Episodi

  • 387 - Direct Air Capture

    387 - Direct Air Capture
    May 20 2022
    The climate situatation is getting more and more dire, and in order to reach the goals the international community has set for themselves, engineering solutions seem increasingly necessary. After talking about solar geoengineering in episode 385, we will look at direct air capture in this episode. Direct Air Capture is a family of technologies that allow the extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere. My guest Peter Psarras explains the technology, the economics and also the political and moral challenges associated with the technology.
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    1 ora e 44 min
  • 385 - Solar Geoengineering

    385 - Solar Geoengineering
    Mar 18 2022
    The root cause of global warming is that more and more of the energy supplied by the sun is captured by the atmosphere because of increased amounts of CO2 and other climate gases. One way of fixing this is to make sure that more of that energy is reflected and never even penetrates the lower atmosphere. Solar geoengineering proposes to put particles into the upper atmosphere to increase its reflectivity and thereby reduce the temperature. In the episode I talk with Harvard's David Keith about some of the technical aspects, which role this technique can play in the overall fight against climate change, some of the political challenges as well as current avenues of research.
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    1 ora e 2 min
  • 383 - The LHC Beam Dump

    383 - The LHC Beam Dump
    Feb 6 2022
    The beam dump is a large graphite block used to take up the energy stored in the LHC beam in case the beam needs to be shut down. Since the energy in the beam can be as high as the kinetic energy of a landing 747-400, designing and operating the dump is challenging. In this episode, Marco Calviani, who heads the group that is responsible for this and other beam dumps at CERN, tells us about how the dump works, and what they have recently changed in order to cope with the higher luminosity in future configurations of the LHC.
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    1 ora e 31 min
  • 378 - Flying the F-18 Classic Hornet

    378 - Flying the F-18 Classic Hornet
    Oct 22 2021
    It's been 377 episodes and we have not yet dedicated one to the F-18. This changes now. In the episode we first talk with Jerry Deren, a former US Navy Hornet pilot who also flew with the Blue Angels; we cover both aspects of his career. In part two we chat with Nick Anderson, former RAAF F-18 pilot (and co-host of the Airline Pilot Guy podcast). We chat about his experience flying the Hornet Down Under, focussing on quirks and funny stories.
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    3 ore e 40 min
  • 374 - Flying the F-22

    374 - Flying the F-22
    Aug 1 2021
    The main part of this episode is about flying the F-22 Raptor, the most modern air superiority fighter in the inventory of the USAF. Our guest is Dan Javorsek, callsign Animal, who has previously flown the Raptor in operational test. Dan has also been the initiator of the Alpha Dogfight trials, where an AI was tested against a real pilot in a simulator air-to-air engagement. Dan also flew the F-117 and the F-35, so we cover those airplanes as well.
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    1 ora e 48 min
  • 370 - Nixus, the Fly-by-Wire Glider

    370 - Nixus, the Fly-by-Wire Glider
    Jun 4 2021
    In this episode I talk with Paulo Iscold, a professor or aeronautical engineering at Cal Poly about Nixus Nixus, his most recent project. Nixus is one of the most fascinating and ground-breaking research efforts in the space of gliding. It uses advanced manufacturing techniques to support a very thing wing, plus a fly-by-wire system to control the ailerons and the flaps; the latter are automatically adjusted to the current speed.
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    1 ora e 42 min
  • 368 - Nuclear Waste Disposal and Storage

    368 - Nuclear Waste Disposal and Storage
    May 1 2021
    In this episode we cover the final storage of nuclear waste in underground facilities. We start out with a conversation about the basic process and the chemistry and physics of nuclear waste with Gareth Law, a professor of radiochemistry at the university of Helsinki. We then discuss geological issues with Heini Reijonen of the Geological Survey of Finland. Our third conversation is about the Onkalo storage facility in Finland with Sophie Haapalehto, who works for Posiva, the operator of the site.
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    3 ore e 16 min
  • 366 - The Viper Gliding Club

    366 - The Viper Gliding Club
    Apr 2 2021
    My guest Jens and I have two things in common: we both fly gliders, and we both got to fly in an F-16. Which is why we form the Viper Gliding Club :-) Jens is a Danish journalist and got to fly with the Danish Air Force in one of their F-16Bs. In this episode we compare notes on our experiences, appreciate the commonalities and discuss the differences.
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    1 ora e 37 min