The Earth is Cooling Down - Is Global Cooling Bringing On an Ice Age That Will Kill Off All Humans?
There certainly has been a lot in the newspaper and on TV about global warming. In fact, there has been more information on global warming than there ever was on Y2K, which if you’ll recall was to be the calamity of all calamities caused by mankind. There were almost as many articles on Y2K in the media as during the Cold War; you remember that of course we were all supposed to die by nuclear holocaust during an exchange of nuclear weapons with Russia.
Perhaps it is time that we get the facts straight about global warming. The global warming alarmist will have you believe that the Earth is heating up and yet what you might not realize is that the world set a global cool weather record in 2007. In fact, 2007 was the coolest in the last 16 years. What does this mean? Is global warming over or did it never really exist? Does the Earth really go through climate fluctuations and cycles and there is really nothing that mankind can do about it?
Or are humans and their activities such as the emissions of CO2 really causing our climate to heat up enough to melt all the ice caps and flood every human civilization that is less than 30 feet above sea level? Isn’t it time that humans stop believing everything they see in the media or hear on TV and start looking at the facts, which by the way are not docudramas meant to scare you and make Hollywood millions of dollars on movies. Something to contemplate in 2008.
7 Ways to Give Green
The holiday season has finally rolled around, and if you are still looking for gifts for a special someone, why not give green? It is quick, easy (mostly because it is done over the internet), and is the emotional equivalent of anti-guilt medicine. So, below are a few of my favorite green gift choices.
1. Carbon Offsets: Buying a carbon offset is like hiring someone to clean up behind you. Companies take your money and use it for reforestation, protection against deforestation and sometimes, investment into renewable energy. It takes only a Google search for “carbon offsets” to get a bazillion results.
2. Local Food: There is a very popular saying going around that is: “buy local, think global.” This means that you should support your local community, while still being a citizen of the world. (If you want me to get into more detail on the subject, please leave a comment, and I will definitely do it.) So, buy them a gift card for the local organic/health foods store, or maybe even some Farmer’s Market credit. Whatever you can do to support organic, local food is the best.
3. Public Transit: Buy someone a good supply of bus/subway tickets, because it is good for people to use the public transit system. Carpooling/mass transit in general is always better, because you are using the same (or a slightly greater) amount of energy to transport 100x the amount of people.
4. Reminders: Get your loved ones power-usage monitoring devices, like the famous KillAWat. These little devices let people know how much energy they are using, and therefore gives them more reason to move towards being green. They also help educate people about power usage in general. It is good to be farmiliar with something to really fight at it’s roots.
5. Personal treatment: Anything that doesn’t require major amounts of equipment, transportation or chemicals is always a good choice, so why not go for the personal treatment option? This entails a massage, yoga class, gym membership etc.-but make it local! If the receiver needs to travel a lot to use the gift, it is automatically not green. Also, if you are sending the person to a spa, make sure that they don’t use cosmetic chemicals. There are tons of spas that concentrate more on yoga, massage therapy and general health watching.
6. Electric Paper: If you know someone who subscribes to three news papers and eight magazines, offer them an e-book reader, or online newspaper subscription. Think about all of the paper you would save! Online subscription service is available for comics, and many other magazines as well. This gift really depends on the person, because some people can stand e-books and online newspapers, but others can’t, so you need to take that into consideration.
7. Green Kits: Buy your special people items to help make their lifestyle more environmentally friendly, for example: compact fluorescent light bulbs. They last for years, and use a lot less energy than incandescents. A lot of the time, people need a little help to get headed in the right direction, and you can be that push. You could really help that person get it together, because the time is now!
Think of Your Home As a Habitat and Help the Environment
Many people care about the environmental problems that humans are causing, such as chemical pollution and global warming. If you count yourself among them, then you are certainly interested in alleviating the worsening conditions on the Earth. The most obvious and easiest place to begin as an environmentalist is your own home and yard. With some research, care, and creativity you can nurture the Earth exactly where you live with your personal environmental cleanup and wildlife protection program.
I have undertaken this process myself with my yard, and I’m not alone in this approach. The winter 2008 issue of OnEarth magazine presented an article precisely about turning gardens and yards into habitats instead of semi-sterile landscapes. The article “How to Get Wild in Your Garden” by Amy Stewart reported that about one million acres are claimed by development in the United States every year, exacerbating habitat loss that kills off wildlife. With this in mind, imagine how a portion of distressed plant and animal species could be revived if suburban and even urban residents began to nurture habitats around their homes.
My natural interest in environmental problems latched onto my property in 2005 when I happened to visit a native plant nursery near my home. I wanted to add some shrubs to the back of my property that did not require frequent watering because the summers in my region are hot and dry. As I selected some native plants, the nursery worker mentioned how the blue elderberry would attract and feed birds, which was much better than popular ornamental varieties that did nothing for the local fauna. Great, I thought. I won’t have to work hard watering my new native species and birds will be happy.
With the realization that I could promote wildlife with what I planted in my yard, I became more actively interested in how I could nurture life upon my personal piece of the urban landscape.
With the new shrubs doing nicely, I turned my attention to my lawn and stumbled upon a book at the local library called “The Organic Lawn Care Manual.” The book informed me that lawns maintained with chemical fertilizers and pesticides are a source of millions of pounds of toxic pollution in our environment. Along with pesticides that pollute the land and water, the production of chemical fertilizers is energy intensive and therefore contributes to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
For my property, pesticides and chemical fertilizers are permanently off the list. Upon learning that numerous household lawn chemicals are linked to cancer in children and pets, giving them up was easy. Now, I enjoy a lawn teeming with life. Granted it does not look like a golf course, but all manner of insects live there along with a wide variety of little native grasses and plants. All summer I spot beetles and praying mantises. I have toads hopping about, frightening me when I take the trash out in the dark, and birds forage for bugs in the chemical-free lawn.
The trend toward creating home and garden habitats is growing. The National Wildlife Federation even has a backyard habitat certification program. To qualify as a nurturing habitat, your yard must observe the following guidelines.
1. Chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides must be eliminated. This will stop your addition of toxic chemicals to the environment and make you learn how to maintain your property with organic practices.
2. Provide food for birds and insects by planting native species that produce the flowers, nuts, and berries that local fauna desire. Such plants will serve as the foundation of the food chain that you are creating for the habitat.
3. All habitats require a water source. Rain gardens, ponds, or birdbaths serve as wellsprings of life for amphibians, birds, and insects.
4. Wildlife needs shelter in various forms such as dense thickets, rock piles, or an old rotting log.
5. Along with shelter, you can work to provide nursery habitats like frog ponds and birdhouses where animals can reproduce.
Your personal environmental program in your yard will put you on the front lines of the environmental movement. Caring for the Earth starts exactly where you live. It might not be saving polar bears, but if you can stop putting toxic substances on your habitat and help out a few plants and animals, you will have accomplished something positive. The philosophy of backyard habitat building will also serve as a point of cultural shift. As humans we occupy large portions of the planet, especially the prime land. Where we live does not have to be a paved-over dead zone. The results are rewarding as well. Seeing how life can flourish within even the small space of a yard will inspire you with hope. You will enjoy the presence of the wildlife and you can count yourself among the residents of a healthy habitat. You are in control of the environmental health of a tiny portion of the Earth. Use your power to make positive choices..
Can I Eat Sugar Alcohols On My Low Carb Diet?
“Polyols” or sugar alcohols are a number of different carbohydrates that are neither sugars nor alcohols–and are commonly used as artificial sweeteners in a range of products, from ice cream to chewing gum.
While these tasty sweeteners appear to be the perfect solution for both low-carb dieters and low-carb food producers, recent studies of sugar alcohols have painted a somewhat different picture.
To begin with, sugar alcohols are not entirely carb-free. Most studies have indicated that sugar alcohols contain approximately 1/2 to 1/3 the amount of calories as sugar–and in the form of carbohydrates.
In addition, studies have shown that sugar alcohols are absorbed by the small intestine, but the process is slower and fractured. This affects a rise in blood sugar, but again is smaller and more gradual than with sugar–and the rise tends to vary from person to person.
Sugar alcohols also have a laxative effect on some consumers. Since they are only partially absorbed, they bring water into the bowel–and undigested carbs into the colon, creating gas and bloating as the carbs are acted on by bacteria.
Over-consumption of sugar alcohols can often have an adverse effect on low carb dieters, even when they can digest them properly. Sugar alcohols can trigger cravings in low carb dieters, causing them to deviate from dietary restrictions.
In addition, sugar alcohols can often cause low carb dieters to choose an unhealthy diet of sweets, which appear to be carb-free, over a varied diet that includes essential nutrients.
If you are currently on a low carb diet and want to mix sugar alcohol products into your diet, it is very important that you monitor your total sugar alcohol intake–and keep it at a minimum while consuming a healthy diet.
One easy way to do this is to determine the total amount of carbs in sugar alcohol products you are consuming. You can do this by subtracting the amount of fat and protein calories per serving from the total amount of calories per serving. Simply multiply the grams of protein by four and the grams of fat by nine. Now subtract the sum of the two from the total amount of calories per serving.
Using these figures, you can determine whether or not carbs are being “hidden” in “carb free” sugar alcohol products you consume, allowing you to make a better-informed decision that fits the prescriptions of your low-carb diet.
When the Body Converts Alcohols into Water
Alcohol that is common to the public in beverages is Ethyl Alcohol of the chemical structure CH3-CH2-OH, where C is the chemical symbol of carbon, H is that of hydrogen, and -OH is a Hydroxyl group. It is this hydroxyl group that largely dictates the physical and chemical properties of alcohol, so it is called its functional group.
Ethyl alcohol is the widely spread alcohol in daily life, as it is present in beverages, some pharmaceutical preparations and as industrial solvent. It is present in concentrations ranging from about 5% in Beer up to 99% in lab and industrial uses.
The most abundant form of alcohol is sugars. Sugars are present as Trioses, Tetroses, Pentoses, and Hexoses, all of them have more than 1Hydroxyl groups, so they are called poly-hydric alcohols. Glucose is a hexose alcohol that is used for energy production and storage. When utilized to produce energy, glucose crosses the cell membrane into the cytoplasm where it is enzymically split into 2 molecules with the production of a little amount of energy in a process called glycolysis. This glycolysis process is very important for some tissues to perform their primary function, like when the skeletal muscles start working.
For extraction of all energy present in a molecule, it should enter the energy house of the cell, the mitochondria.The substrate for mitochondrial energy production is an acid, so alcohols( sugars) should be converted into acids. Together with acids liberated from fats and acids converted from amino acids, they all enter the mitochondria to be converted into water and energy. Inside the mitochondria, these acids are not as the body is not an internal combustion engine, yet they are processed through a complex enzymatic array to produce Carbon Dioxide, water and energy.
While poly-hydric alcohols ( sugars ) produce energy and water through the mitochondria, mono-hydric alcohol ( Ethyl alcohol ) decreases the capacity of the mitochondria to produce them, as it competes with the substrates for acids required by the mitochondria for cytoplasmic tools that produce these acids.
Instead of producing energy and water in the mitochondria, mono-hydric alcohol( Ethanol) produces:
- Acetate as an end product of Ethyl alcohol metabolism.
- Cholesterol.
- Lipids.
(Alcoholism leads to fat accumulation in the liver, hyper-lipidemia, and ultimately cirrhosis) - Lact-acidemia ( increased lactic acid in the blood) which decreases the capacity of the kidney to excrete uric acid, and probably this is the cause of aggravation of Gout by drinking alcohol.
We can see that the safest metabolic pathway of alcohol is when the body converts it into water and energy. A prerequisite, is that we supply the body the proper form of alcohol.
Guerbet Alcohols And Its Derivatives
GUERBET ALCOHOLS
Guerbet alcohols are the beta branched primary alcohols, which are the condensation products of alcohols. This chemistry has made possible the synthesis of regiospecific, beta-branched hydrophobe which introduces high-purity branching into the molecule. The chemistry has resulted in the preparation of many materials that find applications in metal lubrication, plastic mold release, paper processing, and personal care products.
The reaction involves the following steps:
* Oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes
* Aldol condensation after proton extraction
* Dehydration of the aldol product
* Hydogenation of the allylic aldehyde
The reaction is catalyzed in presence of hydrogen transfer catalyst. These include nickel, lead salts, oxides of copper, lead, zinc, chromium, molybdenum, tungsten, manganese and some palladium compounds. At low temperatures of 130-140°C, oxidation process is the rate limiting step. At somewhat higher temperatures 160-180°C, the rate limiting step is the aldol condensation .At higher temperatures, other degradative reactions occur and can become dominant. Cannizaro reaction is the major side reaction described.
Most commonly used raw materials for the preparation of Guerbet alcohols are alcohols of natural origin which are primary, with even numbered, straight carbon chains. Oxo alcohols can also be used, but the reaction rate and conversions are reduced.
Guerbet alcohols are branched, essentially saturated and of high molecular weight, exhibit the following properties Have low irritation potential Are liquid to low temperatures Are low in volatility Are reactive and can be used to make many derivatives Are good lubricants Exhibit very good oxidative stability at elevated temperatures Have excellent color initially and at elevated temperatures Exhibit improved stability over unsaturated products in many applications.
They are prepared by the oxidation of Guerbet alcohols to produce primary carboxylic acids. Oxidative alkali fusion with alkali metal salts dehydrogenates the alcohol and gives excellent yields of carboxylic acids.
Guerbet alcohols as well as acids melt at lower temperatures than linear alcohols containing the same number of carbon atoms. Compared to Guerbet alcohols with the same number of alcohols corresponding Guerbet acids melt at higher temperature.
GUERBET ESTERS
One of the desired effects of introducing Guerbet branching into ester molecules is to extend their liquidity to very low temperatures. With the availability of Guerbet acids and alcohols, branching can be introduced into the alcohol, acid or both.
It is observed that products with the lowest titer carry Guerbet branching in both the acid and the alcohol part of the molecule. The next lowest titer point is obtained when the Guerbet branch is in the acid moiety. Branching in the alcohol part results in the highest titer value. Products derived from linear acids and linear alcohols differ substantially from those derived from linear acids and Guerbet alcohols. Specifically, the former are rock hard solids while the latter are liquids with a snowy precipitate. Introduction of Gurbet branching in to the ester molecule do not alter the solubility of the resulting ester.
GUERBET SULFATES AND ETHER SULFATES
Sulfates and ether sulfates are typical anionic surfactants. One of the salient properties of surfactant is the Kraft point which is a measure of water solubility. It is defined as the temperature in °C at which a 1% dispersion becomes clear under gradual heat. The Kraft point of sulfates rises with increasing molecular weight of the hydropobe or with the addition of propylene oxide to the hydrophobe. The Kraft point decreases with the addition of ethylene oxide. The Kraft point provides another illustration of the differences between the linear and Gurbet based sulfates.
The location of the branch within the hydrophobe has a major effect upon functional properties of anionic surfactants, such as their HLB and emulsifying power. Guerbet based surfactants promote their micellization in the oil phase because of its twin tail structure which require less cosurfactant to make micro emulsions. Guerbet ether sulfates are very efficient emulsifiers for oil and emulsify three to five times more oil than the sulfates made from linear hydrophobes.
Chemistry - Alcohols to Acids
Alcohols
There are a number of homologous series of hydrocarbon compounds which contain various functional groups that are derived from alkanes, alkenes, alkynes and benzene. Alcohols are hydrocarbons which contain the hydroxyl group, an -OH group, as their functional group. Alcohols are named from the corresponding molecule they derive from, then given an -ol ending, which describes the -OH functional group. The simplest alcohols are methanol (CH3OH) and ethanol (CH3CH2OH). Cyclic hydrocarbons can also form alcohols.
Phenol is derived from benzene, its hydroxylic functional group joining onto the aromatic ring.
Alcohols with multiple hydroxylic groups are called multiple hydroxyl-containing alcohols. The most meaningful of these are ethylene glycol and propantriol, otherwise known as glycerine. Alcohols are flammable, burning to produce carbon dioxide and water. The chemical properties of alcohols are quite similar to each other, thanks to the presence of the hydroxyl functional group. Alcohols derived from alkanes form alcoholates with impure metals. In these reactions, the hydrogen atom from the hydroxyl group is exchanged with a metal atom. This is called a substitution reaction.
CH2OH-CHOH-CH2OH
glycerine
propantriol
A sizable number of compounds which appear in living organisms contain a significant number of hydroxylic groups. Among these are simple sugars such as glucose or fructose, a sugar derived from fruits, as well as some hormones (steroidal hormones).
Structure of the Molecule and Functional Group
The functional group determines to a great degree the chemical properties of an organic material. In addition, the placement of the functional group can also have a great influence on a molecule’s chemical properties. There are three distinct types of alcohols, their grouping based on where the functional group is placed in the molecule. Primary alcohols have their -OH functional group bonded to one atom of carbon which is in turn bonded to only one other carbon atom. Methanol and ethanol are primary alcohols. Just as the bond between oxygen and hydrogen is polar, so is the bond between carbon and oxygen polar. Thanks to the differing electronegativities of these elements, they have a different attraction to the electron pair which is formed between them. Oxygen, because of its higher electronegativity, attracts the electrons more strongly than carbon. For this reason, and because it contains another two pairs of electrons, a partial negative charge is present on the oxygen atom. These charges make alcohols polar molecules.
+ -
Ethanol CH3-CH2-O-H
Chain alcohols have their simple bonds derived from corresponding alkanes. For this reason, we call this type of alcohol aliphatic. These alcohols form a homologous series whose members have the general formula CnH2n+1OH. The name of these alcohols comes from the corresponding alkane plus the suffix -ol. Just as the alkanes, isomeres exist in this alcohol series, beginning with propanol. The placement of the hydroxyl group is indicated by a numbering system which pinpoints the carbon to which the group is bonded, with that number placed either before or after the name of the molecule.
The oxygen atom strongly attracts the electron pair it shares with carbon. Combined with two other electron pairs already found on the oxygen atom, the oxygen represents a partial negative charge compared to the rest of the molecule. The hydroxylic group is hydrophilic, meaning that it attracts water. The rest of the molecule, the hydrocarbon chain, is hydrophobic, meaning that it repels water.
CH3-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-O-H
Hydrophobic Rest Hydrophilic Group
The hydrophobic character of the hydrocarbon chain increases as the chain gets longer. Within the hydrophobic regions of individual molecules are van der Waals forces which hold those regions together. Alkane-derived alcohols become more viscous as the length of their chains increases, because forces within the molecule become more and more exaggerated. Solubility in water decreases as molecule size grows. The hydrophilic hydroxyl group of the molecule forms hydrogen bonds with other neighbouring hydroxyl groups. These hydrogen bonds are stronger than normal van der Waals forces, and they influence the melting and boiling points of alcohols. The melting and boiling points of alcohols, therefore, are significantly higher than those of alkanes.
The Production of Ethanol
Ethanol is the most significant and important member of the alcohol family derived from alkanes. Various processes which result in the production of alcohol resulting from fermented materials are some of the best known chemical processes, and one of the very best known is the production of wine. In this process, varying degrees of ethanol are produced from the alcoholic fermentation of sugars, in the presence of enzymes. A by-product of the reaction is carbon dioxide. This type of alcoholic fermentation results in a mixture which has a 10-14% alcoholic content. Ethanol can also be produced synthetically for certain industrial uses. When this type of process takes place, the hydroxylic group from water is added onto ethane, in the presence of a catalyst.
Ethanol is a clear colourless liquid with a characteristic odour. It is strongly hydroscopic (attracts water), and can be mixed with water in an unlimited fashion. Ethanol is a flammable liquid. When it does burn, carbon dioxide and water are produced. It denatures proteins and dissolves a number of organic substances. For this reason, it is preferred as a solvent in industry rather than in the household. It is also an ingredient in a number of cosmetic and medicinal products. In the household, denatured alcohol, to which is added bits of other materials, is used as a combustible and a cleaning product. In some countries, ethanol produced from plant matter is used as a fuel mixed with petrol.
The use of ethanol as an additive to some grocery products (drinking alcohol) is very widespread. The use of alcohol first causes blood circulation in the body to increase depending on the dose taken. With increasing dose size, however, both physical and mental faculties can be hindered. This can does often lead to permanent damage. Long-term use can result in permanent damage to some vital internal organs which play large roles in the circular system, as well as the liver and the brain. This damage is the result of ethanol’s denaturing and dissolving properties. Ethanol is considered to be a habit-forming substance. There are more human beings addicted to ethanol than to the so-called harder drugs.
Structure of the Molecule and its Reactions
Ethanol, derived from ethane, contains a functional hydroxyl group bonded to one atom of carbon which is in turn bonded to another atom of carbon. Ethanol, therefore, is categorised as a primary alcohol.
The reactivity of ethanol is to a great degree determined by the presence of its functional group. Ethanol reacts with impure metals to produce ethyl metals. In this type of reaction, the hydrogen atom of the hydroxyl group is replaced by an atom of metal in a substitution reaction.
2CH3-CH2-OH + 2 Na ® 2 CH3-CH2-ONa + H2
ethanol sodiumethanolate
Phenol
Phenol is a hydroxylic derivative of benzene. It easily forms regular crystals (J S = 43° C) which turn red when exposed to air. It has a distinctive odour. Compared with other alcohols, phenol does not dissolve in water as readily. It does, however, mix with ethanol relatively easily. In an aqueous solution, phenol reacts significantly more acidicly than other alcohols. It is poisonous and corrosive.
The hydroxyl group in a molecule of phenol is bonded to a carbon on the inner ring, so the systematic name of phenol is monohydroxybenzol. The electrons of the non-bonding electron pairs in the ring
come into interaction with the electrons of the oxygen in the hydroxylic group, increasing the density of the electrons in the ring. This phenomenon is known as the positive mesomeric effect (+M). The result of this effect is that the bonding electrons of the bonds between oxygen and hydrogen are more strongly attracted to the oxygen atom, making the bond between the two a polar one. This leads to the hydrogen atom of the hydroxyl group being easily dissociated, thus forming the phenyl ion. Because phenol is able to dissociate the proton on its hydroxyl group rather easily, is can be used in solution to indicate, or recognise, an acid. Phenol is one of the reactants used in the production of plastics, paints and coatings, and herbicides.
Methanol
Methanol is the first member of the homologous series of alkane-derived alcohols. It has similar chemical properties to ethanol. Methanol is, of course, highly toxic. Its use can lead to blindness, and in higher dosages of around 50 ml, even to death. Methanol is a clear, colourless liquid with a characteristic odour. In industry, methanol is used in the production of formaldehyde, esters and acetic acid.
Bicarboxylic and Hydroxycarboxylic Acids
Bicarboxylic Acids
Bicarboxylic acids have two carboxylic groups. Many bicarboxylic compounds are biologically very important.
Oxalic acid (HOOC-COOH) is found in most types of vinegars. .
Amber acid (HOOC-CH2-CH2-COOH) is found in living organisms. It helps in material exchange of some of the important materials organisms need. With its help, a process known as biological oxidation (cell breathing) takes place. This is one of the most important biological processes, one in which the body synthesises its own energy.
Adipatic acid (HOOC-(CH2)4-COOH)
Hydroxycarboxylic Acids
In molecules of carboxylic acids, one or more hydrogen atoms in the hydrocarbon chain can be exchanged for a hydroxylic group (-OH). Hydroxycarboxylic acids are often found in nature and are important because they take part in a number of important biological processes. These carboxylic acids, because of their nature, used to be called plant acids.
Important hydroxycarboxylic acids
Lactic acid CH3-CH-COOH
½
OH
Many microorganisms breakdown hydrocarbons to produce lactic acid. Lactic sugar is found in milk, and this is also easily broken down to produce lactic acid. Thanks to the acidic atmosphere in which this degradation takes place, a layer of agglutinated proteins forms on the top surface of the milk. This is cream. Lactic acid is also produced when acidic cabbage, cucumbers or silage are fermented.
Lactic acid is produced in muscle tissue, too - when glycogens are broken down and not enough oxygen is present. This lack of oxygen is responsible for the pain we feel in muscle tissue, and is also a sign of fatigue.
Wine acid
HOOC-CH-CH-COOH
½ ½
OH OH
In plants, this type of so-called wine acid occurs as a component of some vines, especially grape vines. It is also one of the most important compounds in wine, along with potassium, vinny kamen.
Wine rock is a material used in the textile industry, finding its significance in the dying or colouring of some materials. Another compound, hydrogentartarate draselny, with the common name baking powder, is used in the household.
A number of plant acids can be found in the bodies of living organisms. They are important as intermediate products in the decomposition of hydrocarbons. They are also used in the production of some sweets, syrups and textiles.
A lack of vitamin C can cause scurvy (a disease caused by a lack of vitamins that can be fatal if not treated). Ascorbic acid helps to slow down uncontrolled oxidation, because it oxidises more quickly as a replacement. Human beings need around 75 mg of vitamin C per day. It is found in some plant material, including fruits and vegetables. Otherwise, ascorbic acid is used as a preservative.
Salicylic Acid
Salicylic acid is used as a preservative, too. A compound it forms with sodium, sodium salicylate, is a very good medicine used for rheumatic diseases. It is also the base material contained in aspirin.
Ethers
Éthers are composed of two hydrocarbon groups which are bonded to each other by means of an atom of oxygen. The oxygen centre does not influence the arrangement or characteristics of the ether.
The properties of ethers are similar to the properties of other hydrocarbons, and especially alkanes. Ethers, however, are not capable of bonding with hydrogen atoms. Ethers form isomeric compounds with alcohols. For example, ethyl alcohol (CH3CH2OH) has the same chemical formula as dimethylether (CH3OCH3). This compound is the best known and most often mentioned of all of the ether family.
Dimethylether has a low boiling point. It is very explosive and flammable. Ethers are very soluble and were often used as narcotics to help people fall asleep in past times. The ether compound (C-O-C) is common in nature, often being found in sugars, cellulose and lignite.
Aldehydes and Ketones
Aldehydes and ketones are among the compounds which contain oxygen, the bonds they form with oxygen being characteristic for these types of compounds. Aldehydes are derived from the primary alcohols. They contain the so-called aldehyde group in their molecule. The aldehyde group is one atom of carbon which is double bonded to an atom of oxygen and single bonded to an atom of hydrogen. Aldehydes are named according to the corresponding alkane they are derived from, with an -al ending at the end. The first group members have traditional names. The homologous group begins with formaldehyde.
Formaldehyde H - C = O
½
H
The functional group is very reactive and has reductive characteristics. Aldeydes reduce silver ions to silver metal, as well as reducing copper ions with a plus 2 charge to copper ions with just one positive charge.
Formaldehyde is a found in the gaseous state of matter. It is used as a 38% solution (formalin).
It is produced in quantity by the catalytic oxidation of methanol in the presence of and with the help of oxygen. Formaldehyde is a reactant in the process of the chemical production of plastic materials and other products. In the form of its solution, formalin it is used as a preservative. Because of its violent reactivity, its functional groups have antibacterial effects. As a pure material, it can be harmful to human beings’ health when it gets into the respiratory system.
Ketones
Ketones are derived from secondary alcohols. In secondary alcohols, the hydroxyl group is attached to a carbon atom which is bonded to a second carbon atom. The functional group of ketones is composed of a carbon atom which is double bonded to a carbon atom and called the carbonyl group. In naming ketone compounds, the corresponding alkane’s name is taken first. Then the suffix -one is added. Description of the location of the carbonyl group is done with the help of numbers, before the name of the compound. The simplest ketone is a material with the common name acetone. Ketones form a homologous family of compounds.
Significance and Uses
Acetone is able to mix with water and ethanol in unlimited quantity. It is a very good solvent because
it can dissolve both polar and non-polar compounds. It is used often in industrial syntheses (in the production of plastic and some medicines), deriving its significance as an intermediate. In the household it is used as a nail polish remover. It is also used in the same way to dissolve and dilute some other types of paints.
Basic Computer Thermodynamics
That desk in front of you and everything else around you is made up of atoms. An atom consists of electrons orbiting around a nucleus. An atom is increadibly tiny. You could line up 10 million of them inside a millimeter. What if we could scale up an atom so that the nucleus was the size of a basketball? The orbits of its electrons would then be 15 miles away.
From this you can understand that atoms are almost all empty space. The nucleus of the atom is composed of quarks. If you could see a quark or an electron up close, it might appear as a tiny vibrating glow of energy. It turns out this world, which is causing us so many problems and so much stress, is mostly an illusion!
The electrons orbit the nucleus at about the speed of light. If you could see them, they might appear as a blur. They do not orbit in a plane like the pictures in books. They create a shell. Sometimes two or more atoms will share electrons, causing them to link together forming a molecule.
Looking at that desk in front of you again, it looks pretty solid. Actually, unless your desk is floating in deep space where the temperature is close to absolute zero, the molecules of your desk are vibrating like crazy. Picture the molecules bouncing around and smacking into each other like balls on a pool table.
If you have ever played pool, you’re very familiar with how when a pool ball hits another pool ball, it transfers it’s energy to the second pool ball. When heat causes molecules to vibrate, they transfer energy between each other in a similar fashion. This action is called “conduction”.
Now picture the CPU of a computer cooking away because the designer wants to push too much power through a small piece of silicon. If we don’t take away that heat as fast as it’s created, that CPU will fry!
The problem is usually solved by mounting a heat sink on the CPU. Conduction causes the heat to move from the hot CPU to the cooler heat sink. Because air doesn’t conduct heat as well as metal, We apply a thin layer of heat sink compound between the CPU and the heat sink to fill in any gaps.
You’ll notice that a heat sink has fins on it. The fins allow the heat sink to conduct the heat to the air adjacent to the fins. The fins provide more surface area to aid in conduction. Eventually the adjacent air will get as hot as the heat sink and conduction will cease.
If we move the air away from the heat sink, it will take the heat energy with it. A fan mounted on the heat sink is used to move the air. This method of heat transfer is called convection. Eventually all the air inside the computer case will get hot, so fans are used to blow the air out of the case of the computer.
The heat has moved from the CPU, to the heat sink, to the air inside the case, to the air in the room where you’re sitting at your computer desk. The room starts to get hot, and eventually the air conditioner turns on.
You can view an air conditioner as a “pipe”. A fan blows the hot air from your room through fins that transfer the heat to a liquid. The liquid is piped to fins outside the house. A fan blows cooler outside air past the fins to remove the heat from the liquid.
The air conditioner has an evaporator valve that changes the liquid to a gas after the heat is removed. In a gas, the molecules are further apart than in a liquid. This causes it to cool down quite a bit more. The gas goes through the fins inside the house, picking up heat. It is then compressed into a liquid to concentrate the heat so the outside fins can remove the heat more efficiently.
Shuttle’s I.C.E. (Integrated Cooling Engine) Heat Pipe uses a very similar method to cool a CPU. The CPU has a heat sink with copper heat pipes. The heat of the CPU causes liquid coolant inside the heat pipe to change to a gas. Convection created by the pressure of the gas moves the coolant to a second heat sink where a fan is used to blow the heat out of the computer’s case. Releasing the heat causes the coolant to change back to a liquid. Gravity then carries the coolant back to the CPU heat sink.
One last method of heat transfer we haven’t discussed yet is radiation. Some of the heat of the CPU and the heat sink is released as infrared radiation. Similar to light (although invisible to human eyes), the radiation strikes the insides of the computer case, causing it to get warm. Ultimately the computer case itself acts as a heat sink conducting heat to the outside air.
This article explains the three ways - conduction, convection, and radiation - that heat is transported from a computer CPU to the air outside the computer case. You now understand the thermodynamics of a computers and why it is important to maintain its various components.
The Basics of Mechanics - Dynamics and Thermodynamics Explained
You who read this, may be an engineer, a mechanic, an inventor, a student, or even someone without an engineering background. My observation is that the general public has little knowledge of basic science and even engineers and other professionals often lack in basic insights, in spite of being advanced in their specific fields. This often leads to unfeasible projects and wrong choices, based on wrong assumptions, that no computer can correct.
I myself am a graduated engineer on B.Sc level in both mechanics and electrics. Nevertheless, most of what I know worth knowing as an engineer today, I learned from practical experience and backing it up with own theoretical studies afterwards. It forced me to focus on basics. When you have the basics right, the rest is just methodology, where the computer can be very helpful, but don’t let it “think” for you!
If you have no engineering background, why would you need to have some basic knowledge of all this, you may ask? Well, we live in a technological society and so we are confronted with technological matters and products, that we need to understand the basics of to make proper choices. Ever bought expensive “energy-saving” lamps, while in the same time needing to heat your home? Do you think hydrogen and/or fuel cells are energy sources? Do you think energy can be produced and consumed? Would you invest money in solar panels, or other renewable energy technology for your home? The more these kinds of things apply on you, the more you need to read this article.
The Laws of Newton
The metric, or SI system of units is based on the laws of Newton and so is most of modern mechanics and dynamics. They are essential for basic understanding:
* 1. A mass object persists in its momentary motion to speed and direction, unless it is forced to change it by external forces working on it.
* 2. The acceleration of an object is proportional with the force F working on it and inverse proportional with its mass m. Hence, the acting force is given by: F = m.a
* 3. A force acting on an object, will yield a counter force of the same strength in the opposite direction: action = reaction.
Although these laws sound simple, they are often wrongly applied, or overlooked. Especially the third law appears to be the most fundamental one, still not fully understood by Science and subject for discussions on the highest levels (how can you move a table for example, as it pushes back with the same force?).
Power and Energy.
Power and energy are very often mixed up. For example a lightning, causing a tree to split into half, is very powerful, but it has very little energy, because it lasted only a fraction of a second. Energy is the range of power and time. Power is expressed in Watt and energy in Joule - 1 Watt thus is 1 Joule per second, inversely 1 J = 1 Ws (Watt second). If you during one hour would apply a power of 1000 Watt (1 kW = 1 kJ/s), which approximately is what a flat iron takes, the energy involved is 1 kWh and this is thus equal to 3600 kJ. If you instead would develop that energy in one second, the power becomes 3600 kW, or 3.6 MW - a small power plant! If thus a lightning would have a power of say 10 GW and lasted 1 millisecond (it looks much longer, because of the glowing air around it), it contained an amount of energy of just 10 MJ = 10,000 kJ, not more than 2.8 kWh, or to power a flat iron for around three hours! If you in brochures would read dimensions like kilowatt per hour, or horsepower per hour, you can know that the author has no idea what he/she is talking about.
Energy is also the range of force and traveled way. If you lift up a mass of 1 kg to a height of 1 meter, the force needed for that is the range of mass and gravity acceleration, as per Newton’s second law. On Earth, gravity acceleration is 9.8 meter per second square, which we can round to 10. The lifting force then becomes 10 kilogram meter per second square, which is called the Newton (N) and the work done is then 10 Nm (Newton meter), which is 10 Joule: 1 J = 1 Nm.
The same confusing exists around temperature and energy. What would you rather have in your hand, a 1 inch red glowing sewing needle, or a 4 inch red glowing bolt? Though both have the same temperature, the needle will just cause you a blister, whereas with the bolt, you won’t have a hand any more. The bolt contains much more energy (more mass) than the needle and that makes the difference, not the temperature.
If you would be interested in a solar panel to heat water in your home, the temperature it can yield is therefore not that important. You pay for energy instead and that is what you want to save on. Ideally, a solar water heater should work on a low temperature, so it doesn’t loose too much heat through its insulation and produce a larger water flow instead. You then save more energy = money, because of the higher efficiency on which your solar panel works. To reach your desired water temperature in the kitchen and bathroom, you can heat additionally with say an electrical heater. Combination with a heat pump, also taking up heat from your warm waste water, would give the absolute best results (but high installation costs). Read more about that at the end of this article.
However, manufacturers of solar panels optimize on temperature, which is a good selling argument for the energy-unaware public. At higher temperatures, the size and thus the costs of the whole installation, including storage tank, become lower, which also sells better. They don’t talk very much, or at all about efficiency, being the relationship between how much solar energy hits the solar panel and how much of that you can use in the end. They talk about capacity instead - solar energy is “free”!
Next to consider is Pressure. Usually it is that of a fluid, like a gas. It is expressed in Pascal (Pa) which is force (N) per unit of area and thus 1 Pa = 1 N/sqm (Newton per square meter). Atmospheric pressure at sea level is roughly 100 kPa, thus 100,000 N/sqm. In technical descriptions it is also often called the bar - 1 bar is thus atmospheric pressure. Pressure can also be seen as stress in materials, tension. In the SI system of units, pressure and tension are thus both expressed in Pascal.
Then there is contact-pressure. This is what makes a knife work. The sharper a knife, the smaller its edge area (A) is and for a given force (F), the contact-pressure (F/A) becomes larger, also expressed in Pascal. With this, all units in the SI-system are given. It has only three basic units, the kg for mass, the meter for length/distance and the second for time. No conversions are needed
Circular Motions.
From Newton’s third law follows the perception that on an object in mechanical rotation, two forces are working, a centripetal one, pulling the objects towards the center of rotation, and a centrifugal one, tending to push it out radially away from that center. If the mechanical contact with the center of rotation suddenly is broken, in that very moment no forces are working on the object any longer and thus it will move as per Newton’s first law, meaning it keeps its speed in the direction it had in the moment just before losing contact. That speed was directed tangentially and thus the object will “fly out” in the tangential direction, not radially. In fact, centrifugal forces do not exist, because then there would be no resulting force to keep an object in its circular path - only the centripetal force exists. This is a hot discussion point in Science - Newton’s third law.
Hence, when you are in a car that makes a sharp curve, your body does not push against the inside of the car (centrifugal), but the inside of the car pushes your body into the curve (centripetal). As per Newton’s first law, your body wants to keep its direction of motion, straight ahead, just before entering the curve - it’s called inertia. There is only one force, the centripetal one (free motions in gravitational fields, such as orbits of planets and satellites, are described in General Relativity, which we won’t discuss here).
From this follows the notion of “inertial” systems, which are frames of reference in which Newton’s laws are valid. An accelerated system is thus not an inertial system, because motions described in it, would not follow Newtonian laws. This causes a severe point of confusion, as follows:
If you are an inventor of “fantastic” mechanical machines, your really should understand the implements of impulse. Impulse (p) is the amount of motion, being the range of speed (v) and mass (m), which is equal to the range of working force (F) and the working time (t): F.t = m.v = p. An impulse has a direction, which (kinetic) energy has not and therefore impulses can have a positive or a negative sign between opposite directions of motion. Because impulse is a function of force (the time-derivative of it), Newton’s third law requires that the sum of all impulses of moving components within a system (machine) must be zero. However, many inventors, not being aware of this, “create” a resulting impulse, that accelerates the system.
What they do is mixing up reference systems and impulse with energy. If you consider a mechanical system (machine), that has a certain total mass, but also internally moving parts, the resulting impulse of those parts, the sum of all impulses, will be zero relative the system’s center of gravity, but not necessarily relative a resting frame of reference (an observer) in which the whole system (machine) may be moving (at constant speed). The sum of kinetic energy of all the internally moving parts, is of course a positive value (negative energy is less than nothing). This value is the system’s internal (kinetic) energy. Since this internal energy is needed to keep the internal parts moving, there cannot be any energy left to accelerate the system (machine) as a whole. On the contrary, energy must be applied all the time to overcome the friction that the internally moving parts are subjected to, otherwise they would come to a halt. This applied energy converts to heat.
Sadly, there are several patents on according designs, claiming to be “inertial drives” for space-ships or whatever. Their inventors, some of which may have ruined their private economies on this, were not confident with the basics of dynamics, as outlined above. See some of those unfortunate examples here: http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/IPEmain.htm
Mechanical Engineering Concepts
Now, imagine you had a ball that is perfectly spherical and a table that is perfectly smooth, so when the ball is placed on the table, the contact area becomes a dimensionless point - zero whatever. Then the contact-pressure F/0 becomes infinite, regardless how light the ball is - something must break. No material could withstand an infinite contact-pressure and from this follows that not even with the most fantastic materials, yet to be developed, a frictionless machine could ever be built .
Some inventors have a problem with that, like a patent I once saw, where a 15 cm (6 inch) diameter cylinder was rotating at 1500 rpm in a somewhat larger cylinder, supported by a number of smaller rollers in the size of just a few millimeters - it looked like a ball-bearing in cross section. These rollers would rotate at roughly 50,000 rpm. You look in any bearing table what the admissible speeds are and you would see that this design exceeds the limits by far; self-destruct through friction!
Another problem that many inventors have is judging leakage potential. Leakage is a function of pressure ratio, not of pressure difference and it varies to the third power with the clearance gap between the boundaries. It means that the same sealing device, that would leak in an however deep submerged submarine, would leak more in a space craft, because there the pressure ratio to vacuum is infinite - many don’t seem to know that. In addition, even less known, is that the best sealing is obtained with a single, unbroken sealing line, ideally a circle.
Therefore, the reciprocating circular piston machine will always prevail over any rotational displacement concept, that contains several broken (discontinuous) sealing lines. These rotational concepts can be used and are used in low-duty applications, where they have their advantages, such as in air-driven hand tools, industrial compressors, etc, but not in heavy-duty combustion engines. This is why the Wankel never became commercial, except a few years in cars from German NSU, that went bankrupt on it in the 1970-ies.
One can see the most ‘horrible’ designs in various patents, the worst I saw being an engine, consisting of a torus shaped tube, with a slot over its inner length to let through a piston rod, attached to a circular piston moving in that torus, while flat plates were sliding radially in and out the torus to form alternate compression and expansion chambers - at best a good cream-wiper (but it got a gold medal in an inventors contest - its glorious funeral)!
Many inventors have tried to find a linear transmission, that can replace the pendulous crankshaft. It has various disadvantages, such as causing vibrations of higher order, but most of all causing side-forces on the pistons, resulting in excessive wear and leakage there. I once read a statement from a development manager at Volkswagen in Germany, that the crank mechanism alone stands for 20% of the fuel consumption. All alternative designs I have seen, indeed convert the linear piston motion into a rotating one on the shaft and without causing side forces on the piston, but instead they generate the same or higher side forces on sliding parts elsewhere in the design, causing excessive friction and wear there - definitely no fuel savings. I have found a design that does not contain any sliding parts, but consists of rotating components only (I got the idea, when I was with my kids in a merry-go-round). Had I only come up with this a good 100 years ago, I could have made it, but now the pendulous crankshaft is so well established in automated production lines, that it can’t be changed any more. I almost hade it made with Compair-Reavel in the UK, around 20 years ago, but also they found it in the end too costly too change their production line - my bad luck!
Thermodynamics
Another basic thing, often misunderstood, is that energy can’t be “used up”. Surely, the gasoline you put in your car is used up, but the energy it developed is still there, to stay around for all eternity. All the chemical energy that was stored in the original fuel, is converted to heat. Firstly at high temperatures in the car’s engine, but then decaying to heat at ambient temperature. The rest is also converted to heat by friction, the tires on the road, the transmission, air resistance, etc. All energy that we “use” with our technology, finally decays to heat at ambient temperature, even the light from your lamps at home does that.
So is there the term “waste heat”, as opposed to “useful heat”.What is useful? Take “energy-saving” lamps for example. If you live in a cold climate, where you have to heat your home, a normal cheap hot glowing light bulb actually delivers 100% useful energy, 5% of which is light, the rest is heat, that helps heating your home, but this is not what you are told. Only the 5% light is brought forward as “useful” and you are told that you are “wasting” 95% with a normal glow bulb. Only in warm climates, especially third-world countries with very expensive electricity, or in cooled rooms, the use of energy-saving lamps makes sense!
The misconception by the public is that useful energy is “consumed” and waste energy is not. The real situation is that the useful energy is just used, but not “consumed” and is wasted after usage just the same. That’s why your energy bill comes back every month - nothing of what you used, is left. Therefore you read everywhere about “energy production” and “energy consumption”, not in the least used by decision makers in energy politics! It indicates that there is no basic understanding in public society, what energy is about and so unfeasible projects are initiated, wasting time and (your tax) money.
The First Law of Thermodynamics says that energy cannot be created (produced), nor destroyed (consumed). We can only convert energy from one form to an other and the Second Law of Thermodynamics says that it all finally must decay to heat at ambient temperature and so it does. Even though many know this, that is end of story for them, as far as the First Law is concerned. However, the scientific definition of the First Law says that if you add energy to a system to bring it in an other condition, you must remove the same amount of energy to bring it back in the original condition. Naturally, because if we could remove more, energy would be created from nothing and if less, energy would disappear into nothing. This formulation has great consequences, as follows:
Let’s consider an ideal hydrogen (water) engine, by which we pour water in it on one side and the same water AND useful mechanical energy comes out on the other side. Because the engine returns the same water as was applied (firstly as steam, but than condensing to water at ambient temperature), there cannot be a net output from the engine - it would have been created from nothing. If there is an output anyway, this means that the according energy had to be applied as well, not only the water. Indeed, we must apply energy to split the water in hydrogen and oxygen. If that could be done at an efficiency of 100% (electrolysis has only 60%), then that energy could appear as mechanical work on the shaft. This then means that the hydrogen only was an energy converter, definitely not an energy source!
Hydrogen does not occur in free form on Earth, like fossil fuels do and therefore hydrogen can never be an energy source. Give me a dollar for every article that says different and I will be well off!If there would be a method to obtain free hydrogen at considerably less energy input than what combustion with oxygen gives in output, yes, then it would become an energy source, but such a method has not yet been found.
Instead of splitting water, hydrogen can be obtained from natural gases, such as methane. It shows however that the overall efficiency of such a hydrogen loop in a combustion engine would have a somewhat lower overall efficiency than using the natural gas (or bio-gas) directly in a combustion engine. Moreover, hydrogen is a very tricky gas to store and to handle. Not only is it very explosive, but it tends to exude through most metals as well. It is very voluminous, around ten times more than air and thus needs to be brought on high pressures to keep the volume down and that takes a lot of compression energy. Liquefying it would even take more energy, plus a temperature problem for storage as well. There are materials that can absorb hydrogen gas at a lower temperature and give it off again at a higher temperature, surely the better way, but also not very cheap and practical in a distribution system. All together, there is no economy in hydrogen engines, but it may have an environmental advantage - the only viable argument for using it, provided the consumer wants to pay the higher costs, do you?
The same can be said from fuel cells, working on hydrogen - they produce water (steam) and need a steady supply offresh hydrogen and oxygen to work continuously- whereto get how? Yes, the energy that fuel cells are supposed to “produce”, originally came from fossil fuels to manufacture the input hydrogen. Can we call that “non-pollutant” energy? A fuel cell is NOT an energy source, just an energy converter.
The importance of using spontaneity in physical processes is largely unknown, because it has to do with entropy, something not explained very well in schools. So I had to learn in practice, by trial and error, that if you want to separate fluids from each other, you must try to find a design by which this happens as spontaneously as possible, for example with “smart” piping, rather than using filters. The more you try to force it about with various design details, the more you will lose in efficiency - you “produce” entropy as it wrongly is called. The more you force about a process (introduce “irreversibilities”, as it is called correctly), the greater the change of entropy is, the lower the efficiency becomes. Entropy is an essential part of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, not to say the whole of it, but yet there is no general agreement among scientists, what entropy actually is - very confusing.
The Second Law is actually not a “real” law, because it is based on observations only, not on any physical principle. This means that if the observations would change, the Second Law would have to change too, but this hasn’t happened yet, which makes it a law. In everyday life we experience that most things don’t happen spontaneously, only accidents, or coincidences in general, do (”Murphy’s Law”). If we want things to happen, we usually have to do work for it. Hence we could formulate the Second Law as: “for free only the Sun goes up”. On the internet, this formulation of the Second Law is widely violated by millions of web sites, trying to let you believe that for a small investment, you can become rich very soon. But that is not engineering (rather “religion”), so I leave you with that.
In engineering, especially when it comes to renewable energy sources, the Second Law is also widely violated, or rather ignored. Oh yes, solar energy is free, but you can’t use it for free, why not? Because it is widely spread in Nature and thus the effort to collect it into one point of usage and to present it in a usable form, is very large and you have to pay for that effort. Using fossil fuels is cheaper and easier and that’s what we do instead. The same would be valid for nuclear power, but there the “environmentalists” have been successful to obstruct it - with thanks from the Arab oil sheiks.
Renewable energy is something the Second Law is very much against, because it wants to spread it out in the environment, not to collect it for our use. Therefore these renewable energy sources are high-entropy ones, meaning you must do a lot of work to make use of them (low efficiency). There is one exception though and that is hydro-electric power. The forces of nature actually do all the work for us, by collecting rain water in high situated reservoirs, ready for us to use; they are low-entropy sources. But also here the “environmentalists” choose to favor the oil sheikhs instead.
Next would be heat pumps, which are inverted refrigerators. A heat pump absorbs heat from the environment, usually from the ambient air, by generating a cold surface there. This surface is small, but it actually collects heat from large, remote areas, brought by the wind. Also here, the forces of nature do the collecting work for us, a second exception on the rule .
The heat pump, as the name says, pumps up the ambient heat to a higher temperature that we can use, for example to heat water. Also its drive power is given off as heat at usage temperature, is thus no loss (where it is in a refrigerator) and so a heat pump can give off between 3 and 4 times more energy than what it takes to run it. If all the billions of dollars that to date and ongoing are wasted on wind propellers and solar collectors of various kinds, would have been used to provide all households with heat pumps, many power plants could have been shut down by now and no more oil would be burned in homes for heating. This however is a truth with modification. A huge polluting industry, likely using fossil fuels, would be behind all those heat pumps, but that would be the same also for wind propellers, solar panels and the production of hydrogen and fuel cells, all having to be financed by the consumers and making profit as well - the Second Law all right:”For free, only the Sun goes up”
The Laws of Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is the area of physics which deals with heat and temperature. There are four laws of thermodynamics, the zeroth through the third.
The Zeroth Law states that if two thermodynamical systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other. In other words, thermal equilibrium is a transitive property. This is intuitively obvious in terms of temperature, i.e. if A and B each have the same temperature as C, then A and B have the same temperature.
The First Law states that the total change in energy of a thermodynamical system is equal to the sum of the amount of heat transferred to the system and the amount of work performed on the system. This is a statement of conservation of energy.
The Second Law states that the entropy of a closed thermodynamical system tends to increase with time and can never decrease. This is the most controversial law since it’s the only physical law which does not treat time symmetrically, i.e. does not remain unchanged when time is reversed.
The Third Law states that there is a minimum temperature, called absolute zero, which a thermodynamical system can approach but can never attain.
Every now and then, some crackpots claim to have invented a perpetual motion machine. This would be a machine that can run forever without being supplied energy. There are two kinds of perpetual motion machines. Perpetual motion machines of the first kind violate the First Law of Thermodynamics and perpetual motion machines of the second kind violate the Second Law. No perpetual motion machine has ever been demonstrated to work.