HAARP: Weather Weapon or a Load of Hot Air?

by James Ormiston 

The HAARP Hype
A month-or-so ago the internet was abuzz with debates, videos and general head scratching concerning snow in America that apparently does not melt. Youtube quickly filled with videos of people taking lighters and blowtorches to samples of this so-called “plastic snow”, with all manner of theories attempting to explain the phenomenon. In the end the actual explanation was a simple misunderstanding of the properties of snow and how people were trying to melt it, but this did not stop one of the most vocal communities on the internet voicing their own interpretation of the situation: conspiracy theorists. The usual claims were made: that the snow was made by the government through chemtrails, that the snow contained chemicals and mind control agents to suppress the population and so on. One of the theories concerned a scientific facility which in the past few years has been blamed for almost every major climatic and seismic disaster on the planet. The facility in question is HAARP, an atmospheric research station in Alaska. According to many conspiracy theorists, the American government is using it as a “weather weapon”, capable of manipulating the weather and triggering earthquakes to harm people and countries that disagree with them.

"A "sky-punch" cloud, one of many rare but relatively well understood atmospheric phenomena often misidentified as being caused by HAARP."

There are entire YouTube channels devoted to documenting HAARP’s alleged effects and almost all of them involve abnormal clouds, lights in the sky and general out-of-the-ordinary atmospheric occurrences. It is worth noting, however, that practically none of the followers of the HAARP conspiracy are climate scientists. So why do people believe that HAARP is the cause of the world’s current climatic woes as opposed to something like climate change? One major reason that people distrust the work done at the HAARP facility is that it was built for atmospheric manipulation. This is true; the entire project was designed specifically for just that, but not at all in a way that would affect the weather...

The Numbers of HAARP
Let’s go through the facts of what HAARP actually is. HAARP stands for High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program. It is a scientific research facility based in a remote region of Alaska easily accessed on the Tok Highway. The facility consists of a 30 acre radio antenna array with a maximum transmission power of 3600 kilowatts at frequencies of 2.3-10 kilohertz. The facility is used by several major American universities. Its purpose is relatively simple: to stimulate and heat small portions of the ionosphere to investigate how it affects, among other things, radio communication.

HAARP radio antenna array

The array transmits a high frequency signal directly upwards over the facility which fans out as it travels higher through the air, passing straight through lower layers of the atmosphere without effect. Some of the signal is absorbed by the ionosphere whilst some is reflected back to Earth or continues into space. The signal absorbed by the ionosphere has an intensity of 3 microwatts per cm2. To put this value into perspective, the Sun constantly bombards Earth with electromagnetic radiation thousands of times greater. In fact, the intensity of HAARP’s transmission is hundreds of times weaker than the variations in UV input from the Sun that forms the ionosphere in the first place. 

One of HAARP’s major achievements was the production of very small artificial aurorae (the same atmospheric phenomenon as the Northern Lights) using this method. The aurorae produced were so weak however that the human eye would not detect them and so the facility relies on highly sensitive electronic monitoring equipment to analyse experiments, hence its remote location away from populated areas plagued with electric noise. 

Man-made HAARP aurora

HAARP only stimulates the ionosphere, not the troposphere (where our weather occurs), and thus has a negligible, if any, effect on the climate as the distance and differences in composition between these atmospheric layers are too great. Even in the ionosphere, HAARP is not powerful enough to do anything significant. The fact that natural aurorae can be seen with the naked eye whilst weak HAARP aurorae cannot be detected without electrical instruments is evidence for this without needing to consult atmospheric physics literature. If stimulating the ionosphere in such a manner resulted in dramatic weather changes, the vast solar/extra-terrestrial input of energy experienced every day would cause constant cataclysmic weather events. The “science” behind HAARP’s supposed abilities just doesn't add up.

Earth-shattering Claims
The story doesn’t end there though. Further claims blamed HAARP for the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011 as well as the Boxing Day tsunami the decade before. This claim is more outlandish than suggesting HAARP affects the weather as earthquakes are said to be triggered this way by “heating moisture in the atmosphere like a microwave”. Firstly, there is no correlation between atmospheric temperature and seismic disturbance. Secondly, supposed evidence of HAARP being to blame includes the fact that increased background radioactivity is observed before and after earthquakes. The problem with this is that electromagnetic radiation and radioactive decay are two quite different things. HAARP uses radio waves, which are electromagnetic, whilst radioactivity is derived from decay of radioactive isotopes of elements in the Earth’s interior, which is released when rocks in the Earth’s crust are bent and broken during seismic events.

The Politics
So what can conspiracy theorists say to suggest HAARP is genuinely suspicious? Well, HAARP conspiracy theorists often cite the investors behind the project as evidence. The two major investors were DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) and ARCO (Atlantic Richfield Company). As a defence agency, anything funded by DARPA is treated by some as suspicious, and HAARP was no exception. ARCO was a major American gas company and employment source in Alaska at the time, looking to invest in HAARP so they could sell the gas needed to power the project’s arrays. Dr Bernard Eustland, a renowned physicist, was even employed by APTI, a specially set up subdivision of ARCO, to gain backing. Overall, it was a clever business move. DARPA’s interest was solely in the potential for improving military communication with HAARP’s radio wave research. This is why no patents were filed for the use of the facility as a weapon: because it is incapable of such functions. 

The Disappointing Truth
Regardless of the politics behind HAARP, the biggest criticism to conspiracy theorists is that it simply isn’t capable of meeting their claims. In sum, the “science” just doesn't add up. Adding a tiny drop to the ocean of energy in the ionosphere on one side of the world cannot cause earthquakes and typhoons with GPS-level precision on the other. As put by computer scientist David Naiditch: "(HAARP is) a magnet for conspiracy theorists...its purpose seems deeply mysterious to the scientifically uninformed.” Even if the rumours about HAARP were true, the so-called “plastic snow” observed in America can’t be the result of its weather modification for one important reason…the facility was officially shut down last year!

Liquid crystals: revolutionary science

by Toby Benham

Once a scientific curiosity on the fringes of scientific research, the liquid crystal industry is now estimated to be worth around £56 billion. They are essential to everyday items such as mobile phones, laptops and televisions in creating liquid crystal displays (LCD). Although the UK doesn't profit largely from the industry, all these technologies can be accredited to the breakthrough made by the late British Professor George Gray of Hull University and the research his team conducted in the 1970s.

Originally shunned financial support for his research, it was the minister for technology, John Stonehouse, who initiated the advance in the field. He wanted a technology to replace the expensive cathode ray tubes causing a hole in the Ministry of Defence's budget in producing flat screen colour displays. Liquid crystals were known but little appreciated. They can be described as anisotropic molecules with long range orientational order and some degree of liquid like order. In other words they possess crystalline structure while still maintaining the ability to flow like a fluid in certain directions. This means that they interact with light differently in different directions due to differences in polarisability. The main reason that they are so useful is because applying an electric field can lead to a switch in alignment of the crystal. This feature can be exploited to display different colours when different voltages are applied.

By 1973, Gray and his team had been  able to exploit this, having synthesised a new class of liquid crystals called cyanobiphenyls which were stable, yet still “flippable”. The first liquid crystal devices appeared the following year and Gray became a Professor of Organic Chemistry. Described as a brilliant teacher, most of his students went on to leading positions in industry and academe.

He was appointed CBE in 1991, but his favourite prize was reportedly having a train named in his honour. Gray never won the Nobel Prize and is little known but should be remembered as a British great who contributed much not only to his field of science but to modern day life. Liquid crystals are of great use with so many applications and the field is in constant development of what Gray started. 

China Lead World in Push for Wind Power

by Toby Benham

China plans to more than double its number of wind turbines in the next 6 years. This bold move involves increasing the nationwide wind power capacity from 75 gigawatts (GW) to 200 GW. To put this into context, all of the countries of the EU combined have a total capacity of around 90 GW. This is an important positive move for a country that is a leading contributor of greenhouse gases. Wind turbine technology is improving due to the massive market potential. Current efforts are innovating the field while simultaneously lowering prices. This is beneficial to other countries worldwide. The opportunity arises to either purchase turbines from the Chinese or further their research. While sustainable energy is the way forward there are still problems to be addressed. 

While China contributes to 26.7% of the worlds installed wind power capacity, this only meets 2% of the country’s power demands. In fact 75% of their power still comes from coal. Clearly more needs to be done in an effort to phase out fossil fuels for renewables. For this to happen, renewable energy technologies need to be improved to be able to provide more power and deliver it to the right places. Excellent research has been carried out to bring us the technology we have today. However there are serious problems when trying to use these technologies to supply countries with large quantities of power. Energy storage is a key issue. Sticking with wind, generally the amount of wind is intermittent. This means that there is either no electricity being generated or too much to cope with. Last year in China around a quarter of turbines were left off during the windiest times because the turbines are vulnerable to damage during high winds. Another problem is that the windiest places are generally far away from the cities that require power from them. New advances may provide answers to these issues, but it is difficult to tell if this will be years or decades away. One thing is for certain; China should be commended for taking a step in the right direction. This is an opportunity for other countries to follow suit and develop more renewables.

Polymer Carpets

Hannah Bruce Macdonald

It seems as though every new development nowadays is on the nano-scale, and this is no exception. Professors from the University of Munich and the University of Dresden have improved a method for the synthesis of polymer carpets.

A Polymer Carpet

Polymer carpets are made by grafting styrene polymers onto copper supported graphene and these scientists have discovered that the carpet density and thickness depends on the hydrogenation of the graphene. Graphene is an incredible material, due to its versatility, but what makes it so useful as a support for making polymer carpets is how stable it is to mechanical and chemical influences. The team working on these carpets say that the ‘Polymer carpets exhibit remarkable and unprecedented properties combining extreme thinness, mechanical and chemical stability, robustness, flexibility, and (chemical) sensitivity’. The chemical sensitivity mentioned by the team may sound like a flaw, but this actually means that the nature of the carpet (effectively its thickness, fluffiness or tangled-ness) can be fine-tuned with changes in conditions like the solvent quality, wetting and pH.

Natural (left) and artificial (right) nacre

Polymer carpets are one of those materials that seem to be good at everything. They are similar to biological membranes, such as the outside layer of cells, but have the significant advantage of stability and the ability to withstand considerable pressure. This feature means they have been applied to use in water purification and desalination. Any developments in these fields are of huge importance globally and more research and discoveries in this field could make these polymer carpets a viable solution to the cleanliness of drinking water.

Another unsuspected use of these is in the synthesis of artificial nacre. If, like me, you don’t know what nacre is, it is mother of pearl, the shiny inside coating of some seashells and the outer surface of pearls. Pearls have had many uses over the years, but these tend to be mostly decorative, in jewellery or furniture, but are beginning to be applied in more areas. The pearl is originally made as a surface to protect the molluscs’ soft material from damage through bombardment and protection from parasites. Nacre is now being used as a novel material in medical surgery, as it has been shown to stimulate the growth of cartilage when injected into bones. The ability to make a Nacre alternative in the labs could prove to be advantageous, over having to source it from the sea.

Any improvements in the understanding of the mechanism or the synthesis of polymer carpets is useful, and allows a large step to be taken towards applications such as these, however the greatest use of these diverse materials could yet to be discovered.

Batteries Breakthrough

Hannah Bruce Macdonald

Having been around for 200 years, you wouldn’t think that there would be much room for improvement in the field of Batteries. However, scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have managed to outdo themselves (and Duracell) by designing a battery large enough for grid-scale storage. Currently, the National Grid is playing the balancing act between the output of their generators and the consumer demand; which is particularly difficult when maintaining an alternating current (AC) of 50 Hz. This can’t be taken lightly with the responsibility of more than a slight fluctuation in this AC can cause electronic devices to fail in power surges.

The storage of energy would ease the stresses of this supply management, but the scales of energy concerned are huge and it is not as simple as building a comedy-sized battery. A normal dry-cell battery scaled up would require the combination of thousands of individual, can-sized, cells to be linked together; a complex and expensive solution. 

Liquid metal batteries may be the answer to this. In very basic terms the battery can be explained as a sandwich of three metals, a molten-salt electrolyte with a sunk, dense positive electrode and a light, floating negative electrode. The difference between the floating and sunk metals is what causes the voltage. This design is much reduced in complexity, making it a much more feasible option. With the figure of $15 million in investments from Bill Gates, Total and others, this new battery has been described as a cheap potential. This clever battery would be capable of charging from the Grid during the night while acting as a secondary generator at peak times during the day. Terrifyingly, the demand for electricity is predicted to exceed its supply in Manhattan in less than three years. This electricity crunch could be solved by these batteries storing excess energy at low times and then releasing it again when required. These batteries also lend a hand to renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, which cannot be relied on for consistent 24 hour supply.

The structure of a liquid metal battery

These batteries are still in relatively early development and the company Ambri are playing their cards close to their chest while they fine-tune and scale up their batteries to protect their design. The development in this area is still open with no front runner between liquid batteries and other options such as redox flow, lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries. There may not be enough letters in the alphabet to label these batteries, but all I know is that I wouldn’t try licking it.