The goal of this blog is to create a long list of facts that are important, not trivia, and that are known to be true yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many.
Author: thomasstigwikman
My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.
Superfact 17: Fossil fuels kill a lot more birds per gigawatt hour than wind power does. Cats, windows, cars, poison and powerlines are examples of things that kill a lot more birds than wind power does. Wind power killing birds is not the huge environmental problem it is often made out to be.
Wind power killing birds is often mentioned as a slam dunk environmentally based argument against wind power and evidence for the hypocrisy of environmentalists. This is misguided. Wind power killing birds is a real problem and it should be addressed, and it is being addressed. No energy source comes without environmental problems. However, wind turbines account for only a small fraction of overall bird deaths compared to other human causes. It is not a good argument against wind power, and it does not demonstrate any hypocrisy by environmentalists. In fact, a study made in 2012 (overview here) concluded that fossil fuels killed 24 million birds per year in the US, which correspond to 35 times more birds per GWh than wind power kills according to this study. Even though this study and other similar studies are estimates based on assumptions that are far from perfect, they are good indicators that replacing fossil fuels with wind power likely saves birds rather than kills them.
In any case, as this Wikipedia article states, collisions with wind turbines are a minor source of bird mortality compared to other human causes. According to the graph below cats kill 5,600 times more birds than wind power and collisions with powerlines kills 99 times more birds than wind power, and yet we rarely discuss these problems. Even though these numbers are estimates they are mostly confirmed by other studies and analysis, as this overview from MIT and this analysis by Hannah Richie shows. The numbers aren’t the same, but they make the same point. FYI Hannah Richie is the deputy editor and lead researcher at Our World in Data. Our World in Data is a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems. They are associated with Oxford University and is one of the most respected statistics, analysis and research organizations in the world.
From Wikipedia: Universiteit van Nederland, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsAn alternative graph taken from Hannah Richie / Our World in Data, using alternative sources essentially showing the same thing. Sources: Loss et al. (2015), (2013), US Fish and Wildlife Service; Subramnayan et al. (2012), American Bird Conservancy (2021).
Wind power has been on the receiving end of false claims, nonsense, and strange rumors for quite some time. It is not the only energy source maligned by false information, but it is an interesting case study in misinformation regarding energy sources. To read about nonsense and rumors about wind power click here.
The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call Newstrade. Important facts that we know to be true and yet they are surprising, shocking or disputed among non-experts. Special facts that any well-informed person should know.
Paperback – $18.95 on Amazon – future release March 25, 2025.
Hardcover – Publisher : Princeton University Press; First Edition (September 12, 2023), ISBN-10 : 0691177295, ISBN-13 : 978-0691177298, 240 pages, item weight : 1 pounds, dimensions : 5.75 x 1 x 8.5 inches, it costs $18.95 on Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Kindle – Publisher : Princeton University Press (September 12, 2023), ASIN : B0C5SBB26C, 229 pages, it costs $15.37 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Audio – Publisher : Princeton University Press (September 19, 2023), ASIN : B0CF6WHBVX, listening length 7 hours, narrator : Christopher Ragland, it costs $0.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Front cover of Elemental. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardcover version of the book.
Amazon’s description of the book
It is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history. Elemental reveals how microbes, plants, and people used the fundamental building blocks of life to alter the climate, and with it, the trajectory of life on Earth in the past, present, and future.
Taking readers from the deep geologic past to our current era of human dominance, Stephen Porder focuses on five of life’s essential elements—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. He describes how single-celled cyanobacteria and plants harnessed them to wildly proliferate across the oceans and the land, only to eventually precipitate environmental catastrophes.
He then brings us to the present, and shows how these elements underpin the success of human civilization, and how their mismanagement threatens similarly catastrophic unintended consequences. But, Porder argues, if we can learn from our world-changing predecessors, we can construct a more sustainable future.
Blending conversational storytelling with the latest science, Porder takes us deep into the Amazon, across fresh lava flows in Hawaii, and to the cornfields of the American Midwest to illuminate a potential path to sustainability, informed by the constraints imposed by life’s essential elements and the four-billion-year history of life on Earth.
The Story of HOCNP the Five Elements Essential to all Life
The author, a biogeochemist, explains why five elements, hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) are essential to all life. As an example, in the sunlit waters of the central equatorial Pacific Ocean, a lack of Nitrogen creates a water desert with no life. Lifeforms that are able extract more of these elements have a competitive advantage.
This book focuses on three world-changing organisms that were able to extract unprecedented amounts of these elements from the environment also resulting in success and huge increases in the total mass of lifeforms, as well as consequences causing mass extinction eventually followed by an entirely new planet. Note this book is not about mass extinctions, which have happened at least five times, but something more profound. It is about planet-changing events.
During the first two billion years of earth’s history there had been no oxygen in the environment; oxygen was always bound to some other atom, such as hydrogen in water. There was life back then but in the form of primitive bacteria using a primitive form of photosynthesis involving sulfur. Then came cyanobacteria which had invented a more effective form of photosynthesis, as well as a way of extracting nitrogen using a process called nitrogen fixation. The two-atom nitrogen in the air is nearly inert and very difficult to use. This made cyanobacteria extremely successful.
However, one consequence was that the carbon dioxide was largely removed from the atmosphere, while the atmosphere was filled up by oxygen, which is a byproduct of the new form of photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that warms the planet, something scientists had already figured out in the 1850’s. With much less carbon dioxide, the earth got very cold, and a snowball earth disaster followed. However, in the long run the oxygen paved the way for the existence of multicellular life and animals. The planet changed.
About 400 million years ago plants was a new type organism that was able to extract water (hydrogen and oxygen) from land as well as phosphorus. Their success led to another depletion of carbon dioxide causing another ice period, but they paved the way for life on land. The planet changed again. Now humans, the third type of organism, are extracting all five elements in unprecedented amounts causing global warming and other unintended consequences.
Unlike cyanobacteria and plants, we are not doing this to primarily extract nutrients but for transportation, heating and consumer products and we can control and predict the consequences of our actions.
As evidence for global warming / climate change the author discusses the temperature measurement records of various organizations (NOAA etc.). That is the smoking gun.
However, he also mentions things like the fact that the vast majority of glaciers in the world are retreating or disappearing and the fact that anyone above the age of 50 who comes from a northern climate (that would be me) can attest to the fact that winters have gotten noticeably shorter snow seasons and warmer summers. That is true and it is a good thing to mention because there are those who are quick to dismiss temperature records as big hoaxes.
The second part of his global warming discussion, the evidence that we humans are the cause of the current warming, leaves something out in my opinion. He explains why the various climate models provide incontrovertible evidence that the chief cause for the current global warming is our burning of fossil fuels, despite the models being far from perfect. I totally agree with that, but once again there are those who are not willing to accept climate models as solid evidence, and therefore you should mention other evidence as well, which he does not do.
Examples of evidence that we are the cause and that does not involve complex models would be, no known natural cause can explain the current warming, the upper troposphere is cooling while the lower troposphere is warming, the arctic is warming much faster than average, nights are warming much faster than days, etc. Those are things that would not happen if the cause was a hotter sun (which we also kept a record of) or an orbital cycle.
In addition, spectral analysis shows the cause to be the adding of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and various isotope studies show that the carbon emissions come from the burning of hundreds of millions of years old carbon. Why not mention that as well? I know all this is baked into the models, but simple explanations appear more convincing to many. I am not taking off a star for it, but I felt it was a missed opportunity.
One environmental threat that you don’t hear much about is the depletion of phosphorus. This is something that may be far into the future but something that seems impossible to solve once it arrives and could evolve into an enormous food crisis. This was certainly a unpleasant surprise to me.
The book explains many processes and concepts, biogeochemistry, primitive photosynthesis using sulfur, photosynthesis using water (cyanobacteria) and releasing oxygen, nitrogen fixation, endosymbiosis, how plants extract phosphorus from the ground, the evolution of plants, the slow carbon cycles, the fast carbon cycle, the effect of volcanoes on climate, respiration, why can trust certain aspects of climate models, nitrogen fixation, nitrogenase, the immense effect fertilizers have had on food production, the Haber-Bosch process, earth’s climate history, why phosphorus is both finite and irreplaceable, the danger to aquifers, how we have changed ecosystems, and more.
Despite that the author makes himself understood. He explains complex concepts, so they are easy to understand and connects them all in a logical way that makes a lot of sense. So don’t be afraid that the book will be difficult to read. You may just learn a lot.
The author considers climate change / global warming to be our most serious environmental challenge, but he offers a lot of suggestions for a way forward. He discusses a lot of interesting technological solutions. I think he may be a bit gloomier than necessary but overall, what he says is very insightful and somewhat hopeful.
Again, I was very impressed by the organization of the book. It is easy to create a mess when you try to connect a lot of different concepts and complex science into a logical narrative, but he was very successful. It was a delight to read this book, it was interesting and full of facts, which were new to me, and I think are very important. I learned a lot and I think it is a very well written page turner.
Back cover of Elemental. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the kindle version of the book.
Superfact 16: Wind power is providing more than a quarter of Texas Power. In 2023, wind represented 28.6 percent of Texas energy generation. In 2022, wind power accounted for about 25 percent of Texas’ energy generation.
I am referring to this fact as a super fact because, it is true, important, and yet it’s a fact that is difficult to believe for many people. That wind power, allegedly a marginal energy source, is successful in fossil fuel loving Texas is hard to believe. I have come across what appears to be well informed people who were certain it was nonsense. However, as you can see from the Texas government links above, it is true, something they could not dispute.
The reason for the success of wind power in Texas is economics, which is another fact that may be surprising to some. Fossil fuels are a major source of income for us in Texas, but everyone also wants to save money. Texas has its own electric grid, it’s deregulated, and organized along free market principles.
When companies sell their energy (to ERCOT) it works like a continuous auction. The one with the lowest price is picked first and allowed to contribute with whatever they are able to and also, of course, considering what the grid-powerlines can carry safely. Naturally, the price of wind in Texas includes federal subsidies, which make it even cheaper.
However, all energy sources are subsidized, and fossil fuels have a long history of government subsidies. Below is the average unsubsidized levelized cost of energy according to Lazard. Levelized means that construction costs, land rent, and other costs not directly caused by electricity generation are taken into consideration. Notice how cheap wind is (blue line). This is for the United States not just Texas. I don’t have any numbers, but I’ve heard that for Texas solar is the cheapest .
Average unsubsidized levelized cost of energy. Notice that the light blue line indicates that wind power is pretty cheap. Mir-445511, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
Affordability
Windpower is not only relatively cheap. Wind power is one of the most efficient and sustainable energy sources available. The energy required to manufacture, install, and maintain wind turbines is small compared to the energy they produce over their lifespan. This is known as their energy return on investment (EROI), which is quite favorable for wind energy.
The Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) states that the average wind farm will pay back the energy that was used in its manufacture within 3-5 months of operation. This article in the journal Renewable Energy found that the average windfarm produces 20-25 times more energy during its operational life than was used to construct and install its turbines. It included data from 119 turbines across 50 sites going back 30 years.
It is important to be aware that there are many false claims floating around about wind power. The sound from wind power stations does not cause cancer, it does not use any other energy sources while operating; it solely harnesses the kinetic energy from the wind to generate electricity, meaning it only relies on wind to function as its primary energy source. Windpower is not a major cause if bird deaths. To read more about false claims about wind power click here.
There are positive and negative aspects of wind power, like any other source of energy. One issue with wind power (and solar) is that it is an intermittent source of energy. When the wind is not blowing you need other sources of energy (until there is sufficient energy storage). This is less of a problem when you have a mix of energy sources as Texas does.
3D illustration of giant Black hole in deep space. High quality digital space art in 5K – realistic visualization. Stock Illustration ID: 2476711459 by Vadim Sadovski.
Superfact 15: A black hole is a region of spacetime wherein gravity is so strong that nothing can escape it, not light, not anything. There are different kinds of black holes. We don’t fully understand black holes, which makes them very interesting to science. The boundary of no escape is called the event horizon. Black holes are invisible. They are truly black. However, we can see what they do to their environment as they consume surrounding matter. Below are some bizarre facts about black holes.
Time runs much slower closer to a black hole.
An object falling towards a black hole will become redder, faint, then infrared, then invisible and all its movements and clocks will freeze.
From the perspective of an outside observer, time appears to stop for someone reaching the event horizon of a black hole. Time will continue for someone falling in.
At the center of a black hole may lie a gravitational singularity, a region where the spacetime curvature becomes infinite. However, since we cannot peer into a black hole we cannot know.
The largest known black hole (TON 618) is more than 287 million times more massive than the most massive known star (R136a1).
If our planet earth collapsed into a black hole, it’s diameter would be 1.75 centimeters or 0.69 inches in diameter. The diameter of the largest known black hole (TON 618) is 242 billion miles, which is more than one million times larger than the distance from the earth to moon.
There are supermassive black holes located at the center of most large galaxies, including our Milky Way. The Milky Way’s black hole is about 4 million times the mass of the Sun.
Astronomers estimate that there are around 100 million black holes in our Milky Way.
When an object (maybe a spaceship, or a person) approaches or falls into a black hole the difference between the gravity on the parts closer to the black hole and those further away will be so large that the object is stretched and ripped apart. This is called spaghettification.
Stretching from the event horizon and out another half radius of the black hole is a region called the photon sphere. In the photon sphere light will travel in a non-stable circular orbit around the black hole. Light will go around and around for a while. If you are in the photon sphere you might be able to see the back of your head.
Above is just a small sample of weird black hole facts.
The understanding of black holes requires the General Theory of Relativity, and it is still a lot we don’t understand about them. Stock Photo ID: 2024419973 by Elena11
The Bizarre Reality of Black Holes
I chose the Bizarre Reality of Black Holes as a super-fact and included the ten facts above because these facts are shocking and yet not well known. Below is a photograph of a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87 taken by the event horizon telescope in 2017. To create the picture below image processing was needed. It is the first photograph of a black hole. This supermassive black hole is an estimated 6.5 billion times as massive as our sun, and 28 million times as massive as the largest known star.
The photo of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87 taken by the event horizon telescope in 2017. Uploader cropped and converted TIF to JPG – This file has been extracted from another file, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77925953.
The fact that from the perspective of an outside observer, time appears to stop for someone reaching the event horizon of a black hole seems to prevent anything from falling into a black hole from an outside perspective. How does anything ever get inside the black hole if it freezes up at the event horizon? Black holes grow, they collide and merge, so clearly things can get inside, right? But how? As I tried to find the answer to this question, I found that I was far from the only one asking this question.
Realistic spaceship approaching a black hole. This content was generated by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system. Stock AI-generated image ID: 2448481683 AI-generated image Contributor Shutterstock AI Generator.
I searched physics forums trying to find the answer to this question. There were a lot of discussions but no clear answers. Some said, nothing falls into a black hole. Everything accumulates on the event horizon from the outside perspective and that’s how the event horizon and the black hole grows. The observer crossing the horizon essentially jumps infinitely far into the future, or into a different universe, that’s how he can pass through the event horizon.
Others said that the black hole is not static, it grows, and it shrinks from Hawking radiation, and this complicates the equations so that objects can enter the black hole even from an outside perspective. I have a few physics books on black holes that I have not finished reading. If I learn something better, I will update this post.
AI-generated image Description : Space Black Hole Blue Illustration Gravity Geometry Vast Line. Stock AI-generated image ID: 2457551367 by AI-generated image Contributor Shutterstock.AI
In the image above the grid demonstrates how a black hole is distorting space-time. Other strange facts about black holes are that they are slowly evaporating through what is called Hawking radiation.
They come in different sizes. The smallest known black hole (XTE J1650-500) has a diameter of approximately 15 miles. Perhaps scariest of all, black holes are nearly undetectable unless they are feeding on star dust or tugging on nearby stars. That means one hungry black hole could be zipping right through our solar system without us knowing. Considering there are an estimated 100 million black holes in our Milky Way space travel might be scary.
Addressing a Good Question
After posting this post I received a question via email regarding this fact “If our planet earth collapsed into a black hole, its diameter would be 1.75 centimeters or 0.69 inches in diameter. The diameter of the largest known black hole (TON 618) is 242 billion miles, which is more than one million times larger than the distance from the earth to moon.” The person who asked thought that 1.75 centimeters was pretty tiny and was wondering how a black hole could be that small.
To create a black hole, you need extremely strong gravity and one way to increase the force of gravity at the surface of a planet is to compress all its mass into a smaller volume.
If you compressed all of earth’s gravity so its diameter was only half of what it is, it would be more compact, and the gravity would be four times stronger at earth’s surface. If you compressed it further so that the earth’s diameter would only be a fourth of its original diameter the gravity at the surface would now be 16 times stronger. If you keep compressing the earth until its diameter is only 1.75 centimeters the force of gravity at the surface would be 132,000 trillion times greater than it currently is according to Newtonian physics, and you would get a black hole.
I should say that it comes out differently with General Relativity and that number is different for different sized black holes. However, this calculation is for demonstrative purposes. For relatively small masses like a planet, you would have to compress so much that it becomes tiny before gravity becomes large enough to make a black hole.
A couple of weeks ago I made a post about exo planets. My blogger friend and Astronomer David Lee Summers stopped by and mentioned that investigating exo planets was his day job. He is working with the NASA-funded NEID spectrometer. He also happens to be an author of several science fiction books and scifi-horror books. Below is the front cover of one of his books. This is a reblog of one of his posts regarding NEID spectrometer. Head over there and check it out.
Portion of the NASA funded spectroscope that David works with. Above is an image of the NEID fiber feed (Port Adaptor) mounted on the WIYN telescope obtained during commissioning of the instrument. The Port Adaptor feeds light from the telescope to the NEID instrument, which is located on another floor of the building, below the telescope.
Newstrade