Category: Sci/Tech

Hydrogen land speed record broken – 199 mph

Hydrogen land speed record broken – 199 mph
Transportation, June 22 2009 (The Hydrogen Journal)

– The hydrogen land speed record has been broken by Jesse James, driving a modified 1960s era streamliner vehicle to drive on hydrogen, reaching a speed of 199 mph, according to an article in Wired magazine.

Liquid hydrogen fuel “is way easier to make a motor run on but it will never be practical for everyday cars,” Mr James told Wired magazine.

“The engine produces 780 horsepower and 900 foot-pounds of torque.”

The record was broken on June 8th, for Mr James’ TV show “Jesse James is a dead man.”

[ He fell just short of his goal of 200 mph, but it was enough to top the 186.52 mph record BMW held] 1

1) Wired magazine article

The Hydrogen Journal

July 1, 2009
Did leak from a laboratory cause swine flu pandemic?

Same strain of influenza was released by accident three decades ago

By Steve Connor, Science Editor 30 June 2009

It has swept across the world killing at least 300 people and infecting thousands more. Yet the swine flu pandemic might not have happened had it not been for the accidental release of the same strain of influenza virus from a research laboratory in the late 1970s, according to a new study.

Scientists investigating the genetic make-up of flu viruses have concluded there is a high probability that the H1N1 strain of influenza “A” behind the current pandemic might never have been re-introduced into the human population were it not for an accidental leak from a laboratory working on the same strain in 1977.

Yesterday, the Department of Health announced a further surge in the number of cases in Britain with another 1,604 confirmed over the weekend, and the death of a girl in Birmingham with underlying medical complications; the third death in Britain from swine flu-related problems.

Almost 6,000 Britons have now been infected with the influenza “A” (H1N1) strain of swine flu. But two medical researchers believe that this strain of the virus had been extinct in the human population for more than 20 years until it was unwittingly reintroduced by scientists working in a research lab somewhere in the world, leading to a pandemic in 1977 that began in Russia and China.

“Careful study of the genetic origin of the [1977] virus showed that it was closely related to a 1950 strain, but dissimilar to influenza ‘A’ (H1N1) strains from both 1947 and 1957. This finding suggested that the 1977 outbreak strain had been preserved since 1950. The re-emergence was probably an accidental release from a laboratory source,” according to the study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Shanta Zimmer and Donald Burke from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania said that influenza “A” (H1N1) disappeared completely from humans after a pandemic of another strain of flu in 1957. H1N1 was not detected in annual surveillance until an outbreak of H1N1 swine flu in January 1976 at a US Army base in Fort Dix, New Jersey.

This outbreak affected 230 military personnel, killing one person, but it was successfully contained and was almost certainly caused by the direct transmission of swine flu from pigs. Nevertheless, the global anxiety caused by the Fort Dix outbreak led to a surge in research into H1N1 around the world, with experiments on frozen samples of the virus stored in labs since the 1950s, Dr Zimmer said.

“I would imagine that most labs researching into influenza would have had the 1950s strain. We cannot actually pinpoint which lab had it or accidentally released it, but the re-emergence of H1N1 in 1977 made it potentially a man-made pandemic,” she said.

“It’s a reminder that we need to be continually vigilant in terms of laboratory procedures. The identical virus in the current pandemic would not have occurred because a component of it comes from the H1N1 strain of 1977 – but it doesn’t mean to say that we wouldn’t have had another one causing a pandemic,” she added.

One of the most likely routes for the release of the 1950s virus is that laboratory workers became infected accidentally and then infected families and friends, Dr Zimmer explained. After the 1977 pandemic, the H1N1 strain of flu re-appeared annually as seasonal flu but this year it underwent a radical genetic change to become another pandemic strain.

Professor John Oxford of the Royal London Hospital said that the accidental release of the 1950s strain of H1N1 in 1977 is entirely plausible, but it may have been a good thing as it would have given many older people alive today some measure of immunity to the current pandemic. “We can look upon it now as a stroke of good luck,” he said.

The Independent

June 30, 2009
GCHQ needs “ultra, ultra criminals”

Britons face a growing online threat from criminals, terrorists and hostile states, according to the UK’s first cyber security strategy.

Businesses, government and ordinary people are all at risk, it says.

The strategy has been published alongside an updated, wider National Security Strategy.

Its publication is a sign of the growing recognition within government of the need to bolster defences against a growing threat.

In line with a wider focus within the National Security Strategy on not just protecting the state but also citizens, the cyber-strategy encompasses protecting individuals from forms of fraud, identity theft and e-crime committed using technology as well as defending government secrets and businesses.

‘Attack capability’

Launching the strategy, security minister Lord West said: “We know that various state actors are very interested in cyber warfare. The terrorist aspect of this is the least (concern), but it is developing.”

He warned that future targets could include key businesses, the national power grid, financial markets and Whitehall departments.

He said: “We know terrorists use the internet for radicalisation and things like that at the moment, but there is a fear they will move down that path (of cyber attacks).

“As their ability to use the web and the net grows, there will be more opportunity for these attacks.”

He confirmed that the UK government has already faced cyber attacks from foreign states such as Russia and China.

But he denied that hackers had successfully broken into government systems and stolen secret information.

He also said he could not deny that the government had its own online attack capability, but he refused to say whether it had ever been used.

“It would be silly to say that we don’t have any capability to do offensive work from Cheltenham, and I don’t think I should say any more than that.”

‘Naughty boys’

Among those the government has turned to for help on cyber crime are former illegal hackers, Lord West added.

He said the government listening post GCHQ at Cheltenham had not employed any “ultra, ultra criminals” but needed the expertise of former “naughty boys” he said.

“You need youngsters who are deep into this stuff… If they have been slightly naughty boys, very often they really enjoy stopping other naughty boys,” he said.

Officials said e-crime crime is estimated to costs the UK several billion pounds a year.

Two new bodies will be established in the coming months as part of the strategy.

A dedicated Office of Cyber Security in the Cabinet Office will co-ordinate policy across government and look at legal and ethical issues as well as relations with other countries.

The second body will be a new Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) based at GCHQ.

This will bring people together from across government and from outside to get a better handle on cyber security issues and work out how to better protect the country, providing advice and information about the risks.

“CSOC’s aim will be to identify in real time what type of cyber attacks are taking place, where they come from and what can be done to stop them”, according to a Whitehall security official.

Experts say the “forensics” of detecting who is behind a cyber attack and attributing responsibility remains extremely difficult.

Officials said it would require input from those who had their own expertise in hackers. “We need youngsters,” an official said.

The range of potentially hostile cyber activity – from other states seeking to carry out espionage through criminal gangs to terrorists – is daunting.

Critical information

At one end of the spectrum, military operations – such as Russia’s conflict with Georgia last year – are now accompanied by attacks on computer systems.

The UK’s critical national infrastructure is also more reliant on technology than it was even five years ago and terrorists who have used the internet for fundraising and propaganda are also believed to have the intent – if not yet the capability- to carry out their own cyber-attacks.

Officials declined to give a figure of how many attacks on government computer networks take place each day.

In a speech in 2007, the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, explicitly mentioned Russia and China in the context of a warning that that “a number of countries continue to devote considerable time and energy trying to steal our sensitive technology on civilian and military projects, and trying to obtain political and economic intelligence at our expense. They do not only use traditional methods to collect intelligence but increasingly deploy sophisticated technical attacks, using the internet to penetrate computer networks.”

Officials said they were not aware of any “key pieces of information” that had gone missing yet but said that British companies had lost critical information.

The new Cyber Security Operations Centre will work closely with the designated parts of the critical national infrastructure and wider industry and officials say that business are keen for the government to take a lead but also share as much information as possible.

US President Barack Obama has been carrying out a similar re-organisation for defending US computer networks and British officials said the two countries were co-ordinating closely not least because of the intimate relationship between GCHQ and its US equivalent.

British officials believe that their government systems may also have fewer vulnerabilities than their US counterparts partly because they moved online later and have fewer connections between the internal government system and the rest of cyberspace to monitor.

Officials in the US and UK are also thought to be working on forms of offensive cyber-warfare capability but officials are unwilling to go into any details of what this might involve.

Some Comments:

CSOC’s aim will be to identify in real time what type of cyber attacks are taking place, where they come from and what can be done to stop them

Whitehall security official

It would be silly to say that we don’t have any capability to do offensive work from Cheltenham, and I don’t think I should say any more than that

Lord West, security minister

BBC

June 25, 2009
Fears over terrorist cyber attacks in UK

Al Qaida is intent on using the internet to launch a cyber-warfare campaign against the UK, ministers have revealed.

Terrorist groups, which already use the internet for recruitment, propaganda and communication purposes, want to turn it into a dangerous weapon.

Security Minister Lord West issued the warning as he published the Government’s new Cyber Security Strategy aimed at heading off online threats.

As well as potential cyber-attacks from terrorists, the UK faces a real and growing threat from foreign governments such as China and Russia, and from organised criminal gangs, he said. Targets include key businesses, the national power grid, financial markets and Whitehall departments.

As part of attempts to beef up defences, a new Office for Cyber Security will be set up to co-ordinate Government policy.

Another new development will see the creation of a “cyber-forensics” team based at GCHQ, the Government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. The Cyber Security Operations Centre will constantly monitor, analyse and counter cyber attacks as they happen.

Lord West said the terrorists’ capability to launch attacks was something he believed “will develop” in future.

“We know terrorists use the internet for radicalisation and things like that at the moment, but there is a fear they will move down that path (of cyber attacks). As their ability to use the web and the net grows, there will be more opportunity for these attacks.

He confirmed that the UK Government has already faced cyber attacks from foreign states such as Russia and China. But he denied that hackers had successfully broken into Government systems and stolen secret information.

He also said he could not deny that the Government has its own online attack capability, but he refused to say whether it had ever been used.

Press Association

June 25, 2009
PM ERDOGAN PUSHES MORE R&D AS WAY OUT OF CRISIS

Chaired by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the High Council for Science and Technology (BTYK) convened yesterday in Ankara. Sixteen Cabinet ministers, including Deputy Premiers Cemil Cicek and Bulent Arinc, State Minister Mehmet Aydin, and Professor Nüket Yetis, the head of the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council (TUBITAK), attended the meeting as well. Addressing the council, Erdogan stressed the importance the government places on research and development. Stating that Turkey is feeling the global economic crisis to a certain extent, Erdogan called the crisis environment an opportunity to restructure the nation’s sustainable development plans. Reiterating his determination to focus on the opportunities presented by the crisis rather than its threats, Erdogan said, “We believe that research and development activities are critical for taking advantage of the chances brought by the crisis. This is scientifically proven, and also supported by the experiences of countries that emerged stronger from past global economic crises.” Erdogan also said that Turkey should attract more foreign researchers from across the world, calling the current number of such researchers employed by Turkish universities inadequate.

/Sabah-Cumhuriyet/

Turkish Press Review (18.06.2009)

June 18, 2009
Horizon fuel cell for unmanned plane

Fuel Cells, June 05 2009 (The Hydrogen Journal)

– Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies of Vancouver has announced plans to use its new Aeropak fuel cell system in unmanned aeroplanes, with shipments starting this summer

Unmanned planes are typically used for security surveillance and intelligence gathering.

By using fuel cells, the aeroplane will be able to go up to 4 times further than with lithium batteries currently being used for this application, the company says.

The aeroplanes will carry 900 watt hours of electrical energy, fuelled from a dry fuel cartridge releasing hydrogen, in a fuel cell weighing 2kg.

Electric powered unmanned planes are much harder to detect than planes powered with combustion engines, because they are quieter and smaller.

By having more electrical power available, it is easier to add more sensors to the plane, such as infrared cameras and laser designators.

The plane will be demonstrated at the forthcoming Paris Air Show (June 15-18 2009).

The company did not announce how the fuel storage technology works, although other companies have announced they use sodium borohydride in their dry fuel cell cartridges.

Horizon Fuel Cell

Hydrogen power for ships –Hamburg

Feature Articles, May 15 2009 (The Hydrogen Journal)

– A great deal of research is going on in Hamburg to use hydrogen for ships – with trials on 4 different vessels. We spoke to experts at German energy consultancy Germanischer Lloyd about how it is happening

With the maritime industry likely to come under pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, experts are looking seriously at the idea of fuelling the ship on hydrogen, so there are no CO2 emissions at all.

The world’s first hydrogen / fuel cell powered vessel for more than 100 passengers the “Alster Wasser” is already in operation on Hamburg’s Alster Lake. The vessel has been built and is operated within the scope of EC funded ZEMSHIP project.

Unlike a diesel engine, the fuel cell operates silently. This led to surprising discoveries about how much noise other parts of a vessel make.

On normal ships, the engine makes so much noise that nobody has worried about the noise which other components (such as pumps) make, says Finn Vogler, project engineer within GL department Risk Assessment and Mechanical Engineering,,

But on the “Alster Wasser”, people were suddenly aware about how noisy the rest of the ship is – and reducing the overall noise has proved a complex exercise. “As soon as they isolate one noise, they find 3 other noises,” he says.

The vessel runs on two 48 kW fuel cells and stores hydrogen onboard in 12 x 350 bar (high pressure) hydrogen tanks. The hydrogen is actually supplied to the fuelling station as a liquid, and evaporated and compressed before being pumped onto the vessel.

Fuel cells are also used in submarines built in Kiel. These submarines are a great commercial success because the fuel cells give the owner the benefit to enhance the duration for diving by a factor of 10. As the first class society GL already published guidelines for using fuel cells on watercraft in 2003 and has certified a number of ships according to these guidelines including the “Alster Wasser”.

Hydrogen fuel cells are currently not available to power larger ships, but they are close. Development projects have been started and will result in fuel cells for seagoing ships with a power of 500 kW per unit within the next 5 years.

“GL is contributing to this development by participating in the SchIBZ and Pa-X-ell projects which will start in July 2009” Mr Vogler says.

The available power of fuel cell systems will be able to cover the auxillary power needs of a large number of vessels. E.g. a typical ROPAX (roll-on, roll-off, passenger carrying) ferry needs from the total installed auxiliary power about 1.5 to 2 MW of constant auxiliary power, which can be provided by 3 or 4 large fuel cells.

The biggest problem with fuel cells is managing sulphur in the hydrogen supply – it needs to be removed before entering the fuel cell because it can do a lot of damage. There is no sulphur in hydrogen which comes from gas which has been liquefied (because the sulphur is removed in the liquefaction process) and there is no sulphur in hydrogen produced from separating water with electricity (electrolysis).

Hydrogen might not be the technology for the immediate tomorrow, but the longer term tomorrow. “I think this is on the right track, but it will take some time,” he says.

“We are getting much more interest in the technology. Every time the oil price rises – people say ‘maybe we need another solution.”

Hydrogen storage

It is unlikely that hydrogen will ever be directly stored onboard vessels, due to the amount of storage space required, Mr Vogler says.

If the hydrogen is made from reformed natural gas, this task could be completed actually onboard the vessel – so the vessel has natural gas storage. Research into the best ways of fuelling vessels with natural gas is already being made (for an anticipated series of vessels which burn the natural gas in a combustion engine).

If the gas was reformed to hydrogen and then put through a fuel cell to make electricity, it is much easier to reduce emissions of NOx and SOx (nitrous and sulphur oxides), Mr Vogler says, and the overall efficiency will be similar or even better than big diesel generators.

Another option is to generate the hydrogen onboard from a liquid fuel.

Demonstration projects

3 maritime demonstration projects are being planned using hydrogen no ships, funded by the German government.

The first project, SchIBZ (which stands for ‘ship integration fuel cell’ in German) is to install a fuel cell on a 90m vessel which carries paper from Scandinavia to Germany. The fuel cell will be installed in by Thyssen-Krupp Marine Systems.

A molten carbonate fuel cell onboard the vessel (a fuel cell which operates at above 600 degrees C). It won’t power the vessel’s propulsion, but it will power everything else – the ‘auxiliaries’ – eg pumps, lights and ramps. The project will start on June 1 2009 and run for up to 4 years. The module will be first tested by German shipbuilder Thyssen-Krupp Marine Systems befor the operation of the system on board.

The fuelling system will be to use liquid fuels (generated from gas, biomass or coal) which are put through an onboard reformer to make hydrogen, which is then put into the fuel cell to make electricity. The system is called “XTL” – which stands for X to Liquids – where the ‘X’ denotes different substances which might be used to make the liquid (eg gas, biomass or coal).

A second project, called Pa-X-ell, starting in July 2009, will use a fuel cell on a vessel, running on natural gas – but the reformer is included as part of the fuel cell rather than as a separate piece of equipment. The project will be carried out by the yards Meyer Werft, Friedrich Lürssen Werft and Flensburger Schiffbau Gesellschaft.

The importance of this project is trying to find ways to include a number of fuel cells and reformer units around the ship – so if one goes out of action, or if there is a fire in one part of the ship, there are others available which can get it to port. This configuration will probably use natural gas cooled down to a liquid.

The third project, Hy-ferry, realised by Beluga Shipping will be to install a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell onboard 2 ferries running in coastal waters and the port of Bremen, Germany, using gaseous hydrogen which has been generated from wind power making electricity to electrolyse water.

All of these projects are funded by the German government, under a mother project called ‘e4ships’. Further information about them (some in English) is available on the website www.now-gmbh.de.

The German government believes that its financing can get the hydrogen industry started.

Germanischer Lloyd’s role in these projects is to provide safety analysis and consultancy, covering the fuel cells, reformer technology and overall safety assessment. In other words, it provides usual services which classification societies provide to the maritime industry.

On the subject of hydrogen safety, Mr Vogler believes that it is no problem with today’s technology. “If you handle it right, it can be safer than gasoline,” he says.

Germanischer Lloyd recommends double wall pipes, so the hydrogen will be contained if one pipeline fails. It is important to avoid having an explosive mixture of hydrogen and air in the presence of a spark.

Hamburg has a number of other projects going on, including forklift trucks at Hamburg airport running on hydrogen, and several hydrogen cars and hydrogen buses. “People are very aware of the technology in Hamburg,” he says.

A further project has been to provide a fuel cell to a whale-watching vessel in Iceland, so it could keep auxiliary power (lights etc) running on the vessel while the engine was switched off during whale-watching, so that it does not disturb them.

GL Group

The Hydrogen Journal

June 8, 2009