Daniel Nocera describes new process for storing solar energy
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Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

'Giant leap' for clean energy
Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

'Just the beginning'
Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates.

More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

"This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this."

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

The project is part of the MIT Energy Initiative, a program designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today's energy systems. MITEI Director Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, noted that "this discovery in the Nocera lab demonstrates that moving up the transformation of our energy supply system to one based on renewables will depend heavily on frontier basic science."

The success of the Nocera lab shows the impact of a mixture of funding sources - governments, philanthropy, and industry. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Aug. 5 called Iran arrogant for refusing to accept an incentives package Western powers offered in return for transparency on its nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported. Gadhafi's statement comes after Iran ignored an Aug. 2 deadline to accept the package. If Western powers make a move against Iran, it will suffer military consequences in the same way as Iraq, Gadhafi added, saying Iran is no stronger than Iraq and cannot counter a military attack on its own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg7pZi6peD4

Ken Timmerman


Terrorism Expert: Karen Hughes Gave Money to Bad Guys

Sunday, August 3, 2008 5:16 PM

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman Article Font Size

A longtime adviser and close confidant of President Bush funneled millions of dollars in U.S. government grants to radical Islamist organizations, many of whose leaders have been convicted or indicted in terrorism cases in the United States, respected terrorism expert Steven Emerson told Congress last week.

“When Ms. [Karen] Hughes was appointed as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, she set the tone to continue a disastrous policy of outreach with Islamist partners,” Emerson told the House International Relations Committee.

Among the recipients of the State Department grants actively championed by Hughes was Ahmed Younes, formerly an official with the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group that has “publicly challenged the designation of Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations” and whose leaders “have made extreme statements defending terrorist organizations,” Emerson said.

Another beneficiary of Hughes’ outreach program to American Muslims was Aly Abuzaakouk, the executive director of the American Muslim Council (AMC) and a former director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIHT).

The North Virginia-based IIHT “is suspected of being a pivotal cog in the Muslim Brotherhood’s high command in America," according to federal law enforcement records newly released to Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism under the Freedom of Information Act.

Many of the State Department grants championed by Hughes were conducted under the Citizen Exchange Program, but went to U.S.-based Islamist groups or their leaders to sponsor overseas speaking tours.

Since 2004, The State Department has provided $340,000 in taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC), co-chaired by Columbia University professor Rashid Khalili, who served as a spokesman for late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat at a time when the PLO was still considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

The funding to PARC was “disturbing considering the radical, divisive positions of many of its leaders and the unbalanced views espoused by fellows of the organization,” who consistently blame Israel for violence in the Middle East but not once condemned Palestinian terrorism and extremism, Emerson said.

In addition to the grants to known Islamist organizations, Hughes brought Islamist leaders to Washington, D.C., and personally attended conferences held by anti-American organizations, Emerson said.

The outreach policy championed by Hughes “legitimizes Islamism to the world and sends mixed messages to our allies,” while “sending a terrible message to moderate Muslims who are thoroughly disenfranchised by the funding,” said Emerson.

Citing earlier warnings by Emerson and other experts, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on July 10, demanding that she instruct the State Department to cancel all outstanding grants to radical Islamist groups.

When Coburn learned last year that the State Department was funding radical Islamist entities, he requested a meeting with Goli Ameri, who at the time was the nominee to become the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, the bureau that issues and manages the grants.

“During the discussion of her nomination,” the senators wrote, “Ms. Ameri promised Senator Coburn that the State Department would stop funding these entities once she was confirmed.”

And yet, shortly after Ameri was confirmed, one of the groups cited by the senators and by Emerson for its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood announced that it had just received fresh funding from the State Departtment office that was now under Ameri’s control.

The new funding was awarded as a subgrant to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), “a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organization, [which] was an unindicted co-conspirator in last year’s terrorist financing trial against the Holy Land Foundation," Emerson told Congress.

Despite ISNA’s known ties to terrorist-related entities, Hughes attended the group’s 2005 national conference in Chicago, and “held private meetings with organization leaders and delegates, including representatives of the Muslim Students Association,” another “Muslim Brotherhood-linked group,” Emerson said.

A number of groups that the State Department has funded or collaborated with have links to entities such as al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah, all of which are designated as terrorist organizations by the United States government, Emerson revealed in his testimony.

“The question is: Why should the State Department spend U.S. taxpayer dollars to work with Islamists who actively oppose the foreign policy goals of the United States and subscribe to a supremacist, oppressive ideology?” Emerson said.

He recommended that “the State Department discontinue its cooperation with Islamist groups.”

Shortly before the last week’s hearing, supporters of MPAC protested in front of the Sherman Oaks, Calif., offices of Rep. Brad Sherman, the Democratic chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism and Nonproliferation that had asked Emerson to testify.

Responding to the noisy protest, Sherman told reporters that the hearing would go on as scheduled, “to make sure that the State Department is not giving U.S. tax dollars to those on the other side in the war on terrorism.

"I know there are many in our community so desperate for peace that they want us to sweep under the rug the pro-terrorism positions of some groups,” Sherman said. “There are groups in the Islamic world truly dedicated to peace, but we should not blind ourselves to the fact that some are not."

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved

Fear Stalks Muslim Apostates in the West

by David J. Rusin
American Thinker
August 3, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/article/1966
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Persuading Western Muslim leaders to repudiate Shari'a-sanctioned violence against apostates can be a frustrating exercise, as Prince Charles discovered in 2004. Troubled by the treatment of Muslims who convert to Christianity in Islamic nations, the prince convened a summit of senior figures from both religious communities. It ended in disappointment. The Islamic representatives failed to issue a declaration condemning the practice, which the Christians had requested; they also cautioned non-Muslims not to discuss such matters in public, arguing that moderates would be more likely to make progress if the debate were kept internal.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, the outspoken Anglican prelate of Rochester, attended the meeting but rejected their advice. While continuing to highlight the perils faced by those who leave Islam in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, he now has turned his focus to the harassment of apostates in the West. Last year the bishop warned that a convert could die in Britain unless prominent Muslims affirm the right of all people to change their faith. There have been few takers, despite the dire need for this message: a poll indicates that 36% of younger British Muslims believe death to be an appropriate punishment for renouncing Islam.

Their views are grounded in Shari'a law. All major schools of Islamic jurisprudence stipulate that a sane adult male must be put to death for abandoning Islam, though varying interpretations persist on whether females should be killed or merely imprisoned. Many Islamic states outlaw apostasy and seven list it as a capital offense. However, freelancers such as angry relatives present the greatest danger to ex-Muslims, as Sunni and Shiite scholars largely agree that Shari'a empowers individuals to punish converts. This tradition has followed Muslims to the Western world.

Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and other high-profile apostates have brought needed attention to the risks that ex-Muslims encounter, even in liberal democracies. Pope Benedict XVI recently underscored the plight of this vulnerable population by baptizing the Italian journalist and former Muslim Magdi Allam on the most public of stages: Easter Vigil mass at the Vatican. Having suffered threats for opposing Islamic fundamentalism, Allam now speculates that he will endure "another death sentence for apostasy."

Ordinary Muslim apostates face similar fears, which were palpable when Christian converts from Islam met in Virginia four years ago at the first Muslim Background Believers Convention. One woman admitted that she had not yet told her family about embracing a new faith. "I know they're going to disown me," she said, "if they don't kill me." Another relayed that her brothers were not speaking to her because she had married an American. "Can you imagine what they would do if they found out I was a Christian?"

For other ex-Muslims, the intimidation is far more concrete. Khaled emigrated from Iraq to the Netherlands, hoping to freely practice his new religion; instead he receives death threats from Islamists. Sofia was beaten and told by her father that she deserves to die; she ultimately was thrown out of their London house. Hannah, the daughter of a British imam, has changed residences forty-plus times since converting to Christianity; she went underground in 1994 when her home was attacked by a horde of men that included her father, whom she describes as "shouting through the letter box, ‘I'm going to kill you.'" In April Dutch politician Ehsan Jami announced that he is closing down his Central Committee for Ex-Muslims after less than a year of operation because people are too scared to join.

Aiding apostates begins with acknowledging what endangers them: the prescription of death under Shari'a law. Yet Islamist lobby groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations labor to obscure the facts. During the diplomatic crisis that centered on Abdul Rahman, a convert to Christianity who faced capital punishment in "liberated" Afghanistan two years ago, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper initially shrugged, "We haven't dealt with that issue." Once media interest in the story had made silence untenable, CAIR released a statement claiming that "Islamic scholars say the original rulings on apostasy were similar to those for treasonous acts in legal systems worldwide and do not apply to an individual's choice of religion."

Other leading Western Muslims justify, or even promote, the punishment of apostates. For example, Syed Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, argues that freedom of religion implies the ability to be governed by one's religious laws. From this he concludes that, in the spirit of "tolerance," Canada must allow Muslims to discipline people who abandon the faith. He does grant that these penalties would not necessarily include death, but one may wonder whether his position is just a matter of expediency. After all, he surely recognizes that multiculturalism has its limits.

Given the prevailing climate, Bishop Nazir-Ali has called for governments to do more to protect former Muslims. However, it is clear that many officials are too swayed by political correctness to comprehend the dangers associated with leaving Islam. This sad reality is demonstrated by the case of Nissar Hussein, a British citizen and Christian convert. When he reported to police that locals had threatened to burn down his home, he says he was told to "stop being a crusader and move to another place."

Intimidation of ex-Muslims has not succeeded in dissuading Christian missionaries from going about their usual business, even when they themselves face bullying in Islamist-heavy neighborhoods. Nazir-Ali recently stirred controversy by chiding the Church of England for its oversensitivity toward Muslims. He recommends more proselytization instead. At the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem on June 24, he observed that "just as Muslims have a right to invite others to join Islam, Christians have a right to invite others to Jesus."

His statement reflects the thriving marketplace of religious ideas that has characterized the West for several centuries. Yet the perils suffered by Muslim apostates offer a powerful reminder that upholding such freedoms demands vigilance. How our societies respond to this challenge will help set the parameters of freedom in the twenty-first century by determining whether fundamental rights truly are guaranteed for all.

David J. Rusin is a research associate at Islamist Watch and a Philadelphia-based editor for Pajamas Media. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Pennsylvania. Please feel free to contact him at rusin@meforum.org.