An Underground Race

There is a race going on right now that very few of us have heard about. It is between two competing energy companies, one in Australia and one in Switzerland.

The competition is to be the first energy company in history to tap deep enough into the Earth’s core to use its heat to generate steam-based power on a commercial scale.

The energy companies hope to use a system of water pumps that send water down into the Earth’s depths, then bring it up once it is heated so that it can then drive steam-powered generators to make electricity.

These power companies hope that by using heat from the Earth itself, they can reduce reliance on fossil fuels and cut down on emissions.

There has been a set-back, however. “The glass vases on the shelf rattled, and there was a loud bang,” Catherine Wueest, a tea shop owner from the Swiss city of Basel, on the Rhine River, recalls. “I thought a truck had crashed into the building.”

It was not a truck, but in fact, the result of drilling by Geopower Basel that set off a magnitude 3.4 tremor. There have been several other, smaller tremors since December. So many, in fact, that the city has asked the power company to halt the project.

Scientists say that if we could tap just 40% of the geothermal heat below the United States, we could meet our annual energy demand 56,000 times over, eliminating entirely our dependence upon fossil fuels for energy production.

The obstacle, however, is the cost. It costs $1.4 million to drill a new oil well, but would cost about $7 million to drill each geothermal well.

Geothermal wells would also tap out an area’s heat energy in a couple of decades, needing to be re-drilled about every 20 years.

Then, of course, there is the problem that Basel Geopower is facing, which is earthquakes that might be set off by tapping into the Earth that far.

Basel Geopower is currently researching their options, but for now, drilling in Switzerland has stopped, giving the Australians time to take the lead.

We Didn't Need To Find Nemo...

The orange and white clownfish star of the hit cartoon movie “Finding Nemo” really is able to find his own way home after spending months at sea, an Australian-led team of international researchers said on Friday.

“When they are out in the open water they are actually quite sophisticated. They can swim well, they can smell, they can see, they can hear well, and they use a whole suite of senses,” joint team leader Glenn Almany told Reuters.

Studying a tiny coral reef in Papua New Guinea, the researchers found 60 percent of baby clownfish find their way back to their home reef - only 1,000 feet wide - after being swept into the open ocean at birth.

The fish were identified using a world-first tagging method in which adult clownfish and butterflyfish were injected with a harmless barium isotope which they then passed on to their offspring, allowing identification of their juveniles.

The finding, announced in the international journal Science, will help researchers understand the extent to which young fish return to their home area or go off to interbreed with more distant populations.

That in turn could help determine which populations needed protection or better management for sustainable fishing.

Almany said the team still had no idea how the clownfish knew which reef they came from, or how far they travelled in open sea during a journey lasting around 11 days.

“How they actually determine whether that reef is home or not is anyone’s guess, but as an educated guess I would say that there might be some sort of chemical imprinting going on when they are born,” he said.

The team of Australian, French and U.S. scientists, working out of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at Queensland’s James Cook University, planned follow up studies in Australia with larger fish species.

Thomas H. Moorer: A Story That Must Be Shared...

Thomas H. Moorer, died in February 2004. I am saddened that I did not know who he was until I read his obituary.

Thomas H. Moorer was most well-known for his appointment to chief of naval operations by Lyndon Johnson in 1967 and for his service on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War. Moorer’s story is a very fascinating one.

Moorer was a Navy lieutenant pilot stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was one of the few pilots who actually got airborne that morning and fought in the air against attacking Japanese fighters.

A year later, while leading a push back against Japanese forces moving towards Australia, Moorer and his crew were shot down by a swarm of nine Japanese fighters. Moorer bounced his plane off the water three times, slowing it and finally making a successful water landing. After being adrift, Moorer and his crew were rescued by a Philippine freighter.

Amazingly, just minutes after they were pulled from the water, the Philippine freighter was attacked by Japanese dive bombers and sunk. Moorer led the ship’s evacuation into two life boats and successfully guided the survivors to a deserted island, where, finally, two days later, Australian fliers saw the large S.O.S. that Moorer and his men had made on the sand from beach debris.

Moorer would go on to become the navy’s youngest rear admiral in history at age 45 in 1958. Moorer would later be appointed to the Joint Chiefs and serve as Chairman from 1972 to 1974. Upon his passing, I felt it only right to tell his amazing story and to thank him for his service.