Fasten seatbelts for bumpier flights: climate study

Google – AFP, 8 April 2013 

A plane prepares to land at Frankfurt airport, western Germany, on

November 22, 2011 (DPA/AFP/File, Frank Rumpenhorst)

PARIS — Flights will become bumpier as global warming destabilises air currents at altitudes used by commercial airliners, climate scientists warned Monday.

Already, atmospheric turbulence injures hundreds of airline passengers each year, sometimes fatally, damaging aircraft and costing the industry an estimated $150 million (115 million euros), scientists said.

"Climate change is not just warming the Earth's surface, it is also changing the atmospheric winds ten kilometres (six miles) high, where planes fly," said study co-author Paul Williams of the University of Reading's National Centre for Atmospheric Science in southeastern England.

"That is making the atmosphere more vulnerable to the instability that creates clear-air turbulence," he told AFP by email.

"Our research suggests that we'll be seeing the 'fasten seatbelts' sign turned on more often in the decades ahead."

Turbulence is mainly caused by vertical airflow -- up-draughts and down-draughts near clouds and thunderstorms.

Clear-air turbulence, which is not visible to the naked eye and cannot be picked up by satellite or traditional radar, is linked to atmospheric jet streams, which are projected to strengthen with climate change.

The study authors used supercomputer simulations of the North Atlantic jet stream, a strong upper-atmospheric wind driven by temperature differences between colliding Arctic and tropical air.

The jet stream affects traffic in the aviation corridor between Europe and North America -- one of the world's busiest with about 300 eastbound and 300 westbound flights per day.

They found that a doubling of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere from pre-industrial levels, predicted within 40 years, would cause turbulence to be 10-40 percent more forceful at typical cruise altitudes.

"Turbulence strong enough to make walking difficult and to dislodge unsecured objects is likely to become twice as common in transatlantic airspace by the middle of this century," said Williams.

"As well as making flights bumpier and less comfortable, this could also increase the risk of injury to passengers and crew" -- especially in winter when Northern Hemisphere clear-air turbulence is thought to be most intense.

Williams said CO2 causes non-uniform warming, which increases the jet stream winds.

"A stronger jet stream means the atmosphere is less stable, which creates more turbulence," he explained.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, said planes already spent about one percent of their cruise time in strong clear-air turbulence.

Frequent flyers have reported bumpiness to be on the rise, but this is the first study to actually measure the projected impact of climate change, said the authors.

"Flight paths may need to become more convoluted to avoid patches of turbulence that are stronger and more frequent, in which journey times will lengthen and fuel consumption and emissions will increase," they wrote.

"Aviation is partly responsible for changing the climate in the first place," added Williams.

"It is ironic that the climate looks set to exact its revenge by creating a more turbulent atmosphere for flying."

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"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism, Higgs Boson), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version) 

"...The Weather... Again

My partner has been "against the grain" in the past years, giving you what I have channelled about the weather. Is it global warming? No. Is it going to get better? No. This is a two-generation cycle. There will continue to be earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and storms. This is a recalibration of life in the ocean, and humanity must go through this in any way they can. This is a cycle, a known and expected one, but since you haven't gone through it in modern times, it's not well understood yet. ..."

“2011 and Beyond” - What you are seeing, and why - Jan 16, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Text version)

“… So now we've refreshed that which we have said before, a review. You are in the middle of a cycle that will bring cooling to the planet. It is not a heat cycle, but rather a cooling cycle. But it always starts with a short heat cycle. It has been here before. It will come again. It is a long cycle - one generation plus five years. That's how long it's going to last. It starts with the melting of the ice caps, which is far more than any of you have seen in your lifetime or those of your ancestors. It is a cycle whose repetition is thousands of years long, but one that has not yet been recorded to the books of Human record. But it's definitely been recorded in the cores of the ice and in the rings of the trees.

Thousands of years old, it is, and it happens in a cyclical way. It's about water. It starts with that which is the melting of the ice caps to a particular degree, which has a profound effect on the planet in all ways. You can't have that happen without seeing life change as well as Gaia change and you've seeing it already. What happens when you take that which is heavy on the poles [ice] and you melt it? It then becomes cold water added to that which is a very, very gentle and finite balance of temperature in the seas of the planet (1). The first thing that happens is a redistribution of the weight of water on the thin crust of the earth from ice at the poles to new water in the seas. The results become earthquakes and volcanoes, and you're seeing them, aren't you? You are having earthquakes in places that are not supposed to have earthquakes. Volcanoes are coming to life in a way that you've not seen before on a regular basis. There will be more. Expect them.

Is it too much to ask of a Human Being that if you live by a volcano that you know might erupt, maybe you ought to move? Yet there will be those who say, "It hasn't erupted in my lifetime or my parents' lifetime or my grandparents' lifetime; therefore, it won't." You may have a surprise, for all things are changing. That is what is happening to Gaia. ….“

THE RELATIONSHIP TO GAIA - April 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

New Mini Ice Age

"The weather you have today, and all the alarming attributes of it, is a scenario of what was scheduled to happen on Earth anyway. I review again that the weather changes you are seeing prophesied by myself, 21 years ago, are not a surprise. The changes are not caused by the pollutants you put in the air. You call it global warming and that's a nice phrase, and perhaps that will get you to put less pollutants in the air – a very good thing. But what you are seeing in the weather shift today was not caused by Humans putting things into the air. It would have happened anyway in about 300 years."

"We've called this process the water cycle, since it's all about water, not about air. The water is the predominant attribute of Gaia and of the weather cycle you're seeing. More predominant is the temperature of it. The cycle is ice to water and water to ice, and has been repeated on this planet over and over and over. It is not new. It is not exceptional. It is not frightening. But it's a cycle that modern humanity has not seen before, and it's a long cycle that is beyond the life span of a Human Being. Therefore, it tends to be overlooked or not seen at all !"

"In the days of the Lemurians, the water level of the Pacific Ocean was almost 400 feet lower, and that's only 50,000 years ago. [Kryon invites science to check this out – the water level at that time.] That was a water cycle working, and the reason it was lower was due to so much of the water being stored as ice. Today you're going through another water cycle that will eventually lead to cooling. The last one was in the 1400s."

"Science sees that at about 1650. As mentioned, they are so slow there is no remembrance that a Human has of them except in past writings and in the rings of the trees. The time span of the changes is so great that environmental record keeping does not exist in the form that it does today. But you can still look at the rings of the trees and at the striations of the rocks and can generally figure out that a few hundred years ago, you had a mini-ice age. Now you're going to have another one." 

Clean, green machines, or smoke and mirrors?

Deutsche Welle, 28 March 2013

On the streets Manila, electric-powered trikes are increasingly being used as the government tries to improve air quality. Environmentalists claim the trend does nothing to address the real issue of climate change.

Alfredo Forelo used to drive passengers through the streets of Mandaluyong City on a conventional old Manila "trike."

It's a motorcycle with an attached sidecar that can weave around traffic and - if need be - go up onto sidewalks. He is amongst the hundreds of thousands of drivers in the Manila metropolitan area who depend on trikes to earn a living.

"I've driven a trike for eight years," says 38-year-old Forelo. "Driving helps me support my wife."

While these old motorbikes are a cheap source of income for poor drivers, like Forelo, Manila's environment is paying the price.

According to the Asia Development Bank, trikes emit an estimated 3.8 tons of carbon dioxide each year. Exhaust fumes from trikes are one reason that the government regularly warns citizens about the capital's air quality, which it links to severe respiratory diseases. Forelo says he knows first hand about that. "I get sick a lot, like from asthma or I often catch a cold or the flu", he tells DW.

The older trikes are linked with
respiratory diseases

Breath of fresh air

But Forelo hopes those days are over. Four months ago, he traded in his gas powered trike for one that runs on a lithium ion battery. His "E-trike" is the prototype of a vehicle that the Asia Development Bank plans to mass produce and eventually replace the conventional motorcycles with. And, in turn, improve the Philippines' environment.

"Electric vehicles will play a very significant role in addressing climate change", says the Asia Development Bank's Sohail Hasnie, who heads the E-trike project. "The Philippines government spends billions on importing oil and there are a lot of inefficient ways this is used by trike drivers."

Hasnie adds that the benefits of E-trikes will be felt across the board. The government will save money and pedestrians and drivers will be able to breathe in cleaner air. The Asia Development Bank plans to put 100-thousand E-trikes on Manila's streets over the next five years.

But some environmental activists in the Philippines are not impressed by the E-trikes. Beau Baconguis, Philippines Project Manager at Greenpeace, claims these vehicles are merely substituting tailpipes for smoke stacks.

"When you plug in these hundreds of thousands of E- trikes, you will be using up a lot of electricity that is very dependent right now on coal," says Baconguis. "While the environmental impact is not direct, in terms of emissions, the emissions are coming from coal power plants when you charge your trikes."

Other observers claim the E-trike's lithium ion batteries are not a realistic energy alternative. "The problem with lithium ion batteries, they cost more and virtually zero after sale service in the country," says Red Constantino, director of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities in Manila.

He says that at the moment, the lithium ion batteries can only be serviced overseas. "If one single cell breaks down, the whole battery goes kaput and there is no repair shop anywhere for such batteries."

Constantino adds that the $400-million loan the Asia Development Bank received from the Philippines government to fund the E-trike program, could have been put to better use. He says if officials really want to improve air quality, the government should improve Manila's infrastructure and make it a more pedestrian-friendly city.

"The best mode of transport is walking. If you have better sidewalks, people will walk more. Trikes encourage door-to-door transportation and they are traffic hazards," Constantino says.

A sunny solution

The Asia Development Bank's Sohail Hasnie counters the criticism of the environmentalists. He says even though E-trike drivers will depend on the power grid to recharge batteries, total carbon dioxide emissions will still be at least 40 percent lower with 100-thousand gas powered bikes off the streets.

Hasnie adds that his organization's project doesn't stop with just rolling out the E-trikes. The Asia Development Bank intends to build solar chargers and create an entirely local industry aimed at servicing the vehicles. And that will not only benefit the environment, but also the economy by creating jobs.

"Our project is bringing all these things in together," he says. As for driver Alfredo Forelo, he says he made the right decision to get rid of his old motorbike. He's saving money on gas and transporting more passengers with his E-trike.

"It's really easy to drive and more comfortable," Forelo says. And when asked if he'd ever go back to driving a gas-powered trike, he doesn't think twice about it. "No, not again."

Ryanair to expand by 30% with bumper Boeing order

BBC News, 19 March 2013

Aerospace and Defence

• Boeing 787: Facts and history
• A brief history of airliner problems
• What are the battery problems?
• The great London airport debate

Ryanair hopes to be 30% bigger by 2018

Ryanair is planning to increase its aircraft fleet by a third to 400 planes after placing an order with Boeing for 175 planes worth $15.6bn (£10.3bn).

The airline currently has 305 planes. The order will allow older ones to be retired.

The move is a boost for the US planemaker after rival Airbus received a record $24bn order from an Indonesian airline on Monday.

Ryanair hopes to increase its passenger numbers to 100 million a year.

Ryanair, which has has always favoured Boeing aircraft and remains one of the few all-Boeing carriers, said it had received a discount on the price, but did not reveal how deep a discount.

The order is for the current generation 737s, whose 737-800 model list price is $89.1m, but large orders typically involve a discount, which could cut the price paid to half that.

The deal softens the missed opportunity from Indonesia's Lion Air, as that company had previously given Boeing its own record order.

Problems

Boeing's reputation has taken a blow in recent months after its latest Dreamliner 787 planes were grounded after batteries on some planes emitted smoke.

Flights of these are expected to restart within weeks.

Boeing's head of commercial airplanes Ray Conner said at a joint news conference with Ryanair on Tuesday that the problems with the 787s had not affected orders.

He added that they were working hard to get the issue sorted out.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said he was happy to back Boeing: "Hopefully it will help refocus people's minds on the fact that Boeing continues to deliver great aircraft and is growing strongly, rather than a minor issue on the 787."

Donal O'Neill, an analyst with Goodbody Stockbrokers in Dublin, said the order was good for both sides: "This order puts Ryanair back on track for growth at a time when many European airlines are shrinking.

"For Boeing it keeps a major customer on board and helps position it to hook Ryanair for an order of the [next-generation] 737-Max in a few year's time."

Boeing 737s compete mainly with Airbus's A320s in the short-to-medium range, narrow body jet market.

Ryanair's expansion is expected to have taken place by 2018 and the company said if demand kept growing it could build further on the order with another.

Ryanair's shares were 4% higher in afternoon trading, while Boeing's were 0.5% higher.

Related Article:

Lion Air's Record Airbus Order Costs $24 Billion

Greener cars could slash US pollution by 2050: study

Google – AFP, Kerry Sheridan (AFP), 18 March 2013 

Traffic converges on highway I-495 South just west of Washington on Nov. 23, 

2011, in McLean, Virginia (Getty Images/AFP/File, Win McNamee)

WASHINGTON — Greener cars that use alternative fuels could help the United States slash its greenhouse gas emissions from everyday driving a full 80 percent by 2050, according to a scientific study out Monday.

That could lead to a more than 13 percent cut in overall US pollution into the atmosphere, with consumer-driven cars and small trucks currently responsible for 17 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, said the study.

However, sticker shock could turn off many consumers, with alternative fuel vehicles costing several thousand dollars more than today's prices.

Still, the long-term benefits would outweigh the early costs, said the report by the National Academy of Sciences, which called for subsidies and tax incentives to ease the burden on consumers who want to drive green.

"These are things that will not happen in the market naturally," committee chair Doug Chapin told reporters. "There has to be real teeth in these policies."

The Mercedes B-Class F-Cell is seen

 during the press day of the LA Auto

 Show on November 17, 2010 (AFP/File,

Gabriel Bouys)

The study envisions cars and small trucks of the future that drive a stunning 100 miles per gallon (42.5 kilometers per liter), way over the 25 miles per gallon that they did on average in 2005.

More efficient vehicle technologies -- like lighter, more aerodynamic designs -- could be combined with alternative power sources such as biofuel, electricity or hydrogen, reducing petroleum use in 2050 by 80 percent as well, it said.

"There is no silver bullet that is adequate by itself," said Chapin.

Fuels under consideration include corn-grain ethanol and biodiesel, which are already being produced in commercial quantities. Natural gas was ruled out because its greenhouse gas emissions were too high.

The study also pointed to "much greater potential" in fuel from wood waste, wheat straw and switchgrass, known as biofuel from lignocellulosic biomass.

"This 'drop-in' fuel is designed to be a direct replacement for gasoline and could lead to large reductions in both petroleum use and greenhouse gas emissions," it said.

The study examined hybrid electric, plug-in electric and battery electric vehicles already on the market including the Toyota Prius and Chevrolet Volt, as well as hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles like the Mercedes F-Cell, scheduled for market release in 2014.

High up-front vehicle prices would be expected to endure for at least a decade, even though it would cost less to fuel up and drive greener cars, it said.

The study said the benefit to society in terms of energy cost savings, better vehicles, reduced petroleum use and lower greenhouse gas emissions would be "many times larger than the projected costs."

The chassis of a Chevrolet Volt is

 seen on media preview day at the 

Los Angeles Auto Show on November 28,

2012 (AFP/File, Frederic J. Brown)

The goals set out by the study, which took two years to produce, will be "difficult but not impossible to meet," Chapin said, as long as they are guided by strong national policies.

He acknowledged that projecting until 2050 created significant uncertainty in the study, but urged many policies and approaches to be pursued at the same time.

"If the goals are not completely met, the effort itself and partial success is expected to yield valuable benefit," Chapin said.

According to committee member David Greene of the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy, incentives such as subsidies or mandates would be needed to "overcome the initial cost barriers for the advanced technologies."

"In the long run, we remove all of those special subsidies or mandates and let the market decide which vehicles it prefers," he said.

The study was sponsored by the US Department of Energy's Office of Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

President Barack Obama last week sought to preserve green energy research after an impasse with Congress sparked an 85 billion dollar austerity drive and widespread budgets cuts.

Obama, who has also urged Congress to do more to fight climate change, plans to introduce further efficiency standards for cars and make a fresh push for cleaner energy, but those policies face an uphill battle among Republican lawmakers who say the costs are too high.

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Energy Storage Super Capacitors Bottle Energy in New Breakthrough

US teen designs compact nuclear reactor

"It's about bringing something old, fission, into the 21st Century," Wilson said. "I think this has huge potential to change the world."

He has designed a small reactor capable of generating 50-100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power as many as 100,000 homes.

Lion Air's Record Airbus Order Costs $24 Billion

Jakarta Globe, Arientha Primanita, March 18, 2013

Lion Air founder and president director Rusdi Kirana, left, and French CEO of

European aerospace giant Airbus Fabrice Bregier, right, pose with France's

President Francois Hollande, after signing a contract during a ceremony.

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Paris. Lion Air President Rusdi Kirana confirmed on Monday that the airline was ordering 234 Airbus jets to be delivered from 2014 to 2026 worth $24 billion.

"We are going to buy different kinds, but mostly the Airbus A320neo, [we ordered] 174 units of that," he told reporters in Paris ahead of the expected signing of the record deal.

The more fuel-efficient and eco-friendly Airbus A320neo has a price tag of more than $100 million. The Airbus website says it has "a 15 percent reduction in fuel consumption, two tonnes of additional payload, up to 500 nautical miles of more range, lower operating costs, along with reductions in engine noise and emissions."

A Boeing 737-900ER aircraft owned by
 Indonesian carrier Lion Air flies over
 Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in
Tangerang,  Banten. (AFP Photo/Adek\
Berry) 

The first six planes will be delivered around the middle of 2014 and will be used for a new airline that the company will establish to service the Asia-Pacific market.

"With the new Airbus jets, we are going to have two airlines operating in Asia-Pacific countries. There are two ways of doing this — either we set up a completely new airline or we purchase an existing airline that needs funding," he said, adding that Lion Air had not yet decided on the countries it would have the new airline in.

The purchase, he added, would be funded almost entirely by export credit agencies from France, Germany and England.

Lion Air would be a new client for Airbus as it has previously been equipped almost exclusively by US rival Boeing. In 2011, the Indonesian carrier signed a record $22.4 billion deal for 230 Boeing 737 airliners, which was also funded by the Ex-Im Bank.

The Lion Air order marks at least the third attempt by Airbus to woo Lion Air, long seen as a fortress for Boeing. It is likely to throw the spotlight on an intense battle for market share between the largest planemakers.

"Of course [Airbus] approached us. They need us, as buyers we are king," Rusdi said.

The order is also likely to add zest to a regional battle for supremacy between Lion Air and AirAsia, the low-cost carrier founded by Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes.

The airlines are respectively among the top buyers of Boeing and Airbus jets. Airlines rarely switch suppliers because of re-training costs and the burden of keeping extra spares, but the practice of "flipping" has grown as market share battles raged.

Edward Sirait, Lion Air's director for general affairs, said there was no problem with Lion Air having both Boeing and Airbus planes in its fleet.

"There is no law that states airlines can only use one kind of aircraft. And we are expanding and Indonesia is a growing market," he said.

Additional reporting from AFP

Related Article:

Indonesia’s Lion Air Roars with Record Boeing Order (Nov. 2011)

Indonesia's Lion Air has placed the largest ever commercial airplane
order in Boeing's history, valued at $21.7 billion. (AFP Photo) 

Energy Storage Super Capacitors Bottle Energy in New Breakthrough

Green Prophet, Brian Nitz, March 3rd, 2013

UCLA and Egyptian scientist accidentally find a new way to bottle stored energy. This missing link for solar energy, hydro and electric cars could be a fast, tiny, biodegradable battery

Penicillin, Teflon, microwave ovens and superglue were all discovered by accident. And now graphene super-capacitors might be the most important accidental discovery of our time – one that can change the way energy is stored. A team of UCLA researchers led by chemist Richard Kaner used a commercial DVD burner to produce sheets of a carbon-based material known as graphene.

The “accident” occured when Cairo University graduate Maher El-Kady (pictured below) wired a small piece of graphene to an LED and found that it behaved as a super-capacitor, able to store a considerable amount of electricity. Their laser-scribed graphene is ideal as a super capacitor partially because of its enormous surface area, 1520 square meters per gram. Here’s how it works:

The story begins with quirky old kite-flying American, a key and a bolt of lightning. It ends with a jar full of electricity. Benjamin Franklin’s jar of electricity is known as a Leyden jar.

It is a primitive electronic circuit element known as a capacitor. The Leyden jar illustrates some promising characteristics of capacitors. As electrical storage devices, they are extraordinarily simple. You can make one at home with a glass jar and a some aluminum foil.

Capacitors have some advantages over Lithium, Nickle-Metal hydride and other chemical batteries. Batteries convert electrical energy to and from chemical energy. But capacitors store electrical charge by bottling excess electrons on one side of a thin barrier.

So capacitors needn’t contain caustic mixtures of acids, alkalis and toxic metals as batteries do. Capacitors can also be charged many times and they can be charged very fast. Some of the tantalum and electrolytic capacitors inside your computer or iPad are charging and discharging millions of times while you read this.

Maher El-Kady

If capacitors are so wonderful, why aren’t they used in place of batteries electric cars to laptops and mobile phones?

The problem is that capacitors aren’t able to store very much energy. A Lithium Ion battery the size of a Leyden jar can store more than 500,000 times more energy.

But capacitors have improved since the Leyden jar. The graphene capacitor these UCLA scientists created has 4 billion times the capacitence of a Leyden jar.

Since its operating voltage is much lower, it might only store about 40,000 times the energy density of a Leyden jar, but this brings it much closer to the energy density of a chemical battery.

And that could change everything.

A film explaining the story of this invention is a finalist in the General Electric focus forward filmmaker competition.

Watch the film and decide for yourself whether a small, efficient, biodegradable energy storage device might revolutionize the future of energy storage.

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"THE NEXT 18 YEARS"–  Dec 2, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) (Subjects: You are looking  at a Quantum event, clearing a filter - Portal pineal , Higher self to step forward and communicate to You, Still remains in 3D but exposure to multi dimensions, Evolution of humanity, Intent, Mayan Calendar, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, 26.000 Years, Milky Way, Nostradamus, 1987, Beginning to a New Time, Channellers/Teachers, Center of Galaxy – Black hole, Bridge of Swords, Pleiadians, Children, Inventions – The discoveries (e.g. : Airplanes - Medicines – Radio ...): These new Discoveries were given all over the planet when Human consciousness was ready for it, New Inventions are coming, the timing depends on how the middle East problems are solved, Biology reaction of quantum energy; new radio of the future, seeing quantum energy, when it is revealed all science books will have to be rewritten, This will be an AHA moment – be possible to communicate with the rest of Galaxy, NASA, Church/religion will be effected the most by these discoveries, The quantum discovery will see the grid, life, gardens and will redefine life, DNA (3 billion pieces) evolving piece DNA are chancing, Gaia/Humanity are linked, new instruments will start to reveal the DNA variance, Evolution revealed: Autistic children have born with the removal of their 3D structure in the brain, Gaia/Spirit are testing these quantum beings  (Evolved DNA), Universe central clock = Rifs,  Globally there will be only 5 currencies, Wars on earth will be declared barbaric, Middle East, Global Unity, .. etc.)

"2013 - What Now ?" – Jan 6, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)

“… New ideas are things you never thought of. These ideas will be given to you so you will have answers to the most profound questions that your societies have had since you were born. Inventions will bring clean water to every Human on the planet, cheaply and everywhere. Inventions will give you power, cheaply and everywhere. These ideas will wipe out all of the reasons you now have for pollution, and when you look back on it, you'll go, "This solution was always there. Why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we do this sooner?" Because it wasn't time and you were not ready. You hadn't planted the seeds and you were still battling the old energy, deciding whether you were going to terminate yourselves before 2012. Now you didn't…. and now you didn't.

It's funny, what you ponder about, and what your sociologists consider the "great current problems of mankind", for your new ideas will simply eliminate the very concepts of the questions just as they did in the past. Do you remember? Two hundred years ago, the predictions of sociologists said that you would run out of food, since there wasn't enough land to sustain a greater population. Then you discovered crop rotation and fertilizer. Suddenly, each plot of land could produce many times what it could before. Do you remember the predictions that you would run out of wood to heat your homes? Probably not. That was before electricity. It goes on and on.

So today's puzzles are just as quaint, as you will see. (1)How do you strengthen the power grids of your great nations so that they are not vulnerable to failure or don't require massive infrastructure improvement expenditures? Because cold is coming, and you are going to need more power. (2) What can you do about pollution? (3) What about world overpopulation? Some experts will tell you that a pandemic will be the answer; nature [Gaia] will kill off about one-third of the earth's population. The best minds of the century ponder these puzzles and tell you that you are headed for real problems. You have heard these things all your life.

Let me ask you this. (1) What if you could eliminate the power grid altogether? You can and will. (2) What if pollution-creating sources simply go away, due to new ideas and invention, and the environment starts to self-correct? (3) Overpopulation? You assume that humanity will continue to have children at an exponential rate since they are stupid and can't help themselves. This, dear ones, is a consciousness and education issue, and that is going to change. Imagine a zero growth attribute of many countries - something that will be common. Did you notice that some of your children today are actually starting to ponder if they should have any children at all? What a concept! ….”

Jakarta Business District Floods After West Flood Canal Dike Collapses

Jakarta Globe, Ronna Nirmala & Lenny Tristia Tambun, January 17, 2013

A general view showing floodwater at Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in

Central Jakarta. (EPA Photo/Bagus Indahono)

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• Jakarta in Emergency Status Until Jan.

Central Jakarta’s business district flooded with water on Thursday after a 30-meter-long section of the West Flood Canal dike collapsed, the Jakarta Public Works Agency said.

Jakarta officials suspect the collapse was caused by surge of water sent into the canal after the Manggarai floodgate was opened hours earlier. The dike could not withstand the force of water, which flowed into the canal at 500 cubic meters per second, Jakarta Public Works Agency head Hendri said.

Homes and roads in the Menteng area were inundated with 1.5 meters of water late Thursday morning as floodwaters covered portions of Jalan Teluk Betung and Tosari. Jalan MH Thamrin and Jalan Sudirman were also underwater by Thursday afternoon.

Train service was cancelled in the greater Jakarta area after floods destroyed 40 meters of tracks near the Tanah Abang station, KAI spokesman Mateta Rizalulhaq said.

The train company is unable to fix the damaged tracks until the dike is repaired.

“We cannot fix the railway as long as the water is still there,” Mateta said. “It can only be done after it is dry.”

Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo visited the site at Thursday afternoon and urged the Ministry of Public Works to fix the dike while emergency funding is available.

“I will call on the Ministry of Public Works to fix this,” Joko said.

As long as the dike remains damaged, the flooding will continue along Jalan Thamrin and Jalan Sudirman, Hendri said.

“If it is not fixed, the floods… will keep on getting higher,” he said.

The agency plans to construct a temporary stone wall to try to stop some of the rushing water before crews begin making permanent repairs.

Jakarta will remain under emergency status until January 27.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, second left, and Foreign Minister

 Marty Natalegawa, left, roll up their pants as they inspect the inundated

 yard of the presidential palace in Central Jakarta. (Photo courtesy of 

presidensby.info)

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Jakarta Residents Flooded by Frustrations

Dreamliner woes turn into Boeing nightmare

Google - AFP, Veronica Smith (AFP), 16 January 2013

A All Nippon Airways' Boeing 787 Dreamliner is pulled by a towing tractor

at Tokyo's Haneda airport on January 16, 2013 (AFP, Yoshikazu Tsuno)

WASHINGTON — Boeing's 787 Dreamliner is suffering serious teething problems that have grounded the plane in Japan and stoked market concerns about the US aerospace giant.

All Nippon Airways grounded its 787 fleet Wednesday after smoke in an electrical compartment forced an emergency landing, pending safety checks. Japan Airlines followed suit.

The two Japanese airlines account for roughly half of the 787s already in service, and Boeing had hoped their fleets would serve as a shop window for a new model on which it has staked much of its business strategy.

It was the seventh safety incident with the high-tech plane -- marketed by Boeing as the fuel-efficient future of aviation -- experienced by ANA and JAL in less than two weeks.

The mishaps included a fire in an unoccupied stationary aircraft, fuel leaks and a cracked cockpit windshield.

Until now the rash of problems had not dented investor confidence in the aerospace giant. Since the first incident this year, on January 7, until the market closed Tuesday, Boeing's share value had climbed 0.6 percent.

But on Wednesday, Boeing shares plunged more than 3.0 percent in morning trade in New York, weighing heavily on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

"The one thing that must send shudders through Boeing Co. management and its board is that the 787 Dreamliner could be taken out of service because of a series of accidents," said Douglas McIntyre of 24/7WallSt.com.

"Boeing engineers, aircraft experts and several Wall Street analysts have defended problems with the jet as routine for a new airplane. The power of those defenses is now over," he added, in a research note.

Boeing has staked its future on the all-new aircraft, which is heavily equipped with electronics and is 50 percent made with composite materials to boost fuel efficiency.

The Chicago-based company has ramped up 787 production to five airplanes per month and plans to make 10 a month by late 2013.

Boeing, which touts the 787 as the most successful commercial plane launch in the company's history, says it has more than 800 unfilled orders with 58 customers worldwide.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner (AFP/Graphic)

24/7WallSt's McIntyre warned that the pileup of incidents could threaten Boeing's order book.

"Boeing must now contend with the issue that other large airlines that use the Dreamliner, or are about to take delivery, will ground the planes as well."

Rich Smith at The Motley Fool said "the facts about the Dreamliner's safety are starting to stack up -- and not in Boeing's favor."

Smith noted that the nearly 850 Dreamliners sold around the globe represent one out of every five airplanes in Boeing's mammoth 4,373-plane-long order backlog.

"None of this -- needless to say -- is going to be particularly good news for Boeing's 787 sales force," he added.

US regulators announced Friday an in-depth safety review of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner after an unusual number of safety incidents.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it was working with Boeing to fully review the critical systems of the 787, and both the FAA and Boeing expressed confidence in the plane.

After the ANA emergency landing, the FAA said it was "monitoring a preliminary report" of the incident and said it would be included in the FAA review of critical systems, including design, manufacture and assembly

Separately, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday it was sending an investigator to Japan to assist in the investigation of the incident being led by the Japan Transport Safety Board.

Deutsche Bank analysts said: "The hits just keep coming for the 787."

"The bigger issue is that FAA and Boeing want to walk away with 1) a safe airplane and 2) credibility in the initial certification process," they said.

Barclays analysts highlighted that with limited data and company commentary amid ongoing investigations in the US and Japan, "it could be difficult for shares to gain near-term traction."

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