For hurricane season, 9th graders soak up the Louisiana sun & build generators
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — The class is called Conceptual Physics.
The teacher is Jimmy Lutrell and what he's teaching is physics minus most of the math.
But, plus, according to WGNO Good Morning New Orleans features reporter Bill Wood, everything else under the sun.
'With an increase in climate change, in the south especially, these students are learning about solar energy and how it can be best used in the community,' said Lutrell.
They're studying the sun and soaking up the power of what Louisiana receives on many days.
That power is what powers the solar generators the ninth graders are building at Sci High, New Orleans Charter Science and Math High School.
'We have to, as teenagers, look at solar energy. We need to look at renewable energy sources,' said 15-year-old Abijah-Wood Dawson.
Dividing up into teams, the kids at Sci High started small with small generators.
Now, they're building bigger and bigger ones.
Big enough to power community centers, places people go when the lights go out.
For example, during a hurricane.
'I feel like it's a big responsibility because you have to pick the right place for the solar generator to go, like a sanctuary after the storm like we always have,' said student Thomas Valentine.
When it comes to do it yourself, they are doing it themselves. Putting the grid in power grid.For hurricane season, 9th graders soak up the Louisiana sun & build generators
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Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
No way to restart Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant at present, IAEA chief says
By Max Hunder KYIV (Reuters) -The idled Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine is not in a condition to be restarted at present, due to a lack of water for cooling and the absence of a stable power supply, the head of the UN's nuclear safety watchdog said on Tuesday. Water would have to be pumped from the Dnipro River for the plant, which has not generated power for nearly three years, to restart, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told Reuters. The facility, located in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region and Europe's largest nuclear plant, was occupied by Russia in March 2022, shortly after it launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour. Before the war, the plant generated a fifth of Ukraine's electricity. Speaking in an interview in Kyiv, Grossi said the Russians had "never hidden the fact" that they want to restart the plant, but added they would not be able to do so soon. The plant is less than 10 km (6 miles) from Ukrainian positions on the other side of the Dnipro River. It has six reactors, the last of which stopped generating electricity in September 2022. The water level of its cooling pond, which sits on the southern bank of the Dnipro, dropped significantly in the summer of 2023 after the Kakhovka dam was destroyed downstream. Nearby areas regularly come under artillery and drone bombardment, which has on occasion damaged the two remaining power lines supplying the electricity needed for the plant to cool itself, even in its dormant state. Both sides accuse each other of being responsible for the attacks. Greenpeace issued a report last week saying Russia was building a 90-km high-voltage power line to connect the power plant to its grid. Grossi said the IAEA did not agree with that report's conclusions. "There are some areas where there has been some work, but we do not have any concrete evidence that this is part of a concerted, orchestrated plan to connect the power plant in one sense or the other." "We are not in a situation of imminent restart of the plant. Far from that, it would take quite some time before that can be done," Grossi said. The plant's machinery would have to be thoroughly inspected before any restart, he added. "You can imagine in such a huge piece of machinery, you have pumps, you have bolts, you have pipes, you have a number of things that may be suffering corrosion." Grossi said that if enough water could be pumped in from the Dnipro River, all six of the plant's reactors could eventually be restarted, although "a number of things" would need to be done beforehand. RUSSIAN TECHNICIANS Ukraine has said that any attempt by Russian technicians to restart the plant would be dangerous because they are not certified to operate it. Grossi said Russian nuclear staff were capable of conducting a restart, and that the issue of certification was a political rather than technical one. "They are professionals -- they know what they are doing," he said. Ukraine has also protested at the IAEA's monitoring mission to the plant accessing it via Russian-occupied territory. Grossi said this was to protect the safety of his staff, and that at present he does not have the necessary guarantees from the Russian side to safely transit IAEA staff through the frontlines to Ukraine-controlled territory, as had been done several times in the past.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
After record-breaking Everest climbers revealed they use hypoxic tents to get altitude ready without acclimatizing on the mountain, we look at how the technology works
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Around 800 people attempt to climb Mount Everest each year, braving extreme conditions for the chance to say they've stood on top of the world. Along with rigorous physical and mental training, hopefuls need to prepare for the harrowing effects of altitude atop Earth's tallest mountain, where the amount of oxygen taken in with each breath is drastically lower than at sea level. Traditionally, climbers have acclimatized by spending significant time in the mountains, heading up and down to prepare their bodies for the dizzying heights, and reducing the impact of altitude sickness. This tried and tested method has proven effective for the past 70 years of Everest expeditions, but comes with one major drawback: time. Without four to six weeks to dedicate to acclimatization, many Everest hopefuls are now turning to modern technology to help them prepare, sleeping and exercising in specialist acclimatizing 'hypoxic' tents, which do away with the need to spend months in the mountains. 'You sleep like garbage if you're not acclimatized, you lose your appetite, so you wither away Brian Oestrike, CEO of Hypoxico Altitude Training Systems As alien as it may sound, hypoxic tents, otherwise known as altitude tents, have become increasingly common in recent years, used by alpinists and climbers to prepare for harsh conditions. This year, a group of British veterans in their forties and fifties used hypoxic tents in combination with controversial Xenon gas to speed-climb the mountain, summiting a record four days after arriving in Nepal and effectively going from sea level in London, to the highest peak on the planet in 5 days. The very next day, US-Ukrainian climber Andrew Ushakov claimed to have broken their record, after spending over 400 hours acclimatizing in a hypoxic tent. Ushakov says he went from New York to the Everest summit in just 3 days, 23 hours, and 27 minutes. So what are hypoxic tents, and how can they help climbers achieve these once-unthinkable feats? Read on for everything you need to know. Put simply, hypoxic tents mimic the low oxygen levels of high-altitude environments. The air at sea level contains 20.9% accessible oxygen, a number that drops dramatically the higher you get. At Everest base camp, it falls to around 10.4%. By the summit, it's down to just a third of the accessible oxygen quotient at regular sea-level. In healthy individuals, blood oxygen saturation levels sit around 98% to 100% at sea level. At altitude, that number drops to roughly 87% to 92% This has a weakening effect and can cause altitude sickness. Hypoxic tents simulate this mix with a generator or pump, which removes oxygen and replaces it with nitrogen, reducing the amount of oxygen in the air to high-altitude levels. Sleeping in the simulated altitude conditions of a hypoxic tent triggers your body to saturate your blood oxygen levels, releasing red blood cells and ready your system for conditions at 20,000ft (6,096m). 'As you expose yourself to altitude, your kidneys release EPO [erythropoietin], which starts this physiological change that leads to an increase in red blood cells, but more so into a better ability to transport and utilize oxygen,' Brian Oestrike, CEO of Hypoxico Altitude Training Systems tells us. Climbers like Ushakov use hypoxic tents to ready themselves for the unforgiving mountain conditions atop the globe's tallest peaks. Saturating your blood oxygen levels can be beneficial in several ways, reducing the risk of altitude sickness and preparing your body for the tiring effects of altitude. 'You improve your comfort and safety margin as you're ascending up through the mountains,' Oestrike explains. 'You sleep like garbage if you're not acclimatized, you lose your appetite, so you wither away as those things happen. By acclimatizing beforehand and using this equipment, you can offset your expedition, it improves your safety and your comfort margin.' By mimicking arduous alpine conditions, hypoxic tents can reduce the time it takes to acclimatize. 'Most people, if they're going to the Himalayas, historically have a six to eight-week expedition itinerary,' continues Oestrike. 'It takes that long for your body to slowly adapt and build the red blood cells that carry oxygen and allow you to climb safely." Ultra-running superstar Kilian Jornet slept inside a hypoxic tent for eight weeks before his maiden ascent of Mount Everest, mimicking altitudes of 13,000ft (3,962m) to 16,000ft (4,877m) without leaving sea level. He then became the fastest man to climb Everest alone and without oxygen, summiting the 29,000ft (8,850m) behemoth in just 26 hours. Although they're becoming increasingly popular with climbers and other extreme athletes, hypoxic tents do have their limitations and experts say they cannot be trusted as the sole method for acclimatization. "It's not the full acclimatization. I would say it's the first step," says Grégoire Millet, Professor of Exercise Physiology at the Institute of Sport Sciences in Lausanne, France. He explains that, even after months of sleeping in a hypoxic tent, "you will use some acclimatization, but not the full spectrum. You can be fully acclimatized in the tent, and not acclimatized to the real mountain". In other words, hypoxic tents cannot fully prepare the body for the rigours and difficulties of climbing at very high altitudes. In the Himalayas, elite climbers (and paying clients) on expeditions aiming for the highest peaks enter what is known as the Death Zone, an extremely dangerous zone above 26,247ft (8,000m), where besides having to deal with temperatures potentially tumbling to -31°F (-35°C) and highly technical terrain, the oxygen in the air is so low it's impossible for humans to survive for long. "You have to go to the real mountain for at least a few days before you travel," advises Millet, an expert in acclimatization technology. He advises climbers to use the tents in combination with traditional acclimatization methods, like sleeping atop smaller mountains, before tackling any major peaks. "It's better to use the tents, and then before you go to the Himalayas, it's recommended that you go for at least a few days to the Alps," he says. He says your body acclimatizes differently at real altitude and, despite their many benefits, hypoxic tents cannot fully replicate the tough conditions and and lack of oxygen in the mountains. It's not just mountaineers who put hypoxic tents to good use. All manner of sports people, from swimmers to footballers, use simulated altitude environments to expand their physical capabilities and access the benefits of altitude training. 'If you can transport and utilize oxygen better, that leads to better performance benefits, and literally just more ability to consume oxygen,' says Oestrike. "Most of the elite athletes, they have a hypoxic chamber at home," adds Millet. "It's not a tent, but it's a real chamber. It's the same idea, you decrease the oxygen concentration in the room." By training and sleeping at altitude, athletes can increase what's known as their hemoglobin mass, which boosts the amount of oxygen they can utilize during exercise. As Millet explains, this requires considerably more time than mountain acclimatization: "Every 100 hours sleeping in the tent, you will increase your hemoglobin by one percent." Every member of the US Olympic rowing quad who won gold at the Paris 2024 games reportedly slept in hypoxic tents for six weeks before racing. Although they're designed for elite athletes, hypoxic tents can be useful to outdoor enthusiasts of all abilities, helping to build fitness and intensify workouts. When it comes to climbing, Oestrike suggests that hypoxic tents are even more useful to amateurs than professionals. 'Most people who are committed to an 8,000m (26,247ft) peak know what they're getting into, they know what the training looks like, and they know what it takes to prepare. 'High-level athletes are already training super intensively. So the person that's more modest and maybe needs to lose a little weight, they're going to see a greater upside.' Of course, hypoxic tents are not required for easy-to-medium-difficulty ascents. Nor are they absolutely essential to climb giants like Mount Everest. Traditional, slower, acclimatization has proven itself as an effective, stress-tested method of alpine preparation. Rather, hypoxic tents are an additional and convenient method of acclimatizing, to be used along with high-altitude climbing and intensive training. You can read our exclusive interview with Andrew Ushakov here. For more on climbing preparation, check out our expert guide. The best ice axes: for tackling frozen terrain The best climbing shoes: get a grip both indoors and out
Forbes
5 days ago
- Forbes
New U.S. Spacecraft Aims To Find Future Russian Nuclear-Armed Orbiters
Russian nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles roll across Red Square in Moscow, ... More American intelligence agencies have revealed Moscow is now developing a nuclear-armed spacecraft to loft into orbit AFP PHOTO / KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV (Photo credit should read KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/GettyImages) After American intelligence discovered Russia is secretly developing nuclear-armed fighter spacecraft to challenge the Western space powers, a U.S. space defense outfit is testing futuristic inspector craft that could find a warhead hidden inside a capsule circling the planet. The Kremlin's clandestine project to station hyper-powerful weapons in orbit could escalate its nuclear brinkmanship, conducted via a barrage of threats to deploy its atomic arsenal - the world's largest - against any Western ally directly helping Ukraine repel its Russian invaders. Moscow has also warned it could begin shooting down American satellites aiding Ukraine - including SpaceX's broadband-beaming sats - extending its military belligerence into the celestial sphere. Russian envoys to the UN have repeatedly threatened to begin shooting down American satellites ... More aiding Ukraine - including the SpaceX Starlinks that are beaming broadband internet connections to besieged Ukrainian students and soldiers (Photo by: Alan Dyer/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) A nuclear blast in low Earth orbit could — in a flash— destroy thousands of satellites and might, depending on its proximity to the International Space Station, endanger the lives of all the ISS astronauts. While the White House has leaked some details on Moscow's covert scheme to loft uranium warheads into orbit, the timing of the first launch is still shrouded in secrecy. Now, ThinkOrbital - co-founded by onetime leaders at the U.S. Space Force and the independent rocket titan SpaceX - is refining its leading-edge X-ray inspector spacecraft to spy inside satellites launched by potentially hostile powers for weapons of mass destruction. ThinkOrbital's inspectors, when launched into low Earth orbit, would be capable of detecting nuclear warheads disguised as civilian satellites, says Lee Rosen, a former Commander of the 4th Space Launch Squadron who now heads the space defense start-up. Colonel Rosen told me in an interview that ThinkOrbital's next-generation inspectors include two partner craft: one emits high-energy X-rays at a satellite speeding through space, while the other records the images the X-rays produce as they pass through the target. 'The detector spacecraft would be positioned on one side of the target, and the X-ray emitter on the other side,' he says. This orbital X-ray system could detect nuclear bombs no matter how intricately they are camouflaged, and even as they speed through space at 28,000 kilometers per hour, Rosen says. The detonation of a powerful nuclear warhead near the International Space Station would kill its ... More astronauts within hours, say American experts on nuclear weaponry. (Photo by Alexander Gerst / ESA via Getty Images) Rosen, who left his last post as a VP of Mission and Launch Operations at SpaceX to form ThinkOrbital, says the Colorado-based outfit is now testing the new detection system, and aims to launch twin demo missions into orbit next year. Development of the world's first X-ray set-up for space-based scouting missions is being partly funded by the U.S. Space Force, Colonel Rosen says, via a series of SpaceWERX contracts as part of the rapidly expanding drive to strengthen American space defenses. ThinkOrbital's twin inspectors, once in orbit, can bolster American 'space domain awareness' and preparations for prospective space clashes of the future, he says. A flotilla of ThinkOrbital's X-ray Imagers peer into satellites speeding through low Earth orbit to ... More check for concealed nuclear warheads and other weaponry in this rendering of future missions The ability to know what each spacecraft launched by a potentially hostile power is doing in orbit, and its payload, is essential for the U.S. Space Force, Rosen adds. Kremlin threats to deploy its nuclear and anti-satellite missiles against Western targets underscore the importance of gathering continuous real-time intelligence on Russian rocket forces. Moscow's stationing fission or fusion bombs in orbit would violate the Outer Space Treaty - the fundamental international pact that governs space missions across the solar system. 'States Parties to the Treaty,' the UN space compact declares, 'undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner. ' All the major space powers, including then-Soviet Russia, signed the treaty a generation ago, and violating its ban on atomic warheads in space could threaten the future of spaceflight around the world. The White House moved to confirm Moscow's campaign to position strategic warheads hundreds of kilometers above the Earth when it introduced a UN Security Council resolution last year underscoring this longstanding proscription on nuclear arms in space. The Russian ambassador to the UN quickly vetoed the measure, prompting then-National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to declare: 'We have heard President Putin say publicly that Russia has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space. If that were the case, Russia would not have vetoed this resolution.' The ever-expanding threat of advanced missiles and nuclear super-bombs being produced by potential adversaries impelled the White House to propose constructing a Golden Dome missile defense shield around the globe that could hypothetically protect against ICBMs launched from any point on the planet. As the Department of Defense begins building out this supermassive dome, Colonel Rosen says, ThinkOrbital's inspectors could play a pivotal role in safeguarding the myriad Allied sensors and armed interceptors - aimed at detecting and blasting an enemy's ballistic missiles during the first three minutes of their post-launch boost phase - from any nuclear time bombs skulking through the heavens. The White House has leaked sparse details of Russia's top-secret project to launch nuclear warheads ... More on spacecraft that would orbit the planet (Photo by Chris Kleponis - Pool/Getty Images) With the building of the orbital dome, Rosen says, 'that's going to be a big juicy target' for any power challenging U.S. pre-eminence in space. Spenser Warren, a prominent American expert on Moscow's new-millennium race to strengthen its nuclear arsenal, says he strongly backs Colonel Rosen's prediction that the Golden Dome could become a prime target in any future face-off with Russia. 'I do think that Russia may launch a strike against space-based Golden Dome assets, if realized, in the event of a conflict,' Warren, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, tells me in an interview. 'Could it be nuclear? It probably could,' predicts Warren, whose doctoral dissertation was titled, 'Russian Strategic Nuclear Modernization under Vladimir Putin.' 'Any significant conflict with any peer or near-peer adversary,' he adds, 'will undoubtedly have a space dimension.' Vladimir Putin has spent much of his reign modernizing Moscow's nuclear missiles while attempting to ... More push Russia's borders outward through military force and nuclear threats (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images) Colonel Rosen says that to help pre-empt any attacks against the American dome launched from an orbital platform, 'there are multiple uses for our inspector spacecraft.' 'As part of the Golden Dome, we could help protect the protectors.' Fleets of ThinkOrbital inspectors, Rosen says, could patrol the high-traffic rings surrounding the Earth, randomly scanning spacecraft launched by rival powers for concealed weaponry. ThinkOrbital's primary goal, he says, is 'giving our commanders the ability to understand the space battlefield.' 'This will contribute to the whole space war-fighting mission.' ThinkOrbital's mission of adapting X-ray technology to scout for nuclear arms surreptitiously circling the globe could help provide 'protection for all satellites in LEO [low Earth orbit], if that is indeed where the Russians put their satellite with a nuclear warhead, and again, if they end up deploying it,' says Victoria Samson, Chief Director, Space Security and Stability at the Secure World Foundation, one of Washington DC's leading space defense think tanks. 'A nuclear ASAT would be a crude but effective weapon against a very large constellation of satellites, whether it's thousands of [SpaceX] Starlinks or thousands of [DOD] space-based interceptors,' Samson, one of the top space security experts in the U.S., tells me in an interview. While ThinkOrbital's current focus is on lofting its prototype inspectors at the start of 2026, its longer-range goal is to launch a series of orbital modules and ultimately a colossal space station - four times the size of the ISS. Nearly two years ago, ThinkOrbital's founders signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA to collaborate on developing 'single-launch, large-scale orbital platforms that facilitate a wide array of applications in low Earth orbit, including in-space research, manufacturing, and astronaut missions.' ThinkOrbital was one of just seven American space-tech leaders, alongside Blue Origin, SpaceX and Sierra Space, hand-picked by NASA to design independent space stations slated to populate the closest orbital lanes when the ISS is decommissioned, or the spacecraft that will speed government and private astronauts to these new space outposts - as long as the current de facto space truce holds. ThinkOrbital's long-range goal is to launch a series of orbital modules and ultimately a colossal ... More space station - four times the size of the ISS.
