flexible,” said Allison.

Larger combat lasers currently at 5 kilowatt but moving up to 100-kilowatts

The US Army is field testing a 5-kilowatt laser project is part of the Mobile Experimental High Energy Laser program.

The US Army has $118 million of funding to develop a 50-kilowatt laser as part of short-range air defense systems (SHORAD) in the next five years, and Space and Missile Defense Command’s is working on a 100-kilowatt laser.)

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73 Cents May Make or Break an Experimental Offshore Wind Farm in Maine.

Effort to build offshore wind industry in Maine may hinge on 73 cents

A decadelong effort to establish an offshore wind energy industry in Maine is at a turning point, its future hinging on whether state utility regulators vote to reopen a power contract to test a patented technology for deep-water floating wind farms. Supporters of the University of Maine-led Maine Aqua Ventus project fear that a vote by the Public Utilities Commission to alter the power-rate terms could doom the venture, just as it reaches critical stages for financing and permits.

From article, (A decadelong effort to establish an offshore wind energy industry in Maine is at a turning point, its future hinging on whether state utility regulators vote to reopen a power contract to test a patented technology for deep-water floating wind farms.

Supporters of the University of Maine-led Maine Aqua Ventus project fear that a vote by the Public Utilities Commission to alter the power-rate terms could doom the venture, just as it reaches critical stages for financing and permits. The project involves two floating wind turbines that the university and its partners are preparing to test off Monhegan Island.

 Nearly five years ago, the Norwegian energy company Statoil withdrew plans for a $120 million demonstration floating wind farm off the Maine coast. Statoil had won a bid for proposals and had negotiated power-rate terms with the PUC. But it left Maine after LePage held hostage a sweeping energy bill in the Legislature and threatened a veto if the PUC didn’t reopen the bidding process. LePage has been a consistent and vocal critic of above-market electric rates for renewable energy projects, and his political maneuver allowed Maine Aqua Ventus to submit a competing application.

Statoil objected to Maine changing the rules in mid-game. A spokesman told the Press Herald at the time: “The change (in Maine law) was definitely something that creates a lot of uncertainty from our point of view. What could happen if we went ahead, and there were new changes in the future?”

In 2015, Statoil announced it would build a larger, $250 million test project in Scotland. Now considered the world’s first commercial-sized floating wind farm, Hywind Scotland began producing power late last year and its output has greatly exceeded expectations.

If the [University of Maine-led Maine Aqua Ventus] project stays on schedule, it likely will be the first full-scale floating wind project in North America. Testing the platform technology is considered key to deploying cost-effective wind farms in deep waters off the East Coast. The 2014 power contract, which would increase consumer electric bills by less than a dollar per month, also is crucial because both public and private investment is tied to it.

The immediate risk, advocates say, is $87 million in federal funding, thousands of hours of research and development and Maine’s reputation as a place to make renewable energy investments.

Longer term, the economic promise of manufacturing floating platforms for the nascent East Coast wind industry, as well as pioneering a new power source that could help electrify Maine and New England at competitive power rates, may be at stake.

Those potential benefits are being brushed aside by Gov. Paul LePage and other critics of the project. In comments supporting reconsideration of the contract terms, LePage’s energy director, Steven McGrath, focuses exclusively on the cost of power from the demonstration project.

He noted that it would be well above current market prices, adding between $172 million and $187 million to Central Maine Power customer electric bills over the 20-year contract period.

For an average CMP home customer, that works out to roughly 73 cents a month in the first year of the project.

This premium had been approved four years ago by the PUC. But at a meeting in January to vote on approving the long-term contract, the terms came under new scrutiny. The three commissioners – each appointed by LePage – voiced concerns that changing economic factors, including lower prices for natural gas and oil prices, warranted another look at the above-market rate.

"We were blindsided by the commission’s deliberations in January,” said Jeff Thaler, UMaine’s associate counsel. It has always been clear, Thaler said, that power from a one-off, 12-megawatt demonstration project would cost way more than electricity from conventional power plants rated at hundreds of megawatts. It’s like comparing the cost of building one custom truck to mass-producing thousands of pickups at an assembly plant.

That theme is highlighted by new projections from a Department of Energy research lab. The contract power rate for the 12-megawatt, two-turbine demonstration project starts at 23 cents per kilowatt-hour in its first year.

The federal energy lab estimates that the rate could fall to 7.7 cents by 2030, at a 100-turbine, 1,000-megawatt floating wind farm. Full-scale mass production would make offshore wind competitive on the grid, Maine Aqua Ventus says, on par with bringing Canadian hydropower into New England over a proposed new transmission line.)

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