Entropy, how I loathe thee

So, isentropic processes are pretty cool.  It's where the entropy in state 1 is equal to the entropy in state 2, or no change in it, basically.  Unfortunately, no such process exists.  It's only an idealization by engineers to simplify problems where entropy change is negligable.  And trust me, dealing with entropy is a serious pain.  I can upload pictures of homework pages long for a single problem solving for it :(

Entropy, and thus, disorder, always increases in the universe whenever energy is being used.  What exactly does that mean?  Here's a simple example.  Say you have a jar of various sized rocks with different densities (mass/volume) in no particular order throughout.  If you shake the jar either with your hands or a machine, the rocks will arrange themselves so the highest density larger rocks are on the bottom and the smaller rocks are at the top.  That seems to be more ordered, doesn't it?  So how can entropy increase?

The answer is that even if you have a process which provides ideal work (also an idealization and impossible) or 100% efficiency for the energy into the system, it still will take more energy to get the rocks back into their original positions.  So, entropy has increased even though the rocks appear to be more ordered!  This, and of course the fact the process you use (your body or a machine) to shake the rocks also increases the entropy.

Of course, eventually the universe will be filled with so much entropy the energy required to get useful work done will be impossible.  Interestingly, proton half-life has been measured to be about 10^40 years.  I wonder if the protons will decay before the entropy wins!?  Everything in the universe has a death date, it seems.  Supermassive black holes will be the last thing to go at 10^80 years.  Luckily for those black holes that's a ridiculously long time.  Maybe vamps will still be around, they are immune to suffocation and freezing, right?

Comments appreciated and thanks for reading!

Have some future posts lined up, got a request to do something on time travel and I will be doing a piece about this awesome idea I had for a moon base on Europa, and future civilizations view of the universe!

5% of Arizona can power 100% of the US?

Well, kind of.

I saw this on the latest episode of Real Time with Bill Maher (which is a really funny and informative show).  He laid out this statistic claiming solar panels placed in the Arizona desert (where the sun always shines), would provide enough power for the entire United States.

Okay, yeah, that's true if 100% of the power could be transmitted throughout the United States.  Transferring power long distances isn't exactly easy.  Some of the power is lost over long distances, especially when we are talking about the entire US!

This on top of the economic barriers.  One such barrier is the fact we'd need to build an entire infrastructure to handle it.  Lots of cash the government does not have.  Secondly, after such a structure is built, tons of jobs would be lost in power plants throughout the US.  Thirdly, no one would make money from the actual power generation.  The only revenue anyone gets would be from the companies tasked with repairing and maintaining the network itself.

Because everyone has to make money to perpetuate the economy, in addition to the massive technological barriers (which are being worked on), I don't see such a system anytime in the near future, unfortunately.

I still like using water treatment plants, what do you guys think?

hydrogen fueled cars, why not?

I was once excited about hydrogen powered cars as a green solution like many of you probably are.  Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and readily available here, no problem.  It's also not expensive to produce.  Hydrogen fuel cells work quite well.  Iceland currently powers many buses in its transportation system using it (in fact the entire country is like a green experiment using all kinds of technologies like geothermal plants, etc).

But... the problem for the rest of the world is this:
We have a MASSIVE infrastructure of gas stations now that would all need to be converted to expend hydrogen and the cost would be staggering.  Additionally, because hydrogen is the smallest element it readily escapes its enclosures unless sufficiently pressurized (it requires a ton of pressure).  The hydrogen 'tanks' in cars have to be specially manufactured to be highly pressurized as well, to hold the fuel.

Well, that put a damper on things, however, something exciting that's emerging are ways to contain the hydrogen at 1 atmosphere (regular pressure).  One research team discovered chicken feathers of all things have nano-pores that hydrogen readily will lodge within.  Essentially, they heat the feathers up to condense the material into a fluff, if you will, and then that may be placed inside a tank to hold the hydrogen very cheaply.  Chicken feathers are a very cheap commodity, obviously.  In addition to that, carbon nanotubes can be used.  It was not thought to be cost effective until recently.  A chemical engineer in CA discovered that putting waste plastic bags (like grocery bags) into a small reactor and heating them up would produce pure nanotubes extremely cheaply.  The exact technical specifications required are unknown to me, but it seems they don't need any special order (assuming the chicken feathers could be dumped into a tank, why not nanotubes?).

Very exciting!

Supercritical water to save planet?

Hey guys,
I recently saw a program that detailed a water treatment plant in Cork, Ireland (run by a company called Supercritical fluids which you may look up) that was using this amazing property of water to treat sludge water and generate energy.

Bear with me here.  Essentially with sufficient pressures (about 30,000 PSI) and high enough temperatures (about 700 F) water enters a 4th state beyond gas/liquid/solid.  That state, of course, is called supercritical.  What it does is break down all organic compounds (human waste & pharmaceuticals) giving 99.99% pure water and 99.99% pure phosphorus (+ some CO2) in the output stream.  This alone is very important.  There is a huge clean water shortage coming in the near future and many places are struggling to remove the massive amount of pharmaceuticals from water now (giving rise to fish born with both sexual organs, for instance).

However, the really exciting thing is they are also powering 500,000 homes with 100% clean energy as well!  All these compounds in supercritical water break their chemical bonds (which holds large potential energy).  This nets a sizable exothermic reaction (meaning heat is released) in the form of super heated steam, which then functions as power plants normally do.  Nuclear and coal plants generate steam to turn turbines which generates electric power.

Very exciting stuff!