Monday quote

It is a mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

Monday quote

Increasingly, I’m coming to the conclusion that a government that doesn’t “Kiss the Son” isn’t supposed to work.

Mark L. Ward.

Freeze fracking

Despite the benefits of cheap fuel from fracking, it requires a lot of water and the waste water subsequently needs to be treated. Research is looking into using liquid nitrogen which is available on site and does not need treatment or disposal after use.

Researchers at the Colorado School of Mines claim they have developed a method to unlock hydrocarbons trapped in shale with using any water at all. They are seeking to perfect Cryogenic fracturing, which replaces water with searing cold liquid nitrogen (or carbon dioxide). Used at temperatures below minus 321 Fahrenheit, it is pumped underground at high pressure. Once it comes into contact with the heated, pressurized shale, a reaction occurs which caused the shale to crack open and creates fissures through which the hydrocarbons can gush out.

Nitrogen liquefies at –196 °C.

Monday quote

Except over a very narrow field of thinking, chiefly touching questions of strictly personal conduct, we Christians in the modern world accept, for the purpose of mental activity, a frame of reference constructed by the secular mind and a set of criteria reflecting secular evaluations.

Mark Noll (1946–), The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.

Monday quote

It seems to me that you only pardon the sins that you don’t really think sinful. You only forgive criminals when they commit what you don’t regard as crimes, but rather as conventions. You forgive a conventional duel just as you forgive a conventional divorce. You forgive because there isn’t anything to be forgiven.

GK Chesterton, The Secret of Father Brown.