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Solar Thermal in New York State |
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Tuesday, 07 September 2010 |
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Solar Thermal Road Map!
So as part of my day-to-day 'policy analyst' job title, I wind up keeping tabs on the state of renewable energy technologies in New York and across thecountry - which is generally pretty interesting and sometimes inspiring. I previously talked about off-shore wind generation, and today I want to share a few thoughts I had after reading "New York's Solar Thermal Roadmap". Firstly I'll just pull a quote that should make us all feel bad about how we're not nearly as effective as Germany in pursuing solar energy:
The markets currently show that the installed Solar Thermal capacity is 8,000 MWth in Germany versus an estimated 6 MWth in NYS. On a per capita basis the contrast is just as stark with 100 Wth/person installed in Germany and 0.3Wth/person installed per person in New York State, or a difference of
Ultimately, it isn't a ground-breaking report (unless you haven't spent as much time as me in the field), it clearly lays out the state of the New York market for solar-based water heating, and provides plenty of arguments in solar thermal's favor. It isn't controversial unless you whole-heartedly reject the role of CO2 in climate change. It calls for further government subsidies for workforce development and installation costs (since if renewable energy has positive externalities, why shouldn't the government pay for it?), as well as public-awareness raising campaigns. Ultimately, it's a good report and I know a lot of hard work and commitment went into it.
But beyond the mundane hurdles of government cradling a new technology and industry, the report also identifies the crux of the issue - that banks aren't willing to finance renewable energy generation because they're not convinced it will actually pay for itself. It's a classic case of chicken and the egg - without financing, not enough systems can be installed to provide the hard data that proves loans can be repaid based on reductions in electricity costs. On top of that, the benefits of carbon-neutral energy generation have still yet to be priced into the overall market (via cap & trade or whatever); the result is a policy failure on the state and federal scale and the continued slow-growth pace of the American renewables market.
I might be a little too close to the issue to explain why it's so frustrating - but trust me, there needs to be a fundamental change in the terms of political discourse before these technologies garner the support they deserve.
jayajamin
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A breakthrough in TB testing |
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Monday, 06 September 2010 |
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A new development in tuberculosis testing might cut waiting time for test results from 4 to 8 weeks to about 2 hours. Xpert MTB/RIF has been developed by the private company Cepheid and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics in Switzerland with support from the National Institute of Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With the new testing, a technician takes a sputum sample from the patient and puts it into a machine which can give results later that day. Currently, the quickest testing is the Mantoux skin test which takes 2-3 days. According to a study recently published by the New England Journal of Medicine, Xpert MTB/RIF proves to be 98% accurate when compared to the old method, which requires a trained microscopist. Xpert MTB/RIF is also almost 25% more accurate than the old method in confirming hardest-to-analyze cases. Xpert MTB/RIF does however, have its downsides. First, it can only detect the antibiotic resistant strain that is resistant to rifampicin, not isoniazid, which can affect the prescribed medication regiment. Secondly, like most revolutionary advancements in medicine, this new testing method is very expensive. The machines cost $30,000 and each test is around $60 and with most tuberculosis outbreaks occurring in the world's poorest areas, this means that the only way this method will be used is with heavy funding from international health community and donors. Hopefully this new method will be advocated by health organizations and brought to the areas that most need of the technology. Quicker detection means quicker treatment and quicker treatment means healthier people :) A. K. Russell http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/tuberculosis/DS00372/DSECTION=tests-and-diagnosis
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/07global.html?_r=1&ref=world |
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Auto-Tune and Me: Demystifying the Magic of Pitch Correction |
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Thursday, 02 September 2010 |
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Discussions in Sound Physics for Hip-Hoppers Hip Hoppers as of late have grown increasingly more annoyed with the artificial sound of Auto-Tune processing applied to leading vocals. Many engineers are becoming reluctant to use the plug-in due to the oversaturation of the sound in commercial pop and hip hop music. Some blame T-Pain; others point fingers at Antares Audio Technologies. Nevertheless, the popularity of the software signal processing tool is clearly a result of the sophistication of the unit’s design. The amount of psychoacoustics research and digital signal theory that went into the engineering process is mindboggling. Essentially, Auto-Tune software uses a phase vocoder to correct the pitch of a vocal performance/digital audio signal. When analyzing any digital audio signal, there are two important things to consider: the time domain and frequency domain. A digital phase vocoder uses an algorithm to modify frequency information of a signal based in phase. In short, the vocoder shifts the intensity (amplitude) of certain frequencies to be in accordance with the designated pitch or tonal scale. I’ll expand later. Until then… Ebonie Smith M.M., New York University eboniesmith.com Everything is Musical J |
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