Free Republic

Ever wondered what types of batteries are used to power electric and hybrid vehicles (EHVs)? Well, the majority of EHVs being driven on our roads today will use lithium-ion (Li-ion) or lithium polymer batteries. ... They pose a potentially lethal chemical hazard to anyone working on or near EHVs. ... Since the electrolyte is a liquid, there is always the possibility that it could leak from inside the battery – we’ve all seen standard AA batteries that have leaked leaving white potassium hydroxide crystals on their outer casing, right? Well, that’s the danger with lithium-ion batteries. If the electrolyte inside...

rchaeology is not an exact science. It is full of doubts, uncertainties, surprises, and unanswered questions. One of its unsolved mysteries concerns the methods of ancient stone work, which is lost in the mists of time... To this technological enigma, excluding fanciful speculations, I intend to offer an explanation in line with ‘ Occam's razor ’: with all factors being equal, the solution to a problem is the simplest one. Using Acid to Work the Hardest Stones The thesis is that the only practical system available to act on the mentioned minerals, refractory to (or unmanageable by) physical action, was...

FAS | Nuke | Guide | Iraq | CW |||| Index | Search | Join FAS Chemical Weapons Programs Iraq started research into the production of chemical weapons agents in the 1970s and started batch production of agents in the early 1980s. At that stage, production was heavily reliant on the import of precursor chemicals from foreign suppliers. In 1982, early in the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraqis used riot control agents to repel Iranian attacks. They progressed to the use of CW agents in mid-1983 with mustard, and in March 1984 with tabun (the first use ever of a nerve...

The newest trend in American communication isn't another smartphone from Apple or Google but one of the elder statesmen of communication: Ham radio licenses are at an all time high, with over 700,000 licenses in the United States, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Ham radio first took the nation by storm nearly a hundred years ago. Last month the FCC logged 700,314 licenses, with nearly 40,000 new ones in the last five years. Compare that with 2005 when only 662,600 people hammed it up and you'll see why the American Radio Relay League -- the authority on all things...

SALT LAKE CITY – When I was a foreign correspondent in Africa and Asia, the most valued part of my kit after my portable typewriter was a little shortwave radio. It was my link to the outside world in the remotest parts of those continents. Across the static over thousands of miles, I would tune in each night, when reception was better, to the news from Voice of America - its rousing familiar introductory chords momentarily stirring pangs of homesickness - to get a trusted briefing on what was happening in America and elsewhere in the world. Years later, when...