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Voyager Sisters - R.I.S.

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March 13, 2025 - The latest efforts in getting in contact with the Voyager probes have not been successful and today it was officially announced that we have lost the contact with them forever. The last signal from Voyager 1 was received in November 2020 and from Voyager 2 in March 2020.
Voyager 1 was launched into space in September 1977 with the primary target to explore Jupiter and Saturn and their moons and rings. It is today the farthest human-made object from Earth, with a distance of about 22.6 billion kilometers from our Sun, or 150 times farther away from the Sun than Earth. Voyager 1 was also the first human object to enter interstellar space about 10 years ago.

The reason for the lost contact is lack of power from the three radioisotope thermoelectric generators, that is needed for the Voyagers to set the antenna towards Earth to be able to uphold contact.

When launching the Voyagers greetings were included from us earthlings to any fo…
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New Cancer Cases

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November 15, 2020 - The number of new cases of cancer this year will exceed 16 million worldwide for the first time. This is an increase with 60% compared to 20 years ago and is due to the growing and aging population, and adoption of unhealthy lifestyles.
Tobacco is still the biggest single source for developing malignant tumors and lung cancer the most common form of cancer. The relative risk for a regular smoker to develop lung cancer compared to a non-smoker is between 20 and 30 times higher. Even involuntary tobacco smoke may increase the lung cancer risk by 20 percent.

The connection between smoking and lung cancer was already established in a report in 1957. They then estimated that the mortality rate caused by lung cancer had doubled from 1945 to 1955. Today, more than 10 million people worldwide dies from smoking every year.

The best way to avoid getting cancer is staying away from cancer-causing agents like tobacco and industrial carci…
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Oil Price to Reach US$ 350

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January 12, 2020 - Even though the oil price crossed another barrier earlier this week with US$ 320 a barrel, we have probably not seen the end of it. With the stumbling of the world's current oil production even higher oil prices are to expect in the future. 1

When Saudi Arabia officially announced in 2013 that the oil production in Ghawar, the biggest oil field in the world, was significantly decreasing, the price for a barrel passed US$ 200. The current total world production of oil is 91 million barrels a day. To get down to the same oil price as before 2013, adjusted for inflation, an estimated world production increase of about 10% is needed.

This can only be achieved in three deposits in the world, Green River Oil Shale in the US, Athabasca Oil Sand in Canada, or Orinoco Oil Sand in Venezuela. However, all of them are extremely stressed at the moment with full capacity, which prevent them from increasing production for a lower oil price.

Some people also set their hopes for an…
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Wind Power

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December 18, 2020 - This year shows strong growth for wind power when the total global installed capacity added a record 62,000 MW, making the total capacity more than 680,000 MW. Wind power is by far the renewable source with the largest growth in worldwide capacity during the last decade.
The US was quite slow adopting wind power compared to many European countries, but passed Germany as the biggest producer of wind power in the world in year 2008. Then China passed the US in 2010. US now has a capacity of 141,000 MW compared to 92,000 MW for Germany. China was the country with the strongest growth related to the total capacity, adding another 20% with 154,000 MW installed.

US is though behind Europe when it comes to wind power as part of the total electricity demand, serving only 6%, compared to 12,7% for Europe. Denmark is with 40% still the country with the highest share of wind energy, most likely reaching 50% within the next five years. …
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Taming Hurricane Pedro

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August 29, 2040 - Analysts believe that the effort in taming the hurricane Pedro is the main reason for it to still be considered a category four hurricane, before it reached the coast of southern Florida today. This is the first time ever a major hurricane has been affected in a measurable way by humans.
The hurricane fighting fleet of airplanes was alerted five days ago and has since then been spraying the ocean surface around Pedro's eye with a mix based on biodegradable oil to slow down the evaporating that feeds the hurricane. Even though progress have been made calculating the development of a hurricane, it is still difficult to determine the exact effect of the spraying, but analysts believe it is the reason that the wind speed has not increased.

It is hard to tell exactly what kind of damages a category five hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale could do to the southern part of Florida. Estimations show that the difference between a…
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37th Olympics

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September 11, 2040 - There are only a couple of days left to the grand opening of the 37th Olympic Games in Abuja in Nigeria this Friday. It is the second time Africa is hosting the Olympics, and the organizers feel confident that it will be the best games ever.
The opening is promised to present "the richness and flavors that Nigeria and Africa have to offer". The big happening during the opening will be the 16 meters high 3-D projected Nigerian dancers that will swing across the field, accompanied by thousands human ones. They also promise a couple of special surprises for the opening party.

As any major sports event this has also been preceded by the questions of doping and the way to fight it, but we can only hope that these games will be as clean as possible. No more sports have been added for these Olympics, so the newest ones are still climbing and windsurfing.

The closing of the games will be on September 30, the day before Ni…
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1 Million Hydrogen-Fueled Cars

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January 19, 2035 - According to the latest statistics presented this week, 1 million hydrogen-fueled cars have now been sold in the US. The figures for last year show an increase in sales by 50% from 2033.
The hydrogen fleet is still dominated by hydrogen-hybrids even though several fuel cell models have been introduced in the market during the last couple of years. The price for a hydrogen-hybrid is still about 20% higher than for a regular gasoline-hybrid, which make it more expensive to own and drive. The reason for the sale increase is more related to the hydrogen hype for environmental purposes, although mainly all hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, like natural gas.

The latest environmental effort is the introduction of the Re-Hydro label last year to stimulate the production of hydrogen produced through electrolysis, based on a source of 100% renewable energy. The production is still quite limited and it is only available at selecte…
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