Unstoppable
by Bill Nye

Science
Ashto = 3/10
Jonesy = 5/10

Unstoppable – by Bill Nye

Bill Nye, The Science Guy, is back! After his hit TV show in the 1990s, Big Bad Bill has a new book – UNSTOPPABLE. He also has a new series on Netflix – ‘Bill Nye Saves The World’. In this book, Bill opens our eyes to the fact that climate change WILL affect everyone’s life. The human race has always used science to fix the messes we’ve created, so now we need to use science to fix climate change. Bill presents a heap of different ideas. The ultimate aim is to inspire the New Generation and gives people ideas to experiment with.

‘Harnessing Science to Change the World’

Unstoppable (dot point) Summary

“Harnessing science to change the world”

Chapter 1 – We’ve got the whole world in our hands

Climate change and its coming right at you
Regardless of where you are on Earth, you will live to see your life or the lives of your kids and their friends change due to the overall warming of the planet
We are not renters passing through, we are not tenants who complain and move somewhere else
“I am asking you to get informed and help fight change with change: change in the way we produce, move, store and use energy”
The desire to get more done with less effort – multiplied by billions of people who burn fossil fuels to satisfy that desire, is the root cause of climate change
“As long as we each focus on our individual decisions and short-term consequences, we will act like renters, not owners of this Earth
A significant number of Earth homeowners are making matters worse because they are in denial
The atmosphere is as thick as the layer of varnish on a standard classroom globe

Chapter 2 – The call to greatness

We don’t need to save Earth. It is going to be here no matter what we do
No single idea or tech will save us from ourselves
“would you trust a scientist or politician who punched the table that there is no connection between lung cancer and smoking? Lung cancer went up in lockstep with cigarette use, and the scientific mechanism linking the two was well established. Yet for decades after science was settled, a great many people egged on politicians and leaders doubting the connection”
None of us could leave the neighborhood
We cannot make our way through technology alone

Chapter 3 – A hothouse of disbelief

Bill studied astronomy under Carl Sagan
Energy from the sun, mostly in the form of visible light strikes the planet’s surface and is partially absorbed. The surface warms a bit. The warmed surface re-radiates this as energy. On its way back, it is trapped by certain atmospheric gases, especially water vapor and carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide molecule is linear. Its an atom of oxygen connection to carbon connected to an oxygen
It is at the right length and atomic flexibility to allow visible light 390-700 nanometers to pass right by
But there bock the longer re-radiated rays, infrared rays which are 10 times as long
That heat trapping is a feature of carbon dioxide
The problem is not that we have a greenhouse effect, its that our greenhouse effect is getting stronger and stronger by the hour
Since 1750 humans have increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 40% to more than 400 parts per million
Carbon dioxide is not the only gas. Methane holds in heat more than carbon dioxide

Siberia

As Siberia warms, the water that circulates the sea warms and the clathrates in the sediments both on land and deep in the sea will release the trapped methane molecules
Billions of tonnes can be released

Chapter 8 Talking about electrical energy generation

Faraday knew that electricity flowing through wires created magnetism, a field around a wire can influence a compass needle.
Faraday is the one who noticed it happens the other way too
If you have a magnet moving around a wire.
It’s not that there is a magnet, its that there is a moving magnet. A moving magnetic field
He moved the magnet near wires and created a moving electrical field. Everything you see is owed to this discovery
Moving magnets near many wires at once created an electric field
By spinning the magnet around the coils of wire continuously, you get continuous electricity

Chapter 10 Nuclear Energy: too cheap to meter… again

People in the 1950’s and 60’s thought nuclear coming in would be too cheap to meter
The energy made does not produce carbon
19% of energy in the USA is from nuclear
All the heat comes from radioactive decay
Chemical energy comes from the loose outer area.
Atomic energy comes from the inner part
You have protons and neutrons tight in the nucleus in a big bundle put together by the strong nuclear force
They are all positive and would repel each other like crazy if it wasn’t for the strong nuclear force
Electrons held in by the weak nuclear force
Radioactive decay is when a proton shoots out of the nucleus and changes structure, for example, uranium turns into lead slowly, on its own
A few protons in the uranium shoot out in pairs, with a pair of neutrons. The remaining particles in the uranium nucleus turn into neutrons and release more energy
The energy level of the material decreases decay step by decay step
When uranium absorbs a neutron, the uranium will fission into two smaller atoms (waste) and release one to three neutrons. The atomic energy leaving the strong nuclear force is changed to kinetic energy and spins the turbine
Problem with nuclear it all comes down to risk
A nuclear accident at low risk but high cost. Causes a place to be inhabitable for a century or more
Right now there are 433 nuclear reactors around the world. Say if we went nuclear we would have at least 10 times that number. There absolutely will be another accident
Right now there are 800K oil wells in the world, 3100 at sea drilling platforms.
British Petroleums Deepwater Horizon burst and causes a huge mess over the Gulf of Mexico
It took months to clear up, there is still residue 5 years after
Most of the waste was unaccounted for

Chapter 12 – the power of the sun

Bill when he was younger he curved mirrors concentrating to bake scones
In California, there are 173,500 mirrors that track the motion of the sun and direct the light to create steam to move the turbines
The USA has 0.4% using photovoltaics, Germany has 7%

Chapter 13 – is the answer blowing in the wind

Wind energy comes for free, driven by the heat of the sun
Blades of a turbine has high pressure on one side and low pressure
Maximum efficiency of 59.3% called the Betz limit
At the surface of the ground or the sea, the wind sticks to the ground
As we go further up, it goes faster and faster in this boundary layers
At a certain height, the air that sticks is overcome by the main flow of wind
We want the bottom of the blade above the boundary layer
Problem is you need them in wide plains in areas remote from cities
Causes problems with the transmission
Perhaps harness the wind energy between buildings
Wind is about twice as expensive

Chapter 16 – dude where’s my battery pack?

General Motors bought the electric vehicle 1 in 1999 to satisfy a law
More batteries mean more range, which means more weight and cost
If everyone had an electric car tomorrow, our grid wouldn’t be able to handle it
“If the western countries did not need the oil that these terrorists control, the money that ultimately funds their operations would try up
Freedom from oil would make the task much easier
The whole involvement of the USA in the Middle East is tied to petroleum

Chapter 17 quest for storage

Lithium-ion batteries in the wall, since the book
Batteries are a huge market
All kinds, silver zinc, mercury zinc, zinc air, lead acid
Zinc-air is about 400 watts hours per kilo, lithiu ion is about 250-watt-hours / kilo
Talk about increasing energy density by a factor of 7
With batteries store it until we need it
He says create a large vertical concrete shaft in the ground
Penetrate the water table

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Chapter 21 – moving our masses