Click on the following to view the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UlYClniDFkM
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Re-Elect
BILL PYSSON
District One Boone County Board
Bill’s initiatives over the last two years have improved your county government. These are a few of Bill’s accomplishments:
- · ·Suggested and succeeded in having all appointed posts and jobs openings posted on county website
- · · Insured that the required disclosures of employee salaries are available to the public; by name not merely job description.
- · · Demanded the County Board Chairman posts all proposed appointments in advance. Based upon the requirement of the board’s advice and consent, Bill votes on no appointment unless they are posted in advanced on the website and the application letters of all applicants are made public. Unfortunately the chairman only sometimes complies with this request.
- · · Questioned why the county has not completed a physical inventory of property in over seven years. In 2014 such an inventory was finally completed and a perpetual inventory system is being devised. County ordinances required such inventories yet the county failed to comply with the requirement for years.
- · · Written evaluation of employees supervised by the County Administrator will now occur once per year. Previously formal evaluations were not required and did not occur.
- · · Discovered that Freedom of Information (FOIA) Requests were sometimes completed incorrectly. Personnel completing requests had not completed the two hour on-line training. Personnel are now properly trained and hopefully all FOIA‘s now comply with statute.
- · · For the first time ever, farming of the 68 acres of cropland owned by the county went out to bid. The high bid was approved by the county board in September 2014. Despite this year’s fall in commodity prices, the bid is $30 per acre higher ($280 vs. $250) than last year’s price which was privately negotiated. Bill adamantly requested open bidding in 2013 and now it finally happened.
- · · The county code posted on the website was years out of date. The only means of knowing the actual code requirements was to contact county administration. Based upon Bill’s questioning --changes to the code will now be updated quarterly.
It is the duty of the county board to provide general supervision of the Animal Services, Planning Enforcement, Building Department and the County Administrator’s office. Bill criticized the county for not having written procedures for each of these activities. Bill suggested written logs of zoning complaints, car usage, office calls and office contacts; unfortunately these suggestions have not been accepted. Hopefully the accountability benefits of such rudimentary recordkeeping will eventually be accepted.
Bill’s two District One opponents are opposed to Wind Farms. Bill voted against the ordinance change because the proposed 2000 feet set back would effectively prohibited commercial wind turbines in the county. Wind turbines can be effectively regulated by the special use provision of the county zoning code. This position was recommended by the professional staff of the County Zoning Department.
--THERE IS MUCH MORE TO DO--
Re-Elect BILL PYSSON
District One Boone County Board
Compact Fusion · Lockheed Martin
Compact Fusion
It’s no secret that our Skunk Works® team often finds itself on the cutting edge of technology. As they work to develop a source of infinite energy, our engineers are looking to the biggest natural fusion reactor for inspiration – the sun. By containing the power of the sun in a small magnetic bottle, we are on the fast track to developing nuclear fusion reactors to serve the world’s ever-growing energy needs.
FUSION VS. FISSION
More than 50 years ago, nuclear power through fission was the excitement of its day. People tried using it to power almost everything, even planes. In the end, operational hurdles prevented fission from widespread use.
While fission continues to power our nuclear reactors today, fusion offers a cleaner, safer source of energy.
Fission occurs when one atom is split into two smaller fragments, creating an explosion of sorts and resulting in the release of heat energy.
Fusion is the process by which a gas is heated up and separated into its ions and electrons. When the ions get hot enough, they can overcome their mutual repulsion and collide, fusing together. When this happens, they release a lot of energy – about one million times more powerful than a chemical reaction and 3-4 times more powerful than a fission reaction.
Energy created through fusion is 3-4 times more powerful than the energy released by fission.
HOW COMPACT FUSION WORKS
Nuclear fusion is the process by which the sun works. Our concept will mimic that process within a compact magnetic container and release energy in a controlled fashion to produce power we can use.
A reactor small enough to fit on a truck could provide enough power for a small city of up to 100,000 people
Building on more than 60 years of fusion research, the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works approach to compact fusion is a high beta concept. This concept uses a high fraction of the magnetic field pressure, or all of its potential, so we can make our devices 10 times smaller than previous concepts. That means we can replace a device that must be housed in a large building with one that can fit on the back of a truck.
The compact size is the reason that we believe we will be able to create fusion technology quickly. The smaller the size of the device, the easier it is to build up momentum and develop it faster. Instead of taking five years to design and build a concept, it takes only a few months. If we undergo a few of these testing and refinement cycles, we will be able to develop a prototype within the same five year timespan.
To mimic the energy created by the sun and control it here on earth, we’re creating a concept that can be contained using a magnetic bottle. The bottle is able to handle extremely hot temperatures, reaching hundreds of millions of degrees. By containing this reaction, we can release it in a controlled fashion to create energy we can use.
The heat energy created using this compact fusion reactor will drive turbine generators by replacing the combustion chambers with simple heat exchangers. In turn, the turbines will then generate electricity or the propulsive power for a number of applications.Rapid design cycles allow for less conservative design choices, faster consideration of alternatives, less capital, and the ability to maintain momentum moving forward with constant progress.
Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project - Yahoo Finance
breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.
Tom McGuire, who heads the project, said he and a small team had been working on fusion energy at Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works for about four years, but were now going public to find potential partners in industry and government for their work.
Initial work demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck, and is about 10 times smaller than current reactors, McGuire told reporters.
In a statement, the company, the Pentagon's largest supplier, said it would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, and build a prototype in five years.
In recent years, Lockheed has gotten increasingly involved in a variety of alternate energy projects, including several ocean energy projects, as it looks to offset a decline in U.S. and European military spending.
View gallery
Chief Executive Officer of Lockheed Martin Corp Marillyn Hewson speaks to journalists at a news conf …
Lockheed's work on fusion energy could help in developing new power sources amid increasing global conflicts over energy, and as projections show there will be a 40 percent to 50 percent increase in energy use over the next generation, McGuire said
Read more: Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project - Yahoo Finance
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)