NASA astronaut reacts to 'spiders' on the ISS

An instinctive reaction to creepy-crawlies doesn't go away when you're in space.


Amanda Kooser
Aug. 5, 2021 

There really were spiders on the ISS years ago. This is a golden orb spider and its web inside a spider habitat. NASA

There have been some unusual sights on the International Space Station. Elvis. A gorilla suit. Flatworms. Yoda. But spiders free-floating around the ISS? Only in an astronaut's imagination.

NASA astronaut and current ISS crew member Megan McArthur shared what might be considered a space "shower thought" on Thursday. It's all about how she instinctively sees spiders in random tiny objects.

McArthur tweeted, "Is it weird that after 100 days on the space station, when I see a small piece of lint or food float by, my body still reacts like 'SPIDER!!' a split second before my brain can chime in with, 'Relax, you're in space, remember? No spiders."'

It goes to show how some of the familiar human reactions we have on Earth don't just disappear when we're up in orbit.

NASA's ISS research Twitter account chimed in with a history tidbit. "While there aren't spiders up with you now, there have been spiders on station for research," NASA said. "Golden orb spiders were sent to space to study if and how arachnids spin their webs differently in microgravity."

The spider mission was back in 2011 and, as far as we know, none of the web-slinging denizens escaped to run free in the wilds of the station. As for the experiment, researchers found the spiders' space webs looked very similar to the ones they weave back on Earth.

McArthur doesn't have to worry about arachnids, but she has had some other tiny lifeforms for company in orbit, including baby squid and tardigrades. At least they're cute critters.

This Cyclic Model of the Universe Has Cosmologists Rethinking the Big Bang

Meet the Big Crunch: In this theory on the origins of the universe, the Big Bang was not the beginning, but a repeating pattern of expansion and contraction.

By Sophie Putka

Jul 29, 2021 9:31 AM


(Credit: Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock)

In Paul Steinhardt’s corners of the cosmology world, to say that history repeats itself would be a laughable understatement. That’s because according to him and a handful of peers, the universe’s form might be hurtling into a new cycle every trillion years or so.

“One hundred million years sounds like a long time, but cosmically it's like tomorrow,” Steinhardt says.

The professor of physics and director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science co-authored a paper on this topic, A Cyclic Model of the Universe, with Neil Turok. The cyclic model of the universe he helped pioneer is just that: a theory that the universe forms itself again and again in cycles.

Proponents of this model are asking us to rethink the Big Bang and the rapid inflation of the universe. They contend that doing so could fill in some of the biggest gaps in our common understanding of the way space and time work.

The Big Bang and Inflation Model

The generally accepted understanding of the universe is this: About 14 billion years ago, the Big Bang happened. In its early seconds, the laws of physics as we understand them didn’t apply. All that would eventually become matter burst forth in a matter of seconds — first particles, like electrons and photons, and eventually neutrons and protons, the building blocks of our atoms. Early seeds of stars, planets, and galaxies expanded out from that momentous point in time and space. It spread in such a way that the universe became highly smooth.

Smoothness, on an enormous scale, just means that things within the universe are relatively evenly distributed. That is, if you were to put a cube around one section of the universe, it wouldn’t be much more dense than another randomly placed cube. On a smaller scale, like between galaxies or within a solar system, matter is “lumpy” and filled with clusters.

Physicists theorize that shortly after the Big Bang, something called “inflation” occurred. Essentially, what was once a tiny, packed-together universe expanded out rapidly in a fraction of a second, and it continues to expand today. Inflation is part of the current standard model of the universe, called the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model. In LCDM, the shape of the universe’s trajectory looks, in some depictions, like a funnel, its wide top growing and spreading further out over time.

(Credit: Andrea Danti/Shutterstock)

That’s one interpretation. But there are others that have arisen out of the same bits of information that scientists can actually observe and measure in real life — that is, observational astronomy. The real life information is crucial if scientists are to use models to make actual predictions about the future of our cosmos.

“Cosmology is kind of teamwork, you need some people focusing on really pragmatical and observational stuff and you need people to go sci-fi,” says Leonardo Giani, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia, whose studies focus on alternate models of the universe besides the standard model. “That's how it goes.”

What We Know for Sure

Theoretical astrophysics is all about educated guesses that are shaped by the few things we do know for certain. Something called the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) contributes to a big part of that observable information. The CMB is made up of the traces of radiation left over from an early phase of the universe. Radio telescopes can pick it up, and then translate the waves into a heat-map image of sorts.

This image actually shows us how the contents of the universe were distributed about 400,000 years after the Big Bang — the earliest observable snapshot of a universe devoid of stars, solar systems and galaxies. Everything was closer together and almost uniform, except for tiny fluctuations that became the matter forming stars and galaxies. This image serves as evidence that the universe started packed together, and has expanded to where it is today.

We also know that the universe continues to expand, and can even measure, to some degree, how fast it’s doing so. The CMB also serves to confirm that an earlier version of the universe was very hot, and our era is much colder.
Problems With our Current Model

Steinhardt says a number of problems arise with the inflation model, which itself expanded and corrected previous models that arose from Big Bang theory. The inflation model was supposed to explain why, for example, the universe appears so homogenous on a huge scale without the same initial conditions. But, Steinhardt says, there are so many possibilities that arise from an inflationary model that it makes the model itself less useful.

Previous models, Steinhardt says, don’t rule out predictions about the cosmos that are wrong. “It's like I came to explain to you why the sky is blue, but then when you look at my theory more closely, ‘Oh! My theory could have also predicted red, green, polka dot, striped, random [colors],’” Steinhardt says. “And then you say ‘Okay, what good is that theory?’ ”

Then there’s the singularity problem. The inflation theory, Steinhardt argues, also gets stuck at the point “before” the Big Bang, because according to it, there is nothing before it. “The fundamental philosophical problem with the Big Bang is, there's an after but there's not a before,” Steinhardt says. “In a similar way, we don't know ‘one time only’ things that happened in history.”

Mathematically, the Big Bang looks like it came from an undefined state — something that isn’t explained by the laws of physics under Einstein’s theory of general relativity. This is also called a “singularity.” To Steinhardt — but not to everyone — that’s the mathematical equivalent of a red flag. “We all learned in school, when you get one over zero for an answer, you're in trouble, because that's a nonsense answer. You made a mistake.”

In a related problem, there’s also some difficulty in reconciling the inflation theory with string theory and quantum mechanics, says Steinhardt. If the model correctly described the universe, other accepted frameworks of physics would agree with it. Instead, Steinhardt says they’re at odds. “When one's thinking about cosmology, you’re often reaching across fields of thinking, which are quite distant, either on the astro side or on the fundamental physics side and seeing, do they fit together?” The cyclic model, he says, helps do this.

The Cyclic Model and Its Spinoffs

A cyclic model of the universe is designed to solve some of the seemingly unsolvable problems of the Big Bang and inflation models. “It allows us to go beyond the Big Bang, but without any kind of magical philosophical issues,” says Stephon Alexander, a professor of physics at Brown University, and the co-inventor of an inflation model of the universe based on string theory. “Because time has always existed in the past.”

Scientists have proposed a cyclic model that could work mathematically in a few ways. Steinhardt and Turok’s model of a cyclic universe is one of them. Its core principles are these: The Big Bang was not the beginning of time; there was a previous phase leading up to it, with multiple cycles of contraction and expansion that repeat indefinitely; and the key period defining the shape of our universe was right before the so-called bang. There you would find a period of slow contraction called the Big Crunch.

So, instead of a beginning of time arising out of nothing, the cyclic model allows for a long period of time in the lead-up. It claims to fix the same problems as the inflationary theory did, but builds even further. For one thing, the existence of time before the Big Crunch removes the singularity problem — that undefined number. It also utilizes string theory and quantum fluctuations.

Like the LCDM, a cyclic model would also account for dark energy, an unobservable force that scientists believe is behind the accelerating expansion of the universe. But in Stenhardt and Turok’s model, things get a little more like science fiction: Two identical planes, or “branes,” (in string theory, an object that can have any number of dimensions) come together and expand apart. We can observe the three dimensions of our plane, but not the extra dimensions of the other. Dark energy is both the force leading the branes into a collision, with separation between them. Expansion of the branes themselves follows, and dark energy draws them together again once they’re as flat and smooth as they can become.

Giani, the researcher, isn’t so sure, because of some of the assumptions this model brings in from string theory. He likes another cyclic model from Roger Penrose, a theoretical physicist at Oxford who came up with what Penrose himself called “an outrageous new perspective” on the universe. “I was completely amazed by it,” Giani said.

It’s hard to wrap your head around: In the distant, distant future, our solar system and galaxy will be engulfed by black holes, which eat up all the other mass in the universe, and then after an unimaginable amount of time, only black holes will exist. Eventually, only photons exist, which have no mass and therefore no energy or frequency, according to our accepted laws of physics.

Measurements of scale, Penrose explains, no longer apply at this stage, but the shape of the universe remains. At the moment of the Big Bang, he argues, when particles are so hot and close together that they also move at almost the speed of light, they also lose their mass. This creates the same conditions at the Big Bang as the cold, distant future universe. Their scale is no longer relevant, and one can beget the other. The remote future and the Big Bang become one and the same.
Disproving the Models

Ultimately, what humans can observe of our universe is limited. That’s why theories of the universe are never complete. They balance the small sliver of the universe we can observe with mathematical models and theory to fill in the rest. So, in cosmology, scientists search for observable phenomena that disprove their models, and reshape their theories again to suit the problem.

But as our technology rapidly advances, observations that support or detract from one model or another come more often. “It's completely worth making all this speculation in this work, because we are getting to the point in which this data will arrive,” Giani says. One such observation could produce compelling support for either a cyclic model or confirm the more accepted inflationary theory.

Because of how matter is distributed in our view of the oldest part of the universe (seen in the CMB), gravitational waves that reach us may be polarized, like light, at a particular frequency. Soon — within a few years, in fact — scientists may be able to determine whether this polarization exists. If it does, it will support the inflationary model. If this polarization doesn’t exist, it will undermine “slow contraction,” a hallmark of the cyclic model.

We’ll be one step closer to making sense of time and space, yet still on a journey within the cosmos that’s far from over.

Australia’s Response To “Duty Of Care” Judgement: We Have A Fossil-Fuel Heart

Image by David Waterworth

By David Waterworth

The big polluters down under are trying to work out how to make as much money as possible before time runs out for fossil fuels. In a recent judgement, High Court Judge Mordecai Bromberg determined that the Federal Environment Minister has a duty of care for the future of the children of this country.

It is worth quoting a few paragraphs, the language is quite forceful.

It is difficult to characterize in a single phrase the devastation that the plausible evidence presented in this proceeding forecasts for the children. As Australian adults know their country, Australia will be lost and the world as we know it, gone as well. The physical environment will be harsher, far more extreme and devastatingly brutal when angry. As for the human experience – quality of life, opportunities to partake in nature’s treasures, the capacity to grow and prosper – all will be greatly diminished.

Lives will be cut short. Trauma will be far more common and good health harder to hold and maintain.

None of this will be the fault of nature itself. It will largely be inflicted by the inaction of this generation of adults, in what might fairly be described as the greatest intergenerational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the next.

To say that the children are vulnerable is to understate their predicament.

This, coupled with the recent judgement against Shell in the Netherlands and the coming carbon tariffs from the EU, mean that Australia’s ability to generate revenue from “carbon emission products” is declining rapidly.

Sadly, the minister’s response to this judgement is to appeal, and the response of big business is to ask the federal parliament to step in with urgent action to support the affected industries. In a recent opinion piece in The Australian (July 29, 2021), Robert Gottliebsen described the gas, oil, and coal industries as the heart of the nation. Is he saying that Australia has a black fossil-fueled heart? Perhaps the heart of darkness?

One must ask, aren’t our children and grandchildren the heart, the soul, and the future of the nation?

Climate crimes

Facebook let fossil-fuel industry push climate misinformation, report finds

Thinktank InfluenceMap accuses petroleum giants of gaming Facebook to promote oil and gas as part of climate-crisis solution

Chris McGreal

THE GUARDIAN
Thu 5 Aug 2021

Facebook failed to enforce its own rules to curb an oil and gas industry misinformation campaign over the climate crisis during last year’s presidential election, according to a new analysis released on Thursday.

The report, by the London-based thinktank InfluenceMap, identified an increase in advertising on the social media site by ExxonMobil and other fossil-fuel companies aimed at shaping the political debate about policies to address global heating.

InfluenceMap said its research shows the fossil-fuel industry has moved away from outright denying the climate crisis, and is now using social media to promote oil and gas as part of the solution. The report also exposed what it said was Facebook’s role in facilitating the dissemination of false claims about global heating by failing to consistently apply its own policies to stop erroneous advertising.

“Despite Facebook’s public support for climate action, it continues to allow its platform to be used to spread fossil-fuel propaganda,” the report said. “Not only is Facebook inadequately enforcing its existing advertising policies, it’s clear that these policies are not keeping pace with the critical need for urgent climate action.”

The report found that 25 oil and gas industry organisations spent at least $9.5m to place more than 25,000 ads on Facebook’s US platforms last year, which were viewed more than 431m times. Exxon alone spent $5m.

“The industry is using a range of messaging tactics that are far more nuanced than outright statements of climate denial. Some of the most significant tactics found included tying the use of oil and gas to maintaining a high quality of life, promoting fossil gas as green, and publicizing the voluntary actions taken by the industry on climate change,” the report said.

The report noted a rise in spending on Facebook ads in July 2020, immediately after then-presidential candidate Joe Biden announced a $2tn climate plan to promote the use of clean energy. The spending remained high until after the election four months later.

“This suggests the oil and gas industry uses Facebook advertising strategically and for politically motivated purposes,” the report said.

InfluenceMap said it found 6,782 energy industry ads on Facebook last year promoting claims that natural gas is a green or low carbon fuel, even though research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says otherwise.

The research found that Exxon in particular used the social media site to push continued use of oil as affordable, reliable and important to keep the US from relying on other countries for its energy supply.

InfluenceMap also accused the company of running misleading ads that sought to shift the greater responsibility for cutting carbon emissions from industry to the lifestyle choices of ordinary Americans. The report said that the International Energy Agency calculates that global targets to reduce emissions rely heavily on the energy industry moving to green technologies, while just 8% of reductions will come from consumer choices such as taking fewer flights.

“These messages are often packaged in adverts promoting the climate-friendliness of oil and gas companies and the necessity of oil and gas for maintaining a high quality of life,” the report said.

InfluenceMap also drew attention to the part played by industry-funded groups led by the American Petroleum Institute, which spent $3m on Facebook ads last year portraying fossil-fuel companies as climate-friendly.

InfluenceMap said that while Facebook removed some ads for making false claims or failing to include a disclaimer identifying them as about environmental politics, it permitted many others to go unchallenged.

Facebook told the Guardian it has taken action against some groups running pro- fossil-fuel ads and that multiple advertisements have been rejected because they were run without being identified as political.

“We reject ads when one of our independent factchecking partners rates them as false or misleading, and take action against pages, groups, accounts, and websites that repeatedly share content rated as false,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

Last year, a group of US senators wrote to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, about concerns that the social media platform was permitting demonstrably false claims about the climate crisis to be posted on the grounds they were ‘opinion’.

“Given Facebook’s long and troubling history with disinformation, it is deeply concerning that Facebook has now determined that climate disinformation is reportedly “immune to fact-checking”, said the senators, including Elizabeth Warren.

“The climate crisis is too important to allow blatant lies to spread on social media without consequence.”

Little girl finds unique fossil at Alberta lake

By Sarah Ryan Global News
Posted August 3, 2021 

  WATCH ABOVE: Sarah Ryan tells us how a young girl came across a unique fossil at an Alberta lake.

At six years old, Abby Darby made an incredible discovery, all while playing with rocks.

“On the beach sand, I thought I saw a cool rock. But then I dug it out and it wasn’t a rock,” she explained.

Knowing she had something special, she ran to show her family the unusual find.

Right away, they agreed the specimen was likely a fossil.

“I thought after that it would be really cool if I could tell her exactly what it was, because we all had our guesses,” explained Darby’s aunt, Krysta Poole.

“Grandma, she had a claw guess. but all the other ones thought it was a tooth,” Darby said.

READ MORE: Friends recover ancient fossil in Edmonton’s river valley: ‘Like finding a needle in a haystack’

Poole sent a video of Darby’s find to the Faculty of Science at the University of Alberta.

Mark Powers, a PhD student in vertebrate paleontology, took a look at it and said “it’s definitely a tooth, you can see it right away. And it’s definitely mammal because it has the multiple roots. A lot of what we see in dinosaurs or lizards is a single root.

In addition to the roots, he compared the cusps and pits of the tooth to other fossils.

“Upon looking at some specimens here at the University of Alberta in our teaching collections, I can confirm it’s definitely a camel family member.”

A camel, on the Canadian Prairies? Powers said camels are believed to have originated in North America, though they would have looked very different than the ones we have today.

The University of Alberta’s collection includes a small skull from a camel found in Wyoming, for example.

It’s estimated this fossilized tooth would be between 22,000 and 25,000 years old.

“There were huge glaciers that were covering most of Alberta during that time,” Powers said.

“So there would have been some ravines where the ice sheets were retreating away from each other, where we would get a lot of water influence from the melting glaciers. That’s where animals probably would have hung out.”

Darby’s aunt was surprised to hear the news.

“I never knew camels were around here,” Poole said. “We could have never guessed that ourselves.”

She quickly shared the findings with her niece.

“I thought that it was amazing,” Darby said.

Powers said by analyzing the tooth’s enamel and isotopes, researchers could learn a lot.

“That can actually give us an indication of migration, diet and all sorts of changes in their environment as they grew,” he said. “Mammals are great for that because all of it is recorded in the enamel, and most mammals only have two sets of teeth in their life.”

Darby’s family plans to donate the tooth to the Royal Alberta Museum.

“So next year, when I’m in Grade 1, I can show my friends,” Darby explained.

Sarah Ryan / Global News
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Sarah Ryan / Global News
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Sarah Ryan / Global News

These gorgeous renewable energy hubs used to be coal plants

Across Europe, energy giant Enel is converting its old polluting infrastructure into new centers for clean power.

08-04-21

[Image: courtesy Frigerio Design]

Enel, headquartered in Rome and Europe’s largest utility company, used to depend heavily on coal. But it’s in the process of shutting down all of its coal power plants globally over the next six years and transforming the old sites for new uses, including as renewable energy hubs.

[Image: courtesy Frigerio Design]“The main goal is to create genuine energy centers that are increasingly integrated with their local environment, reducing the impact on the landscape, thanks to a new idea of what a power plant can be,” Fabio Cautadella, head of power plant repurposing at the Enel Group, said via email. “Most of the coal-fired plants are being converted to renewable energy, but in some cases, they are enjoying a new lease on life with completely different roles. These projects are being developed in collaboration with the local communities, and in some specific cases with other partners, with a view to creating jobs and improving the quality of life in the area.”



In Teruel, Spain, for example, a massive former coal plant will be converted into Europe’s largest solar power plant, with extra wind power and battery storage on site that will more than replace the power generation from coal. Other sites will transition to green hydrogen, “a highly promising solution that can serve as an alternative to electricity in the so-called “hard to abate” sectors, such as heavy industry, shipping, and aviation,” Cautadella says. “In these cases, hydrogen can be extracted through processes powered by renewable sources, a unique technology that is genuinely green.”


In Italy, the company ran a “new energy spaces” competition for architects to redesign four former coal plants that run, in part, on renewable energy. A winning design in Venice turns part of the complex into a center focused on sustainable innovation open to the public. New buildings on the site, made with recycled materials, are designed to use as little energy as possible, and new plantings will help reconnect the industrial complex with the surrounding lagoon.

[Image: Enel]

The projects aren’t all moving toward sustainability as quickly as is technically possible—some of the sites will use renewable energy in combination with gas, which still adds to climate change. Enel doesn’t plan to fully decarbonize until 2050, and arguably could reach that goal much faster. Still, the company was early to embrace renewable energy, launching Enel Green Power in 2008, now a global leader with more than 1,200 renewable power plants on five continents. And over the next decade, it’s planning to spend $190 billion to nearly triple its renewable capacity and build out the grid for a future with electric cars and other surging demands for electricity. Its investments in renewables over the next few years are nearly as much as the combined plans of BP, Total, and Shell. Finding new uses for old coal plants is one part of the larger transition.

“This repurposing is in line with the principles of the circular economy: This way, not only will they offer a new value to the areas in which these facilities are located, but they will also enable the reuse, at least in part, of the materials and some parts of the plants in order to minimize consumption of raw materials,” says Cautadella.

 ALBERTA

Heartland Petrochemical Complex Update

HPC represents Inter Pipeline’s largest growth project and is expected to create a step change in cash flow generation once fully in-service. HPC, which is in the final stages of completion in Strathcona County, Alberta, will be an industry-leading petrochemical facility converting locally sourced, low-cost propane into high-value polypropylene. Polypropylene is an easily transported and fully recyclable plastic used in the manufacturing of an extensive range of essential finished products and consumer goods such as healthcare products, medical supplies, textiles and lightweight automotive components. Despite the prolonged impact of COVID-19, with Inter Pipeline’s strong adherence to rigorous health and safety procedures, HPC has exceeded a world-class 14 million work hours without a lost time incident on-site.

Since the April 22, 2021 HPC update, Inter Pipeline has successfully negotiated an eighth take-or-pay agreement for HPC’s production capacity. The new contract is with an investment grade, multinational integrated energy producer.

Inter Pipeline has now secured 68 percent of HPC’s production capacity under long-term take-or-pay agreements, which is very near our stated objective to contract a minimum 70 percent of capacity in advance of the facility becoming operational. Negotiations are continuing with several additional counterparties. These contracts are structured to include a stable return on capital payment to Inter Pipeline plus fixed and variable operating fees, with no exposure to commodity price fluctuations. The weighted average term of the executed contracts remains approximately nine years.

If no other contracts are secured, the remaining 32 percent of HPC production capacity would be tied to merchant sales of polypropylene production. Merchant sales are exposed to the spread between North American posted polypropylene and Edmonton propane prices. The current June 2021 spread is US$2,600 per tonne and is at a record high since the Cochin pipeline discontinued Alberta propane export service in 2014. The current spread is also approximately 80 percent higher than the average spread of US$1,450 per tonne over the same time period. The current strong pricing spread provides the opportunity for additional upside to Inter Pipeline should this pricing dynamic continue post HPC start-up and is indicative of the strong competitive positioning that HPC enjoys with its abundant, low-cost Canadian propane feedstock.

Inter Pipeline is planning a staggered start-up of HPC with the commencement of polypropylene facility operations expected early in the second quarter of 2022. The propane dehydrogenation facility (PDH), which is substantially mechanically complete, is expected to be operational several months later, with definitive timing subject to the completion of final commissioning plans later this year. The estimated cost of the complex is expected to be approximately $4.3 billion subject to any final cost adjustments related to the potential capitalization of certain additional PDH commissioning expenses and interest during construction for the commissioning period.

Due to the highly integrated nature of Inter Pipeline’s NGL operations, HPC can produce polypropylene before the start-up of the PDH plant utilizing polymer grade propylene (“PGP”) feedstock production from Inter Pipeline’s adjacent Redwater Olefinic Fractionator (“ROF”). A 600,000 barrel PGP storage cavern at ROF and pipeline connectivity between ROF and HPC provide the necessary infrastructure to support a stable supply of feedstock and operational flexibility.

Inter Pipeline continues to expect that 2023 will be the first full year of HPC’s polypropylene production and reconfirms its previous guidance of annual adjusted EBITDA between $400 to $450 million for that year. However, as the definitive timing for commissioning of the full complex has not yet been finalized, the Company considers it prudent to withdraw its 2022 financial guidance for HPC. The long-term average annual adjusted EBITDA for HPC remains approximately $450 million to $500 million, based on the seven-year historical average North American posted polypropylene to Edmonton propane price spread of approximately US$1,450 per tonne.

Advisors

Inter Pipeline has retained TD Securities Inc. and the Special Committee has retained J.P. Morgan Securities Canada Inc. as financial advisors. Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer LLP and Dentons Canada LLP are acting as legal advisors to Inter Pipeline and its Board of Directors. Kingsdale Advisors has been retained as Inter Pipeline’s strategic shareholder advisor.

About Inter Pipeline Ltd.

Inter Pipeline is a major petroleum transportation and natural gas liquids processing business based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Inter Pipeline owns and operates energy infrastructure assets in Western Canada and is building the Heartland Petrochemical Complex — North America’s first integrated propane dehydrogenation and polypropylene facility. Inter Pipeline is a member of the S&P/TSX 60 Index and its common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol IPL.  www.interpipeline.com

Inter Pipeline issues notice of change recommending Brookfield offer and provides update on Heartland Petrochemical Complex | BOE Report

WE GOT BIGGER BALLS AND FIELDS

Shane Ray warns NFL players who sign in the CFL: ‘I definitely don’t think you should take it as high school football’

OUR PLAYERS WORK FOR A LIVING EIGHT MONTHS OF THE YEAR, FOOTBALL IS THEIR PASSION

August 5, 2021

By Justin Dunk

  

Photo courtesy: Toronto Argonauts

Ultra-athletic defensive lineman Shane Ray has come to respect the talent level in the CFL since strapping up with the Toronto Argonauts.

Ray was added to the Argos’ exclusive 45-man negotiation list in December and signed his contract in February after being out of the NFL for the 2019 and 2020 seasons. The 28-year-old viewed the Canadian league as a way back onto the football field.

“The CFL game has been really fun for me, playing in the NFL I didn’t really know what to expect with all the changes. Just figuring everything out and getting in tune with how the game flows. It hasn’t been a super huge transition for me, I’ve come out ready to work everyday,” Ray said.

“These last few years have been tough for me, getting injured in 2017 and having to rebuild myself. And then years of not having the contact I wanted with NFL teams, that weighs on you mentally. It’s given me a new appreciation for the game.”

The six-foot-three, 245-pounder has the skill set to thrive in the CFL if he can learn to play on the bigger field, but he admits not knowing much about the three-down league until a workout for Argos scouts. He views the opportunity in The Six as a chance to rebound and return to the NFL or alternatively start a career in Canada.

“I can’t say that I would just come out here and run through guys, that’s not what’s going on. These guys all get paid and they come into work with their hard hats and they’re ready to go — I appreciate the competition,” Ray said.

“I definitely don’t think that if you’re a player that’s in this position to come out here and play in the CFL, that you should take it as high school football. There are talented players out here and you definitely have to come in every day with the mentality that you’re going to work your craft.”

“I feel like the thought with guys that come over here from the NFL is that they don’t take it serious. I take this very serious, this is not just something I’m doing. This is what I love to do, I’m playing the game of football and I want to win. I want to go out there and I have things that I want to do for my legacy.”

According to coaches, talent evaluators, and teammates, Ray was “nearly unblockable” for the Argos entire training camp at the University of Guelph. His consistent performance has earned him a starting position on the opposite side of future Canadian Football Hall of Famer Charleston Hughes.

“Self scouting report on my ability to get to the quarterback: exceptional. If I can’t do anything else, I can rush the passer. That’s been something I’ve always had a knack for, that’s what I love to do. I look forward to putting it on tape. I can sit here and talk about it, but guys that are on the field they can see what I’m capable of doing,” Ray said.

Hughes has been helping Ray learn the nuances of pass rushing in the Canadian game. The four-time three-down league sack leader and six-time CFL all-star has been a sounding board for the uber-talented Ray. The word “elite” has been used by people around the Argos to describe his abilities as pass rusher.

“We have a D-line group chat and he’s putting his highlights in there. We all have the opportunity to see and we all understand what he’s done in this league,” Ray said.

“My first few days here, he didn’t hesitate to give me information. He was watching some of my tape, and was explaining to me how the steps are a little bit different as far as when you want to do your move here compared to the States, it’s been working for me.”

The first-round, 23rd overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft has shifted his mentality to focus on winning the Grey Cup. Ray wants to add a CFL championship to his Super Bowl LI ring, which he won as a rookie with the Denver Broncos. Double Blue head coach Ryan Dinwiddie has noticed Ray being open to learning the CFL brand of football.

“A lot of guys that come from the NFL don’t know exactly what they’re getting into in the CFL and they’re coming up here for the wrong reasons. He’s coming up here because he loves football and he wants to play it again,” Dinwiddie said.

“I’ve really liked that approach. Those guys that have that approach coming from the NFL usually make an impact. The guys that think they’re bigger than the CFL, and they come up here and they don’t know what they’re getting into, there’s a rude awakening for them.”

Ray proved throughout camp that he was fully healthy once again. The main issue that caused him to fall out of favour in the NFL was a “complete wrist dislocation” which caused him to snap the main ligament in the joint. He went from thinking it was a six-week surgery to having a 14-week surgery amid the loss of blood flow in his wrist. Ray had to get screws to put everything back and hold it together.

“For an outside linebacker/defensive end, your hands are everything. It took a really long time just to get that strength back in my wrist and my whole arm to be honest. Nobody really knows what you go through,” Ray said.

“Nobody knows how much work I really had to put in to get to this point. My body and my weight back — all the eating, lifting, training, the rough nights, the not knowing if I would get another opportunity. For me, this is everything.”

Westinghouse ATF makes progress towards approval

04 August 2021

Irradiated lead test rods containing Westinghouse's EnCore advanced fuel technology have arrived at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) where they will undergo a year of testing to support regulatory licensing efforts. The fuel is being developed under the DOE's Accident Tolerant Fuel Program, an industry-led effort looking to commercialise new fuels within the decade.

ORNL took delivery of the irradiated ATF in June (Image: ORNL)

The rods were loaded into a commercial US nuclear reactor in the spring of 2019 and removed after completing their operating cycle during a scheduled outage in the autumn of 2020. They were shipped by to ORNL by NAC International in June, the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy said yesterday.

ORNL will carry out post-irradiation experiments on the fuel to help qualify it with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. No signs of degradation have been seen in the fuel during initial visual observations after it was removed from the reactor.

Accident tolerant fuels - or ATFs - not only enhance the tolerance of light-water reactor fuel under severe accident conditions but also offer improvements to reactor performance and economics.

The fuel rods were fitted with Westinghouse's near-term EnCore Fuel solutions of chromium-coated zirconium alloy cladding and ADOPT higher-density uranium fuel pellets, which improve fuel cycle economics, enable longer operating cycles and enhance accident tolerance. ADOPT fuel and chromium cladding also support higher burnup and 24-month cycle operation for high-power density plants, the company said. A second, longer-term, phase solution using uranium nitride pellets and advanced silicon carbide-based cladding is also in development.

Jeff Bradfute, Westinghouse vice president of Americas Fuel Delivery, said the shipment shows the "substantial progress" EnCore Fuel is making towards commercialisation. "The examination of these high-performance features is the latest milestone our strategic timeline to enable utilities to quickly gain the safety and cost benefits that EnCore Fuel will provide," he said.

Westinghouse is making "incredible strides" in the development of its ATFs, Frank Goldner, a nuclear engineer at DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, said. "These fuels will have a tangible impact on the industry once deployed in the near-term and could help make our US fleet more economical to operate," he added.

Three vendors - Framatome, GE Hitachi with GNF, and Westinghouse - are working with the DOE to develop new fuels under the ATF programme. All are on track to have their accident tolerant fuels ready for batch loading by the mid-2020s and commercially available with widespread adoption by 2030, DOE said.

Jordan declares uranium plant 'fully operational'

27 July 2021

Jordan has been operating a "pioneering" processing plant to recover yellowcake from uranium ores since the start of the year, the head of the country's Atomic Energy Commission has announced. Khaled Toukan's remarks were reported by state news agency Petra and shared by the Jordanian Uranium Mining Company (JUMCO), operator of the plant. JUMCO, which is the commercial arm of Jordanian Atomic Energy Commission, was established in 2013 to carry out radioactive elements exploration and development in Jordan.

JUMCO said its uranium processing plant is fully operational (Image: JUMCO/Petra)

JUMCO General Manager Mohammad Shunnaq said the company had, over the past year, "undertaken the design and installation of a factory for the production of yellow cake". Operation of the pilot plant has processed 70 tonnes of "ore", he said.

In addition to the uranium exploration, Jordan's nuclear program includes the Jordan Research and Training Reactor which became operational in 2016, and the Nuclear Power Plant Project to produce electricity and desalinate seawater, which is currently ongoing.

According to World Nuclear Association, Jordan imports most of its energy and seeks greater energy security as well as lower electricity prices. The country has significant uranium resources, some in phosphorite deposits, and is considering the use of small modular reactors. Jordan has signed nuclear cooperation agreements with France, Canada, the UK and Russia in respect to both power and desalination, and is developing its plans in line with International Atomic Energy Agency recommendations. It has also signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with China, covering uranium mining in Jordan and nuclear power, and others with South Korea, Japan, Spain, Italy, Romania, Turkey and Argentina related to infrastructure including nuclear power and desalination.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Canadian firm enters US uranium sector with mine purchases

16 July 2021

Vancouver-based International Consolidated Uranium (CUR) has agreed to buy the Tony M, Daneros and Rim conventional uranium mines in Utah, as well as the Sage Plain property and eight Department of Energy leases in Colorado from Energy Fuels Inc. In addition, the companies have agreed to enter into toll-milling and operating agreements with respect to the projects. The transaction positions CUR as a potential near-term US uranium producer.

The mines purchased by CUR from Energy Fuels (Image: CUR)

Under a definitive asset purchase agreement announced yesterday, CUR will pay Energy Fuels USD2 million at the closing of the transaction, CAD6 million (USD4.8 million) of deferred cash payable over time, up to CAD5 million of deferred cash payable on commencement of commercial production, and such number of CUR shares that results in Energy Fuels holding 19.9% of the outstanding CUR common shares immediately after closing. CUR will also pay Energy Fuels a management fee, along with a toll milling fee for ore produced at the acquired projects in the future.

The portfolio of projects being acquired by CUR includes, among other assets, three permitted, past-producing mines in Utah: Tony M, Daneros and Rim.

The Tony M mine in southeastern Utah is a large-scale, fully-developed and permitted underground mine. Located about 127 road miles west of Energy Fuels' White Mesa Mill, the mine was operated by Denison from September 2007 to November 2008, when it was placed on care and maintenance. In June 2012, Energy Fuels acquired all of Denison's uranium properties in the USA.

The Daneros mine - located about 70 miles west of the White Mesa Mill - is a fully-developed and permitted underground mine. It operated from 2009 until October 2012 when the mine was placed on standby by Denison.

The Rim mine is a permitted, formerly producing mine located approximately 62 road miles from the White Mesa Mill. The mine has operated historically on a periodic basis starting in the mid-1960s. Mining last occurred in early 2008 by Denison and ceased in late 2010. Energy Fuels acquired the property in 2012 and has maintained it on care and maintenance since that time.

The transaction also includes CIR's acquisition of the Sage Plain property in Utah and eight Department of Energy (DOE) leases in Colorado. The project area - some 54 road miles from the White Mesa Mill - is at the location of the historic Calliham mine. The DOE leases are located in the historically productive Uravan Mineral Belt in Colorado. The leases are located 80-175 road miles from the White Mesa Mill. New 10-year leases for these lease tracts were executed by Energy Fuels in January 2020.
Strategic alliance

CUR and Energy Fuels have also entered a strategic alliance for the projects, which involves three key components: a toll-milling agreement, operating agreements and an investor rights agreement.

Under the toll-milling, Energy Fuels will toll-mill ore mined from the projects at the White Mesa Mill, subject to payment by CUR of a toll-milling fee and certain other terms and conditions. With this agreement, CUR will become the only current US uranium developer - other than Energy Fuels itself - with guaranteed access to the White Mesa Mill, which is the only permitted and operating conventional uranium mill in the USA.

Through the operating agreements, Energy Fuels will provide ongoing services for a fee to maintain the projects in good standing, as well as additional services as agreed to by the parties.

Under the investor rights agreement, for so long as Energy Fuels' equity ownership in CUR remains at or above 10%, it will be entitled to equity participation rights to maintain its pro rata equity ownership in CUR and to appoint one nominee to the CUR Board of Directors.

Growth strategies

"Our strategy has been to acquire uranium projects around the world, create critical mass, and target the acquisition of larger, more advanced projects," said CUR President and CEO Philip Williams. "While the recently announced acquisition of the high-grade Matoush Project in Quebec was a big step forward for CUR, today's acquisition and alliance with Energy Fuels represents a giant leap. In one transaction, we are entering the important US uranium sector by acquiring past producing mines which are permitted and well positioned for a rapid restart when market conditions are right."

CUR has acquired a 100% interest or has entered into option agreements to acquire a 100% interest in seven uranium projects, in Australia, Canada and Argentina, each with significant past expenditures and attractive characteristics for development.

Energy Fuels holds three of the USA's key uranium production centres: the White Mesa Mill in Utah, the Nichols Ranch ISR Project in Wyoming and the Alta Mesa ISR Project in Texas. The White Mesa Mill is the only conventional uranium mill operating in the USA today, has a licensed capacity of over 8 million pounds of U3O8 per year and has the ability to produce vanadium when market conditions warrant.

"The assets we are selling to CUR are proven US uranium mines, and in fact production from these mines since 2006 has accounted for over 1,050,000 lbs of US uranium production, which would rank those mines as fifth among all current uranium producers in the US over those years," said Energy Fuels President and CEO Mark Chalmers.

"However, because Energy Fuels is focusing its attention on its core projects - the Nichols Ranch and Alta Mesa ISR properties and the Pinyon Plain, La Sal and other conventional properties - we do not believe markets have properly valued the projects within our expansive portfolio of exceptional assets," he added. "We believe that, in order to realise the full value of our expansive portfolio, certain assets, such as the projects, can be repositioned to the benefit of Energy Fuels and its shareholders, provided we find the right vehicle to unlock the value of these assets. In this transaction, we believe we have found that vehicle in CUR."

Transformative muon technology deployed at McClean Lake

07 July 2021

The world's first cosmic-ray muon detector developed specifically for use in industry-standard boreholes, has been deployed at Orano's McClean Lake site in northern Saskatchewan where it will be used to image a uranium deposit. The technology developed by Canadian start-up company Ideon Technologies could transform mineral exploration

Orano Canada Exploration Technical Director Rémy Chemillac with the borehole muon detector (Image: Ideon)

Muon tomography uses muons - naturally occurring subatomic particles created when cosmic rays enter Earth's upper atmosphere - to provide x-ray-like imaging up to 1 km beneath the Earth's surface. This means that new mineral and metal deposits can be identified with precision and confidence, with less need for drilling, reducing costs and risks, saving time and minimising environmental impact.

Ideon - a spin-off of Canada's TRIUMF national particle accelerator laboratory - has developed a discovery platform which integrates proprietary muon detectors, imaging systems, inversion technologies, and artificial intelligence to produce high-resolution 3D density maps of underground targets. The company has been working with Orano since 2016, when its first-generation large format detectors were used to image a high-grade uranium deposit under 600 m of sandstone at the McArthur River mine.

A miniaturisation effort has led to the development of the first industry-standard borehole (less than 10 cm in diameter), low-power (less than 10W continuous power consumption), zero-maintenance muon tomography detector suitable for operation in the extreme environmental conditions of mineral exploration sites around the world. Its deployment is a milestone that has taken more than a decade to reach, Ideon CEO Gary Agnew said.


Deploying the detector in the borehole (Image: Ideon)

"We've spent seven years doing commercial trials in partnership with the mining industry and several years of system design and development, de-risking and prototyping in the lab," he said. "Orano has been there right along with us for much of that journey, leading the way as a customer-driven innovator in the global energy transition. We are grateful for their enthusiasm, flexibility, trust, and willingness to break new ground with us."

Hervé Toubon, R&D and innovation director at Orano Mining, said the company expects the project to "transform the very nature" of exploration. It is "virtually impossible" to detect high-grade deposits at depth using traditional geophysical exploration techniques, he said. "The subsurface intelligence we gain with muon tomography gives us the ability to accurately locate those anomalies while reducing the need for drilling and lowering our overall environmental impact. That value proposition is hard to beat."

Orano's imaging target is a high-grade, compact uranium deposit located at a depth of 300 m. Multiple borehole muon detectors are deployed down a single drill hole in a connected sequence, delivering progressive imaging results throughout the survey. The McClean Lake project, which is approved by the Eureka intergovernmental R&D funding and coordination organisation, is receiving advisory services and funding support from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program and will run until the end of 2021.

In addition to muon tomography models, Ideon said it will also work with Orano to develop joint inversions with existing drill data and other geophysical datasets.

Muon detection systems have also been used to investigate passively the contents of legacy waste containers at Sellafield in the UK and to investigate the location of molten fuel within the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

Cigar Lake to resume operation as wildfire risk passes

05 July 2021

Workers are returning to the Cigar Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan, Canada, ahead of its planned restart later this week, Cameco has announced. All non-essential personnel were evacuated last week from the site as a precaution due to the proximity of a nearby wildfire

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Cigar Lake (Image: Cameco)

Cameco announced on 1 July that it had decided to evacuate about 230 workers from the Cigar Lake site. Around 80 personnel remained to secure the site and for essential duties. At that time, the company said: "The situation is complicated by extremely warm, dry weather, resulting from the heat dome that has settled over western Canada in recent days, along with variable wind and smoke conditions."

On 2 July, Cameco said the wildfire had moved past the main camp area without serious impact to the site itself. "While our inspections continue, we believe no structural damage has occurred to any buildings and all assets appear intact," it said.

Yesterday it announced, in consultation with provincial wildfire management officials from the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, it believed the risk to Cigar Lake posed by the fire had now subsided.

"With improved weather and smoke conditions, minimal likelihood of further road closures in the area, and all infrastructure at Cigar Lake remaining intact, Cameco believes the full complement of personnel can be safely remobilised and regular operations resumed," it said.

Cameco is now in the process of transporting employees and contractors back to the Cigar Lake site. Final inspections and preparation of equipment will occur over the days ahead to ready the operation for a return to production.

Cigar Lake is the world's highest grade uranium mine and has produced a total of over 93 million pounds U3O8 since it was commissioned in 2014. Ore from Cigar Lake is processed at the McClean Lake mill, 70 kilometres from the mine, which is operated by Orano. Uranium production at Cigar Lake was suspended due to restrictions created by the COVID-19 pandemic for five months from March 2020, and for a second time in December, resuming in April.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News