From time to time we update our readers on situations which have been described in our Newsletter. Clearinghouse Update
"Conference on Free Energy" spurned by U.S. Government
Our Spring 1999 issue reported on a session on "Science, Junk Science, and Pseudoscience," sponsored by the American Physical Society Forum on Physics and Society, in which Peter Zimmerman of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency exposed a "Conference on Free Energy," slated to be part of the U.S. State Department's Open Forum program. Noting that the promoter of the conference was a patent examiner, Zimmerman concluded his presentation with the sad news that the conference, hosted by the Integrity Research Institute, had merely been moved to the Commerce Department. This patent examiner is named and the fate of his conference is fully described in an article, "'New Physics' Finds a Haven At the Patent Office" in the 21 May 1999 issue of Science. This article describes how Thomas Valone has tried to recruit kindred spirits to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (whose examiners are overworked and underpaid) -- but his only recruit stayed less than a year. Moreover, the Commerce Department withdrew their authorization to use their auditorium for Valone's conference, now retitled "Conference on Future Energy," and it had to be held at a hotel in Bethesda, MD, at the end of April.At the same time, although patents were refused for the "cold fusion" propounded by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, patents for similar devices have since been issued -- to Clean Energy Technologies, Inc., of Sarasota, FL. Originally rejected by examiners specializing in nuclear science, these patent applications later passed when restructured to be examined by electrochemists. As the article in Science states, only perpetual motion machine applications require submission of a working model. Otherwise, "Patents are nothing more than 'a legal right to exclude others from using or profiting from an invention.'" Yet they are essential to enable "inventors" to raise venture capital.
Yet another patent was granted for a device called LifeGuard, which claims to detect humans behind barriers solely from the electric and magnetic fields of their hearts. Bearing a great deal of resemblance to the unpatented quadrarod locator discussed by James Randi at the same Forum on Physics and Society session, it also failed tests conducted at the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, NM. Interviews with the patent examiner and his assistant in the Science article indicate that they checked only that no other patents had been filed for this device and that the application forms were filled out completely.
Resolution of PCBs GE dumped in Hudson finally at hand?
The impasse over disposing of the PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) dumped into the Hudson River by General Electric was reported to be 15 years old in the Clearinghouse Update of our Fall 1991 issue. According to the Spring 1999 Environment newsletter of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), there is now a "cleanup plan for PCBs . . . and other contamination at General Electric Company's Fort Edward facility, including removal of PCB-contaminated material from the bank of the Hudson River."The Proposed Remedial Action Plan involves two separate cleanups at GE's 32-acre site in Washington County: removal of contaminated river bank material on the east shore of the Hudson River near a former wastewater outfall pipe and cleanup of contaminated groundwater and soil beneath the manufacturing facility.
To prevent PCBs from further contaminating the river and fish, DEC proposes to remove about 8,700 cubic yards of contaminated material along the river bank. The material, which would be disposed off-site, was contaminated by wastewater discharged from the plant during past manufacturing operations. The PCB contamination found in the material ranged from 0.2 to 44,800 parts per million. [Our Winter 1999 Clearinghouse Update, citing the same publication, listed a "state subsurface cleanup goal of 10 ppm" and a "1 ppm surface soil cleanup goal."]
Under the DEC proposal, goundwater beneath the plant contaminated with PCBs and volatile organic compounds will be collected through a series of extraction wells. The water will be treated at the facility's existing treatment plant and then discharged to the Hudson River. In addition, an existing recovery system will be expanded to address a pool of PCB oil beneath the plant parking lot.
Collection of the contaminated groundwater and PCB oil from beneath the plant site will prevent off-site migration and help restore groundwater quality. The estimated cost of the cleanups is $3.6 million for the plant site and $5.8 million for the Hudson River shore area.
More Bad Rap for MTBE
The Clearinghouse Update of our Winter 1999 issue reported that a study commissioned by the University of California, Davis, found no reduction in benzene emissions from oxygenated gasoline. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided to follow up that study with its own, and the results were reported in the 17 May 1999 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&E N). The EPA-funded study, "Ozone-Forming Potential of Reformulated Gasoline," was released by the National Research Council (NRC). Investigating both ethanol and MTBE (Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether), it found that "the impact of both oxygenates is very small" and claimed that "lower vapor pressure and sulfur content in reformulated gasoline have had much greater effects than the addition of oxygenates." In contrast to the Davis study, the NRC study "did find that the addition of oxygenates reduces emission of some toxics from reformulated gasoline, such as benzene." But it cautioned about increased emissions of other toxics from oxygenates, such as formaldehyde from MTBE and acetaldehyde from ethanol. Meanwhile, as reported in our Spring 1999 Clearinghouse Update, the state of California has banned MTBE as an oxygenate in its gasoline.The 2 August 1999 issue of C&E N reported the recommendations of yet another EPA Advisory Panel, which "called for a substantial reduction in the use of . . . . MTBE as a gasoline additive." It "also recommended that Congress remove the current requirement that 2% of reformulated gasoline by weight consist of oxygen -- a mandate of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments." The C&E N report states that "MTBE is a known carcinogen in animals, but a link to human carcinogenicity has not been made" and quotes EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner as saying, "The recommendations I received from the panel confirm EPA's belief that we must begin to significantly reduce the use of MTBE in gasoline as quickly as possible without sacrificing the gains we've made in achieving cleaner air." A summary of the panel's recommendations can be found on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/oms/consumer/fuels/oxypanel/blueribb.htm.
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