Miner Su \Van: just \van made of \!.hose fa . .

alogist Pet : of Arizo ted to get C,,, the 6( me grows

formatio The 1

front-lir

of C,, n14 arc pxcl smaller ( consistin about l i

T h e (

I and Low na, crystall vith a liigt-

some cris )-carbon " by tlie nee

laterial. iearchers ! ne reseal

h-ealing tlie cystals. icy \Irere

,\.here fro1 atoms. molcculc

. .

got a san rcliers Dl

: molecu-

told by

rn 32 t o

:s might . . .

croscopist in Tempe

sample formec

, hut Ruse I durinp tl

:ck thinks ~c \'enr ac

they also t of imagi

might ha\ ng them i

\ l C l V I . 1 1

:e the cnsl Irrangenll

le same bt :als might ents o f t . . .

.an1 of clcq have triggc he sampl . . .

ctrons use :red chem, Ie's nativ

ties. 'fi~llcrenc ectron be

molecules _ I - - -

can indee . . . I

"or tailori~ ntiguratiol report of . - --

28 JUNE 1991 BMERNGS 1785

colder over the past 50 ye ars.... Facts like these simply don't jibe with the theory that cata- strophic global warming is tak- ing place."

Actually, say climatologists, the temperature in Minneapo- lis, or Albany, or the state of Kentucky4citedinthead.s- has little or no bearing at all on the global warming question. "What they [the ads] say [about temperature trends in specific regions] may be true," says Thomas Karl of the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina, "but it's selective information; it's a bit of disinformation."

Karl and hundreds of his col- leagues last year and again this year put together greenhouse warming reports based on hun- dreds of temperature records fiom around the globe. The combined record shows that the globe as a whole warmed dur- ing this century. That conclu- sion might not have been af- fectedevenifMinneapolishad gotten colder-but it hasn't. Richard Heirn of NCDC can't

A Transforming Look at C,

er R. Ruscck and nil, na State L'n~\~erz~n

p images of cn-stals the HPT'"' TL

fi~llerenc" niolecule t o inlag k. Rut their imaging cal re,

tec!inlque may Iiave n rouglit an ~ n t r l g u ~ n p tranr- fi~llerene molecules. therc~n lurk some In n ~n the n triguing possib~li empe re< "If the sizes of

ie fullere be changed 111 el amc, rnen rnls mlgr Huffmar ell D. Lamb of the U n ~ v e r s ~ ~ eventuall\, provide a wav 1 ig them t

o f A n z o ~ zed ~ t , and took a look at the dcs~red dimens~ons and co ns," the rc cwstals \ I-resolution t ra~~sni iss~on elec- searchers conjecture in the their stud! tron microscope ( HRTEhI)--an Instrument that nrh~ch nil1 appear 1n Chemrcol t'h'hysrcs Letters. is \veil suited for re1 lar architecture of

The sample, t! Lamb, conz~sted largelv of molecules of C,, and C,,. another f~lllerene, in a ratio of 9 t o 1. The Images Indeed re\ cal cnrstalline plane5 made rnostl\.

7lecules. ,%{so \ ~sible, though, ies of \!.hat Ruseck th~nks arc A ) and larger ( B ) molcculcs, g of an\^

carbon ,dd-sized

nave neen present In the or~striai r I

find evidence of the decline in the best version of U.S. climate records available.

So why the ad campaign? The Information Council for the Environment is funded by a group of electric utilities, coal

If the Earth is getting warmer, why is hfimeapolis getting colder? +

r?*

L . O Y Y . , * ~ , ~ . ~ n , n , m n m u a n w w n n r r u

companies, andmanufacturers, which are among the targets of proposed legislation that would impose energy taxes and regulations in order to curb emission of greenhouse gases. To beef up its credibility, the council enlisted three of the half-dozen or so outspoken greenhouse dissidents among United States scientists: Rob- ert Balling and Sherwood Idso ofArizonaState Universityand Patrick Michaels of the Uni- versity of Viginia.

If the ad campaign goes na-

hoc industry group. Its mission would be to prevent the United States fiom losing the global horserace to commercialize HTSC electric power products.

At a press conference con- vened by the Council on Super- conductivity for American Competitiveness (CSAC)-a Washington-based HTSC ad- vocacy group-Gregory J. Yurek, chief executive officer of the American Superconductor Corporation of Watertown, Massachusetts, held up ex- amples of flexible HTSC tapes

tional, the greenhouse debate - Ib(wl.-.Ytnm.cly could be in for even stormier

Please Sir, $250 Million More

What will it take to convert the nation's power grid into a showcase of components based

,, on high-temperature supercon-

gal, and other roadblocks cus- tomarily invoked these days to explain the waning U.S. stand- ing in global technology races, Yurek and other speakers at the press conference identified the federal government as the only source that could provide a fi- nancial bridge.

The industry report recom- mends that, beginning in 1992, the government spend $250 million over 5 years-over and above the roughly $230 million the United States now spends yearly on HTSC research and

and wires made by his com- pany. He claimed these experi- mental products are poised h r the next stage of commercial development, which includes finding ways to manufacture large amounts of the materials reliably and cheaply. That next step is unlikely to be taken at the national laboratories, whose HTSC R&D efforts are aimed at less commercial goals, added Thomas Schneider of the Elec- tric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto. What to do?

Afler listing the financial, le-

why, indeed. ~ d ~ ~ ~ ~ i ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ that was scheduled to run in

development. The money would be earmarked for devel- oping working, credible proto- types of motors, generators, storage devices, transmission lines, and other made-in-the- USA components of an electric power system made out of HTSC materials.

Once the commercial poten- tial of HTSGbased power technologies had been demon- strated, the private sector would more readily take the develop- ment baton from the govern- ment, Schneider said.

ductors (HTSCs)? A $250-mil- lion industry-government part- nership, according to a report

May campaign. released last Tuesday by an ad