Rethinking the scale, structure & scope of U.S. energy institutions

This essay notes some of the key institutions created in the twentieth century for the purpose of delivering energy in North America. Those institutions are being challenged by a combination of stresses in three interconnected areas: reliability, economics, and environmental sustainability. The essay argues that these three stresses create an “energy trilemma” requiring institutional reform. We suggest that new and modi½ed institutions can best be understood if we evaluate them along three dimensions: institutional scale, structure, and scope. We consider real-world examples of recent institutions in light of each of these dimensions and note both successes and concerns that those factors illuminate. We conclude by noting that some institutional changes will be organic and unplanned; but many others, including responses to climate change, will bene½t from conscious attention to scale, structure, and scope by those engaged in designing and building the energy institutions needed in the twenty-½rst century

Molecular Distribution, 13C-Isotope, and Enantiomeric Compositions of Carbonaceous Chondrite Monocarboxylic Acids

The watersoluble organic compounds in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites constitute a record of the synthetic reactions occurring at the birth of the solar system and those taking place during parent body alteration and may have been important for the later origins and development of life on Earth. In this present work, we have developed a novel methodology for the simultaneous analysis of the molecular distribution, compoundspecific 13C, and enantiomeric compositions of aliphatic monocarboxylic acids (MCA) extracted from the hotwater extracts of 16 carbonaceous chondrites from CM, CR, CO, CV, and CK groups. We observed high concentrations of meteoritic MCAs, with total carbon weight percentages which in some cases approached those of carbonates and insoluble organic matter. Moreover, we found that the concentration of MCAs in CR chondrites is higher than in the other meteorite groups, with acetic acid exhibiting the highest concentration in all samples. The abundance of MCAs decreased with increasing molecular weight and with increasing aqueous and/or thermal alteration experienced by the meteorite sample. The 13C isotopic values of MCAs ranged from 52 to +27, and aside from an inverse relationship between 13C value and carbon straightchain length for C3C6 MCAs in Murchison, the 13Cisotopic values did not correlate with the number of carbon atoms per molecule. We also observed racemic compositions of 2methylbutanoic acid in CM and CR chondrites. We used this novel analytical protocol and collective data to shed new light on the prebiotic origins of chondritic MCAs

Global equality of resources and the problem of valuation

The principle that every individual on the planet has a claim to an equal share of Earth’s natural resources has an intuitive attraction. Yet the Principle of Natural Resource Equality is not without its problems. This article focuses on the problem of valuation. Unless and until its adherents are able to develop an adequate theoretical mechanism for determining the comparative value of two or more bundles of natural resources the principle lacks applicability and persuasive force. Three adequacy constraints on such a mechanism are presented and then applied to a theorisation of the Principle of Natural Resource Equality that I have already expounded elsewhere: Global Equality of Resources. In each case I try to argue that Global Equality of Resources could satisfy the adequacy constraint, provided that both this theory and the relevant constraint are properly understood

The prisoner's right to vote and civic responsibility: Reaffirming the social contract?

Copyright © 2009 NAPOThis article considers the issue of the prisoner’s right to vote in the light of recent developments in law and policy. It critically reviews the purported justifications for disenfranchisement and argues that re-enfranchisement should be pursued on the grounds of both principle and policy

Hydrothermal Decomposition of Amino Acids and Origins of Prebiotic Meteoritic Organic Compounds

The organic compounds found in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites provide insight into primordial solar system chemistry. Evaluating the formation and decomposition mechanisms of meteoritic amino acids may aid our understanding of the origins of life and homochirality on Earth. The amino acid glycine is widespread in meteorites and other extraterrestrial environments; other amino acids, such as isovaline, are found with enantiomeric excesses in some meteorites. The relationship between meteoritic amino acids and other compounds with similar molecular structures, such as aliphatic monoamines and monocarboxylic acids is unclear; experimental results evaluating the decomposition of amino acids have produced inconclusive results about the preferred pathways, reaction intermediates, and if the conditions applied may be compatible with those occurring inside meteoritic parent bodies. In this work, we performed extensive tandem metadynamics, umbrella sampling, and committor analysis to simulate the neutral mild hydrothermal decomposition mechanisms of glycine and isovaline and put them into context for the origins of meteoritic organic compounds. Our ab initio simulations aimed to determine free energy profiles and decomposition pathways for glycine and isovaline. We found that under our modeled conditions, methylammonium, glycolic acid, and sec-butylamine are the most likely decomposition products. These results suggest that meteoritic aliphatic monocarboxylic acids are not produced from decomposition of meteoritic amino acids. Our results also indicate that the decomposition of L-isovaline prefers an enantioselective pathway resulting in the production of (S)-sec-butylamine

Analyses of Aliphatic Aldehydes and Ketones in Carbonaceous Chondrites

Aliphatic aldehydes and ketones are essential building blocks for the synthesis of more complex organic compounds. In spite of their potentially key role as precursors of astrobiologically-important molecules, such as amino acids and carboxylic acids, this family of compounds has scarcely been evaluated in carbonaceous chondrites. The paucity of such analyses likely derives from the low concentration of aldehydes and ketones in the meteorites, and from the currently used chromatographic methodologies that have not been optimized for meteorite analysis. In this work, we report the development of a novel analytical method to quantify the molecular distribution and compound-specific isotopic analysis of 29 aliphatic aldehydes and ketones. Using this method, we have investigated the molecular distribution and 13C-isotopic composition of aldehydes and ketones in ten carbonaceous chondrites from the CI, CM, CR and CV groups. The total concentration of carbonyl compounds ranged from 130 to 1000 nmolg-1 of meteorite, with formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and acetone being the most abundant species in all investigated samples. The 13C-isotopic values ranged from 67 to +64 and we did not observe clear relationships between 13C-content and molecular weight. Accurately measuring the relative abundances, determining the molecular distribution, and isotopic composition of chondritic organic compounds is central in assessing both their formation chemistry and synthetic relationships

Rape and respectability: ideas about sexual violence and social class

Women on low incomes are disproportionately represented among sexual violence survivors, yet feminist research on this topic has paid very little attention to social class. This article blends recent research on class, gender and sexuality with what we know about sexual violence. It is argued that there is a need to engage with classed distinctions between women in terms of contexts for and experiences of sexual violence, and to look at interactions between pejorative constructions of working-class sexualities and how complainants and defendants are perceived and treated. The classed division between the sexual and the feminine, drawn via the notion of respectability, is applied to these issues. This piece is intended to catalyse further research and debate, and raises a number of questions for future work on sexual violence and social class

Gender, war and militarism: making and questioning the links

The gender dynamics of militarism have traditionally been seen as straightforward, given the cultural mythologies of warfare and the disciplining of ‘masculinity’ that occurs in the training and use of men's capacity for violence in the armed services. However, women's relation to both war and peace has been varied and complex. It is women who have often been most prominent in working for peace, although there are no necessary links between women and opposition to militarism. In addition, more women than ever are serving in many of today's armies, with feminists rather uncertain on how to relate to this phenomenon. In this article, I explore some of the complexities of applying gender analyses to militarism and peace work in sites of conflict today, looking most closely at the Israeli feminist group, New Profile, and their insistence upon the costs of the militarized nature of Israeli society. They expose the very permeable boundaries between the military and civil society, as violence seeps into the fears and practices of everyday life in Israel. I place their work in the context of broader feminist analysis offered by researchers such as Cynthia Enloe and Cynthia Cockburn, who have for decades been writing about the ‘masculinist’ postures and practices of warfare, as well as the situation of women caught up in them. Finally, I suggest that rethinking the gendered nature of warfare must also encompass the costs of war to men, whose fundamental vulnerability to psychological abuse and physical injury is often downplayed, whether in mainstream accounts of warfare or in more specific gender analysis. Feminists need to pay careful attention to masculinity and its fragmentations in addressing the topic of gender, war and militarism

Extinctions and Correlations for Uniformly Discrete Point Processes with Pure Point Dynamical Spectra

The paper investigates how correlations can completely specify a uniformly discrete point process. The setting is that of uniformly discrete point sets in real space for which the corresponding dynamical hull is ergodic. The first result is that all of the essential physical information in such a system is derivable from its $n$-point correlations, $n= 2, 3, >...$. If the system is pure point diffractive an upper bound on the number of correlations required can be derived from the cycle structure of a graph formed from the dynamical and Bragg spectra. In particular, if the diffraction has no extinctions, then the 2 and 3 point correlations contain all the relevant information.Comment: 16 page

Analysis of Volatile Organic Compounds in the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) 73002 Core Sample

Understanding the organic content of lunar regolith was an early priority upon the return of Apollo samples, with amino acids being of special interest because of their importance to life on Earth and their astrobiological relevance. Many initial studies focused on the detection of amino acids in these samples and attempts to determine the origin of those compounds. Although no consensus on the origin of the amino acids was reached in those early studies, more recent work determined that the detected amino acids originated from both terrestrial contamination and meteoritic or cometary in fall to the lunar surface. A majority of the amino acids in the Apollo samples studied originated from precursor molecules, either indigenous to the lunar samples or contaminants, that reacted during the water extraction and acid hydrolysis process for analysis in the laboratory, but the identities of the amino acid precursors still remain poorly understood. Such precursors could include hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and other volatile organic compounds such as amines, carboxylic acids, or aldehydes and ketones. The identities of these compounds, as well as the effects of years of curation on their abundances in lunar regolith samples stored at ambient temperature under nitrogen gas purge, are not clear. The specially curated samples available through the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) program provide a unique opportunity to use state-of- the-art analytical techniques to examine previously unstudied lunar materials. The ANGSA samples include three types of samples: 1) samples stored frozen since <1 month after Earth arrival; 2) samples stored under helium; and 3) a double drive tube collected by Apollo 17 astronauts, with the bottom portion of the drive tube sealed under vacuum on the Moon and never opened. In contrast to the typically curated Apollo samples that have been kept for decades at room temperature under flowing nitrogen purge that may have significantly reduced the abundance of volatiles, the vacuum-sealed and frozen samples may have enhanced preservation of these volatiles. Our initial investigation examines amino acids and their potential volatile precursors, including hydrogen cyanide (HCN), aldehydes, ketones, amines, and mono-carboxylic acids, in a sample from the top portion of the Apollo 17 double drive tube. These results will aid in understanding the lunar abundances of these molecules and will also be compared to future analyses of other drive tube and frozen ANGSA samples